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illogical
honest people need weapons to kill criminals
On Mar 27, 1:36 pm, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Keep guns out of the hands of EVERYONE!
>
> Stop the gun violence.
>
> On Mar 27, 9:26 am, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > They understand that allowing
> > people to purchase military-style weapons at gun shows without a
> > background check renders gun safety laws meaningless.
> > ---
> > most gun owners I know don't mind the background checks.
> > it's a small price to pay to keep guns out of the hands of thugs and
> > gangs
>
> > On Mar 27, 9:03 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Guns DO kill people. Silence does too. -T
>
> > > Silencing the Guns
> > > By DREW WESTEN
>
> > > Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
> > > A man displaying weapons for sale at a gun show held on Jan. 15, 2011,
> > > in Tucson, Ariz., one week after Jared Lee Loughner shot Rep.
> > > Gabrielle Giffords at a campaign event.
> > > When Gabrielle Giffords tendered her resignation from the House of
> > > Representatives to Speaker John Boehner because she did not feel she
> > > could continue to serve at her current level of disability, the entire
> > > House erupted in a rare moment of bipartisan unity, supporting their
> > > brave colleague who had survived a bullet through the brain at
> > > point-blank range.
>
> > > That was not, however, the first bipartisan moment related to the
> > > attack on Gabby Giffords, nor would it be the last. In 2004, Congress
> > > let the assault weapons ban Bill Clinton had passed "sunset" despite
> > > overwhelming public support. That law limited the number of rounds of
> > > ammunition a shooter could fire before having to reload, and letting
> > > it die an untimely death allowed a mentally ill young man in Tucson to
> > > purchase a handgun with a 33-round magazine. Had the assault weapons
> > > ban remained in place, he may well have been able to shoot the
> > > congresswoman, but he would not have been able to empty his clip,
> > > killing 6 people and wounding 13 others, before being tackled to the
> > > ground.
>
> > > That moment was followed by another bipartisan moment, when President
> > > Obama delivered a moving speech on Jan. 12 at the scene of the carnage
> > > in Tucson. In it, the president called on the nation to mourn not only
> > > the shooting of a beloved member of Congress but the lives of the
> > > people who died at the hands of Giffords' assailant, including a
> > > 9-year-old girl and a federal judge. But on neither that national day
> > > of mourning nor on any day since has the president or the members of
> > > Congress, who are either too frightened or too corrupted by the
> > > National Rifle Association, honored Giffords or the memory of those
> > > who died in that massacre in Tucson in the most appropriate way: with
> > > a return to common sense, like reestablishing the assault weapons ban
> > > that might have saved their lives. Later in January, Representative
> > > Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Frank Lautenberg proposed legislation to
> > > outlaw high-capacity magazines; it has gone nowhere.
>
> > > The first President Bush, unlike his swaggering son (who advocated the
> > > demise of a ban on assault weapons whose sole purpose is to hunt
> > > humans) showed political courage by publicly quitting the N.R.A. in
> > > disgust in 1995 when it began advocating ideas like its contention
> > > that citizens need military-style assault weapons to protect
> > > themselves against our own government (members, for example, of the
> > > National Guard). In colorful but paranoid language, it called law
> > > enforcement officers "jack-booted government thugs," prompting the
> > > elder Bush to condemn the group for its disrespect for the law and
> > > those who defend it. Since then, it has successfully advocated for
> > > increasingly radical laws. One of them, of course, is Florida's
> > > "stand your ground" law, which discourages de-escalation of potential
> > > firefights in public with predictable results, like the shooting death
> > > in Sanford, Fla., of Trayvon Martin.
>
> > > Between the Giffords massacre and Martin's death, we have seen more
> > > shootings and more bipartisan moments. Around the anniversary of the
> > > Tucson massacre that cut short the congressional career of an
> > > extraordinary woman — a woman I had come to know personally and adore
> > > in her five years in Congress — came two more mass killings. One
> > > occurred in Chardon High School in a small town in Ohio, as a
> > > 17-year-old opened fire on students with a Ruger .22-caliber
> > > semiautomatic with a capacity of 10 rounds. Fortunately the alleged
> > > shooter, T.J. Lane, didn't have access to a gun with more firepower.
> > > About two weeks later, a man entered one of the nation's premiere
> > > medical centers, at the University of Pittsburgh, with two
> > > semiautomatic handguns, and opened fire.
>
> > > And in yet another show of bipartisanship, political leaders on both
> > > sides of the aisle put on their silencers. If an assassination attempt
> > > on one of their own did not move members of Congress to ask whether
> > > the N.R.A. has a little too much sway in their chambers, a few dead
> > > and wounded teenagers, medical patients, and their family members were
> > > not going to unlock their safeties. Most have clearly made the risk
> > > assessment that they have more to fear from the N.R.A. than they do
> > > from an occasional sniper. In the 2010 election cycle, the N.R.A.
> > > spent over $7 million in independent expenditure campaigns for and
> > > against specific candidates, and it has a remarkable record of success
> > > at taking out candidates and elected officials with the misfortune of
> > > being caught in its crosshairs.
>
> > > Over a million Americans have lost their lives to gunfire since that
> > > awful spring of 1968 when both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King,
> > > Jr. were killed by assassins' bullets. Last year alone guns killed or
> > > wounded another 100,000 Americans; roughly 30,000 of them died. Had
> > > that occurred elsewhere, we would call it genocide. We don't know
> > > exactly how many have been killed in the fighting in Libya, Egypt and
> > > Syria, but our elected officials have had far less trouble calling for
> > > the ouster of Middle Eastern leaders than the leadership of the N.R.A.
> > > But it's not just money that prevents common-sense action on gun
> > > violence in America. Millions of Americans hunt, and a third of all
> > > households in the United States own a gun. Guns were part of the
> > > frontier culture that shaped the American psyche, and hunting has
> > > passed from generation to generation in much of America. As a son of
> > > the South, I could give an intruder a run for his money (although,
> > > like most people, I would do better to rely first on our security
> > > service and the loud alarm a break-in sets off), and I put on my
> > > thickest Southern accent and tease my soon-to-be teenage daughter that
> > > I'll be out on the front porch "cleaning my shotgun" when her first
> > > date arrives at the door.
>
> > > In so many cases, it's a failure of our leaders — Republicans, who
> > > prey on the fears of their constituents and don't even bother anymore
> > > to hide the puppet strings pulled by large corporations, and
> > > Democrats, who too frequently forget that humans are supposed to be
> > > vertebrates (and hence to have a spine) — to speak to Americans'
> > > ambivalence about guns. Over the years in my capacity as a strategic
> > > messaging consultant, I've tested a range of messages on guns, and
> > > the messages that resonate with hunters and gun owners sound like
> > > this: "If you need an M-16 to hunt deer, you shouldn't be anywhere
> > > near a damned gun," or "If you're hunting with an AK-47, you're not
> > > bringing that meat home for dinner." The first things responsible
> > > hunters teach are never to point a gun anywhere but up or down unless
> > > you mean to shoot, and where the safety is.
>
> > > It's no wonder that Democrats have backed off of even talking about
> > > guns since Clinton signed the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban
> > > into law nearly two decades ago. The last thing you want to be armed
> > > with as an advocate of common sense are phrases like "gun control,"
> > > which makes a government-wary public and law-abiding gun-owners uneasy
> > > — and susceptible to tendentious "slippery slope" arguments about how
> > > "they want to take away your guns." In contrast, everyone but the
> > > lunatic fringe in America supports gun safety laws — such as
> > > eliminating the gun-show loophole that allows the sale of
> > > military-grade weapons without background checks, and has led to the
> > > deaths of tens of thousands of Americans as well as Mexicans, whose
> > > drug cartels find the loophole extremely helpful.
>
> > > Democrats could steel their spines if they could find the point of
> > > intersection between law-abiding gun owners and law-abiding citizens
> > > who may or may not own a gun but want to keep their families safe. In
> > > national testing, we've found that a simple, non-equivocating
> > > statement focusing on that point of intersection — law-abiding — beats
> > > the toughest "they want to take away your guns" message we can fire at
> > > it. It leads every demographic group other than those who stockpile
> > > weapons to support common-sense gun safety laws. Offered a message
> > > that speaks to their ambivalence, people readily recognize that a
> > > 33-round clip makes it virtually impossible to tackle a shooter until
> > > he has had time to kill 15 or 16 people. They understand that allowing
> > > people to purchase military-style weapons at gun shows without a
> > > background check renders gun safety laws meaningless. And they find
> > > it incomprehensible that we have laws on the books that tie the hands
> > > of law enforcement officials trying to track down where a gun was
> > > bought and
>
> ...
>
> read more »
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