Forum Post: GUNS – Facts & opinion & the solution
Posted 11 years ago on Jan. 30, 2013, 8:19 a.m. EST by bensdad
(8977)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Facts & opinion & solution follow
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FACTS: There is little difference between a gun owner and a gun buyer
There is no difference between a gun owned and a gun bought
The constitution does give some people the right to “bear arms”
More Americans ( in absolute numbers & per capita ) are killed by guns than in almost any other country ( USA 11,000+; England 35 )
Almost no hunters hunt with semi-automatic weapons
“Assault weapon” is a term well defined in law but not well understood
Legislatures & courts ( including SCOTUS ) have set numerous limits on the 2nd amendment’s right to “bear arms”
Just like legislatures & courts ( including SCOTUS ) have set numerous limits on the 1st amendment’s right to “free speech” [ no “fire in a crowded theatre ]
You can buy a revolver arm but not a grenade launcher arm
A 9 year old cannot buy a shotgun
Australia & England both passed strict new gun control laws –
and drastically cut their gun deaths
The nra uses its members to sell guns for the gun manufacturers
It is illegal to drive an un-registered car
It is illegal to drive if you are unlicensed
It is illegal to drive an uninsured car
The 1994 “assault weapons ban” did not work because it did NOT ban assault weapons – it only banned their sale or manufacture.
OPINIONS
The real problem never discussed: It is not the gun sellers or the gun buyers – or even the guns - it is the gun OWNERS
I would divide most gun deaths into five categories: the Sandy Hook mass murderers, drug related street crime, non-drug related street crime, “personal” crimes of anger, suicide. Consider each one - all would be reduced if we reduced the number of guns ( and legalized drugs ). The complex, conflicting state laws and the huge number of guns owned by Americans makes confiscation ( that no one is advocating ) totally unfeasible
We need a uniform federal gun law
The “mental health” issue is an nra stall – unless they agree that everyone who OWNS a gun must be psychoanalyzed and certified “safe to own guns” The nra’s “American culture is different” is another stall – most countries have hunters, violent movies, citizen owned guns, violent video games, drugs
Background checks & closing the gun show loophole will help – but ONLY with new sales –
it does nothing about OWNERS – and there are 100,000,000 of them. If just 1/10 of 1% of them are crazy, that’s 10,000 crazy gun OWNERS!
…………… solution follows
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SOLUTION:
Based on reducing guns, not confiscation
THOSE WHO CAN – DO
THOSE WHO CAN’T - RANT
1►
learn as much as you can about the numbers that prove what the solutions are
2►
demand a plan:
http://www.youtube.com/user/maigcoalition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Za8SOVuGHs&list=UUu4Q7iE0z1Jw7yUjs56dvXA&index=1
alex jones – without his straight jacket!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XZvMwcluEg&feature=endscreen&NR=1
multi-millionaire gun manufacturer wayne lapierre who works for koch brothers & gets paid over $1,000,000 / year
to get his army of lemmings to keep buying guns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dar6K2STVVQ
3►
DO: WRITE CONGRESS:
find your congresspeople
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Dear ............................:
[ Y.O.U.R...I.N.T.R.O...H.E.R.E ]
While some people may want to confiscate guns, I don’t.
Here is a much more feasible, practical approach.
It will not solve all gun problems, but it will
reduce the number of guns
and that will reduce the number of dangerous people who have access to guns -
and
isn't THAT our real goal?
My proposal - for a NATIONAL gun law for all guns & owners:
My four points are SIMPLY based on seeing a logical parallel between cars & guns.
Please consider advocating these four steps below to help America with our 11,000+ gun disasters:
1►
all gun owners must be licensed & tested with all guns they own and pass a written test.
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every year, you must prove that you have gun liability insurance &
be background checked and prove that your gun is properly locked when not used.
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as the owner of a gun, you are legally responsible for what is done with it.
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every gun must be registered and tested & a sample fired bullet stored by the police
additionally -
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Some real 2011 / 2012 gun statistics:
Americans own almost half of all civilian owned guns in the world.
Per 100,000: America: 88,880 guns owned ; 2.97 homicides Per 100,000
Per 100,000: England.…: 6,200 guns owned ; 0.07 homicides Per 100,000
Per 100,000: Austrailia: 15,000 guns owned ; 0.14 homicides Per 100,000
Per 100,000: Canada…: 30,800 guns owned ; 0.51 homicides Per 100,000
Per 100,000: France….: 31,000 guns owned ; 0.06 homicides Per 100,000
Per 100,000: Japan……..: 1,000 guns owned ; 0.08 homicides Per 100,000
Per 100,000: Israel……..: 7,300 guns owned ; 0.90 homicides Per 100,000
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-march-2012/rft-annual-trend-and-demographic-tables-2011-12.xls
The above link is to England police statistics - see table D19
The nra & its trolls are claiming that we will fail, where England & Australia succeeded in reducing gun deaths substantially by legislation.
Statistics clearly prove that the number of guns in a state or in a country adds to the risk of homicides.
More complex is the effect of gun laws and restrictions.
When Australia had a massacre in 1996 when 35 people were killed, gun laws were substantially strengthened and a major buy-back was instituted.
There has not been an incident in Australia since then.
Of course, they did not have the benefit of the nra.
In 2011, there were 11,000+ gun homicides in America
In 2011, there were 35 gun deaths in England
For 2011, the average Murder Rate in Death Penalty States was 4.7,
while the average Murder Rate of States without the Death Penalty was 3.1
For 2011, the murder rates were highest in red state regions:
Per 100,000: South 5.5 Midwest 4.5 West 4.2 Northeast 3.9
VERY IMPORTANT:
▬► The 1994 gun "ban" did NOT ban assault weapons.
▬►It banned the MANUFACTURE of assault weapons.
Scalia - yes that Scalia - has stated guns like the AR15s are NOT “protected” by Article 2
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that there are "undoubtedly" limits to a person's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, but that future court cases will have to decide where to draw the line. That link could be between you and an bushmaster.
During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Scalia was asked whether lawmakers have the right to ban high-capacity gun magazines without violating a person's constitutional right to bear arms. "We'll see," Scalia said, suggesting that future court cases will determine what limitations on modern-day weapons are permissible.
"Some limitations undoubtedly are permissible because there were some that were acknowledged at the time" the Constitution was written, Scalia said.
"So yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed, What they are will depend on what the society understood were reasonable limitations at the time."
The conservative justice notably authored the Supreme Court's 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which ruled that the Second Amendment protects a person's right to bear arms. The court ruled that "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited."
Scalia pointed out that that the Second Amendment "obviously" doesn't apply to weapons that can't be hand-carried, and modern-day weapons like "hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes" weren't factored in at the time of the writing of the Constitution.
"My starting point and probably my ending point will be what limitations are within the understood limitations that the society had at the time, They had some limitations on the nature of arms that could be borne. So we'll see what those limitations are as applied to modern weapons." Ultimately, Scalia said, any new gun restrictions will have to be re-evaluated
I reference Scalia not out of admiration but out of the hope that he might be the fifth vote for gun sanity - the next time SCOTUS acts on guns.
And of course if we stopped money going from advocacy groups & cororations to buy politicians, this would be a very big step in the right direction
Watch our videos: Hedges, Kucinich, Warren, Chomsky , Sanders ,
Romney, Reich, Hartmann, Maddow, Nader, Feingold, Jefferson Maddow
And read our analysis of Corporate Personhood & Citizens United & evaluate the national polls that prove the truth.
http://corporationsarenotpeople.webuda.com
Sarah Muller
The Last Word updated 1/29/2013 11:46:10 PM ET
The Last Word host Lawrence O'Donnell slammed the “gun-worshiping fanatics" who dared to heckle a grieving parent for posing a serious question on gun control.
When a father testified about his murdered 6-year-old child…he got heckled. The unthinkable happened on Monday for Sandy Hook parent Neil Heslin, whose son, Jesse, was killed in the December massacre in Newtown.
While other parents of victims attended the hearing, Heslin also faced “gun-worshiping fanatics in the audience,” as described by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, while speaking in front of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety.
The response from NRA members and other gun enthusiasts came after Heslin posed a simple legitimate question to the room:
“Why anybody in this room needs to have one of these assault style weapons or military weapons or high capacity clips?”
O’Donnell slammed the hecklers, saying their actions were completely misguided. “Heckling’s when you say something stupid from the audience. And when a speaker rhetorically or directly asks an audience why you need 30-round magazines and assault weapons, and you yell a response which is basically
‘I think the Second Amendment says I can have them,’
you have not answered the question about why” O’Donnell continued, “There are plenty of legal things for sale in America that we don’t need,” citing cigarettes as an example.
O’Donnell applauded Heslin’s “solid and emotional case about why no one in this country and no one in that audience needs massacre weapons.” He made sure to note, “That grieving father’s question remains unanswered by the gun fanatics in that audience.”
Twenty students and six educators died in the attack.
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