NASTY JACK BUZZ

Friday, January 4, 2013

Public wants more gun control and looks like they will finally get it

Although it may be small, a new CNN/ORC poll found that “a bare majority now favor major restrictions on owning guns or an outright ban on gun ownership by ordinary citizens and more than six in ten favor a ban on semi-automatic assault rifles.” This number has lingered around 50% in the past, which is also significant, but the figure is now 52% that want major restrictions on the ownership of firearms, even making all guns illegal.

Gun control advocates can thank wacky Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), and his gang of gun worshippers for this in a trend that looks like it will not only continue but escalate in the future. An inept Congress which is paid by the NRA to vote the NRA way will not be able to continue to ignore a public outcry that demands action. It looks like the Newtown, CT mass killings of 20 little children tipped the scales; and a shame it took so long.

The CNN survey’s breakdown is obviously skewed by the partisan divide. 80% of Democrats favor major restrictions, 42% for Independents and 31% for Republicans. Females are at 62% compared to males at 41%. On the other hand, 11 states back the NRA plan to arm teachers or others in schools to protect the children. They are Arizona, Florida, So. Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma, Nevada, So. Dakota, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Missouri.

The NY Daily News also reported, “Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter ridiculed the NRA's proposal, saying it was a ‘completely dumba-- idea.’” And “New York officials also slammed the NRA stance, and a Staten Island school board is expected to vote against adding armed security measures next month.” In the eight years I have been writing on gun violence, I have never seen gun control momentum like now, and with the NRA so on the defense.

The displeasure with firearm ownership has even entered the toy market where some mothers are taking toy guns away from their children. A Chicago mom relieved her 7 and 10-year-old daughters of their Nerf revolver-style blasters right after the Newtown massacre. Another mother collected a dozen toy guns from her 4 and 7-year-old sons. And in Decatur, GA Shun Melson told her 7-year-old about the killings and he voluntarily threw his toy gun in the trash.

All of these impulses at the grass-roots level must now be nurtured and developed to rid the public of the absurd NRA belief, fostered by the head gun nut Wayne LaPierre, that it is OK for every person in the USA, regardless of whether or not they are qualified, to own a gun and take it anywhere they want. But LaPierre and his bunch of hooligans won’t give up and it is up to the gun control advocates to keep the pressure on, increasing it regularly.

And as one gun control advocate that is dedicated to this cause until we reach our goal, here are the new laws that I would like to see enacted:

Ban all assault or assault-type weapons
Ban all high-capacity magazines over 5 rounds
Close gun show loophole
Background checks for all gun purchases
Mandatory training for anyone owning a gun
Mandatory state reporting of the mentally ill

These are my six major targets. Equally important, maybe in the future, but soon:

National Registry of all guns owned
Restrict concealed weapons permits to only those who need them

If it’s crazy to ask for gun laws that will protect the population, particularly our children, from firearm violence, then call me crazy.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Gun owners do not have a consummate right to own their weapons

In an opinion piece in the NY Times, Andrew Rosenthal said: “Even if you believe the Second Amendment grants each American an individual right to own a gun, which remains a matter of some debate, it does not follow logically, legally or constitutionally that this right is absolute. No right granted by the Constitution is totally exempt from limitations.” The key word is absolute and refutes this claim by wacky Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

Rosenthal continues by citing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2008 comment that “offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the First Amendment.” Rosenthal likens this thinking to the fact that it is also unreasonable to allow the purchase of semiautomatic rifles with 100-round magazines without even a background check. Like at some gun shows by unlicensed dealers (the gun show loophole).

The carnage of this loophole is horrendous as evidenced by the recent mass shootings; see yesterday’s post. Up to 40 percent of all private gun purchases at gun shows occur with no background check whatsoever, another absurd right the NRA protects like owning an assault rifle. Bob Costas opened the media door to dialogue on this issue when he said emphatically that he believes we need more “comprehensive and more sensible gun control legislation.”

But another gun rights activist wacko, David Kopel, said, following the murder-suicide by NFL player Jovan Belcher, that “there is no link between firearm availability and homicide.” The conservative media followed suit with more false claims until Piers Morgan on CNN corrected this drivel with Harvard research stating, "states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide."

Morgan confronted Kopel that the United Kingdom has strong gun laws and a fraction of the gun homicides in the U.S. Britain has 35 to 45 gun murders a year: America has 11 to 12 thousand. Kopel wasn’t convinced. The CNN host then cited Japan with the toughest gun control laws in the world and the fact that they have only 2 to 10 gun murders a year. Harvard’s David Hemenway found firearm homicides in the U.S. 19.5 times higher than other high-income nations.

Kopel said

Scotland

was the most violent country in the world. If this was supposed to relate to gun violence, the fact is that in 2009, there were two gun murders in Scotland, placing its rate at 0.04 per 100,000 people. In 2010, there were 11,078 gun homicides in the United States. Our per capita rate of 3.59 per 100,000 is nearly 90 times higher than Scotland's rate. The numbers are stark yet the gun nuts continue to be completely clueless.

In an article in the New Yorker in early 2912, Jill Lepore says, “The modern gun debate began with a shooting. In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald bought a bolt-action rifle—an Italian military-surplus weapon—for nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents by ordering it from an ad that he found in American Rifleman.” Both junk mail and gun violence at their worst. Legislation was introduced and passed to restrict mail-order sales of shotguns and rifles, agreeable then to the NRA.

That, of course, was before wacky Wayne LaPierre took over the NRA, after which it was downhill for gun control. Until now. LaPierre and his goons are on the run and it looks like there is no let up by the gun control advocates to push through new regulations on the ownership and use of guns. The fiscal cliff issue has garnered the attention of the White House and Congress for now but that won’t last forever and then gun control will return to the forefront.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

From Oregon to Connecticut, from adults to little children, NRA gun culture kills again

What a way to return from a vacation that also ended in a disaster but at least turned out better than the two events in the Crackamas Town Center Mall and Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School. In both Oregon and Connecticut, the shooter was using automatic assault-type rifles to do his dirty work, weapons that Wayne LaPierre and his gun nut members of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) have been protecting since the ban was lifted in 2004.

In Crackamas, 2 were killed, one wounded; in Newtown, 27 shot dead, 20 of these children ages 6 and 7, the second worst mass shooting after Virginia Tech. 2 were wounded. In both cases the gunmen killed themselves. And, of course, before these two there were the Sikh Temple shooting, the Aurora Theatre shooting and the Tucson shooting. But can you believe that sprinkled in between were another 6 mass shootings with a minimum killed of five? Believe it!

LaPierre - Guns and more guns

So how does wacky Wayne of the NRA respond? Without accepting any blame for what has happened in any of these firearm massacres, this blockhead wants to put armed guards in schools. He continued, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” It’s always “more guns” because the only way LaPierre can hold on to his financially lucrative job is to sell tons of guns to satisfy the gun manufacturers that support the NRA. Collusion at its worst.

However, there is no end to the negative reaction LaPierre has received from gun control advocates and also from gun owners. Waldo Jaquith says the NRA looks “insane” and has now delayed joining the organization. David Domke, communications professor at the U. of Washington, says LaPierre waited to make his statement to appease the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. Connecticut’s new congressman from Newtown labeled LaPierre “tone deaf.”

Watch demonstrators shame LaPierre, about 5 minutes in

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg called LaPierre’s statement, "a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country." Even former RNC Chairman Michael Steele said the NRA’s remarks were, “very haunting and very disturbing." Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey called LaPierre “reckless.” Another Dem, Sen. Barbara Boxer from Calif. says the man is “completely out of touch.” It would appear only NRA Pres. David Keene came to wacky Wayne’s defense.

Gabby Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, thinks even NRA members want more common sense gun regulation. Ladd Everett of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is against putting our children in the middle of shootouts between the “good guys” and “bad guys.” The right way, according to Ladd, is to ban military-style firearms and improve background checks. I must add that there is no way at this point the NRA can defend not closing the gun show loophole.

David Frum, former special asst. to G. W. Bush, says that at least LaPierre’s press conference has shed light on the “foundational assumption of the modern American gun culture.” He quotes an incident of a neighbor shooting a neighbor over barking dogs. Frum says “There's solid research to show that most so-called defensive gun uses are not really defensive at all.” Frum’s conclusion is that it isn’t really clear who is the “bad guy” and who is the “good guy.”

After Wayne LaPierre’s recent performance in answer to the Newtown mass murders, most will probably agree that he is the bad guy.