Junius, Fils The American People 14 December, 2012 Ladies and Gentlemen: Once again, we read the headlines. Once again, we see the pictures and watch the survivors being interviewed on the news. Once again, a senseless shooting has taken place. Once again, the same, stupid, phony macho defense of firearms, like vomit, splashes across the internet. Once again. I am not going to dignify the idiotic muttonheads who worship their Glocks, their shotguns, and their rifles by answering their feeble-minded and corrupt arguments. In defense of their (justly) low self-esteem, they buttress their egos with weapons and defend obvious murders in order to more securely fondle the pistol they carry as a substitute for any worth whatsoever. Their arguments are as bogus now as they have always been. Backed by the National Rifle Association, an organization which has less to do with the responsible use of firearms that a fish has to a fandango, they yowl and howl about their so-called liberty, a liberty which consists of watching, albeit on television, others die. Like the cowards they are, they glorify violence…..from a very safe distance. In the meantime, people die. To pander to psychotics, and the NRA’s money, politicians on both sides of the aisle have not taken action – the Democrats because they do not want to face the added problem of massive NRA financial opposition, the Republicans because it is in their self-interest to prostitute themselves to the perverts who place their firearm-re-enforced egos before the lives of others and before simple common sense. It is time to put an end to this. A simple solution presents itself. President Obama should form a commission of twenty police chiefs from around the country and give them two weeks to come up with sensible proposals for gun control. These proposal should them be sent to Congress with the strong recommendation that they be enacted into law. Any vote in Congress should be BY NAME. Let each Senator and Member of the House go on record, in front of the camera, with his vote. Will such a measure, or measures, result in complete, airtight, total security? Of course not. No human endeavor can do so. This is, however, no reason not to act. We have listened to the idiotic lies and frankly insane excuses and claims of the gun lobby and their simian supporters for too long. Enough! No more! I am, Ladies and Gentlemen, your most humble and obedient & etc Junius, fils
You are asking for other people to voice their opinion on what gun control laws should be (the police chiefs). Im asking you what YOU think the gun control laws should be.
Briefly universal registration prohibition for certain classes (violent offenders, persons judged after fair evaluation to be mentally incompetent) ban on assault and assault-type weapons. If not a ban (I'm thinking of collectors) strict controls on storage controls on interstate transport and sales insurance requirement for ownership severe penalties (or enforcement of existing severe penalties) for crimes where guns are involved The subject is too complicated to summarize briefly but these would be a good start
Reprinted in full with an unfunny cartoon This time has to be different By E.J. Dionne Jr. , Updated: December 14, 2012 Twenty children and seven adults are dead in Newtown, Connecticut. This time, the cowardice, the fear, the evasion and the political convenience must end. We have had enough. American politics is plagued by timidity and paralyzed by opportunism whenever we even consider talking action to curb gun violence. No other developed country in the world has these massacres on such a regular basis. In no comparable nation do citizens have such easy access to guns. On no public question other than gun violence are those who demand solutions after an ungodly episode accused of “politicizing tragedy.” It is time to insist that such craven propaganda will no longer be taken seriously. If our political system does not act this time, we can deem it as totally bought and paid for by the representatives of gun manufacturers, gun dealers, and their very well-compensated lobbyists and mouthpieces. A former high Obama Administration official once made this comment to me: “If progressives are so worked up about how Washington is controlled by the banks and Wall Street, why aren’t they just as worked up by the power of the gun lobby?” It is a good question. There was a different quality to President Obama’s response to this mass shooting, and I think I know why. It is not just that 20 children were killed, although that would be enough. And it is not just that since he became president, our nation has gone through one gun tragedy after another – and done nothing. There have been rumblings out of the administration that the president has been unhappy with his legislatively passive response to the earlier mass shootings and was prepared in his second term to propose tough, practical steps that might make such killings less likely. His statement pointed to this exasperation. Here is the key passage: “As a country, we have been through this too many times. Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” “Regardless of politics.” That is what it will take. A president who no longer has to run for election is in a good position to say this, but he and the rest of us must change the politics of guns for those who will face the voters again. We cannot just be sad. We must be angry. We cannot just shake our heads. We must shake our fists, and wield our votes. We cannot just say that curbing gun violence is one issue among many. It is a paramount concern for our country. And we will have to avoid the paralysis created by those who insists that every mass shooting is the work of one deranged individual and never, ever the result of flawed policies. We must beware of those who invoke complexity not to further understanding, but to encourage passivity and resignation. Of course every social problem is complex. Every act of violence has complicated roots, both personal and social. But we already know that it is far too easy to obtain guns in America. We already know that it is far too difficult to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. And we already know that weapons are available that should not even be sold. We must act now to curb gun violence, or we never will. © The Washington Post Company http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ooting-this-time-has-to-be-different/?print=1 http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/ta/
Why would you ban assault weapons when they are used in less than 1% of firearm murders? Did you know the most common weapon used to kill other people is the Smith and Wesson 38 revolver? A little 6-shooter is the biggest problem so why wouldn't you ban that? People calling for these bans have no idea what they are talking about. Assault weapons look scary so let's get rid of em, doesn't matter what the actual statistics are.
I suspect I've forgotten more about assault weapons than you will ever know. I also would like to see universal registration of firearms, and that includes pistols. A bullet from Smith & Wesson 38 revolver (a weapon - snub nosed - , by the way, with which I qualified expert) kills just as easily as an AK-47. Stop making excuses.
