Pretend Gun Control
What we can do is pass a law banning a bunch of made-up things that sound scary, and many gun control proponents already have great ideas along this line. For instance, I read a column in which Howard Kurtz mentioned a ban on high-magazine clips — we can certainly do without something that nonsensical. And I’ve heard the press before mention armor-piercing hollow points and plastic guns (actually, I think we already banned that made-up weapon in the ’80s). And as long as the NRA and Wayne LaPierre go apoplectic about it (“This ban on sorcerer-enchanted guns is just a slippery slope toward eliminating all witch-hexed weaponry!”), gun control proponents won’t know the difference between this and actual gun control. And this will help protect our most vulnerable people out there: politicians. Because long after the gun control advocates move on to other things, like who they want to tax next, gun owners will still be annoyed by any actual gun control legislation. One of the greatest fears politicians have is seeing an angry guy with lots of guns charging down the street, because they know he’s probably on his way to commit an act of voting.
Of course, with this idea, absolutely nothing will be done to keep criminals and madmen from obtaining guns, but that’s the effect of every other gun control law, so we’re just reaching this end in a much cheaper and less messy fashion. Because what are the options if we actually want to do something to make people safer? Let law abiding citizens like teachers carry in schools? That’s just insane. Solving the problem of guns with more guns is just another crazy idea by those people who take that “liberty” idea to dangerous extremes and cause all the other civilized countries to make fun of us. Instead, let’s get to work banning those unicorn horn-tipped bullets and feeling safer.
More: Biden on Gun Proposal: ‘I’m Shooting for Tuesday’
Not a bad idea….if we can get the Statists to waste their efforts toward banning “brands of guns without vowels in their name” or “blunderbusses with rapid-cycle ammunition”, it might dilute their efforts toward what really matters.
On the other hand, when the plain text says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, allowing pretend infringements only encourages the lunacy — just as digressions into hunting and sport do.
What we really need to do is overwhelm the Statists in the world of ideas — to repeatedly point out that governmental gun control is always about ensuring that the law-abiding are outgunned by the lawless. Bad men with guns never just decide that they’ve shot enough and are very rarely “talked down” — they stop when they are confronted by good men with guns. “Gun-free zones” are de facto shooting galleries that attract the crazies. When you need help in seconds, the police are 20 minutes away.
It’s easiest to shy away from confrontation with the Statists — they own the media and the education academy, and you’ll never get a fair debate — but the facts are overwhelmingly stacked against them on this issue…..and losing it may expose cracks in the armor shielding their other follies.
The gun control debate is now being mixed up with heretofore insoluble or poorly understood social problems/innovations: mental health, “the culture of violence” and computer games. The debate around gun control might be better served if we focused on what we do not know about, or care about in today’s dumbed down, sound-bite culture. I wrote about that problem here: http://clarespark.com/2013/01/12/hate-hard-liberty-quick-fixes/.
There is also the question here of what sort of “meds” were all of these shooters on? Anti-depressants today are handled out by doctors like candy. The problem with these is that they are both addictive and have a “rebound” factor if discontinued. In other words the drug can “make you crazy” if you happen to miss a dose and go into withdrawal. However according to the warnings I’ve read, the drugs can in some cases do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do. It would be interesting to find out exactly what sort of “meds” these shooters had been prescribed…
That won’t prove a thing.
In a country this size, you’ll find a certain number of crazy people. That’s the human condition. And when drugs are available that actually do help to control symptoms of mental illness in most of the people who take them, you’ll also find some crazy people that aren’t helped by the drugs and maybe a few whose symptoms are worsened.
You’ll never get rid of craziness by banning the drugs, any more than you will get rid of violence or even curb it by banning firearms.
Even would-be mass murderers are deterred by armed citizens, because they know they won’t be able to complete an act of mass murder. They’ll be picked off after the first victim or two.
Larry Correia refutes the gun controllers once and for all
Clare, I believe that government is fundamentally incompetent. Big dumb government has shown the ability to fund the building big slow infrastructure projects made of rock and concrete like roads, bridges, and dams. Big dumb government is also pretty good at building a military capable of destroying big stationary targets like roads, bridges, and dams. What big dumb government can’t do is make reasonably good decisions quickly. If big dumb government focused on mental health, weird but harmless people would be harassed while the truly dangerous psychopaths would receive mental health treatment after they have already killed someone. Instead, we need vigilant citizens who know their neighbors. People with local knowledge who notice when something “isn’t right”. Since most of my fellow citizens are good, I am safer if enough of them are armed to overwhelm the effect of the small minority of bad people.
Maybe the House could pass a resolution demanding that the Justice Department fully cooperate with the Fast and Furious gun running investigation before the House will consider any new gun control legislation. How can congress be expected to write new gun control legislation if the executive branch refuses to cooperate with an effort to find out how current gun laws failed? Not as fast as John Boehner’s anatomically impossible sex acts utterance, but it sends approximately the same message.
Just because you believe it doesn’t mean its true. We are talking about a government that put a man on the moon and has managed to equip the finest military in the world. We live in a country where the government, prior to the moment that right wing loonies managed to highjack the republican party, managed to create the world’s best education system, funded the worlds most advanced scientific community and build the worlds most modern cities. We can get back there too, but to do so means you have to jettison the Reaganite “government is the problem” bs and instead focus on how to make government effective again.
What is looney about wanting to limit spending to the amount of money the govt has to spend?
Put a man on the moon? Esactly…the govt’s role is to do things that individuals or private entitities cannot do on their own (though today private entitities could send a man to the moon).
The Fed govt is too big to run efficiently. Time to respect the 10th Ammendment…it is the law.
No gun ban will make guns disappear…its time we/the govt focused our time and energy on issues that will can actually create change in how our society functions.
No, it IS a bad idea. Give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile.
Here’s a much better idea.
If obama spent half as much time worrying about creating jobs as he does about the gun issue, this country might actually get somewhere with the unemployment rate.
That won’t happen until he and his goons control everything we say and do.
Katinka, the flaw in your statement is the assumption that getting people employed is more important to Obama than getting people more controlled by government. Once you stop thinking that way, it becomes very clear why he prioritizes gun control over the economy.
One can make the argument that, since Reagan left office, the US government has been doing everything it can to take jobs away from hard-working US citizens.
Katinka, if Obama put this type of effort into creating jobs, it would be just as counterproductive and liberty-infringing as his gun control efforts. Remember the “Stimulus Package”?
Indeed, it’s a general thing. Consider what Obama did for “health care reform”. Consider his approach to “deficit reduction”. The more important the issue, the more important it is that Obama be busy messing with something else.
Given his approach to healthcare his approach to jobs would probably just be to mandate you have one, and if not to round you up and put you on a chain gang. Or maybe he’d just designate all those welfare recipients as being employed in “couch testing” or “TV viewing”, then give every drug addict a federal paycheck for “taking drugs off the streets” and so forth. Then,
“There, check it out! Now we have full employment!”
His approach to anything is always going to be more state control, more tentacles poking into your personal life. When it comes to the economy, as with most other things, he’s like a drunk guy with a blowtorch, there’s a lot of harm he can do, but not much good. Best just to point him in the direction where he can do the least harm and hope for the best.
The only job any president can create is federal jobs. Obama has created a massive amount of federal jobs. That’s all he can do as far as job creation goes. Can you think of anybody else who would create even more non-military federal jobs than Obama has? Then get off his back about job creation.
The trouble with “federal jobs is that their wages are paid by……Taxpayers!
I’d like to point out that federal workers also pay federal taxes. They also buy things made by the private sector. The idea that they are a drag on the economy is nonsense. That is not to say that they cannot be more productive and that things cannot be improved….but in that respect they are no different than private sector workers. If you need proof all you need to do is to speak with your local telephone company’s customer service rep to see how efficient they are.
Federal workers are indeed a drag on the taxpayer when you consider a great many of them are vastly over paid and compensated for the tasks they perform for the taxpaying populace. On top of that, consider that the government “borrows” the money to pay those workers, and running up a yearly deficit to do it. Then, tacking that yearly deficit onto the national debt (growing it beyond the ability to even pay the intrest on that debt) is swiftly running our county into national insolvency. But, yet, people wrong believe that collapse can’t happen here in the good old USA. It’s truly amazing people can’t grasps reality.
The federal goverment can do some good in very targeted areas, but it has grown to large and no longer functions as the founders intended. We are indeed on the same path as the Romans. The voting population has figured out how to vote themselves the treasury (Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, croney capitalism, bailouts, etc.). The wealth creators are now outnumbered by the wealth takers. And the wealth takers will NEVER give up what the government has promised. And what the government has promised, is not possible to deliver no mater if they confiscate all the wealth of the world.
It’s just a matter of time before the pain everyone wants to avoid…..is delivered across the masses. And it aint going to be pretty. I’m 48 years old, and I think I’ll see the end of the USA as we know it within my lifetime.
Ya, government workers do pay taxes and buy stuff but once again the money is all originally from private sector taxpayers. As the government continues to increase its size and spending it hires more and more workers which in turn have their wages paid by more taxpayer money. In order to cover for the increased spending the government will either borrow money or tax people more. Any money spent by government workers on private goods and services could have been spent by the original owners of that money(the private sector workers)as well as been used to facilitate more goods and services or more importantly help hire more private sector workers. The simple fact is that government workers are a leech on both the taxpayers and the economy. In regards to your last statement while sometimes companies can become too complex and lag they still have to worry about going out of business. The government does not and thats why the post office can run billion dollar deficits and still be going as inefficient and unproductive as ever.
Again, we see the misuse of the term “assault weapon” by this writer. An assault weapon is a firearm that is capable of “fully automated” fire — the weapon will cycle and continue firing as long as the trigger is depressed.
An AR-15, by definition is not an “assault weapon” because it is a semi-automatic weapon — one trigger pull — one round fired.
PS — assault weapons are already illegal and may only be possessed legally with special federal license.
Did you used to watch Roadrunner cartoons and then explain to everyone that coyotes can’t actually buy explosives?
Actually, they can over the internet.
Ummm….Al Gore, Super Genius, hadn’t invented the internet when those cartoons were made.
and again we see a misuse of the term assault weapon. An assault weapon is a term defined by the 1994 assault weapons ban that has nothing to do with the functioning of a weapon and everything to do with cosmetic features. Pistol grips (the more the scarier, I personally have 5 on my rifle) telescoping or folding stocks, rails, flash suppressors, basically anything that makes a rifle/pistol look ‘tac-cool’ makes it a potentially banned weapon.
Assault RIFLE: A rifle of intermediate caliber capable of selective fire. Meaning something other than just safe/semi. There is an option for 2-3 round burst or full auto fire.
No Beckwith, an assault RIFLE is fully automatic as defined by the U.S. Army. Assault WEAPON is a legislativly made up term the Dems needed to scare people about certain rifles that bear a resemblance to actual assault rifles.
Take it one step further Leon, an “Assault Weapon” is a weapon used to commit assault. A loaf of bread can be used to commit assault. Let’s ban loaves of bread, nobody NEEDS an “Assault Weapon”(except politicians, police or filthy rich celebrities).
“First remove the plank from thine own eye…”
The term “Assault Weapon” is wholly made up term which you incorrectly apply to Assault Rifles which are capable of automatic fire.
Pretending with the left on a whole host of issues is how we got in the mess we’re in now. No more.
Shall Not Be Infringed.
STOP calling semi-auto firearms Assualt Weapons. They’re not. If you can’t spray and pray with it it’s not an assualt weapon.
The term “assault weapon” is a made-up term invented by Josh Sugarmann to convince low information voters and hysterics that “scary black rifles” are “eeeeevil”. An assault rifle is a full automatic weapon. AR-15′s aren’t assault rifles. They’re just rifles.
I think there is an opportunity here: We do need to ban assault weapons. A ban with no sunset clause. The Republicans need to propose it.
Why?
Because last time Sen Feinstein got to decide what the manufactured term “assault weapon” means. And knowing nothing about firearms at all, she picked a bunch of terms that have no relation to the operation of the firearm, but could be made to sound scary. It was a tough fight for her, and she only managed to get over the hump with a sunset clause that I think she hoped she’d be able to repeal… if her actions hadn’t turned Congress over to the Republicans in the next election.
Today, ‘assault weapon’ means nothing in federal law. So let’s define it:
assault weapon – a weapon that has been used in the commission of an act of violence
The ban: no person shall own or possess a weapon with which they have been convicted of committing a crime of violence.
Disposition: Such a weapon shall be transferred to an appropriate third party at auction, with the proceeds contributing to the restitution due to the victim(s) of the crime.
Pre-emption: no other definition of assault weapon shall be used in the United States of America. No feature, quality, accessory or other distinguishing feature shall be used as the basis to restrict the ownership, sale, transfer or possession of any form of arm that has a sporting purpose or has a reasonable utility to a well-regulated militia.
I like it.
There was a law that added 20 years to the sentence of any felony crime committed with a sawed off shotgun.
The postmen had to call up the local cops when they emptied their pillar boxes, as several sawed off shotguns were likely to have been deposited.
Such a law has the advantage of not applying to lawful folk.
Joe, I read through the article twice and didn’t see any misuse of the term assault weapon. As a matter of fact the author only uses the term in the context of the “assault weapons ban” which is what the ban was in fact called.
And you never hear about who’s going to be responsible for all of the deaths of people who could NOT defend themselves with guns. Just the other day, a lady protected her family with a handgun and wounded a man who was breaking into her house. Just the other day, a young man shot and severely wounded a criminal home intruder with his father’s AR-15. His father, by the way, is a deputy sheriff. If both this woman and this boy were killed because they could not defend themselves from these criminal home invaders, who would answer for that? Who would hold telethons for those people? Who would hold committee hearings in Washington for them? Who would argue on CNN for THEIR rights and THEIR lives? Liberals never, ever, think of the unintended consequences of their actions. Unfortunately, we are the poor jerks who have to pay for their desire to “feel good” about themselves. As for the Constitution, you must really be foolish if you think a liberal cares about that.
A pharmacist shot and killed one intruder just Wednesday (01-09-13) evening. Two bad guys came into the pharmacy, guns blazing, and struck the guy’s 68 year old mother in the leg. The pharmacist was able to return fire killing one guy. The other managed to get away. It was clear these two had planned to kill both people and steal drugs. This happened in Madera, California. An interesting side note, I googled/binged “madera pharmacist kills intruder” and didn’t get one lousy return because the media is not interested in telling anyone the truth about people that have stopped a crime by defending themselves. How’s that for “fair” and balanced?
What makes you think those consequences are unintended? Keep in mind that the same people who constantly demand “gun control” also demand unilateral disarmament for us vs. foreign enemies, first the Communists, now the Islamists.
They also demand an end to virtually all energy use, to “Save Holy Mother Gaia” from “climate change”. They claim to be worried bout “carbon emissions”, but steadfastly oppose non-CO2 generating power sources like hydroelectric and nuclear power, instead demanding solar and wind only, in spite of all the science showing neither one is adequate.
They forbid the use of modern farming methods, demanding “organic” foods only. Never mind that those modern methods were developed in the first place to increase crop yields to stave off famines. In their minds, the “real” purpose was to destroy as much of their holy “ecosystem” as possible.
And oh yes, they are determined to abort unborn children while fighting tooth-and-nail to keep murderers from even being imprisoned, much less executed. (See “Mumia Abu-Jemal”.)
When you put it all together, the only rational explanation is that they imply hate human beings, other than themselves and some very violent types they envy for being “rebels against oppressive society”; i.e., the ones who like to kill the rest of us.
They dream of us being cold, starving, and dying. And of being unable to protect ourselves when their anti-paladins come riding in to finish us off.
Exactly what will happen after we’re gone, I don’t think they’ve quite worked out yet. All they know is they hate us, and want us all dead.
Once you understand this, their behavior makes perfect sense. And it doesn’t make any sense at all, under any other assumption.
Which means they are either malevolent, or mindless. I do not believe that they are mindless.
clear ether
eon
They could be both malevolent and mindless.
That selection gets my vote, anyway.
Yes, they hate us and it makes perfect sense because their Father is the Father who despises humanity, who sought to make sure humanity would be forever separated from a righteous Lord Creator through causing the Fall of Man by the infection of sin. And because they crave the sin in their hearts instead of humbling themselves and admitting their natural evilness and need for a Saviour’s sacrifice, they are filled to the brim with their Father’s hate for all humanity.
Perhaps it would suffice to say they loathe and despise us with perfect malevolence and perfect mindlessness; for they own neither their own minds or their own souls.
We need to be careful. Most of the most vocal demands (like banning hi-capacity magazines) I fear are just window dressing. The thing that scares me the most is the idea that there must be federal involvement in any and all firearm transfers period. This is merely gun registration through the back door. And that is really what the hard core anti-gun people want most as a first step to their eventual confiscation. It would also provide a database to institute a tax upon firearms and ammunition, and as the SCOTUS has indicated with the OBAMACARE decision, they are apparently no limits to any law just so long as you call it a tax.
Up front, I admit it is difficult, almost impossible, to have a real debate on this issue, the noise to signal ratio is off the chart. But with a background in engineering management, I judge there is some legitimacy in record screening to prevent weapon purchases by those who clearly should not possess them: violent criminals and insane people. I resurrect a concept of John Ashcroft, a wise man and AG. He thought a rigorous and accurate data base of those who must be denied the right of a weapon purchase would work with two key provisions: it could be challenged, and any purchase which resulted from its use would be expunged in some reasonable time,e.g. one month. I favor the death penalty and would call for its use for any government employee who knowingly and with full knowledge, abused this data base. Some intelligence holds the latent power of life and death; this data base would be one.
One respondent,a cop, reported that he was deemed unstable by three different mental health experts who held that any one who wanted to carry a weapon, be a cop, was per se unstable, ineligible to bear arms. The law should provide for the cancellation of the professional certification of such abusive creatures.
There is an entire area of law needing legislation which centers on the epic power of IT; the concept of individual privacy is going the way of the dinosaur. Weapon ownership is simply one important aspect. (I find it ironic that the right to kill a baby in the womb, rests on this right of privacy which is nowhere found in our Constitution. It makes Joe Biden, a Catholic, appear to simply be an incredibly unthinking man. Behind his smile is a vacuum.)
I have also read recently of mental health professionals who judge that there are social forces within our society which facilitate slaughter of innocents, and suicide. These topics deserve debate.
I do not think that the Second Amendment should become a dead letter by power mad people, but I do believe we can use modern electronics to limit,not stop, evil.
Apologies. I wrote this. My mistake, hit the wrong key.
I know several people who were screened by a psychiatrist to work for a company who were labeled “Closet alcoholics” because they held conservative views and the psychiatrist genuinely and wrongly assumed they were hiding something big by saying crazy conservative nonsense. After all, who doesn’t party, cheat on their wives and such? To him, the denial was the proof. His services were discontinued.
Rather like the psychlogist at Macy’s in “Miracle on 34th Street”. (the one with Natalie Wood)
Gosh, how fun was that movie!
You are correct in that thinking. They call it the ‘gunshow loophole’. It is not a gunsow loophole, but the same loophole that exists nationwide. It allows you to decide what to do with your property and who to sell it to.
The gunshow loophole that the left screams about is the idea that private (non FFL licensed people) have the right to sell their personally owned property to someone else without government intervention in that sale.
Meaning that not only can you NOT sell your property to another consenting adult without the intervention of the FEDERAL government, you cannot gift, will, transfer or otherwise leave a gun for some other law abiding member of your family without the involvement of the FEDERAL government.
End game: I can’t buy a ruger youth model .22 for my (eventually) 10 year old son without someone doing a write up on why we need this and is he qualified to own it…
That is correct. I have made use of that freedom while it still exists to sell all of my guns at inflated prices to people who were lined up outside gun stores in the last few weeks. The Gummint is never going to believe that you had all your guns in a canoe that flipped over while you were fishing.
Any way, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
And if I, a private citizen, sell a gun or weapon to an unstable or prohibited person, I can be held liable by the laws already on the books, background check or not. There are already laws that cover the “loophole”. Enforce them.
unless I’m mistaken, I haven’t really heard a peep of outrage from the residents of Chicago, or Detroit, or NYC, or the other places where there is a murder or more a day. So, if the people affected most are not calling for the right to bear arms, and don’t care and can obviously live with the shooting galleries (btw are the people being shot similar to old folks in the health care system/ – dispensable?, maybe that’s why the shoulder shrug? ) maybe the majority agree that “Looney Tunes” type controls is ok….
As a pistol permit holder in NYS, and an “assault weapon” owner, I can say that one of the things that the national media leave out of the whole equation, at least in NYC is that there are so many peace officers, from meter coin collection people to corrections to court officers to probation to bank guards that there really are alot of concealed carry permits. Bloomberg just doesn’t want you and I to carry. But the city is full of badges, many of the BS badges, like the NYC Sheriffs who tow cars and the NYC animal control people and the GED graduates who guard prisoners as well as all the retired cops, many thousands of them.
I don’t agree with their permitting system, having been turned down myself even though I had a state permit, for full carry, and worked in the South Bronx I was turned down. I disagree with them but the fact remains, there are alot of legally held guns in NYC.
Probably one out of ten people in Queens are either cops, retired cops, corrections, court officer, etc. The safe neighborhoods are loaded with guns. They’re just not guns on a permit, but a badge. Bloomberg never talks about that. And the short answer to the question of poor folks in the ghetto is they’re generally packing too, just not legally. Many non criminals are packing when they go out.
Detroit has no restriction on the right to bear arms. Michigan is an open carry state with preemption. We have shall-issue carry permits.
We have enough problems as it is, can you imagine how bad it would be if we were like NYC and Chicago and had effectively no right to bear arms?
That’s always been part of the so called urban/rural devide. For whatever reason it seems that as you get more people living more densely in a few cities they start caring less about their rights and demanding more nanny government. Large American cities, especially the ones in blue states, probably have more in common culturally with Europe than they do with rural America. These are the cities that elect people like nanny Bloomberg, Rahm Emmanuel, Nancy Pelosi, etc. I’m not sure exactly what the reason is, maybe there’s just a higher per capita reliance on welfare and the vote to keep sucking at the govt tit, maybe there’s some latent inborn herd mentality that gets tripped by close living conditions, or maybe the people who want to be controlled are drawn to cities while those who want to be free are driven from them. I Don’t know, hard to say why, but it is a valid phenomenon. Why do you think one of the biggest tenants of the “green” agenda is to force everyone to live densely crowded big cities? Because history shows that cramming people into those conditions tends to result in more left wing politics over time.
A salient set of points on rural v. urban America. I can say, as someone who lives 20 miles north of NYC, and who was painted on the Journal News map as a permit holder, that the majority of the rank and file members of NYPD and a good many NYERS are for concealed carry. They just know it won’t happen because the bosses don’t want it. Period. NYC issued concealed carry permits, to the general public, until ’65. The crime wave started right after they stopped generally issuing them. Gun control is part of the communist agenda. And I say this as someone who has worked hand in glove with NYC government. The communists did not lose the cold war! The won! They took over most municipal governments in terms of the cultural leanings. From the destruction of families by the family court system to the destruction of morals by moral decline, they won! And the sad thing is, like in the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the people who have been infected don’t even know it! They go to sporting events, eat dinner and live their lives like it’s normal. And to them, it is. It is normal for millions of Americans to pay 40 percent of their income in taxes, possess no firearms, have no hope of a normal married life for them or their children or one of sobriety. This is not to say that puritanism is good or that life was great 100 years ago; it wasn’t. It was tough and unfair to Blacks and Jews and anyone who was not WASP. But that doesn’t mean that urban life today is all right. It’s not. It’s tough and unfair to anyone who is independent, moral, upright, competitive and believes in living or dying by their own efforts. If you want to start a business, get rich and live your own way, good luck in America. In the South you’ll be told what religion to believe and in the North you’ll be told not to believe any religion. The grass is always greener. The places you can legally carry a gun, you generally don’t need one. I’ve carried a gun in Vermont. I’ve carried a gun in Maine. You don’t need one. No one cares about you or generally sees you. Now, you can carry a gun in the South generally, but try getting Chinese food and cold beer at 3 a.m. and then going to an after hours club, where you meet some really hot women. Good luck. The grass IS always greener. New Yorkers deserve shall issue, and people in other places deserve great food and dancing. But you know what, you can carry a spear gun in NYC, or a compound bow. Shhhhhhhhh……. Don’t tell Bloomberg.
Hey, nothing to worry about, folks!
Senator Grassley of Iowa, (you may recall he’s one of the prime movers in the Fast & Furious conspiracy investigation,) announced yesterday he’s “willing to consider” national prohibition of magazines that hold more than ten rounds of ammunition. Representatives of the Democratic [sic] party haven’t even finished typing up their list of demands, and senior Republicans are running up the white flag.
See? It’s all legal.
What really torques me is that those who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, like, apparently, Grassley and the Vice President, are so blithe about infringing on a natural right specifically recognized by that Constitution. They calmly discuss treachery and treason in a President-sponsored committee. Basically they seem to want to be part of the ‘enemy within’.
Most oaths these days are taken as flippantly as clicking agree on a software licensing agreement. Politicians are a reflection of the populace, and unfortunately the populace has shown us by the their voting that they very much desire an autocracy, and megalomaniacs like Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, etc, are all to willing to comply.
Actually Fred, it isn’t really treason, that has a specific definition in the Constitution. But they are guilty of Perjury and Theft of Honest Services. When you knowingly lie to a Federal Judge in the course of making a sworn statement that is Perjury. When you accept a job under the condition that you swear to “support and defend the Constitution” and knowingly attempt to violate it that is Theft of Honest Service. Both are felonies.
DOJ: 95% Drop in Youth Victimized by Guns; 6x More Likely to be Victimized by Knife; Children of Unmarried 3.8x More Likely To Be Victims By Terence P. Jeffrey January 11, 2013
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/doj-95-drop-youth-victimized-guns-6x-more-likely-be-victimized-knife-children-unmarried
http://rightreactions.blogspot.com/2013/01/stupid-question.html
We already have a system to verify if a purchaser has a criminal record when purchasing through an FFL.
We also have a system to check if a purchaser has ever been adjudicated a mental defective(VA Tech, potentially arizona and aurora) when purchasing through an FFL but, reporting someone who has been ajudicated a mental defective and has not been convicted of a crime is considered by many to be a violation of privacy and therefore they are not entered into the system. This is what I believe deserves the frank discussion everyone talks about.
With private sales, the seller is prohibited from selling to someone that they have reason to believe are prohibited from purchasing firearms. It was intended to allow for transfers among friends, family and those not doing it as a source of regular income and would not occur often enough to be a worthy tax resource. Private sales are prohibited for interstate transfers and an FFL is required.
I did this from memory and did not review the laws before writing it so feel free to correct any errors as I will not be offended.
Those involved in criminal activities are most likely to kill or be killed with innocent bystanders being collateral damage. Street gangs(gang bangers)are an on going criminal enterprise and should be prosecuted under the RICO act just as it is done for the Mob. It may not make big press but it will have an impact on gun violence.
Much as the article says, new laws will be followed by the law abiding while criminals (known for their propensity to ignore such things) will continue to not follow them. I see new gun laws the same as police making a big push on tickets for not wearing seat belts to show their presence during a crime wave. Newton was one of if not the most horrific shootings I can remember and the cry that “something has to be done” is not unexpected but, going after law abiding citizens to show a presence is misguided to say the least.
Armor piercing hollow points… Someone actually SAID that??
They probably were looking at a box of GECO Action Safety rounds;
http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogEntry.aspx?id=2111&cid=25
A solid-copper “hollow point”, actually a hollow tubular projectile intended to deflate car tires, it could be mistaken for an armor-piercing round by anyone who doesn’t know much about firearms. Which seems to include most “progressives”.
BTW, I tested this ammunition back in the Seventies. Yes, it would penetrate auto body work, but so will most pistol bullets hitting with more than about 300 foot-pounds of kinetic energy, which is just about anything with more energy that a .38 Special standard-velocity “police” load. No, it would not penetrate body armor, especially a vest with a hardened trauma plate. (Yes, I tried it.)
My main complaint with the GECO ammunition was that it seemed to have a relatively short accurate range; beyond about 50 yards groups tended to open more than I would expect from standard 9mm rounds. Since the bullet is basically a hollow “tube”, with a hole straight through it, I always suspected a “tunnel wing” aerodynamic effect was the culprit, causing the bullet to yaw and/or pitch excessively in flight, but never had access to a high-speed (i.e., supersonic) wind tunnel to prove or disprove it.
cheers
eon
Yup. Also fully automatic bolt action shotguns and magazines that hold over 100 rounds.
I heard someone saying “high ammunition magazines”. I also heard .223 ammo referred to as high power—I guess varmints would agree.
Let’s just ban all clips that hold more that 10 rounds—if any exist. They would be a pain to use if they exist anyways.
A magazine holding more than 100 rounds would be too heavy and prone to fail.
Obama understands that he has no chances to push new radical legislation on gun control through Congress. What he will do is very much part of his style. He will issue an executive order just as a provocation having MSM behind him. This way he will try to smear Republicans and NRA one more time, and then he will easily push any economic and social agenda he has in mind.
National Institute of Justice Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and Gun Violence 1994-2003 January 12, 2013
http://publicintelligence.net/nij-assault-weapons-ban-study/
Great post Frank. Indeed you and the gun absolutists are the only ones who know anything about guns. Congrats, you are so super smart. In the meantime they are taking away your guns because of the absolute intransigence of the NRA and other interested parties to engage in any meaningful discussion about gun violence. Kudos!
There is no ‘winning’ this debate unless we abandon the rules that the left has imposed in order to limit our options.
We must be brutally honest with ourselves as well as with others. We must never, ever back down.
The primary purpose of The Second Amendment is to ensure that we have the tools to kill a tyrannical government. All other considerations are valid, but are secondary to that primary purpose.
If the left chooses to take our rights away, we must warn them of the ultimate consequences: Civil war. We will kill the government if and when it tries to take our rights away from us. If we abandon or compromise that stand, we lose.
If politicians on the right choose to abandon their Oaths to The Constitution, they will bear guilt for the bloodshed that follows, as well.
The line in the sand is: Shall not be infringed.
Try to take our guns away and we *will* kill you.
Period.
If you let them take our guns, they will kill and enslave you and your loved ones.
Period.
Those are the true stakes. That is the bottom line.
This is no longer a game to be played by ideologues on either side. It is no longer a polite disagreement between Americans. This is the entrance to Death Ground. We must choose to die on our feet or choose to live on our knees.
Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.
We must each, individually and personally, be willing to sacrifce absolutely everything upon the altar of freedom. If we’re not willing to do that, we must surrender, now, and save the death and destruction that will be visited upon this nation if we fight for what is ours. We must abandon all hope of freedom. We must abandon our families, our properties and our futures. We must meekly, and with bowed heads, line up for the re-education camps and the gulags and the labor battalions. We must forget that we were ever free men, with the responsibilities of free men.
…or we must fight in order to keep what is, by all rights, ours.
Although I support the NRA, I am annoyed that they keep trying to base our right to keep and bear arms on sporting uses and self defense. The Second Amendment is about the right of citizens to defend themselves from foreign invasion or *domestic* tyranny.
There have been in the last hundred years successful coup d’etats because the military and police sympathized more with the people than their leaders. Ferdinand Marcos comes to mind.
Don’t do anything stupid, but don’t fail to do what’s right.
I figure the Letters of Marque and Reprisal clause shows the Framers intended private ownership of ships with cannon, certainly a crew served weapon. Also the 1792 and 1795 militia acts required the ownership of Muskets, Bayonets, Pistols, Cannon and Swords.
Which was just about lock, stock and barrel, everything there was available.
I would support amendment of the Dick Act (Title 10, Section 311) to expand the unorganized militia to include women not in the national guard, and persons over 45 who had not been an officer in the military, with a note that such militia membership came with the expectation that they would be able to furnish their own weapon on demand.
Sure, it’s our intransigence that’s the problem. Not theirs.
What you quisling compromise-worshippers are evading is this simple fact: If you give up a piece of your cake every time someone demands it, you will eventually have none left.
Where are the trades that are the hallmark of a genuine compromise? What existing laws that fail/do nothing to crime are being offered for repeal in trade for new ones? I’d like to see 922(r) go away, for one. The arbitrary barrel length restrictions in the NFA would be nice to see go away too.
I’m sorry, was the plain English in the Second Amendment too confusing for you?
Brutus, teh 2nd Amendment is clear. The government hasa zero authority to pass any gun-control laws. Hiw about violent video games? Because of the 1st Amendment, they also cannot be banned by government. You say we do not want to have a reasonable discussion about “gun violence”? Sure, we are willing… but where is the legal authority for such laws as the Left demanads?
Make you a deal. If you guys on the Left really want to have the discussion, then propose a Constitutional Amendment to restrict certain types of weapons. One could easily make the case for restricting Anti-Aircraft Missiles. We wouldn’t want any yahoo to be able to shoot down an aircraft, right?
The thing is, your side will never do such a thing. You do not desire a Constitution. You think the government should be simply allowed to do whatever you think is right, and a Constitution, a binding agreement amongst all of us, is unimportant. Who needs such an agreement, right? Well, that’s how you feel until the other side is in charge, then you scream bloody murder, if the other side should ignore the agreement.
The Constitutioni was not imposed upon us. It was a formal agreement by the governed. It is subject to modification by us, by 2/3 majority approval. If you want to change the agreement, then proceed to try to do so, but do not think we will allow you to just ignore, or discard, the agreement, and take away our agreed upon Rights as Citizens.
You do not want a “discussion”. You just want your way. When you can’t get it, all you can do is call us names and throw tantrums. Offer an Amendment to the Agreement, if you have the stones, and we will talk. Until then, don’t go around saying how we, the other side, are the problem. You are the problem. You want to break the Agreement and impose your way upon the rest of us. You don’t actually want a discussion, at all.
If they tried to pass a Constitutional Amendment to define and limit the Second Amendment, I would be amazed. If it was well written and made sense, I might even try to help it get passed. A Constitutional Amendment is the only legal route for gun control legislation in the US. As for the laws of 1934 and 1968, we tolerate them not because they are legal and Constitutional, but because they don’t bother most people and it is too much trouble to fight them. Just be careful about bothering people with illegitimate laws, though…
“The government hasa zero authority to pass any gun-control laws”
Not according the the US supreme court.
YOu know it’s ironic there’s all this talk of “comprimise”, but people seem to forget that comprimise has more than one meaning.
Compromise – n. 1) a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
2) v. to expose or make vulnerable to danger, suspicion, scandal, etc.; jeopardize: a military oversight that compromised the nation’s defenses.
All too often of late “compromise” for Republicans and conservatives entails the second one.
We must ban illusion-piercing bullets, and bullet points, and related paraphernalia.
Ban water guns. Ban a gun and cure water shortages. Kill two birds with one colt python .44 magnum.
Also, what kind of weapon is not an assault weapon? Is it legal to assault someone with it if it is not an assault weapon? And what kind of object is not a weapon anyway? Is a paper weight used to bash in someone’s head a weapon?
I can’t wait to commit my next act of voting! And as far as something to add to the ban list, how about those terrible radar guns.
Let’s copy some existing federal gun laws and pass them again. And add a law banning Fast and Furious type operations.
I propose an immediate ban on the ultra-heavy, lethality-enhanced (UHLE) iridium rounds. With a density of 22.6g/cm3, these “yoolie” rounds are TWICE as deadly as lead bullets (11.3g/cm3). NO ONE needs a bullet that’s literally TWICE as heavy!
Good idea. How about banning clips over 10rds; integral, non-removable stocks; automatic-lead laser sights, and axe-based forearms. Oh, and hand carried rifles over 57mm
Don’t forget the absolute necessity of banning the shoulder thing that goes up on recoilless rifles!
Its for the children!
Maybe they can ban smart bullets as well. You know, the ones that have active seekers built into them and control their direction through nanoscale gyrscopes.
And not to forget 2mm hypersonic cartridges. The high magazine clips for those can hold millions of rounds. Do you want to be responsible for thousands of schoolchildren killed by these hypervelocity rounds? I thought not. Ban them!
Heckler & Koch HK XM25 IAWS
The short version is that we already have ‘smart bullets’ in the inventory and in use in combat zones.
As for 20mm scale hypersonic bullets? Well…they are working on 20mm micro turbines…but haven’t applied that tech to bullets, as yet. Give ‘em time, though. (Then, again, we don’t really know what DARPA has in development, either.)
Problem is penumbra-sensing judges. A law against blue toy plastic water pistols would be enough for a judge convinced of his superior knowledge and good intentions (can you say Yale Law School?) to apply to anything with a trigger.
Back in the last days of WWII Der Fuhrer, hiding in der Fuhrer Bunker, issued bunches and bunches of commands and directives. Move this division from here to there… counter attack with this Army… problem being that there were no divisions and no Armies. But, his orders were passed along to the field commanders. Who ignored them. What else could they do? Those people outside of Berlin were living in Reality Land. The Bizarro Land of the Berlin Third Reich fell.
Back during the lasts days of South Viet Nam the lawmakers, controlling barely any part of Saigon, passed laws, issued decrees, gave orders and even changed the head of their government, several times. Nobody cared outside Saigon. Those people outside Saigon were living in Reality Land.
Now, we have a bunch of numbnuts in DC (Bizarro Land) ready to issue new laws, give orders, implement new polcies. Then, there are those of us who live in Reality Land. Those of us living in Reality Land are either free to follow the dictates of the dictators, or hold to the Constitution and our guns and our freedoms.
So, I pose this scenario. Suppose those of us living in Reality Land decide to ignore those living in Bizarro Land. What happens when the first American is seen, on live TV, standing in front of a tank on the Washington Mall area? Blocking its movement like we saw happening in Tienanmen Square? What happens when we see the first dead American with federal troops standing around him with their M-16s or M-4, or whatever? On live TV. Will 100million gun owners grab their firearms and walk into the streets screaming ‘No More!’? If that were to happen, would the government order F-15s and F-16s to napalm Main Street America? Would the government order their B-52s, B-1s and B-2, to carpet bomb downtown Denver, downtown St. Louis, downtown Springfield, Ill?
Would the government call out the military to quash those 100million Americans? Would the soldiers obey and try? Remember, those National Guard people live in the same community that they would be repressing. As do their families. What you would find is a gun hiding behind every blade of grass. A revolutionary-war-marksman behind every tree. And Naked tyranny on live TV.
Mao said that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. Freedom grows from the barrel of a gun as well. What determines the outcome, freedom or tyranny is the person holding the gun. If more people choose to hold both a gun and to the constitution, rather than listen to dictators, we will have freedom.
What would happen if 100mllion gun owners simple decided to ignore Bizarro Land, hold onto their guns and the Constitution? All very peacefully. Would the citizens of Bizarro Land back down? I think we are about to discover the real character of Reality Land, and that of Bizarro Land. I have my copy of the Constitution, my gun and every expectation of living peacefully with my freedoms intact. Let us hope the citizens of Bizarro Land respect this.
This debate is not about scary v. non-scary looking guns. It is not about hi-cap mags v. single stack mags. It is not about mental health issues, or any other such issues. It is about the 2nd Amendment, why it was placed in the Bill of Rights and what it represents in terms of freedoms and responsibilities. The leftist/marxists want to change the debate, reframe the debate, control the language of the debate. The debate is about Freedom and the right to preserve our Freedoms. And nothing else.
When I state that the fed govt is $16T in debt with $90T in unfunded liabilities, the antigunners are unable or unwilling to grasp the implications.
If your concerned with unfunded liabilities going forward, then do get behind congress and support shifting those liabilities back to individual responsibility, beyond honoring the baby boomer contracts. There should be no civil unrest and anxiety over a problem so easy to correct if those screaming so loud will support the change.
Ferdinand Marcos told his military to fire on protesting citizens. The military moved tanks and marched soldiers around a lot. A few orders to shoot were given, but ignored. And they moved soldiers around here and there and issued more orders. And no one was shot. And the Philippines were freed of Ferdinand Marcos.
Do you think our military and police will fire on our women and children? All soldiers, no matter their training and loyalty, have lines they won’t cross.
They’ll durn sure begin shooting if shot at! Read the hundreds of topics and responses on PJM relative to a tyrannical government and gun control. No shortage of radical extremists with guns and a delusional state of mind.
How do you propose 100 million people peacefully hold on to their guns and the 2nd Amendment when Homeland Security, ATF, or even Secret Service goons show up to collect them from you?
http://dcclothesline.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/if-they-come-for-your-guns-do-you-have-a-responsibility-to-fight/
Someone might want to check me on this, memory fails with age… The ‘Boston Massacre’ consisted of about 5 deaths, all ‘American Patriots’. They were killed by the ‘Kings Troops’ who fired on a crowd. Those in the crowd were opposing the ‘Kings Troops’ and by extension… the King. Nobody in the crowd that was fired on had a firearm. The ‘Kings Troops’ were being opposed with snowballs, sticks, and a sword. All this happened on March 5, 1770.
For several years tempers ebbed and flowed. The Militia was formed and trained. On April 19, 1775 George Gage, commanding 800 British troops marched on Concord, Mass., hoping to seize a quantity of arms and powder. Gage found 70 Militiamen, and after demanding their surrender ordered his men to fire on the Patriots. Eight Patriots were killed. What Gage did not know was that there were many, many more Militiamen streaming towards Concord. Meanwhile, the British were seizing arms and supplies. The Militiamen were waiting outside the city. Waiting. Militiamen, militia volunteers and Patriots held the west end of the bridge. The British were on the east end. The British fired the first shots. Major John Buttrick commanded the Americans to return fire (the shots heard around the world) killing a dozen British troops. On the march back to Lexington the British were harassed with sniper fire from every direction. Sixty-five British troops were killed, many more wounded.
It took about five years for the Revolutionary War to breakout in earnest. How many years have Americans been harassed by our government? Not just harassed, but killed by government action. Tax courts set up where Citizens have virtually no rights. Regulations by unseen bureaucrats constantly harassing everybody, properties seized under these regulations. Nothing is different today from the late 1770s. Nothing. This country is now as divided within our boarders today as the Colonies were divided from the British homeland.
I fully expect the “King’s Troops” to do something stupid. They already have. I expect worse. Nothing will happen Tuesday afternoon, or Wednesday morning. But… when the ‘King’ orders confiscation troops will move. Something stupid happened at Kent State. Much more is on the line today. Something very stupid happened at My Lai. Stupid people, short tempers, frayed nerves, the wrong person in command, the wrong person behind a trigger… something stupid will happen. When it happens congress must be prepared to move very quickly, impeaching and removing this bunch in power or things will go south very, very quickly.
Gloomy prediction? Yeah, but history repeats when we forget, fail to learn or just become arrogant. When there is a failure of all three? All it takes is one mistake, one accident and it all falls apart. That is when those 100million firearms owners will walk into the streets. When the ‘king’ so oppresses and the congress fails to act in the best interest of Americans, there will be bloodshed. And when the smoke clears, who will have had the moral right to use force of arms? Who will have had the legal right? History, I am afraid, will repeat. The ‘King’ will issue his orders very soon. The “Kings’ Troops” will march. Something stupid will happen.
So, to answer your question… those 100million American will be peaceful until a few dozen Americans are killed resisting tyranny. Then, they will not be so peaceful. All that is left is the timetable. Six months? A year? Three years? I don’t know. What I do know is this president and his followers do not care about the law, the constitution, truth or the welfare of the American Citizen.
God help us all. I hope I am wrong.
And the way to to reduce drunk driving is by making it harder for sober people to buy cars.
No one needs a gonkulator to hunt deer.
We should ban those immediately, for the children.
I think we have already passed the critical mass of governmental regulations and reached the point when they become irrelevant. There is only one thing that keeps those regulations in place – the European tradition to obey the law. The governmental over-regulation of lives of American citizens eventually will lead to a massive on behalf of Americans when they simply stop following senseless laws and regulations. The situation will become similar to that in the late Soviet Union when the government pretended that it was in control, and the population pretended it was following the government. Eventually, the system deteriorated and collapsed.
Correction of the above post:
The governmental over-regulation of lives of American citizens eventually will lead to a massive sabotage on behalf of Americans when they simply stop following senseless laws and regulations.
Most people have a sense for what is right and wrong. Most common law is just common sense. When regulations and rules get too arbitrary and silly, people fall back on what is sensible and just pretend on paper to follow the rules and regs. Many a Soviet factory failed to produce quotas but on paper they were models of industry. (cf. Solzhenitsin)
Solving the problem of guns with more guns is just another crazy idea by those people who take that “liberty” idea to dangerous extremes…
I know! It’s almost as silly as passing laws fining people who steal! Er..wait a minute…
Don’t forget those dasdardly ice bullets, the ones that melt after being shot so there are no rifling marks left to identify the perpetrating gun … These should be banned too, just sayin’
Will they ban my 40 watt plasma rifle?
32. Ahnold
Will they ban my 40 watt plasma rifle?
40 watts? I can barely read a book at 40 watts. Plasma rifle is more like 40 Terawatts. Check the specs in the owners manual, usually in the back pages.
Cheers,
No, but your 75 watt parimutual betting assault rifle will be banned.
More like 50kw total….
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121422-Military-Laser-Slices-Steel-1km-Away
Obama needs a more fitting change to his position:
A petition to change his title from “President”… to “Caesar”.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-title-chief-executive-united-states-president-caesar/Y9qFCnCk?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
This reminds me of that post on Ace of Spades explaining that the new XM-8 rifle system for the US Military includes a secret enchantment by Gary Gygax (of sainted memory) making it +4 against orcs, ogres, and hill giants.
We need immediate bans on:
- high capacity sling bolts
- chamber-based muzzles
- super-sized stock actions
- counterclockwise threaded ammo
- rear-facing sights
Call your congressperson today! Call your broker! Call the pizza guy!
I want to see all 357. caliber pari-automatics banned.
357.0 caliber (906mm)? That’s big.
I just got the 3-dimensional, off the shelf version of Angry Birds. Gonna play with them, but won’t tell them the PIGS
I just bought the grandkids the wooden game version of Angry Birds. Eventually I will explain to them the word “PIGS” means “People In Government Stealing”, which is why the Birds are so Angry. Or maybe I won’t have to. They’re smart – they could very well figure it all out themselves.
The issue with terms is exactly what they want. Eric Holder said it himself, “we need to brainwash them into thinking differently about guns.”
Semi-auto = automatic
30round mag is worse then 3-10round mags
scary looking = assault weapon
Ammo vest = body armor
black cloths = full body armor
2nd amendment = hunting/sports
more guns = more crime
NRA = Rasist/Tea Party/Terrorist
Etc…
In the wake of December’s horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Vice President Joe Biden is chairing a panel of experts that will make gun-control recommendations to President Barack Obama by the end of the month. The president has said that enacting new restrictions on guns will be one of his highest priorities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lyunRYMenY&feature=player_embedded
Here is your nearest future, America. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-taU9d26wT4
A less well known Katrina story.
Typical féderalé response. Can’t do jack sh!t about the catastrophe, but we’ll use our police state power to intimidate people and confiscate lawful weapons.
If congress is serious about preventing future mass killings, they will remove any liabilities that medical personnel might have if they notify authorities when they feel someone may be dangerous. In the case of the Colorado killings, the doctor at the school realized that the defendent was dangerous but didn’t notify anyone because she didn’t want to betray the doctor-patient thing.
Our government sends thousands of machine guns and sub-machine guns to civilians in Libya and Syria because they “are fighting for the just cause”. The same government wants to take away semi-automatic firearms from its own citizens. Why is that?
I say we ban Iludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulators. I mean, one of those things can blow up a planet.
It’s handy if you’re on Mars and need to vaporize the Earth because it obstructs your view of Venus, but other than that, it has no real practical sporting purpose.
Besides, modulating space has all sorts of penumbra effects. Ask Marvin the Martian, if you don’t believe me.
cheers
eon
GUN CONTROL DICTATOR STYLE
“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.” — Mao … READ MORE: http://bwcentral.org/2013/01/gun-control-dictator-style/
I’m a proud Life Member of the NRA, former US Marine and retired Police Detective Captain with 25 years of service. I have investigated far more homicides than I care to remember. I can tell you that it is an unfortunate fact that evil people will always find a way to do evil. I have seen every possible weapon used, from guns, knives, hammers, screwdrivers, icepicks, baseball bats, golf clubs, frying pans and even a fire extinguishers. A gun is no better or worse than the person using it. It is not the object it is the person. There are currently enough gun regulations on the book to address gun issues, but where there is a problem is with punishment for breaking the law with a gun. I have seen time and time again the signs that state a robbery with a gun is a mandatory 7 years, not so. The violators are all ways given reduced prison time. I have investigated murders only to see the same person out of prison and involved in another murder in less than 4 years. Our criminal justice system is broken. Now in light of the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook, it’s GUN CONTROL, not how or why did this guy fall through the cracks. Now, it’s about “assault style” weapons. A gun is automatically on the ban list because it’s black or because it has a pistol style grip, removable magazine, flash suppressor or bayonet lug. How does the color of a gun or the fact that it has a pistol style grip make it a more dangerous weapon. Just for information, sometimes a person with a physical disability requires a pistol style grip to be able to use a weapon. Are there loopholes in some areas, yes. A person can lie on the ATF form 4473 about having a criminal past and mental illness, but the Insta-Check will catch the criminal past. Not so with the mental illness, that is one loophole that would do more to reduce gun violence than anything at this time. The citizens of this country would be wise to pay attention to the statemenets being made in reference to a “National Security Police”. This police force as stated will be as well equipped and funded as our current military. Now that is scary. As our elected officals in Washington debate our constitutional right to bear arms and our government is stockpiling millions of rounds of hollow point ammo (which is not for military use), we should want to know why. Are we closer to seeing a “brown-shirted” national security force going from door to door taking our weapons. Maybe this idea is overblown but I’m sure that the Russian and German citizens felt the same way until it was to late. If they register our weapons, they are one step closer to taking them. Don’t say it would happen here. There are many things happening here that I never thought I’d see.
Oh my god, this is so stupid. Why don’t educate yourself? Hitler didn’t take people’s guns away. He liberalised gun laws. And the problem in Germany in the 1930ies wasn’t that the German people were unamred so Hitler’s goons could force them into submission at gun point. The problem was that the majority of the German people supported Hitler. They even worshipped him, and the kind of authoritarian and nationalistic attitudes and personality types that made that possible, are reminiscent of what we see in the right wing of the republican party and the tea party today.
You need to educate yourself. In 1938 Hitler modified the 1928 law that required permits for each action relating to firearms; selling, buying, carrying, and manufacturing. The new law changed the 1928 law to exclude Jews from processing any firearms,and to exempt NSDAP and other government workers from needing permits. The law also stated “..persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit.” Also, in the language of both laws reads “gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns’ serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year” That sounds more like our government today. Hitler still came to power under a very strict gun control laws, but those laws didn’t prevent an evil man from doing evil things, did it?
You’re confused. Hitler came to power because the German people supported him, and he was able to carry out his misdeads because they fell for his propaganda. What was lacking here was critical thinking, not guns. After the first world war and the Treaty of Versailles guns laws were made very strict in Germany, but they were liberalised in 1928. And the further liberalised under Hitler. I quote from Wikipedia:
The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to “…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit.” Under the new law:
Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. Writes Prof. Bernard Harcourt of the University of Chicago, “The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition.”[Harcourt, Bernard E (2004) "On the NRA, Adolph Hitler, Gun Registration, and the Nazi Gun Laws: Exploding the Culture Wars (A Call to Historians)"]
The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[Harcourt, page 21]
The age at which persons could own guns was lowered from 20 to 18.[Harcourt, page 21]
Ooops, sorry – forgot to sign that reply.
Why you are searching the wiki why don’t you look up the German Presidential Election of 1932. Hitler received 36% of the vote. He only took power through parliamentary rules that made him President when Hindenburg died. At that point he abolished the position. Hitler NEVER had the overwhelming support of the German people. That’s YOU falling for propaganda. Many Germans had their own reason why they supported Hitler’s wars, as many wanted revenge for WWI and the Treaty of Versailles. When Hitler’s aims went further than they imagined, it was almost impossible to stop the avalanche. Hitler’s constituency is the same constituency Obama has today. The 30% who want to overthrow the constitution and be coddled by the government teet, and looted from the rich capitalist enemy of the day, the Jews.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Obama Says Gun Control For Thee; A Virtual Army For Me!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/01/10/obama-secret-service-lifetime-protection-bush/1823961/
You think so?
I don’t.
I think they will go for a REAL ban, as in, it will be illegal to possess “assault weapons”. And they will go for a functional definition this time. As in, semi-automatic ANYTHING. Grandfathered NOTHING. Confiscation time.
Yeah, you can keep your bolt and lever action rifles… for now….
I think these people are more evil than you seem to think.
http://thehill.com/video/policy-areas/276843-nra-president-blasts-biden-he-just-wanted-to-say-he-talked-to-us-
Throughout this article, they talk about wanting to ban “high-capacity ammunition”.
Not magazines or “clips”, mind you. High capacity ammunition. Perhaps we can meet them halfway on this issue. We get them to grant an exception for shotgun a ban that reads that for all other types of handgun and rifle ammunition, no more than one bullet per cartridge is permitted. All other ammunition shall be designated and defined as “high capacity ammunition”, and no magazines or “clips” will be permitted which are designed to support the use of such “high capacity ammunition”.
The American gun culture will just have to learn to live with one bullet per cartridge. It’s a sacrifice, but hey, even if it saves only one life, wouldn’t it be worth it?
Ok, I’m sold. Fully on board with the whole “one bullet per cartridge” concept.
now that’s change I can live with.
That middle part should have read:
“We get them to grant an exception for shotgun loads, and then grant them a ban that reads that for all other types of handgun and rifle ammunition, no more than one bullet per cartridge is permitted.”
I think it highly unlikely that an “assault weapons” ban will pass Congress. Even in the most optimistic scenario for gun control advocates, the most likely changes would be an end to private sale loopholes on background checks (requiring “universal” checks for legal gun transactions/transfers), a better national background database that mandates reporting of all potentially disqualifying criminal convictions and judicial competency determinations. I doubt even a legislative ban on high capacity magazines is doable at the federal level. Requiring ATF registration prospectively (perhaps through executive order), along the lines of the current rules applied to silencers, for future sales of these magazines is a remote possibility, and if done would face a certain court challenge.
Of course it is only a matter of time (perhaps only weeks or months) until another copycat mass shooting is committed by a mentally unstable person determined to secure his place in infamy. This is ironic considering that the per capita rates of overall violent gun crime is in a long term decline in the US, while on the increase (from much lower historic norms) in Europe. Spree killing in the US, however, is on the rise, and certainly a sign of postmodern cultural decline. Dealing with the nihilistic aspects of postmodern commercial culture through restrictive legislation is not really possible given that the traditional Constitutional protections on artistic and political speech, through neoliberal court interpretations of the First Amendment, now apply to most forms of profitable commercial speech.
If new gun laws or regulations are still being debated at the time of the next mass shooting, who knows the impact. I can pretty much guarantee if the shooting involves the slaughter of more children of the elites, as in tony Sandy Hook, or occurs on Wall Street, in some corporate boardroom or bank, or at some media event, even the Republican establishment, which unambiguously represents the interests of financial elites and the ownership classes, will begin to cave on this issue, even if it means alienating the hicks they depend on for votes.
Sort of like we passed pretend aviation security after 9/11, driven by the same knee-jerk impulse to “do something”.
I always felt the solution to rampant bank robberies and home burglaries was to declare each bank and home to be a “crime free zone” with an appropriate sign posted in the yard. This would have the effect of so exhausting a would-be robber in his search for one not bearing that designation that he would either starve to death or give up his life of crime.
I think the comments about anti-depressants are a part of the discussion. Drugs in general are handed out too quickly by doctors. And the mental health issue is huge as well. Two Newtown parents were on GMA this morning saying that there is no single solution to the problem. Banning assault weapons sounds great to a liberal like me who doesn’t like guns. But if I’m honest, it bears resemblance to the gay marriage issue. To me, I say to opponents of gay marriage “if you don’t like gay marraige don’t get one.” But I have to turn that on myself and say that just because I don’t want guns, it doesn’t change the fact that others have a right to it. Obviously there is no constitutional amendment for gay marraige, so there is much stronger legal backing for gun owners. So I can accept the rights of people to have something I want no part of. We clearly draw the line when it comes to private citizens owning tanks and nukes. So I wonder what happens next, and I know I’m in a sea of conservatives here. What can we talk about? Why do we have 11000 gun deaths when so many other countries have less than 100. If banning weapons and regulation and background checks aren’t the answer, what is? I’m not being snarky. I want to know what the conservative solution is to our violent death rate. I actually don’t think that banning guns would prevent another Newtown. People will get a gun if they want it bad enough. So what _can_ we do. I know you guys can’t stand the guy I voted for. Let’s pretend it’s 2016 and you have a real conservative prez, Senate and House. What could they do to change the situation on this issue?
Amend the 2nd Amendment with a sub note something like this:
During the course of criminal activity, any person, persons and/or accessories of such activity found in possession of, brandishing of, or using any firearm will have committed a capitol offense punishable only by death.
Your right to a jury by your peers and your right to appeals of the courts decision will have been forfeited upon your commencement and/or involvement of said crime.
Guilty parties will be executed immediately upon conviction.
Change we can only hope for.
“Yet most gun control laws are aimed at this mythical criminal who thinks nothing of murdering people but would never dream of jaywalking”
And the arguments AGAINST gun control assume that it would be a great idea if there were absolutely no regulations to actively prevent somebody from giving that mythical bad guy a firearm. Just leave it up to the bad guy to decide for himself whether he should have a gun.
How’s that working out, then?
Newsflash, there are already laws to prevent what you are talking about, and they are not working. That was the author’s entire point, that if existing laws are being ignored by criminals, what possible good could come from passing new laws for them to ignore?
Are you really that dense as to not understand that? no wonder this country is heading down the path it’s on.
the argument AGAINST is the argument to actually enforce the laws that ARE currently on the books.
So … are you saying that there is currently no way to legally sell a firearm or ammunition to a criminal?
Wow. You should tell the ATF. They’d love to hear about those laws.
“armor piercing hollow points”….I’d love to see one of these, seeing as how the whole point of a hollow point is to expand rapidly on impact so as not to penetrate fully through the intended target.
you would think that a round designed to pierce armor would be more like a sabot round; very pointy, solid, and dense as to prevent expansion. I guess that doesn’t sound as horrific as “armor piercing hollow point man killers” though.
545 men and woman. Surrounded by sycophants, special interest lobbyists (including reps of foreign nations – off the books, of course) and a media with its own perspective, left of the general poplulous…..All pushing laws and regs and ways that control you and me.
Do you even care? Or are you too busy with all the complexities of living your life to bother with the erosion of freedoms, the 55%+ taxation (when you add all the federal and state taxes and “fees”, while you’re living and when you die…), and the people who rule over you and your family. Do you honestly believe they have your best interest at heart? That they actually care about you and your family?
History, over and over, shows us how inevitable the progression of government is, and how it always – always – progresses in to tyrrany. I guarantee you that the people’s of all nations that have come and gone, all believed “it can never happen.” – the end of their comfort and dominance in the small world around them…and yet it always does. It always has. Why should it be any different this time through in our miniscule 6000 year existance on this tiny billion year old planet, far out on the edge of the milky way galaxy – one among millions……
Because there has always been, since the dawn of humankind, those who think they are so smart, so wonderful and brilliant (and better than you…), that if you just followed their awesome edicts, we could live in idyllic edenic bliss…..And history shows they will inevitably force their beliefs on we, the people. For our own good, of course, as they begin to slay those that disagree with them.
The Bill of Rights was added to the US constitution because many people felt the constitution itself, while aptly delineating the functions, duties and responsibilities of the federal government, didn’t go far enough to protect the rights of the people. You and me. So the Bill of Rights was added before anyone would allow passage of the constitution. It gave the individual more protected rights; among these, the freedom of speech, of assembly, of religion, of right to our earned properties, and the right to keep and bear arms – the cornerstone and protection of all the other rights…
There is a line in the sand that must be – and has been – drawn. The second amendment in the bill of rights – a right to ensure the protection of all of our other rights given to us by “nature’s God”, from anyone who would try to take those natural rights away.
When the historical and inevitable happens, I don’t want myself or my posterity to have to protect ourselves with frickin pitchforks – or even 1-shot or 5 round clip ancient carbines, against a government with advanced “assault rifles”. This is the reason our forefathers saw fit to include the second amendment to the constitution in the peoples Bill of Rights.
For the question from those on the left as to why a regular, sane citizen could ever need an “assault rifle”, I point to history, evolution, and the nature of humanity even in the current nations and world going on around us – the evolution of the human species, in all its glory and infamy. And I choose to learn from the lessons of the millenia and the ages of humankind. The exact same arguments currently used against “assault rifles” can (and will) be just as easily used against handguns….Who hunts with a handgun? Why do you need a 15 round clip? Etc. ad nauseum. Give in on these “assault rifles” and they WILL come for handguns next, after the next nut (on some psychotropic drug prescribed by his psychiatrist) goes on a rampage.
Don’t tread on me……seriously.
The rattle is rattling on this rattler. And I am one of millions.
Fully automatic weapons…the plain truth…let us say that the cyclic rate of fire for the M-16 is 600 rounds per minute (it is actually higher about 800 RPM) that means that if you had a 600 round magazine you could empty it in 60 seconds that works out to ten rounds per second..ya with me? Nos lets take the 30 round magazine it lasts EXACTLY 3 seconds at 600 rounds per minute…… NOTHING LIKE what you see in the movies… THAT is because the movies bear NO RESEMBLENCE to real life. In the movies they swing the weapon around wildly and everyone dies…..REALITY if you do that the odds of hitting anything are SLIM and NONE you might place one round every 3 to 6 feet depending on the distanced from the target….. the m-16 will empty a 30 round magazine this fast BRRRRRRRRRRRRRAP EMPTY Bolt locked to the rear and you must release that magazine, load another and close the bolt before you can shot any more.. This is the MAIN reason that even MILITARY M-4 carbines no longer fire fully automatic. They will only fire three round bursts because you will run out of ammo too quickly otherwise…… The AR-15 is not capable of coming ANY WHERE NEAR that cyclic rate of fire even for an EXPERT. HOLLOWOOD movieds bear NO RESEMBLANCE TO REALITY and you are being fed a line of BS from HOLLOWOOD AND the Administration on “assault weapons” I personally qualified expert with both the M-14 and the M-16 I also own an AR-15 My AR is no more deadly than the average pump action rifle shotgun or lever action rifle or shotgun in the hands of an expert with those weapons…. YOU ARE BEING PLAYED WAKE UP !!!!!!!!
I need to add that my firearms are NOT a danger to ANYONE who is not trying to harm me, my family, or another innocent person !!!! Legally armed American citizens save lives over ONE MILLION times every year with legally carried firearms ! That means that if guns are banned YOUR chances of being a victim GO WAY UP PEOPLE !!! Further even the F.B.I. will grudgingly admit that “the mere presence of a legally carried firearm will prevent many crimes. DO WAKE UP !!!!
http://www.capitalisminstitute.org/second-amendment
These gun control laws remind me of the rushed out Patriot Act. You are losing your American rights one by one right in front of your eyes people – wake up. Start questioning whats going on. If you disagree with current political views you will soon lose your right to own and bear arms. Come and discuss this and make your opinions known here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Screaming-Reviews/539031849447972