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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Thursday 9 August 2012
“It’s the consensus, not the gridlock, that’s the problem.”
On Gun Laws, It’s Bipartisan Consensus Not Gridlock That’s the Problem
Another mass murder, another shooting spree, leaving bodies bullet-riddled by a legally obtained weapon. This time, it was Oak Creek, Wis., at a Sikh temple, as people gathered for their weekly worship. President Barack Obama said Monday, “I think all of us recognize that these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul-searching.” Amidst the carnage, platitudes. With an average of 32 people killed by guns in this country every day—the equivalent of five Wisconsin massacres per day—both major parties refuse to deal with gun control. It’s the consensus, not the gridlock, that’s the problem.
The president’s press secretary, Jay Carney, said, “We need to take common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights and make it harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining weapons.” It’s important to note where Jay Carney made that point, reiterating the phrase “common sense” five times in relation to the President’s intransigence against strengthening gun laws, and invoking “Second Amendment” a stunning eight times. He spoke from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House, named after one of Mr. Carney’s predecessors, shot in the head by John Hinckley during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Brady survived and co-founded with his wife the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. After each of these massacres, the Brady Campaign has called for strengthened gun control.
This latest mass killing was very likely a hate crime, perpetrated by Wade Michael Page, a white, 40-year-old U.S. Army veteran with links to white supremacist groups and membership in skinhead rock bands. Page grew up in Littleton, Colo., the same town where, in 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold plotted and executed their mass-murder plan at Columbine High School. Page was in the U.S. Army from 1992 to 1998. He did missile-system repairs and later was a “psychological operations” specialist, although it is not clear in what capacity, based first at Fort Bliss, Texas, then at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Page received a “general discharge” from the U.S. Army, lower than an honorable discharge, but not as bad as a dishonorable one. Reports suggest he had a problem with alcohol, with several arrests for drunken driving. He recently lost a truck-driving job for the same reason, which may have precipitated the loss of his home to foreclosure. Page may have been troubled, but he was by no means unknown. After the shooting, FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson of Milwaukee told the press, “There may be references to him in various files, and those are things that are being analyzed right now, but, we had no reason to believe, and as far as we know, no law-enforcement agency had any reason to believe that he was planning or plotting or capable of such violence.”
Page was a prominent member of the neo-Nazi skinhead music scene, was known to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks right-wing hate groups, and was also personally interviewed, between 2001 and 2003, by Pete Simi, associate professor of criminology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Despite the arrests, despite the history of membership in hate groups, Page was able to walk into a gun shop and buy the 9 mm pistol legally, according to the shop owner. The fact that it was legal is the problem.
As if on cue, two days after Page’s murderous rampage in Wisconsin, Jared Loughner appeared in court to plead guilty to the shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead and many injured, including former member of Congress Gabrielle Giffords. Loughner has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Patricia Maisch survived the shooting. As Loughner was tackled that day in January 2011, Maisch grabbed the high-capacity magazine that Loughner was using to reload his gun. Maisch and two other survivors of that shooting have launched an advertisement with the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, demanding that both President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney come up with a plan to deal with guns in this country.
The day after the Wisconsin shooting, I spoke with Gurcharan Grewal, president of the Sikh Religious Society of Wisconsin. He told me:
“Ultimately, the problem comes to gun control. I don’t know when we’re going to get serious about all this, and I don’t know how many more lives it will take before something will be done. “
Neither Obama nor Romney agrees that gun control is the answer. It will take a movement to make it happen.
© 2011 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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ABOUT Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
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By Kiley Kroh
44 comments on "On Gun Laws, It’s Bipartisan Consensus Not Gridlock That’s the Problem"
August 12, 2012 8:07pm
Looks like we have to outlaw knifes some guy from Brooklyn just stabbed his mother 41 times
August 10, 2012 11:15am
The US of A ...UNITED STATE of AMNESIA.......GUN CONTROL>>>
Gun Control is actually hitting what you are aiming to shoot.
The last time gun control was effective was at Wounded Knee South Dakota on the Reservation, concentration camp.
The previous evening the Calvary the then military dis armed all the Native Americans present at Wounded Knee. The reason for the removal of the weapons was a medicine man named Wovoka had a vision and learned the Ghost dance, something he believed would rid their world of the white man and signal the return of the Buffalo. The military fearing an uprising , or perhaps some Indian magic that really would remove the white man, was doing what it did at the time , its best to put down the vicious savages who stood in the way of progress.
The following day the Natives that were present mostly women and children were herded into a ravine, whatever for is anyone's guess, and then the military took up positions on the ridge surrounding the "huddled masses". Allegedly one of the military found a man amongst the women and children and he had a weapon, in an attempt to disarm him the weapon was discharged. That shot signaled to the men on the perimeter it was time to return fire. The shooting was so intense that after the smoke cleared and several hundred women and children lay dead or dying it was discovered that twenty six military men were dead or wounded from their own crossfire. For decades this event was referred to as the battle of wounded knee, when the truth finally came out it has now been renamed the Massacre of Wounded Knee.
What is so remarkable is that with the Columbine and latest Colorado shooter who wounded or killed somewhere in the sixties or seventies in a body count, these kinds of incidents are dubbed the worst in US history. Yet they do not say it was the worst incident aimed at contemporary citizens. Over three hundred women and children lost their lives at Wounded Knee and because Native American lives are something less than contemporary American lives that incident is somehow conveniently ignored. Or is the ignorance more deeply rooted in the collective conscience? This nation was conceived, birthed, and weaned on violence and been subsisting on violence ever since. We are a wartime mentality and economy. Never were we more prosperous than when the red scare was the boogie man flavor of the month.
Had Dylan Kliebold and his side kick, or the recent guy from Colorado been in the military and performed the same action, they would be decorated war heroes. Speaking of which the particular community these men came from is a site that was an aerospace community , grown up around some defense contractor who provided the jobs that created the community. It is rumored to have leaked perclorate into the underground water and there fore water supply that the citizens drank, kool aid anyone, is there some chance that these individuals are just a symptom of the damage we as a society are doing to the earth mother? Just a thought, because if we blame their actions on being poisoned, then we might be able to ease our guilty conscience, if you have one, as these types of behaviors have been perpetrated around the world. beginning with places like Wounded Knee right up to the Blackwater folks who were charged with what is tantamount to mass murder in Iraq, disobeying orders not to leave the green zone and went looking for a fight. And guess what happened? Another Wounded Knee all over again.
You want to ban weapons? Then how do we do what we do best around the globe? The problem is that our behaviors since Wounded Knee have finally come home to roost, and all you people can think about is gun control, when it's not the gun, obviously it's not the target until its one of us, its the mindset, the collective conscience that has set back and allowed this mindset to flourish, because as long as it wasn't happening to us in our movie theaters and high schools, it was ok. As usual the United States of Amnesia, concentrates on symptoms and is oblivious to the root of these matters...
Elmer Fudd said it so eloquently, "BE very, very quiet we are hunting....(fill in the blank)" As a nation we have been very quiet, the voting poll numbers show that, and most of these discussions are simply arguments, most of them excellent, thoughtful and enlightening, but in the end it is still squabbling over which deck chair you want on the Titanic.....
So many blame the government, COWARDS, read the Constitution we are the government, you idiot...and with that mindset you had better be afraid...because fear is all you have...
August 10, 2012 8:53am
For anyone who has been looking for an informative, balanced, and comprehensive story about guns in America, here is the book for you, Gun Fight: The Battle Over The Right To Bear Arms in America by Adam Winkler. In 300 pages, Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, covers all of the angles in smooth, readable prose. In the preface, Winkler states that the goal of his book “is to move beyond the stark black-or-white, all-or-nothing arguments that have marked the gun debate in America over the past forty years or so. This book shows that we can have both an individual right to have guns for self-defense and, at the same time, laws designed to improve gun safety. The two ideas--the right to bear arms and gun control--are not mutually exclusive propositions. In fact, America has always had both.”
Winkler provides a persuasive analysis that the Court got it right when they clearly stated that there is a fundamental right to own a gun for self defense, which poll after poll shows is the predominant sentiment of clear majorities of the American public. Winkler has a message for what he calls gun control extremists, “gun grabbers,” which is “guns are here to stay. Until that one fact is recognized, the gun debate will continue to spiral outwards toward the extremes.” By supporting poorly designed gun laws, advocates for gun control in effect only end up breeding “further distrust among gun owners who think these laws are really aimed at harassing them. From the perspective of gun lovers, if a gun law doesn’t reduce crime or violence, then the true objective must be to make owning guns difficult.”
Both sides of the debate can benefit from reading this book. Both sides can gain insights on what motivates and animates the various actors in this ongoing discussion. Winkler, thru this comprehensive investigation, provides the knowledge and analysis to bring both sides back to the common ground of common sense. “Unlike the unreasonable right to bear arms promoted by extremists in the gun debate, a reasonable right to bear arms has always been available to Americans--one that balances gun rights with gun control. Although the precise equilibrium has always been in flux, changing in response to the times, the story of guns in America is about regulation and right. We don’t have to choose between fully automatic machine guns and water pistols. The history of guns in America shows that we can take a middle course, recognizing the right to bear arms and the legitimacy of many forms of gun control.”
August 11, 2012 9:09pm
Thanks, Bill Sweeney, for raising this important debate to a level above name calling. Amy Goodman should have Adam Winkler on as a guest.
August 10, 2012 6:55am
Your child is more likely to be shot to death than die of cancer. If you are under 35 years old, you are more likely to be shot to death than die from any specific disease. (Pp.167-168 in Wireman, Connecting the Dots: Government, Community and Family, Transaction Publishers, 2009)
This is a public health issue. This week, if typical, some 240 more Americans will be shot to death. On average between 34 and 35 a day are gunned down. Over twice as many die from firearm suicides or accidents. I own a gun. I’m standing for both gun ownership and public and private safety.
I’m standing for a shift in our current conversations about guns from all or nothing to an inquiry about how we support both gun ownership and safety in our homes and streets.
August 10, 2012 5:46am
All American citizen's have the right to bear arms. Period. But that does not wave anyone from the responsibility of bearing those arms! It is more difficult in this country to get a drivers license or get married, than to buy a gun. There's is more responsibility involved in operating a motor vehicle than bearing a weapon. Gun crimes are committed with legally owned weapons. Simply make the responsibility of purchasing and owning a gun equivalent to or greater than obtaining a drivers license. A citizen's right to bear an arm will not be infringed, but We the People can then make sure that that citizen is meeting a basic common sense standard for owning that weapon.
August 09, 2012 4:37pm
and BTW I am not a gun owner.
August 09, 2012 4:35pm
I think it is time for the Left to get armed as well, and stop being so PC about guns. No matter what, these guys are loners, off balance. We have to be more aware of the other side.
August 09, 2012 1:24pm
Hmmm
Ok so there are according to the CDC nearly 3 times as many "accidental" deaths from prescription drugs (about 30,000) as there are from firearms. Now the last time I looked the right to own and bear arms is one of our inalieanble rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
On the other hand prescription drugs are not protected by anything (other than the FDA who regularly puts the profits of drug companies ahead of the safety of the American people) SO WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE, WHERE IS THE DEMAND FOR AN END TO PRESCRIPTION DRUGS????????
There are about the same number of deaths from alcohol related car accidents each year as gun related deaths. And yet WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE AND DEMAND TO TAKE AWAY THE RIGHT TO DRINK BOOZE OR DRIVE A CAR.
People the vast majority of the people in high viz positions in the public and private sector who want to take away your Constitutional right to bear arms are doing so because they want to take away the power represented by 200 million armed citizens. You see they really cannot institute a complete dictatorship as long as we own so many guns. This debate has nothing to due with human life I just proved that with the statistics above. These people don't give a rats *ass about people being shot to death by guns. I would like to mention that these statistics include citizens shot dead by police officers. Anyway it is about the power: we still have it and they are desperate to take it away before Joe six pack figures out just how badly the 1% have been ripping him off. Not to mention poison his food water and even the air he breaths. But thanks to the internet this awareness is right around the corner and thats why they are trying to take our guns..........
Bottom line here is that ANYONE SUGGESTING THEY SHOULD PASS LAWS TAKING AWAY OUR GUNS WITHOUT CHANGING THE CONSTITUTION ARE TERRORISTS ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE REPUBLIC
August 18, 2012 8:20pm
It is against the law to drink and drive.
August 10, 2012 5:50am
Well done, however if it doesn't advance an agenda, most will not listen when they say 'it's the guns, it's the guns, when in the absense of common sense makes some sort of sense to them. '"Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession -- their ignorance."
August 09, 2012 2:11pm
"I would like to mention that these statistics include citizens shot dead by police officers."
The ratio of citizens shot dead by police to police shot dead by civilians is about 30 to 1, roughly the same kill ratio as Vietnamese to Americans during our state-sponsored terror there. Maybe arms control in this country should focus a little more on the boys with the badges who are armed to the teeth and less on the populace in general.
August 09, 2012 1:27pm
Hmmm
duplicate
August 09, 2012 1:01pm
It's all very easy to damn Obama (or Romney) for not addressing the need for more stringent gun control, but maybe we have to accept the fact that a strong proponent of gun control could probably not get elected in the U.S., and if you don't get elected, you can't do anything or change anything (in the political realm, I mean).
So, it's partly a problem of "culture" and partly a problem of the big money and support that the NRA can muster to defeat a gun-control advocate. If we could de-fang the NRA, you'd hear a lot more about sane approaches to gun control.
Perhaps both candidates feel the need for better control of deadly weapons, but they don't dare take a stand that might scotch their chances of getting elected. This points out the obvious fact that neither one is the kind of leader we'd like to see, but given the realities of politics in America, this is all we can reasonably expect.
The only real chance of getting a handle on the widespread gun violence in our country is for the masses to become aware of the need for sane gun control and then to start demanding it. That's certainly a long-term strategy, but it may be all we have. Hammer away at the statistics, and keep pointing out that hunters don't need rapid-fire weapons, and we must never forget the basic fact that guns make it TOO EASY to kill other people. Sure, you could kill someone with a hammer or a knife, but that might take some courage, along with effective physical action. With a loaded gun, you merely have to point, and squeeze the trigger (assuming you're close enough, I mean). Too damned easy. And if it weren't so easy, it wouldn't be the favorite male way of committing suicide, would it?
August 09, 2012 11:45am
Gun control is not the answer. The real problem is the demand for guns, not the supply. We have such a huge demand for guns in the U.S. that someone would figure out how to meet that demand even if guns were completely outlawed. We need to figure out why so many people want guns and then figure out how to change that. See http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/23/the-logic-of-limiting-violence/
August 18, 2012 8:27pm
I want assault rifles not to be legal for us regular folks however you bring up a good point that then there would be a black market for them. But I don't think most people want to totally take away gun rights. We have to be able to fight back against governments or we would have a dictatorship worse than we already have. Our country is run by money and money only which makes the rich the dictators in my mind.
August 09, 2012 11:44am
Motive? Are you serious? It's not about Motive it's about cause. THAT is a social reason NOT a human reason...to look for a motive is looking for an excuse to say he did it cause he was nuts or his parents were idiots. The real cause is our society loves to kill folks. WE are systematically numbed to death and killing so we are never shocked by what our nation does, or sanctions to be done, by evil dictators WE support all around the earth. WE are currently in 150 of the 199 nations on earth and those are NOT all democratic nations.
1. We Americans are incredibly good killers. We believe in killing as a way of accomplishing our goals. Three-quarters of our states execute criminals, even though the states with the lower murder rates are generally the states with no death penalty.
Our killing is not just historical (the slaughter of Indians and slaves and each other in a "civil" war). It is our current way of resolving whatever it is we're afraid of. It's invasion as foreign policy. Sure there's Iraq and Afghanistan – but we've been invaders since we "conquered the wild west" and now we're hooked so bad we don't even know where to invade (bin Laden wasn't hiding in Afghanistan, he was in Pakistan) or what to invade for (Saddam had zero weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with 9/11). We send our lower classes off to do the killing, and the rest of us who don't have a loved one over there don't spend a single minute of any given day thinking about the carnage. And now we send in remote pilotless planes to kill, planes that are being controlled by faceless men in a lush, air conditioned studio in suburban Las Vegas. It is madness.
2. We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes? Maybe we should fix our race problem and our poverty problem (again, #1 in the industrialized world) and then maybe there would be fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer. Maybe we would take better care of each other .
Go watch this and remember you were warned.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jGtAcDefHg
August 18, 2012 8:29pm
yep
August 09, 2012 11:04am
Amy, I am a long time Dem and I am a Gun owner, yes you can be both. I have never killed anything with them I Target shoot and currently interested in Trap and Skeet since our Gold Medal Olympics Winner Kimberly Rhode. Please tell me in your own words how you would handle gun control without taking away the sport I love.
August 09, 2012 10:52am
Great article: This was my comment to the Denver Post which said that they hadn't found a motive yet for the shooter at the temple: Um, it's pretty obvious there was a motive. Anger, hatred, and lack of education are what caused him to do this. Sikhs are very peaceful people, hence the reason why we never hear about them in the news until now of course, when they get attacked and murdered. I guess he wasn't taught about different religions and cultures when he was in the military. This type of education might help us better deal with our problems in the Middle East and in Afghanistan
August 09, 2012 10:50am
It's interesting that no where does it say what Loughner pleaded guilty to. Legally you don't plead guilty to "shootings" but you plead guilty to murder.
August 09, 2012 11:36am
This is NOT an article about that insane guy...it's an article about gun control or NOT...there are many articles about that insane human and you have read them all...I'm betting. To my knowledge he plead to 17 counts
August 09, 2012 10:44am
Here's where the NRA has perpetrated a real hoax on the rest of us; the 2nd Amendment, their holy mantra, clearly states that "a well regulated militia" as the paramount subject, adds "people"subordinately. Understand that it was written at a time when there was no standing army and, yes,the "people" were expected to bear arms and conscripted into service in time of war. Now that we have a standing army (duh), we people no longer need to bear arms. The 2nd is totally anachronistic and needs to be repealed - post haste!
August 09, 2012 4:57pm
@Lamancha No, the right of the people was not added "subordinately" it was the entire point of the amendment. The militia bit is commentory, not the key part of the text. That's why in the various state constitutions when they mention the right to keep and bear arms (which they all do) they don't mention the militia. The amendment refers to a "right", which means it is inherent and doesn't depend on what you think the nation "needs". Rights preexisted the constitution and it only confirmed their existance it didn't grant them.
As for being anachronistic, the militia is actually needed in America now more than ever. Or did you not notice the standing army is leading you to fascism?
August 09, 2012 10:26am
Redscho- I don't know where you're coming from- just look at the statistics - 9000 gun murders a year and 40,000+ injured. If you have genuine love or feeling for our fellow citizens, you would be more circumspect. Citizens do not need guns - if all guns were banished, it means 9000 less murders annually. I opt for 9000 less murders. If you get your jollies looking at a glock in your trophy case twiced a year, just think of what that glock is causing to thousands of suffering, despondent families nationwide.
August 09, 2012 5:01pm
@Lamancha "if all guns were banished, it means 9000 less murders annually." This is the standard of intelligence and sanity of the anti-gun crowd. Absolutely nobody would kill with a knife of a baseball bat if they didn't have a gun. Why not check out what happens on this planet, where what you people call "sane" and "reasonable" gun control never reduces violence. If gun control were "sane" and "reasonable" why doesn't the powerful anti-gun lobby ever act honestly? Why don't they actually confront the research that proves that more guns = less crime?
August 09, 2012 10:06am
Thank you Amy Goodman for observing that Obama obeys the laws of the NRA,
and also for calling attention to yet another of the ways that Repub-Dem bipartisan concensus trumps bipartisan gridlock as the reason we are moving ever further away from democracy.
August 09, 2012 10:47am
Obama is a corporate hack just like the rest of the Presidents. He will not cross the NRA. Only money talks in America. Lives don't matter.
August 09, 2012 9:41am
"Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!,"
Who is going to tell this twit that our country is a Republic, not a Democracy. If it were a Democracy and the majority ruled she and her ilk would be in big trouble.
August 18, 2012 8:52pm
Redschool is that all you jerks can do is name call?
August 09, 2012 11:55am
USED to BE a RePUBLIC...but thats been long gone and will never come back...thank goodness. The next step is what we are feeling now..Facsism which is control by fear and by a few humans(1%). What we need is more of what the VA is...socialism and citizen control of our own states. NOT a federal overlord to take from us and give back less.
The federal Government should handle our national defense (at our borders) and the federal hiway system and all that the corp of engineers does along our national waterways and national parks systems.
States were always supposed to be independent entities and friendly towards eachother BUT not part of a bigger controlling system that dictates down to us from DC.
August 09, 2012 11:11am
Right. The founders shunned Democracy to avoid tyranny of the majority. Like good old Amy trying to disarm everyone. Would she put a sign in her front yard saying " No guns here!" ? That's what we'll all have.
August 09, 2012 10:17am
Dear NRA-TeaParty Troll
Amy Goodman has more knowledge stored in her toenails than an NRA-TeaParty Troll has stored in his brain. "Democracy Now!" is a call to pursue the democracy we do not have. And yes, we know, you believe that you speak for the majority, such that if our govt were a democracy, NRA members would be paid a bounty from the US Treasury for every unarmed citizen you shot with a semi-automatic or automatic weapon.
August 09, 2012 9:38am
And when there is total gun control ie: NO GUNS in this country, who is going to defend your liberal agenda?
August 09, 2012 12:03pm
While you "masturbate/fantasize" with your cold blue steel let me explain the situation even a simple mind can understand. The vast plurality of Americans could give a shit if you own a gun. A pistol for home protection or target shooting. A rifle (bolt action) to hunt game, shoot beer cans, caress on cold winter nights. A shotgun for bird hunting, skeet shooting, "blowing away" those pesky "home intruders." Any and all of the aforementioned weapons were NOT designed for the SOLE purpose of killing PEOPLE, quickly and efficiently. Weapons designed as such should NOT be available to ANYONE other than law enforcement officials and government forces. Your 2nd Amendment "militia" is called The National Guard! Hypothetical question: Agree or disagree; A five year old child, in your presence, is making a peanut butter sandwich. She/He is using a standard "butter knife" to complete the task. I would assume you're "O.K." with this. Now, what if she/he is using a twelve inch, razor sharp butcher knife to spread the Skippy. I would assume you'd take the knife away. Can you comprehend the analogy? If so, you've taken an initial step towards sanity. If not, may I suggest a course in rudimentary critical thinking.
August 09, 2012 7:41pm
'Critical thinker',
Feeding your kid 'Skippy' is hazardous. GMO 'vegetable oil' and GMO peanuts plus a host of chemicals conjured up by other critical stinkers. (Oops! I meant thinkers.)
August 10, 2012 9:11am
"Mastermind," I believe the topic was guns. I used a hypothetical situation to illustrate a common sense reaction. Take your response and explain it to the relatives and friends of the dead and wounded in the recent mass shootings. Take a jar of "Skippy" and an assault weapon and juxtapose them. Explain to them how "hazardous" the peanut butter is. Gauging from your tone and sarcasm; then tell them how the assault weapon is no more of a threat than the peanut butter. I'm reasonably certain they "may" have some objections. Now, go back and read your comic book.
August 10, 2012 2:35pm
Good thing you are not armed. You are a very angry person.
August 10, 2012 3:12pm
The "garden variety" response of a loser. In point of fact, I'm a very sad person. I'm dying and watching the world my kids will live in without me go utterly insane. I'm only armed with a heart. I suspect you'd find issue with that as well. End of line.
August 09, 2012 12:39pm
Woetopoe I agree, BUT
We all have some fears..it's not unusual or weird.
The ones with the MOST fear tend to be the ones with the most weapons to protect themselves nomatter how unrealistic their fear is.
My issue with what you just said is that for some reason you think Law Enforcement and the Military NEED those weapons. If there are NO assault weapons any longer why would they need them. THIS is the situation and why it's not the type of gun that's the issue but the type of American that's the issue. A patient sniper doesn't use an assault weapon but usually a single shot rifle. A mass murderer just uses what is available and they will just move down the chain to the next available sex toy for their jollies.
My fear is that there are no Americans left with comprehension skills and that everything I say will be misinterpreted and I will be shot for it.
August 09, 2012 2:10pm
HarleyBud, Let me clarify. I'm NOT saying that Law Enforcement or the Military NEED assault weapons. I'm saying that until they are UNAVAILABLE, I believe the general public would be safer from attacks using these weapons than under the current system where they ARE available to a distressingly large amount of people on the streets. I'm all for NO assault weapons! We are constantly besieged by jingoistic, vitriolic propaganda about Americans being resolute and courageous. Yet, gauging by the number of guns floating around the country, one might easily conclude we're the most chicken-shit nation in Earth's long and ensanguined history. I DO understand what you're saying. Thanks for the response.
August 09, 2012 12:00pm
NOBODY has ever even remotely suggested complete gun control...what YOU seem to fear is them finding out your a felon and shouldn't have a gun...ever. OR that you would not pass a phycological examination to be allowed to own a weapon.
Hunters and sportsmen should always be allowed to own guns and unless they are disqualified for some justifiable reason they would do whatever is required to obtain their equipment...Besides real hunters don't use guns they track and hunt down game with their bare hands and maybe a knife.
August 09, 2012 10:35am
Dear NRA Tea Party Troll
The majority of Americans want controls against mass-murder weapons and arsenals, not a ban of all guns. And were the USA's to become such a peace-loving society that all guns were banned, I'd not be too concerned about losing all those NRA Tea Partiers who are now bravely defending my liberal agenda by holding wealthy oligarchs and conservatives at bay with their guns.
August 09, 2012 12:05pm
Greghilbert, good response..gun nuts are who do this sort of thing due to their unnatural FEAR of the different...all this done to us all by our government...Hide and be afraid...very afraid.