Showing posts with label Tucson gun massacre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tucson gun massacre. Show all posts

Thursday, October 11, 2012

More persuasions for gun control

Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney broached the subject of gun control in the October 3, presidential debate.  Gun control advocates across the country took notice and many let their disappointment be known.  One such person was Stephen Barton who was one of the victims in the Aurora, Colo. movie theatre massacre.  Barton, who is from Brooklyn, was hit with 25 shotgun pellets and is suffering nerve damage.  However, Barton says he won’t give up.


Columbine shooters Eric Harris
and Dylan Klebold
Barton remarked it seemed absurd to not mention gun control in the Denver debate considering the short proximity to the Aurora carnage as well as the Columbine school shootings in 1999.  12 were killed in Aurora, 58 wounded.  In Columbine, 13 killed, 21 injured.  Barton places part of the blame for ignoring the gun issue on the debate host, Jim Lehrer, but mostly on the candidates.  You’d think a total of 25 killed and 79 wounded would raise some candidates’ hackles.

It didn’t, and, at least, this could have added some zip to Obama’s hollow performance.  Sorry, Mr. President, it was sorely lacking and some are saying it could put Mitt Romney ahead to stay.  I think not!  Whatever went on in your head that night has thoroughly confused many progressives, but we all know it was not the true Barack Obama.  But the fact remains that both you and Romney refuse to address the enormity of the problems of firearms in the United States.

Aurora and Columbine, and Tucson and Virginia Tech and the host of other major incidents of mass shootings should be enough to put any politician’s stomach in turmoil with it happening in the country he governs or wants to govern.  But not a word from either of you and that is unacceptable.  Maybe not to the gun nuts and the NRA and its leader, wacky Wayne LaPierre, but for the average citizen who values his or her life and that of family and friends.

Excellent video by Thom Hartmann making case for gun control:

And of course there is more.  On the streets of America each day 84 people are killed by guns, 603 weekly and 2,612 monthly, numbers that should drive any civilized government to regulate the source of the problem.  Like Canada and Australia, where steps have been taken to control this kind of individual and mass bloodshed due to firearms.  Recently a Quebec court let stand a law requiring the registration of even long guns along with the current handgun law.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed strictly banning assault weapons and New York lawmakers want broad legislation to limit weapons purchases.  On the other hand Dem. Majority Leader Harry Reid says that body is to busy to debate gun control this year with no promises for next year.  It is simply astonishing to me that our Congress is too busy to do something about the death of 84 innocent victims a day from guns, many illegal.  I guess the question is what will it take?

Doctors have even weighed in on the issue, asking the question, “Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol?”  They say YES and want to approach gun violence as a social disease.  “What we need, they say, is a public health approach to the problem, like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago, even as the number of vehicles on the road rose,” according to the Associated Press.

VA Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho
Mass shootings don’t seem to be on the rise but the accounting of the number of dead and wounded by police agencies for these incidents aren’t always reported immediately, sometime not for a year.  Emergency medicine professor Dr. Garen Wintemute of the U. of Calif. Davis said, "The greater toll is not from these clusters but from endemic violence, the stuff that occurs every day and doesn't make the headlines.”  Like those 84 deaths reported by the CDC.

And finally, there’s Paul Ryan.  His Vice Presidential candidacy is enough to make any serious gun control advocate throw up.  Actually, any progressive for that matter.  Example: Re. guns, in 1999 he voted against more stringent background checks for people buying at gun shows.  And in 2011 he voted for the bill that, if you have a concealed carry permit in one state, you would be able to carry your weapon concealed in any state.

FLASH: Since the state of Arizona will issue concealed carry permits to just about anyone who wants one, and allow them to carry their weapons anywhere they want to in the state, you will have hundreds of people walking around the U.S. who are not even qualified to own a gun.  Come on…doesn’t common sense demand more sensible gun regulations in America?

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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