What conservatives talk about when they talk about assault rifles
Will this stop despotism in Washington DC? (PHOTO SOURCE: Wikipedia)
Watching the political fallout from the shootings in Connecticut — and the subsequent gun attacks in Pennsylvania and western New York — there’s one crucial detail that the media isn’t sharing with its audiences.
Again and again, reporters like NBC’s David Gregory ask in a bland and willfully naive sort of way why anyone would defend the need for assault rifles and military style ammunition clips.
But the motivation for preserving the wide availability of these weapons is clear and unambiguous. A significant segment of the conservative movement views them as a necessary check on the power of the Federal government.
Indeed, for many on the right, preserving access to powerful military-style weapons is necessary not to protect people from criminals and mass-murderers.
(How many times have people used a Bushmaster assault rifle to defend their condo or shop from a burglar?)
Instead, the chief utility of these assault rifles and large ammunition clips is to make possible armed resistance to the United States government — or, according to some, the United Nations.
The theory goes that so long as average citizens are armed to the teeth, potential despots (in recent years President Barack Obama has filled this role in the conservative imagination) who would turn America into a tyranny will be held in check.
This fantasy of a war of resistance against shadowy dictators in Washington DC has become a staple for conservatives. In 2010, Mother Jones profiled the growing “resistance” movement that formed after Barack Obama’s election
Activists told the magazine that they feared a day when “President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse.”
That same year, US Senate candidate Sharron Angle talked about the possible need for “Second Amendment remedies” if a conservative political agenda doesn’t prevail in Washington.
Conservative media, in particular, trumpeted the fact that gun sales surged after Obama’s election and again when he was re-elected last month.
Military historians have even role-played what a conflict between the US military and its own armed citizens might look like.
If you think I’m exaggerating, check out this portion of a recent essay by influential conservative columnist Erik Rush, who appeared on Fox News after the shootings in Connecticut to defend free access to military-style weapons.:
It is of the utmost importance that Americans become aware of the dedicated efforts that are being made to transform us from citizens into subjects, and that we are already at war.
This is a war we have not seen the likes of previously and that will challenge notions of war for centuries to come.
Even if we did not have the Second Amendment to stand on, I would still support gun rights, because guns are not the issue – power is.
Next will come edged weapons control, then blunt weapons control, then compulsory periodic assessments of citizens by government psychologists.
There are millions of Americans for whom “it can’t happen here” has been well-inculcated into their worldview; these have been conditioned to operate at the basest of intellectual levels.
They are also the ones who will blindly obey any laws enacted by government, whether these imperceptibly erode their liberties, or require their reporting neighbors to secret police.
There are also Americans – some misguided, some ideologues – who work every day of the week in the cause of compromising our liberties.
They are just as dangerous and criminal as those who would stifle any of the liberties contained in the Bill of Rights.
Rush concludes with the argument that those who disagree with his perspective might need to be, well, killed.
“I suppose suggesting that we shoot them wouldn’t be taken very well,” he writes, “although that is precisely what it came down to 236 years ago.”
This kind of rhetoric is hardly new. In the 1990s, popular conservative talk radio host instructed audiences on the best tactics for battling Federal ATF agents.
“If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight,” Liddy said. “Just remember, they’re wearing flak jackets and you’re better off shooting for the head.”
It’s important to point out that this isn’t controversial stuff on the right. Reporting accurately on the conservative view that guns are a civil liberty issue and a crucial check on “big government” isn’t liberal bias.
It is simply factually accurate — and a vital piece of context.
Of course, it’s also important to note that other groups reject this idea. The American Civil Liberties Union concluded in 2008 that in “our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.”
And it’s also necessary to investigate what this kind of political stance might mean for the future of the conservative movement.
The notion that white suburbanites might some day need to rally against a shadowy overlord in Washington DC might be a great motivator for a fringe survivalist movement, or talk radio hosts, or for certain right-wing politicians.
But it’s hard to see the “coming war of resistance” plank as a pathway into the hearts of the vast majority of Americans.
Indeed, as Republicans try to make new inroads among women and minority groups and Roman Catholics (the American bishops support gun control) it’s a particularly tough platform to work from.
Still, many on the right believe sincerely that banning access to Bushmaster-style assault rifles and 30-round clips would leave Americans vulnerable — to criminals and mass murderers, and also to the expanding power of government.
This is the political and ideological frame that’s been missing in the gun control debate in recent weeks.
Tags: gun control
“I don’t mean to imply that 30 lives saved isn’t a good thing but it isn’t the magic solution you make it out to be.”
When measuring the success of a policy aimed at reducing an event (such as gun deaths), the % reduction is what we are concerned with. Australia, like the US and every other country, has a historic trend of gun deaths that we can look at. Their numbers (again, like ours) were pretty steady, and when gun control was implemented, they dropped significantly by a remarkable percentage.
What that tells you is that the policies they implemented were wildly successful in reducing the events they targeted. That these events were historically ingrained, make the success even more outstanding.
Will those results scale up perfectly if applied here? 50% there, 50% here? Maybe not. But we can say with a lot of confidence that they will have an effect.
It is a tried, tested, and proven way to reduce gun deaths.
And please don’t conveniently ignore the fact that is more immediately relevant to this conversation, which is that their gun control laws resulted in the complete elimination of gun related mass killings.
So yes, apologies, but I’ll keep bringing up Australia because their citizens are safer, less of them are dying, their schools and their children are not subjected gun related carnage… and I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone here would not want the same for us.
(oh, and btw, Australia has not been taken over by some mythical dictator as a result)
“I know a large number of people that should never, ever be allowed behind the wheel of a car. I do not believe I have the right to bar them from doing so.”
Another hilarious, mind boggling bad car analogy that actually makes the case FOR gun control!!
We actually DO bar people from driving. For all sorts of reasons. So yes, PLEASE, let’s apply the same regulations and restrictions that we do to cars, to guns.
“…the difference between registration and licensing cars and drivers lays in the simple fact that cars are not specifically enumerated in the BoR.”
Well, yeah… there were no cars then. There were no assault rifles, either. But the 2nd says “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” but it doesn’t say that the people shall not be required to register their weapons. And requirements that handguns be licensed have passed judicial muster, so there’s no obvious reason that we couldn’t apply the same requirement to assault rifles.
Increasing public safety often requires infringing rights. If someone’s idea of the “pursuit of happiness” is to go shoot up a school” than I am sorry we will need to infringe upon that most basic constitutional freedom.
Brian Mann is talking about some conservatives. I think this one makes some good points. Are we ready to take on the:
NRA? reasonable assault weapons restrictions (including high capacity clips) with a way to get some of the guns off the streets?
ACLU? Find ways to commit people who are dangerous to others and themselves?
Hollywood? Find ways to limit the kinds of games that teach people to kill? (even the military uses these now to get soldiers more comfortable with killing, just like civilians should not have military weapons they do not need military training software!)
Here is a conservative that writes bout this here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-roots-of-mass-murder/2012/12/20/e4d99594-4ae3-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_story.html
In 2009 30 people in Australia died as a result of gun homicide. (Forget that that was a 158% increase over 2008…how did that happen?) If you are talking a 50% decrease since then, let’s say, that’s 15 people. Leaving aside the human element of 15 deaths, as a matter of statistics in a country of about 22 million people, that number is irrelevant. You’re crazy and delusional if you think adopting an Australian-style gun law will result in a 50% decrease here. That’s a fantasy.
The idiotic comparisons between cars and firearms has got to stop. They are two vastly different things and everyone knows it. Anyone who thinks there’s some sort of equivalency is making themselves look silly. You want to treat both the same? OK, how about we start by getting rid of all those gas-sucking SUVs which any reasonable person knows would vastly reduce emissions and help eliminate global warming and reliance on oil as an energy source. Why does anyone need such a vehicle; they don’t drive them in Europe and no one is suffering as a result. Next, we’ll ban over-powered sports cars, nobody needs a vehicle capable of 100+ MPH. The possibilities for environmental improvement, energy conservation and safety, not to mention the lives saved, is enormous. Maybe a government buy-back of all those objectionable vehicles? Sound ridiculous? It should.
I agree, cars and firearms are vastly different. Which is why I get sick of the anti-gun control retort, “Should we ban cars and knives and fires? They kill people too!”
Good link, Paul. I wish I could see us getting to a more reasonable position on all three issues! Maybe the time has come, though? Here’s a related take on the mental health part: Our Failed Approach to Schizophrenia.
“In 2009 30 people in Australia died as a result of gun homicide.”
Larry, this was AFTER gun control was implemented… so you are not even comparing the correct timelines.
But I’ll save you the effort of digging up more stats and interpreting them wrong, because your methodological thinking is all twisted.
Again, and this is statistics and public policy 101, what you are look for here is a % reduction (especially in a historic trend)
The Australian method of gun control and buyback, which is now tried, tested, and proven, saw 50% (actually, more than 50%….) reductions in historic trends… and the complete elimination of gun related mass murders.
Even if you doubt that we would see a similar 50% reduction… wouldn’t 25% be pretty fantastic? That would mean 7,500 Americans would still be alive this year! How about 10% – or 3,000 Americans? Even a mere 5% decrease would result in 1,500 people being saved!! That is a larger number than the entire population of the small Adirondack town where I live.
“Hollywood? Find ways to limit the kinds of games that teach people to kill? (even the military uses these now to get soldiers more comfortable with killing, just like civilians should not have military weapons they do not need military training software!)”
The military does not use video games to get soldiers “more comfortable with killing” – they use them to teach tactics and teamwork. The military is smart enough to know that you have to be an ill individual to confuse a video game (or movie, book, whatever) with reality.
And even if this were the case, which it isn’t, a trained killer can’t mow down a classroom if he doesn’t have access to a weapon that lets him do so.
Hey, has everyone seen the stories about cops being shot? Maybe the NRA will ask us to pay for security guards for the cops.
And bus drivers; yes let’s arm the bus drivers! Wikipedia tells me that every day 480,000 school buses transport 26 million kids. Pretty impressive numbers! So does that mean that arms manufacturers are going to sell an additional 480,000 hand guns? Plus all the ammunition. Nice little bit of extra money for the arms dealers. And with 480,000 bus drivers and 26 million kids what could go wrong?
There are about 99,000 schools in the US. Some schools already have guards but let’s say we need to hire an additional 100,000. Add the principals who will need to be armed, another 100,000. And say about 10 teachers per school, there’s a million new guns. We’re looking at a potential sale of almost 2million guns when you start to add it all up. Not bad. But wait! There’s more…
Postal workers. They are a large workforce that is all over the country every day but Sunday. Let’s arm all of them. What could go wrong? And speaking of Sunday, arm all the pastors. They are up there keeping an eye on the whole congregation and they can use the alter for cover.
Snowplow drivers. Safety first, give them all guns. Firefighters, you bet! Arm ’em all. Convenience store clerks, they need protection.
I can see that we are getting to be safer and safer. Anybody else we need to arm?
I think Australia should be looked at I am not discounting it at all. But what we need is to look at a a variety of countries that have implemented these types of gun control regimes and see the results. But it seems that mass killings are isolated events, I don’t think we should count on any sort of legislation helping on that front, Timothy McVeigh killed a lot more children than the guy in Newtown did. However I do think removing the volume of assualt weapons will make them more expensive to obtain and harder to obtain. This is the reason in the drug war we go after the suppliers, not that we have a fantasy that it will totally stop drug use, but that it will drive up prices and make drugs harder to find.
B Mann- here are those questions you couldn’t find- Whats more, you refuse to address the presses part in pushing the Webster shooter or any number of other killers that saw your “fame making” as their chance for notoriety. For that matter, what are your views on David Gregorys and NBCs flagrant disregard for the law and intsructions from the DC Metro Police who specifically advised them they could not legally possess a 30 round mag within the DC limits? Is it right or wrong? Or is this another case of special people with special privileges?
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. (Wikipedia)
Here are the raw number of gun homicides in Australia. 1996 includes the 35 victims of the Port Arthur killings that prompted the ban. Obviously, people could point to the years in which gun homicides increased year-to-year as proof that the ban hasn’t worked but no matter how you slice it, these numbers are too small to be statistically meaningful. Where have we heard the phrase “magic thinking” before?
In Australia, annual firearm homicides total (from GunPolicy.org)
2009: 30
2008: 19
2007: 25
2006: 29
2005: 40
2004: 32
2003: 54
2002: 45
2001: 47
2000: 57
1999: 50
1998: 57
1997: 79
1996: 104
1995: 67
1994: 76
1993: 64
1992: 96
1991: 84
1990: 79
1989: 80
1988: 123
Alright, I don’t know why Dave insists on LYING about the Australian gun ban making gun and violent crimes drop, but it didn’t. Here are the facts-
AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN
April 13, 2009
It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. In 2002 — five years after enacting its gun ban — the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.
Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:
In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
Moreover, Australia and the United States — where no gun-ban exists — both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:
Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.
While this doesn’t prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.
Source: Howard Nemerov, “Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban,” D.C. Examiner, April 8, 2009.
For text:
http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d8-Australia-experiencing-more-violent-crime-despite-gun-ban
Dave seems to want to limit his lie to just mass shootings and percentages. Mass shootings anywhere are a statistically tiny number compared to other violent crime. I see this as a huge problem in Daves premise.
Britain’s gun ban hasn’t worked either- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Britain confiscated handguns in the wake of a shooting, how did that affect gun crime rates, it’s intended purpose? “Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time.”
Look, gun bans only affect law abiding people. Criminals don’t obey the law!
Another of Daves twisted logic arguments is this comment- “We actually DO bar people from driving. For all sorts of reasons. So yes, PLEASE, let’s apply the same regulations and restrictions that we do to cars, to guns.”
Yes Dave, we do bar all sorts of people from driving. The main difference is that we bar them from driving DUE TO CAUSE. IOW, since I know you have difficulty with words, we don’t bar someone from driving without a reason specifically related to that individual- ie, they are blind, they have multiple drunk driving convictions or otherwise show they have a record on VIOLATING THE LAW! That’s the difference. You and the rest of the anti-gunners demand a law abiding citizen demonstrate a need to own a gun, you are assumed to be guilty without cause. With driving you are assumed innocent and the State must prove your guilt. Pretty simple concept.
Knuckle- There is very little cost involved in training volunteers at schools or elsewhere that wish to be armed. Why is this such a crazy idea? GO to the Social Security office where a little Nazi rentacop will berate you and threaten you with arrest or death for carrying in a multi-tool. Go to your county or some town buildings and you have armed guards, metal detectors, etc. We arm our police, our dog control officers, our building code inspectors in some places. We arm pilots, we arm FEMA and of course all our politicians (who are getting a raise BTW) are not only armed if they wish, they have armed bodyguards as they sit in their offices you have to access through metal detectors and more armed guards.
Strikes me as pretty darn odd that the same party that wants to spend trillions on healthcare won’t even consider spending a few mill on their kids.
I would feel a lot safer if people who wanted to possess a gun was required to take tests and be subject to inspections in a similar fashion to the way we license automobiles and drivers.
And I’m glad you brought it up Rancid. What about mandatory insurance for gun owners to pay the costs to society for improper use of weapons? Not a bad idea right?
KHL,
Again with the car nonsense? The automobile registration, licensing and insurance regulations are a joke. You are not safe on the roads because of the regulations. What you do have is an important revenue stream for the state. We have enough problems without the state regulating guns the way they regulate cars and drivers!
I think it’s worth pointing out that, ideology, abstract principles, legalisms and political posturing aside, since the Newtown mass-murder another 283 Americans have been killed by firearms.
That’s SINCE Newtown. Included in that death toll are 21 children and teenagers.
This is what we’re talking about here. Not philosophy or abstractions or apples-versus-oranges rhetorical point scoring.
We’re talking about a constant, relentless drumbeat of death, which happens here (where these weapons are widely available) and doesn’t happen elsewhere (where they are, for the most part, NOT available).
It may be that we will once again agree that this is an acceptable state of affairs. We will accept that a constant, steady never-ending level of gun violence is simply part of the fabric of American culture.
But we should do so with clear eyes and honest hearts. This will not have been an honest discussion if we don’t confront exactly what is in play.
So let me say it again: In America, we have a particular type of machine (semi-automatic pistols and military-style rifles) which are designed very efficiently and skilfully to kill people.
Unlike in other countries, we have tolerated the wide and largely unregulated availability of these machines, in a fashion that’s very different from other dangerous technologies.
(We don’t allow, by contrast, the unchecked ownership of dynamite or cyanide or rocket launchers.)
The question going forward is whether it’s time to consider a change, one that would (no doubt about it) require the minority of Americans who see guns as a crucial political and ideological issue to make painful and controversial concessions.
If not, then let’s be honest with ourselves: the 283 people killed by guns since Newtown are merely a downpayment on the moral and political calculation we are all making.
Brian, NCPR
But gun laws do not necessarily have anything to do with gun availability and murder. Mexico has much more restrictive gun laws than we do, yet no one wants to use them as an example. Switzerland has much more liberal assault weapons laws and yet has a much lower murder rate.
Look at the numbers from Australia, I mean they have under 100 murders per year with or without restrictive gun laws. We are a violent country we are a much more violent country than we were in 1950 or 1960, this increase in violence is not correlated one way or the other with our weapons policies and laws, it is correlated with a deep social sickness.
I am not saying one of the things we should look at is an assault weapons ban, I would be in favor for it, but it is not nearly as black and white as you make it out Brian, we HAD an assault weapons ban for ten years, we have lower gun murder rates now than we did when the ban was in effect.
So yes lets pass the legislation I am sure it would be cathartic and I am sure we would all feel better sticking it to these gun nuts, but it won’t make much of a difference in the lives of those who will be murdered in this country with or without an assault weapons ban.
Then after we pass an assault weapons ban we can wash our hands of this whole thing, pat ourselves on the back for doing something and walk away from the issue, just like we did before feeling morally superior to all of those second amendment nuts.
If we flood a state with guns, if a high percentage of households own guns in a particular state or even area; then we should have higher murder rates according to the ideas we have on this board.
I would encourage people to look at the percentage of gun owners by state and compare that to murder rates by state.
Brian,
The only “constant, relentless drumbeat” I hear comes from those who want to do away with the Constitution (albeit in small bites) in the name of half-assed statistics, idiotic comparisons and mis-information. Based on what I hear and read I think the liberals who want to ban, regulate or confiscate firearms don’t have a clue what they are talking about and really don’t care anyway solngas they start the process of getting them off the streets. They remind me of the equally delusional anti-abortion crowd who refuse to contemplate any abortions in any circumstances.
KHL on December 14:
“The sad thing is that it really doesnt matter how horrific any particular event is, nothing is going to change.
We live in an extremely dysfunctional society that will not recognize its own disfunction.”
You could give every adult in Sweden or France a fully automatic machine gun, let alone a semi-automatic weapon, and they would still have substantially lower rates of murder than the US does right now. In Wyoming 60% of the households own weapons, highest percentage in the nation, their murder rate is still a 1/3 lower than Connecticut where only 16.7% of the households own guns one of the lowest percentages in the nation.
Gun availability is simply not related to how we kill each other.
Most homes in Wyoming are out of range of any of their neighbors. It’s like when you walk into the kitchen looking for something but once you get there you forget what it was you were looking for? If a nut leaves the ranch intent on killing someone by the time he gets half way to town he finds some livestock on the road that needs to be rounded up and pretty soon he decides the day is too far along to bother.
If gun availability isn’t a factor in how we kill each other why is it that we have the term “drive-by shooting”? What about MS-13, the LA street gang? Why are there so many gun deaths in El Salvador? Partly because we deported numerous MS-13 gang members back to El Salvador and they brought their culture of death with them.
Mervel,I keep posting this map:
http://data.baltimoresun.com/homicides/index.php?range=2012&district=all&zipcode=all&age=all&gender=all&race=all&cause=all&article=all&show_results=Show+results
It’s interactive, check it out. Colored pins indicate homicides and the color of the pin indicates the cause of death. Red indicates a shooting death. One glance will prove that gun availability is a strong factor in how we kill each other. Everyone has access to a club of some kind. Everyone has access to a piece of rope to asphyxiate with. Everyone has access to a knife to stab with. But the gun deaths far outnumber homicides by all other methods put together.
Look at it.
Knuckle, if we have to have insurance to exercise one right then we have to have insurance to exercise any of them. Is that what you want?
Mervel is making some good points. I’m afraid Knuckles ” the guy gets busy and forgets about killing people” idea is just as bogus as it sounds. That’s another strawman argument. I may as well point out tat the Sandy Hook shooter was a vegan and therefore all vegans should be viewed as potential killers.
Why do so many ignore the obvious questions? Brian notes 283 more people have been killed by firearms. Now, of course there is no link provided to substantiate the claim and we know nothing of the source data or the situations. But the question has to asked- how many of those shootings were done by legally owned guns? How many were in self defense? How many were by illegally owned guns? Why aren’t these questions asked? How many were by so called assault weapons? How many by shotgun, handgun, rifle? for all we know they were all done by illegally owned guns in the hands of convicted felons who are already barred from owning guns shooting other convicted felons with illegally owned guns in areas where guns are banned already! So, tragic as it is, 283 means nothing with out the data and anti-gun advocates never seem to want to give the raw data.
RC –
You wanted a link to the source of gun deaths. It’s posted below. BTW, the number is now up to 306.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html
–Brian, NCPR
To clarify. 306 Americans killed by guns SINCE Newtown. 23 more since we began debating the fine points of statistics, politics, and ideology.
Those other things are important. But I want to keep the human lives — the flesh and blood – in this discussion.
Since we began this conversation, almost as many people have died AGAIN as died in Newtown.
–Brian, NCPR
In the first place, this thread should have been entitled “What Liberals think Conservatives talk about when they talk about assault rifles”. That would have been more honest. I don’t know what to make of your continued reporting of gun deaths since Newtown. Were they homicides, accidents, suicides…what? Even if they were all homicides, what’s your point? Perhaps to ensure that the reactionary firestorm doesn’t die down? Be honest.
Brian do those numbers include suicide?
Crabtree if you can’t recognize a joke you shouldn’t own a firearm.
Come on Brian! I went to the source at the twitter addy and even he says it’s just “reported gun deaths”. I saw police shootings, gang shootings, suicides, domestics, etc. No information on legally or illegal possession or ownership or anything else. Using that as a source to justify altering an enumerated right is insane. Why not use the stats from the outfit that used death from gunfire in all the wars around the world to pad their numbers?!!.
Look, you are the one that likes to use the term “factually accurate”. Well being factually accurate on this issue means the burden of proof is on you to show that the so called assault rifles or weapons are a legitimate issue in gun crime, not just gun deaths. In an age when assisted suicide is legal in some states and where in some countries the national health service has a policy of what amounts to euthanasia counting suicide as gun crime is bogus. IMO anyone over the age of 30 or so that wants to end it, have at it. It’s sad, very sad, but, especially for the suffering, it’s understandable. If the person using the gun is already barred from possession by age or felony criminal record, domestic violence arrest conviction, age, mental illness, etc. then is the gun the problem or is the person? It’s like trying to hold the ladder manufacturer liable for falling off a ladder when there are 27 warnings saying “DON’T STAND ON THE TOP RUNG!!!!” At what point do you finally look at the person using the gun?
I hope you do at least realize that this isn’t some little tweak in law that is no big deal. It’s “tweaking” an enumerated right! It’s like “tweaking” the 1st Amendment and producing a law that says all news stories have to be approved by some Administration Official before they get to be printed, that before you can write a story you have to be fingerprinted, investigated and you need to register with a licensing authority before writing anything and that you’ll be taxed on every letter you use. This is that big Brian. Maybe you don’t see it, but it is to many of us out here.
Knuckle, if you’d been joking I might have laughed.
We do need to look at the human cost of violence in this country it is real. Of course what Brian is not saying is that these numbers are less than previous decades. They simply take the national rate of murder and self-murder and divide it by the day. So yes the deaths continue on, some by suicide, some by drive by drug deals gone bad, some by domestic violence, what assault weapons laws have to do with any of that is the question? I believe there is no need to have assault weapons, but this is a minor minor cause of all of these murders, yes lets see if it makes a difference this time, it didn’t last time. A more important question is why do we feel the need to kill people in this country? What is it about our culture our society and our families that we end up being so very violent?
Assault weapons availability? OK fine lets take them away, but we all know it won’t make that much of a difference in these numbers.
Here are some numbers in South Dakota in 2011 there were 15 total murders in Wyoming there were also 15 total murders so gee since Newtown that means there have been well maybe 1 or zero murders in those states, but wait those states have the highest rates of gun ownership in the nation. So yeah we can use these “real” numbers to drive home a point, if you want to go with that point ;we should all own more guns we should be encouraging gun ownership in our homes.
I don’t really believe that, but come on I don’t know what stating the number of people killed has to do with this discussion unless it is really related to gun availability and laws? Which is what this was basically about.
Man! I have to reassess everything I believe. I don’t even know when I’m making a joke anymore>
These are the people we need to be going after, not law abiding gun owners- http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/bombmaking_in_the_village_LoRDqNzP02SDZyfC1pLVXN
A privileged socialite and her Harvard grad/OWS boyfriend. Psychos. Terrorists. Nutjobs. That’s who you need to be looking at. And note that no assault weapons were found. The only gun noted was the ubiquitous Mossberg 500 pump action shotgun, a tube magazine system holding 3-5 rounds.