Archived Story
Where is land of life and liberty?
Published 9:09am Wednesday, December 19, 2012The Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre is tragic. My heart goes out to the people suffering. This act was committed by an unstable person like most mass shootings.
Liberals purposely ignore the core problem, which is human. Was it the psychiatric drugs that he did or didn’t take? Did he have an undiagnosed medial condition? Was it the de-humanizing effect of pop culture? If we are serious about fixing the problem, let’s have a serious talk about mental health and culture.
The response, when a tragedy strikes, is minutes away.
Example: You find a person seriously injured. Would you run away or offer to help? Most people would appreciate somebody rendering first aid, then calling for help. It takes time for professional assistance to arrive. Minutes count in survivability of an accident.
The Colorado shooting was in a gun-free zone. The only choice was to run and hide until law enforcement arrived; it took several minutes for police to respond. What if a person went through all the legal requirements and had a concealed carry permit and the potential to stop the attack in the first critical minute, preventing further violence. Would that not be rendering critical aid when needed saving others? Is this not reasonable argument?
Never letting a crisis go to waste, liberals demand “reasonable gun laws” as if more restrictive gun laws were the answer. The president’s hometown of Chicago should be a safe place. Reality is harsh. This weekend 10 people were shot including four children. Strict gun laws did not prevent this. No law will prevent a crime.
Gun owners, do you think liberals calling for “reasonable laws” are reasonable? Past legislation demonstrates it’s all about control.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein stated in Feb. 5, 1995: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ’em all in,’ I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here.”
Sen. Feinstein at the 2012 Democratic National Convention stated she will reintroduce “an updated assault weapons bill.” So going door to door collecting “banned weapons” sound reasonable?
It’s ironic the very guns they seek to ban are the same ones the current administration allowed be sold by the thousands during Operation Fast and Furious illegally. Now members of Congress openly call for the limitation of the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment is under attack with threats of confiscation, the National Defense Authorization Act allows for indefinite detention of citizens.
Oh land of life, liberty and prosperity, where art thou?
Randy Kruckeberg
Mankato
What cost are AMERICANS willing to pay for their passion with guns?
I hunt, I own shotguns and rifles…..
I also have 4 grandchildren ages 4 – 9….
So I have to Ponder…….
In Japan, you cannot buy a handgun, much less an assault rifle. In fact, even off-duty police officers are banned from carrying guns.
You can buy a shotgun or an air rifle, but it is not easy:
• First, you have to take a class and a written exam.
• Then there’s a skill test at a shooting range
• Next is a drug test
• Then a mental evaluation.
• Assuming you pass all those tests, you file with the police, who then run a background check.
No wonder Japan has one of the lowest gun ownership rates in the world.
But does it work?
In 2008, the U.S. had 12,000 gun-related murders. Japan had 11. More than double that number were killed in the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Is there an agreeable median that can be rationally discussed here, in this the greatest nation on earth?
Al, when you cut/paste you should at least site your source(s) so we can fact check you
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-americans-killed-with-guns-2012-7
According to the CDC, in 2009 there were 11,493(convenient rounding up by the author) firearm related deaths in the US that is 10.2 for every 100,000 people.
6.1 of them were suicides, and only 3.7 were classified as homicides.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm
I like how you emphasize AMERICANS, and then compare us to Japan. We are not Japan, or France, or England, or Canada.
Is there an agreeable median, yes. But I do not feel knee jerk reactions like what Bush 43 put us through after 9/11 is the proper course of action.
Dave Bybee
North Mankato
Al we pay a higher price for cars more people are killed by cars, but nobody is blaming cars or wanting to restrict the engine size. Speed is a major factor in accidents so using the liberal logic we need to ban large displacement engines and regulate the speed to 65 mph above that you are breaking the law.
We cannot drug test people getting assistance from the government I guess they have rights so do I still. Al you know AWB did nothing it didn’t reduce crime one bit it was a feel good law for some and a trampling of rights for others.
Middle ground not likely
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on Wednesday afternoon urged people to turn in their guns, arguing it would be an appropriate response to last week’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.
“I would personally just say to those who are listening, maybe you want to turn in your guns,” Jackson Lee said on the House floor. “Oh no, I’m not going to take your guns. But look at what Dick’s Sporting Goods did … they wanted to be part of the solution and part of America.”
I wonder if her security detail has guns to protect her you know she is asking for everybody else’s guns, maybe she should lead by example and give up her hired guns first before asking for mine.
A little food for thought…..
Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) characterized the slayings as “a very fortuitous event for those of us determined to disarm the general public. The fact that so many of the victims were young children should go a long way toward softening up the opposition of the right wing gun nuts who have blocked constructive measures against this much needed action.”
“Just because existing laws haven’t proved sufficient doesn’t mean we don’t need more of them,” McCarthy argued. “At the very least adding another illegal weapons possession charge to the indictment of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes has got to have some deterrent effect.”
“It’s long past the time that we recognize that the ancient rationale for private gun ownership is no longer relevant,” the Representative said. “People don’t need to personally hunt for food. There are no Indians on the rampage in our towns. The skills our ancestors had with firearms have atrophied in our modern world.”
“America would be a much safer place if only government personnel were allowed to carry guns,” McCarthy maintained. “As history has shown in other countries, concentrating the firepower in the hands of well trained police and military personnel is more conducive to securing a peaceful environment for everyone to enjoy.”
It’s not about safety it’s about control of the population and that IS way we have the second, will she give up her armed security by her own words she does not need it.
It really is too bad that we don’t have a model of how an assault weapons ban would work in helping to reduce violent crime in America… What? We do? When? Under Clinton? It lasted how long? Ten years? How did that work for us? Didn’t change the crime rate? Got a bit worse but no better? Why would we go down that path again then? Oh, I see, this is just window dressing and the pols just want to be seen as doing something whether it works or not. Glad we got that straight!