Stop the shooting! (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
When will America wake up to the fact that is is time for total gun control: now. Not tomorrow. Not a week from tomorrow. Next month. Next year.
Now.
When will we learn from these series of recent tragedies that reoccur. Like the shootings of the Pittsburgh policemen. But because of the stranglehold of the National Rife Association, it cannot or will not see the light of day.
Then there is the Binghamton tragedy killing thirteen innocent people. Thank God that Jiverly Wong had the right to bear arms, unfortunately the thirteen people he killed have been deprived of life. And who can forget the tragic ending of lives at Columbine. Thank God those student killers had a right to bear arms and deprived 12 Columbine students and a teacher of their life. The father of a Columbine victim, Tom Mauser, has been lobbying heavily for sensible gun control legislation.
"Two weeks before the tragedy at Columbine, my son Daniel, who was in a debate class, asked me at the dinner table if I knew there were loopholes in the Brady bill. I just said, 'No I didn't know that,' and that pretty much was the end of the conversation," Tom Mauser of Littleton, Colo., told the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
"I was shocked, then, when my son was killed with a gun bought through one of those loopholes in the Brady bill," Mauser said. "I discovered that someone bought that gun and two other guns at a gun show from an unlicensed private seller to avoid creating a paper trail and having to undergo a background check."
Mauser spoke in favor of a bill to require that a national instant criminal background check be performed before the sale or transfer of a firearm at a gun show. The hearing on that and other bills to tighten Maine's gun sales laws came days after multiple shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., Pittsburgh and Graham, Wash.
America is falling asleep and must wake up and stop allowing these "gun nuts," the NRA, to control our gun laws. Chicago City Hall Examiner.
For more info: More on Tom Mauser.
Comments
Chicago already has total gun control. The result: 509 people killed in 2008. More people died in Chicago last year than U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq (314). Legal firearm bans are ineffective. They are now, and they always will be.
All transactions conducted by licensed firearms dealers must, as required by federal law, be subjected to a background check upon the buyer, regardless of where the transaction occurrs. Should Mr. Mauser's request be codified into law, those transactions, when occurring in "gun shows", would be entirely unaffected, as it would not alter the purchase procedure. While this would affect sales of firearms from private, unlicensed, sellers, such sellers rarely conduct business at "gun shows", and a law specifically targetting only "gun shows" could easily be circumvented through arrangement for the transfer to occur outside of the premises. I do not believe that Mr. Mauser actually understands current firearms regulations.
"Thank God those student killers had a right to bear arms"
Really? They had a right? Is that why they had to do a strawman purchase? Typical gun ban fanatic logic.
The true nut here is the author who offers a non-solution that's as enforceable as previous bans on drugs, alcohol, and illegal immigration.
32 people die every day from illegal gun violence. And these mass shootings, they're just terrible!
However, the statistics that these gun control nitwits don't want you to know are that according to the DOJ, guns are used 4100 times per day (1.5 million times per year!) for defensive purposes. So clearly these people don't care one whit about lives saved, because by implementing their ban, they would kill more people than they would save. It's not about lives to them. It's about "control".
Only law abiding people follow laws. Why should we pass more laws to restrict honest people? Crimals love stricter gun laws. They feel safer breaking down doors where they know they are the only ones with guns.
Please stop posting this garbage. Total gun control now?! Are you going to un-invent the gun? Is total drug control working? How many synthetically made drugs are on the streets right now that are 100% illegal in every way possible. That's working out real well isn't it. You are not only showing your ignorance, but blatant inability to grasp anything that is not Hollywood fiction. This is the real world, and in the real world there will always be guns, just like there were always be guns. Education on safety and the concept of mutually assured destruction is the only way to help curb more violence. If someone wants to kill they will, YOU cannot stop them. We need less idiots like you, not more gun control.
When will you all wake up to the fact that guns kill. How many more tragedies do we need before you wake up and smell the gun powder. I may be a "gun control nitwit," as you say, but you are all gun nuts as far as I am concerned.
Check the latest UPI story on gun control. "Support for gun control at all time LOW" When will you learn that people in this country use guns to protect their lives and the lives of other WAY more often than the few times a gun is used by a criminal to kill. I'd rather be armed than reley on goodwill
John, Guns don't kill anymore than cars being driven by drunks kill. The objects don't kill, people who wrongly use them kill.
Why would you be so anti-woman? Don't you relize by taking away guns you limit a woman's ability to defend herself against a man who wishes to harm her.
We call guns the great equalizer, because a weak woman with a gun is as strong as a strong man with a gun. Imagine being raped in your home, now imagine chasing away a rapist with your bullets flying in his direction. Nice to have a gun, huh? :)
Oh yeah, guns for everybody. That should be a fun society.
The author of this garbage, John Presta, needs to wake up to the fact that we have a constitutional right to arm and protect ourselves. Passing restrictive laws on law-abiding citizens will only affect LAW-ABIDING citizens. It will not effect those who chose to operate outside the law. Please don't attempt to restrict the ability to exercise my civil rights.
John, an armed society is a polite society. Do a bit of research, you'll find that places where gun laws are weak have the least gun violence, while places such as Washington DC, where guns were banned for 30 years saw gun violence skyrocket.
What would killers do if guns vanished? Would they not kill? Would they make bombs? Would they use knives, cars, poison, hammers, rocks etc etc?
You say "yes, but with a hammer one can't kill 13 people in 2 minutes". To that I say what about poison, or a car, or a bomb... the list is endless. Anyone intent on killing will do so until another person takes him out. Hopefully the good guys with guns will out-number the bad guy with guns.
Do you ever study outside the safety of your left-wing library? You need to get out more.
John,
You are acting like a small child, throwing a tantrum because you cannot understand what the adults are telling you. Let me say this clearly – You have no clue what you are talking about. None.
First, you have marked the NRA as some sort of boogey-man, as if the 290,000,000 guns in circulation are all owned by NRA members (4,000,000 the last time I counted). Gun owners do not equal the NRA. The fact that you have to generalize and lie destroys your argument.
Second, would you not agree that murder is against the law? If someone is going to break that law, what magical other law do you propose that will make them think "Heck, I'd kill this guy, but that would mean breaking law X, and I can't break that one!"? Loophole? There is no loophole. I can sell you a toaster, an old bed sheet, a set of golf clubs, or a gun from my collection. Do you consider home cooked meals to be a 'restaurant loophole'?
You're pretty clear with your goal – remove all firearms from the populace. All of them. Good luck. There's 270,000,000 already in circulation. I have many firearms that have no paperwork behind them, ones given as gifts or purchased from friends. How would you suppose the government find them? Warrantless searches? Wiretaps? Maybe we can have TV's with video cameras on them that cover every inch of every room for 24x7 monitoring, a la 1984?
Because here's the hard fact that freedom hating individuals like you cannot comprehend from us free people – The answer is No. I will not turn in my guns. Instead of making you safer, you will simply create more criminals. While you might think that they'd throw me in jail and the problem would be solved, good luck doing that for the MILLIONS of other gun owners who feel the same way.
The great thing is, as a free man, I can sit here and chuckle at your outrage. I've put it on my own blog to show the world what a petty little tyrant you are. Soon, I'll be purchasing ANOTHER firearm no matter how hard you stamp your feet or how red your little face gets. There's nothing you can do about it. Even with all the shootings, support for gun control are at an all time low. Intelligent people realize it's ineffective. Others throw snits and claim that while it doesn't work, it might work if you do it harder.
Good luck with your total control scheme. I assume you're man enough to try to take the guns away yourself using… umm, what exactly? A coward would ask someone else like the police to do it for him but the police are civilians too and have guns (and oddly, a MUCH higher percentage of criminal uses of guns than the normal populace). So, you're in a conundrum – ban guns, but have to use them to ban them to begin with, which would admit that guns actually have a use.
Sucks to be you, dude.
disarm the public and all you have left is villians and victims
Sure, "total gun control" would be a great idea if there were no criminals out there. I doubt anyone besides law-abiding citizens would turn in their weapons. That sure would be loads of fun for criminals wouldn't it? A free-for-all! How many unarmed weaklings armed with kitchen knives and baseball bats can you rob in ten minutes? That's about how long it takes cops to show up.
I'll give up mine after
1)All of the crininals turn theirs in. (SCOTUS has already ruled that criminals don't have to abide by registrations. It's called self incrimination.
2) The police give up theirs. Followed by the US government.
Then you can try to come take it.
30,000 people are killed by firearms each year, according to the Brady Campaign.
1,500,000 lives are saved by defensive use of a firearm, according the Dept. of Justice.
That means illegal acts account for just 0.02% of any altercation involving firearms. Not two percent- two hundredths of 1 percent.
Looks to me like guns save lives, partner.
Eric, I've gone over the CDC's numbers and 30,000 isn't even true, it's less than half of that (people who commit suicide don't count in gun violence, the Brady's have to lie and lump them in to artificially inflate their numbers).
If anyone would like to inspect the numbers, they can do so here - blog.robballen.com/archive/2007/12/29/30000-lies.aspx. These are numbers directly from the CDC, not the NRA or any of the other boogey men John is scared of.
Once our guns are gone what are we going to do about knives? I would take being shot over being stabbed to death any day of the week. Just Google stabbings in London for an example of what happens after guns are taken away.
It never ceases to amaze me the fantasy world some on the left live in. Many people have made good (read: logical) points. I want to add this one.
Just as there was World War I, followed by World War II, it is an absolute certainly there will be WWW III, followed by WWW IV and so on. Until Christ returns, there will always be wars.
No-one in the government can guarantee that our homeland will not be invaded by foreign enemies. FYI, in WWII the Japanese invaded Alaska. It took a lot of battles and blood to kick them out.
Let's just say that we are invaded. What then? At that moment in time just about *every* American will want to be armed... and you may need to just to stay alive.
Good thing the law permitted these mass killers to committ murder. Maybe we should pass a ban against killing. Oh wait, we already have a ban against killing. Darn that won't work. Maybe we can pass a law saying criminals can't have guns...wait we have that too...
Maybe we should allow good law abiding people the decency to defend ourselves from those who don't care about the law. Instead people like John Presta want to make criminals out of decent gun owners by making us choose between giving up our guns or holding on to them (if a ban is enacted) because our forebearers had the wisdom to put down on paper (and make binding) that gun ownership is an unalienable, God given right. Sounds fanatical?....good.
Oops. I misspoke in my original comment - I meant to say the percentage of police crimes are greater than the percentage of crimes committed by CCW holders, not the entire populace.
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.1 This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.2
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.3
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.4
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" -- a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.5
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).6 And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."7
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year.8 Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."
John, your argument is TIRED... and just plain wrong... Can we finally bury this dead horse already????? Do your research please..... Also, it looks like you own a bookstore... I have a suggestion: GO READ A FEW BOOKS! NOT JUST IDIOTIC PROPOGANDA!!
B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home.9
* Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:
* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%;10 and
* If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.11
* Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission... without paying a fee... or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union -- having three times received the "Safest State Award."12
* Florida: concealed carry helps slash the murder rates in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state.13 FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period -- thus putting the Florida rate below the national average. 14
* Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.
1. During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.
2. And even the 155 "crimes" committed by concealed carry permit holders are somewhat misleading as most of these infractions resulted from Floridians who accidentally carried their firearms into restricted areas, such as an airport.15
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole.16
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.17
* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%.18
Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.19
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.20
Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."21
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."22
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."23
Below are the references. My posts are in reverse order, so please read the bottom one first...
References (AKA JOHN! Here's some books to go read!!!)
1 Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164.
Dr. Kleck is a professor in the school of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He has researched extensively and published several essays on the gun control issue. His book, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, has become a widely cited source in the gun control debate. In fact, this book earned Dr. Kleck the prestigious American Society of Criminology Michael J. Hindelang award for 1993. This award is given for the book published in the past two to three years that makes the most outstanding contribution to criminology.
Even those who don't like the conclusions Dr. Kleck reaches, cannot argue with his impeccable research and methodology. In "A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed," Marvin E. Wolfgang writes that, "What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear-cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator.... I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research. Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence." Wolfgang, "A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, at 188.
Wolfgang says there is no "contrary evidence." Indeed, there are more than a dozen national polls -- one of which was conducted by The Los Angeles Times -- that have found figures comparable to the Kleck-Gertz study. Even the Clinton Justice Department (through the National Institute of Justice) found there were as many as 1.5 million defensive users of firearms every year. See National Institute of Justice, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," Research in Brief (May 1997).
As for Dr. Kleck, readers of his materials may be interested to know that he is a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International USA, and Common Cause. He is not and has never been a member of or contributor to any advocacy group on either side of the gun control debate.
2 According to the National Safety Council, the total number of gun deaths (by accidents, suicides and homicides) account for less than 30,000 deaths per year. See Injury Facts, published yearly by the National Safety Council, Itasca, Illinois.
3Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.
4Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 185.
5 Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," NIJ Research in Brief (May 1997); available at ncjrs(dot)org on the internet. The finding of 1.5 million yearly self-defense cases did not sit well with the anti-gun bias of the study's authors, who attempted to explain why there could not possibly be one and a half million cases of self-defense every year. Nevertheless, the 1.5 million figure is consistent with a mountain of independent surveys showing similar figures. The sponsors of these studies -- nearly a dozen -- are quite varied, and include anti-gun organizations, news media organizations, governments and commercial polling firms. See also Kleck and Gertz, supra note 1, pp. 182-183.
6Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):111-116, 148.
7George F. Will, "Are We 'a Nation of Cowards'?," Newsweek (15 November 1993):93.
8Id. at 164, 185.
9Dr. Gary Kleck, interview with J. Neil Schulman, "Q and A: Guns, crime and self-defense," The Orange County Register (19 September 1993). In the interview with Schulman, Dr. Kleck reports on findings from a national survey which he and Dr. Marc Gertz conducted in Spring, 1993 -- a survey which findings were reported in Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime." br>10 One of the authors of the University of Chicago study reported on the study's findings in John R. Lott, Jr., "More Guns, Less Violent Crime," The Wall Street Journal (28 August 1996). See also John R. Lott, Jr. and David B. Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," University of Chicago (15 August 1996); and Lott, More Guns, Less Crime (1998, 2000).
11Lott and Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns."
12Kathleen O'Leary Morgan, Scott Morgan and Neal Quitno, "Rankings of States in Most Dangerous/Safest State Awards 1994 to 2003," Morgan Quitno Press (2004) at statestats(dot)com/dang9403.htm. Morgan Quitno Press is an independent private research and publishing company which was founded in 1989. The company specializes in reference books and monthly reports that compare states and cities in several different subject areas. In the first 10 years in which they published their Safest State Award, Vermont has consistently remained one of the top five safest states.
13Memo by Jim Smith, Secretary of State, Florida Department of State, Division of Licensing, Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report (October 1, 2002).
14Florida's murder rate was 11.4 per 100,000 in 1987, but only 5.5 in 2002. Compare Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports, (1988): 7, 53; and FBI, (2003):19, 79.
15 John R. Lott, Jr., "Right to carry would disprove horror stories," Kansas City Star, (July 12, 2003).
16Gary Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force," Social Problems 35 (February 1988):15.
17Compare Kleck, "Crime Control," at 15, and Chief Dwaine L. Wilson, City of Kennesaw Police Department, "Month to Month Statistics: 1991." (Residential burglary rates from 1981-1991 are based on statistics for the months of March - October.)
18Kleck, Point Blank, at 140.
19Kleck, "Crime Control," at 13.
20U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities (1979), p. 31.
21U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985): 27.
22Id.
23Id.
Oh, another thing: to be thorough, Go read, "Imagining Gun Control in America: Understanding the Remainder Problem" by Nicholas J. Johnson. Wake Forest Law Review issue 43.837.
The review deeply analyzes gun control and summizes that it is completely impossible to realize total gun control, even if you attempted it (and we've already proven attempting to do so would cause more innocent victims). So, now, John, your argument is void, your words vapid and empty. Guns save lives, CCW saves lives, and implementing Gun control would cause unneeded loss of life and is impossible to do anyway! Case closed...
I'd put in the link, but the site won't let me, so just google it and you'll find it easily.
Thank God the Supreme Court has ruled the right to keep and bear arms is a personal right granted by God. As such, the government has no power over this God-given right. The militia argument is dead.
This just in: It was illegal for the Columbine shooters to purchase firearms. Gun control FAILED.
It sounds like Mayor Daily has you believing his line and it has worked so well in Chicago. Since only those devoted to crime have the guns but not the subjects that should be citizens. Do you or can you think for yourself or are you just pandering? You should first get informed prior to writing anything like this.
"Unfortunately, an almost perfect inverse correlation exists between those who are affected by gun laws, particularly bans, and those whom enforcement should affect. Those easiest to disarm are the responsible and law abiding citizens whose guns represent no meaningful social problem. Irresponsible and criminal owners, whose gun possession creates or exacerbates so many social ills, are the ones most difficult to disarm."
(Don B. Kates, “Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?”)
It seems as though John forgot to mention that those victims in NY were unable to defend themselves because the State required that they PROVE their need to own a firearm before they are granted the right.
Or perhaps the people in the retirement community. I'm willing to bet that the premises were "gun free".
And, like what was posted above, the Columbine shooters were minors, so it was illegal for them to buy handguns anyway.
The police were ambushed, are they supposed to be psychic?
There is no such thing as the "gunshow loophole". How often does "gun violence" happen at gun shows? Even with all of those evil black guns?
Just one question for people who still believe in gun control: If total and absolute prohibition on drugs failed to prevent people from abusing drugs and dying from the drug overdose, what make you think that banning guns will prevent maniacs from killing people? You can still kill as many people as Binghampton nutcase did by mowing them down on the side walk with your car, or by blocking exits in the nightclub and throwing couple of molotov cocktails in order to create a stumpede. Maniacs who about to murder as many people as possible won't give a rat's ass about the ban on concealed carry, the law abiding citizens will. That is why people who advocate, and promote gun control have blood on their hands - they prevent citizens from defending themselves.
Total gun control, Mr. Presta? I encourage you to engage your brain before your fingers. Or just engage your brain anytime.
Various state and city bans on various semiautos have seen compliance rates of only a few percentage points - I believe Cleveland was 1% compliant. John, about 80% of Americans believe they have a right to own guns, and there are at least 280 million guns in the US. What do you propose ... going door to door and confiscating them? From people who believe history, the constitution, the Heller decision, and their natural right to self-preservation?
I thought you wanted to DECREASE the violence.
If you are willing to propose such a scheme, I recommend that you be the first one to go knocking on doors.
Folks ... Chicago is one of the FEW places where people propose such foolishness. And these would be brilliant folks like Blagojevich, Jesse Jackson, Mike Pfleger, with a little Richard Daley thrown in for fun.
People, the next step is to abolish Chicago's unconstitutional ban on protective handguns. And this will happen soon.
John - unless you are just blowing smoke and needed a quick-and-dirty Examiner post today, I recommend you read:
Johnson, NJ. 2009. IMAGINING GUN CONTROL IN AMERICA: UNDERSTANDING THE REMAINDER PROBLEM. Wake Forest Law Review.
Wouldn't it be easier to just ban murder so we can all enjoy this Utopia? Seriously, after 911, I don't want to ever be in a situation without a firearm. In these times of uncertainty; like those of past, nobody does.
1) How can people kill each other with guns in Chicago? Guns are illegal in Chicago. 2)Instead of "Gun Free Zone" signs in schools and other target rich environments, why not put up "No Murder Allowed Here" signs? That should stop it. It worked so well in Columbine and Virginia Tech, as well as many other places. And you could supplement them with "No Bank Robberys allowed" signs in banks and "No Drunk Driving allowed" signs on roads. Oh, wait, drunks kill more people than guns. I guess we'll have to register cars. Oh, wait, that doesn't work. Well, we'll BAN semi-automatic transmissions. That should work. And if it doesn't, we'll just BAN CARS and make everyone take "mass transit". Yah, that will work.
Like most liberals, I guess you didn't study much history, like the shootings that occurred at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Yorktown. Too bad the revolutionists hadn't agreed to the gun ban imposed by King George. Then those terrible shootings could've been avoided as well.
John Presta -- just another sphincter with ____ for brains.
Are you for real? Can anybody really be that stupid? Your bio doesn't say anything about an education, so I'm assuming you don't have any. Your ideas reflect that, yet you can write. Apparently you learned how to do that recently because you obviously don't seem to know anything.
Maybe he's really Paul Helmke.
John - We need you over at AHSA. I know you may just be a shadow for Paul Helmke, but, if you really do exist, we need a couple more lunitics like you to pad our membership up to 13 members. We'll show you how to write pretending to favor 2nd Amendment rights while you spew out mindless hatred for them. It won't work, of couse, on most thinking people, but we're not really looking for them. We just hope to rope in as many hopeless morons (like you) as we can. P.S. We pay, too - up to $10 or $15 per article.
Remember, be careful what you wish for. If you really get what you want, total gun control, then shortly thereafter ALL the rest of the U.S. Constitution including the first amendment will be rescinded as well. That'll put you and your liberal buddy writers out of business. Oh, I forgot. I guess you could still write your pro NAZI rhetoric for the government, since you like them so much.
John, you may know this and you may not, but there are already some 22,000 gun laws on the books in the USA, at the federal, state and local levels. If you think that some 85-90 million gun owners in the USA are going to hand over their 250 million-plus guns to the likes of Bobby Rush or Frank Lautenberg, then you must be as stupid as the wind is wild.
Most of the comments seem rather negative, John, Don't you have any shill writers to rubber stamp your beyond belief mindless gruel ?
John, answer me this: Are you really stupid? What could possibly motivate you to write opinions that not only fly in the face of reality, but are so totally against the history and the documents that this country is based on? Armed men with guns freed Americans from the British empire. Armed men with guns destroyed Hitler and the Empire of Japan, otherwise you'd be writing your ideas in German or Japanese. Millions of law abiding armed citizens are the last check and balence against armed criminals and crooked politicians. The right to own and carry guns is etched in the U.S. Constitution. Here's your ultimate: "America is falling asleep and must wake up and stop allowing these "gun nuts," the NRA, to control our gun laws." How can a human being who finds his way home every night believe this? C'mon, enlighten me.
Since you hate freedom and the U.S. Constitution so much. shouldn't you move to a place more to your liking like, say, North Korea or Russia, for instance. They already have the total gun control you crave so much. So long. And good luck !
I"m mystified and fuzzy faced at people like you, who actually think they know something about something, when what they say or write proves that they actually have NO real knowledge or understanding of that something, yet they have strong opinions on that subject based on ignorance of it. I'm quite aware of the many, many things I know very little or nothing about, and therefor would feel very foolish to try to educate others about those things. That's why I can't understand how you imagine that you know anything at all about guns, civil rights, human nature, criminal behavior, or American history, when you clearly don't. Yet you write strongly opinionated article after article about these things in your gun control blitherings, as if you do--sort of like a man walking around with his pants down around his ankles thinking he's dressed for the prom. Why, I wonder? Why?
GET THIS:#1 You cannot legislate righteousness(translation for the brain dead: No law can prevent crime because the criminals BREAK the law.)#2 You cannot prevent crime by controlling (outlawing the ownership of) objects(guns, cars, drugs alcohol, etc.)#3 All gun control schemes hide behind a patent lie:that gun control is needed to prevent crime,see #1 and #2.#4 No gun control law has ever kept even one gun away from anyone determined enough to get one and therefor has never saved even one life or prevented even one crime,see #1,2,and 3.#5 ALL gun control laws are unlawful because the right of "the people" to keep(own) and carry(bear) firearms is guaranteed by the Constitution.#6 All gun control laws are designed to abrogate the rights of free Americans because free Americans are the only ones affected by those laws.Therefor: #1 Stop the war against freedom and Constitutional rights by WINNING IT.#2 Expose the gun banner's lies, and #3 ROLL BACK ALL UNCONSTITUTIONAL GUN CONTROL LAWS!
The fact that you in your genius suddenly decide that America "needs" to "wake up" to completely doing away with a pivotal right guaranteed in the Constitution two hundred years ago by America's founding fathers is ample evidence of the vast depth of the vacuum in your brain. My strong suggestion:--Get a good day job. --Stop wasting your time pretending to be a writer on examiner.com. --Really, find something better to do as an occupation. This one doesn't suit you too well.
Wonders Why, nobody, repeat, NOBODY is this stupid. Therefor, two other possibilities occur to me. First, there is the real possibility that the author has suffered some sort of trauma to the head causing brain damage inhibiting his causative thinking ability. Second, he may just be paid to write nonsense by others who know better, but are too stupid to realize that most other people aren't as stupid as they are.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!