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 2^nd 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.

Already the nay sayers…but gun control will prevail

It’s been less than a month since the Newtown, CT, Sandy Hook Elementary School mass killing.  On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 little children ages 6 and 7, six educators, and his mother.  He then killed himself and once again took with him the possibility of an understanding of why these maniacs do what they do.  Hopefully they will study his brain and possibly come up with something.  If he was mentally ill, at least that’s a start.

We’re not likely to get much from the Aurora shooter, James Holmes, nor is it likely that Jared Loughner who did the Tucson killings will tell us anything.  Holmes at least acts mentally unbalanced and Loughner was known to have mental issues.  Lanza used his mother’s guns to create his massacre but Holmes and Loughner got their weapons despite obvious mental problems.  The gun rights bunch is at least right about revamping the U.S. mental health system.

But they are wrong about trying to stop new gun laws that will help at least slow down these mass shooting carnages, as well as a number of firearm murders that occur on a daily basis across the country.  No. Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, said that gun control plans reportedly being considered by the White House are "way in extreme."  Of course even talking about gun control is in the extreme according to Wayne LaPierre and the Nat’l Rifle Assn. (NRA).

Let’s see, Obama wants to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, universal background checks for gun buyers, a national database of weapons, strengthen mental health checks and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors.  Sounds like a great plan to me and probably any other individual of sound mind and body.  It’s only a bad plan to the gun nuts out there that love their weapons more than the life of others.

If this Heidi head wasn’t enough, Obama-smasher, KY Sen. Mitch McConnell, says any gun control legislation will take a backseat to working on federal spending and the country’s debt.  Whoa.  How many times has this issue been put on the backburner by conservatives never to be resurrected?  Hard to count the times.  But it won’t happen this time because the American public is tired of their relatives, friends and other innocent people being murdered by guns.

And here are the good guys, and ladies, who are going to give us this new life-saving gun control legislation.  Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-New York, wants background checks for all gun sales -- including at gun shows and a ban on online sales of ammunition.  Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, a bill to ban high-capacity magazines.  CA Sen. Dianne Feinstein is going after assault rifles, again, as well as other congressional leaders with similar bills.

But of course there are always the gun nuts in Congress that never give up.  CNN reports, “…two Republican freshmen, Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, have introduced bills that would allow more guns around schools.  I thought we had gotten rid of all the fruitcakes at Christmas.  At this point no Republicans have proposed any gun control legislation, and even some Democrats are still standing firm on gun rights.

I continue to say the momentum is there and we mustn’t lose this chance to place laws on the books that will curb gun violence.  If we lose this one, we will never be able to beat the NRA.  And that would be a disaster.

I want concealed carry permits revoked for all except those with special needs…especially in Arizona



Arizona gun nuts



I can hear the screaming already from those gun bubbas that have to pack heat just to prove their masculinity.  And don’t throw the 2^nd Amendment at me because I really don’t believe the right to bear arms includes necessarily outside the home.  And if you people keep pushing this you are going to find yourselves without the right to even own a firearm, putting your buddy Wayne LaPierre and his organization the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) fanatics out of business.

For years the NRA has refused to budge on even negotiating over new gun control regulation.  And this has now come back to haunt them simply because the American public no longer believes the NRA’s bullshit about your “absolute” right to own a gun.  Nothing, particularly in respect to the U.S. Constitution, is absolute and this will be a key factor on any future decisions by the Supreme Court in deciding on gun control.  Just get used to being on the defense.

The Associated Press is reporting, “The next big issue in the national debate over guns — whether people have a right to be armed in public — is moving closer to review by the U.S. Supreme Court.”  It’s time to get these cowboys off the street and restrict the right to law enforcement and those with special needs.  I mentioned Arizona in the headline because there are people walking around all over this state that shouldn’t be carrying a gun.

Because of loose Arizona gun laws, loosest in the nation, you can buy a gun with no background check, use it without any training, and carry it anywhere you want to, including a bar.  Thanks to a Republican legislature that is one bullet short of a full cylinder, the gun nuts thrive here brandishing their toys with relish.  And although an Illinois federal appeals court struck down a state ban on carrying concealed weapons, there is disagreement here with other federal courts.

These courts have upheld state and local laws banning concealed weapons based on the Supreme Court’s ruling that individuals have the right to have a gun for self defense.  In Dist. Of Columbia v. Heller, the court ruled in favor of Dick Heller that allowed him to own a handgun in D.C. for self defense in his home.  Many have interpreted this to mean that the Supremes just might consider the banning of concealed weapons permits outside of the home.

The AP article points out that these split decisions between appeals courts is the very thing that whets the Supreme Court’s appetite for a juicy case.  UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, who published his book, “Gunfight,” last year believes SCOTUS just might take on the challenge.  Winkler thinks the Illinois statute would fall if put to a test before the Supreme Court.  He just isn’t sure how far the decision might reach re. an outright ban.  We’ll take our chances.

I’ll settle for the high Court to take a look at the whole concealed weapons issue, which could put yet another nail in the coffin of Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  This organization and its radical management must be stopped and now is the time with the recent gun carnage in Newtown Sandy Hook School and other mass killings.  There is no doubt that gun control is on the move and the momentums is very encouraging.

NRA’s open gun culture costs U.S. $174 billion

The NRA takes millions from weapons manufacturers to promote more guns, resulting in increased violence on the streets.  It is time for the public to turn their attention to one of the major culprits in the gun violence issue, the companies that produce these firearms.  Some of these include Bushmaster Firearms, the rifle used in the Newtown Sandy Hook massacre, Colt Manufacturing, Remington, Magnum, Smith & Wesson and Springfield.

There is a complete list of gun manufacturers here, with their locations, so you might want to write to these companies and let them know what you think of the NRA’s stand for loose guns throughout the U.S.

Wayne LaPierre and his National Rifle Assn. (NRA) minions should understand the monetary side of gun violence and the fact that it cost the U.S. $174 billion in 2010.  Since 2005, according to the Violence Policy Center, gun manufacturers have contributed around $39 million to the NRA allowing them to do their dirty work.  Some of that goes into paying LaPierre’s hefty annual salary of $970,300 and the rest goes for other NRA execs., and pushing more guns on the street.   

All of this loose gun utopia came to a head with the shooting of 20 little children, ages 6 and 7, and 6 educators in Newtown, CT at the Sandy Hook Elementary School , plus the shooter’s mother, on December 14, 2012.  The gunman, Adam Lanza, did it with an assault type weapon that the NRA fights to keep legal.  You can see a list of mass shootings documented by Mother Jones here, which is really only the tip of the iceberg in total gun violence.

The real figure is the fact that there have been about 11,000 homicides by firearms a year with an additional 18,000 that commit suicide using a gun.  As an example, this is compared to 550 homicides a year in the UK where gun control laws are much tougher.  Even the double-digit IQs in the NRA should be able to understand these numbers.  In total there are some 310 million nonmilitary firearms in the US.  The gun culture is out of control and the public knows it

This $174 billion includes work lost, medical care, insurance, criminal-justice expenses and pain and suffering.  This number is even higher than for automobile crashes in the U.S. that are alcohol-related at $129.7 billion.  The Bloomberg report by Henry Goldman breaks down the average cost of just one gun homicide and it is an unbelievable $5 million.

He says, “That includes $1.6 million in lost work; $29,000 in medical care; $11,000 on surviving families’ mental-health treatment; $397,000 in criminal-justice, incarceration and police expenses; $9,000 in employer losses; and $3 million in pain, suffering and lost quality of life.”

Philip Cook of Duke U. and Jens Ludwig from Georgetown U. published “Gun Violence: The Real Costs,” claiming “It’s an economic cost in that it’s a reduction in the standard of living and quality of life in the same way that having dirty air or traffic congestion can be translated into an economic cost.”  The question the American public has to answer now is whether they are willing to pay this high price just so LaPierre and gun manufacturers can continue to get rich.

The most recent CDC data from 2010 reported 105,177 shootings resulting in injury including 31,672 who died by homicide, suicide, law-enforcement action or accident.  If all these numbers aren’t enough to convince the Congress and the American public that guns must be regulated strenuously and now, then there are more double-digit IQs out there than I had thought.

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:

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

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

7. National Registry of all guns owned
   
8. 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.

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.

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.