Showing posts with label Gabby Giffords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gabby Giffords. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

LATEST: Gun violence/Gun control/Gun corruption


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 NEWS BYTES

Gun violence must be stopped...   
NRA internal turmoil

Items have a tendency to pile up these days in the "to blog" file on Donald Trump's Ukraine call and subsequently the move to impeach him. You can't ignore it because of the intensity of the issue, and the importance of getting rid of the Oval Office lunatic. Just today Trump said, "I don't care," in reference to GOP concerns over protecting the whistleblower. There's more, Mike Pompeo is in a standoff with key House committees on trump Ukraine information.

But other news does go on and here's a wrap-up of what's happening in the Gun violence/Gun control/Gun corruption areas:

It's the 'If we could just get rid of them, gun violence would improve dramatically' organization, the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), along with its leader Wayne LaPierre. Here's the scenario...
"Its president was ousted. Its top lobbyist resigned over allegations that he engaged in an extortion scheme to kick out the chief executive, Wayne LaPierre. Its board members are resigning regularly, saying they’ve lost confidence in the group’s leadership. It’s spending more money than it’s taking in, and it’s in a brutal legal battle with its former ad agency. Oh, and its tax-exempt status is being investigated."
READ MORE...

Gabby Giffords on gun control...


And here in the wide open, 'if you are a warm body you can own and carry a gun' state of Arizona, the voting public has decided the gun laws aren't strict enough. But a gun nut legislature doesn't quite get it yet, so they plow ahead with the loosening of these gun laws that the public wants tightened. "Fifty-four percent of likely Arizona voters said the current laws in the state on the sale and ownership of guns are insufficiently strict, a 6-point rise from May."

Can you believe this?...
"Arizona is an open carry state, which means if you own a weapon you can carry it. You can also carry a concealed weapon with or without a permit.
Permits are issued by the state Department of Public Safety and involve a simple process.
You just go on our [state's] website and fill out an application. The concealed weapons unit will do a check of you and make sure you are not a prohibited. possessor."
By the way, assault weapons like the AK-47 are included in the above.

READ MORE...

Doctors are pissed-take on NRA...



And it would seem that the NRA spends more money in Texas because the gun nuts there really love their guns. But, Kim Olson, a Democrat running for a Republican seat, is trying to change that. Her passion for gun control reflects this quote, “weapons of war do not belong on the streets of America.” Here's what the author of the Washington Monthly piece said...
"One of the reasons I find Olson to be so impressive is that she reminds me of women from Texas that I have admired—like Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, and Molly Ivins. While they didn’t serve in the military, they were warriors too. No one would have ever accused Jordan, Richards, or Ivins of mincing words. Whether you agreed with them or not, they stood their ground unapologetically."
And this is what is so sorely needed in the fight against gun violence. When you see a gun nut, call it a gun nut and let them know just where we stand on taking guns off the streets. The writer, Nancy LeTourneau, finishes with, "But one thing is for certain, Kim Olson is exactly the kind of Democrat that should scare Republicans—and the NRA." Amen!

READ MORE...

Now the NRA is charged with harboring a toxic sexual harasser who is the former favorite and chief of staff for head gun nut, Wayne LaPierre.  Josh Powell was so bad that...
Ackerman McQueen [the NRA's ad agy.] refused to work with him. According to a report, Powell was the subject of two harassment settlements at the nonprofit; the amount of money spent to keep these stories hidden is not known.
It would appear that the NRA is rotten from the core.

READ MORE...


To fix our gun crisis, we should revert to ’60s gun laws...

More NRA corruption: 
NRA board member and former president Marion Hammer obtained low-interest loan from affiliate she leads...

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Arizona wants to give guns to criminals, domestic abusers, mentally ill and terrorists


Gabby Giffords with Mark Kelly
You read it right. Arizona's Senate Bill 1122, which has been approved by both the House and Senate, prohibits state or local governments from preventing the sale of personal property. Like gun show sales, or a friend gives or sells his gun to another friend, or just someone he met at the mall. If it sounds ludicrous it is, but just another notch on Arizona gun laws that haven't made any sense for years. The state slogan should be 'Put 'em on the street and they will kill.' Because that is exactly what they will do. Arizona ranks tenth in the nation in gun violence.

On January 8, this year, the state observed the sixth anniversary of the shooting of former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords in a Tucson Safeway. Six people were killed, another 13 wounded, including Giffords. There has been speculation that if gun laws in Arizona were stricter, Jared Lee Loughner, 29, would never have been able to get a gun. The state legislature and the people of Arizona never seem to learn. On Friday, one person killed, seven wounded, some critically, in San Diego.  On Monday, one dead, one wounded in Dallas by gun violence.

Is the American public apathetic toward gun violence or are they just stupid?

Monday, June 1, 2015

Grieving Parent Richard Martinez Battles Gun Lobby


He lost his son, Christopher, in the Isla Vista, CA shooting near the UCSB campus, where he was a sophomore. Richard Martinez said soon after the shooting, "Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the (National Rifle Association). They talk about gun rights -- what about Chris' right to live?" How many times now have grieving parents had to come to grips with a loved one's death due to gun violence? It's vast but in each case it comes down to two things: a gutless Congress and the National Rifle Assn. (NRA). Unwilling to pass the gun control laws that will make this stop. However, Martinez has thrown down the gauntlet exclaiming:
"I have chosen to make this my life’s work. In choosing to do so, I was aware that the path to changing laws and minds would be challenging. I was still surprised to see how entrenched the gun lobby is with certain state legislators and the dangerous degree to which it pushes bills that endanger public safety."

Martinez charges members of Congress with backing anything the NRA introduces for an endorsement by the organization. Some of this legislation he calls "outrageous," such as a bill they are pushing this year to allow access to guns for domestic abusers. This should drive any sane individual up the wall, especially the abused. In Florida he joined legislators, students, moms, and members of law enforcement to fight six separate guns in schools bills. They all lost so it can be done. Add to this Gabby Giffords group, Americans for Responsible Solutions and the former NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg group, Everytown for Gun Safety, and I would say Richard Martinez is traveling in the right circles.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

NRA MEMBERS WANT TRAINING FOR CONCEALED CARRY GUN OWNERS


Requiring firearms training for concealed carry gun owners would be a step in the right direct except the concealed carry law itself should be banned in the U.S. My point is based on one simple fact. In Arizona if you are not a felon and have a warm body you can buy a gun and take it almost anywhere. No training. Yes, these cowboys can walk into the gun shop, purchase a handgun, and then walk around the streets with it brandished in a holster or hidden in a pocket. They claim it is for their safety but what these gun nuts really want to do is play vigilante. There are studies saying concealed carry saves lives but they are years old and even with the decrease in gun violence over the years there are still over 11,000 firearms related gun deaths each year. The sheer number of guns in this country--300 million--makes the idea of letting someone roam the streets with a hidden weapon plain dumb. But as an example of the lack of training that is prevalent, at least in the state of Arizona, two CC greenhorns at the attack of former Rep. Gabby Giffords in Tucson in 2011 attempted to come to the rescue to stop Jared Lee Laughner and almost shot each other. Laughner was stopped by one of the bystanders.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

LAS VEGAS SHOOTING CONCEALED CARRY CIVILIAN SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED

I've said it before and now it's happened again; a vigilante type carrying a gun in public has died as a
Cici's Pizza Las Vegas shooting
result this time. He shouldn't have but it is this kind of cowboy mentality promoted by the National Rifle Assn. that leads these folks to think they are ready to defend the American public. They aren't. It takes months of training for a police officer to know what to expect in crucial situations like this but I doubt if the armed guy, Joseph Wilcox, had anywhere near that. He didn't anticipate an accomplice and she shot and killed him. In the Gabby Giffords Tucson shooting in 2011, two Arizona gun gauchos tried to come to Giffords' aid and nearly shot each other. In Arizona the only thing necessary to carry a gun around on the streets is to have a pulse. I am firmly against open and concealed carry permits and hope that the Supreme Court will soon make this a thing of the past.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Hard to understand how anyone could believe the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre


But they do.  These die-hard gun bubbas who strut around with their weapons either at their side or concealed completely from the public, are the real believers who do it because they have to have some way to prove their manhood.  And they would follow the head fanatic, wacky Wayne, to the end of the world if he said so.  It is amazing to me just how easily he can arouse these double-digit IQs to do his bidding and then force them to come back again and again to feed from the same fount spewing this propaganda.  But such is the mentality of these wackos.

Wayne LaPierre is head of the NRA and since assuming this post in 1991 the organization has prospered dramatically in increased membership and donations flowing in.  This is all due to one single factor; LaPierre zeroed in on the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms exclaiming it is an “absolutist” right of the people and the gun control advocates want to take it away.  And then along came a Democratic President, Barack Obama, and the screed switched to “Obama wants to take away your guns.”  Same crusade, just a different target.

Wacky Wayne laPierre


In each national incidence of guns killing innocent Americans, wacky Wayne used the situation to fire up his fellow gun worshippers by saying, as an example, they want to take away assault weapons today but tomorrow they will come for your handguns, then your hunting rifles.  The latest was delivered in a tirade from Salt Lake City during a speech at the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo.  He once again picked up on President Obama and other Democrats re. the drive for universal background checks.  This is what he saidon CNN:

"This so-called universal background check that you're hearing about all over the media ... is aimed at one thing: It's aimed at registering your guns.  And when another tragic opportunity presents itself, that registry will be used to confiscate your guns."

Actually, this registry of guns is a great idea for everyone but gun owners, and that raises a question within itself.  Why are you afraid to have your gun registered; got something to hide?  And it is absurd to think the feds would use any registry of firearms to confiscate legal guns.  It is the bad guys that they are after and if you gun huggers are a little bit inconvenienced, blame it on your head wacko LaPierre who has suppressed reasonable gun control legislation for years, putting 300 million guns on the streets of America, a record throughout the world.

Mark Kelly with wife Gabby Giffords
Astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of former Arizona U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, who was seriously injured by Jared Loughner in the Tucson gun massacre, where 6 died, sort of whacked wacky Wayne up-side the head at the recent Senate Judiciary hearings on guns when the gun nut “LaPierre repeatedly voiced the talking point that there’s no need to expand the background check system because criminals don’t cooperate with background checks,” from the Washington Post.  Kelly’s retort was:

“The Tucson shooter was an admitted drug user. He was rejected from the U.S. Army because of his drug use. He was clearly mentally ill. And when he purchased that gun in November, his plan was to assassinate my wife and commit mass murder at that Safeway in Tucson. He was a criminal. Because of his drug use, and because of what he was planning on doing. But because of these gaps in the mental health system, in this case, those 121,000 records, I admit did not include a record on him. But it could have.

“And if it did, he would have failed that background check. He would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth. It would have happened in Tucson. My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks.”

LaPierre’s claims that background checks don’t work is obviously just another of his false statements since 1.5 million guns were prevented from going to those prohibited from having them in 2010.  In the hearing, after gun rights grunts pointed to Chicago’s tough gun laws, yet high volume of gun violence, Sen. Dick Durbin from Illinois commented:

When you take a look at where these guns come from, 25 percent plus are sold in the surrounding towns around the city of Chicago, not in the city. Look over the last 10 or 12 years. Of the 50,000 guns confiscated in crimes, almost one out of 10 crime guns in Chicago came to that city from Mississippi. Why? Because the background checks there, the gun dealers there, are a lot easier than in other places. And they end up selling these guns in volume.

It is easy enough to shoot holes in most claims made by Wayne LaPierre and his NRA minions, but what isn’t easy is having the equal time to advertise the gun control side of the issue.  Organizations like the Brady Campaign and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence try but have limited budgets.  Just the opposite of the NRA, which is well funded in its advertising campaigns with the support of U.S. gun manufacturers.  The gun nuts are preparing to launch a new onslaught of major propaganda that will cause many more innocent people to be killed by guns.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Gun deaths escalate while an impotent Congress of deadbeats just hovers in limbo


Mindy McCready
I am not a country music fan but it was tragic to hear that singer Mindy McCready had taken her life…with a gun.  On Monday, 4 people were shot in Spokane, 2 at a night club, 2 more nearby.  And then on Tuesday a gunman went on a shooting spree in Southern California that left 4 people dead, including the shooter.  Does the question, “What does it take?” come to mind?  Abby Rogers in Business Insider says, “A History Of Gun Control Laws Shows US Citizens Don't HaveAn Absolute Right To Bear Arms.”  Something I have blogged about for months. 

Rogers tracks the history of gun control laws from 1860 through 2010.  There were the early laws in the 1930s covering the manufacture and transfer of firearms along with another that regulated interstate commerce in firearms.  Then came the 1968 Gun Control Act following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  There were others like California’s law restricting the use of assault rifles, the Brady Act of 1993 imposing background checks and then the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 which was allowed to expire in 2004.

Most recently New York passed one of the toughest gun control laws ever and they did it with a GOP controlled Senate along with a Democrat-dominated assembly.  Are the Republican politicians more intelligent in New York, or do they simply favor human life over worshipful gun ownership?  And then on Monday, the Colorado House voted in a package of gun control measures that included a ban on concealed weapons on college campuses.  Also included is a fee for state background checks.  It now goes to the Senate.

Adam Winkler on gun control:

Former U.S. Rep. from Arizona, Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly have formed a gun control group called Americans for Responsible Solutions.  Giffords was seriously wounded in the 2011 Tucson massacre by Jared Loughner where 18 others were shot and 6 died including a nine-year-old girl.  And then less than a week ago, MoveOn.org announced it will spend six-figures on a TV spot titled, “The NRA doesn’t speak for me.”  Jerry Thompson, a gun owner and defender of the 2nd Amendment is the spokesperson who says in disgust:

“For years I’ve watched Congress take money from the NRA and then oppose any kind of reform that helps keep us safe.”  Further, "I've had enough. So here's my message to Congress. You take money from the NRA and then continue to do their bidding, we're going to remember that come election time. The NRA doesn't speak for me, and they don't speak for the vast majority of Americans so stop taking their money"

81% of gun owners support background checks which would close the gun show loophole.  40% of gun buyers purchase their weapons at gun shows where private sellers are not required to make background checks.  Seem like a no-brainer?  Not for Wayne LaPierre and his gang of gun bubbas at the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  These gun nuts are fighting background checks as well as any other meaningful gun control legislation.  Other gun rights advocates say:

 “Our backs are against the wall,”  “We are in for the fight of our lives. I have never seen anything like it.”  This is a statement by Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun rights group following the Sandy Hook Elementary carnage.  The CCDL also conceded that the assault weapons and high-capacity magazine bans just might make it through Congress.      

What is it about New York, Illinois, Colorado and California gun control reasoning that the rest of us don’t seem to assimilate?  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg credits the state’s tough gun laws for decreasing his city’s gun violence significantly.  If it can work in the largest metropolitan area in the country, it should be able to work anywhere.  Contact your congressional leaders, U.S. House, here, U.S. Senate here.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Would banning high capacity magazines and requiring universal background checks be a good start to stricter gun control?


Let’s consider this scenario.  If you limit the magazine size of a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle to 10 rounds (perhaps even 7 like the latest New York law requires) have you basically reduced the firearm to what many typical rifles are capable of shooting?  In checking an Outdoor Life recommendation of the best 2012 hunting rifles, I found the Ruger American Rifle with a 5-round capacity including a magazine.  I don’t know how typical or popular this rifle is with hunters but it seems to have received the recommendation of a major hunting magazine.
The American Hunter
I don’t think any gun control advocate out there favors taking away a hunter’s right to enjoy his sport, and anyway, assault rifles aren’t the biggest problem in gun violence, handguns are.  According to the FBI, in 2011, 6,220 people were killed by handguns, 323 by rifles.  But it was the sheer horror of the brutal killing of 20 children ages 6 and 7 by a shooter using his mother’s assault rifle with a 30-round magazine that has brought the gun control issue to the forefront.  The question is, would that Bushmaster AR-15 revert to the same capability as the Ruger reduced to a 10-round or less capacity?

Unfortunately, the universal background check would not have prevented Adam Lanza from killing these little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but it could have prevented Jared Loughner from getting the weapon he used to kill 6 and injuring 13 in Tucson in Jan. of 2011, including former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.  What must be done in parallel with requiring these background checks is to make the reporting of felons and the mentally ill to the appropriate databases mandatory by law enforcement and all states.  Common sense?  Yes, but one of the biggest shortfalls in maintaining gun control.

The New York Times reported, “All federally licensed firearms dealers are required to run background checks through the computerized databases that comprise the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS).  But the requirement does not cover guns that are sold by unlicensed sellers at gun shows and in other private sales, which account for about 40 percent of gun purchases in the country.”  The  National Instant Criminal Background Check System reports 16,808,538 requests for firearm background checks in 2012 with 976,255 denials.
The latter means that 15,832,283 permits were issued in 2012, which also means that 6,332,913 gun purchases could have been made—based on the 40%--without background checks.  Even if a fraction of this figure resulted in guns ending up in the wrong hands, is it any wonder why guns deaths in the U.S. are so high?  According to a CNN article, the FBI says more than a million people failed background checks to buy guns in the last 14 years because of drug use or mental health issues.  Congressional approval is required for universal background checks but other moves need only executive actions.

Some of the President’s proposals are not given much chance of making it through a Republican House because of gun lobbyists, namely the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  This organization claims to have added around 250,000 new members to its already 4.2 million.  An NRA spokesman says the numbers are those who are passionate about 2nd Amendment rights, a claim that is really getting old.  What the NRA spokesperson didn’t say about that 250,000 is the fact that 74% of them support background checks.  The Frank Luntz poll of NRA members also found that 75% want more restrictions on concealed carry.
If the President gets better background checks plus a ban on high capacity magazines, we can wait until 2014 and a more progressive House and Senate to add more to the list.  Here’s my want list on gun control from an earlier January post:

1. Ban all assault or assault-type weapons

2. Ban all high-capacity magazines over 5 rounds

3. Close gun show loophole

4. Background checks for all gun purchases

5. Mandatory training for anyone owning a gun

6. Mandatory state reporting of the mentally ill

It’s like a Christmas list.  You just keep asking for what you want until you get it.  The NRA should be on notice that the gun control advocates won’t give up this time.

Tell you congressional representatives what you want done about gun control;  Senate here; House of Representatives here.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

We have a new standard bearer for gun control…Gabrielle Giffords

Gabby Giffords is the former Arizona U.S. Representative who was shot by Jared Loughner along with 18 others, 6 of which died, at a public meeting in a Tucson supermarket parking lot in January of 2011.  Giffords has been going through a very slow recuperation process with the help of her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly.  She and Kelly decided to announce a new gun control movement on the second anniversary of the shooting.


Gabby Giffords/Mark Kelly

Their new organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, hopes to launch “a new era in the battle over gun rights in America.”  In a USA op-ed, the two were very clear about their goal: “to counter the influence of the gun lobby.”  I interpret this as saying that Giffords and Kelly will spell out just how bad Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) have been misrepresenting the gun rights issue for years.  It’s time to shove it down their throats.

Giffords and Kelly’s efforts will add further support to organizations like the Brady Campaign and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.  It was reported that the NRA spent over $24 million in the 2012 election to elect gun rights candidates and defeat gun control candidates.  In comparison, the Brady campaign spent $5,800.  ARS hopes to balance this with financial support that will take the fear out of politicians who have been intimidated by the NRA.

Here’s a quote from Giffords and Kelly:

"Rather than working to find the balance between our rights and the regulation of a dangerous product, these groups have cast simple protections for our communities as existential threats to individual liberties. Rather than conducting a dialogue, they threaten those who divert from their orthodoxy with political extinction."

This is a clear signal aimed at the gun rights groups, particularly LaPierre’s NRA, that they can no longer hide behind the 2nd Amendment and the absolutist position they claim for guns by the Constitution.  It ain’t valid so quit insulting the gun control advocacy with this ridiculous argument and start negotiating like most rational human beings do.  LaPierre can start by ceasing the threats regularly hurled at Congress if they don’t vote the NRA way.

Wacky Wayne has made it clear that to solve the gun violence problem he wants more guns, not less.  He said, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."  Kelly sees this different.  When Giffords was shot, a “good guy” came out of a store next door to the Safeway and almost shot the man who took down Jared Loughner.  In Arizona, gun owners are not required to have any training to own and use firearms.

To illustrate the extremism of the gun rights movement, Councilman Steve Kozachik held a “Cash for Guns” buy-back outside a Tucson police station.  Nearby, Arizona Republican State Sen. Frank Antenori held an unregulated and legal marketplace to buy guns.  Kozachik said, "We have a fundamental hole in the private sales of guns. You can walk up right in front of a cop and buy a gun, no background check, nothing."  Only in Arizona.

Kozachik said that he had been receiving threats by phone and emails trying to shut the gun buy-back down.  Antenori’s concern was that the $50 offered per gun was too small, “it amounted to theft.”  And then Todd Rathner, an Arizona lobbyist and national NRA board member threatened to sue because he thought it was illegal for police to destroy the guns.  Both Antenori and Todd are but two of a gang of Arizona gun nuts that have made the state a national laughing stock.

And now Vice President Joe Biden, placed in charge by the President of getting gun control legislation passed, is saying that Obama is exploring executive privilege to stop the gun violence.  More on this later.  But the Giffords/Kelly movement couldn’t come at a better time and will certainly be welcomed by all gun control advocates.  It’s about time.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

U.S. open carry bill, HR 822, more of the same insane gun legislation


Typical squirrely NRA member

The National Rifle Assn. (NRA) must be stopped and whoever accomplishes this feat will be a hero, at least in my book.  They have ramrodded a new law through the House, HR 822, that would allow anyone in a state with loose concealed carry laws (like Arizona) to carry their handgun in any other state in the country, no matter what the laws of that state are.  This is the first piece of legislation this inept Congress has come up with since the Giffords shooting.

That means other wackos like Jared Loughner from the Tucson massacre and Seung-Hui Cho from the similar disaster at Virginia Tech—and they are walking around out there with guns in their pockets—could take their firearms to a state with stricter laws and hold their own massacre.  Pure idiocy.  “The Second Amendment is a fundamental right to bear arms that should not be constrained by state boundary lines," said GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in the Huff Post.


My 2nd Amendment right

Bullshit.  I am not even convinced that the 2nd Amendment literally includes the right to carry a concealed weapon and I think with the recent momentum of gun control advocates, this very point may be up for consideration.  It is sheer insanity to pass a law that makes one state law—especially one passed by deranged legislators like those in Arizona—a national law.  The latter are now trying to push guns on college campuses; you can already take them into bars.

Video on bullet hits White House, below:



The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report tells us that 8,775 people were killed in shooting incidents in 2010.  Barry Krisberg, a criminalist from Berkeley’s School of Law, says we can expect an increase in 2011.  He adds, in an article from The Telegraph in the United Kingdom, “Overall violent crime rates in the US are going down but comparatively, shootings and homicides are going up a little bit.  Last year we had both an increase in police officers shot and killed and also an uptake in citizens being shot and killed.”


The gun show loophole

Krisberg also said that a dilution of weapons legislation has led to people who are mentally ill and who have criminal convictions being able to go out and freely buy guns.  This is a result of the lack of background checks and the gun show private sale loophole. 

In another example of a deranged gunman that shouldn’t have had a firearm, he ended up shooting and killing a park ranger in Washington state.  According to the mother of his toddler daughter, he “was a former soldier who owned many knives and guns despite an emotionally unstable, vindictive and anger-prone mind-set.”

And the NRA wants to turn more of these lunatics loose across the country with guns hidden their pockets.  HR 822 is designed to do just that and it must be stopped now.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

New York’s strong gun laws make state safer than weaker states of Arizona and Texas

The gun nuts, especially in Arizona, will argue with you until they are blue in the face that because the state’s gun laws allow just about anyone to own a gun and carry it around concealed to just about anyplace they want, including bars, that the state is a safer place for it.  They would be wrong.  In a recent Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor, Richard Reay of Riverdale, NY, made his point by using the 2010 FBI Violent Crime Statistics report.


NY Mayor Bloomberg for gun control

As an example, there are 408.1 violent crimes and 6.4 murders/manslaughters in Arizona per 100,000 population compared to 392.1 and 4.5 in New York.  In the same comparison, Texas is 450.3 and 5.0.  Reay’s letter was reacting to the typical inaccuracy of a gun freak who spews out whatever garbage the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) tells him to.  The guy, a Californian named Dave Culver, was ranting over the fact that the people of New York were less safe because they had been disarmed by their civic leaders.

To add to Culver’s misinformation, Reay tells us that gun-related robberies and aggravated assault in New York were around 20 percent and 25 percent that of Texas and Arizona, respectively.  (also in FBI Crime Statistics)  With the population growth of cities like Phoenix, Dallas and Houston, the density rate is adding to the problem, and when you give anyone in those metropolitan areas a handgun that asks for it, you are just asking for trouble.

If you want to check out gun laws by state, Wikipedia has excellent access to the data with facts on each facet of buying and carrying a handgun.  For example, New York requires a permit to purchase, the owner must register the weapon, assault weapons are not allowed and there is a limited conceal carry law; you cannot carry a gun into a bar or state offices or government buildings. 

AZ concealed permit no one needs
In direct contrast, Arizona requires no permit to purchase, registration is limited to federal laws, assault weapons are allowed, and anyone, literally anyone, can walk around with a concealed weapon.  Texas laws are very similar to Arizona but the latter stands out as the state with the most lax gun laws in the U.S.  In a ranking by The Daily Beast, Arizona ranked second in gun deaths per 100,000 pop., Texas 23 and New York 45.

The facts don’t lie and don’t talk to me about recent reports that overall crime is down in the U.S.  That would be right but there is still absolutely no excuse for even one murder due to a handgun being in the wrong hands, much less the recent massacres in Tucson and at Virginia Tech.  The above reports even came with the news that shootings—yes, that would require a gun—of law enforcement officials has increased for the second year in a row, 23 percent in 2011.

Common sense suggestions on gun control from Delaware Gov. Jack Markell below:



Paul Helmke, former Mayor of Ft. Wayne, Indiana and also a recent President of The Brady Campaign, exclaims that an astonishing 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check.  To illustrate this, the state of Indiana does not require documentation to either sell or buy firearms.  On the other hand, California is ranked number one for its universal background check system, dealer regulations and assault clip ban. 

And there is where we should start with more gun control.  Ban large capacity magazines like the ones used in Tucson and at Va. Tech.  Require a background check for every firearm purchase to stop mentally ill from getting them.  Close the gun show loophole where private dealers have to require little or no information to purchase a weapon.  By the way, Indiana is tied for 38th according to the Brady Campaign when it comes to laws preventing gun violence.

With the above revelations, you would think that at least progressive congressional Democrats would get behind legislation for at least the three issues above.  And where has President Obama been on gun control since his election and his reaction to Gabby Giffords shooting?  The American public has also softened on gun control, that is until one of their own is taken from them.  Yes, hindsight can be a great thing but in this case, it is too late.

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