Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told troops at a military base in Italy that only soldiers needed assault weapons.
Asked by a soldier what President Barack Obama would do to protect school children from gun violence without infringing Americans’ right to own guns, Panetta said action was needed after the attack on a Connecticut school in December in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.
He told members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team at Vicenza that there were areas where steps could be taken,
“I mean who the hell needs armor-piercing bullets except you guys in battle?”
In the aftermath of the Connecticut shooting – the latest mass killing in the United States on a list that includes Columbine in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007 – Obama launched the biggest gun-control push in generations.
He asked Congress on Wednesday to approve an assault weapons ban and background checks for all gun buyers.
Panetta, who is on a week-long trip to Europe, was President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff when the United States banned the sale of assault weapons in the 1990s.
“Unfortunately that ban went out of effect,” he said.
He added that he was an enthusiastic hunter.
“I’ve been duck hunting since I was 10-years-old. I love to hunt and I love to be able to share that joy with my kids. But for the life of me, I don’t know why the hell people have to have an assault weapon.”
Let’s apply Mr. Panetta’s reasoning to other parts of our Constitution.
Do we really “need” hundreds of newspapers reporting pretty much the same stories? Think of all the dead trees! In the interest of saving the planet for our children, and their children, we should drastically reduce the number of newspapers — a dozen sounds about right.
Do we really “need” hundreds of TV channels? Argh! So confusing and a lot of them show the same crappy reruns from the 1970′s. In the interest of sanity, we must reduce the number of TV channels — 25 would be adequate and that’s stretching the point.
Radio is a mess. All those AM stations with the same talk format and FM stations playing music and such. Do we really “need” all those choices? Five AM and 10 FM stations should be enough variety for anyone.
The internet is a clear and present danger to our kids. And what’s with all those websites? You could spend the next 1,000 years sitting in front of your monitor and never visit them all. And all those conspiracy sites, and porn sites, and silly mommy blogs, and…I could go on and on. Bottom line: Nobody “needs” it and its time to throw a lasso over the whole shebang. We shouldn’t ban anything — after all, we’re still a pretty free country. But do we “need” 100,000 porn sites? Two or three would be enough. And maybe one mommy blog.
While we’re on the subject, how many Christian denominations do we really “need?” There are about 41,000 Christian churches in the world — most of them having a branch in the United States. The differences between most of them can only be determined by theologians and other experts. No doubt we “need” a “Christian Denominations Ban” because there is no discernible “need” for that many difference churches.
There is a vital point to be made in refuting Mr. Panetta’s clueless statement: this is how many on the left view the Constitution and the individual rights guaranteed therein. The Second Amendment and the right to bear arms — as well as much of the rest of the Constitution — is a frangible proposition. You can base the interpretation of our founding document on “need” because nobody really believes that something written 223 years ago has relevance to us today. It is government that is the arbiter of our rights. If government decides we don’t “need” assault weapons, then regardless of what the Constitution says, this communitarian construct should be adopted.
The insidious undermining of the Bill of Rights has been going on this manner for decades. Rather than a rock upon which our freedom is based, the Constitution is becoming a bowl of jello with little ability to maintain our rights and holding even less authority and protection of our individual liberties.
Panetta’s statement is just the latest evidence that we are sliding down the slippery slope toward a dark and uncertain future.
More: If You Own a Gun, CBS’ Bob Schieffer Thinks You Just Might Be a Segregationist Nazi
I’ll say it again–we have red and blue Americans, and while we may have a lot in common, this is not to mean we can live harmoniosly under one roof anymore.
People make that determination thousands of times each day in family courts.
If New York wishes to ban, then may it go in peace (though I do think it infringes on the citizens of that state), but leave me alone. But I know it won’t. So what am I supposed to do?
Harmoniously. Really need to get a bigger screen.
The fact that an employee of mine is telling me what I “need” is reason enough to have it. The second amendment doesn’t give me my right to bear arms in my defense, we Americans are born with that right. The 2nd amendment only clarifies this: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
Some may think this man hyperventilates, but he is correct–the right to keep and bear arms is a natural law right, as it is a condition that exists in nature. Government in this case serves to only better secure the right, not give it.
Would you please provide some supporting resources to review? Using your expressed logic, there should be no constraints of any kinds upon mankind or any organized society.
“Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature—both social and personal—and deduce binding rules of moral behavior.”
Then I’m reminded of a fella named Moses who went upon a mountain where he had a little talk with God and as a result, all mankind was given the Ten Commandments from God — one of which was you shall not murder.
I’m just having a bit of trouble finding gun rights from either natural law or Gods word.
Consider that last from the opposite perspective, Zeke. Where, in Natural Law, or God’s Word, does it show that if confronted by a deadly situation, we are supposed to meekly be killed?
It is quite clear that the 2nd Amendment was established to fight tyranny, from our own government. That is clear from the Constitution and the writings of those who wrote it and voted for it. If you don’t like it then use the remedy available to any non tyrant. Amend the Constitution as laid out in the self same document. Unless you do this your arguments are specious, without foundation.
There are only two valid reasons to take up arms against the government. One is infringement of our right to bear arms. The other is to falsify election. We are perilously close to having both.
Michael wrote:
It is quite clear that the 2nd Amendment was established to fight tyranny, from our own government.
It is my belief that the 2nd Amendment was established to support our right to defend life, liberty and property, not only from tyrannical government, but from all sources, both public and private.
Yes,
“a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state”
Means well equipped, convincingly equipped, effectively equipped…
Because you need “the stuff that really works” not antiques, heirlooms, and interesting pieces of historic significance or fine workmanship qualities that warm the heart and interest the curious.
You need “effective” weaponry, as a deterrent OR a “reclamation device”, to secure your freedom….
Thus real fighting guns, MODERN fighting guns, are needed to live in a “state” or “condition” of freedom…a physical condition of safety and security.
And that just happens to be called:
“the security of a free state”
Hence, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
Look, every Politician KNOWS this.
Leon Panetta KNOWS this.
So does Obama, Bloomberg, Cumo and everyone in the NY State Legislature as well as every Supreme Court Justice living and dead.
Ginsburg, Stomayor, all of them.
They KNOW this is what the Second Amendment MEANS, what its intended to DO…
And they DESPISE IT WITH A PASSION because it gets in their WAY.
These people are EVIL, not stupid.
And its long past time we just said it, and moved on.
Let THEM do the “catching up” for a change.
You want them?
Come and GET THEM.
Cause we’re DONE talking about it.
Natural Rights include such behaviors that ensure a human’s ability to sustain and maintain his/her own life and propagate the species. Eating, breathing, sleeping and whatever else is required including protecting one’s own life and the lives of others even if deadly force is required.
The evidence for this mindset is blatantly obvious in many documents throughout history as well as in the history of the United States.
First and foremost is the Declaration of Independence which states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
Second is the preamble to the Bill of Rights which states:
“The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.”
Third, is the case of United States v Cruikshank, the United States Supreme Court held that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were not granted by the Amendments and are not dependent upon the Constitution for their existence. The Court also ruled that the Amendments were restraints on the powers of the federal government and it is the duty of States to secure the individual rights of the American people.
Natural law is a philosophy written by man. Gods word, depending on how one is indocrinated, is most often, perceived as absolute. My point and question, was to those who use either as justifications for their arguments, to show anything in either, that directly correlates to guns, much less rights to guns. What they do, is rationalize and conclude self serving ‘assumptions’ to fit their positions. The constitution is the ‘sole origin’ of gun ownership in the U.S.
Not saying its remotely imminent, but the concept of a popular amendment abolishing another, is not out of the question at some point in time. Though its never been tested, it remains a matter of constitutional debate for its process.
So, Zeke, if someone or something is intent on ending your life does your God tell you to lie down and die?
Had mankind only developed to the point of bows, arrows and spears, those implements would still have been called “arms” and the Second Amendment would have still said “…keep and bear arms.” The definition of “arms” is generally accepted as weapons and ammunition in which there is no limitation to size, type or destructive force thereof.
To further exemplify the Founding Father’s intent on the the right to keep and bear arms, without restriction as to size, type or destructive force – please refer to Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, giving Congress the authority to issue letters of Marque and Reprisal. Such authority could not have been conferred on private parties without the private party’s ownership of state of the art weapons. Even today there are private armies that possess all of the state of the art weapons (short of nukes) that are under contract with the DoD. (Google Xe)
Many of the Founding Fathers wrote at great length about the capability, responsibility and duty of people to defend themselves against tyranny – from an out of control government or monarch. Their intent, without a shadow of a doubt, was to ensure that force could be met with like and kind. In other words, they wanted the people to be able to use the same sorts weapons as those that would used against them.
“Those who cannot remember the are are condemned to repeat it,” Edmund Burke.
In recent history the men on this list disarmed their nations and then committed atrocities on their people:
Joseph Stalin
Adolf Hitler
Mao Tse-Tung
Enver Pasha
Vladmir Lenin
Hirohito
Chiang Kai-shek
Ho Chi Min
Yaha Khan
Pol Pot
Kim Jong II
Idi Amin
Suharto
Tito
Slobodan Milosevic
Jean-Claude Duvalier
and the list goes on and on.
And it also says that “if a thief is found breaking in and struck such tha he dies, there shall be no blood for him”, meaning there is nothing to avenge nor adjudicate.
“I’m just having a bit of trouble finding gun rights from either natural law or Gods word.”
A natural right is one that derives from simply being alive. It isn’t granted by any government. For instance, you…probably…will defend your life if attacked. You’ll fight back. You have a natural right of self defense. The connection being made here is that the best and most effective means of self defense available is firearms.
Here’s a link to the definition as I understand it:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/natural-rights.html
Some people think limiting access to firearms would reduce crime but that has never happened in any of the many places it has been tried. England is a popular example of a gun free society that enjoys a low murder rate. The problem with that argument is that England’s murder rate was a fraction of the U.S. rate even when neither country had any gun laws. After England completely outlawed handguns firearms related crime rose sharply, I think about 200%. Also, violent crime in the UK is vastly higher than in the US. Russia is another example of a country with very restrictive gun laws but is never cited by gun control advocates because it’s murder rate is astronomically high. In the US jurisdictions with strict firearms laws often have extremely high crime rates, Chicago being the prime example of this phenomenon. If these laws worked Chicago would be a haven of peace and tranquility, while the little country town where I live would be the murder capital of the world.
As for God’s word, I think there is something in the New Testament about selling your cloak to buy a sword, but I’m not very religious so maybe someone else can take a crack at that one.
I appreciate all the comments you provided. However, philosophy is, whether one believes or not, is very subjective to one own visions and thought and lesser to experiences. Wisdom on the other hand is influenced by more experience than ones exploring philosophical thought.
There are wide ranges of religious interpretations for which I supose is best left to philosophers to imagine. For example here in the U.S., parts of Europe and elsewhere, there is the various sects of the Amish who traditionally follow the German Martin Luther version bible. They are everybit Christians as any other religious sect of Christanity but have a vastly different view from the teachings of their bible. They are by far, a ‘less’ violent Christian society than most every other sect/society. They live rather autonmously wherever they may be without guns and survive quite well.
There are other religions of the world who believe similiarly and live accordingly inside or along side the greater societies. Now ,I don’t know whose right and whose wrong and really don’t care. I just live my life according to my teaching and I’ll be quite content on letting God, not some philosophers, be my judge.
That said, the founders of the Republic of the United States were indocrinated with their own brands of Christian religion and many of them differed significantly among themselves on the various doctrines. What I have a problem with, is some who decree and attempt to ‘exert’ only their religious beliefs and interpretations upon American citizens as the law of the land when, the founders went to great lengths in constitutional amendment (though few words), to protect against such a thing and gave NO grant to the government to make any laws to the contrary. The constitution grants only ‘individual’ rights on the subject of religion — not collective rights! I may need correcting, but I believe only the 1st and 2nd Amendments are the most ‘direct’ in addressing individual rights as opposed to the collective rights of citizens and governments — however, individual voting rights certainly comes to mind.
Now, while its ever so popular to cite langauge around the constitution itself, I think there is a clear understanding that it does NOT attatch to the constitutional Articles and amendments language. The Supreme court has made it clear on numerous occasions, as does the legislations of the states and federal government. In America we DON’T write and enact laws in the name of any religion or even God.
While the founders exerted their religious beliefs in the peripheral writings of the constitution, they did NOT exert it into the constitutional laws. So, while one can proclaim a God and natural law given right, the constitutional language makes no such claim and in fact the government is barred from doing so. Every ‘individual’ citizen is constitutionally protected EQUALLY, to have any religious beliefs or no religious beliefs and practice them accordingly and freely.
But back to the gun issues. The Second Amendment is, like the First Amendment, very clear! Citizens ‘shall’ have the right to own and bear arms. Many regulatory laws has stood the time and always, without disturbing the basic language of the First Amendment. I suspect that as abuse of the right continues and with increase, there will be more regulating without disturbing the amendments basic language, no matter how loud or threatening some may become. The arguments around ‘states’ malitia’s has long been settled and discounting or ignoring USC Title 18 Section 115 along with many others relatively to the discussion is simply idiocy. A tyrannical government has very specific definitions attached and the founders protected against this definition, by a checks and balance system in establishing the separations of power clause in the constitution. It is alive and doing very well, inspite of somes desired interpretation and fears.
This may be an education issue. I’m currently reading an excellent book on John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger. On page 39, he refers to John Adams’s (John Quincy’s father) writing the Massachusetts Constitution. Adams discussed how it guaranteed “natural, essential, and unalienable rights” like the right to keep and bear arms. Their Constitution was based extensively from Adams’s Thoughts on Government.
http://www.constitution.org/jadams/thoughts.htm
Adams’s references were from his own extensive study of classic writings. For example, John Quincy Adams was expected by his father to master such tomes as David Hume’s History of England, Cicero’s Orations, and John Dryden’s Works of Virgil. Before he went to Harvard. (page 50). Since we don’t normally study the classics as part of our education anymore, we don’t understand what it means when people refer to natural rights, which are those we are born with. Also, with the destruction of faith via the misuse of Jefferson’s “separation of church and state” phrase in a private letter, we no longer credit the idea that we’re born with these rights just because we are Soul, God’s children, and that these rights, given us as our divine birthright, are sacrosanct.
So, what makes you think you have a right to free speech?
I’m guessing that the reason there isn’t any mention of gun rights in God’s word is that there were no guns when it was written. Just a guess, though.
Jesus did tell his disciples at one point that if they didn’t have a sword to get one, however.
Okay! Sounds great to me and so shall it be — two guns per every twelve people qualified to own a gun.
Oh, and I forgot — “. . . Put your sword back in its place,’ Jesus said to him, ‘for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52, NIV)
This point cannot be stressed enough! The intent of the Bill of Rights was to tell the new Gov’t that it had no authority to tamper with the rights specifically detailed therein, as well as clarifying that if a power was not stated in the Constitution, the Gov’t DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY to act.
I live 500 yards from a fire department.
Why do I “need” fire extinguishers?
The expensive things just sit there and take up space.
Goyo
“The fact that an employee of mine is telling me what I “need” is reason enough….”
..For me to tell them to STFU and and get back to WORK, and be THANKFUL I didnt just FIRE their ass on the spot for getting cockey…after I removed my FOOT from inside it, that is.
“armor Piercing”
Silly stupid words…
“Armor piercing” like “assault weapon”, has as much meaning to guns
as as “hot-rod” has to cars.
Not a whole lot. Nothing but Emotion, these foolish words.
What is “armor piercing”, and for that matter what is “armor”?
Soft police body armor? A late 1970′s invention, that even on the DAY it was released, could NOT stop MOST known bullet designs, that were already more than 100 years old?
Who’s patent are we using as the “armor piercing” yardstick?
The Second Chance Body Armor Company?
Dupont Kevlar? Steel plate?
Titanium Carbon nano-tube?
How many layers?
My rifles fire cartridges from World War One.
Nothing yet “wearable” by the Soldier or Policeman, will currently stop one.
These cartridges have not grown “more powerful” since the invention of Body Armor, so calling for a “ban” on these (and others that perform as well) by claiming they are “armor piercing” is a deceitful thing to do, a disingenuous lie, a fraud, and a crime.
So…Body Armor of the last decade cannot stop bullets of the last century, you say?
So F*cking WHAT, Mr. Panetta? What IS your point?
Bullets are bullets. They do what they do. What they have always done.
That is why ARMS are protected by The Second Amendment, and why any technology to “stop” them by the Government tomorrow, SHOULD ALREADY BE MADE IMPOTENT by what the Citizen has available to him, today.
Bullets are bullets Mr Panetta. They do what they do.
They are the Sovereign Property OF the citizen, who merely issues them to the Police and the Military from time to time, to do his bidding as he instructs.
Bullets are Bullets Mr. Panetta.
Accept that, and be gone.
You foolish and ignorant man.
To answer Mr. Panetta’s question, I need the same equipment that the typical police officer requires for his own protection. The average cop carries a semi automatic handgun with a fifteen round magazine and two spares. In the trunk of his squad car is a 12 gauge shotgun and a 5.56mm patrol rifle. Patrol rifle being the term applied to AR-15 or M-16 weapons when used by law enforcement.
Certainly the officer is more likely to require such firepower as his duties tend to take him in harm’s way, but just because my potential need is a bit less likely does not negate my requirement that it be available.
I have a God given right to self defense and to the protection of my loved ones. Denying me the tools to effectively do so makes no more sense than would restricting my ability to communicate to quill pen and parchment.
You failed to mention the police officers body armor. What you as a free citizen need are weapons capable of punching through police vests. because remember the it will be the state and local police who enforce the tyranny of the state and most will do so willingly and with no qualms about it.
Someone please tell Panetta armor piercing bullets are already illegal.
Really?
Who invented Police body armor that will stop .300 Win. Mag?
It doesnt exist.
“armor piercing” is an emotional nonsensical word.
Stop using it.
Shot a 2″ thick chunk of forklift blade set down in a hole with a 300 mag from about 40 yards. (Angled so as to prevent kick back at me, and about 1/2 a mile away from any structures or personnel..)
Blew a hole clean through it, and made an inverted cone shaped hole lined with metal powder in the sand behind it….
Maybe a good question might be, why does law enforcement find themselves needing body armor, semi automatic weapons, armored vehicles and so many other high tech defensive and offensive protections?
The need is because of the breakdown of traditional American morals, the disintegration of traditional two parent families and existence of just plain Evil.
Even with the need of the SWAT teams they are used every year somewhere in a sloppy, needless and sometimes just plain mistaken way leading to the death of innocent civilians shot down in their own homes.
“…the breakdown of traditional American morals, the disintegration of traditional two parent families and existence of just plain Evil.”
That may be pretty general and irrelevant to the the question. I would suspect that the reason law enforcement finds need for more high tech fire power and protections is that the general public now has access to such and uses it irresponsibly. Back in the day we only carried a .38 revolver and never any idea of a bullet proof vest. Shotguns were carried with the first round being pencil shot to take out a window and for all other pratical purposes used when there were several suspects to be secured and or taken into custody. There was never an experience of a semi-automatic weapons or ‘routine’ stories of law enforcement officers being shot at or killed by guns. That was in LA back in the day!
It is not the “general public” that the police are concerned with. Its is criminals, and no matter what “laws” Onbama proposes, those criminals will still have access. It will only be the law-abiding citizens who will be helpless.
@ Anon — On average, the progression rate of ‘new offenders’ is approximately 45% across the three class categories ecompassing all felony crimes. So if you consider 45% of approximately 23,000,000 felonies committed each year, are committed by ‘non criminals’, thats a hugh number being progessively added to the criminal rolls each year. I understand your point, but sometime you have to look past the percentages and at the hard numbers to gain stark reality.
The .223 rifle I own is described by the manufacturer as a Law Enforcement Patrol model suitable for defense and hunting small game.
Whenever some vile pol or sinecured bureaucrat rants on about what people “don’t need” I am reminded of this buffoon of US political lore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hphgHi6FD8k
His home state remained one of the poorest in the nation until over half a century after his demise.
But we do need assault rifles — in fact, I’d call a home without one underequipped — and Obama, Panetta and those in power who think like them are the reason.
I mean who the hell needs 75,000 pages per year of rules and regulations as published in the Federal Register?
I mean who the hell needs 2,800,000 Federal Government employees? I mean really – we need one Federal employee for every 41 Households?? (115 mil/2.8 mil)
Every time the gov’t creates more laws and regulations, we the people become less safe- Example: In Hawaii the law gives pedestrians the right of way, so if a pedestrian steps off a curb, all traffic needs to stop. Did this make it safer for pedestrians? Just the opposite, now pedestrians don’t even bother looking both ways, they simply start crossing the street knowing that the law will protect them. Unfortunately, the assumption is that drivers will notice a person dressed in dark clothing crossing a dark street at night. Results: pedestrian deaths way up. When we the people leave our protection to others, we become easier targets for mishaps.
“Oh, reason not the need!”
—King Lear
I’d like to add this–we this time have had a full throated defense of hunting rights by Democrats, for a change. Do people truly think the home of the urban Steve Jobs type, whose most adventurous part of the day is spilling his latte on himself, is going to not, shall we say, “evolve” on this issue, long term?
Where has the anti-hunting activity come from in the past? Where do the vegans reside? Who is pushing for a ban on assault rifles? And how many were actually surprised when the President flipped on gay marriage? (Being for something is an honorable position, lying to get elected is not)
Trust them at your peril.
Paul Krugman is delighted that the center of gravity has shifted to the coastal urban enclaves. He thinks them a better people than Kansas. Do you truly think they give a dang, twenty years from now, if you hunt?
My guess is that their level of care will follow the same trajectory as the level of care shown about forcing people to pay for abortion and abortifacients–from “pishposh, will never happen” to “thou shalt”.
And why should I also not expect self-defense in homes and “castle” doctrines to be under assault one day? Have they of influence on left ever truly given you the warm feel that they *truly* embraced these things? Or that they were just biding their time?
In fact, on any issue of the Left’s where the 20% or so that is truly the heart and soul of the Left has a desire, is there any issue–and there may –but on the whole, is there an issue where the Left has ever truly stopped short of its ultimate desired goals of what an ideal world should be and said “this far, no farther, we have done enough, the people will never be with us”?
Actually, they tried to go after self-defense laws while they were lynching Zimmerman. Remember all the stories trying to paint “stand your ground” laws as a “license to murder”?
do we “need” people like Leon Panetta.
Can’t fault the logic of this post. Heck, I can’t even understand it. If 900 + people had been killed by newspapers since Sandy Hook, you might have a point; but newspapers don’t kill people, people with guns kill people.
Do you really believe that the right to kill people is on a par with the right to reason with them?
My guns haven’t killed anyone. Nor have I. Why are you so hell-bent on violating my rights? Go after the people who did the shooting.
Here:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html
http://oll.libertyfund.org/
http://www.constitution.org/liberlib.htm
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?subcategory=73
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/
http://www.constitution.org/elliot.htm
Buy a vowel.
You’re too proud and arrogant to read it, though, let alone try to understand any of it.
Jimmie, there is no right to kill people, something the government should grasp it’s own damn self and ground the drones.
An instructor in a logic class would have a field day with your comment.
It’s not a “right to kill”. It’s the right to self defense.
When a person goes out and shoots J. Random Passerby, he will rightly face murder charges and in the opinion of myself and many others, should be put down like a rabid dog.
If, however, during the attempt on his life, J. Random Passerby acts to defend himself and his assailant ends up dead, then it’s an act of self defense — perfectly moral, and should be legal.
And, it may deter future criminal acts of the same sort far more effectively than our long, slow, uncertain and even feckless criminal justice system.
You’re exactly right. People with guns may kill others. Let’s ban people. Then there won’t be a problem.
It’s been tried.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Death
However, to really kill kids one needs a swimming pool. By several orders of magnitude, swimming pools are far more likely to kill a kid under age 14 than is a semi-auto gun.
Please don’t waste your time and energy on the likes of Jim Hitlerson. He has venomous opinions on every topic, even ones he knows nothing about. He is simply too ignorant to understand how ignorant he is. However, he thinks he knows everything about everything and thinks he has the solution to all of the world’s problems. The guy is what Thomas Sowell might call a self-anointed messiah. He believes that civilized and successful people and countries are intrinsically evil and he has a vicious hatred of Jews and Israel. His posts are often incoherent ramblings. He evades questions, he tells outright lies and he throws tantrums. Please don’t waste your time and energy on this immature, malignant, narcissistic, attention-starved, anti-Semitic demagogue.
You just described Obama to a “tee.”. Or maybe a putt…
Or a sand-trap; or a driving range; or a pro shop.
Honestly Mr. Panetta, the Second Amendment is not needed either, until they try to take it away. So, no, we don’t need the “assault” weapons, until someone tries to take them. Say, a tyrant pictured with children nearby or in his arms. So, yes, you may come and get them. The choice is up to you. I prefer allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands and obedience to our sworn oath to the Constitution. I think most Americans prefer it that way. Wouldn’t you?
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson
The military industrial complex is going all in. What not a surprise for anybody who knows true history!
“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.” George Washington
“Military industrial complex”? Don’t you have any rhetoric that isn’t 60 years old? The current wannabe tyrants hate both the military and industry, for one thing. For another, you should pay attention to the entire speech that phrase came from; the government-university “complex” was also called out.
Here are the best known stats! Yes Industrial Complex bankrupting us!
Defending the World, Bankrupting Ourselves
After decades of American protection, our friends can form their own alliances to confront any adversary.
Steve Chapman | December 6, 2012
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/06/defending-the-world-bankrupting-ourselve
Ron Paul says U.S. has military personnel in 130 nations and 900 overseas bases: Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gestures during a Republican presidential debate on Sept. 12, 2011, in Tampa.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/14/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-us-has-military-personnel-130-nation/
What else do you have other than your typed words? I will be waiting!
God I’m tired of our dessicated, incompetent ‘leadership class’ of grifters, ideologues and political apparatchiks telling people who pay their salaries what’s best for them. The same people who’ve presided over the dissolution of the nation’s finances, its education system and its culture should be too busy being called to account for their ruinous and treasonous behavior to lecture the rest of us. Panetta can pound sand. It would be more useful to us than what he’s paid to do.
Via Ace of Spades
http://www.ace.mu.nu/
I don’t ‘need’ a gun any more then Roas Parks ‘needed’ to sit in the front of the bus. My civil rights, like Parks, is non-negotiable.
I don’t “need” my AR-15 or my 30-round mags. But that is irrelevant to whether the government can tell me I can’t have them.
I need a flamethrower. And a bazooka. and a 150mm cannon. It’s my right. Everyone should have a flamethrower for hunting and personal defense.To defend myself from all of you who have assault rifles, whether they fire on full auto or semiauto. And to hunt deer and barbecue em at the same time.
Mr. Panetta, you are dumber than dumb is the nicest You will get after such inane nonsense. If people were allowed to own an “assult rifle” they couldn’t because no such thing as an “assult rifle” exists. Any weapon can however become an assult weapon, even words as your dumb words starkely demonstrate.
No, you’re wrong about that; there is such a thing as an assault rifle and the name of the first one, the German Sturmgewehr 44, literally translates as “assault rifle.” The characteristics of the StG 44 and its progeny are relatively light and easy/cheap to manufacture, automatic firing and magazine fed, and of a higher power than pistols and the common pistol caliber machine pistols of WWII but less powerful than an Infantry Rifle. The most common assault rifle today is the former Soviet Union’s AK-47 and its progeny produced all over the World by former Soviet or Russian client nations, though the US AR platform M-16 and M-4 meet the definition except for the cheap and easy to produce part, as do various weapons produced by the NATO countries and France.
The black scary-looking guns that the communists like to call assault rifles aren’t because none of them are automatics. Even the AKs available legally in the US are semi-automatic, though you could probably get an illegal automatic AK on any streetcorner in the “ethnic” areas in any big Democrat-controlled city. The people who buy heroin and cocaine by the ton don’t have any trouble getting their supplier to throw a case of AKs on the truck.
The M-16 family are not true assault rifles. They are small bore select fire weapons. Technically an assault rifle is a true carbine with a shortened cartridge derived from a rifle. The STG 44 used the 7.92 x 31 Kurtz which was cut down from a Mauser 98k round and the 7.62 x 39 AK-47 round is derived from the Mosin Nagent round. The origin of the AR-15 cartridge is the 222 Remington varmint round. The US has never produced a true assault rifle. The M-14 is nothing more than a select fire M-1 with detachable magazine chambered in 308 Winchester instead of 30-06 Springfield.
The closest we have come to fielding an assault rifle is the select fire M-2 Carbine.
Sturm gewehr means storm rifle if I’m not mistaken. To translate it as “assault rifle” is anachronistic.
Maybe I need some of the Jager meister.
German is filled with anachronistic language. To “storm” is always held meaning to “assult”. In many languages.
The translation is correct.
“God I’m tired of our dessicated, incompetent ‘leadership class’ of grifters, ideologues and political apparatchiks telling people who pay their salaries what’s best for them.”
Yes, indeed. I am still waiting for the people who gave us Operation Fast and Furious to stand up on camera and tell us we don’t need assault rifles. Talk about laugh your hiney off.
Newspapers, TV stations and radio stations are not instruments designed exclusively for killing. Looking at historical snippets of data:
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 2008, 303,880 victims of violent crimes stated that they faced an offender with a firearm.
Incidents involving a firearm represented 7% of the 5.1 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault in 2008.
The FBI’s Crime in the United States estimated that 68% of the 16,929 murders in 2007 were committed with firearms.
Sure, this is not the most current data but crime in general and violent crimes swings up and down in lesser time frames but over the long term of history it increases. If one looks at the CDC charts that includes all gun related injuries and deaths it adds even more to an already troubling picture. I’m not sure why the discussions of today are so narrowly discussed, but the problem is much more broad than the relatively small numbers of so-called mass murders.
If you look at the FBI crime data you will find that gun crime is concentrated in a few locales inhabited by 10% of the population. You will also find three demographic features of these locales: high rates of welfare dependence; a high percentage of out of wedlock births; and long term control by the Democratic Party. The most important factor is the last. The Democrats actively promote welfare dependency for political reasons, and welfare dependency leads to single mother/multiple father households. Crime is the key component of social control because crime causes the poverty that Democratic politicians use to stay in power.
Are those the same CDC studies that now classify 24 year olds as Children?
I beleive if you check the data, the highest homicide rates are in the Southern region of states — LA, MS, AL, MO, though I haven’t checked them really recently. I would have to check, but if you take the full breadth of assault crimes, violent crimes, other injuries and deaths with guns involved, you may be right with respect to location(s).
Zeke, your correct in stating the highest region for gun violence is the south. However, the same 10% (actually 18% nationally) of the population that commit 47% of all homicides, constitute approximately 30% of the population in the south. It would be vile to suggest that the best way to cut the rate of homicide in half nationally would be to ban 30% of the population, especially since it is less than 3% of that population being the problem. Yet that is what is proposed by the gun advocates. Restrict the rights of 50 million Americans for the actions of .003% of a population of 313 million.
Theres a lot wrong in my opinion, of how the gun reform folks go about it. They rely on government agency data that is highly variable and skewed and certainly void of lots of gun related information. One example. The DOJ/FBI crimianl data relys only, on information data from approximately 18,000 communities and sources such as college campuses, etc. It rarely is, inclusive of Indian reservations and ‘immigration’ related gun crimes, nor does it include accruate reporting of sucidies by gun, an unitentiional gun injuries and deaths. Of the 10-13 million felony crimes committed each year they only accurately report from the 18,000 sources and then estimate the rest such as gun involved crimes. its a horrible and corrupted data source!
As for myself, based on historical and current constitutional renderings of the Supreme Court, for which I agree, I support gun ownership to be for traditional legal purpose(s) such as home defense, hunting and sports shooting. The idea of the ‘states’ organized v unorganized malitia’s is so long settled and USC Title 18 Section 115 been in place for so long. In fact, 2331 amended it more recently to include domestic terrorism: Involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appea to be intended — to intimidate or coerce a civilian popopulation; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidknapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
Its written rather broad and I suspect with good intention to remind some citizens and groups, their self serving interpretations of the constitution should be reconsidered.
Zeke:
We have been down this road before. These states have high murder rates in the cities that fit the profile I mentioned.
Newspapers don’t get people killed you say. There was another breakin in a home named by called out by that paper in NY. If one of those guns ends up being used in a.murder than the newspaper got someone killed. So yes; the First Amendment can kill.
I would be happy to review any data you have to support your claim relative to the southern states cited in a host of data literature that I mentioned.
Zeke:
Murder and mayhem are not uniformly distributed across the population. I have no doubt what you say is true. What I am telling you is that you have ask where these murders take place. Are you equally likely to shot in a rural parish in Lousianna as you are in New Orleans or Baton Rouge? The answer is no.
You are also fixated on murder but murder even in the worst areas is only a small percentage of overall violent crime. That is why you are less likely to murdered in the worst London neighborhood but are far more likely to mugged, have your home invaded or if you are a woman, raped in the best neighborhood in London than your are the worst neighborhood in Washington DC.
@ tdiinva
“Are you equally likely to shot in a rural parish in Lousianna as you are in New Orleans or Baton Rouge?”
Actually, Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans together, equal about what the rest of the state does. A lot of very tought little communities around the state. Now if you want to move to LA, Hammond and Gonzales are two very nice and safe communities.
Here are two more obvious trends for you. First violent crime rose from the 60′s through the 80s as more and more gun control laws were adopted by more and more locales. Second is that crime has steadily dropped from the 90s through today as more states switched to “shall issue” laws and gun ownership greatly expanded.
You cannot point to a single gun law that has ever had a meaningful positive impact on crime. Not one…ever. You ignore the drop in American locales that went shall issue and ignore the places, here and abroad, that saw violence skyrocket as they banned gun ownership.
The reason that the discussion today is so narrow is because the vast majority of Americans aren’t as dense as you are and they understand these things, so any attempt at a handgun ban is a complete non-starter. That leaves jerks like Cuomo and Obama doing the only thing they can, which is standing on the graves of children to push a pre-existing agenda.
And just FYI, I’m pretty sure the Founders knew guns were designed to kill when they wrote the Second Amendment. They had just been through a violent revolution, it’s not like they thought they were protecting paperweights or feather dusters.
Assault Weapon Ban 1994-2003
• Following implementation of the ban, the share of gun crimes involving AWs declined by 17% to 72% across the localities examined for this study (Baltimore, Miami, Milwaukee, Boston, St. Louis, and Anchorage), based on data covering all or portions of the 1995-2003 post-ban period. This is consistent with patterns found in national data on guns recovered by police and reported to ATF.
• The decline in the use of AWs has been due primarily to a reduction in the use of assault pistols (APs), which are used in crime more commonly than assault rifles (ARs). There has not been a clear decline in the use of ARs, though assessments are complicated by the rarity of crimes with these weapons and by substitution of post-ban rifles that are very similar to the banned AR models.
• However, the decline in AW use was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns equipped with LCMs in jurisdictions studied (Baltimore, Milwaukee, Louisville, and Anchorage). The failure to reduce LCM use has likely been due to the immense stock of exempted pre-ban magazines, which has been enhanced by recent imports.
http://publicintelligence.net/nij-assault-weapons-ban-study/
I don’t think the full comparative data has been compiled or released yet. However, I’m only responding to your data inference for the previous AW/LCM ban.
Ooops! “Baltimore, Miami, Milwaukee, Boston, St. Louis, and Anchorage” That’s it, out of all America. It’s called sampling error.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/01/10/rifle-ban-has-little-to-do-with-homicide/
“There’s no evidence gun bans work. The National Gang Crime Research Center concluded: ‘Gang members were significantly more likely to report it has been easier since the Brady Bill went into effect to acquire illegal guns.’ There’s no evidence a gun ban stymied them, either. Both the Centers for Disease Control and the National Academy of Sciences found no evidence that the Clinton ban impacted crime.”
http://www.ngcrc.com/ngcrc/gfactp.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10881
Howard — I suppose one would have to take up such issues up with the authors and their sourcing and compiling methodology of information. For years, we listened to one of our daughters complain about conflicting data from multiple federal and domestic agencies and even within her own agency. Everybody has their own grant $$$ interests when they compile data. Even the DOJ/FBI has complex data compiling methodology systems that conflict with one another, each for a particular sorting reasoning of variables and intended uses. The government has sytematically and systemically played to special interest groups corrupting even the most ‘fundemental’ relied upon data compilations. Just sit in conference or committee hearings and see the differences in the opposing sides data, often compiled by the same root sourcing but a vastly different array of variables.
That sounds impresive but rifles of any kind are seldom used in the commision of a crime.
Zeke, suppose I told you that a town near me enjoyed a 100% reduction in the murder rate back in 2006. Holy crap, those cops must really be on the ball! You’d think those guys need to be training the cops in Baltimore and DC, they could solve the national crime problem.
Then I tell you that the town had one murder in 2005, and none in 2006. Going from one to zero sounds a lot less impressive than a 100% reduction, but both stats are true. That’s what your stat is… impressive sounding BS. The fact is that rifles of all kinds are used in such a laughably small number of crimes that all you need is one bank robber to be in bed with the flu and you get a 33% reduction.
And WTF is an “assault pistol”? I’d have an easier time taking you seriously if there were some evidence that you knew anything at all about firearms
beyond how to make up scary sounding names for them.
The ‘nation’ consists of far more places and people than the community for which you spoke of. Once again, cherry-picking a community to mask a national problem of crime, injuries and deaths in which a large portion involves guns, is self serving and deceitful. The more important data is of the 10-13 million felonies committed each year and how many of them involved guns. Absent from that data is suicides committed with guns, accidental gun injuries and deaths, Indian reservation crime with guns and a huge chunk of immigration related crimes with guns. So, until you see anybody using ALL the hard number data expressly to ban all guns from private ownership, all the barking over gun regulation as ‘gun ban’ is idiocy. Likewise, barking about gun ‘regulation’ as being unconstitutional, is again completely idiocy! If you think I’m wrong, remember, that you as a citizen, certainly has the ‘individual right to file a brief in your federal court of jusrisdiction and challenge the constitutionality. Gitt’er done!
“Newspapers, TV stations and radio stations are not instruments designed exclusively for killing.”
There are half a million Tutsis who would dispute that, if they were still alive to do so.
Let’s get down to brass tacks, it is proposed to disarm the huge overwhelming majority of the population because maniacs and a small minority of people in a few “homelands” within our borders cannot teach their kids right from wrong. I’ll tell everyone a secret, we have been successfully divided, just like Nikolo Machiavelli recommended the prince do to his subjects. What we NEED to do as gun owners, and patriots, is divide up our enemies. The NRA has begun this work with its ad campaign. I urge all readers to ask those who would support banning our freedom why NYC, Chicago and other high regulation areas refuse to issue carry permits to Blacks and Hispanics or even allow them to guard their businesses with firearms. Everyone knows it’s true. So that puts them off guard. We also need to begin to understand that they should never be referred to as assault rifles. From this day forward, they ARE patrol rifles.
Sure, newspapers and other media kill. It’s called propaganda, and when media supports government, that’s all media does. Stalin, Hitler, Mao.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
262 million dead in 20th century. These things happen best in the dark.
I have to agree with you Howard! Propaganda kills the free spirit and thought of many a mind. Thats why sometimes, I’m a bit cantankerous in my commenting on here and elsewhere. In my gneration and that of my parents and grandparents there were few venues of propaganda and when it appeared, it was smelled out rather quickly. Today, and with the advent of the internet, special interest groups and their advocates suffocate free speech and thought with their 24/7 propaganda. Just look how it has today, divided this nation and turned neighbors into enemies.
Thanks for reminding me how much media can kill the most valued asset a human has — their independent thought and reasoning.
If only that reminder was sufficient to make you use some.
James — Heres the problem with your comment. You’re a lock-step radicalized and propaganda controlled individual. Myself, on the other hand, am not ‘property’ of any political party or self serving special interest propaganda group. You and your propagandists claim you’re constitutionalist yet, you have NO respest for any of it but what you cherry pick to benefit your self serving interests. What you cherry pick, you self servingly reinterpret to fit your cause(s). You have total disrespect for individual freedoms of thought and expression, by trashing those who exercise them and decree them as enemies. All of that is just fine except, when you cross over the line adjudicating those who do not fall in lock-step with your propaganda, as enemies. As I’ve said elsewhere, the progressives and communists on the otherside are sitting back loving every second of your propaganda, division of the GOP and the nations people by exposing yourselves too the majority population for what you are. Radicalized propagandists. Theres a reason the national polling data consistanly shows your little groups acceptability at just above that of congress! Hopefully, someday you will find a way to free yourself from the bondage of propaganda mind control by radicalized special interest groups and restore your individual freedoms to think, reason and act independently.
And when you compare the fbi data via race you find that euro whites compare most favorably with other euro white populations worldwide. In fact , although Euro whites in the USA have the most guns, they are one of the least violent populations worldwide.
Blacks, and to a much lessor degree hispanics are where the violence is.
The casual relationship is not who has guns. That is disproven in the USA alone.
Panetta didn’t need to live in Northern California while working at the Pentagon, either. He commutes every week between Washington and his home, using a military jet to make the trip (he can’t fly commercial becase the SecDef needs special, secure communications equipment at all times). He *could* have just bought a house in suburban Virginia and lived there; but he chose not to. As long as we’re making things illegal if someone doesn’t “need” them, how about a future law prohibiting this?
“The insidious undermining of the Bill of Rights has been going on this manner for decades. …the Constitution is becoming a bowl of jello with little ability to maintain our rights and holding even less authority and protection of our individual liberties.”
The fundamental assumption was that the Constitution was going to guide concerned, diligent, well-meaning patriots. What we have are domestic enemy agents determined to install an egalitarian communist system. How can it possibly be expected to work when it is being undermined from within? Everything Marx and Lenin prescribed for conquering free societies is now being implemented, including control of the public school system, the media, and the disarmament of the populace. Communism 101.
Mr. Panetta is in error. Civilians cannot own an assault rifle unless they jump through a lot of hoops and the weapon itself was produced before 1986. What civilians can buy is a small bore semiautomatic rifle patterned after an Armalite design. AR stands for Armalite not assault rifle.
“Cheap” assault rifles cost thousands on the legal market, are registered, and the owners have to have stringent background checks to get the license to own one. In the process they basically waive their Fourth Amendment rights. Besides the cost of the rifle, the purchaser is going to have pay a few hundred dollars to get the license and pay taxes. Getting the license is usually a several month process.
I saw an Armalite M-16 for sale at a store that legally sells full-auto guns. It cost $25,000 and you had to show them a Class III Federal Firearms License to hold it.
“Need” has nothing to do with it. It is my RIGHT to own and use these weapons, and I don’t need anyone’s permission, forbearance or forgiveness for exercising my right.
Any conversation that involves Panatta needs the following background
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/who-checked-out-leon-panetta/
“But his tribute to identified Communist Party member Hugh DeLacy, inserted into the Congressional Record in 1983, suggests that Panetta did have keen knowledge of these “real activists,” by virtue of his praise for DeLacy’s stand against “McCarthyism.” Hence, it appears that Panetta did indeed “check” on these people, completely understood they had been accused of membership in the Communist Party or having communist sympathies, and found them totally acceptable and praiseworthy.”
Not the kind of person that should be in OUR national government structure, IMO.
It does no good trying to argue about guns with Progressives. Banning guns, like single-payer healthcare, is one of their wet dreams that they will never let go of. Trying to persuade them otherwise is like trying to convince the Pope that there is no God.
Do we really need cars that can go at a speed over 55 mph? Think of all the children that can be saved if the national speed limit was say…25mph. Inconvenient? Sure; but we would be doing it for the children. Maybe along with the mandated black box, we can add a device that would not allow a speed over 25mph. Exempt the police of course, and any other governement vehicle. Remember, it is for the children.
When the lovable little mustachioed savior of Germany took away law abiding citizens’ guns, only Nazis had guns. The rest is history.
Sen. Rand Paul on Fox’s Hannity – 1/16/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u264Ni4iPM
Someone may inform the Secretary that I will decide what I need; not some federal government apparatchik.
Nor do they NEED big black Lincoln Navigators to ride around in. But the Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms (even and AR15) and a the right to freedom of expression by driving around in a Navigator on your Global Warming tour.
It’s not a matter of need, it’s a matter of rights.
What the civilian population “needs” is weaponry of sufficent power to make vriminals and tyrants think twice.
See, what I really like about the USA–despite my “general” agreement with Panetta is that its not his right or really any of his business what I may or may not “need.”
That is a decision for “me.”
I also don’t “need” an unelected public servent pontificationg about what HE feels I should want or not.
“But for the life of me, I don’t know why the hell people have to have an assault weapon.”
Obama and Biden are the primary reasons why we NEED those weapons. A disarmed population is a population that can be ruled by anyone. Aside from the important fact that all nations that were ruled by dictators (such as Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Stalin) had tough gun control laws, we have to remember that those examples took place only about 70 years ago, barely a heartbeat in historical terms. But an armed population is the best guarantee that a dictator or a tyrant will NOT come to power, regardless of how someone like Obama may try.
Also, nobody ever talks about what would happen if you were NOT armed and major social unrest took over your local area. Don’t think it can ever happen? Try telling that to the people of Los Angeles suring the Rodney King riots, where people were literally defending their shops on their rooftops with assault rifles and shotguns. It CAN happen. Society can collapse very, very, quickly given the right circumstances. All you have to do is look at Hurricane Sandy or Katrina to see how fast looting and rioting can take over an area.
And always remember, the men who stood on the green at Lexington and Concord were lucky to have their guns. They had to fight another tyrant, only this one was on North American soil. It happened, it did happen, and it could happen again. THAT is why we need the Second Amendment, which is WHY most Americans have assault rifles.
Dear Mr. Panetta,
First: It isn’t “need” it’s a right. Do try and keep up.
Second: What we really don’t need is a giant governmental boondoggle with no oversight that sucks in tons of money and can’t accurately predict any event in the middle east of a massive attack on the US.
Panetta doesn’t “need” to travel in a taxpayer-subsidized airplane either.
By law I can’t have an actual assault rifle, which is full auto. I can still have a semi-auto version. Whether I actually “need” a semi-auto (and therefore civilianized) version of the actual assault rifle or not is none of Panetta’s business
Now, if we went to the Swiss national militia system, then I could keep a full auto weapon on my premises, and Panetta would understand that I am allowed to have it.
While we are asking what people need or don’t need, what I’m not seeing is someone asking if we really need Panetta or even Obama for that matter. As to my guns killing people, all I can say is not since I’ve owned them but I like old, not quite collector grade firearms like my ancestors carried and used. What they had been used for before I got them I have no idea and I can’t say what they may be used for in the future.
Now, about newspapers not being used to kill people. As mentioned already by another poster the Zimmerman case is close to the media doing their best to get Zimmerman the death penalty. I know that is not what was meant exactly but that could be the result. Also, I’m going by memory here so be nice, I believe it was the Hearst chain of newspapers that spent a lot of time and money doing everything they could to get popular opinion swayed against the Spanish and figuratively blew the explosion of the USS Maine into an act of war against the US and led to the Spanish/American war. How many times and in how many countries, have newspapers been used it incite the people to riot or overthrow their governments?
How about this?
People Don’t NEED all those tax codes.
You don’t get to decide what people need and don’t need when it comes to the II Amendment, PUKE!
“I mean who the hell needs armor-piercing bullets except you guys in battle?”</I
Spot on, Mr. Panetta. And you should know that I define myself as a ‘guy in battle,’ with: 1. You, 2. The Obama adminstration, and 3. Criminals . . . but I repeat myself.
I may not need a rifle, but I do certainly need the right to own one.
“There are about 41,000 Christian churches in the world — most of them having a branch in the United States. ” I believe you meant to say, “…41,000 Christian denominations…” Excellent point, however.
I am sick with my government telling me what I need. Slowly but surely, our nation is less of what it was intended to be — the people telling government what it needs to be. But then, over half of the American public is doing just that.
Does the gov’mt have them Leon? They don’t need them either.
Look, friends, Panetta is a life-long Democrat. That means (duh!) that he is a life-long hater of America. It means he is an enemy! One has to wonder, but the answer is obvious, does the fool know that Americans cannot buy a military rifle capable of automatic fire, and does he know (of course he does not) that there is no such thing as an assault rifle? If he knows, he is just spouting the Democrat Anti-America line.
Know a Democrat? Get that SOB out of your life.
“Know a Democrat? Get that SOB out of your life.”
What ‘exactly’ do ‘you’ mean by that comment? Be honest!
It means you all are the scum of the earth. Decent People should not allow you around. You are pariah … and should so be shunned.
I agree with this gent.
Thanks for the humor but I’m pretty sure Tex can speak for himself and his comment. You keep insulting republicans as you routinely do and many of us know where to go and what to do on election day — fishing! Your national and GOP acceptability rating is only slightly above that of congress and your human numbers still a very real super minority even inside the GOP. Some in the democrat hierarchy are hearlding the tea party as their (dems) greatest strategic advantage for elections. Looks like 2012 validates that!
Zeke: Really. Go away. We are just playing with you. We really don’t give a flying f$#% what you think or say. Your preplanned cut and paste routine is a dead give-a-way as to who you are. For instance you conveniently did not mention how many home invasions, rapes and other violent crime were prevented because the victim had a gun. Tool.
I am glad you like living in your mom’s basement and pick up some hustle working for HuffPo or DU. Good for you.
But when the sh%t hits the fan and it will, stay indoors. Your side will take a beating.
Zeke look at the county map…
Republicans are more popular EVERYWHERE in America except the Urban hell-holes and their “guilty white liberal” suburban enclaves…Little specks of blue here and there on one big huge red map.
The “greatest strategic advantage” for electing democrats has been the same since FDR. Free stuff for votes. Obama merely upped the ante to 16 trillion in debt for “obama phones” and EBT cards for his BET viewers.
Plus massive voter fraud, and massive (taxpayers!) money laundering/kickback schemes from Public Employee Unions, the “standard” gimmicks you guys always use.
In other words, absolutely nothing to be ‘proud” of, unless youre a scumbag who hates America, in other words, a Democrat.
Its all broken now and you guys did it, so congratulations.
But just one thing…when the blood bill comes, are you ready for it?
Cause its comming, Zeke, man is it comming
Panetta speaks of “need.” That rhetoric is consistent with what I believe is the motto of the present Administration: “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.”
i “need” whatever weaponery it takes to protect myself from whatever presents itself, up to and including my own government.
the 2nd Amend. set that right in Law.
just because the government has seen fit to abandon it’s legitimate constraints doesn’t mean that my God-given right is no longer, it still is no matter what Laws the upsurpers pass.
Ooops! Panetta lies! Armor piercing ammunition is banned from civilian sale.
http://www.atf.gov/firearms/guides/importation-verification/download/firearms-imporation-verification-guidebook–complete.pdf
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/923
(Except, of course, if you’re law enforcement or military.)
Is he saying to the troops they don’t need this technology?
Silly stupid words…
“Armor piercing” like “assault weapon”, has as much meaning to guns as as “hot-rod” has to cars.
Not a whole lot. Its nothing but Opinion and Emotion, these foolish words.
What is “armor piercing”, and for that matter what is “armor”?
Soft police body armor? A late 1970′s invention, that even on the DAY it was released, could NOT stop MOST known bullet designs that were already more than 100 years old?
Who’s patent are we using as the yardstick?
The Second Chance Body Armor Company?
Dupont Kevlar? Steel plate?
Titanium Carbon nano-tube?
How many layers?
My rifles fire cartridges from World War One.
Nothing yet “wearable” by the Soldier or Policeman will currently stop one.
These cartridges have not grown “more powerful” since the invention of Body Armor, so “banning” these (and others that perform as well) by claiming they are suddenly “armor piercing” is a deceitful thing to do, a disingenuous lie, a fraud, and a crime.
So…Body Armor of the last decade cannot stop bullets of the last century, you say? So F*cking WHAT, Mr. Panetta? What IS your point?
Bullets are bullets. They do what they do. What they have always done.
That is why ARMS are protected by The Second Amendment, and why any technology to “stop” them by the Government tomorrow, SHOULD ALREADY BE MADE IMPOTENT by what the Citizen has available to him today.
Bullets are bullets Mr Panetta. They do what they do.
They are the Sovereign Property of the citizens, who merely issue them to the Police and the Military from time to time, to do our bidding as we instruct them.
Accept that, and be gone you foolish and ignorant man.
Who is Panetta to tell me what I need or don’t need? And who cares if he is a hunter or not? The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting.
“Panetta: People Don’t ‘Need’ Assault Rifles”
Yeah, but Leon? You cannot protect us. It is as simple as that. At the end of the day, neither you nor Obama nor Big Sis nor even our local constabulary can protect myself or my family in our time of need. We NEED our second-amendment rights. We are entitled to our right to defend ourselves from violent threat. What is your problem, Leon (Barry, et al.)? Do you have something to fear from the American People? What else, aside from the threat of insane law-breakers, do you wish to take away from us? Hmmm?
You know who else Panetta failed to protect. Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. I’m so glad to have Panetta watching my back, with his whole 2 years of military service.
Damn straight, I don’t need an AR-15.
I WANT one, though. (Actually I want more than one, but good luck getting two or three right now.) Badly, desperately.
Now try to convince me I don’t want one, Leon, you sexy stud, you. C’mon, big boy. You know you want to.
BEST !!! — Love ya, Lili !
Notice how Panetta throws in the “armor piercing bullets” canard? Knowing their gun grab is essentially unpopular, as seen in the bonanza increase in AR 15 sales after Obama opened his mouth, Dems like Pelosi, Feinstein, and Biden have all thrown out the armor piercing bullets line to try an give weight to their losing arguments. It hasn’t even been a point of discussion, but it keeps getting put into the mix by one side of the discussion.
@ The Root ’83
“Its all broken now and you guys did it, so congratulations.”
I’ve been republican since 1954 and remain so today. I’m a traditional republican who believes in the traditional platforms. That said, I’m not ‘owned’ by the party! I vote platform and issues not a party. You may be asking what that means. It simply means I vote platform then a candidate with the best resolve for the current issues of the platform. If the party don’t put up a platform or any candidates for whom I agree with, to bad!
As for the ‘county’ demographics you elluded to. The electoral system doesn’t go by county. It goes by precinct polling, county by county and state by state. Election outcomes are based on population demographics precinct by precinct and state by state, but you knew that. Yes, you can look at the red v blue on a state or national map and be impressed by the shading, but look at the outcome. An outcome, in which favorable GOP redistricting around the country didn’t succeed. Election results are predicated on three things — voter demograhics, population consolidation and get out the votes. As voter demographics change going forward, one party or the other will benefit in addition to the other two variables. I think you know where that fact leads in in todays discussions and the GOP.
Zeke
If you are a Republican who sometimes crosses “party line” to vote for a charlatan Democrat who “says what he needs to say” locally, then you are a fool.
The National Level Democrat Party determines the agenda, and will give “plausibly deniable” lip-service/wiggle room to their guys in “purple-ish” areas , in exchange for their “ineffectiveness” at actually ACHIEVING anything the “crossover republican” had hoped for. Sometimes they even RUN as “republicans” ( Specter, Christ, Bloomberg?) but the result is always the same.
Its their GAME, and they play on gullible people like you (and the Ignoramus Independents) to win it, by making you think you’re being “reasonable” by voting for “conservative” Democrats or “moderate” Republicans,….when the net result is always a hard-left turn.
The Democratic Party enforces a Lock-Step-Left National agenda, period.
All forms Gun control? Check.
Higher Taxes and Endless deficit spending? Check.
Money-laundering/kickback scheme from Public Employee Unions? Check.
Limitless subsidies to the undeserving? Check.
Soft on crime, capital punishment, Islam? Check.
Hard on Western Civ., Christians Values, the Constitution? Check.
Shake down/threaten/destroy Business? Check
NO democrat (or RINO) will EVER buck these party lines issues after a campaign. Period.
Rinos and Democrats belong in the trunks of cars at the bottom of lakes.
Period.
Durn Root! Don’t have a clue where you conceived that I cross party lines to vote a democrat ticket! If I don’t like the ticket I don’t vote it! I’m NO partys property! I exercise my right to think, reason and act independently as a citizen. All the rest of the long laundry list you mention is “your’ conceived list and not a part of any party platform. Guess thats what happens to a person who allows themselves to become radicalized by self seving interest groups.
Question for you. Have you marked the homes or put ‘enemy’ signs in all your neighbors yards whom are suspected of being democrat or republicans for whom don’t see everything as you do? Or, is this just a game you play via the internet where you can hide behind anonymity? The reason I ask is, I can sit and visit with all my friends democrat or republican and the political and religious conversations I have with them are identical to what I post on here. Whether we all agree inpart or not at all, we all leave still good friends and equal americans alike. On here, everybody goes out of their way to either make somebody an outcast ‘enemy’ or one of the lock-step club groupies. How american is that?
“But for the life of me, I don’t know why the hell people have to have an assault weapon.”
To paraphrase a fellow I used to work with: Leon, perhaps your comprehension isn’t necessary for this.
‘Need’ doesn’t enter into it.
What I “need” is for you, Mr. Panetta to STFU.
I missed the bit about all the problems of the Defense Department being solved.
Why don’t you do your job, Mr Secretary? The suicide rate among soldiers could use some work, and you’ve got issues with the wives clubs and same sex spouses. You could look into why our M-4 is less than the most reliable of weapons once that’s done. I can come up with more, but you get my point.
Do your job, which is not managing my life. I have a budget I live within. You’re the one who needs my help, not vice versa.
“…But yield who will to their separation,
Only where love and need are one,
Is the deed ever really done,
For heaven and the future’s sake.”
(Excerpted from R. Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”)
Who “needs” Panetta?
We do HAVE 2cnd Amendment RIGHTS, as OUR Founders wisely enumerated among countless “unenumerated rights” (9th Amendment), in foresight of the day we got hacks like Panetta and O’bumtwit trying to tell us all what we “need”, at the point of THEIR gun.
IMHO, the Brady Act is/was an illegal federal law, contradicted by the 2cnd Amendment, but what else could one expect of a Clinton “product”, signed by the same kind of hack, one who couldn’t even appreciate the sameness of “is” and “is”? — It’s not about the NEED for an AR-15! Need is not relevant to this issue. “Love” is, and they’re the same, on all levels!
Idle Question: How many of the troops who were addressed by Pannetta do y’all suppose personally own handguns and “assault rifles,” which they’ve at least stored back in the States?
Likely Answer: So many that Leon Pannetta would s*** his skivvies.
I’ll bet nearly all of the troops who had to endure Pannetta’s speech were collectively muttering, “What an ignorant a**hole” and wishing they were back in the barracks playing “Halo 4″.
Rand Paul: Christie threw a ‘tantrum’ Posted by CNN’s Ashley Killough
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/18/rand-paul-christie-threw-a-tantrum/
I think it’s a bit foolhardy for a political blogger to start listing all the things we don’t need.
We sure as Heck don’t need so many political bloggers!