It seems the news cycle for the Newtown tragedy has played out. As if on cue, the President appoints a special commission to make recommendations for additional gun control targeting so-called assault weapons and the 24 hour news coverage surrounding the tragic murder of 27 in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday abruptly ends. There’s definitely an agenda at play. For some it’s a desire to ban guns, but for others it’s all about ratings. Shock and awe isn’t just about invading a country. It’s about captivating and manipulating an audience.
Now that the propaganda and demonizing has died down, we can begin to learn the truth of what happened and consider some real solutions. For example, we are unsure of the shooter’s state of mind. Despite wild aspersions by the news media, we have no idea if violent video games played a role in the tragedy and we continue to see conflicting reports on what weapons the killer actually used. The last one is most perplexing considering the horrific event was almost a week ago.
I look at this issue as bigger than gun violence and I encourage all of you to do so as well. Over the next month we will begin to see facts emerge. Hopefully, no matter what they turn out to be, they will help guide a substantive dialogue regarding these tragedies as the Nation works toward a set of solutions.
Piers Morgan was talking about gun control every other day BEFORE the Newtown tragedy. Expect him to keep the “story” alive for some time.
He makes my skin crawl.
smells like a false flag.
looks like a saiga-12 w/ a thumbhole stock in the trunk to me…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju_NllT1iDo
One problem is that the media and the anti-gun fanatics have gained control of the debate. Even you use the term “gun violence,” as if somehow violence, especially murder, is more acceptable because it is not perpetrated with a gun rather than a knife, club, hammer, flamethrower or even bare hands.
Food for thought: more people are beaten to death each year with bare hands (and/or presumably shod feet – lets ban shoes, they make feet into deadlier “assault feet”) than are murdered with all types of long guns. This includes shotguns and all types of rifles, including those that are presumably legitimate because they have a “sporting purpose.”
Yea Chuck that pisses me off too about “gun violence”, or any other sub catagory of violence. Some times a micro approach may be nesassary but when you have these big public discussions it’s not the time/place. We need to address it on a more general scale. The one divergence I have is cause. Not wpn or lack of. There is violence with an economic base, mental health, domestic and other. Should we just address the method and not the cause? That would be stupid. Cart/horse. This discussion is decades overdue. But I’m sure this will get side tracked too. For everyones loss.
Not true. 67% of homicides in US are from firearms. Issue is that guns do not give the victim a chance to defend themselves, whereas the majority of other weapons do.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-7
I’m not talking homicide only, I’m talking violence in general. If your society is less violent you will have fewer homicides, logical. Not all violence has homicide as it’s goal. And not all homicides were intended to be homicides. but violence in a society is bad and will lead to homicides. A Canadian TV show “The Nature of Things” did a story a few years ago about guns and violence. They compared an area in the US to an area in Canada same gun ownership, same poor ecconomic conditions same population density. They talked with the police and the conclussion… It’s either part of the local culture to be violent or it’s not. The wpns themselves won’t make it so.
@Anon 00:39 – Reading comprehension? I specifically called out homicide with LONG GUNS, not ALL GUNS, vs. hands/feet, etc.
The big push in gun control has focused on the mythical “assault weapon.” Presumably this means semi-automatic rifles which bear a cosmetic resemblance to select-fire military rifles.
My point is that both the rate and the total number of US homicides with ALL long guns (not just “assault weapons”) is a tiny fraction of all US homicides by firearm and an even tinier fraction of all US homicides.
As for your (unsourced) opinion about whether or not the use of guns by murderers or would-be murderers leaves the victim without the ability to defend themselves, I would respond that that depends on whether or not the victim is armed. If someone tries to shoot at me with a gun, chances are pretty damn good I’ll return fire. Unless I am unfortunate enough to be in a place where the law disarms me, such as an elementary school.
As long as the dialogue includes access to certain weapons and ammunition as well as the other issues. Decades of lax gun laws are PART of the problem, some changes to gun access must be PART of the solution.
Please tell me which guns and ammunition cannot be used to slaughter helpless children.
The flip side of that is that is that if I am in the position of defending myself or others from someone with a gun (regardless of whether it is an AK or a single shot 12 ga), I want the gun (or guns) that will give me the biggest competitive advantage, not the one that some bureaucrat or legislator has deemed to be “good enough” for MY self defense. My life (and the lives of my family) is more important to me than to Chuck Schumer or Diane Feinstein. How do I know this? Easy, they have no qualms about taking away or reducing my ability to defend myself and others while continuing to be protected by taxpayer funded security details armed with the very weapons they want to take away from the rest of us.
From an ammo point of view. If I were a bad guy I would prefer full metal jacket ammo hopping for over penetration and more casualties. As a good guy I would prefer hollow points as I don’t want over penetration and more casualties. Since this crime seems to have been done with a rifle, there would have been a lot of over penetration despite the ammo used. Hollow points wille still be available for hunting after any new law, if any get passed. In these situations the victoms were probably shot multiple times with later shots very close that’s why the fatality rate is so high. Alot more people get shot and don’t die then get shot and do die in general. Except in these crimes. Has anyone been in a large fire fight were everyone who got shot died?
I would have to disagree on most points. I am also NOT seeing any shortage of Newtown coverage.
I have watched about 30-40 minutes of CNN and not one mention of Newtown or gun control…
2011 FBI “Murder Weapon” Stats:
12,664 murders. Rifles – 2.5%, Hands, Body, Feet – 5.7%.
OBAMA / BIDEN – Call for a ban on Extremities!!! http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11
Today as I was sitting with my spouse and her friends and discussing the gun control, let me say that her and her friends are completely anti gun I asked them one question. Do they wish that someone was there to prevent that tragedy? If yes,and all of them said yes, how do you think someone would be able to prevent that from happening? By negotiations? Reasoning? How would anyone would be able to stop that psychopath? They knew where this was going. And none of them said a word.
Hey – glad to see I’m not the only one living in a divided house. And when I put that same question to my spouse, her response was that it should be the police and only the police. So I pointed out to her that in every case where the victims have had to wait for the police to arrive the body count has been FAR higher than the situations where an armed citizen has been on hand…. No reply.
The problem is that we are dealing with a LOT of people who simply have a negative emotional reaction to guns – period. No facts or logic or reason will change their mind. Which is why we need legislation to protect us from their irrational prejudices.