Friday, April 19, 2013

Even More Heated Debate Among 'Friends' Over Gun Control

April 19, 2013

Here's another Facebook debate that started from something rather innocent.

WORTH THE TIME TO READ, PLEASE DO SO:

Guess our national leaders didn't expect this. On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.
They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness. The following is a portion of the transcript:

"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good &evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact.
What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws.
Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him.

To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge.. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!
My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"
- Darrell Scott

Do what the mainstream media did not - - let the nation hear this man's speech. Please share this with your FB friends! I've copied this from my cousin's page because, as usual, facebook will not allow me to "share" it. The stupid thing will not even allow me to tag her in it.
  • JS1: sorry PS, don't take this the wrong way but i completely disagree. I think that's one of the worst conclusions to come from the events of columbine.
  • ME: Which conclusion is "one of the worst", JS1? That the murders weren't the fault of guns? That they weren't the fault of the NRA? That it was the fault of the people - the murderers? That gun control legislation will not stop future mass murders? That God is the answer to our problems? Something else?
  • PS, the testimony is factual but the attempt at creating outrage around it - that it wasn't expected or accepted well or that it wasn't covered by the media - is not. Both Snopes and Urban Legends have written about it and mention that the media did cover it at the time. The video of the testimony shows that Darrell Scott was recognized before his testimony for skipping a memorial service for his daughter in order to testify instead. He was thanked afterward.

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/scott.asp
    http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bldarrellscott.htm

    Here's an 8:43 YouTube video of Darrell Scott talking about forgiveness, if you're interested:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtXdrJkwCsY

    And here's the video of Darrell Scott's actual testimony where you can see and hear him deliver it:http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4259689

    And here's a blog I recommend that covers many 2nd Amendment topics:http://us2ndamendment.blogspot.com/

  • PS: okayyyyy
  • JS2: Your rights to pray in school have never been removed. If you as an individual feel the need to pray in school you are free to do so. The schools themselves cannot force anyone to pray though or preform any religious practice. Im sorry but the argument that restrictive gun laws wont help prevent these tragedies is propaganda spread by associations such as the NRA who feel its necessary for them to be allowed as a citizen to purchase military grade firearms and ammunition. There is no valid reason for nonmilitary personnel to own these types of weapons. We continually misquote the second amendment by cutting off "in order to form a well armed militia." This amendment was created when our country had no standing military and needed to rely on its average citizen to defend its borders. We have a standing military now, and anyone who still feels the need to form a militia is suffering from paranoid delusions. Now I dont have an issue with no military grade weapons being kept for hunting and home defense, but when you can purchase massive quantities of 5.56 NATO rounds (military grade ammunition) on the internet, theres something wrong with our countries mindset. When it comes to the religious side of this post, I have no problem with any person who wants to pray in school. I have an issue with people thinking we are a Christian nation. Our founding fathers left England so they could practice their own religious beliefs. They specifically wrote a segment in our founding documents that allows any citizen to practice any religion they want. So to sit there and say god is the answer and we need to put god in our schools through law goes against everything American. This conservative outlook on rights wants to have any and all freedoms that go along with their beliefs but restrict or stomp on the rights of those who believe in other things.
  • ME: JS2, you're showing your ignorance as well as proliferating inaccurate propaganda like you're accusing others of.

    You misquoted the 2nd Amendment. It doesn't mention a "well armed militia" as you just stated. It's "A well regulated militia, being nec    essary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." First, "regulated" doesn't mean today what it did back then, but most people aren't focused on that right now. Second, it has been ruled by the US Supreme Court that the word "people" is meant to mean common, ordinary citizens, not uniformed soldiers of a standing army. Third, the purpose of the militia is to keep us free and that includes from its own tyrannical government. You're quick to point out there was no standing army at the time but you're ignoring the fact our Founding Fathers wrote it on the heels of having fought for freedom from a tyrannical government. They were guaranteeing in the Bill of Rights that no government, including our own, could disarm the population as was attempted by the British in the Colonies. Fourth, "shall not be infringed" is pretty clear.

    Estimates are that there are between 270-310 million firearms in circulation in the US. That number has only gone up while crime has been on a steadily downward trend for 20 years. Gun buybacks and confiscation from criminals doesn't measurably reduce the overall number in circulation. People who commit crimes with guns, and especially mass murder like at Sandy Hook Elementary, are already breaking multiple laws. Adding another one won't convince them to do otherwise. Restricting certain firearms is useless. So-called "assault weapons", a politically invented term, are used in an estimated less than 1% of gun crime. Equal destruction can and has been done with pistols - Columbine and Fort Worth. The proposed background checks would not have stopped Sandy Hook, Fort Worth and other mass murder events. Either they already owned them through background checks or they stole the firearms from others. Anyone who is determined to commit murder or mass murder can do it. If it were even possible to completely remove one tool from their selection they'd just move to the next - rifle, pistol, knife, machete, bomb. Cartels and guerillas hack people to death by the dozens with machetes. Oklahoma City and 9/11 showed us tremendous violence and body counts with no guns at all - box cutters, fertilizer, jet fuel and a missile (the planes themselves). The Barefoot Bandit, as a teenager, stole a private plane from the Pacific Northwest and flew it to the Midwest. If he had wanted to fill it with gasoline and crash it into a school or shopping mall, he could have. The same day as Sandy Hook there were ~20 kids knifed in a school. People argue that no one died but I've recently heard it said it wasn't the attacker's intent to kill. He was intentionally maiming them - cutting off small body parts. And earlier this week there were ~15 people stabbed and cut with a utility knife (also reported an an Exacto Knife or scalpel) near Houston. Early reports are that this college student has fantasized about stabbing people since grade school. These people will always find a way to pursue their sick fantasies or terrorist plots. In the UK and Australia, countries where guns have been almost universally banned, violent crime has increased, and in Australia even gun murder has risen since their ban. Magazine capacity limits won't slow down violent crime or mass murders. Crime stats show that an average of 3-4 rounds are fired in crimes. There are already millions of so-called "high capacity" magazines in circulation. They're actually "standard capacity" magazines. And 30-round magazines can, and have, been made using 3D printers. There are demonstrations of them on YouTube. Again, even if you could magically confiscate every 11+ round magazine in the world, all anyone needs to do is purchase or lease a 3D printer, download the free plans available on the Internet, and print as many as they want. It's actually cheaper to do in mass production that way for any criminal organization. Designs are already underway to manufacture plastic guns through the same technology. I've seen those demos too.

    Anyone trained in a profession of arms - law enforcement, military, security - knows that security is more perception than reality. You can make a person or place safer but you cannot make them safe because you cannot control all the risk variables. The NRA's position that 'a bad guy with a gun can only be stopped by a good guy with a gun' holds true and has been demonstrated. It can't prevent these incidents. But it can dramatically reduce the response time and damage that otherwise would have occurred. These mass murders are often killed or kill themselves when they're met with equivalent force - a person with a gun. If the outspoken gun control advocates were serious about reducing gun violence they'd listen to actual experts and develop workable solutions instead of demonstrating their own incompetence and lack of knowledge while they pursue their own agendas. These solutions would include hardening schools, providing security in schools, removing so-called "gun free zones" (a.k.a. soft targets), allowing administrators, staff, teachers and parents to carry in schools and FIXING the broken background check system, NICS, before trying to broaden its use. They need to get names of the mentally ill INTO the system before it can prevent a single gun purchase that shouldn't be made.
  • ME: Your argument completely falls apart when you try and discuss "military grade firearms and ammunition" unless you're suggesting we ban all firearms except .22 caliber and smaller. What do you think you mean by "military grade firearms and ammunition"? At a minimum, our military has used .38 caliber, .45 cal and 9mm pistols. .380 car is the same as 9mm but with a shorter shell casing and a different shape to the round. 10mm, .40 caliber and larger are even bigger than some of those "military grade" pistol calibers. For rifles we use 5.56mm (exactly the same as .223 caliber), .30 cal, .50 cal and probably a few others. You say you're okay with non-military grade firearms for hunting? 5.56mm / .223 caliber rifles are NOT allowed for hunting big game in many states because they're NOT powerful enough to ensure a clean kill of the game. They are used for hunting small game - coyotes and smaller. Standard hunting rifles are MORE powerful than 5.56mm / .223 cal. NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization and has nothing to do with anything in this discussion except that countries belonging to NATO attempted to use similar military supplies, including ammunition, for logistical purposes. A NATO spec or MILSPEC (military specification) only refers to specifications for any product the military might buy. It can literally apply to almost anything from office supplies to missile systems. MILSPEC does not mean ammunition is any more powerful than any other like item, including ammunition. 5.56mm / .223 caliber ammunition typically comes with either 55 or 62 grains of powder in the shells. It's not necessarily to make the round more powerful, although it can have that effect. When a firearm is designed, the ammo is matched to the rifling of the barrel for performance purposes, so it doesn't tumble in the air prematurely and become inaccurate. In a gun show I recently attended, the 55 grain was sold out and the 62 grain was still available.

    You think there's "no valid reason for nonmilitary personnel to own these types of weapons"? That's an empty argument. It's not for you or anyone else to determine what firearms others can or should use or to assess their need. It's a choice. It's a freedom. You don't "need" 1st or 5th Amendment rights. People in places like China, Iran and North Korea don't have them. People are persecuted, imprisoned and killed for their speech and religious observances and "due process" sometimes means being tortured until an accused person self incriminates themselves. We could live like that. Women and minority men don't "need" to vote. They didn't always have a vote in this country. These are all equal civil liberties. Keeping and bearing arms of choice is one of them. The US Supreme Court has ruled that firearms that are not "dangerous and unusual" cannot be limited. Yes, all firearms are inherently dangerous - just like knives, cars, etc. There's no basis in an argument there when talking about 100-year old semi-automatic firearms technology. These firearms are not "unusual" because, as determined by SCOTUS, they're used by millions of people for lawful purposes. That would apply more to fully automatic firearms (machine guns), rockets, mortars, etc.

    You criticize the "propaganda" or the NRA and other organizations. While some of what I've written here is in line with that, there's some here that comes from multiple independent sources - sources that I've sought out because of the recent, aggressive and varied attacks on our 2nd Amendment by gun control advocating politicians and media. Other parts of what I've written are from my own training, reading and decades worth of conversations with professionals in law enforcement and military operations. While propaganda isn't strictly a negative term by definition, it is usually used with that connotation. If you want to be honest about where the negative, untruthful, lying, inaccurate propaganda is coming from - you need to focus squarely on people like President Obama, Senator Feinstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Piers Morgan and many others who are pushing their agenda in spite of the facts, statistics and trends that work decidedly against their arguments. We can have a serious conversation of reducing gun violence and about providing safety to school children AFTER these people stop blatantly lying to the American people.

    What's un-American is trying to tear down any of our Bill of Rights - including the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment, in combination with the 1st (the conspiracy to overthrow British rule), is what gave us our country.
  • JS2: So based on your argument I should be well within my rights to own and carry an M203 grenade launcher and a SAW because thats how I "feel" safe. Why is there any need for a citizen to own automatic weapons and armor piercing rounds? You speak of a tyrannical government when they try to keep children safe by increasing gun safety and restriction laws but do nothing when things such as the Patriot Act are passed. You can copy and paste from wikipedia all you'd like and try and say that studies show guns stop gun violence but I promise you for every study you find arguing for you I can find just as many arguing against. Thats the wonderful thing about statistics, we can skew them to say whatever we want. I agree that there are people that will look for a way to hurt people no matter what but these people are mentally unstable and if we spent more money helping these people instead of constantly closing down psych wards and putting them out on the street we might be able to prevent a tragedy or two. Will violence ever stop? No its in human nature, has been since the beginning but this delusional view point of " the governments trying to take my guns so they can declare martial law and become a dictatorship!" Is a paranoid delusion. In terms of other measures of preventing gun violence there are many steps we can take. States should be required to run background checks before handing out a gun license. The colorado theater shooting was done by a man who walked into a store, showed his drivers license to a clerk and bought an AR 15 on the spot. No wait no background check just walked out of the store gun in hand. Why is this allowed? Trying to keep its people safe does not make a government tyrannical. Its people refusing to evolve in their beliefs so they can be prepared for some imagined coming apocalypse is whats ruining our country. We refuse to raise taxes on the rich, we refuse to cut spending on the military, we refuse to increase funding to our education system, and we somehow allowed our supreme court to pass calling corporations, people.JS1: ME, I think your first paragraph is largely semantics and says nothing towards your argument or dismantling JS2's. But you're right, words had different meanings back in the 1700's.. like Arms, really means muskets and other weapons of the time, so how does this span to include new forms of weaponry which are infinitely more efficient at killing? Why do we feel the need to cling to such an old document that was written with absolutely no connection to today's society. As far as your second paragraph, you are absolutely right, murder is preformed through a variety of weapons and crazy people will always find ways to murder others, but that doesn't stop us from passing other laws regarding these types of things, so why should guns be any different? No one is asking for a "magic bullet" to stop all violence ever, but if some regulations might just cut down the number of murders every year why not try? By no means would I argue that gun laws are the only way to approach these horrendous events, one also has to include mental disease, and our culture on a whole which seems to enjoy violence, but certainly there is place in there for reasonable talk about gun restrictions. But the main point from my original post was about was the conclusion that religion will solve our problems, since you were wondering.





  • ME: JS1, I was legitimately asking about which conclusion you were criticizing, so thanks for answering. I agree with you that turning to God or religion will not solve these problems. They’re man made and need to be man solved or mitigated.

    I disagree     with your assessment of my first paragraph. Its first argument of the four may be semantics, but the other 3 are not and directly dispute Josh’s arguments. In arguments 2 through 4 I reference Supreme Court decisions and the history and intent of our 2nd Amendment. While Josh says that to put God in schools “goes against everything American” he completely ignores that arguments in favor of restricting arms equally “goes against everything American”. As a reminder, freedom of religion is in the 1st Amendment. The “shall not be infringed” right to “keep and bear arms” is the 2nd. They’re equal, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, in our founders’ eyes.

    I’ll grant that “arms” meant muskets (and single-shot pistols and swords and cannon and spears or pikes and string weapons) in the 1700s because that’s all there was. Anyone who argues that the 2nd Amendment should be restricted to muskets is being intellectually dishonest. Muskets were “military grade” (using Josh’s term) arms of the time and were preserved for personal ownership. Freedom of speech doesn’t apply only to verbal, hand-written or hardcopy published speech available at the time. It applies to the Internet today. Freedom of religion is not restricted to the recognized religions of the time.

    That “old document” and others like it were responsible for the birth of our country and the freedoms we’ve been born entitled to for centuries. Your freedom to debate me on Facebook is grounded in that “old document”. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts are relevant today. If you want to pursue that you have a right to do so and there’s a process outlined in that “old document” for doing so that has been used successfully many times to amend it. But those pushing for gun control know they won’t be able to repeal the 2nd Amendment in our lifetimes so they resort to any and every tactic they can think of to restrict it – picking and choosing among the constitutionally provided personal liberties that they agree with.

    As for restrictive laws, there are already thousands of laws on the books that govern firearms in one form or another. The NRA has been successful in pointing out that they’re not being enforced and utilized in a manner that would be effective in reducing violent crime. The administration’s answer has been ‘we don’t have the time / resources to do that’. They prefer to tow the party line that more laws will somehow change the outcome but that more aggressive utilization of the existing laws and improvement of the existing system is not worth their effort. Many people respect the NRA and many don’t but at least they’re honest about what they’re trying to protect. Equivalent honesty among our politicians is rare. People like Obama, Biden, Feinstein, Schumer, Cuomo, Bloomberg, Emanuel and others have lost all credibility and will not be taken seriously because of their extremism, evident in their statements and proposed legislation. They’re not trying to solve ‘our problem’ and ‘respect the 2nd Amendment’, they’re trying to solve ‘their’ problem (with the 2nd Amendment).

    The gun crime rate has been on a declining trend for 20 years – a fact that gun control advocates conveniently ignore. New gun control legislation is not needed to continue that trend.

    That you acknowledge gun control is not the only answer to violent crime puts you into the more sane and reasonable category. I’m glad to see that. But the “reasonable” and “common sense” debate cannot be conducted with the above-named people. They threw both out the window a LONG time ago. There are reasonable people (voters, members) out there who will consider options. I consider myself one. There are politicians who could be swayed, regardless of NRA pressure. The Manchin-Toomey amendment proposal and today’s voting proves that. There are professionals out there who have credibility in firearms, security and analysis that would be willing to help mitigate the problems. I think the NRA might even be one. They’ve kept to their commitment by funding the “School Shield” program (the findings of which they still haven’t given a public response to that I’ve seen) and endorsing a bill having to do with strengthening the NICS background check system by getting more names of mentally ill people into the system). But they’ve been aggressively criticized since the day of Sandy Hook (and before) even though they didn’t make any public statements until a week later. They were made opponents by Vice President Biden during his task force meetings instead of being made an ally. If the administration had taken a different approach we might be celebrating passing votes on a variety of measures today instead of 7 gun control amendment failures (with more to come). That would have been something we could all celebrate instead of going home winners and losers. But that wouldn’t have been satisfactory to people with long-standing anti-gun agendas, like the above named. I’ll have a discussion with you or almost anyone else about “reasonable” and “common sense” solutions. I know other gun rights people who will too. But the gun control lies and 2nd Amendment attacks have to stop first.

    Justin (assume your brother), however, doesn’t meet your apparent level of reasonableness based upon his last response. I intend to reply to him as well.
  • JS1: This is quite an impressive response, and i appreciate much of your argument, but i think it's ridiculous to say we can't pick and choose what we follow out of the constitution. Of course we can! As a society we should constantly be reevaluating our laws and adjusting them based on how we as a society have changed. Were these documents responsible for the birth of our country? absolutely, and they should be valued as the great pieces of history that they are, but that does not mean that we should be bound by their laws for all eternity regardless of any changes in society. Jefferson said it beautifully, " laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." And as far as the gun laws already in place the limitations put on the ATF to enforce these laws are ridiculous and almost all of them were instigated by the NRA!But then they go wondering why we cant use the laws we already have, yeah that's real honesty right there. I am all for simply using the gun laws already in place, the problem is that we've have tied our law enforcement officers hands in any attempts to effectively enforce these laws, as i said before we regulate and create laws regarding all sorts of things that are even remotely dangerous, why should it be different with guns?
  • ME: JS1, I hope to respond but I don't have the time right now. I have a number of things to attend to first, including responding to Josh. But I don't mind exchanging ideas or disagreeing with people intellectually and respectfully.
  • ME: JS2, you’ve crossed from being disagreeable into delusional. First, I made no argument whatsoever for anything more powerful than semi-automatic firearms. The US Supreme Court has upheld our 2nd Amendment rights for firearms that are ‘in common use for lawful purposes’ (this includes so-called “assault weapons” and so-called “high capacity” magazines). They have ruled against weapons that are ‘dangerous and unusual’ which is where grenades, fully automatic weapons, mortars and beyond are categorized.

    The 2nd Amendment is not about “feeling” safe. It’s about a right that we’re entitled to as citizens of this country. Feelings, reasons, needs and motivations don’t factor into it, just like you don’t have to justify or prove worthy or in need of your 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech or religion or your voting rights.

    You’re questioning citizens owning “automatic weapons” and “armor piercing rounds”. If you knew what you were talking about you’d know that fully automatic weapons have been heavily restricted and armor piercing rounds banned for consumer use for decades. Neither is commonly available to the average consumer. Neither is relevant to today’s gun control debate but both have been mentioned by outspoken gun control zealots. Who’s swallowing propaganda now?

    I have not said that our present day government is tyrannical. But the basis of the 2nd Amendment is rooted in protection from tyrannical government. You’ve made assumptions about what I have or haven’t done about the “Patriot Act” but have no idea what you’re talking about. Your entire exposure to me is in this single, short Facebook debate. This government that you mention is trying to “keep children safe by increasing gun safety and restriction laws” is acting in ignorance of the facts and realities surrounding the issues and is willfully misleading people to suit their long-standing agenda against gun ownership. Anyone professionally trained in law enforcement, security or military operations knows that these ‘feel good’ measures they’re proposing have NOTHING to do with providing real safety or security. In fact, measures in the opposite direction would be more effective in doing so. The NRA’s statement that ‘a bad guy with a gun can only be stopped by a good guy with a gun’ has a LOT more credibility and effectiveness than any firearms or magazine ban or background check or so-called ‘’gun free zone”.

    I have not mentioned Wikipedia and haven’t used it to form any of my opinions or arguments. On occasion I’ve referred to it to retrieve a specific detail about an event, like a date. Instead I have spent literally hundreds of hours since Newtown reading many hundreds of articles, watching dozens of interviews and committee hearings, reading the proposed bills and looking at data. I have reviewed materials from dozens of sources. How does all that compare to your personal “copy and paste” efforts? Raw data doesn’t lie unless it’s manipulated at the time of input, as does happen in the UK crime statistics and probably elsewhere. It’s the analysis and interpretation of the data where the lying takes place. And it’s the gun control advocates who persistently misrepresent it. The gun rights people are much more willing to discuss the details of the data because it supports gun rights arguments.

  • ME: You call it a paranoid and delusional viewpoint that the government wants to take guns. Perhaps you’re unaware that Senator Dianne Feinstein is on record, on video, saying ‘if I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate to pick every one of them up, Mr. & Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in’; or of President Obama being on record while at the University of Chicago that he doesn’t think the 2nd Amendment applies to citizens, “the people”; or of the Illinois politician who is on camera saying she thinks this is just the beginning and they may be able to ban handguns; or of the actual door-to-door gun confiscation that did take place in post-Katrina New Orleans; or of the 4 different states that have proposed confiscation legislation since Newtown; or of the post-Newtown gun confiscation that has occurred in California and New York. How do those facts factor into your naïve thinking? And as for tyrannical government, study your history. Historically, tyrannical governments have banned and confiscated firearms from its citizens. Do I think President Obama is going to declare himself king? No. But neither you nor I can predict what will happen in or to this country in 50 or 100 years. I want my children and grandchildren to inherit the same America my grandfather, father and I did – with ALL their constitutional rights intact. I want to inherit my father’s guns and pass them and my own down to my children or grandchildren and not have to surrender them to the government upon my death, as has been proposed in legislation.

    Your claim about the Aurora shooter is also delusional. He was not able to walk into a store and purchase firearms WITHOUT a background check. All sales through Federal Firearms License (FFL) dealers (gun stores and more) are disallowed by law to sell without a background check. That’s been the law for decades. If it was done differently than that then a law was already broken and another one wouldn’t have made a difference. It would have been broken multiple times since his gun purchases were on at least 3 different days. The problem isn’t that he didn’t get a background check. It’s that he wasn’t in the system to be denied. That’s the fatal flaw in the system – people who should be in the database are not and many people are falsely in the database when they shouldn’t be. The NICS systems needs to be fixed, not expanded.

    The reason people can walk in a gun store and walk out with a gun moments later (after a background check) is because it’s a RIGHT. That’s what people like you can’t seem to get through your heads. Different states have different laws about waiting periods. Some allow rifles and pistols to leave the store that day but impose a waiting period for handguns. In at least some instances, some people can walk out with a handgun the same day. But all FFL sales already require background checks.

    It’s amazing that in one short paragraph you show yourself to be more and more naïve and ignorant of the facts. You’ve bought the political BS about gun control being about keeping people safe. I’ll grant that some people actually believe that even when there’s evidence to the contrary. But as I’ve mentioned, there are others who have had gun control on their agenda for decades. Both Feinstein and either Governor Cuomo or Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I can’t remember which) have admitted to having gun control legislation sitting in their desk waiting for an opportunity to push it. If it was legitimately about safety then why were they irresponsible about not pushing it earlier? They needed an emotional outpouring to try and pass their proposals on a wave of emotion instead of by use of data and facts. You and others have abandoned critical thinking skills and are too easily led by those who are trying to control people. I’m not talking about Nazi Germany. But gun control is absolutely about controlling people – controlling them to behave in a manner thought correct by someone else – the government, specifically influential politicians and other government officials, such as appointed police superintendents. And check out the definition of tyranny (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tyranny). A couple of those definitions come pretty close to what people like Obama, Feinstein, Cuomo, Bloomberg and others are trying to impose.

    Do you really think that “Its people refusing to evolve in their beliefs so they can be prepared for some imagined coming apocalypse is whats ruining our country.”? If so, you’re very small minded and need to get yourself checked in, take some happy pills, and get yourself entered in the NICS system. You’re saying that people who advocate for maintaining our constitutional rights are what’s wrong with our country? Take a look around. We have a lot of much bigger problems than people who are protecting our rights. Oh, and taxes have been raised on the rich. But why do you think it’s the responsibility of the rich to pay for the poor? Obama wants them to “pay their fair share”. How is Phil Mickelson paying 62+% in taxes fair when there are double-digit percentages of people in this country who pay NONE? What’s fair about that? Military spending has been cut. That’s part of what the sequester is about. And it’ll be cut even further if we ever get out of Afghanistan without getting into a new war. And our education system doesn’t need any more money until it improves and proves its worth. We spend more per capita on education than most countries and don’t get a comparable return for our dollar. In business, you don’t keep pouring money into something that’s not working. Money is not the problem and other countries have proven that.
  • ME: JS1, as mentioned, the method for ‘picking and choosing’ within our Constitution is to amend it. While it, and the 2nd Amendment specifically, is intact, it can only be interpreted, not ignored. And the US Supreme Court has interpreted and upheld that the 2nd Amendment applies to individuals, “the people”, and to firearms ‘in common usage for lawful purposes’. Those rulings were just a few years ago. That’s as current as it gets. If ‘society’ wants to change it, the way to do so is through the amendment process. Simple majority doesn’t work. Besides needing 2/3 majority in both the House and Senate, 75% of the states would have to agree. That will not happen in our lifetimes. Even as our population seems to be becoming more liberal minded, the Democratic wins of the past 5 years are primarily in densely populated urban areas. President Obama won with a simple majority vote but lost most states. Repealing the 2nd Amendment will not pass in 75% of states regardless of how the balance of power shifts in Congress.

    That’s a good Jefferson quote. I hadn’t read it before.

    I’m not aware of the ATF and law enforcement restrictions to which you’re referring. If you mean federal registration, that is data that has been misused and abused already at state and local levels and will be in the future. It is a privacy infringement and I’ll argue against it. If you’re talking about micro-chipping firearms and micro-stamping magazines and ammunition, again, they’re infringements but they will also add substantially to the cost of firearms and their use. I’ll argue against them. Some of what the NRA is arguing about not using existing laws is not assigning maximum jail term penalties and keeping convicted violent offenders out of circulation longer. If they’re in jail they cannot commit new crimes. They’re also talking about using the laws on the books that already address crimes with guns. Often a criminal is only prosecuted for one violation, the robbery, etc., but is not prosecuted for the additional crime of using the gun. And another is about getting the mental health records into the NICS system that should be there and that were intended to be there by design. NICS has been in place for 20 years but none of our politicians has thought it important enough to get it working the way it’s supposed to.

    I don’t agree with everything the NRA does or says. But they’re not the evil empire they’re made out to be by gun control advocates. Among their missions is to protect and preserve the 2nd Amendment. And thank God they are because otherwise it’d be in MUCH worse shape than it is today. People like Senator Feinstein and Mayor Bloomberg would have seen to that long ago. I don’t agree with everything the ACLU does either but I generally respect what they’re trying to do and recognize we’re probably better off with them than without. The NRA is no different in that regard.

    It’s a false argument to question why we don’t regulate guns. They’re already regulated in MANY ways. What you mean is to regulate them even more. And some of the recently proposed and passed regulations are actually dangerous to people’s safety, frankly.



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