Those Damn Guns Again
- Thread starter thoughtone
- Start date
Fuzzy_McNut
Banned
Obama gets asked "do you think we should ban hand guns"
The NRA is the NEW KKK Response
The NRA is the NEW KKK Response
The NRA is the NEW KKK Response
Americans losing their guns.
Americans losing their guns.
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Americans losing their guns.
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Newtown sees jump in gun permit applications
Newtown sees jump in gun permit applications
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN | Associated Press – 31 mins ago
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Applications for gun permits have jumped in Newtown since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which sparked a renewed debate about stricter gun control laws and a surge in gun sales around the country due to worries about new limits.
Newtown in recent years has issued about 130 gun permits annually. Police say the town received 79 permit applications in the three months since the Dec. 14 massacre, well over double the normal pace.
"A good percentage of people are making it clear they think their rights are going to be taken away," said Robert Berkins, records manager for Newtown police.
The increase in applications in Newtown came as firearms sales surged around the country driven by Washington's new focus on gun control.
Both sides of the debate have been well represented in Newtown, a town of about 27,000. The horror of the massacre inspired a groundswell of gun violence-prevention activism by new, local organizations such as Sandy Hook Promise and Newtown Action Alliance.
But gun ownership has long been a way of life in Newtown, which is home to the National Shooting Sports Foundation trade association.
A spike in complaints in recent years related to gunshots, primarily about noise and fear of shots being fired, led the police commission to propose an ordinance limiting when guns can be discharged and establishing a process for the police chief to approve shooting ranges, according to Joel Faxon, a police commission member.
Gun applicants traditionally involved hunters, target shooters and business owners, but now police are seeing a wider variety of applicants, Berkins said. Some said they never thought about getting a gun but heard their right to have one is going to be taken away, he said.
Berkins said he wonders how many of the applicants will actually go out and buy a gun. Only a few applicants get turned down for permits each year, he said.
Victor Benson, who owns the Freedom Shoppe gun store in nearby New Milford, said business has tripled since the school shooting. Some of the customers are first-time buyers, he said.
"It's just the mentality of people when you tell them that something is going to be banned, well they want to get one while they still can," Benson said. "We're all upset about what happened in Newtown, but it doesn't mean ... we want to have our rights taken away."
The killing of 20 first-graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School has led to proposals for universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The gunman, Adam Lanza, killed all of his victims at the schoolhouse with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that he took from the house where he lived with his mother Nancy Lanza. He killed his mother at their home earlier and used a handgun to kill himself.
The FBI conducted more background checks for firearm sales and permits to carry guns the week following the Newtown shooting than it has in any other one-week period since 1998. The second-highest week for background checks came mid-January as President Barack Obama announced sweeping plans to curb gun violence.
http://news.yahoo.com/newtown-sees-jump-gun-permit-applications-181550858.html
Newtown sees jump in gun permit applications
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN | Associated Press – 31 mins ago
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Applications for gun permits have jumped in Newtown since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which sparked a renewed debate about stricter gun control laws and a surge in gun sales around the country due to worries about new limits.
Newtown in recent years has issued about 130 gun permits annually. Police say the town received 79 permit applications in the three months since the Dec. 14 massacre, well over double the normal pace.
"A good percentage of people are making it clear they think their rights are going to be taken away," said Robert Berkins, records manager for Newtown police.
The increase in applications in Newtown came as firearms sales surged around the country driven by Washington's new focus on gun control.
Both sides of the debate have been well represented in Newtown, a town of about 27,000. The horror of the massacre inspired a groundswell of gun violence-prevention activism by new, local organizations such as Sandy Hook Promise and Newtown Action Alliance.
But gun ownership has long been a way of life in Newtown, which is home to the National Shooting Sports Foundation trade association.
A spike in complaints in recent years related to gunshots, primarily about noise and fear of shots being fired, led the police commission to propose an ordinance limiting when guns can be discharged and establishing a process for the police chief to approve shooting ranges, according to Joel Faxon, a police commission member.
Gun applicants traditionally involved hunters, target shooters and business owners, but now police are seeing a wider variety of applicants, Berkins said. Some said they never thought about getting a gun but heard their right to have one is going to be taken away, he said.
Berkins said he wonders how many of the applicants will actually go out and buy a gun. Only a few applicants get turned down for permits each year, he said.
Victor Benson, who owns the Freedom Shoppe gun store in nearby New Milford, said business has tripled since the school shooting. Some of the customers are first-time buyers, he said.
"It's just the mentality of people when you tell them that something is going to be banned, well they want to get one while they still can," Benson said. "We're all upset about what happened in Newtown, but it doesn't mean ... we want to have our rights taken away."
The killing of 20 first-graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School has led to proposals for universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The gunman, Adam Lanza, killed all of his victims at the schoolhouse with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that he took from the house where he lived with his mother Nancy Lanza. He killed his mother at their home earlier and used a handgun to kill himself.
The FBI conducted more background checks for firearm sales and permits to carry guns the week following the Newtown shooting than it has in any other one-week period since 1998. The second-highest week for background checks came mid-January as President Barack Obama announced sweeping plans to curb gun violence.
http://news.yahoo.com/newtown-sees-jump-gun-permit-applications-181550858.html
source: New York Times
Share of Homes With Guns Shows 4-Decade Decline</NYT_HEADLINE>
Shoppers at a gun show last year in Chantilly, Va. Guns are still selling well, but a recent survey suggests that they might be concentrated in fewer households.
The share of American households with guns has declined over the past four decades, a national survey shows, with some of the most surprising drops in the South and the Western mountain states, where guns are deeply embedded in the culture.
The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad cross section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years that asks a sample of American adults if they have guns at home, among other questions.
The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and in all regions of the country. It has fallen among households with children, and among those without. It has declined for households that say they are very happy, and for those that say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews.
The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times.
In 2012, the share of American households with guns was 34 percent, according to survey results released on Thursday. Researchers said the difference compared with 2010, when the rate was 32 percent, was not statistically significant.
The findings contrast with the impression left by a flurry of news reports about people rushing to buy guns and clearing shop shelves of assault rifles after the massacre last year at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
“There are all these claims that gun ownership is going through the roof,” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “But I suspect the increase in gun sales has been limited mostly to current gun owners. The most reputable surveys show a decline over time in the share of households with guns.”
That decline, which has been studied by researchers for years but is relatively unknown among the general public, suggests that even as the conversation on guns remains contentious, a broad shift away from gun ownership is under way in a growing number of American homes. It also raises questions about the future politics of gun control. Will efforts to regulate guns eventually meet with less resistance if they are increasingly concentrated in fewer hands — or more resistance?
Detailed data on gun ownership is scarce. Though some states reported household gun ownership rates in the 1990s, it was not until the early 2000s that questions on the presence of guns at home were asked on a broad federal public health survey of several hundred thousand people, making it possible to see the rates in all states.
But by the mid-2000s, the federal government stopped asking the questions, leaving researchers to rely on much smaller surveys, like the General Social Survey, which is conducted by NORC, a research center at the University of Chicago.
Measuring the level of gun ownership can be a vexing problem, with various recent national polls reporting rates between 35 percent and 52 percent. Responses can vary because the survey designs and the wording of questions differ.
But researchers say the survey done by the center at the University of Chicago is crucial because it has consistently tracked gun ownership since 1973, asking if respondents “happen to have in your home (or garage) any guns or revolvers.”
The center’s 2012 survey, conducted mostly in person but also by phone, involved interviews with about 2,000 people from March to September and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Gallup, which asks a similar question but has a different survey design, shows a higher ownership rate and a more moderate decrease. No national survey tracks the number of guns within households.
Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said he was skeptical that there had been a decline in household ownership. He pointed to reports of increased gun sales, to long waits for gun safety training classes and to the growing number of background checks, which have surged since the late 1990s, as evidence that ownership is rising.
“I’m sure there are a lot of people who would love to make the case that there are fewer gun owners in this country, but the stories we’ve been hearing and the data we’ve been seeing simply don’t support that,” he said.
Tom W. Smith, the director of the General Social Survey, which is financed by the National Science Foundation, said he was confident in the trend. It lines up, he said, with two evolving patterns in American life: the decline of hunting and a sharp drop in violent crime, which has made the argument for self-protection much less urgent.
According to an analysis of the survey, only a quarter of men in 2012 said they hunted, compared with about 40 percent when the question was asked in 1977.
Mr. Smith acknowledged the rise in background checks, but said it was impossible to tell how many were for new gun owners. The checks are reported as one total that includes, for example, people buying their second or third gun, as well as those renewing concealed carry permits.
“If there was a national registry that recorded all firearm purchases, we’d have a full picture,” he said. “But there’s not, so we’ve got to put together pieces.”
The survey does not ask about the legality of guns in the home. Illegal guns are a factor in some areas but represent a very small fraction of ownership in the country, said Aaron Karp, an expert on gun policy at the Small Arms Survey in Geneva and at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. He said estimates of the total number of guns in the United States ranged from 280 million to 320 million.
The geographic patterns were some of the most surprising in the General Social Survey, researchers said. Gun ownership in both the South and the mountain region, which includes states like Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming, dropped to less than 40 percent of households this decade, down from 65 percent in the 1970s. The Northeast, where the household ownership rate is lowest, changed the least, at 22 percent this decade, compared with 29 percent in the 1970s.
Age groups presented another twist. While household ownership of guns among elderly Americans remained virtually unchanged from the 1970s to this decade at about 43 percent, ownership among young Americans plummeted. Household gun ownership among Americans under the age of 30 fell to 23 percent this decade from 47 percent in the 1970s. The survey showed a similar decline for Americans ages 30 to 44.
As for politics, the survey showed a steep drop in household gun ownership among Democrats and independents, and a very slight decline among Republicans. But the new data suggest a reversal among Republicans, with 51 percent since 2008 saying they have a gun in their home, up from 47 percent in surveys taken from 2000 through 2006. This leaves the Republican rate a bit below where it was in the 1970s, while ownership for Democrats is nearly half of what it was in that decade.
Researchers offered different theories for these trends.
Many Americans were introduced to guns through military service, which involved a large part of the population in the Vietnam War era, Dr. Webster said. Now that the Army is volunteer and a small fraction of the population, it is less a gateway for gun ownership, he said.
Urbanization also helped drive the decline. Rural areas, where gun ownership is the highest, are now home to about 17 percent of Americans, down from 27 percent in the 1970s. According to the survey, just 23 percent of households in cities owned guns in the 2000s, compared with 56 percent of households in rural areas. That was down from 70 percent of rural households in the 1970s.
The country’s changing demographics may also play a role. While the rate of gun ownership among women has remained relatively constant over the years at about 10 percent, which is less than one-third of the rate among men today, more women are heading households without men, another possible contributor to the decline in household gun ownership. Women living in households where there were guns that were not their own declined to a fifth in 2012 down from a third in 1980.
The increase of Hispanics as a share of the American population is also probably having an effect, as they are far less likely to own guns. In the survey results since 2000, about 14 percent of Hispanics reported having a gun in their house.
Share of Homes With Guns Shows 4-Decade Decline</NYT_HEADLINE>
Shoppers at a gun show last year in Chantilly, Va. Guns are still selling well, but a recent survey suggests that they might be concentrated in fewer households.
The share of American households with guns has declined over the past four decades, a national survey shows, with some of the most surprising drops in the South and the Western mountain states, where guns are deeply embedded in the culture.
The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad cross section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years that asks a sample of American adults if they have guns at home, among other questions.
The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and in all regions of the country. It has fallen among households with children, and among those without. It has declined for households that say they are very happy, and for those that say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews.
The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times.
In 2012, the share of American households with guns was 34 percent, according to survey results released on Thursday. Researchers said the difference compared with 2010, when the rate was 32 percent, was not statistically significant.
The findings contrast with the impression left by a flurry of news reports about people rushing to buy guns and clearing shop shelves of assault rifles after the massacre last year at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
“There are all these claims that gun ownership is going through the roof,” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “But I suspect the increase in gun sales has been limited mostly to current gun owners. The most reputable surveys show a decline over time in the share of households with guns.”
That decline, which has been studied by researchers for years but is relatively unknown among the general public, suggests that even as the conversation on guns remains contentious, a broad shift away from gun ownership is under way in a growing number of American homes. It also raises questions about the future politics of gun control. Will efforts to regulate guns eventually meet with less resistance if they are increasingly concentrated in fewer hands — or more resistance?
Detailed data on gun ownership is scarce. Though some states reported household gun ownership rates in the 1990s, it was not until the early 2000s that questions on the presence of guns at home were asked on a broad federal public health survey of several hundred thousand people, making it possible to see the rates in all states.
But by the mid-2000s, the federal government stopped asking the questions, leaving researchers to rely on much smaller surveys, like the General Social Survey, which is conducted by NORC, a research center at the University of Chicago.
Measuring the level of gun ownership can be a vexing problem, with various recent national polls reporting rates between 35 percent and 52 percent. Responses can vary because the survey designs and the wording of questions differ.
But researchers say the survey done by the center at the University of Chicago is crucial because it has consistently tracked gun ownership since 1973, asking if respondents “happen to have in your home (or garage) any guns or revolvers.”
The center’s 2012 survey, conducted mostly in person but also by phone, involved interviews with about 2,000 people from March to September and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Gallup, which asks a similar question but has a different survey design, shows a higher ownership rate and a more moderate decrease. No national survey tracks the number of guns within households.
Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said he was skeptical that there had been a decline in household ownership. He pointed to reports of increased gun sales, to long waits for gun safety training classes and to the growing number of background checks, which have surged since the late 1990s, as evidence that ownership is rising.
“I’m sure there are a lot of people who would love to make the case that there are fewer gun owners in this country, but the stories we’ve been hearing and the data we’ve been seeing simply don’t support that,” he said.
Tom W. Smith, the director of the General Social Survey, which is financed by the National Science Foundation, said he was confident in the trend. It lines up, he said, with two evolving patterns in American life: the decline of hunting and a sharp drop in violent crime, which has made the argument for self-protection much less urgent.
According to an analysis of the survey, only a quarter of men in 2012 said they hunted, compared with about 40 percent when the question was asked in 1977.
Mr. Smith acknowledged the rise in background checks, but said it was impossible to tell how many were for new gun owners. The checks are reported as one total that includes, for example, people buying their second or third gun, as well as those renewing concealed carry permits.
“If there was a national registry that recorded all firearm purchases, we’d have a full picture,” he said. “But there’s not, so we’ve got to put together pieces.”
The survey does not ask about the legality of guns in the home. Illegal guns are a factor in some areas but represent a very small fraction of ownership in the country, said Aaron Karp, an expert on gun policy at the Small Arms Survey in Geneva and at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. He said estimates of the total number of guns in the United States ranged from 280 million to 320 million.
The geographic patterns were some of the most surprising in the General Social Survey, researchers said. Gun ownership in both the South and the mountain region, which includes states like Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming, dropped to less than 40 percent of households this decade, down from 65 percent in the 1970s. The Northeast, where the household ownership rate is lowest, changed the least, at 22 percent this decade, compared with 29 percent in the 1970s.
Age groups presented another twist. While household ownership of guns among elderly Americans remained virtually unchanged from the 1970s to this decade at about 43 percent, ownership among young Americans plummeted. Household gun ownership among Americans under the age of 30 fell to 23 percent this decade from 47 percent in the 1970s. The survey showed a similar decline for Americans ages 30 to 44.
As for politics, the survey showed a steep drop in household gun ownership among Democrats and independents, and a very slight decline among Republicans. But the new data suggest a reversal among Republicans, with 51 percent since 2008 saying they have a gun in their home, up from 47 percent in surveys taken from 2000 through 2006. This leaves the Republican rate a bit below where it was in the 1970s, while ownership for Democrats is nearly half of what it was in that decade.
Researchers offered different theories for these trends.
Many Americans were introduced to guns through military service, which involved a large part of the population in the Vietnam War era, Dr. Webster said. Now that the Army is volunteer and a small fraction of the population, it is less a gateway for gun ownership, he said.
Urbanization also helped drive the decline. Rural areas, where gun ownership is the highest, are now home to about 17 percent of Americans, down from 27 percent in the 1970s. According to the survey, just 23 percent of households in cities owned guns in the 2000s, compared with 56 percent of households in rural areas. That was down from 70 percent of rural households in the 1970s.
The country’s changing demographics may also play a role. While the rate of gun ownership among women has remained relatively constant over the years at about 10 percent, which is less than one-third of the rate among men today, more women are heading households without men, another possible contributor to the decline in household gun ownership. Women living in households where there were guns that were not their own declined to a fifth in 2012 down from a third in 1980.
The increase of Hispanics as a share of the American population is also probably having an effect, as they are far less likely to own guns. In the survey results since 2000, about 14 percent of Hispanics reported having a gun in their house.
^^^
That's why the NRA has become more and more rabid. Their masters at the gun companies have to keep selling product to fewer and fewer customers. So they need the NRA to keep the ones they have ginned up to buy some more guns. They have to create a reason for them to buy something they already have that still works.
That's why the NRA has become more and more rabid. Their masters at the gun companies have to keep selling product to fewer and fewer customers. So they need the NRA to keep the ones they have ginned up to buy some more guns. They have to create a reason for them to buy something they already have that still works.
Gun deaths shaped by race in America
Gun deaths shaped by race in America
Posted by Dan Keating on March 22, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.
Where a person lives matters, too. Gun deaths in urban areas are much more likely to be homicides, while suicide is far and away the dominant form of gun death in rural areas. States with the most guns per capita, such as Montana and Wyoming, have the highest suicide rates; states with low gun ownership rates, such as Massachusetts and New York, have far fewer suicides per capita.
Suicides and homicides are highly charged human dramas. Both acts shatter families, friends and sometimes communities. But the reactions are as different as black and white, and those differences shape the nation’s divided attitudes toward gun control.
For instance, African Americans tend to be stronger backers of tough gun controls than whites. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month found that about three-quarters of blacks support stronger controls, compared with about half of whites. The poll also found that two-thirds of city dwellers support stronger gun controls, while only about a third of rural residents back them.
Suicide and homicide rates among Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans do not reflect the sharp differences seen among blacks and whites.
Gun homicides, especially mass shootings, tend to spark demands for change. Although suicides account for almost twice as many gun deaths as homicides nationwide, they tend to be quiet tragedies, unnoticed outside the hushed confines of family and friends.
Suicide is “absent from the discussion of gun policy,” said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore. “The availability of firearms does indeed increase the risk of suicide, but most people don’t see it that way.”
Opponents of gun control counter that some countries with high gun ownership rates, such as Israel, have few suicides and that countries such as Russia, where guns are scarce, have high rates of suicide. The reasoning is that determined people can find a way to kill themselves, although suicide experts say the prevalence of guns allows for impulse suicides that otherwise might not occur.
The most ardent advocate for gun rights, the National Rifle Association, casts the link between guns and suicide as something of a virtue. “Gun owners are notably self-reliant and exhibit a willingness to take definitive action when they believe it to be in their own self-interest,” the NRA wrote in a fact sheet, called “Suicide and Firearms,” on the Web site for the group’s lobbying arm. “Such action may include ending their own life when the time is deemed appropriate.”
‘A different mindset’
Janett Massolo, who is white, works at a suicide-prevention center in Reno, Nev. She provides training in suicide prevention and counsels families that have lost a member to suicide. She understands their grief — nearly 17 years ago her daughter Shannon killed herself.
Shannon was a 15-year-old high school student. Her behavior was sometimes erratic, but her mother put it down to teenage volatility. After Shannon’s best friend shot herself to death, she told her mother that she was appalled. “How could anything get that bad?” she said.
Six months later, shortly before noon on a Saturday, Massolo told her daughter that she was running next door for a minute. Shannon said she was hopping into the shower. When Massolo returned to the house five minutes later, her daughter’s body was on the floor in her parents’ bedroom. At first, Massolo thought Shannon was searching for something under the bed. Then she saw the head wound.
Her father’s handgun had been in an unlocked drawer; the bullets were elsewhere in the bedroom. Massolo said her daughter would not have had time to get the gun, find the bullets, load the gun and kill herself in the time she was next door. Massolo concluded that Shannon had planned her suicide.
Shannon knew how to handle the gun. Her parents had taught her and her sisters to fire weapons. They had gone to shooting ranges. “The mind-set out here is that we use guns for hunting, for target shooting, to keep the family safe,” said Massolo. “If you want to keep the family safe and you have mental illness in the family, then lock your guns up for a while or give them away for a while. We’re not saying give them away forever. We don’t want to take the gun away.”
The gun Shannon used to kill herself had been in the family for years. It was a gift to her father from his father-in-law, a former Reno police officer. Shannon had used it for target practice many times.
“That’s something we’ve dealt with,” Massolo said in a recent interview. “We taught her how to kill herself. But we were trying to teach her how to be safe. It’s a different mind-set out here about guns. I know the East Coast doesn’t think that way.”
Massolo said the weapon had sentimental value to her husband, so after the suicide inquiry, he got it back from the police. His wife won’t look at it, but her husband won’t part with it.
“The gun did not kill Shannon,” she said. “Shannon killed Shannon. I tell him it was not his fault. It could have been any method. She killed herself. That was my way of relieving some of his guilt.”
Shanda Smith, who is black, has a totally different view of guns and their place in society. Nearly 20 years ago, her two children were shot to death on their way to a church Christmas party in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast Washington.
Smith, a single mother who never knew her own parents, remembers the new Scrabble game her children had opened two days before the church party. “I remember one of the words was ‘peril,’ ” she said in a recent interview. “They didn’t know it. I told them it means danger.”
Rodney Smith, 19, was home on break from the University of Kansas, where he had a football scholarship. He had borrowed a relative’s beat-up Camaro Z28 and was driving his sister, Volante, 14, and two younger children to the party. Boo, as his sister was called, was in the passenger seat.
As the car approached the church on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, someone ran up to it and fired a handgun at Rodney and Boo. Smith’s two children were in body bags being loaded into an ambulance when she got to the scene. It would turn out that the Smiths were killed in a case of mistaken identity.
“They were right where they needed to be,” Smith said of her children, “but somebody had access to a gun, and he shot the wrong kids.”
Smith channeled her grief into a group called Survivors of Homicide Inc., where she works with others who have lost family members and close friends in shootings. Her favorite event is an annual Christmas party she hosts for children who have lost siblings or parents to shootings.
The Smith children were killed in 1993, a time when the District had one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. Even though rates have dropped sharply, Smith knows many families that have suffered from gun homicides. But she said they don’t buy guns as a solution. “That’s a difference in the African American community,” she said. “We don’t teach our kids to go hunting and shoot. We don’t have guns in our homes.”
‘Missing the point’
Contrasting life experiences, whether from a family member’s suicide or the death of a relative in a homicide, drive the nation’s split over an essential element of the gun debate: Would fewer guns save lives? Survivors of homicide victims consistently tell pollsters that the answer is yes, but the response to suicide is different.
“We have less empathy with those who take their own lives,” said Sean Joe, an expert on suicide and violence at the University of Michigan. “So we don’t have the same national outcry. The key argument for me is that increased access to firearms increases suicide and homicide.”
Scholars say it is no coincidence that the places in the United States with high suicide rates also have high gun ownership rates. By contrast, states with the lowest gun ownership rates tend to have the lowest suicide rates.
Eleanor Hamm works at the statewide suicide hotline for Colorado, which has high rates of gun ownership and suicide. Her suicide-prevention program is accredited by the American Association of Suicidology, yet her experience with guns, which started when she got her first at 6, puts her closer to the NRA than the suicide association.
“The Western region is the highest region in suicide,” she said in an interview. “Out here, we own guns. You’re not ever going to get the guns away from anybody. What we can do is a better job of mental health. That will make a difference.”
Hamm echoed the NRA position, saying that people without access to guns will kill themselves by other means. “It’s easy for the passion of the day to look at gun control,” she said. “It’s missing the point of mental health and what is really truly taking place.”
But experts say that the urge to commit suicide is neither unstoppable nor permanent. “I emphasize that suicide is preventable — treatment works,” said Iliana Gilman, spokeswoman for a crisis hotline in Austin.
The impulse to commit suicide has been described as a trance, and the speed and lethality of a gun make it harder to interrupt the trance. Attempts at suicide are more than 20 times as likely to be fatal when a gun is used.
“They are blinded,” said Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology. “They are so focused and tunnel-visioned on ‘I have to end the pain I’m in; I have to end it now.’. . . A firearm is an immediate end to the problem.”
Some experts say mass shootings such as the one in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December can often be seen as extravagant suicides rather than homicidal rampages. And the young man behind that massacre killed himself before he could be apprehended. Preventing these killings, experts say, requires better treatment of mental health problems and limiting access to weapons.
“If I had to choose one thing,” said Joe, the Michigan professor, “I would try to reduce access and availability of firearms. The means matter more.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/
Gun deaths shaped by race in America
Posted by Dan Keating on March 22, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.
Where a person lives matters, too. Gun deaths in urban areas are much more likely to be homicides, while suicide is far and away the dominant form of gun death in rural areas. States with the most guns per capita, such as Montana and Wyoming, have the highest suicide rates; states with low gun ownership rates, such as Massachusetts and New York, have far fewer suicides per capita.
Suicides and homicides are highly charged human dramas. Both acts shatter families, friends and sometimes communities. But the reactions are as different as black and white, and those differences shape the nation’s divided attitudes toward gun control.
For instance, African Americans tend to be stronger backers of tough gun controls than whites. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month found that about three-quarters of blacks support stronger controls, compared with about half of whites. The poll also found that two-thirds of city dwellers support stronger gun controls, while only about a third of rural residents back them.
Suicide and homicide rates among Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans do not reflect the sharp differences seen among blacks and whites.
Gun homicides, especially mass shootings, tend to spark demands for change. Although suicides account for almost twice as many gun deaths as homicides nationwide, they tend to be quiet tragedies, unnoticed outside the hushed confines of family and friends.
Suicide is “absent from the discussion of gun policy,” said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore. “The availability of firearms does indeed increase the risk of suicide, but most people don’t see it that way.”
Opponents of gun control counter that some countries with high gun ownership rates, such as Israel, have few suicides and that countries such as Russia, where guns are scarce, have high rates of suicide. The reasoning is that determined people can find a way to kill themselves, although suicide experts say the prevalence of guns allows for impulse suicides that otherwise might not occur.
The most ardent advocate for gun rights, the National Rifle Association, casts the link between guns and suicide as something of a virtue. “Gun owners are notably self-reliant and exhibit a willingness to take definitive action when they believe it to be in their own self-interest,” the NRA wrote in a fact sheet, called “Suicide and Firearms,” on the Web site for the group’s lobbying arm. “Such action may include ending their own life when the time is deemed appropriate.”
‘A different mindset’
Janett Massolo, who is white, works at a suicide-prevention center in Reno, Nev. She provides training in suicide prevention and counsels families that have lost a member to suicide. She understands their grief — nearly 17 years ago her daughter Shannon killed herself.
Shannon was a 15-year-old high school student. Her behavior was sometimes erratic, but her mother put it down to teenage volatility. After Shannon’s best friend shot herself to death, she told her mother that she was appalled. “How could anything get that bad?” she said.
Six months later, shortly before noon on a Saturday, Massolo told her daughter that she was running next door for a minute. Shannon said she was hopping into the shower. When Massolo returned to the house five minutes later, her daughter’s body was on the floor in her parents’ bedroom. At first, Massolo thought Shannon was searching for something under the bed. Then she saw the head wound.
Her father’s handgun had been in an unlocked drawer; the bullets were elsewhere in the bedroom. Massolo said her daughter would not have had time to get the gun, find the bullets, load the gun and kill herself in the time she was next door. Massolo concluded that Shannon had planned her suicide.
Shannon knew how to handle the gun. Her parents had taught her and her sisters to fire weapons. They had gone to shooting ranges. “The mind-set out here is that we use guns for hunting, for target shooting, to keep the family safe,” said Massolo. “If you want to keep the family safe and you have mental illness in the family, then lock your guns up for a while or give them away for a while. We’re not saying give them away forever. We don’t want to take the gun away.”
The gun Shannon used to kill herself had been in the family for years. It was a gift to her father from his father-in-law, a former Reno police officer. Shannon had used it for target practice many times.
“That’s something we’ve dealt with,” Massolo said in a recent interview. “We taught her how to kill herself. But we were trying to teach her how to be safe. It’s a different mind-set out here about guns. I know the East Coast doesn’t think that way.”
Massolo said the weapon had sentimental value to her husband, so after the suicide inquiry, he got it back from the police. His wife won’t look at it, but her husband won’t part with it.
“The gun did not kill Shannon,” she said. “Shannon killed Shannon. I tell him it was not his fault. It could have been any method. She killed herself. That was my way of relieving some of his guilt.”
Shanda Smith, who is black, has a totally different view of guns and their place in society. Nearly 20 years ago, her two children were shot to death on their way to a church Christmas party in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast Washington.
Smith, a single mother who never knew her own parents, remembers the new Scrabble game her children had opened two days before the church party. “I remember one of the words was ‘peril,’ ” she said in a recent interview. “They didn’t know it. I told them it means danger.”
Rodney Smith, 19, was home on break from the University of Kansas, where he had a football scholarship. He had borrowed a relative’s beat-up Camaro Z28 and was driving his sister, Volante, 14, and two younger children to the party. Boo, as his sister was called, was in the passenger seat.
As the car approached the church on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, someone ran up to it and fired a handgun at Rodney and Boo. Smith’s two children were in body bags being loaded into an ambulance when she got to the scene. It would turn out that the Smiths were killed in a case of mistaken identity.
“They were right where they needed to be,” Smith said of her children, “but somebody had access to a gun, and he shot the wrong kids.”
Smith channeled her grief into a group called Survivors of Homicide Inc., where she works with others who have lost family members and close friends in shootings. Her favorite event is an annual Christmas party she hosts for children who have lost siblings or parents to shootings.
The Smith children were killed in 1993, a time when the District had one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. Even though rates have dropped sharply, Smith knows many families that have suffered from gun homicides. But she said they don’t buy guns as a solution. “That’s a difference in the African American community,” she said. “We don’t teach our kids to go hunting and shoot. We don’t have guns in our homes.”
‘Missing the point’
Contrasting life experiences, whether from a family member’s suicide or the death of a relative in a homicide, drive the nation’s split over an essential element of the gun debate: Would fewer guns save lives? Survivors of homicide victims consistently tell pollsters that the answer is yes, but the response to suicide is different.
“We have less empathy with those who take their own lives,” said Sean Joe, an expert on suicide and violence at the University of Michigan. “So we don’t have the same national outcry. The key argument for me is that increased access to firearms increases suicide and homicide.”
Scholars say it is no coincidence that the places in the United States with high suicide rates also have high gun ownership rates. By contrast, states with the lowest gun ownership rates tend to have the lowest suicide rates.
Eleanor Hamm works at the statewide suicide hotline for Colorado, which has high rates of gun ownership and suicide. Her suicide-prevention program is accredited by the American Association of Suicidology, yet her experience with guns, which started when she got her first at 6, puts her closer to the NRA than the suicide association.
“The Western region is the highest region in suicide,” she said in an interview. “Out here, we own guns. You’re not ever going to get the guns away from anybody. What we can do is a better job of mental health. That will make a difference.”
Hamm echoed the NRA position, saying that people without access to guns will kill themselves by other means. “It’s easy for the passion of the day to look at gun control,” she said. “It’s missing the point of mental health and what is really truly taking place.”
But experts say that the urge to commit suicide is neither unstoppable nor permanent. “I emphasize that suicide is preventable — treatment works,” said Iliana Gilman, spokeswoman for a crisis hotline in Austin.
The impulse to commit suicide has been described as a trance, and the speed and lethality of a gun make it harder to interrupt the trance. Attempts at suicide are more than 20 times as likely to be fatal when a gun is used.
“They are blinded,” said Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology. “They are so focused and tunnel-visioned on ‘I have to end the pain I’m in; I have to end it now.’. . . A firearm is an immediate end to the problem.”
Some experts say mass shootings such as the one in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December can often be seen as extravagant suicides rather than homicidal rampages. And the young man behind that massacre killed himself before he could be apprehended. Preventing these killings, experts say, requires better treatment of mental health problems and limiting access to weapons.
“If I had to choose one thing,” said Joe, the Michigan professor, “I would try to reduce access and availability of firearms. The means matter more.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/
source: TPM
Newtown Residents Upset About NRA Robocalls
NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Some residents in Newtown, Conn., say they’re outraged at receiving robocalls from the National Rifle Association only three months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.
Town residents say the automated calls from the NRA began last week and urge people to tell their state legislators to oppose gun control proposals. Lawmakers are debating whether to ban military-style assault weapons, prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines and other measures in response to the school shootings.
Dan O’Donnell lives in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown and told WVIT-TV that the robocalls are “ridiculous and insensitive.”
Messages seeking comment were left with the NRA, which like other nonprofit groups is allowed to make robocalls under federal law.
A gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself in December after shooting his mother to death.
Newtown Residents Upset About NRA Robocalls
NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Some residents in Newtown, Conn., say they’re outraged at receiving robocalls from the National Rifle Association only three months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.
Town residents say the automated calls from the NRA began last week and urge people to tell their state legislators to oppose gun control proposals. Lawmakers are debating whether to ban military-style assault weapons, prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines and other measures in response to the school shootings.
Dan O’Donnell lives in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown and told WVIT-TV that the robocalls are “ridiculous and insensitive.”
Messages seeking comment were left with the NRA, which like other nonprofit groups is allowed to make robocalls under federal law.
A gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself in December after shooting his mother to death.
White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Finally, someone said it.
White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
By Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress, Published: March 29
Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.
But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room.
Nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years — not just Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Tucson and Columbine — have been committed by white men and boys. Yet when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men, held a news conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun violence, its leaders’ opinions were widely discussed.
Unlike other groups, white men are not used to being singled out. So we expect that many of them will protest it is unfair if we talk about them. But our nation must correctly define their contribution to our problem of gun violence if it is to be solved.
When white men try to divert attention from gun control by talking about mental health issues, many people buy into the idea that the United States has a national mental health problem, or flawed systems with which to address those problems, and they think that is what produces mass shootings.
But women and girls with mental health issues are not picking up semiautomatic weapons and shooting schoolchildren. Immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass shootings in malls and movie theaters. Latinos with mental health issues are not continually killing groups of strangers.
Each of us is programmed from childhood to believe that the top group of our hierarchies — and in the U.S. culture, that’s white men — represents everyone, so it can feel awkward, even ridiculous, when we try to call attention to those people as a distinct group and hold them accountable.
For example, our schools teach American history as the history of everyone in this nation. But the stories we learn are predominantly about white men. To study the history of other groups, people have to take separate classes, such as African American history, women’s history or Native American history. And if we take “Hispanic American History,” we don’t expect to learn “Asian American History,” because a class about anyone but white men is assumed not to be inclusive of anyone else.
This societal and cultural programming makes it easy for conservative, white-male-led groups to convince the nation that an organization led by white men, such as the NRA or the tea party movement, can represent the interests of the entire nation when, in fact, they predominately represent only their own experiences and perspectives.
If life were equitable, white male gun-rights advocates would face some serious questions to assess their degree of credibility and objectivity. We would expect them to explain:
What facets of white male culture create so many mass shootings?
Why are so many white men and boys producing and entertaining themselves with violent video games and other media?
Why do white men buy, sell and manufacture guns for profit; attend gun shows; and demonstrate for unrestricted gun access disproportionately more than people of other ethnicities or races?
Why are white male congressmen leading the fight against gun control?
If Americans ask the right questions on gun issues, we will get the right answers. These answers will encourage white men to examine their role in their own culture and to help other white men and boys become healthier and less violent.
(Charlotte and Harriet Childress are researchers and consultants on social and political issues. They are the co-authors of “Clueless at the Top: While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere for Life, Liberty, and Happiness,” on outdated hierarchies in American culture.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...001d02-97f3-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html
Finally, someone said it.
White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
By Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress, Published: March 29
Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.
But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room.
Nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years — not just Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Tucson and Columbine — have been committed by white men and boys. Yet when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men, held a news conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun violence, its leaders’ opinions were widely discussed.
Unlike other groups, white men are not used to being singled out. So we expect that many of them will protest it is unfair if we talk about them. But our nation must correctly define their contribution to our problem of gun violence if it is to be solved.
When white men try to divert attention from gun control by talking about mental health issues, many people buy into the idea that the United States has a national mental health problem, or flawed systems with which to address those problems, and they think that is what produces mass shootings.
But women and girls with mental health issues are not picking up semiautomatic weapons and shooting schoolchildren. Immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass shootings in malls and movie theaters. Latinos with mental health issues are not continually killing groups of strangers.
Each of us is programmed from childhood to believe that the top group of our hierarchies — and in the U.S. culture, that’s white men — represents everyone, so it can feel awkward, even ridiculous, when we try to call attention to those people as a distinct group and hold them accountable.
For example, our schools teach American history as the history of everyone in this nation. But the stories we learn are predominantly about white men. To study the history of other groups, people have to take separate classes, such as African American history, women’s history or Native American history. And if we take “Hispanic American History,” we don’t expect to learn “Asian American History,” because a class about anyone but white men is assumed not to be inclusive of anyone else.
This societal and cultural programming makes it easy for conservative, white-male-led groups to convince the nation that an organization led by white men, such as the NRA or the tea party movement, can represent the interests of the entire nation when, in fact, they predominately represent only their own experiences and perspectives.
If life were equitable, white male gun-rights advocates would face some serious questions to assess their degree of credibility and objectivity. We would expect them to explain:
What facets of white male culture create so many mass shootings?
Why are so many white men and boys producing and entertaining themselves with violent video games and other media?
Why do white men buy, sell and manufacture guns for profit; attend gun shows; and demonstrate for unrestricted gun access disproportionately more than people of other ethnicities or races?
Why are white male congressmen leading the fight against gun control?
If Americans ask the right questions on gun issues, we will get the right answers. These answers will encourage white men to examine their role in their own culture and to help other white men and boys become healthier and less violent.
(Charlotte and Harriet Childress are researchers and consultants on social and political issues. They are the co-authors of “Clueless at the Top: While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere for Life, Liberty, and Happiness,” on outdated hierarchies in American culture.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...001d02-97f3-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
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I endorse this approach, as "a prong" of the multifaceted effort to curb guns and gun-violence in this country.
I don't know whether the authors are black or white or saying "Finally, someone said it" is to say that finally someone white has finally acknowledge it -- but I believe that focusing on white males is precisely what a lot of people have been pointing to all along, as part of looking at controlling guns and gun violence in this country -- -- since it is that group that seems to believe the 2nd Amendment is absolute; it is that group which sings so loudly, "they want to take our guns away" at even the slightest hint of gun regulation; and it is that group which has single-handely provided an "Economic Stimulus" for the gun industry since the election of a person of African heritage as president.
I don't know whether the authors are black or white or saying "Finally, someone said it" is to say that finally someone white has finally acknowledge it -- but I believe that focusing on white males is precisely what a lot of people have been pointing to all along, as part of looking at controlling guns and gun violence in this country -- -- since it is that group that seems to believe the 2nd Amendment is absolute; it is that group which sings so loudly, "they want to take our guns away" at even the slightest hint of gun regulation; and it is that group which has single-handely provided an "Economic Stimulus" for the gun industry since the election of a person of African heritage as president.
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Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
People bought a lot of guns before the last assault weapons ban as well.
I endorse that approach because it targets the behavior and choices of people and doesn't focus on an inanimate object.
I was commenting on the fact that a mainstream source said the obvious out loud.
I don't think the focus is white men at all. One of the criticisms I mentioned in a past post is the fact that the momentum from Newtown is being use to address urban violence primarily committed by people of color. They aren't addressing Newtown, and by extension, white men being responsible for a number of mass shootings.
I don't think it's that's deep. The belief is liberals want guns gone. The only racial aspect is the assumption that a black person is automatically super liberal. It doesn't help that it's true in Obama's case.
People bought a lot of guns before the last assault weapons ban as well.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
It's not that deep but he's right. The NRA has been about focusing on being a lobby for the gun manufacturers than actually talking about gun owner's rights.
It's not that deep but he's right. The NRA has been about focusing on being a lobby for the gun manufacturers than actually talking about gun owner's rights.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Which is precisely what legislation requiring universal background checks AND registration would do: the pre-requisite to gun ownership (background check & registration) would apply equally to ALL persons; the burden of submitting to a background check and registering the gun obtain would be imposed equally, on ALL persons; and the prohibition against ownership/possession would apply equally and only to those persons whose conduct preclude their ownership, i.e., criminals, mentally distrubed, etc.
Hence, the approach focuses on people who make choices, and NOT an inanimate object.
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Which is precisely what legislation requiring universal background checks AND registration would do: the pre-requisite to gun ownership (background check & registration) would apply equally to ALL persons; the burden of submitting to a background check and registering the gun obtain would be imposed equally, on ALL persons; and the prohibition against ownership/possession would apply equally and only to those persons whose conduct preclude their ownership, i.e., criminals, mentally distrubed, etc.
Hence, the approach focuses on people who make choices, and NOT an inanimate object.
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Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
The focus on the wild and the bordering-on-the-criminal efforts of the NRA promoting unbridled ownership of guns and against damn near any regulation of guns have, in large part, been a focus on white males.
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The focus on the wild and the bordering-on-the-criminal efforts of the NRA promoting unbridled ownership of guns and against damn near any regulation of guns have, in large part, been a focus on white males.
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Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
What does that have to do with the right or wrong of the issue and what any particular individual here believes?
Ok, and so what?
What does that have to do with the right or wrong of the issue and what any particular individual here believes?
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Its that Deep. From the time the Black man threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination, "White Men" have been wildly feeding gun manufacturers and their Lobbyist-in-Chief with cash as if it was no tomorrow. Oh yeah, they were saying that too: if you don't arm yourself, there might not be a tomorrow.
The belief that liberals want guns gone is -- largely a "White Male" convention aimed at ginning-up fear against black people; and reinforcing their long held prejudices against Black people, generally. Strangely, a lot of Black people have locked arms and minds with "White Males" to promote the same anti-regulation ideas - - while Rome burns, that is, while the proliferation of guns in the hands of the wrong people literally destroy Black communities, Chicago not excluded.
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Its that Deep. From the time the Black man threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination, "White Men" have been wildly feeding gun manufacturers and their Lobbyist-in-Chief with cash as if it was no tomorrow. Oh yeah, they were saying that too: if you don't arm yourself, there might not be a tomorrow.
The belief that liberals want guns gone is -- largely a "White Male" convention aimed at ginning-up fear against black people; and reinforcing their long held prejudices against Black people, generally. Strangely, a lot of Black people have locked arms and minds with "White Males" to promote the same anti-regulation ideas - - while Rome burns, that is, while the proliferation of guns in the hands of the wrong people literally destroy Black communities, Chicago not excluded.
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Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
And is that you succumbing to emotions by describing lobbying for a lawful activity as criminal.
Are we disagreeing?
I don't get why you guys are obsessed with the NRA.
And is that you succumbing to emotions by describing lobbying for a lawful activity as criminal.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Perhaps not, to the extent that your statement:
doesn't imply that requiring universal background checks and registration is a focus on the gun, instead of people who want guns.
There you go again.
For some reason you seem inept at controlling your urge to try to read other people's mind - or - know what other people are thinking.
Perhaps not, to the extent that your statement:
doesn't imply that requiring universal background checks and registration is a focus on the gun, instead of people who want guns.
There you go again.
For some reason you seem inept at controlling your urge to try to read other people's mind - or - know what other people are thinking.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
A black Democratic senator from Illinois, that was formally a state senator from an urban area, is likely anti-gun. The racism is that assumption despite Obama trying to promote himself as the opposite.
Whites thinking blacks are out to get them didn't start with Obama, so I wouldn't personalize the problem as starting with him.
I'm going to maintain that it's not that deep. Obama ran without credibility as a moderate and probably ran away from gun control whenever it came up during the 2008 election.
A black Democratic senator from Illinois, that was formally a state senator from an urban area, is likely anti-gun. The racism is that assumption despite Obama trying to promote himself as the opposite.
Whites thinking blacks are out to get them didn't start with Obama, so I wouldn't personalize the problem as starting with him.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
A black Democratic senator from Illinois, that was formally a state senator from an urban area, is likely anti-gun. The racism is that assumption despite Obama trying to promote himself as the opposite. It's also not rocket science that someone perceived as liberal sparks increased gun sales.
Whites thinking blacks are out to get them didn't start with Obama, so I wouldn't personalize the problem as starting with him.
I'm going to maintain that it's not that deep. Obama ran without credibility as a moderate and probably ran away from gun control whenever it came up during the 2008 election.
A black Democratic senator from Illinois, that was formally a state senator from an urban area, is likely anti-gun. The racism is that assumption despite Obama trying to promote himself as the opposite. It's also not rocket science that someone perceived as liberal sparks increased gun sales.
Whites thinking blacks are out to get them didn't start with Obama, so I wouldn't personalize the problem as starting with him.
It doesn't imply that.
I'm only going by you constantly bringing them up, as if they provide the base measure for what is right or wrong.There you go again.
For some reason you seem inept at controlling your urge to try to read other people's mind - or - know what other people are thinking.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Its not emotionalism. The NRA and its lobbyist-pushers have long crossed the line by marketing the proliferation of what everyone knows to be a dangerous instrumentality while vehemently opposing reasonable regulation of that instrumentality. The NRA has managed over the years to influence enough politicians, some by the lure of $$$ and others out of fear how the NRA might spend $$$ against them, to obtain legislation shielding gun manufacturers from liability/consequences that no other manufacturers of dangerous instrumentalities enjoy.
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Its not emotionalism. The NRA and its lobbyist-pushers have long crossed the line by marketing the proliferation of what everyone knows to be a dangerous instrumentality while vehemently opposing reasonable regulation of that instrumentality. The NRA has managed over the years to influence enough politicians, some by the lure of $$$ and others out of fear how the NRA might spend $$$ against them, to obtain legislation shielding gun manufacturers from liability/consequences that no other manufacturers of dangerous instrumentalities enjoy.
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Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
You'e right, it didn't. But the dramatic and continuing upward spike since he threw his hat in is unmistakeable and, undeniable.
You'e right, it didn't. But the dramatic and continuing upward spike since he threw his hat in is unmistakeable and, undeniable.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Despite public support, background
checks are an obstacle for gun reform
It’s been scarcely more than 100 days since the massacre at
Sandy Hook Elementary School horrified the nation and seemed
to galvanize the gun-limits movement. But with continued division
in Congress, the time for sweeping reform may have slipped away.
___________
EDIT: Forgot to add the link: http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/01/desp...ground-checks-are-an-obstacle-for-gun-reform/
Despite public support, background
checks are an obstacle for gun reform
It’s been scarcely more than 100 days since the massacre at
Sandy Hook Elementary School horrified the nation and seemed
to galvanize the gun-limits movement. But with continued division
in Congress, the time for sweeping reform may have slipped away.
MSNBC’s Chris Jansing asked DCC Chair and Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY.), Monday whether the momentum that seemed to be in high gear after Newtown has been lost.
“If that is true, it would be tragic,” Israel said. “We keep seeing these tragedies, like in Connecticut, and saying that they are teachable moments, and then we very quickly forget the lessons that we thought we had learned until the next tragedy. We can’t afford another tragedy.”
“Members of Congress are paid to vote,” Israel said. “We expect Speaker Boehner to allow us to vote on every element of gun violence prevention. People can vote for it, people can vote against it. Earn your salary and give us a vote, and don’t hide behind the speaker of the House. Let’s get it all out on the floor, let my colleagues vote and let their constituents know where they stand on these issues.”
Public Opinion Strong
Lawmakers Weak
As the Senate prepares to bring gun control legislation to a vote this month, lawmakers seem divided over universal background checks–a proposal that recent polling shows has strong public backing. According to a Quinnipiac poll released last Thursday, 92% of voters–including 91% of gun-owning households–support universal background checks. By comparison, the abandoned assault weapons ban spearheaded by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which was struck down amid heavy Republican opposition last month, polled with 56% support.
On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Sen. Lindsay Graham said he did not intend to join his Republican colleagues in the filibuster. “The only way I would filibuster a bill is if Sen. Reid did not allow alternative amendments,” he said.
Yet he said he would vote against expanded background checks, and that any bill including that provision would not make it out of the Senate.
“Nothing we’re talking about would not have prevented Newtown from happening,” Graham argued on Sunday. “The guy [Newtown shooter Adam Lanza] did not fail a background check.”
<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Opposition to background checks seems to have become a rightwing litmus test</span>. In a January 2013 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre was asked why he said in 1999, “We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone” but 14 years later, opposes expanded background checks.
LaPierre argued that the current laws suffer from weak enforcement, saying, “I do not believe the way the law is working now, unfortunately, that it does do any good to extend the [background check law] to private sales between hobbyists and collectors.”
“If that is true, it would be tragic,” Israel said. “We keep seeing these tragedies, like in Connecticut, and saying that they are teachable moments, and then we very quickly forget the lessons that we thought we had learned until the next tragedy. We can’t afford another tragedy.”
“Members of Congress are paid to vote,” Israel said. “We expect Speaker Boehner to allow us to vote on every element of gun violence prevention. People can vote for it, people can vote against it. Earn your salary and give us a vote, and don’t hide behind the speaker of the House. Let’s get it all out on the floor, let my colleagues vote and let their constituents know where they stand on these issues.”
Public Opinion Strong
Lawmakers Weak
As the Senate prepares to bring gun control legislation to a vote this month, lawmakers seem divided over universal background checks–a proposal that recent polling shows has strong public backing. According to a Quinnipiac poll released last Thursday, 92% of voters–including 91% of gun-owning households–support universal background checks. By comparison, the abandoned assault weapons ban spearheaded by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which was struck down amid heavy Republican opposition last month, polled with 56% support.
And yet, despite the widespread public support, an emotional plea from President Obama at a press conference last Thursday, and strong backing from Democrats in the upper chamber of Congress, opposition from the remainder of the Senate and the Republican majority in the House is likely to weaken an already-limited gun control package.
Even with the assault weapons ban scrapped, five Republican Senators including Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, vowed to filibuster the gun control package, meaning Democrats will need to harness 60 votes to bring the bill to a floor vote.
In a letter to Sen. Reid, the Senators say they will “oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance,” signaling resistance to any gun control measures presented.
Even with the assault weapons ban scrapped, five Republican Senators including Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, vowed to filibuster the gun control package, meaning Democrats will need to harness 60 votes to bring the bill to a floor vote.
In a letter to Sen. Reid, the Senators say they will “oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance,” signaling resistance to any gun control measures presented.
On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Sen. Lindsay Graham said he did not intend to join his Republican colleagues in the filibuster. “The only way I would filibuster a bill is if Sen. Reid did not allow alternative amendments,” he said.
Yet he said he would vote against expanded background checks, and that any bill including that provision would not make it out of the Senate.
“Nothing we’re talking about would not have prevented Newtown from happening,” Graham argued on Sunday. “The guy [Newtown shooter Adam Lanza] did not fail a background check.”
<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Opposition to background checks seems to have become a rightwing litmus test</span>. In a January 2013 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre was asked why he said in 1999, “We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone” but 14 years later, opposes expanded background checks.
LaPierre argued that the current laws suffer from weak enforcement, saying, “I do not believe the way the law is working now, unfortunately, that it does do any good to extend the [background check law] to private sales between hobbyists and collectors.”
___________
EDIT: Forgot to add the link: http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/01/desp...ground-checks-are-an-obstacle-for-gun-reform/
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The NRA and gun manufacturers know that national, thorough universal background checks will drastically lower gun crimes and thus eat in to gun sales.
The bottom line is that the NRA doesn't care about anyone's rights except the gun manufactures right to make money!
The bottom line is that the NRA doesn't care about anyone's rights except the gun manufactures right to make money!
Yeah, but it also cares about children's safety, right
It wants US to pick up the tab for providing security in schools to keep children safe from ITS GUNS !!!!
Hmmmm. Is that <s>Constitutional</s> Libertarian ???
.
Re: White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
I came across this thread: Craziest Anti-Obama Gun Reactions and I thought of your
comments here:
must be some of the people the author had in mind.
I came across this thread: Craziest Anti-Obama Gun Reactions and I thought of your
comments here:
must be some of the people the author had in mind.
Connecticut stepping up . . .
Connecticut General Assembly
OKs sweeping gun control bill
HARTFORD, Conn.- The Connecticut General Assembly approved a wide-ranging gun control bill late Wednesday, making Connecticut's gun laws among the toughest in the nation.
The House voted 105-44 in favor of the measure. The Senate approved the bill earlier by a 26-10.
The vote came after weeks of negotiation between legislative leaders of the Democratic majority and Republican minority in response to the gun violence of Dec. 14 - when 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown killed with a military-style semiautomatic rifle by Adam Lanza, 20, who then killed himself.
"This is a new and historic model for the country on an issue that has typically been the most controversial and divisive. We in Connecticut are breaking new ground today," Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, a Democrat, said near the end of the six-hour debate.
Wednesday's vote came after weeks of negotiations between Democratic and Republican legislative leaders, who said they were determined to produce a bipartisan bill as the nation watched closely to see how Connecticut would respond to the tragedy.
The legislation would require:
"The tragedy of Newtown demands a response ... that transcends politics," Williams said. "This bill addresses gun violence prevention, school security and mental health services. It is the strongest and most comprehensive bill in the country."
Gun control advocates hope that Connecticut's action will become an example to be followed by other state legislatures and by Congress..
President Barack Obama, who was in Colorado making a gun control speech Wednesday, will visit Hartford Monday in an effort to use the Connecticut law to push Congress to enact tougher gun laws. The U.S. Senate will take up a limited package of firearms restrictions, including expanded background checks, next week.
©2013 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/04/187672/connecticut-general-assembly-oks.html#storylink=cpy
Connecticut General Assembly
OKs sweeping gun control bill
HARTFORD, Conn.- The Connecticut General Assembly approved a wide-ranging gun control bill late Wednesday, making Connecticut's gun laws among the toughest in the nation.
The House voted 105-44 in favor of the measure. The Senate approved the bill earlier by a 26-10.
The vote came after weeks of negotiation between legislative leaders of the Democratic majority and Republican minority in response to the gun violence of Dec. 14 - when 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown killed with a military-style semiautomatic rifle by Adam Lanza, 20, who then killed himself.
"This is a new and historic model for the country on an issue that has typically been the most controversial and divisive. We in Connecticut are breaking new ground today," Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, a Democrat, said near the end of the six-hour debate.
Wednesday's vote came after weeks of negotiations between Democratic and Republican legislative leaders, who said they were determined to produce a bipartisan bill as the nation watched closely to see how Connecticut would respond to the tragedy.
The legislation would require:
- Universal background checks for purchasers of all firearms;
- Immediately expand the state's existing ban on assault weapons;
- The list of banned weapons would include the Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle used by Lanza;
- The sale and purchase of large-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds - such as the 30-round magazines used by Lanza - would be prohibited.
- Owners of those large-capacity magazines would not be required to turn them in, although their use would be restricted and they would have to be registered with the state by Jan. 1, 2014;
- People who already own semiautomatic rifles defined as assault weapons could keep them if they submit to new registration procedures;
- Beginning Oct. 1, all purchases of ammunition and long guns would require an eligibility certificate;
- To obtain certification to buy ammunition, purchasers would have to pass a federal criminal background check; and
- For the first time a dangerous weapon offender registry will be created and penalties for illegal gun trafficking will be expanded.
"The tragedy of Newtown demands a response ... that transcends politics," Williams said. "This bill addresses gun violence prevention, school security and mental health services. It is the strongest and most comprehensive bill in the country."
Gun control advocates hope that Connecticut's action will become an example to be followed by other state legislatures and by Congress..
President Barack Obama, who was in Colorado making a gun control speech Wednesday, will visit Hartford Monday in an effort to use the Connecticut law to push Congress to enact tougher gun laws. The U.S. Senate will take up a limited package of firearms restrictions, including expanded background checks, next week.
©2013 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/04/187672/connecticut-general-assembly-oks.html#storylink=cpy
ACLU says Reid’s gun legislation could threaten privacy rights, civil liberties
EXCLUSIVE: ACLU says Reid’s gun legislation could threaten privacy rights, civil liberties
Posted By Vince Coglianese
1:04 AM 04/04/2013
As Senate Democrats struggle to build support for new gun control legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union now says it’s among those who have “serious concerns” about the bill.
Those concerns have the capacity to prove a major setback to Sen. Harry Reid’s current gun bill, which includes language from earlier bills introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, a top lobbyist for the ACLU announced that the group thinks Reid’s current gun bill could threaten both privacy rights and civil liberties.
The inclusion of universal background checks — the poll-tested lynchpin of most Democratic proposals — “raises two significant concerns,” the ACLU’s Chris Calabrese told TheDC Wednesday.
Calabrese — a privacy lobbyist — was first careful to note that the ACLU doesn’t strictly oppose universal background checks for gun purchases. “If you’re going to require a background check, we think it should be effective,” Calabrese explained.
“However, we also believe those checks have to be conducted in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties. So, in that regard, we think the current legislation, the current proposal on universal background checks raises two significant concerns,” he went on.
“The first is that it treats the records for private purchases very differently than purchases made through licensed sellers. Under existing law, most information regarding an approved purchase is destroyed within 24 hours when a licensed seller does a [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] check now,” Calabrese said, “and almost all of it is destroyed within 90 days.”
Calabrese wouldn’t characterize the current legislation’s record-keeping provision as a “national gun registry” — which the White House has denied pursuing — but he did say that such a registry could be “a second step.”
“nfortunately, we have seen in the past that the creation of these types of records leads sometimes to the creation of government databases and collections of personal information on all of us,” Calabrese warned. “That’s not an inevitable result, but we have seen that happen in the past, certainly.”
“As we’ve seen with many large government databases, if you build it, they will come.”
“And existing law also bars the use of those records for other purposes,” Calabrese continued, explaining that the government is supposed to be barred by the Privacy Act from transferring database information between agencies without the consent of the individual citizen.
“We think those are privacy best practices,” Calabrese said. “We think almost all government databases should operate that way.”
“Once you no longer need the information, you should destroy it. Information collected for one purpose shouldn’t be used for another purpose,” he said.
But Calabrese says that Reid’s legislation fails to include those “privacy best practices.”
“Contrast this with what the existing [Reid] legislation says, which is simply that a record has to be kept of a private transfer,” Calabrese highlighted, “and it doesn’t have any of the protections that we have in current law for existing licensees.”
“We think that that kind of record-keeping requirement could result in keeping long-term detailed records of purchases and creation of a new government database.”
“And they come to use databases for all sorts of different purposes,” Calabrese said. “For example, the National Counterterrorism Center recently gave itself the authority to collect all kinds of existing federal databases and performed terrorism related searches regarding those databases. They essentially exempted themselves from a lot of existing Privacy Act protections.”
“So you just worry that you’re going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected.”
Reid’s legislation is hauntingly vague about who would physically keep information about American gun purchases, but it’s crystal clear that records will be kept.
“Regulations … shall include a provision requiring a record of transaction of any transfer that occurred between an unlicensed transfer or and unlicensed transferee,” according to the bill.
The ACLU’s second “significant concern” with Reid’s legislation is that it too broadly defines the term “transfer,” creating complicated criminal law that law-abiding Americans may unwittingly break.
“t’s certainly a civil liberties concern,” Calabrese told TheDC. “You worry about, in essence, a criminal justice trap where a lawful gun owner who wants to obey the law inadvertently runs afoul of the criminal law.”
“They don’t intend to transfer a gun or they don’t think that’s what they’re doing, but under the law they can be defined as making a transfer. We think it’s important that anything that is tied to a criminal sanction be easy to understand and avoid allowing too much prosecutorial discretion.”
“For example, different gun ranges are treated differently,” Calabrese said. “You’re firing a firearm in one geographic location, you’re OK, but in another, you’re not. And those kind things, it’s going to be hard for your average consumer to really internalize and figure out the difference.”
“Criminal sanctions shouldn’t hinge on those kinds of differences,” he said.
Separate from the ACLU’s concerns with a universal background check system, Calabrese flagged another provision of the legislation invented by Sen. Boxer that the ACLU is “worried about” — school tiplines for the reporting of “potentially dangerous students”
“We’re worried about this tip line,” Calabrese admitted. “We think we already have a phone number for reporting dangerous situations — it’s called 9-1-1.”
“The tip line doesn’t have any guidance for who should be included, how we should vet these requests, who should be included in the system, what you should do with this information once you get it,” he warned. “It just seems like a dangerously unregulated avenue that’s going to risk pushing more kids into the criminal justice system.”
“What’s a school supposed to do if they get an anonymous phone call that some kid is dangerous?” Calabrese went on. “How are they supposed to treat that? Do they have liability if they ignore it? Should this kid be suspended? Or should he be scrutinized by a school safety officer because of an anonymous tip?”
“You could see how this could run amok very quickly. These are high schools. Lord knows, if you’re going to give a kid an anonymous opportunity to lash out at someone, you’re going to see a lot of problems.”
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/04/e...ould-threaten-privacy-rights-civil-liberties/
EXCLUSIVE: ACLU says Reid’s gun legislation could threaten privacy rights, civil liberties
Posted By Vince Coglianese
1:04 AM 04/04/2013
As Senate Democrats struggle to build support for new gun control legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union now says it’s among those who have “serious concerns” about the bill.
Those concerns have the capacity to prove a major setback to Sen. Harry Reid’s current gun bill, which includes language from earlier bills introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, a top lobbyist for the ACLU announced that the group thinks Reid’s current gun bill could threaten both privacy rights and civil liberties.
The inclusion of universal background checks — the poll-tested lynchpin of most Democratic proposals — “raises two significant concerns,” the ACLU’s Chris Calabrese told TheDC Wednesday.
Calabrese — a privacy lobbyist — was first careful to note that the ACLU doesn’t strictly oppose universal background checks for gun purchases. “If you’re going to require a background check, we think it should be effective,” Calabrese explained.
“However, we also believe those checks have to be conducted in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties. So, in that regard, we think the current legislation, the current proposal on universal background checks raises two significant concerns,” he went on.
“The first is that it treats the records for private purchases very differently than purchases made through licensed sellers. Under existing law, most information regarding an approved purchase is destroyed within 24 hours when a licensed seller does a [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] check now,” Calabrese said, “and almost all of it is destroyed within 90 days.”
Calabrese wouldn’t characterize the current legislation’s record-keeping provision as a “national gun registry” — which the White House has denied pursuing — but he did say that such a registry could be “a second step.”
“nfortunately, we have seen in the past that the creation of these types of records leads sometimes to the creation of government databases and collections of personal information on all of us,” Calabrese warned. “That’s not an inevitable result, but we have seen that happen in the past, certainly.”
“As we’ve seen with many large government databases, if you build it, they will come.”
“And existing law also bars the use of those records for other purposes,” Calabrese continued, explaining that the government is supposed to be barred by the Privacy Act from transferring database information between agencies without the consent of the individual citizen.
“We think those are privacy best practices,” Calabrese said. “We think almost all government databases should operate that way.”
“Once you no longer need the information, you should destroy it. Information collected for one purpose shouldn’t be used for another purpose,” he said.
But Calabrese says that Reid’s legislation fails to include those “privacy best practices.”
“Contrast this with what the existing [Reid] legislation says, which is simply that a record has to be kept of a private transfer,” Calabrese highlighted, “and it doesn’t have any of the protections that we have in current law for existing licensees.”
“We think that that kind of record-keeping requirement could result in keeping long-term detailed records of purchases and creation of a new government database.”
“And they come to use databases for all sorts of different purposes,” Calabrese said. “For example, the National Counterterrorism Center recently gave itself the authority to collect all kinds of existing federal databases and performed terrorism related searches regarding those databases. They essentially exempted themselves from a lot of existing Privacy Act protections.”
“So you just worry that you’re going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected.”
Reid’s legislation is hauntingly vague about who would physically keep information about American gun purchases, but it’s crystal clear that records will be kept.
“Regulations … shall include a provision requiring a record of transaction of any transfer that occurred between an unlicensed transfer or and unlicensed transferee,” according to the bill.
The ACLU’s second “significant concern” with Reid’s legislation is that it too broadly defines the term “transfer,” creating complicated criminal law that law-abiding Americans may unwittingly break.
“t’s certainly a civil liberties concern,” Calabrese told TheDC. “You worry about, in essence, a criminal justice trap where a lawful gun owner who wants to obey the law inadvertently runs afoul of the criminal law.”
“They don’t intend to transfer a gun or they don’t think that’s what they’re doing, but under the law they can be defined as making a transfer. We think it’s important that anything that is tied to a criminal sanction be easy to understand and avoid allowing too much prosecutorial discretion.”
“For example, different gun ranges are treated differently,” Calabrese said. “You’re firing a firearm in one geographic location, you’re OK, but in another, you’re not. And those kind things, it’s going to be hard for your average consumer to really internalize and figure out the difference.”
“Criminal sanctions shouldn’t hinge on those kinds of differences,” he said.
Separate from the ACLU’s concerns with a universal background check system, Calabrese flagged another provision of the legislation invented by Sen. Boxer that the ACLU is “worried about” — school tiplines for the reporting of “potentially dangerous students”
“We’re worried about this tip line,” Calabrese admitted. “We think we already have a phone number for reporting dangerous situations — it’s called 9-1-1.”
“The tip line doesn’t have any guidance for who should be included, how we should vet these requests, who should be included in the system, what you should do with this information once you get it,” he warned. “It just seems like a dangerously unregulated avenue that’s going to risk pushing more kids into the criminal justice system.”
“What’s a school supposed to do if they get an anonymous phone call that some kid is dangerous?” Calabrese went on. “How are they supposed to treat that? Do they have liability if they ignore it? Should this kid be suspended? Or should he be scrutinized by a school safety officer because of an anonymous tip?”
“You could see how this could run amok very quickly. These are high schools. Lord knows, if you’re going to give a kid an anonymous opportunity to lash out at someone, you’re going to see a lot of problems.”
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/04/e...ould-threaten-privacy-rights-civil-liberties/
Re: ACLU says Reid’s gun legislation could threaten privacy rights, civil liberties
Fix the problems and let's move on.
The Privacy issue appears fixable to me.
I agree with Calabrese regarding the "certainty" issue, i.e., a person should always be able to discern which conduct is punishable and that which is not. Fix it -- make the law clear and unambiguous.
Fix the problems and let's move on.
The Privacy issue appears fixable to me.
I agree with Calabrese regarding the "certainty" issue, i.e., a person should always be able to discern which conduct is punishable and that which is not. Fix it -- make the law clear and unambiguous.
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