Obama’s Bizarre Anti-Gun Debate Flub
Most other companies simply enjoyed the newfound sales that came from free Americans wanting to buy something the government didn’t want them to have. AR-15 patterned rifles that bore a cosmetic similarity (though not the select-fire functionality) to the military M-16 changed a few features and suddenly became prolific sellers. Existing manufacturers and importers of military-style weapons increased capacity, and new manufacturers sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain. AR-15 pattern firearms became the most popular firearms in America, and the “modern sporting rifle” (as some in the shooting sports industry have tried to dub it, with mixed results) is now ubiquitous.
By the time the ban expired in 2004, it was a total failure. It did not reduce crime (such firearms were rarely used in crimes anyway), and the backlash against the ban “mainstreamed” the very firearms they attempted to render criminal. Nonetheless, it remained a hot-button issue on the left, where it has remained simmering as a near-forgotten issue for eight sad years. There is no support for it in the House and Senate, and there is no chance a new ban would make it out of committee.
Not a single soul expected Barack Obama to bring up the idea of reinstating this failed law. It was an act of political suicide.
The National Rifle Association, the nation’s leading gun rights organization, says that it is too soon after the debate to see any specific polling impact, but anecdotal evidence of a backlash against the president is already flowing in. A spokesperson for the group told PJ Media that the president’s anti-gun statement may cost him dearly.
Independents shoot AR-15s and AK-pattern rifles. Union members hunt. Feminists own handguns.
In one moment, President Obama offended 90 million gun owners to varying degrees. In an election where Barack Obama needs high voter turnout if he hopes to blunt a surging Romney (who now boasts a seven-point advantage), he’s sabotaged himself in the all-important swing states where gun ownership is high.
There is no information suggesting that Obama’s statement will “flip” votes from him to Romney, but anecdotal evidence suggests that Democrats and independents that could have been persuaded to cast a vote for the president are reconsidering.
The most radical POTUS in U.S. history has many dreams for his second term. But they cannot be effectuated without his main goal – the disarming of a legally, highly armed population.
The Radical-in-Chief views the Constitution as the obstacle to his deconstruction plans, hence, most roads lead to the evisceration of the Second Amendment.He understands that a well armed population is a citizenry he cannot totally control. And TOTAL control is his/their end game.
http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/16/gunning-for-tea-party-activists-enlisting-u-s-army-to-huntidentify-them-addendum-to-warning-all-patriotic-americans-the-enemy-is-you-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
This is why Romney must hammer home this issue at every opportunity he still has. It is that urgent.
forget to put my name in, I am NOT anonymous….
No but you are prolific, and persuasive!
The right to purchase, keep, and bear arms is historically the “Prime Right” from which all other rights descend. Where people are disarmed by law, what ever rights they might have are only “gifts” bestowed upon them. “Gifts” that can also be taken away at any time. Any study of history will show this quite clearly.
I heartily agree. ” Those who hammer their guns into plowshares, will plow for those who do not.” – Thomas Jefferson.
No need. No one else posts links to your web page.
The NRA is now explicitly running bans telling people not to vote for Obama.
The NRA is “running bans”?
Oh silly me, I thought all this time they were against “bans”….
“Ban” is also a synonym for public notice, proclamation, or ordnance. Whether the word was meant in that vein or merely a typo, please be respectful.
“Ordinance.” There–I did it too. Fast fingers. (-:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ban
Definition of BAN
transitive verb
1 archaic : curse
2: to prohibit especially by legal means ; also : to prohibit the use, performance, or distribution of
3: bar 3c
noun
Definition of BAN
1: the summoning in feudal times of the king’s vassals for military service
2: anathema, excommunication
3: malediction, curse
4: legal or formal prohibition
5: censure or condemnation especially through social pressure
Definition of BAN
: a monetary subunit of the leu
Sorry “Guest”, but not buying it. The only thing that comes close is “the summoning in feudal times of the king’s vassals for military service”, which I’m pretty sure is NOT what “mythbuster” was alluding to.
Nice try though.
Scott, “ban” was probably a typo, but for what it’s worth, the announcements of upcoming marriages in church bulletins are called bans or banns. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banns_of_marriage
“Bann” with two enns.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Bann
Webster also fails to define it as a unit of measure of information as well, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.
Googling “define ban” does produce the archaic definition of “A public announcement or proclamation” specifically mentioning marriages and tournaments as examples of items for which bans would be cried.
I think it most likely that the op made a typo (or was a victim of spell-check) but it is interesting that it was a typo that could still carry the same meaning.
Don’t really know what you’re saying. The NRA has been calling Obama out by name for more than a year. They have made it their mission in life to defeat him. As for me, the NRA is a little to soft, and I want to see him out of office even more than the NRA.
If disarming the law abiding populace controlled crime, Chicago would be the safest city in America rather than having the highest murder rate. Gun bans only keep non-criminals from fighting back. But Obama and his allies don’t care, as can be seen by their other policy successes, such as $5/gallon gas and a 15% real unemployment rate, that disproportionately hurt the poor. Romney’s policies will help ALL Americans, particularly those suffering the most under Obama.
lets not forget that up until recently there was a handgun ban in Chicago, which was struck down by the SCOTUS. and after that ban was struck down the murder rate in Chicago fell sharply. Romney should bring that up.
Not really.
It should be remembered that one of the very first gun control laws, the Sullivan Act of New York was passed to protect thugs (who owned the politician after whom the bill is named…) from their intended victims who had developed a distressing tendency to shoot back. Other gun controls laws were passed to leave blacks at the mercy of whites.
Gun Control is about Control, not crime.
It was a perfect gaffe that nobody in the mainstream media noticed. Every single swing state from Maine to Nevada is a right-to-carry / CCW state. Obama just help a whole lot of voters chose in those states.
Only ONE state has NO right to concealed carry; that is obummer’s Illinois. You can one a gun in most places, except Chicago and I believe Cook County, but the state has no law for concealed carry. All other states, even the far left California, there are concealed carry laws (although in CA, I used to live there, it is nearly impossible in most counties to get one). Even WI allows it now…
Good luck getting a permit in MA, CA, NY, or NJ. But if any of those states are even slightly in play, the election’s over. So Obama was preaching to the converted and alienating the undecided.
In New York City it’s true you can’t get a permit unless you’re wealthy and/or heavily politically connected. Upstate isn’t nearly as bad though. Long guns only require a background & residency check and handgun permits aren’t hard to come by.
I meant carry permit. Those are close to impossible in the above mentioned states.
I’m told that with the exception of NJ (and we should also include Maryland and especially Hawaii, which has 0 permits outstanding), the other states do it by locality so carry permits are to be had. Much of upstate New York, rural California, plenty of Massachusetts cities (it has no unincorporated land).
Old Soldier: A concealed carry permit for a handgun is not that difficult to get in Upstate NY. The most onerous part of the law is that every handgun you own must be approved and listed on the permit. But, after the first one, it’s really not bad.
It’s not much worse than Indiana, the only other state I’ve carried in.
It’s actually quite easy to conceal carry in Illinois. All you have to do is become an elected official where upon you automatically receive law enforcement officer status.
Oh, you meant we private citizens. No, we don’t deserve or need the ability to protect ourselves. After all, it we’re killed there are plenty more to take our places.
Remember, when seconds count the police are only minutes away.
In Los Angeles county a few years ago the way to get a CCW permit is to staple a copy of your $5,000 check to the Sheriff’s reelection fund. It may be up to $10,000 now.
With those remarks, Obama was playing to his base, which believes the American people must be disarmed at all cost.
Not because it would reduce crime; the left knows it won’t, and anyway they view criminals as the foot soldiers in their war on the rest of us, so they certainly don’t want their own sturmtruppen deprived of their ability to kill others on command, or at random. (Prime Order of the Empire; Terror must be maintained. Quoted by the alternate Spock in “Mirror, Mirror”, Star Trek, season 2.)
Nor do they want us disarmed to reduce the “accident and/or suicide” rate. Besides the fact that firearms accidents account for fewer deaths every year than drowning in swimming pools (according to the National Safety Council), the suicide rate in the U.S. is significantly lower than it is in that paragon of non-gun-owning countries, Japan.
In fact, Japan’s per capita suicide rate has matched or exceeded the U.S. homicide rate for decades. The difference being cultural; in Japan, people who are shamed by their perceived failures seek to atone for same by harming themselves.
In our culture, where our “best and brightest” keep saying that nothing is ever the fault of the person who did it, the urge is to find, and punish, a scapegoat. For the average murderer, who suffers from an unfocused hatred of anyone who isn’t exactly like him, and/or just the rest of humanity in general, even the identity of the victim is largely irrelevant; anybody will do. “Stranger murders” account for a higher percentage of homicides in the U.S. than in most other countries, according to the FBI. The reason, the Bureau states, is a combination of murders committed during the commission of other crimes (robbery, rape, etc.), plus people who use their unfocused rage to lash out at society in general.
We used to treat such problems with prison, and/or the electric chair. However, our “best and brightest” didn’t like that. So, we went for “rehabilitation” instead, and parole’, and probation, and/or just blaming the victim for their own death. It made our “best and brightest” feel very good about themselves for “understanding the plight of the downtrodden”. (Those would be the same people Obama wants deprived of “cheap handguns”, I assume.)
The present crime situation in the United States is directly traceable to these “enlightened” policies. And to be frank, “gun control” just makes things worse. Because if the police cannot protect the populace (and the criminals know it), and the courts will not (and rest assured, the criminals are very well aware of that), and the people are not allowed to protect themselves (as in Chicago, Washington DC, etc.)- the criminals know that for them, it’s “open season” on everybody else, with no bag limit.
Expecting people who have spent their entire lives ignoring, laughing at, or flipping off society’s strictures on behavior to pass up an opportunity like that is asking too much. Just like asking criminals to obey anti-gun laws, after they’ve learned that they can violate any law they please and get away with it.
So, why do leftists want us disarmed? As George Will once said, they see the American people as being both stupid and vicious, and want them leashed and shackled at all times to prevent them from harming “the rest of the world”. The impulse to gun control is the same as the impulse to unilateral disarmament on the international level. It’s not that it will make those who disarm safer; that’s not the intent.
The intent is to make us harmless to those who wish to rule us. Because until we are disarmed, their dreams of power remain just that- dreams.
Our “best and brightest” seek to rule without let or hindrance, but cannot do so as long as we have two things; the right to vote against their chosen standard bearers, and the right to protect ourselves with force if necessary. The attitude toward that vote has been very obvious in this administration; it’s the attitude of the left as a whole, which believes that only their votes should count.
The attitude toward self-defense is equally obvious; look at Operation Fast & Furious, which was far less amusing and infinitely stupider than any Warner Brothers cartoon featuring the Road-Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote. If the latter had planned O F&F, it might have been somewhat less of a disaster, which tells you all you need to know about the “super genius” credentials of those who actually did plan it. All they knew was that they wanted propaganda for gun control; they failed to realize that it would only work as propaganda if nobody found out what they were up to.
Ultimately, the left dreams of absolute power and control. They can never have it as long as we vote and have weapons. Small wonder they wish to restrict, or abolish, as much of both as they can.
It never occurs to them to ask us why we won’t give them the absolute power they crave. The fact that everywhere their compatriots have had it, the result has been a disaster, has a lot to do with it; we simply do not believe they are so smart that they’ll get it right. Rather the same way nobody can get the phlogiston theory of combustion “right”; some theories are just too unrelated to reality to work.
But also, it’s our fear. Not just fear of crime, but fear of what our “best and brightest” might do if they ever had the level of power they demand, and we had no defense against them.
History is replete with examples of what happens when absolutist collectivists gain total power, and begin to “remake” societies into their vision of Utopia. Since to them, people only matter “in the mass”, people as people are automatically classified as “expendable assets”. Who get “expended” as part of “the sacrifices which must be made” in exchange for A Perfect World.
Every leftist government does it sooner or later. Pol Pot in Cambodia, Stalin in Russia, Ortega in Nicaragua, Castro in Cuba, Mao in China, even Allende in Chile’. Look up “Allende’ disappeareds” sometime- and then maybe you’ll understand why the coup that overthrew him wasn’t all that unpopular down there. And remember, Allende’ was elected- by an electorate who lived to regret it.
And that’s not even including the leftists who turn to massacre just because they get bored with having power, and have to do something outrageous to constantly remind themselves that they have it. Like the old song goes, “You know that kicks just keep gettin’ harder to find”.
When you consider who else is “over there” on the left, the ecologists, the terrorist apologists, the anti-energy “crusaders”, and the haters of civilization in general, it’s pretty obvious that giving them power over us would likely be nothing more than us signing our own death warrants. Because half of them want us erased from the Earth as part of their perceived path to Utopia, and the other half want us gone just to revel in our pain as we go.
If there is a single, overarching reason for the American people’s opposition to gun control, it is this; that we have learned, the hard way, that those who do not trust us, are themselves not to be trusted with our lives. Because of the high probability that they hate us, and wish to destroy us to fulfill their own basest, most savage impulses and dreams of destruction for its own sake.
It’s just that simple.
clear ether
eon
Excellent commentary.
The F&F debacle highlights the fact that the uber intellectual elite laid out their plans based on how they believe people think and operate, not how they actually do, to say nothing of the laws of unintended consequences because of their equally uber narrow-mindedness. Anticipation of contingencies accounts for the a plan (any plan) having potential flaws and being imperfect. But for a devout socialist, plans are always perfect and nothing could go wrong. Thus the shock and dismay when they actually do, which in this administration seems to be a constant.
What naturally follows is blaming others heavily and repeatedly.
Eon gets “-IT-”! Chairman Mao said power flows from the barrel of a gun. The whole thing is about power! Obama does not want those who oppose him to have any power to oppose him in any way. That’s why they got the ball rolling with health care before gun control, so they could use your or your loved ones health as a lever to get your to get rid of your guns.
Lots of gun owners voted for Obama. There are a lot of Union gun owning households. Guns are not many gun owners single priority.
Obama is not “dumb!” He is naive, in experinced. and surrounded by yes men, but not dumb. He knows what he is doing, but thank God, does not have the experince to get it done. If you look at the Bengahzi as another Fast & Furious operation gone bad, you get a better picture of his mind set. See the Movie 2016 and read the books mentioned in the movie. Obama wants to see the US “taken down several notches” in order for us to live like some third world nation. This lets his his “friends” exploit more power. It’s all about power. It always has been and will be. It’s just apart of the great strugle between good and evil.
Some of the best written commentary I have read. Bravo sir.
actually since “the one” has been in office there is not cheap hand gun. Demand has seen to that.
eon, great, great summary. I have copy and pasted to send to my drone (grown) children in the hopes of waking them up. Thanks again.
Even though I am voting for Mitt, I was not impressed by his response to the question either. Why didn’t he pounce on the fact that crime is the highest in cities with the most restrictive gun laws????? Instead he vilified AK47′s as well. I am worried about the second amendment regardless if who wins the election. Mitt’s fuzzy response shows his lack of knowledge and passion for the most important part of the constitution. Yes, free speech is up there, but without a gun, any party member with a bat could silence your speech.
I noticed that too – the thing is, I’m still voting for Romney regardless.
He did make the point, and I have read the comments from what passes for a gun rights organization in Massachusetts that made this same point, the so-called gun rights organizations (and I think the NRA as well?) supported this state law because it had something in it that they wanted.
End result, they made a deal with the devil and are apparently happy with it. Hopefully Romney doesn’t make the mistake of thinking all gun owners across the country share those ‘flexible’ Massachusetts ideas on 2nd Amendment Rights.
If Romney is a closet gun grabber, he will still have to deal with a House and Senate that are probably not too keen on passing anti-gun owner legislation.
There is a reason no new gun control laws have been passed in years – it’s fear of the voter kicking congressional butts out of office.
If Romney is simply ignorant of the current state of law and public opinion, then this is something proper education will correct.
He seems intelligent enough to change his views when the evidence supports such a change, and especially so if Northern views on gun control that are very unpopular in the rest of the country are seen as costing him his best chance to date at becoming President.
If Romney realizes this is the case, those unpopular Massachusetts views will get tossed under the bus faster than Obama could throw his own grandmother under there.
I’m a Democrat, and have to admit that the party sucks on guns (and immigration). That said, I think that most Democrats at the national level realize anti-gun legislation is a political loser and will generally leave it alone. The problem for gun owners is clueless politicians at the state and local level, who have legislated so many confusing and contradictory gun laws since the late 1960s that we really have lost a lot of the freedoms guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. It’s not so bad here in California, because we are a big state and I don’t need to leave to go hunt. But if you live in Rhode Island and want to go quail hunting in Virginia, I think you’d need a legal researcher to tell you how to transport your shotgun and ammunition through multiple jurisdictions from point A to point B.
Being a Democrat who supports the 2nd Amendment is short-sighted. You may think that the Legislative branch won’t interfere, but you are currently one US Supreme Court justice away from losing much of what you claim to cherish. That doesn’t mean that I’m 100% positive we’ll do any better on SCOTUS nominations with Mitt, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet he’s better than any Democrat POTUS at nominating pro-2nd amendment justices.
That problem (state & local mishmash of laws) is being rectified, however slowly. Several states have enacted “pre-emption” laws that prohibit counties or cities from imposing stricter gun laws than the state’s. Such a law has been on the books here in Florida since 1987, but until last year it had no teeth — no penalties for violators. Now miscreant local leaders, seeing those teeth about to chew them up, are repealing their unenforceable ordinances. The stubborn ones have had to be threatened with lawsuits that they were guaranteed to lose.
One state that definitely needs to pre-empt is Colorado. That state’s excellent self-defense law is effectively moot because of anti-gun laws in several cities/counties (including Aurora, where the movie theater madman was able to kill with impunity).
GOAL is no “so called” gun rights organization, they’re quite effective for being in such an anti-gun state.
The law in question was to address the state’s per-existing “assault weapons” ban, which was based on specifics of the soon to sunset Federal ban. I know of nothing the RKBA activists gave up in it; if you disagree, specifics would be appreciated.
The big problem was Romney’s signing statement, in which he trashed “assault weapons” in the usual language of the gun grabbers. This, plus its title (it started out as a gun grabbing bill) caused GOAL a lot of headaches, but these allowed the law to pass under the radar of the establishment.
Romney’s reply in the 2nd debate again demonstrates he knows nothing about our issues, and probably cares nothing about them. Is he a closet gun grabber? Who knows? I do, though, assume he wants to be reelected and he has plenty of people like Ryan to tell him what to do or not do. And with so many fires to put out elsewhere, the RKBA is rather low in the list of national priorities, although it sure would be nice for us to get some significant things from the national Republican party which is happy to take our money and votes and give us little if anything in return.
It’s entirely possible that Mitt just doesn’t know very much about guns. Not everyone does. It’d be like me (a private pilot) complaining that neither of the candidates seems to know anything about general aviation.
One thing Mitt has shown is the ability and desire to learn. I see no indication that Obama is willing to learn. He thinks he knows everything already.
He did sign Massachusetts’ own version of assault weapons ban. Mitt ain’t no gun owner friend. Ally, at best.
If it’s any consolation, Paul Ryan is “A” rated by both the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation… Ryan scores a “10″ with Gun Owners of America
I voted for Mitt Romney today plus sent $45 to the campaign of our future 45th President of the United States. Romney shows some ignorance about why DIY self-defense is essential for individual liberty, but at least he’s not completely hostile to the concept of individual liberty like Obama is.
Umm, assault weapons are already regulated. The National Firearms Act of 1934 requires one to pay a tax to possess one, and the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act banned the further manufacture of automatic weapons for civilian use.
Weapons that Obama and his fellow travelers want to ban are simply semi-automatic firearms.
Do not let them control the argument by continuing to use “assault weapons” in written or verbal form. Words DO matter.
Assault RIFLES are regulated, as they are select-fire firearms. Assault WEAPONS is a nebulous term used by gun grabbers to smear any weapon that they’re looking to ban as a bad weapon in need of banning.
Assault weapon has no legal or military definition; it is strictly a fabrication of gun grabers.
Spot on, Tristan.
A similar invented term would be “High-capacity” when used to refer to magazines; let’s not allow the opposition to frame the debate by defining the language, lest they have won before we even get out of the starting-blocks.
Do I recall correctly that the Colorado killer’s weapon had a drum magazine? One wonders if it’s possible to have a conversation about this (capacity) for rifles since it seems to me that there are regulations for both semi-auto and pump-action shotguns for bird hunters.
Just asking.
Most states limit the number of rounds in a rifles to six and a shotgun to three while hunting. Some states do not limit the shotgun rounds while hunting canadian geese that have become residents. the term High-capacity magazines in handguns may have started with the Browning Hi-power which had a double stack or staggered style magazine allowing the handgun to be loaded to thirteen or fourteen rounds. Many handguns offer that now. Rifles have had that style magazine for quite some time. The AR-15 (semi-auto rifle) have 20 and 30 standard size magazines. High capacity of 90 or possiblymore. With the “assault weapons ban”(semi-automatic rifles and pistols that look like assault rifles and machine pistols)reduced the legal magazine capacity to 10 rounds possibly less. DC considers any firearm that can fire a certain number of rounds without re-loading a machine gun. This is to ban weapons with external magazines based on the theory that a magazine of any capacity can be manufactured for a weapon with an external magazine. That makes the colt 1911 that the main plaintiff from the DC case wanted to register illegal. The 1911 is one of the most popular handguns in the US. More than you asked for but hey, this stuff gets me goin’
High capacity magazines are actually better for safety, because criminals like the kook in Az who shot the congress woman and the lunatic in Aurora both used high capacity magazines which failed to feed at a key moment in their crime.
Large capacity magazines have to be tuned to be reliable from high spring tension with many bullets to low spring tension with few bullets, and crazy people don’t do that well. The Aurora lunatic switched from his failed rifle to a shotgun.
A better term than semi-automatic is ‘self loading’, it avoids confusion with full automatic, but confusion is gun grabbers’ tactic of choice.
Thanks maco and DonM: More useful info is preferred to less (see earlier BS re ban, banns &etc). If memory serves, SCOTUS, upholding the DC decision, said that gun ownership is a property right, which I applaud, but also said that states could regulate. Notwithstanding that the anti-gun types will never give up, perhaps there needs to be on-going debate about “capacity”, recognizing that the stacked mag tech has produced a .22LR pistol with 30 rounds (Kel-Tec) which ought to be legal but isn’t in all states.
I’m finding it hard to believe that gun owners would’ve voted for Obama anyway, even before the so-called flub in the second debate.
I actually know one who did. It is amazing, but the “can’t happen here” mentality is still out there. Like mps, I’m also not impressed with Romney’s defense of the Constitution. And Tristan makes an excellent point I often make to the gun grabbers of my acquaintance (I therefore can not call them “friends”).
I also know a gun owner who voted for stupid and who is going to again. It is especially sad because he is relatively new to shooting, and is quickly becoming a firearms enthusiast like myself. He is a knee-jerk liberal that cannot get out of the box…
Barack Obama is too dumb to be president. He’s the dumbest man ever to assume the office, and pert near every move he makes validates that title.
I own several types of pistols. My family all knows how to shoot them and my son in law also owns a .45 and practices often at the range. I feel very comfortable with our level of gun ownership and responsible use.
At some point there are limits to what is available for the average person to buy at Gander Mountain. One thing I think should be open for discussion is the size of magazines available. I am not an expert but it looks like in the mass killings that have happened the shooters tended to choose these large capacity magazines for the obvious reason that they are most vulnerable when pausing to reload.
Is it reasonable to limit the size of magazines for personal gun owners? I am undecided on that and would welcome comments on the question.
“Is it reasonable to limit the size of magazines for personal gun owners? I am undecided on that and would welcome comments on the question.”
No. Lawful gun owners are not the problem.
Or put the argument to the test. Would you limit the size or number of computers a person should have?
Computers are an interesting subject because it is the cutting edge of warfare now. A computer is not anything like a gun so hard to compare the two.
Maybe not a statistical difference but when I am in the movie theater I would rather the maniac had 3×10 than 30. At least then you have a chance.
Most intentional or accidental civilian shootings happen at close range and with few shots fired. Hogs are another story apparently.
I guess at the end I would not base voting on this issue. Not a lot of space between the candidates anyway.
When I am at the movie theater, I’d rather have a .380 with me than have to wait for the police to show up should someone start shooting. The Boulder shooter had several nearer theaters he could have gone to (showing the Batman movie) but he picked the one with the no-gun policy, where folk with CCW’s and were carrying were NOT welcome. I doubt that was a coincidence.
Guns are to violence as pencils are to misspelled words.
One other reply was exactely what I believe!!It is not law abibing people who are the problem so limiting their ability to large capacity clips will do no good!!!I have a grandson who worked several years as a guide and caretaker on a large hunting lease in S.TX and he has 2 .223 semi auto(What the gun grabbers call assault weapons)with 30 round bannana clips that He uses for wild hog control!!He has several other rifles and shotguns and why should He be limited??A criminal will get whatever He wants legal or not!!
That’s a horrible slippery slope. Furthermore have you seen what liberals define as “high capacity”? Most of them consider it 10 rounds. The factory standard magazine in my beretta holds 14 when accounting for 1 in the chamber. Add to this the fact that the liberal approach to gun control is not renown for its common sense. When a mass shooting occurs with the 10 round magazines they’ll push to bring the number down to 5, or when a high profile crime is committed with one of the items they’ve already banned they’ll push for a ban on something else unrelated instead of admitting that their original policy didn’t work. Once you open the door to any further regulation you get a slow and steady erosion every time some high profile event brings the issue back into the news and the politicians get it in their heads to “do something”. Gun bans in both England and Australia happened in knee-jerk responses to isolated high profile shooting events. Remember the leftist’s mantra: “never let a crisis go to waste”
What is it about round number 11 that makes it more dangerous than round number 1 through 10 in a magazine? Nothing. The reality is that in all mass shootings (which are extraordinarily rare), the shooters all were able, and did, reload their firearms.
The magazine that wacko had in aurora was notorius for jamming. Do you want to make sure that only reliable magazines are available to the wackos?
besides, it’s not the mags that made those guys crazy. And, like in aurora they can carry multiple weapons.
And, if the wacko in aurora couldn’t get a gun he would have used a bomb.
It’s about wackos not magazines
High capacity magazines are actually better for safety, because criminals like the kook in Az who shot the congress woman and the lunatic in Aurora both used high capacity magazines which failed to feed at a key moment in their crime.
Large capacity magazines have to be tuned to be reliable from high spring tension with many bullets to low spring tension with few bullets, and crazy people don’t do that well. The Aurora lunatic switched from his failed rifle to a shotgun.
A better term than semi-automatic is ‘self loading’, it avoids confusion with full automatic, but confusion is gun grabbers’ tactic of choice.
To be fair, I don’t think that’s what Obama meant. I obviously disagree with his comment on banning Assault weapons, but when he mentioned cheap handguns, I think he was only implying that weapons were easy to get and that we should fix the source of the problem by fixing poverty. Granted, that’s wrongheaded too (since studies show poverty does NOT make you more likely to commit crime), but I don’t think he was implying a handgun ban.
I need to clarify, by “easy to get” I mean I thought he was saying that banning certain types of guns won’t stop the violence, that changing the social climate is what is needed.
“Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns.”
There was no qualifying with “easy to get”.
If anything, the reference to “cheap” seems to indicate a view on his part that a certain economic strata of society shouldn’t have access to handguns due to irresponsible and even criminal inclinations.
To paraphrase what Obama is intimating, in plain language, the poor should not be able to afford a weapon because they can’t be trusted with them.
If you likewise bemoan “cheap” handguns, do you also think a law abiding single mother of 4 kids working the night shift at a truck stop at minimum wage should have to spend at least $1,000 for a self defense handgun?
The amount of money spent on a weapon provides no indication as to what the purchaser of that weapon will do with it – legal or otherwise.
As for “assault weapons”, consider this – in World War II the Soviet Moison-Nagant rifle, the German K98k rifle, the British Lee-Enfield series rifles, the Japanese Arisaka rifle series, the American M1 Garand and M1 Carbine, not to mention the pistols (P38, P08, M1911, Begian Hi-Power, Nagant, Webley, Nambu, etc.), PLUS a goodly number of fully automatic weapons (everything from Soviet PPSH to .30-06 Browning Automatic Rifle to .50 caliber machine guns) killed millions of people in that conflict.
Every single one of those weapons is available on the civilian market today – yet those weapons are not being used to slaughter millions of additional people each year.
The behavior that leads to violence needs to be addressed, not the tools used by the criminal.
You young whippersnappers might not know this is the old “Saturday Night Special” argument, and racist to its core. It was enshrined in the Gun Control Act of 1968, at least for imports (there’s a “point” system, and this was abused by G. H. W. Bush in 1989 to impose a semi-automatic assault rifle import ban which we’re still living with).
Obama doesn’t seem to come up with any new ideas, does he?
My teachers used to make a big deal about distinguishing between “imply” and “infer.” You are right that different people can infer different meanings in what Obama has implied. Based on his track record, however, I infer that Obama is implying a big-time ban on handguns. If his record were a little cleaner in regard of double-speak, I might feel a bit safer, but Chicago is his place of reference. He knows that if you take handguns away from law-abiding citizens, it makes a place safer for thugs and terrorists, who can get their guns from any number of “multi-cultural” sources.
Is it reasonable to limit the size of magazines for personal gun owners?
” . . . the right of the people to keep & bear arms shall not be infringed . . . except for assault rifles, large-capacity magazines, Saturday-night specials, mean-looking & mean-spirited guns, toy guns that aren’t specially marked, pistol-gripped rifles & shotguns and last but not least, guns, ammo & magazines that we know-better-than-you liberal politicians & bureaucrats just don’t like, regardless of crime stats.
I was taught in school that the latter part was added as an afterthought when Ben Franklin said to James Madison, “Here, hold this string for a moment. . .”
Guns designed for war that have no place on our streets should NOT be issued to law enforcement, nor should they be allowed to use them. In contrast to the neo-feudal countries of Europe where police are the servants of the people’s rulers, in America the police are servants of the _people_. Any weapon that the police need must therefore be allowed to the _people_ in general.
This whole “guns designed for war” line is complete and utter ignorant left-wing tripe. I and many other Americans own guns manufactured for, and used in, WWII for instance. Every model of gun on the market has probably seen action on some battlefield or other. Further, as the second amendment explicitly makes reference to the importance of the militia, it follows that military-grade weapons are not only allowed, but intended.
Speaking as a retired member of the fraternity, I have never run into a fellow officer who disagrees with the following statement;
In any jurisdiction which restricts weapon ownership by law-abiding citizens, the police should not be permitted to possess any weapon that the citizens are prohibited from having.
The logic is simple. If “gun control” works as advertised, the police should not need weapons more serious than those of the citizenry. In an absolute prohibition area, like Washington DC, they shouldn’t need firearms at all to keep order. If they do, and especially if they need military-level armaments (full-auto weapons, full-auto support weapons, light armored vehicles, etc.), it’s clearly evident that the theory is logically invalid.
That said, I have also had arguments with chiefs of police who held the exact opposite view. They considered every gun in the hands of a citizen a “controllable threat”; ban it, confiscate it, no threat. They also maintained that the guns in criminals’ hands were “not an issue”- because (a) they justified heavy armaments on the part of the police, and (b) they could be used as justification for demanding nationwide or even worldwide bans on the guns of the chiefs’ choice.
When I asked one where it would end, he said, “Never. There is always one more law we can demand to make our jobs safer.”
No, he didn’t see the disconnect in logic.
I might add that, TV to the contrary, very few chiefs of police today rise from the ranks. Most are law-school grads who are hired in from outside by mayors and city councils after stints in Federal “three-initial” agencies, i.e. FBI, DEA, etc. As such, they have a very “federalized” view of law enforcement, and an entirely “Inside The Beltway” view of “what is wrong with America”.
They also almost universally have “political ambitions”, which probably explains why they dress, talk, and more importantly think like high-priced corporate lawyers… or politicians. They certainly don’t think like an actual, working cop.
clear ether
eon
If the government wants to ban guns, let them ban them for their employees first. After they show good results with that, perhaps others may wish to follow their lead.
No guns for police, for the border patrol, for park rangers, for the military, for the BATFEIEIO, for the FBI or for the Secret Service, or for court baliffs. After all, it isn’t like that list of honest people might run into people or animals who want to do them harm, right?
Or do they?
“Is it reasonable to limit the size of magazines for personal gun owners?”
No.
Limits on magazine capacity have shown zero impact on crime as that despicable 10 year Assault Weapon Ban proved.
It is illogical to think that someone intent on murder will decide not to commit such a crime simply because they can’t get a high capacity magazine.
Enough is enough. There are currently over 20,000 gun laws on the books. Guns simply do not commit crime – criminals do. The second amendment was written to protect ourselves from criminals and from an out of control government if necessary – to preserve liberty….period. Without a second amendment, there wouldn’t be a first.
I will defer to the opinions of men much more learned than myself, or the current president for that matter:
“A free people ought to be armed.”
- George Washington
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
- Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)
“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”
- George Mason
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”
- Noah Webster
“A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace.”
- James Madison
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms.”
- James Madison
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
- James Madison
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”
- Patrick Henry
“… arms … discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property…. Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them.”
- Thomas Paine
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
- Samuel Adams
You left out my two favorites, by people (one real and one fictional) of kindred spirits:
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“People should not be afraid of their governments.
Governments should be afraid of their people.”
— “V”
Where’s Guy Fawkes when we really need him?
I am middle class and I live in what is mostly a secure enclave of similar people. It would be tempting for me to go along with Obama’s idea of disarming poor people, who live in primarily black neighborhoods with horrific crime rates. That is a slippery slope. Who says that I may not be reduced to poverty one day? Do I want my guns taken from me because I am poor? And then, even if God rewards me with financial security, do I want to answer the knock on the door in the middle of the night, and say, “But I only wanted you to disarm the poor, not the middle class!”
Good point. A far more efficient way to reduce violence is to inculcate good values in the children and to support the traditional family structure.
I thought the turning point in the first debate was when the public finally saw Romney without the MSM filters in place. They saw an articulate and likable guy and not a deranged baby eater.
Romney is the Reagan of the 21st century. I’ve had my doubts about him for a long time, just as I did with Ronald Reagan, but no president is going to satisfy all of the voters all of the time. He has handled himself presidentially in every appearance he has made. His biggest drawback among a certain class of voters is his near-perfect family, because the image of an intact family draws the poisonous bile out of a certain class of single mothers in America, who hate and detest intact families with strong religious values. That’s the gender gap.
Romney had better bring up the UN Treaty on Small Arms and the LOST, which will probably come up in the lame duck. Obama and EVERY senatorial candidate must be made to make their position known on these treaties, it may ice the senate elections. Americans do not want to cede sovereignty to the UN.
My contention has always been, that the Second Amendment is about “militia” weapons. Those would be weapons suitable for war NOT hunting. As such, the military pattern, semi-automatic weapons, so popular in the US, are exactly the weapons the Second Amendment protects for civilian ownership.
And why is that? Because the Founders believed that armed citizens were necessary as a “check and balance” against an armed government, that could, at some point in the future, become oppressive. It was the duty of the American citizenry, as a last resort, to depose that government, and reinstate the Constitution by force of arms.
That’s not to imply, that the other types of firearms are not protected as well.
Guns designed for war are the only type of guns I wish to own.
Just as a note: “Arms” (as in “right to bear….” are the weapons that an infantry soldier might be expected to routinely carry, including swords, pikes, knives, bows, pistols, and rifles. The “militia”, of course, was the non-specialist infantry that would be called up from the citizenry just after a war started. At the time, of course, all soldiers would bring their own guns to the event. Even with today’s professional army, it makes matters much easier if newly enlisted soldiers know the essentials of shooting, including basic safety, how to clean the firearm, and how to aim.
Interestingly enough, one of the telling factors in the Rev. war was our long-rifle snipers. The British had snipers too, but they were Hessian mercenaries who had been game keepers. They knew how to shoot, but they didn’t have to do it every day to feed their families like our snipers did.
Cannons, grenades, heavy machine guns, and the like that aren’t routinely carried by the basic infantryman are properly “ordnance” and would not be covered by the 2nd Amendment. (Setting aside, for the moment, the secondary considerations of the Founders: the ability to hunt for food, self protection, and the threat of armed insurrection as a last resort).
However, canon were owned by private citizens in that era. Militias were often put together by rich citizens (plantation owners and merchants, mainly), and they reported for duty as the commanding officer. Complete with artillary (canon).
The rich also owned gatling guns, but they were invented after the rich could no longer form their own armies.
I will not comply…
Disarming the Negro has been a popular Democrat agenda item for about 100 years. Just Google it. Looking back at the Democrat party’s history of race relations and gun control, I am amazed that they have any members at all. Ignorance is bliss and the dumbing down of America’s students is a priority for the Socialists.
More like 220 years
But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets.
The ignorance in that statement is staggering. Just about ALL popular weapons used by civilians, from AR-pattern rifles to 1911 handguns, started out as “weapons designed for soldiers in war theaters”. Either he truly does want to ban all guns… or he truly has no idea what he’s talking about.
(I’m tempted to ask: what’s a war theater, Mr. President? Would Aurora, Colorado count?)
(I’m tempted to ask: what’s a war theater, Mr. President? Would Aurora, Colorado count?)
Everything is theater to Obama, whether it’s giving a speech to a Civitan Club in Peoria, or to a group of U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, or appearances on Letterman & The View. He can’t tell America his true goals & desires, so he uses the crutch of the teleprompter to remind him of his lines in the script.
Just about ALL popular weapons used by civilians, from AR-pattern rifles to 1911 handguns, started out as “weapons designed for soldiers in war theaters”.
So did every repeating rifle, every repeating handgun, and every ranged projectile weapon going back to the crossbow and the longbow. The Battle of Agincourt was not fought with Kalashnikovs.
The “military” excuse has been used over and over in Europe. France used to define any handgun greater than .25 caliber “war material”. Why? Officially, because France bought literally thousands of .32 revolvers and automatics from other countries (notably Spain) to arm their infantry in the vicious trench fighting of the Western Front in World War One, which was (as one French expert, Michel Josserand, once put it)”a handgunners’ fracas of enormous proportions”. Also, such guns were used with great effectiveness by the Resistance against the occupying Nazis in World War Two.
The real reason, of course, was that the French government, whether left, right, or off the map, wanted total control of its populace. Just like the governments of most of the EU countries today.
Granted, France has a bit more justification. After all, their Republic began with a peasant uprising. They probably don’t want to have another one.
But the fact that they consider the possibility to be something to be feared is telling, in itself.
clear ether
eon
“But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets.”
Lets try some variations on that.
“But I also share your belief that the internet that was designed for the DoD doesn’t belong in our homes.”
“But I also share your belief that silicon chips that were designed for aircraft in war theaters don’t belong in our iPods.”
Etc.
In view of what has happened within Fast & Furious, these words were despicable. or reveal a mind incapable of comprehending reality.
The function of a weapon in a military or civilian hand is identical, kill the target. The unspoken truth is that one is under the command of the President, and the other is not. How he exercises that power distinguishes a dictator from a leader of free people. And any sane person would consider the Assault Weapon ban has a total failure. It failed to stop crime; it only added cost to honest commerce.
There is a universal desire to live free of the fear of weapons, but until man learns to abolish evil, weapons will be needed to assure freedom. This is the reason for our Second Amendment. There is a sizable block of voters who hate this reality and Obama was appealing to their fears, not leading our nation toward a more perfect union. How they accept that their government facilitated the mass delivery of weapons to Mexican drug killers, and the resultant mass slaughter, under Obama’s Administration, is beyond my comprehension.
The problem is not cheap guns. It is the criminal and insane intent to kill innocents. Until we accept this truth, America will never reduce violence in our society.
The anti gun crowd often points to Great Britain as the shining example for their agenda. They ban all handguns and greatly restrict ownership of rifles and shotguns. A special legal exemption had to be passed just to permit the use of .22 target pistols in the recent London Olympics. The British pistol teams are forced to practice in Belgium as they are forbidden to bring their firearms into the UK.
So, gun control nirvana, correct?
In the year 2010 total violent crimes reported in Great Britain were 1,158,957 in a population of 60 million. Total violent crime in the United States was 1,246,248 in a population of 310 million. Simple math says you are five times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime in Britain as in the US.
So how is that strict gun control working for you?
It might interest you to look at a brief history of gun control in the UK. My memory goes back to the 1950s when we still had the death penalty of murder. On one accosion a man, alarmed by a crowd gathering outside his house, fired at them with a shotgun. In court, it was ruled that he was not guilty of an offence, as the crowd were guilty of “common law riot”, as it was then called. Later, there were a number of payroll robberies—for some reason they still insisted on sending some fellow who wasn’t much of a fighter by the SAME route at the SAME time to the SAME bank branch! I should add that this was when, under the Victorian Truck Acts employers were compelled to pay their workers in “current currency of the realm”, which meant that paying into a bank account, or by cheque, wasn.t on. Result? The springing up of a number of security firms, some of which issued guns to their personnel. In December, 1961, one such was set on by a gang of wage snatchers, onlr one of the guards to shoot back, at which point they fled, leaving behind a fearsome looking array of weapons. To this day the reacion of the police astonishes me. They demanded that bank guards be disarmed, one of them bleating that “it is better to lose £100,000 than to rist the criminals resorting to carrying guns”. 18 months later, not far from where I type this, 26 times that amount was stolen in what is still called The Great Train Robbery.
Dunblane & all that – all common sense seemed to desert such sleazy rags an the Sun, whose only claim to fame is adding the expression “Page Three” to the English landuage. The straight facts were that the madman concerned had upset the Scout movement, parents in general, even some shooting clubs were uneasy about him. When Lord Cullen’s Report came out it made some sensible suggestions, only for that so-called newspaper to bawl out loud “LITTLE ANGELS BETRAYED!”. a Tory MP said he now knew what it was like to have been a Jew in Hitler’s Germany – just replace “Der Stürmer” for the “Sun” and Julius Streicher(who swung at a rope’s end for his crimes at Nuremburg) for the “Sun” editor!
Since we pensioned off the hangman back in 1965 the murder rate in Britain has risen from about 150 a year to 500 a year.
Much of the “gun control” nonsense here is spouted by the self=styled “Gun Control Network”. All you have to do is loog at its blogspot http://www.guncontrolnetwork.blogspot.com. To say that its chief spokeswoman seems unable to correctly interpret even the most obvious incidents says it all. In her book, if you have agun, you’re a de facto criminal who deserves to be locked away.
More recently, a group called Animal Aid has been campaigning for shooting magazines to be “top shelf” items – on a level with hard core porn. One leading stationers, WH Smith, is said to be implementing it.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”
I remember watching the news on Fox 45 in Baltimore the night before the ban expired. The commentary from the newscasters were hilariously uninformed, with them stating flatly that a blood bath would ensue.
The rank ignorance of guns (and most things in general) that journalists have is quite astonishing.
I also called this out, Bob.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2012/10/16/obama-calls-for-renewal-of-assault-weapons-ban/
This is a breath of fresh air to me. One cannot go more than a couple of days without seeing some idiotic posting somewhere – perhaps at reddit/r/guns – about how Obama hasn’t done anything at all to harm firearms ownership. They ignore his attempted nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, or his nomination of Sotomayor to the SCOTUS, who dissented in McDonald Versus Chicago.
Again, breath of fresh air. I’m glad that we’re all being transparent now, even if he [Obama] didn’t exactly intend it.
Time for a fine whiskey and a cigar.
“They’re using cheap hand guns.”
Does it make any difference if they’re using expensive handguns?
Wonder if the 12 year old Texas girl who shot her home invader used an expensive or a cheap hand gun.
She used a Glock .40 S&W… pretty cheap. Gaston’s genius was how to get a cheap gun to be reliable.
Just don’t use reloads. Could be unhealthy.
“Realistically, how many guns do you need?”
“Realistically, as many as I can afford.”
Obama’s scream — tweeting that photo of his chair.
Ooobama! Get dat dere red diaper offn yo head and give it back t Michelle!
in the debate I was sorely disappointed in Romney’s response- he did not mention the easy loopholes (modifications) in these type laws- and he never said how cities with gun prohibition have the highest rates of crimes- he went into family values- a part of the answer but not enough – then left an opening for Zero to cry NRA & money his base will eat that up- facts do not impress them, to Dems, family values means “I hate gay people”…and of course the “moderator” cut off Romney’s reply to the NRA accusation.
I really hate 0Bama and his deceptions but I really wish Romney had focused more on the actual questions instead of trying to steer back into some canned talking points
Kjatexas, Exactly!!, but rarely spoken out loud. Our forefathers fought the revolution with a mix of “military” weapons from France or Englang, and domestic hunting rifles (several of my ancestors fought with their squirrel guns at Kings Mountain).
Eon, my father and one uncle were both DC cops, with Dad retiring after 27 years, as a Precinct Commander, and except for the height requirement, I was all gung ho to join the MPDC myself. Ended up as an Army officer, Airborne Infantry and MI. So I’m qualified on all the infantry weapons from M1911 to 81mm mortars and both the 90 mm and 106 mm recoil less rifles, as well as familiarized on the 105, 155, and 8 inch guns, as well as the 105 and 152 main guns on the old M60 family of tanks.
I suspect that most 2nd Amendment supporting LEOs would hesitate to agree that the Constitiution guarantees the individual citizen, and particularly the unorganized militia the right to own and carry any of the weapons listed above.
Heck, the trend in state sponsored Self Defense Force/State Militias is to prohibit them from carrying weapons, or training with weapons.
Kinda limits the potential effectiveness of the official militias, doesn’t it?
Steve
Maj USA, Ret
BTW, found this interesting site, all about street crimes committed with the AK-47
http://www.ak-47.us/Crimes_with_the_AK-47.php
Who is John Galt?