Tag:guns
President’s Message by Sylvia Moore, October 2015
Twenty fifteen has been a bloody year. As I write this, we’ve had nearly 300 mass shootings occur since January, according to a Washington Post graphic that went viral. The latest tragedy just took place at a college in Oregon, where the killer took the lives of nine people and injured nine before being killed himself in a shootout with police.
It’s now become a numbingly regular and morbid ritual. The armed perpetrator - usually young, white and male - massacres people in a public place. The media punditry wonders if mental illness is involved. The President makes a statement condemning the killings and demands Congress pass gun control legislation. The National Rifle Association makes a statement saying guns shouldn’t be blamed, and besides, we need more guns to protect us. People hand-wring over what to do — or insist that nothing can be done. And so, no new national laws are passed. The current tragedy recedes into memory, and people go on with their lives. Then the cycle repeats itself with the next massacre.
America is now the mass shooting capital of the world. A University of Alabama study released in August asserts that the combination of extremely high levels of gun ownership, Americans’ obsession with fame, and the gap between Americans’ expectations of themselves and actual achievement creates a uniquely toxic environment for mass shootings. Then add to that the tens of thousands of single instances of gun violence: domestic disputes, robberies, gang warfare, suicide, the killings of unarmed people by law enforcement.
So why do we keep coming back here again and again? States that have stricter gun laws have fewer firearms deaths than those with looser regulation, but guns still cross state lines, making this a national problem. National legislation is needed, but that hasn’t been possible. We need to confront some hard truths. Some on the left like to point to Australia as a model on how stricter gun regulation can be achieved at the national level after a mass shooting. They say that Australia has a similar frontier history and love of guns, but that did not stop the country from enacting stricter gun laws in a speedy 12 (!) days. Yet, they fail to acknowledge that in Australia, everyone is required to vote. Moreover, Australia, unlike the United States, has a parliamentary system, where the party in power (or a coalition of parties) has total control of the government and opposition parties cannot veto legislation. The makeup of the U.S. Congress is among the most mal- apportioned legislative bodies in the world, meaning sparsely populated states - the ones that tend to be rural, majority white and more supportive of looser gun regulation - have greater political power than more populated states with more urban constituencies, like California. How Congress is currently organized hasn’t changed much from 1776. It’s archaic and anti-democratic.
Second, folks need to learn the real history behind the Second Amendment — not the fake one we’re taught as propaganda. The amendment was not generally created to ―protect citizens from the tyranny of the federal government. It was added to guarantee that southern plantation owners could raise ―militias‖ to quell slave revolts without interference from the feds. In other words, the Second Amendment was created to preserve the Union by protecting slavery. That’s not something to be proud about, let alone express endless support for.
Third, Americans need to get real about the disconnect between the high expectations of themselves and actual low social mobility in the U.S. Our national drive to be better than everyone else at everything has created much innovation and wealth beyond belief. At the same time, endless optimism and competition, - but falling short of what is expected - is killing the psyche. Some humility is in order. The reality of economic inequality has made the ―American dream come crashing down to Earth. Many who thought they were immune to hardship by virtue of their privileges or a lifetime of working hard, are finding out how precarious life really is in a country with such a thin safety net.
Senate Caves to Gun Lobby
by Darryl Cherness It is almost beyond human comprehension that the United States Senate could vote down legislation to expand gun background checks in light of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings and the massive support this legislation enjoyed with the American people. Polls showed that 90% of the American people supported expanded background checks for gun purchasers, but that didn't matter to the 46 senators, including 5 Democrats who voted against this legislation(the Senate rigged the rules to require 60 votes to approve this bill). These 46 senators turned their backs on the American people, the families who lost loved ones to gun violence, and to their responsibility as senators to protect the safety of the people of this country. We will hear all kinds of excuses from the apologists for those senators to justify their votes to sell out the American people and cave in to the gun lobby. We will hear that they had to vote this way because they came from "red states," that the legislation violated people's Second Amendment rights, and that criminals would find a way to get guns regardless of this legislation. The bottom line is this: all of the arguments that have been raised by the gun lobby have absolutely no merit. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of the sponsors of this legislation, along with Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, comes from a red state, as does John McCain of Arizona. That didn't stop them from supporting expanded background checks. As for the Second Amendment argument, the Second Amendment does not guarantee the "right" of convicted felons or mentally ill persons who are a danger to themselves or others, to purchase guns. Allowing dangerous people who are a threat to society to purchase guns, was never the intent of our founding fathers. Finally, the argument that this legislation should be voted down because it wouldn't stop 100% of all prohibited purchasers from obtaining guns, is completely absurd. Using this logic, there should be no laws against murder since some individuals will commit murder even though it is against the law. While no law is perfect, this law has the potential to save thousands of lives by closing a major loophole in the existing law. Right now, if you purchase a gun from a licensed gun dealer, you must undergo a background check. However, if you purchase that same gun at a gun show or online, there is no background check. 40% of all gun purchases in this country fall into these categories, allowing thousands of convicted felons and mentally ill people to obtain guns each year with no questions asked. Where do we go from here? We must channel our anger and frustration into constructive action. We must continue to fight for expanded background checks. We must do everything in our power to defeat those senators (including Democrats) who voted against this legislation. Call your friends and relatives who live out of state and urge them to campaign against those senators, who voted the wrong way, when they stand for reelection. In politics, there are no permanent defeats. We will go on, and ultimately we will succeed because we have the support of the American people.
President’s Message by Bill Wynn, August 2012
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim... we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes..."
With the victims funerals taking place from the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, we must ask ourselves could this have been prevented? The answer is probably, not yes or no but probably. Despite laws, rules, policies, guidelines, and procedures, as we have seen time and time again, if someone wants to get a gun they will get one. Guns are too easy to purchase. In some states buying a gun is as easy as buying a pack of cigarettes.
Let's go back to September 13, 1994. Then- President Bill Clinton signed into law the "Federal Assault Weapons Ban" (AWB) (or the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act) which was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law that included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons". There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" in the U.S. prior to the law's enactment.
The ban however only applied to weapons manufactured after the ban went into effect. So for argument sake, a person could purchase a weapon manufactured on September 12, 1994 or prior. The ban wouldn't apply.
The ban only addressed semi- automatic firearms, that is, firearms that fire one shot each time the trigger is pulled. Neither the AWB nor its expiration changed the legal status of fully automatic firearms ( which fire more than one round with a single trigger-pull). Automatic firearms are regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.
The AWB expired on September 13, 2004. The President at this time was George W. Bush. Why didn't he urge the Congress to extend the ban with a waiver?
The AWB had a 10 year life. Perhaps intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association (NRA) had something to do with it. Had it been in effect it probably wouldn't have stopped the carnage of July 20, 2012. The suspect identified as James Holmes passed all the tests to get his weaponry.
Now comes word that Holmes will be in custody for almost a year in order to prepare for his trial. This case should be given a fast track and a priority, not get bogged down in bureaucracy, scheduling, or budget cuts.
The President has called for the AWB to be brought back into law. With this being an election year, the chances of that happening are very slim. Perhaps we need to do is amend the Constitution to limit the type of weaponry one person could possess. But then the founding fathers never foresaw this type of urban warfare being waged at a public meeting place in this nation.
Something for us to think about...
- Follow us:
