After These Deadly Hate Attacks, Why Aren't We Talking About Guns?

First, given the subject, can we all make an extra effort to keep this discussion civil? Gun control "debates" seem to bring out more ad homenim bile than anything else.

There is a well established statistic that, when you turn it on it's head, will make you think. Roughly 70% of crimes committed with firearms are committed by people with criminal records. Ok, no surprise. But that means that 30% of firearm related crimes are committed by people with no prior criminal record. That means gun owners like me. I have no intent to commit a crime, but generally neither does any other law abiding member of that 30% when they plunk down their money for a gun. Those of us who own and use firearms have to think about unintended possibilities. Nobody likes being inconvenienced, but perhaps we should be willing to endure a more inconvenient process in getting a firearm if it could be designed to reduce the possibility of future tragedies. In my state of Vermont, you now have to have hunter safety training to get a hunting license. That has cut down on accidents during deer season. Hmmm...

Another thought: Washington D.C. has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but most (75%) firearms used in crimes there are bought in nearby rural states with lax gun laws. A moderate level of uniformity would help a lot. Rural gun owners - people in cities are dying for your convenience - and mine.

I read a report about the sources of guns used in crimes. About 2 out of every 1000 gun dealers sells about 50% of the guns that end up at crime scenes. These guys are doing the heavy lifting for the crooks and making the honest dealers look bad. The Bush admin wouldn't let the ATF crack down on this 2/10 of 1 percent.

The gun industry could be like the banking industry or the fishing industry and stonewall regulation till the whole deal collapses, or it could give a little in the most effective places and avoid a major crackdown. What I fear is that the government will ignore the problem till it gets extreme and then public pressure to act will foment an aggressive change in law and enforcement posture. The far right extremists will react like that loop who shot the cops and blood will flow. Escalation will top escalation.

We could avoid that scenario by nailing those few crooked dealers and raising the bar just a little nationwide, past the "Oh, you have a pulse and some cash" standard.

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Honky the Nihilist VII:

no, there's plenty to comment on the behavior of a sociopath but that's for another forum.

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Schmuck

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No civilians really "needs" a gun. Sentient and peaceful, aware, human beings do not need guns. They don't put themselves knowingly into situations where guns are needed. More of us journey through life without them. Imagine that. But many of us are very very concerned about those who obsess like a sexual fetish over the right to own and carry weapons. It is you that we are afraid of.

And I'd suggest you review the LA Times homicide report. 95% of all homicides there are via... what? OH! Guns. Amazing.

Then while you're at it, take a little internet surf over to the ABC7 Los Angeles website. At least one shooting per day. Many of the victims are children.

Just life in a big city with a fuck load of guns. We don't need any more guns. We don't need a well armed militia. We don't need you and your gun. We're sick of the violence that comes with them. Sick of it.

A little side note: not one gun owner has ever admitted why they get off on owning guns. They never ever state the real reasons. They grab their barrels like their cocks and say it's a law, it's a right, we hunt, guns don't kill, site the urban myths about other countries, etc. But they never once address the real deal about guns and owning them.

I happen to know why people obsess over their guns. But I'd for once like to hear the TRUTH from a gun owner.

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so you can probably say that I'm really biased on this matter. Also, the ones in the local paper being shot are usually the gun owner (with their own gun) or a family member. Rarely ever hear of a home-owner shooting somebody that broke into their house, unless it was a drug deal gone bad.

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...but, no, you cannot have my guns. Period.

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You make it sound like it's some damnable omission, some knuckling under to intense special interest pressure.

Maybe we've got bigger things to worry about than our record-low crime rate. Maybe Democrats recognize that it's a huge political fiasco to push for gun control, one that'll bring out all the currently disillusioned conservatives, give them something to focus on, something to bolster understandable fears of totalitarianism, dividing Democrats and strengthening Republicans. Maybe they realize the solution to crime is solely to be found in the systemic creation of economic opportunity for the impoverished millions currently left behind in this mismanaged nation of ours.

Gun control's a crock. It's a mistake. it damages the hard-earned political power of the left, and it doesn't help make our streets safer in any way. I mean, your example was of a guy using a .22 to kill someone, no different than the target guns most people learn to shoot with. There's so much more to worry about-- let's not waste our time with pointless gun control tirades. It's out of date drivel, no more relevant or important than the crap O'Reilly puts out daily.

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hell yeah!

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You are saying if a woman is being raped by her husband, it is OK for her to shoot him?

Would that be to wound or kill?

Would that be state or federal jurisdiction? What if he had permission from the police?

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What if her rapist is a 'boyfriend'?

This is very exciting suggestion you are making here, it could solve a lot of women's problems.

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1) Plenty of feminists don't toe any party line when it comes to gun control or anything else.

2) Some feminists are police officers. Some police officers are feminists.

3.) Women with abusive partners probably worry less about partner shooting "little Billy" accidentally than about partner shooting her intentionally, albeit in a fit of drunken rage.

4.) We're talking about gun control here. We're not talking about banning guns. We're all managing to live with car control, aren't we? Before anyone can legally drive a motor vehicle, s/he has to demonstrate some knowledge of the traffic laws and some competence behind the wheel. At periodic intervals his/her eyesight will be tested. People convicted of drunk driving can have their licenses suspended, and if they are convicted a couple more times their licenses may be pulled for life. Cars serve a useful purpose. They can also cause bodily harm and death. Guns serve a useful purpose. They can also cause bodily harm and death. The public has as much interest in "controlling" the use of guns as it does in controlling the use of cars.

True, no one has ever argued that cars are covered by the Second Amendment, and there are serious Second Amendment issues to be grappled with, but let's try to talk about the issue without all this knee-jerkery, OK?

Besides, if all men were interned until they could prove that they weren't demented misogynists, no woman would have to even think of packing a gun.

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At least, that's what I've heard.

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and anti-gun Alternet liberals telling you what an asshole you are.

Geeze, Honky, you must be jackin' yer rod so hard you'll break the skin.

Will you inform us how you explain your penis injury to your doctor tomorrow.

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Im a liberal/feminist/humanist.I dont have a gun(yet) but have extensive martial arts training.my favorite weapon(so far) a karambit. anyone who physically tries to disarm me will be very sorry and one does not need hours of practice or refresher courses to use it. my worst scenario would be if the perp had a gun and I had the karambit , but just please get that gun good and close to me and it will be mine.then the perp will be in pieces. as much as I think you are so sad a hater I appreciate the videos links.

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High-firepower guns are not a problem unless only criminals have them. That is exactly what will happen if high-powered guns are banned or legislated away from those innocent people who have never been convicted of a violent crime. Of course the constitution does not place any more restrictions on the right to own a gun than the right to free speech. So therefore, any federal or local gun regulations are automatically null/void unless the constitution is amended, just like any regulations on the freedom of speech would be. Some people chose to ignore that inconvenient fact and frankly they don't have enough respect for the constitution.

Any one against the people's right to self needs to think a little bit and definitely needs to get the facts on how crime gets out of control with every single new legislation against our right to self-defense and gun ownership. Sorry but the facts are not on Alternet's side if they would dare to face them. The American "wild west", with almost zero gun restrictions, was far safer from gun violence than Washington DC is today (where almost all guns are banned).

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You guys linked this as your first story in the newsletter, and before I can even view the story, I am presented with the following:

"Coverage of our liberties and rights has always been a top priority at AlterNet... The erosion of rights in our society is epidemic. In any given moment any one of us is vulnerable."

Alternet publishes content like this article and pretends it supports our civil rights... as long as you don't want a gun.

I don't belong to the NRA, but I own a gun and always will. This is a RIGHT guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

The vast majority of gun owners are responsible and are NOT the problem. Crazy people are the problem, and they will have guns whether or not there are laws that restrict ownership to responsible citizens or not. I am not the first to mention this, but when guns are criminalized, only the criminals will have guns.

Gun ownership should not be restricted because some people can't be responsible with them.

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So... Talking about banning, or even just restricting the use of, a tool used exclusively for causing or threatening harm is controversial?

How'd that happen?

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You are like a broken record.

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I feel that we are extended the right in the constitution and its unfortunate that people ever use guns on each other. Although you are not legally allowed to use it on a human being except in instances of self defense it was in theory designed to level the playing field so that it was not only law enforcement with the power to yield a weapon. In a city it makes sense to rely on police but pretty much if you live in the country you need a gun to protect yourself. The police are far far away.

Most guns can kill a person a whole lot easier than a thousand pound feral animal but it is reassuring to have it in case you get charged by one.

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Here's a statistic the gun control avocates never cite: if you have a swimming pool, and keep a gun in your home, the swimming pool is 100 times more likely to kill than the gun. We could save far more lives by enacting pool control laws, i.e. parental/adult supervision requirements, than by passing (more) gun laws.

The larger point that gun controllers just don't get no matter how many times one points it out, is that gun control laws simply do not work. Period. L.A., Chicago, and D.C. have the strictest gun control laws in the country and are also among the highest crime areas.

Lastly, with the recent Heller case in the Supreme Court last year, this is largely a dead issue. THAT is the reason no politicians are talking about new gun laws/regulation; the debate is over gun controllers, you lost!

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As that great Scot's poet Robbie Burns said, "O a God the gifte ge us to see oursels as others see us." Or that great cartoon character Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Good luck sorting this one out.

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20 GREAT USES FOR THE GUN IN YOUR HOUSE:

1. Settle domestic disputes
2. Settle disputes with neighbors
3. Something constructive to do while drunk/stoned
4. Hours of fun for the kids
5. Hours of fun for the neighbors' kids
6. A big help during temper tantrums
7. Chance to be judge, jury, executioner...a big man
8. Almost like having a big penis
9. Big bonanza for gun thieves
10. Surefire way to blow your dough
11. Terrify the meter man
12. Help deal with feelings of guilt, inadequacy, rage, and other honky stuff
13. Fun to fondle...and so BIG
14. "I was totally sure it wasn't loaded, Your Honor."
15. Get yourself killed in a raid, rather than merely arrested
16. You can't always be reading great literature, right?
17. Rare chance to become a murderer, get reborn as a lab animal, etc.
18. If it's good enough for America's Nazi Party, white separatists, anti-Semites,
fascist skinheads, militiamen, and Klansmen, it's good enough for me.
19. Angry white men never screw up
20. Such a comfort when depressed.

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As America arms itself to the teeth, the chances of not having gun violence directly affecting your family are getting slimmer by the day.

It's already happened to me - twice. Two cousins of mine, one on my mother's side, the other on my fathers - who never even had the joy of meeting one another - were shot and killed by men who had been stalking them.

Don't be lulled by the complacency of of your comfortable existence into thinking, "It can't happen here".

It can. It will.

Dave 'n' Sarah: An American Saga

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

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I do believe if someone wants to own a gun that they should be able to.

People kill people all the time. Disarming the public will not change anything except the method in which they do it. Plus there will still be guns on the street.

The more laws that are made the more criminals there will be this is a fact that very few people seem to know.

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I understand Americans' love affair with guns.....but what sense is it to allow them to be carried in public places like national parks and restaurants??? Are we all trying to be play policeman? Keep the guns private please!!

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I sincerely don't understand why anyone finds this piece controversial, but that is not so unusual when gazing at America from the outside. It seems completely weird that any country should be happy to give free rein to a culture of firearms machismo, particularly when it is as riven by such deep cultural schisms. Most "civilised" countries take it as read that guns are primarily meant for killing, and therefore their ownership should be meaningfully controlled. As I understand it, the much vaunted "right to bear arms" was originally linked to state militias and the like, and was not really intended to give any disturbed person who gets really pissed off the right to take out his rage on society by indulging in multiple murder. But America still chooses to put this particular right well above the right to go about your lawful business without being shot, and people labelling themselves "pro-lifers" feel free to use firearms to kill those who don't accept their philosophy. Sorry, that is truly weird.

But then, it seems equally odd that so many Americans think the idea that the state should care for the health of its citizens is somehow subversive - after all, many countries accept this as a core responsibility of the state, regardless of political affiliation. I could go on, but suspect I've made myself unpopular enough for one day. But I am again reminded that sophisticated technology does not always guarantee a civilised society.

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I haven't yet adopted the moral and ethical standards of criminals.

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Maybe if you didn't carry your gun the criminals would feel it less necessary to also carry in order to protect themselves from you.

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Lunatics and people that hate all living things own guns. We should go after the gun manufactures who have you by the balls, quivering in fear and selling you their deadly product so that they can become rich.

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Haha...bet you change your tune when some crim beats you to the draw and blows a hole in you

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And 55% of those 33,000 deaths are suicides so it's actually more like:
14,850 / 200,000,000 = 7.42500 × 10^-5 = 0.00007425 = 0.007425%

Stop vilifying gun owners already, the guns are not going away and the vast majority of them aren't hurting anyone.

Enough is enough is right. Stop with the BS already.

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You are going to need to learn how to use your firearm PROPERLY when the RED CHINESE INVADE!

The only question is WHEN are they coming.

THEY OWN ENOUGH OF OUR COUNTRY to come over and seize the collateral that our greedy,stupid, immature and inexperienced "leaders" borrowed Chinese money on so they could continue to speculate and gamble...because they do NOT know the value of money or understand private property rights.

I wonder if it was part of the deal to hire these not to be trusted treacherous media whores who will lie for money and almost always do to start raising HELL about GUNS.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE CHINESE WILL BE BRINGING WITH THEM WHEN THEY COME TO TAKE OUR PROPERTY -- GOOD VIBES AND NICE INTENTIONS!

I AM NOT GOING TO LET THEM HAVE MY FAMILY FARM WITHOUT A FIGHT!

I have gone hungry so I could pay the property taxes on that piece of land and IT IS MINE!

Maybe somebody signed a piece of treacherous paper --wouldn't be the first time -- to confiscate all of our weapons so we wouldn't be able to fight back when the Chinese come calling.

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...

As the NRA has proven that they can focus massive reserves of capital and mobilize glassy eyed zealots in numbers large enough to sway an election, no politician is giving any real deep commitment to gun control at the moment.

Here in Philadelphia, there is an interfaith group who call themselves Heading God's Call who have taken the proactive approach of protesting a local gun shop that has made it to the national Brady Campaign's 10 Worst list for straw purchases. The protest is a weekly gathering, and has been going on for months.

I've spoken to a few Philly cops about this specific protest, and have been pleasantly surprised by the universal support I've heard from them concerning the message of the protest. Don't get me wrong, some of them have been brought up to automatically despise anything that has 'protest' or the word 'peace' in it outside of what the priest may say on Sunday in church. To them, the American Revolution stopped on July 5th, 1776, and peace is a concept best left to Jesus to pay lip service to.

But simply and gently engaged with the reality that it is straw purchases and general easy access to guns that are responsible for the amazing and nightmarish climb in national numbers of law enforcement deaths, every cop I've spoken to has agreed that making purchases less easy, and banning assault weapons totally is the right way to go.

If the politicians will not get involved, then it is up to the Fraternal Order of Police and the other associations connected to firemen and EMTs that need to pick up the banner and make it their own. They don't have to be concerned about NRA money influencing their elections, and conservatives cannot pretend that they don't hear them. Conservative politicians will not dare to oppose such a force for change coming from groups that they have long and erroneously assumed belong to them on every issue, automatically.

I believe this is the way to force gun control to become a bi partisan issue, and an American reality. Engage the FOP to make it a national priority, and ask that they strengthen this in the hearts and minds of the American people by bringing together the national firemen and EMT groups in solidarity.

...

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It's not the responsible deer hunter who is foaming at the mouth about gun laws; most, worth their weight, perfer a bow anyway.
It's only the paranoid who placate their fears and sense of inferirority or inadequacy who go feral whenever the conversation about gun laws comes up.
Guns like Vehicles is telltale as to what it's owner is Not packing. The bigger the caliber gun, the more vast the 'collection' ...the smaller the 'fire power' in the brain , and the pants.
Having grown up near Detroit and now live near Flint- going into both hundreds of times- I have never been bothered for more than to bum a smoke. It's not mere luck- it's using my brains. I know where am I am going, I show an air of confidence, comfort,friendliness and respect. I can pick a fearful racist from across the street- Their posture and attitude as indicative of their inner thoughts/attitudes as 'Whistling past a Grave yard'. You don't just see their overcompensation, you can almost smell the fear.
We've had break in's of house and cars around the neighborhood- But not ours. We have a German shepherd.Chosen not for her protectiveness- just 'favorite' breed. But she is not a barker. In fact she hears a noise at night- she nudges me then heads quitely down the stairs. Someone coming in my window will find Her as the welcoming committee.Realistically if they are sneaking in my window they are most likily coming in to steal. Unfortunately my most valued belonging will be the first thing they see- her,the real 'Purple Girl'.She is not trained in protection- thus she has no 'call off' word either.She is protective only due to her loyality to us.She does not require commands she reads us, and the situation, very well- protective when the situation presents itself, friendly the other 99.99% of the time- safe with kids , unlike a gun.In fact she becomes their 'gun' too.
A gun can not protect you in all circumstances- because a gun can not warn you one exists to begin with.Nor does a Gun hang out in your back yard, or walk next to you, acting as a visual deterent for those with nefarious intentions.
Lets be realistic - unless you strap a gun to you at all times, the liklihood you will have it readily available once a threat is realized, it will be too late. A dog on the other hand will know something 'ain't right' long before you.Get a dog,Treat it well and it will serve you and your family far better than any cold mindless peice of medal.

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Americans seem to be the most or one of the most violent people on earth. Why?

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when w/a box cutter you can fly a plane into a bldg. When w/MSM/NPR/PBS/hollywood you can torture, murder and Lie w/precision?

'by deceit we wage war' How novel?

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It is my constitutional right to own a gun, therefore I do.

Anyone who tries to suspend the constitution or eliminate the rights that it grants us is a traitor.

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Gasping with admiration at your subtle and incisive response. Just curious - do most passionate gun owners share your mindset?

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what about women who keep a gun in their purse?

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lawl. never thought of it that way.

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Dumbshit.

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YOU are scary on many levels.

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And they spit and spout, most without the basic knowledge of written English, about their "right" to arm themselves. Not one of them is honest enough to admit that fear, not some sense of übermasculinity, is their motivator. Fear of some unnamed coming terror, fear of the unknown, fear of the guy who wants their 50-inch tv set.

So.... lose the paranoia, brothers and sisters, get a realistic viewpoint, drop the law of the jungle phantasies and begin to enjoy life.

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Many of us on the left are gun-shy when it comes to talking about guns. There seem to be more important issues, and talk about guns alienates people who would otherwise be on our side - or so it seems.

People care about their rights and in particular there seem to be a group of people who feel that their right to bear arms trumps every other right of any other people. The feeling is that my right to bear arms is more important than your right to life or your right to safety and the pursuit of happiness.

How they come to this ranking of rights is a mystery to me, but on the left we also tend to rank issues in ways that may well mystify those on the right. Welfare is an example of this. If your leanings are on the right, you are apt to look at a welfare program and worry that your tax dollars are being abused by people taking advantage of the system, getting more benefits than they should. How could anything be more important than this?

However, if you are on the left, you probably dismiss such concerns with the thought that it is better that some take unfair advantage of the system than that others may starve.

I suspect that many of the differences between the left and right really come down to such basic values and how we rank the importance of competing claims. If so, it is little wonder that the two sides disagree so strongly and it makes one wonder how useful it can ever be to reach out to the other side.

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Yet the criminals find a way to get them.

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One comment reads "people care about their rights", which cannot be taken seriously. Where were all these Constitution-lovers and Bill-Of-Rights-defenders when Bush took those rights away and trampled the Constitution? Who in that rabid shoot-em crowd gives a rat's ass about habeas corpus, about the criminality of torture, even about the massive invasion of privacy taking place daily at every airport in the country. Use a phone, call someone the feds don't like and see what happens. Care about their rights? Bullshit.

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You can make all the laws you want but criminals do not obey them. So go ahead and ban all guns and watch while the criminals still get and use them. After deciding that doesn't work try destroying every gun in existence including the police and Armys, and watch while the killing continues with bats and knifes.

Blame the inanimate objects like guns and knifes all you want, but until the real problem is addressed (people kill people, inanimate objects don't go around killing people) don't count on any laws banning these inanimate object to do any good.

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Can't we all just get along??

Riff
Absolute Anonymity

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Too many seem to worship them. Some nutty preacher is having a Bring Your Gun to Church Day. I guess he thinks Jesus carried weapons, took them to temple, packed while giving the sermon on the mount. His country and his time were more dangerous than ours. If "protecting yourself" to the point of injuring or killing someone threatening you was a Christian action, he'd have talked about it.

In a Christian country (so-called, anyway), whose religious leader took the sword from his own disciple, who was physically threatened and then retaliated physically, this is actually inconsistent to the point of craziness. Anyone who thinks Jesus approves of America's guns never read his words.

" Jesus said to him, "Friend, why are you here?" Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him.
[51] And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear.
[52] Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. "

He didn't make any exemption for Americans. Although Americans seem to love the idea that he did. Oh, I should have included that Jesus healed that ear. I guess if he does come again, he'll have to take guns from the hands of his disciples and then heal a bunch of bullet holes. It's good he's capable of raising the dead. He'll need to. His words will be different, though. "Those who live by the gun will die by the gun."

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When I learned that the military had used depleted uranium in the Persian Gulf War, the Bosnia - Serbia War and the Iraq War on Terror I learned something fundamental about our military/government code of ethics; they don't have one; then later I learned that our military was using white phosphorous in Iraq. The police on our streets defends whoever has the money and pays their salary rather than defending the average Joe on the street.

Until we have a civil society, the average Joe is going to have to have the means to defend himself or herself, since he or she isn't being defended by anyone else. Certainly we cannot permit weapons of mass destruction like those in the arsenal of the military, but we certainly have to give people some means to defend themselves against an abusive government that provides no protection for the innocent, which is, by definition of government, the reason you surrender the right to defend yourself and place your faith for your defense in your governing body in the first place. I shudder to think of the military and the police as the only people in our society allowed to carry weapons.

When we have a civil society, then I think the need for weapons disappears and violence dwindles to near nothing; until then...

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"James W. von Brunn allegedly walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with a .22-caliber rifle and killed security guard Stephen T. Johns before being brought down himself."

This guy used a .22 caliber hunting rifle not an assault rifle or even a handgun. Outlawing guns outright is a foolish and dangerous proposal. It would remove a strong deterent towards tyranical government. Criminals are going to keep their guns regardless. Other countries are going to keep producing guns regardless. If people want to kill other people there are a litany of "tools" they can utilize. Quit being foolish and instead address the root causes behind what is making people behave like this. If you want to go after guns go after the military-industrial complex who make the "guns of mass destruction". They are working on guns that can vaporize you in an instant.

Prohibition has never worked and never will work.

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... didn't get rid of crime.

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Hate, ignorance, etc... are the problems. But those are a lot harder to solve, aren't they.

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Because we have smaller fish to fry.

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That banning inanimate objects requires a total police state?

The thing is if you ban any type of object such as a gun you have to ban or strictly regulate/restrict all the parts that go into it. You have to strictly regulate and micromanage the metals all the way back to the mines, through all the steps they goe through in manufacture, probably doing background checks on and licensing everyone who works in any of these areas.

Then crooks and others who really want guns would make them out of other items made of the same materials. So, *these* items would have to be regulated.

And, internet censorship would be needed to take down the do-it-yourself pages. I saw one of those pages, so I know at least one is there.

Look at what the ban on marijuana has done to our freedom. A ban on guns will do the same thing, only worse as the raw materials for guns can be used for a lot of things.

Do you really want that powerful a government?

To register guns and license owners has not kept guns out of the hands of criminals. Rather it has made it more difficult for the law abiding, and has given government officials the ability to make decisions as to who may buy a gun, which means that government officials are "better" than the rest of us.

Well, they are *not* better.

We need more freedom, not less, in guns just as we need more freedom, not less, in drugs.

See my blog: http://www.alicelillieandher.blogspot.com

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sure, you can get a gun as long as you don't show up in the database as being a danger to others... most gun buyers who go onto kill are cleared by the database to purchase... they haven't acted out yet...

now, it's harder to get ammo for guns, even walmart is out most of the time, all calibers... gotta have bullets in there for a gun to work...

we have enough guns in this country to arm every man, woman, child, dog, cat, bird and outhouse, but not everyone has ammo...

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We aren’t talking about guns and gun control and gun bans because it isn’t about the guns. Guns are tools. Some people use tools correctly, others do not. People pry things open with screwdrivers and pound nails with wrenches. Others take guns intended for hunting, self protection or sporting use and they kill people.

That is NOT the gun’s fault. The only dangerous gun is one with a loose nut ... behind the trigger. See, you don’t want to talk about what stopped this guy before he killed MORE people - a guard’s gun. So, get off the guns and get on the gunners.

If this whacko hadn’t had a gun he probably would have bludgeoned a bunch of people with a crowbar or something, or knifed someone, or built a bomb. Murderous intent will find a way out. This guy was on every list of right wing troublemakers that exists.

So, we do not need to control guns, we need to control the gunner. I own several, and still I favor: extensive criminal and mental background checks before getting ANY gun. Still, it is up to the government to prove I can’t have a gun, not up to me to prove I can have one. Same with carrying concealed ... give me a permit unless you can prove I shouldn’t have one for some valid, legal reason, i.e., mental illness, felonious behavior, domestic restraining order, etc.

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Two types of people want to ban guns. Those who want to be the dictator, and those unfortunate souls stupid enough to believe the lies of those who want to be the dictator. The dictator crowd never mean to give up their own, they just want to take the guns of their opponents. Free people have a duty and obligation to be armed and proficient with effective weapons for the times in which they live, whether it be clubs, spears, swords or guns. "Those who beat their swords into plows will plow for those who don't."

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Hasn't anyone learned anything from 9/11? Freedom first, safety second. Besides, the thing they are most paranoid about is gun control. Why feed their fear?

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For years, I've been trying to get my liberal/progressive friends to acknowledge how stupid it is for them to demand "gun control" and effectively telling the Democratic Party to commit political suicide by pushing these laws to limit private gun ownership (or ammo availability, or any of the other "responsible" things they think government can do in this area). It's just a BIG LOSER!

Yes, I know scared people want to be protected from gun violence, but ending the drug war would do far more to reduce public violence than restricting the rights of those vast majority of gun owners who do not use their weapons irresponsibly. And statistically, none of the benefits the frightened dream of actually come about in places where such restrictions have been put in place - at least not in the US.

Worse, though, is the fact that any and all "gun control" moves alienate huge masses of the populace who otherwise might actually support the populist policies of progressive politicians. Just by supporting ineffective and, yes, basically stupid laws restricting personal gun access, the Left loses these voters automatically.

As a better educated people is the key to real progress in our nation, better educated - and more honest - liberals is the key to a successful progressive movement and, ultimately, better government.

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not attacking it. Furthermore, liberals are the ones with the toolkit to provide positive, lasting solutions to crime. Let the conservatives push the band-aid, dependent-on-law-enforcement quick fixes, it's more their style anyway.

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I am tired of your oral masturbation and lack of action. Flapping your lips and pontificating. There are more people dying from hand guns then have ever died in terrorist attacks. You want a gun? OK then you should have a background check and be allowed to have only a certain type of gun. The same rules should apply to gun shows where anyone can buy as many guns as they want - no questions asked. I know a guy who bought guns at a show and then sold them to kids on the street. So if you want changes on anything you need to call your congressman or senator and tell them you will not vote for them if they don't represent you. We need to send a strong message to these guys. We voted for Obama in and we can vote in other Democrats, independents or liberals in too. But we need to make sure they work for us not for the special interests and that means doing a little home work. Like calling and asking if they support gun control laws or if the have taken money from the NRA, drug or pharma companies. And then you need to call their office and tell them that you will not vote for them again unless they support your interests. We have killed almost a million people in Iraq. Try to wrap your mind around that and then imagine if that was us. And what do we do - do we care? No- not as long as those bombs are not hurting us. And do we care that they are spending 10 billion per week on the Iraq war of our tax dollars as they are telling us that they don't want to give us national Healthcare and our entitlements are the elephant in the room- Sorry its the military budget stupid. Do they tell us that they have already looted Medicare and social security? While people are rioting in the streets from Ireland to Greece we are flapping our lips on blogs not taking personal responsibility. Like writing letters to editors of your local paper demanding a single payer system. I got my first documentary on national PBS, what are the chances of that? It was about the impact of Uranium mining on Americans in our South West. But it was also about the millions of tons of radioactive wastes left uncovered all over the South Western US. I took a chance and made a contribution and so should you because this is your country - you live here and so do your children and all OUR children. So get off your buts and take some action.

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Both groups bring the country to a screeching halt when one of them gets shot. Despite their high profile lives, they don't deserve to be killed just because some nut decides to dispense his own form of justice. But especially for the "Right to Lifers" they might do well to check out the "Daily Body Count" of children in our big cities. They're shot down like rabid dogs, everyone hugs and cries and brings flowers and candles and then, it's over. A young life snuffed out because someone "has a right to own a gun and protect himself". We have far too many guns available and apparently not much in place to keep them away from the wrong people. Makes me wonder who the 'right people' are. I'm not sure the reasons why people own guns has ever been examined. Aside from law enforcement who the hell is everyone protecting themselves from? Each other I suspect. People have always owned guns, it's nothing new. But the innocent people being shot down everyday has gotten worse by the year. We ought to be able to find a way to protect the rest of us while the others exercise their rights. I should not be expected to risk my life because someone else "has a right" to own a gun. There is no constitutional right not to get shot for no reason. Maybe there should be. Thanks, ANNA

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We all have our stories and ideas about gun control and all the arguments pro and con. What I wonder is, why is alternet still presenting these articles? Are you guys running some kind of an internal poll or something? Are you quietly gathring info. on who owns guns and who doesn't, or is it that alternet throws these tasty morsels of articles out to us knowing that they will get a hearty response and make you all look viable.

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are soo on a different planet. Unless you are a real sportsman, or are legally employed in a situation that requires you to carry firearms, WHY?
What's the fascination with guns, tools for killing? Would you truly feel safer if everyone was like you? I very much doubt it. Most "casual" gun owners I know always boast about how readily they could "blow someone away!" What kind of attitude is that? It seems to me guns very much go against the sanctity of life and do nothing to create a more compassionate and sane world. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that there are far too many weapons of all kinds being circulated in the world. (We just can't seem to make and sell them fast enough) and of course the more weapons sold, the ever higher death rate spirals. Millions a year from violence around the world. Yes, another evil for our children to grow up with, poisoned air, food and water, and GUNS! You people are such a scary problem for those trying to raise a family in todays world. You need a gun to feel secure?To be heard? To get your way? Gun power? Get a grip! You are mostly all insecure, paranoid delusional's and a danger to society, and most people are soo sick of the NRA wielding it's millions and millions of bucks in congress to see that a whole lot of psychopaths can run around packing guns so they feel safe and secure at everyone else's expense. My family, my friends families, their children have all directly or indirectly experienced tragedy at the hands of some utterly narcissistic gun user. Yes, I hate your guns and what they represent.
I'm a mother, I bring life into the world. You, you threaten it.

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Regarding the problem of too many guns in the hands of people who probably should not have them, the Brady group's solution of criminalizing gun ownership is both redundant and doomed. Redundant because most of those should-not-be gun owners are already criminals. Doomed because the rest of us who own guns are not interested in surrendering our property and our lives to those criminals. Heller notwithstanding.

If the Brady group desires to be effective in removing guns from the hands of dangerous or incompetent gun owners, the most cost-effective and politically viable solution is the gun buy-back. Offer a $150 Food Stamp voucher for any gun, no questions asked, on the 25th of the month on the streets of any American city, and bring a large truck. You will need it to haul away all the guns turned in. Way less expensive than raids, trials, prison terms, etc.

The perpetrators in each of the atrocities Moyers cites, were men who had little to lose. Anger and alienation seem to go together. The wanted felon in Oakland, the unemployed and unskilled twenty-something in Pittsburgh, the ex-husband in Birmingham, and now the aged and destitute white supremacist in Washington D.C. All perceived themselves as jettisoned by their worlds, with nothing left to live for.

Internally, they may have seen their actions as heroic. In wartime, going down in a blaze of glory, sacrificing your life, is awarded as heroic and honorable. The United States is a military nation. All young men encounter military values. Some absorb them, some deflect them, and some adopt them as their creed.

But for each of these perpetrators, their violence can be best understood as self-destructive, where their victims become the collateral damage of their suicidal cowardice. For each of these perpetrators, their actions were a way to inflict their pain on the world and end it for themselves at the same time.

In a time of economic uncertainty, where our ultimate measure of our worth, our ability to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, becomes expendable to the "maximization of investment potential", it is reasonable to believe that more of these tragedies will occur. Criminalizing the means of violence will not stop the violence.

Prevention will only come when the rest of us, the witnesses and bystanders, learn to recognize the pain in people's hearts and make a concerted effort to reach out to men, for it is usually men, who are in pain, break through their isolation, and through our own courage, diffuse their anger. Not an easy task.

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I agree with you. . . almost entirely! Unfortunately, you are asking for an even more unlikely solution. If you hadn't noticed, our education system has been on a bad decline for the last twenty odd years. Our pain and suffering, our violence, our poverty, our prisons have all sky rocketed upward with no sign of slowing down. Are you seriously suggesting that with an ever growing population of desperate, deranged and suffering people that gun control is not viable. That simply making it illegal to buy a gun without valid cause, wouldn't help? That slowing down the sale and manufacture of guns, won't help? Please guns are for killing. When there are only humans left to kill, we need to stop the use of guns, . . period!

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The American Revolution began in Massachusetts, not in 1775 but in 1774. It involved an armed citizenry, organized into militias by their local governments, acting to defend their system of government. Outraged by the British Parliament's abolition that May of Massachusetts' elected government and its imposition of direct Crown rule, during the late summer of 1774 they "deposed every Crown-appointed official in Massachusetts outside Boston". (All quotes from a pamphlet by historian Ray Raphael, raphael@asis.com.)

"Worcester was at the center of this massive uprising. It was the patriots of Worcester who first called for a meeting of several counties to coordinate the resistance. It was at Worcester, on Sept. 6, 1774, that the British conceded control of the countryside. ... 4,722 militamen from 37 towns of Worcester County [their names and where they stood are recorded] lined both sides of Main Street and forced every official and every prominent Tory in town to resign or recant. . . Some towns, having armed and trained for a month, sent virtually every adult male."

Not a shot was fired.

On October of that year the Massachusetts Provincial Congress established a de-facto revolutionary government.

In April of the following year a British force made the first move to retake a colony they had already lost, and thus began the war to defend the Revolution. This is where the conventional narrative of the Revolution begins, but the story of 1774, of an armed citizenry organized in a legal militia, acting together *in defense* of an existing and relatively democratic government which was under attack by the imperial power, and peacefully claiming the right to preserve it, has been largely forgotten. But without that (perhaps conveniently-forgotten) piece of the story, the events of 1775 make no sense, do they?

In the America of 1774 the "white" settlers of the British colonies were armed with state-of-the-art military weapons for the purposes of stealing the land from its original inhabitants, defeating Britain's imperial rivals - and for participation in the control and suppression of the slave populations that toiled for the wealthy land barons in every colony. For those land barons, and for the great Corporations that controlled the colonial trade, that turned out during the crisis of the 1770's to be a two-edged sword. The outcome was a big step forward in the reality and ideas of democracy. One of its fruits was the Massachusetts Constitution of 1779 - the oldest constitution still in continuous use in the world. It included wording from the Declaration of Independence, and on the basis of that wording, in 1781, a slave successfully sued in the Worcester County court for her freedom, effectively abolishing slavery in Massachusetts.

Over the years since then, the citizen militias have gone back to their roots. Sometimes as State Militia or National Guards under state control and sometimes acting as organized semi-legal vigilantes and death squads, they have been used mostly to suppress slave rebellions, capture runaway slaves, slaughter and drive out native populations, suppress uppity immigrants, steal half of Mexico and terrorize its Mexican population into submission, terrorize the emancipated slaves and drive them from public life, break strikes and union organizing drives, break sharecropper movements, subdue rebellious ghettos and break up anti-war demonstrations.

But perhaps they - and the millions of working people with "AK's in the attic" who believe in their mythology - remain a two-edged sword, as indeed they proved to be in 1774.

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We have 30,000 annual deaths from guns you say. That's nothing compared to almost 190,000 people per year killed in hospitals from medical errors. Yet nobody wants to put an end to the medical errors that kill so many every year. Guns don't seem nearly as bad by comparison. Yet I do worry about the criminals and mental cases that have their hands on guns. They can't seem to be prevented. Do we have too many guns or too many incompetent medical folks? Most of the people where I live have guns, yet I would rather put my chances of survival in their hands than go into a hospital. Way too dangerous for me...it was the hospital, not a gun owner, that killed my mother.

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Explain something to me.
As my nickname states, I AM an American veteran.
I VOLUNTEERED to serve in the military.
I own my home.
I own my own business.
I keep my property clean and nice.
I get along with my neighbors, some of which are old, some children and some immigrants.
I enjoy golfing, fishing, reading and a lot of quiet time our in the country.
I own a couple of trucks and a Jag convertible.
I live in a very peaceful neighborhood where we ALL talk with eath other.
There is very little crime here and we actually DO help each other with chores, etc.

OHMYGOODNESS!! I own guns!!
I am AGAINST excessive gun control.
I am FOR registration.
I have no interest in or need for a fully automatic rifle, that which the hysterically frightened ANTI's call an "assault rifle".
I have a couple of pistols and a couple of rifles.
They're just "here".
I rarely even think about them other than when I read hysterical drivel such as what is typically posted here in Alterflaky.
Now, let me tell you how I look at the subject of 'my guns".
I'm a guy who works with tools.
I own a repair business and, that involves being analytical concerning how certain items function.
I appreciate the mechanics of how my guns function and the manufqacturing processes which go into making them.
It ABSOLUTELY bursts the frightened and hysterical ANTI's to have to attempt to understand that I NEVER think about who I could kill, etc when I look at and/or touch one of my guns.
99.99% of the time I am touching one of my guns is to keep them clean and in good condition in the same way and for the same reason I keep other possessions~~I have $$$$$$$ invested in them.
How disappointing it is to the hysteria crowd that I don't sit here in my dark, locked house quivvering with "FEAR and IGNORANCE" worrying that someone will invade my house.

I am against CERTAIN ASPECTS of EXCESSIVE gun control due to what it represents.
And, THAT is something YOU and the other ANTI's are unable to understand.

Here's a terrible secret about me and "violence".
I would so much rather beat the very rare someone to a pulp who might invade my home than kill them.
And, you and the others could not possibly understand why that is so.
I'll tell you anyway.
If I kill someone, it si over for them but not for me.
They do not have to feel anything like remorse for their crime, etc.
Now, if I beat that person, they have to feel that pain and LIVE TO EXPERIENCE THE PAYBACK of what they did.
No, I am not necessarily an angry person.
I make my friends and acquaintances laugh and typically am able to laugh at my own self first and most.
I am also intelligent.
I've been able to live successfully for 70 years.
If I was one of those "crazies" that YOU and the other ANTI's are so afraid of, I wouldn't be here.
You and the others are brainwashed in what you THINK is the stereotypical gun owner.
So, as I asked in my initial sentence, can you explain why I am like this?
As Jack said in a great movie, "You can't handle the truth".
I'll post this as a new comment and see how many ANTI "flies' it draws.

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PERRY TESTIFIES>

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Do you think there was a reason why Hitler kept the populace disarmed??? Hitler wasn't some ancient history, he was merely 70 years ago!

Moreover, out of our 300 million sheeple, when a few nutsacks go mad & murder, it does not indicate a national crisis for banning guns.

Furthermore, most of you who are hysterical about needing to ban guns also believe that caveman Osama & 19 lackeys with boxcutters pulled off 9/11 without inside help!

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I purchased my first gun about 2 years ago (at age of 63). I was in the Air Force back in the early 60's, but only fired a weapon in basic training. All through my adult life, I was against citizens owing guns. I believe the Founding Fathers wanted the people armed to protect themselves from a tyranical government. My reason for getting armed is not to take on the government; but to protect myself from the economic crisis they have created. Massive unemployment, police officers being terminated, the middleclass losing all hope. The old adage applies, "When people have nothing left to lose, the lose it". The phoney private banking cartel (The Federal Reserve) and it's stooges in Washington, have created an economic firestorm that threatens us all with a mad max future. The future of America is in grave danger. We must abolish the Not Federal and No Reserves. May God Bless America.

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unless the police have made some contractual statement such as, "We will be there in 3 minutes." Police are most always "day late and dollar short." Been there, done that.

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"fault" is the guns. Right.

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Once again, we have an ideology attempting to mandate laws that circumvent the real problem. The real problem is the "other" ideologies that lead radical believers to perpetrate crimes with inanimate objects called weapons ... and guns are not the only choice of weapon for random killers. Are we next to ban knives and spear guns and pellet guns and sling shots and cross bows and, and, and ... ?

Perhaps owning up to responsible media, responsibly running and organizing groups that are anti-whatever, responsible rhetoric from politicians, just to name a few! Could owning that responsibility somehow be less likely to coerce and promote people to act out on their ideology? Could it somehow stop the belief that their criminal acts are somehow "valiant" efforts to rid us of the people and groups and laws that they see as malevolent?

I fully understand and support freedom of speach, but was that freedom intended to protect those who would spew support and encouragement for murder and physically harming those they see as political adversaries and/or morally adverse to their own beliefs? Is that not also hypocrisy, when some of the same groups profess to loathe murder and killing and yet only as it applies to those individuals that are deemed worthy of life?

We, as Americans must soon take some responsibility for our actions and for reflecting real change that will address the issues of personal and political responsibility. Blaming inanimate objects for being the problem, when in fact it is the person who CHOOSES to use that inanimate object for the purpose of killing, is as irresponsible and morally bankrupt as those who believe that killing someone is the proper thing to do, "to save others" from the victim's "immoral" actions. It is mass denial. It is ridiculous and until we address the real issue, which is the human component and condition, no gun bans, no weapons ban and no removal of inanimate objects will resolve the problem.

There will always be bricks, rocks, projectiles of some type and many other things that can be fashioned into deadly weapons. Take a look at any prison, where weapons are contraband, but they find unbelievably creative ways to fashion their own, with just about anything that we use daily for eating, hygiene, etc. Banning guns will no more stop violence and murder than banning alcohol stopped drinking during prohibition. We, as a society, are falling backward, not moving forward and as the old saying goes, those who fail to learn from past mistakes, are destined to repeat them.

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The thing the thugs on the right used to blunt the (somewhat weak, I'll grant) last progressive charge in society was the gun control issue. When Hillary and Bill started to talk about stiffer gun control law, the right wing went berserk. I would even go so far as to say it was one of the largest underlying reasons we got the shrub years and the conservative ass-fucking we all so enjoyed for those 8+ years.

Do you really want to go back to that?

The progressives have the repugnicans on the RUN, dammit. They are so desperate that they are starting to rally around PALIN again, of all people. If we start stupidly pushing on the gun issue again, it will recharge the right to the n'th degree and we could findourselves looking at a Palin/(liz) chaney administration in 2012.

Please please PLEASE leave this alone for now or we're going to find ourselves neck-deep in theocratic bullshit again.

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In my previous post I wrote of how the militias and armed civilians of Massachusetts organized in defense of their democratic institutions, in defiance of a coup by the Masters of the Empire, and made a bloodless revolution. What lessons does this story hold for the struggle over the Second Amendment, gun rights, and the dearly-held American myth that the shotgun over the door - or the "AK in the attic" - is what keeps us free?

First, note that the Revolution was not made by armed civilians, "peasants with pitchforks", rising up against their government. It was rather made by the members of an official state-of-the-art militia, including many veterans, mobilized in *defense* of existing democratic institutions, against a coup by the Masters of the Empire.

The equivalent situation today might be something like a military coup by the Masters of the Empire (now masquerading as Americans), followed by a refusal of the State Militias and the US-based units of the armed forces to recognize that government or allow it to govern. The part played by 100 million armed civilians - including millions of veterans - supporting the democracy and rejecting the coup, and upholding the writ of our democratic institutions, could be considerable.

The reality however is that the Masters of the Empire have established Federal control over the National Guard, and have carefully cultivated and organized their control over the institutions - such as the NRA and the American Legion - that manage the public conversation of and about that armed population. The result, in a crisis, could be not a democratic revolution but a mass-based - "Palinesque" - fascist nightmare.

Whatever our vision for the future might be, we need to be clear that this is not the moment for that. Personally, I would be happy in an ideal world to have my guns safely under lock and key at the local gun club. Like most people I have experienced being angry enough at someone I loved (and love still, wherever they are) to want to kill them, and I am glad that there were no guns lying around at such moments for either of us to grab. However, our current reality - the bigger picture - is a gathering struggle for power and survival - destined to become a desperate struggle - against the background of a collapsing world economy. Here, in the home base of the most powerful military empire the world has ever seen- the "belly of the beast" - a fearful struggle is starting to unfold between its masters and the 300 million people in whose name they claim to rule.

What part the "AKs in the attic" will play in this struggle is unknown. At this moment in history, supporting our governments - which despite our election of Obama are largely owned and controlled by the Masters of the Empire - in taking those guns away would not be a smart or unifying move. Millions of American working people believe their guns are key to their claim to be the real rulers of the land.

It is not clear that events will prove them wrong.

On the other hand, a way must be found to challenge the anti-democratic agenda of the NRA, their hegemony over this debate. And a way must be sought to challenge the control over the agenda of the veterans associations by the "officer class" and defenders of the Empire.

I haven't seen any satisfactory analysis of how this is likely to work out, but these are things that we should be mulling over, and not responding to reflexively.

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One: 'Guns' didn't do it. There has never been a single documented case where a 'gun' has leapt off a shelf and killed someone of it's own volition. The fault of the recent violence isn't 'guns' it's whacked out right wing nutjobs, whacked out right wing talk radio and TV and the constant beating of the war drums by the Republican party. All that "Obama's coming for your guns, your marriage, your church and your wallet" didn't materialize out of thin air.

Two: The right wing crazies, clinging to their guns and religion would go apoplectic and likely start their own civil war if the administration or Congress attempts to enact any laws relating to guns. So basically it would have the opposite effect. It wouldn't quell violence, it would create even more of it.

Personally when these backwoods types start pulling John Malvo all over the country I want to be able to defend myself because it's apparent that the gov isn't up to the task or isn't interested in the task.

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Gun violence. Teen violence. Schoolyard violence. Going postal. All euphemisms for Male Violence. But you'll never see/hear the word "male" in any reportage. Why? When it was learned that a young woman had procured a gun for her boyfriend, who later went on a rampage, the media were all over gender, it was girl this and woman that. Not a word about gender, otherwise. How tenderly we treat these weak, self-involved male vessels who only can come up with: "I'm unhappy, and someone, anyone, has to pay."

Females live far more difficult lives, socially, biologically, economically than males. Females are treated as less (paid only partial wages, for instance, while it costs much more just being biologically female); females are almost invariable the ones who take responsibility for their children with all the effort and difficulties inherent in that. Females must live as prey in a society that still says, "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time." And yet females aren't the ones lashing out with mindless violence.

There's something basically wrong with a society that tolerates a group responsible for 91% of violent crime with such loving societal protection. There's something basically wrong when the usual victims of violence (females) are told to stay safe (home) rather than placing the usual perpetrators (males) under curfew.

What can be the answer when no one faces the question? In Scotland, where guns are hard to obtain, it's "knife violence." Both knives and guns are inanimate objects; look to the usual, traditional, chronic perpetrators and get real.

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As a borderline left wing nut, I am frankly often dismayed by the mention of most efforts to further regulate guns in this country. The bottom line is that we do not really have much of a problem with the current laws, but rather the ability of police departments to enforce them.

The only gun control measure that I am in favor of boils down to this: One gun owner, one license, no fee for the 'right' which cannot be abridged except by medical classification of mental defect or conviction on a violent crime felony. If a non-felon does not have the license, the penalities should be similar to the offense of driving without a license. One must carry the license anytime one carries the weapon anywhere outside of their own residence or other private property, and one must present the license to purchase a firearm anywhere - making failure to confirm posession of a license by a seller a felony crime itself.

Such a system can easily be implemented on a state level, requiring applicants to take a course online or otherwise to obtain the license.

It is critical that any legislation of this nature not require gun owners to pay a fee for the course or license however in order to avoid constitutional challenges. It is also critical for such a system to not require registration of firearms on a per firearm basis as this would both drastically increase administrative costs and outcry from gun enthusiasts.

The KEY provision of this proposal is imposing a responsibility onto sellers in knowing that they would be committing a felony by selling to somebody without confirming license or knowingly selling to an unlicensed individual. This license check requirment takes much of the wind out of the sails on the burden of background checks - making it a one time requirement to obtain the license, not a ridiculous process to repeat for each and every gun sale.

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The Supreme Court, with the GOP in charge, 5 to 4, DECIDED to interpret the 2nd Amendment as being separate LAWS based on the PARTS of a single SENTENCE being separated by commas. As ANYONE, who ever PASSED a WRITING CLASS from about the 3rd GRADE on, KNOWS, a COMMA only SEPARATES RELATED PHRASES. IT IS CLEAR THE "FOUNDING FATHERS" MEANT THE "RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS TO APPLY TO THE "WELL REGULATED" MILITIA. Since the "militia" has become "The Military", on the Federal Level, "The National Guard", on the State Level and "Law Enforcement", on the Local Level, the Militia is OBSOLETE. Therefore the "right to bear arms, OTHER THAN IN THE MILITARY, NATIONAL GUARD OR LAW ENFORCEMENT is too. AND, those who WROTE the Constitution NEVER gave ordinary CITIZENS the right to OWN or POSSESS MILITARY weapons. If they HAD, all the gun FREAKS would be clammering to be the first in their neighborhood to get a NUKE and a BATTLESHIP in their front YARD, some already HAVE tanks and cannons, "for protection", passed out the moon shine and lit 'em UP.
While the Constitution did not FORBID gun ownership by everyone else, leaving the option, because, in case you don't REMEMBER, back in those days a person could be 50 or 100 MILES AWAY from their nearest NEIGHBOR and NEEDED WEAPONS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM BEARS, WOLVES OR RABID DOGS!
NOW, thanks to the "Supreme Idiocy of the RIGHT WING, gun totin' fanatical JESUS FREAKS, BIGOTS, and WORSE in the, self described, American Taliban Party, the Pro-Life NUKE 'EM ALL FOR JESUS PARTY, THE BEARS, WOLVES AND RABID DOGS HAVE THE GUNS AND THE REST OF US ARE THE TARGETS.
Just HINT at "controlling" just how crazy you have to be to own a "gun" and ALL THE FREAKS will come out of the woodwork like cockroaches in the dark.
These are NOT hunters, or outdoorsmen or sportsmen, who I FIRMLY BELIEVE have the right to own their hunting rifles and target pistols and their antiques, but even the reasonable gun owners BELIEVE the hype OF THE EVIL "GUVMINT" COMING TO TAKE YOUR RIGHTS AWAY AND STEAL ALL YOUR GUNS AND SEND THE "MEN IN BLACK HELICOPTERS TO TAKE YOU AWAY, even as they IGNORED the REAL threat of the "Patriot Act" and "illegal spying" ON THEM and more loss of "rights" perpetrated on THEM by the "Bush Adminstration" than the "libruls" even have the capacity for EVIL to IMAGINE? NO! They BOWED to their "leader"!
And how come they ALL IGNORE THE WORDS "WELL REGULATED" ANYWAY? ARE THEY SOOOOOOOOO SCARED OR THAT HORRIBLE, TERRIFYING WORD?
Maybe we should put a "subliminal suggestion" in every broadcast, Reeeegggguuuullllaaaatttiiiioooonnnn iiiiisssss gggggooooooooddddd ffffooooorrrrr YYYoooooooooouuuuuuu!

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in Iraq and Afghanistan. If any of you think the army or marines, etc. are mostly white are mistaken.

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I feel as though humanity has taken a step back in time. I wonder, when will all of the hate and anger stop! Perhaps it will always be prevelent...in part because without evil there would be no good, and without good....there would essentially be no evil. There is so much unnecessary hatred and divide in a time when our global society should be banning together.
With that said, I am torn on the discussion of guns, and gun control. I believe in the right to bear arms. I believe in minimal governmental gun control. If you give the government sole power to ban and/or regulate guns what would that mean for our citizens in the possible event that we'd need to be armed (country invasion, someone breaks into your home, truckers on the road who face being robbed, civil unrest during a riot, someone trying to rape a woman). There are so many instances that I, personally, would hope people would have the right and/or choice to be armed.
This does not mean that I think anyone and everyone should have access to guns. I do believe that a certain amount of gun control is necessary. Murderers, rapists, and extremists are among the top three groups of people that I believe should not have access to guns.
But obviously our current system of gun control is not working. So how do we change it? That is a very difficult question to answer. But I certainly do not feel that banning guns is the answer.

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The issue of firearm possesion is more emotional than rational. Figures lie and liars figure, and everyone can spout all of the synthetic statistcs they like, but no one wants to admit that gun violence, in America especially, is a psychological malady. Like abortion, immigration, welfare, health care and a myriad of other issues, Americans want to believe that there is a "one size fits all" solution for the complex issues of our society. The inane notion that gun ownership will fix everything is pure crap. That is an example of very small thinking that people attempt to apply to an enormously complex problem that involves education, racism, poverty and xenophobia.

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If you want to see far more gun violence, it is sure to happen if ownership of guns gets restricted any further in this country. These right wing liberal hating gun lovers will blow up like a bomb in this country. Even if that wasn't something to worry about I wouldn't want this issue dealt with by mainly focusing on availability of guns. It's the paranoia and fear and psychosis behind the violence, this country contains so many mentally unstable people!! THAT is the issue, and liberals and conservatives can agree on that. we cannot all agree for more gun control, that's for damn sure. If the killers weren't using guns they'd use something else to kill with

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Catchy tune

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6e9uKMCmNM

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this 'might makes right', xenophobic 'I love me an armed Revolution!, trigger-happy AmeriKKKan freaks me out.

Dear AlterNet:
when the inevitable occurs, I know you'll have more balls than the 'Freeper' boards & leave his posts up where everyone can say, 'yeah, we saw that coming'...

Dear Honky the Nihilist VII:
keep posting.
Thank jebus for Free Speech... as long as you're washing your freaky anti-social evidence in public, we feel less worried that you're stewing at home in your underwear, & beating pets & relatives ... vent all that bile, hate & nastiness where we can laugh at you...
get it all out of your system...
the World is probably safer with you making harmless online jabbering than if you tamped it all down deeper into that ugly Darkness of fear & resentment you've bundled into your personality.



perspective, people.


Perspective.

The Jeff Farias Show: streams FREE & LIVE Mon-Fri, 6-9pmEDT

FREE podcast

"... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice..." ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
"Violence can only be concealed by a Lie, & the Lie can only be maintained by Violence." ... "Any man, who has once proclaimed Violence as his Method, is inevitably forced to take the Lie as his Principle" – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire.

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I'm working on this. I suspect that an armed populance is less likely to actually fall under a dictator or suffer a military coup.

Some of us are armed and want to stay armed because we do not trust the powers to be to stay in our favor. We may have to fight for freedom.

The Rush Limbaughs of this world are running really close to yelling fire in a crowded auditorium. That is known to be illlegal. These guys, the radical right, are inciting to violence.

Mexico has heavy duty gun laws. The crooks still have guns. The poor kill with knives.

Those who want to kill will kill. We have violence. Where does the big portion of our viloence come from? It comes from the ingrained inequity and inequality in a society that is malformed and a politic that reflects that dysfunction. The republicans have caused it. There is no way they can be made to understand this or to accept the blame.

Do guns cause violence? Timothy McVeigh didn't use a gun. Guns are convenient. The Holocaust museum shooter was, as a felon, unable to own a gun. Making guns illegal wouldn't have changed a thing. They were illegal for him.

We need to look to the scholars that have studied the causes of violence and take heed. On a per capita basis we have 40 times more members of our society incarcerated than does Finland. We stand in thirtieth place in the world for quality of life. Look up the book reviews. Read, study, and digest "The Spirit Level" by Wilkinson and Prichett.

Guns are a symptom of a much deeper illness. Violence is a symptom of a much deeper illness. The general public senses that something is wrong. They have asked for change. Those who see no need for change must be asking for more violence.

Bill Moyers you have a good heart. You want solutions. So do I. You merely stopped short of real solution.

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Enjoy what YOUR thinking absolutely could bring about.
I would like to see YOU ANTI's function here with YOUR freedom of speech, religion, etc.

THE ANTI's GET THEIR WAY--NO GUNS

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I consider my existence no less valuable than a celebrity or politician. If they can have bodyguards with GUNS, why can't I??

But I can't afford a bodyguard......but I can afford a GUN.

If it's a choice of me or them, I take me. I don't have a superstitious belief of an 'afterlife'. I choose MY life...and will KILL to preserve it.

Go be a VICTIM....the police CAN'T protect you.

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Boy would John Wayne be so darn proud of the senseless gun toters. It's one thing to defend yourself but all this showoff on gun ownership and misinterpreting the 2nd amendment is way too overkill.

In case it hasn't been noticed, despite the populace being well-armed, our freedoms are being pulled out from right under us. No, we haven't stopped talking about guns. It's just that the public is too corn-fed to get away from their tellies to join us and hold the pols' feet to the fire.

The USA has had enough of turning into an OK Corral. No wonder Al Quaida never bothers to even spit at this country. You gun toting baby brains are all they need to win and you gave them another victory. Thanks for nothing.

There's WELL REGULATED MILITIA and then there's DYSFUNCTIONAL GUN TOTING SPOILED BRATS. Since you are the latter, it's no wonder the elites keep laughing their ways to the banks.

P.S.:

While I support the right to defend oneself, the gun toters have made guns nothing more than woobies for insecure adults who are afraid of not getting what they want. When I read these posts by gun nuts, I think of a little child writhing on the floor kicking and screaming because mommy won’t let them have dessert.

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Any talk of further restricting gun ownership is going to feed the paranoid frenzy of the rightwing. It just validates their claims of 'Obama conspiring to impose a socialist republic upon the US' (not that I believe that) and heightens their sense of urgency.

Really not the thing to do right now.

Besides, don't forget that when Salvadore Allende restricted gun ownership in Chile back in the 1970's it left him vulnerable to the military coup that seized power. His supporters were unable to come his defence and thusly was he killed and Chile was plunged into a 17 year nightmarish repressive dictatorship.

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I think it is exactly the sort of infringement on our rights that is needed at a time like this. Hope and Change I Can Believe In will come when enough folks get fired up enough to do something. Skullfucking the first and fourth amendments seems to have gone over fairly well with America, all things considered. I'd like to see how the Powers That Be do with an honest attempt to monopolize firearms.

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Every free person should have a gun if he she wants it. Like any dangerous tool, it requires training to learn to use it and maintain it.

It requires that responsible people not allow children access to this tool.

It requires maturity and some wisdom to know when to employ it and when not to.

Serious incarceration should follow the use of a gun in the commission of a crime.(a crime is when my home is invaded. My using the gun to stop the invasion is not a crime).

The problem is not the guns. The problem is the lack of education and the lack of some degree economic parity among the people of our nation.

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i think the constitutional writers were correct in emphasizing the right of the human to keep and bear arms of any type.

evil will get its arms in any way it can and do evil with it.
i believe the us has had around 16 to 18 thousand murders per year for several years now. i dont know how many of those are with guns - most probobly.
i would personally feel more comfortable if nearly everyone carries and arm (weapon) of some sort - it would probobly prevent, deter and lessen the severity of evil armed attacks if everybody did carry a weapon.

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Hate fueled those attacks, guns were simply a means of caring them out. Had guns not been available would they have used a different method? Most likely.
Something as simple as clorox and ammonia, diesel fuel and ammonia nitrate, pressurized isopropyl alcohol and chlorine, gunpowder and a metal pipe,there are a thousand ways to go into you kitchen and create destruction.
The destruction will never be taken away, maybe as a society we need to see the cause of the problem, address it, instead of simply addressing the symptom.
PS I hope I do not end up on some watch list for the contents of this post.
mark456
outsourcing uk jobs

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We aren't talking about guns for the same reason we aren't talking about censorship:

A two-edged sword is better than no sword at all.


FREE AMERICA

STAND UP AND FIGHT

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...and all sharp or blunt objects.

The world will be much safer when we rid ourselves of everything that could potentially be used to harm someone. Like pillows.

Then we must cut off our hands so we are unable to choke someone.

PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT GUNS

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Ok, let me put it this way. I may agree with a lot of liberal positions but this isn't one of them. If you want my guns you are going to be in direct conflict with me as I will personally kick the snot out of anyone trying to use our laws in this manner. It will set us on a direct collision in every way you can imagine.

We have more guns in this country than citizens and yet the media blows up these relatively rare incidences as "proof" that we are all homocidal children that the nanny state needs to take our toys away before we hurt ourselves. Get a grip.

The half wits pushing this, while their intentions may be good, will screw us right down the road to dictatorship. Our guns are what guarantee we will never fall under a dictatorship again, which was intended by our founders and is why Hitler took away the guns from citizens first. In a crisis, situation, if you do not have arms you are a useless burden, unable to uphold your duty as a citizen or protect your families. I will have no respect for you and will not risk my life to protect you. Anyone who thinks this cannot happen needs to look at what happened in Katrina or any other conflict zone in history, of which there are more than I can even begin to mention.

It will also open up a huge window to conservatives, one which the majority of people will agree with in this country. As a former Republican I can tell you for a fact that this is a huge issue that they have, fear that the "liberals" want to take their guns. If you give them that opening kiss Obama goodbye and say hello to President Palin.

Like the old expression says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We already have laws on the firearms dealers so enforce them by all means to make them comply with the law. Other than that if you want my guns that badly, come and take them. I dare you.

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Not only are we not talking about the role of guns in these nutcase attacks, we are ignoring the obvious links between hate groups and the gun-toting hate mongers. I ask you to go to the website for Operation Rescue, a site frequented by Dr. Tiller's killer. Click on the icon, "The Wall (Friends of Operation Rescue)." Scroll down the many photos of Troy Newman, the guy who replaced the organization's fanatical founder, Randall Terry. Near the bottom you'll find none other than Wayne LaPierre, executive VP of (and most prominent spokesman for) the National Rifle Association. The inferrence could not be more obvious. Birds of a feather and all....

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I have a decent selection of the finest, most powerful firearms on God's gray Earth at my immediate disposal.
I carry a Glock 29 on my hip, with its big brother the Glock 20 -- the most powerful handgun made (and a favorite of fascist pig asshole Ted Nugent) backing it up on the front seat of my Ford. In the closet, there is a Saiga-12 (basically an AK-47 shotgun) and a bag of magazines filled with #00-buckshot. The cedar closet conceals a Mauser 98 with steel-core 8mm ammo that blows through sheet metal like tissue paper. I stopped typing with three or four guns not yet mentioned...

However, none of these guns will ever be used in a crime, because I am not a criminal. Like most legal gun owners, I would never break a gun law or commit a violent crime. If one of my guns were suddenly banned, I would turn it in (for fair compensation from the government) instantly.

Violent crimes are committed by evil, violent people. These people will always be able to find a gun: even if we could somehow collect and destroy 99% of all the privately-owned guns in the USA -- and we can't -- there would be 1.6 million guns in criminals' hands.

We need to enforce current laws that ban criminals from so much as touching a firearm. We need to track Roeder's and von Brunn's guns back to the criminals who put them in their hands. We need to imprison gun criminals, while releasing the victims of drug abuse. What we don't need to do is put the NeoFascists back in power by trying to ban guns, because it won't work... and that's what they are praying that we'll do.

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Many Nazi policies were adopted by the U.S. If following the pattern and trends, it's only a matter of time when guns are fully banned:

The 1930s German Nazis was the first to adopt a total ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, and public places

The U.S. has adopted that policy as well.

The Nazi economic stimulus policy, which didn't involve any weapons manufacture, was a great success actually.

The U.S. has adopted that policy as well.


The Nazis had banned gun ownernship.

The U.S. will inevitably and soon enough follow on that policy.

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Some years back I was driving down a local road when I saw a car approaching me in my lane. The driver wasn't passing anyone; there were no other cars. To my right was a steep incline so I went into his lane. Then he returned to his lane. I was too close to go back to my lane so I went into the grass off that side of the road to avoid him and watched as he turned his car to hit me. Someone had come out for thier mail and watched the whole thing so I was not faulted. It turns out that there are many depressed people who will choose to use a car to enter exit ramps or drive down a road in the wrong direction looking to hit another car rather than just drive themselves into a tree or a wall.

Police that look and act like storm troopers are scary; gangs that are armed with illegal weapons and reign havoc are scary. People who have no criminal intent but have weapons are not scary.

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Contrary to the NRA propaganda, the ownership of guns has NEVER(or rarely) helped destroy tyrannical regimes. Communism in the Eastern bloc, apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation ALL collapsed with recourse to guns!
The ONLY Western democracy without gun controls is the US!

Terry

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The only thing standing between us and a total fascist police state is our privately held guns.

I have a better idea. Confiscate the bibles. They kill more people than guns.

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instead of continuing to cave in to the GOP in selling us out and putting the voters in tears and anger, we would have far less to worry about. I may not be a gun toter but I do have the right to defend myself in the best ways possible and when one least expects the worst, having a concealed weapon can help. Bill Moyers should shut up and get back to spanking the Democratic Party hard as hell for not giving single payer health care or legalizing cannabis a say.

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It's kind of tragic to see 'so many commenters' totally and obsesively fixated on their rights to own firearms (including assault weaponry) while down-talking the devastating consequenses for the U.S. population at large.

During the 10 years the U.S. waged war in Vietnam, wich cost some 56.000 mostly young Americans their lives, between 200.000 and 250.000 Americans, mostly ordinary citizens, were killed in the U.S. homeland due to the domestic use of firearms.

It seems, whenever someone brings up the facts and statistics about the very real and morbid consequences of todays and yesterdays gun ownership in the U.S., that a whole lot of otherwise intelligent Americans, go into a steep denial when it is very much needed to use their common sense in these matters.

Michael Moore made the rather convincing and award winning documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' that should have been a wake-up call to those who still use the 'insane excuse'; "Its not the guns that kill people, its people who kill people". How about PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE!?

That's how its mostly done, and more, much more on the domestic U.S. killing-fields than on the battle grounds of Iraq and Afghanistan combined!

The NRA and their affiliated fearmongering gun-producers/pushers get very rich and powerfull wading in the sea of blood that anually cost some 30.000 Americans their lives,
not very patriotic to say the least! And in the end one should realize, specially the christians amongst you, that those who live by the sword, shall surely die by the sword!

Peace.

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...to stir up a bunch of shit, huh?
I'm a liberal, I voted for Obama and yes, I own guns. Liberals should take Joe Bageant's advice and drop the gun control issue...just ain't gonna happen. What seems to be missing from the debates are the causes. Violence is the problem. Our society glorifies it. Dispute resolution isn't taught in schools and adults don't have to take anger management classes until they are convicted of an offense. Look at the rage in the comments that have been posted, it's a good example. Other nations have more guns per capita than the US but they don't have the same problems. Why?

Answer that question and you will have your solution.

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East Texas knows this and ain't gonna listening to gun control fascist shit ! Until you liberals stop playing go along get along with the Republicans, we all have a right to buy as many guns and ammo as we feel that we need so fuck off !

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"After These Deadly Hate Attacks, Why Aren't We Talking About Guns?"

Simple.

Because you will never control right-wing crazies with gun laws.

Overwhelming force, the rule of law and a swift death penalty is the only response to Reich-wingers. Even this won't make them be rational but it will limit their numbers.

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we have to actually protect us from right-wing crazies.

A well armed liberal/progressive/left-wing America is the best bulwark against Reich-wing insanity.

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Making guns illegal will only give organized crime a franchise and the war on drugs will be replaced or accompanied by the war on guns, as millions of illegal firearms flood the country and police forces and paramilitaries strut around blowing things up under the pretext of enforcing law. Want to decrease gun violence? You must turn our culture of macho violence into one of peace, love, and generosity. But oh no, you can bet that will not happen, because if there is one thing no one in the US can stand, including liberals, is a man who is not willing to use violence and machismo to solve problems...just like in Hollywood flicks.

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I like alter net. favorite news place, covers stuff others avoid. BUT when it comes to the firearm thing and "assault weapons" youre friggin ridiculous and wrong.
Click link below and learn all you need to know the studies are out there exhaustively done, finding same results. By a HUGE margin MORE lives are SAVED per year than LOST to firearms. Defensive uses OUTWEIGH all offensive uses, and like ANY device in American Society, Malevolent and undesired effects can and will things happen with things benign.

http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html


"The National Self-Defense Survey indicated that there were 2.5 million incidents of defensive gun use per year in the U.S. during the 1988-1993 period. This is probably a conservative estimate, for two reasons. First, cases of respondents intentionally withholding reports of genuine defensive-gun uses were probably more common than cases of respondents reporting incidents that did not occur or that were not genuinely defensive. Second, the survey covered only adults age 18 and older, thereby excluding all defensive gun uses involving adolescents, the age group most likely to suffer a violent victimization.

The authors concluded that defensive uses of guns are about three to four times as common as criminal uses of guns. The National Self-Defense Survey confirmed the picture of frequent defensive gun use implied by the results of earlier, less sophisticated surveys.

A national survey conducted in 1994 by the Police Foundation and sponsored by the National Institute of Justice almost exactly confirmed the estimates from the National Self-Defense Survey. This survey's person-based estimate was that 1.44% of the adult population had used a gun for protection against a person in the previous year, implying 2.73 million defensive gun users. These results were well within sampling error of the corresponding 1.33% and 2.55 million estimates produced by the National Self-Defense Survey. "

DOCTORS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN GUNS:
First, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, there is an interesting correlation between accidental deaths caused by guns and by doctors.

Doctors: (A) There are 700,000 physicians in the U.S. (B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians total 120,000 per year. (C) Accidental death percentage per physician is 0.171.

Guns: (A) There are 80 million gun owners in the U.S. (B) There are 1,500 accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups. (C) The percentage of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000188.

Statistically, then, doctors are 9,000 times more dangerous to the public health than gun owners. Fact: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR. Following the logic of liberals, we should all be warned: "Guns don't kill people. Doctors do."

More seriously, Dr. Glen Otero of the Claremont Institute has published an enlightening article entitled Ten Myths About Gun Control. (This entire article can be found at the website of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws www.dsgl.org.) Here are just a few of his well-documented findings.

• Approximately 80 percent of all adult American citizens own firearms, and a gun can be found in nearly half of American households.

• Between 1974 and 1995, the total number of privately owned firearms in America increased by 75 percent, to 236 million. During the same period, national homicide and robbery rates did NOT significantly increase.

• Less than 1 percent of all guns are involved in any type of crime, which means that 99 percent of all guns are NOT used to commit any crime.

• In 1987, the National Crime Victimization Survey estimated that about 83 percent of Americans would become the victims of violent crime during the course of their lifetime.

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As we see it from Europe, the main reason why there so many weapons in the US is because laws are not made for the people, but for the profit of corporations, who don’t give a damn how many people get killed as long as they fill their pockets. And they use arguments as ridiculous as that weapons are necessaryh to protect democracy. In other words, you are more democratic if you have a gun than if you don’t. Arguments that incredibly enough are believed by lots of Americans. The problem is not guns but corporations.

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Every day I read a story about gun violence. Most of it is totally unnecessary. There is no earthly reason for anyone to own an AK47. It has no other use but to kill. The NRA is, in my opinion, a terrorist organization. They say they're an organization that advocates for the second amendment. They are not. They want every regulation on guns gone. That is what the bankers wanted. They wanted all regulations on their industry removed and our government gave them what they wanted and now the entire country, with the exception of the bankers themselves are suffering. Do we want or need the same thing to happen with the gun industry? Will it take the death, God forbid, of every child or our President for the citizens of this country to come to their senses? Just because you don't hear about every gun death in the media doesn't mean they don't happen. People, don't think that the tragedies our corrupt, lazy media deem important are the only ones that are happening. Thousands of people are being killed by guns. Children all over the country are dying every day because the NRA advocates for their deaths. The NRA won't be happy until all our children are dead. They are a terrorist front organization for the gun makers who are profiting from the death of our kids. Wake up and smell the gun powder. Hopefully, President Obama, who I voted for, will realize how dangerous unfettered gun ownership is and stand up to these death merchants before our streets are completely covered in the blood of our loved ones.

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for over a mile. After holding them off with and I run out of ammo I will need an RPG along with a heavy machine gun as they get closer. When I'm out of rockets and ammo for the machine gun I'm going to need an assault rifle with 100 round clips. Now they are even closer and I need claymores and street sweepers. Well now I'm all out of ammo and they are still coming. Damn, my computer just crashed and I have to start the game all over.

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Seriously.

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cigarette related problems. I myself have lost my father, husband, and a son to lung cancer, brought about for the most part from smoking. Do Americans get riled up over 400,000 Americans dying from deliberate poisoning by the tobacco companies? Hardly. I believe the statistics on auto accidents are about the same--around half a million dead Americans every year. Strange how one killing by a crazy old man can generate such anti-gun venom, but a million deaths by cigarettes and automobiles seem to be ignored.

Gun control isn't about saving lives; it's about controlling the American people. We have to face that fact and fight it or we'll wind up as slaves.

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German Firearms Act of 1937:
"No civilian is to have a firearm without a permit and permits will not be issued to [persons] suspected of acting against the state. For Jews this permission will not be granted. Those people who do not require permission to purchase or carry weapons [include] the whole SS and SA, including the Death's Head group and officers of the Hitler Youth." [Kates, Restricting Handguns pg. 185, 1979]

Adolph Hitler:
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitler's Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942, [Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951); The original source is notes taken by Hitler associate Martin Bormann, a document called Bormann-Vermerke.

Heinrich Himmler:
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA-- ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State."





The Warsaw Ghetto uprising showed what Jews could do when their fate was clear: they got hold of guns and stopped a Waffen SS detachment dead in its tracks for days, until reinforcements and armor could be brought up to level the ghetto. Some Jews escaped through the sewers.

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But that's no fun at all. Check any of twenty websites for the FBI stats on killings by gun. Why does the word liberal always have to mean something that doesn't need the b, the r, the a, or the l? Is this an example of the guy who sings to the choir, knowing that only what he says is important, not the truth?

Why lie, if you think your cause is right?

Or is the liar like this one aware that sooner or later he will be called to account for the results of his effort? What are the facts concerning the crimes in question, and how having been armed would have permitted them/ Where guns permitted where the crimes occurred? Why the "out of context" facts and statistics? Why the only partial and one-sided - in this instance, extremely so? What is the writer REALLY after?

With the truthful statistics - those having to do with reality - reveal that everywhere people are legally permitted to carry guns the rate of violent crime, including crime with guns, decreases markedly.

What then of those who continue to demand that everyone be disarmed? Civil responsibility, I mean? When will someone whose family member is killed in a place which disarms everyone but killers who come there to hunt file the appropriate suit? When will people like Mr. Moyers be called to answer civilly - answer a lawsuit - in court?

It's high time, and it I have to go back to the practice of law, I will. I'm getting damned tired of having to worry about my life threatened, ruined, or taken outright otherwise from Washington, D.C. and on account of this or that pack of nattering nitwits like Moyers, Sarah Brady, and the like.

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Guns are made to kill, be it animals or humans. People who love guns are people who love violence, with rare exceptions like target shooting. Gun owners therefore belong to two kinds: the violent and the afraid of the violent. The NRF is happy to make every American belong to any of the two groups, with the blessing of politicians to whom part of the money goes.

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Why arn't we talking the TREASON Clause, under Article lll,Section 3 of the Constitution? Are we not at War? Have these people not waged war against the United States , by their actions of Terrorism and Murder? Has our country not been weaken by these Surversive Groups that seek to destroy our laws and country ?

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"We" aren't talking about personal gun ownership for the same reason we aren't talking about Predator drone state terror and the American way of murder as foreign policy. They are both inimically connected and are linked, co-extensively, in a classic American symbiosis of perversity.Coupled with a national psychology of imperial domination and hegemonic capitalism, private gun ownership is a neurologically hard wired given, with an eerie life of its own. As an almost spiritual, metaphysic construct, it is endemic to the historical catastrophe that is the American ethos itself. America produces gun murder and war not as an aberration, but simply because that is what America DOES and IS. It is not something that can be addressed via the ridiculous, irrational mechanisms of the grotesque charade that is American politics and via laughable illusion of free, democratic elections.Once that is understood, truly practical solutions may begin to emerge.What is invariably overlooked when confronting 'the gun problem' is that attempts to delimit it –by pointing fingers at the usual targets (right wing psychopaths)– is that the liberal darling Barack Obama, still deploys Blackwater type terror mercenaries all over the globe at the behest of his obscene war agenda.

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The constitution was set up to assure "the People" the right to arm themselves. This was for personal protection, to defend against possible invaders, and to defend ourselves against our own government should the need arise. As for crime: violent crime statistics show it is much higher in areas with strict gun control laws.
I understand you may have a fear of weapons or armed individuals. I understand you may hate guns because someone you love may have been harmed by one. You could use the same argument about alcohol, drugs (prescribed and illicit), even school sports. That doesn't mean they should be banned.
Mr von Brunn had already been convicted of attempted kidnapping. How is it that you are not calling for enforcement of the existing laws that do not allow him to own or carry a gun?

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and what did Bundy kill with ?

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Can be found at the bottom of this message (delete the space before "why"). I don't understand why Alternet is so anti-gun. They do accept advertisements from firearm training centers, so it doesn't seem to make any sense.

http://carnalnation.com/content/9824/3/ why-sex-positive-community-should-care-about-gun-rights

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