Democrats Still Silent On Gun Control
As Senate majority leader Harry Reid bares his fangs on President Bush and Iraq, he betrays how toothless the Democrats are on guns at home.Reid said last week of Iraq, “This war is lost,” partially because of “the extreme violence.” On Monday, he said that Bush is in a “state of denial” about American casualties and the trauma to Iraqi children. Reid said, “What a shame that after five-and-a-half years, so many lost lives and so much treasure depleted, President Bush hasn’t budged from the shoot-first, talk-never style.”
That is fine for Reid to say about Iraq, where 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in violence last year, according to the United Nations. But what about our streets, where 29,569 Americans died from firearms in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control? Iraq Body Count estimates that between 62,000 and 68,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the invasion of 2003. In that same time period, at least 116,000 Americans have died from gunfire.
Last week’s massacre at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives has done little to reignite the gun-control debate. One expects nothing from the Bush administration and the Republicans, who beginning with the 2000 elections have received 92 percent of the $9.1 million in campaign contributions from gun-rights organizations, according to the Center for Responsible Politics.
The Democrats, not officially beholden to the National Rifle Association, have been cowards more concerned about reelection in centrist districts than the trauma to American children. The same Reid who bemoans the loss of life over a failed Iraq war said about Virginia Tech, “I hope there’s not a rush to do anything. We need to take a deep breath.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ignored a question by a reporter on whether Virginia Tech would inspire Democrats to revisit gun control. All she said was, “the mood in Congress is one of mourning, sadness, and the inadequacy of our words or our actions to console the families and the children who were affected there.”
“Inadequacy of our words or our actions” was a Freudian slip. None of the home pages on the websites of Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards says anything about guns in relation to Virginia Tech. This is despite the fact that the US public arsenal, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent research group based in Switzerland, “is comparable or even greater than the total firearms of all the armed forces in the entire world.”
This week, Massachusetts Representative Michael Capuano told the Globe “we know we’re going to lose” on any serious push for gun control because “the NRA has this place wrapped up.” With defeatism like that, who needs a Democratic majority?
The paralysis can end by looking not to the power of the NRA but to the facts. This week, researchers in Australia published a study that found that the national gun buyback program, which was instituted after the 1996 Tasmania massacre where one man shot dead 35 people, is working. Between 1,000 and 2,500 lives were saved in the first eight years of the buyback, according to paper coauthor Andrew Leigh, an economist at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Gun ownership in Australia had been sliced in half, from 20 percent of households in 1989 to 10 percent by 2000, according to a Swiss study. It is the largest known percentage decline in the developed world. The United States has also seen a decline, but only from 46 percent of households to 32 percent of households.
“It really was the buyback,” Leigh said this week over the telephone. “The biggest benefit comes down on the suicide side. We think the buyback reduces suicides by 250 people a year.”
Leigh estimates that if Australia’s buyback was done on an American scale, it would cost about $7 billion to $8 billion. It might save up to 3,900 lives a year. Australia has not had a mass killing since 1996.
Leigh said the reaction against the massacre in Australia has led to the quiet survival of individual children who would have shot themselves or adults who would have shot their partners in domestic disputes. “We’re a policy laboratory for the world,” Leigh said. Asked what kind of massacre it might take for the United States to become a laboratory of its own, Leigh said : “That’s a terrible thing to consider. Maybe in the US you’d have to have a killing of 100 victims. ”
Derrick Z. Jackson’s e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
I agree entirely with Derrick and wrote this letter to the editor several days ago based on a different Globe story, but totally in line with what Derrick is saying.
“Based on today’s Globe cover story, “Congress hesitant on legislation”, one is inclined to think that the timidity of Congress in doing nothing about gun control is only exceeded by their gutlessness in doing nothing about the escalation of the imperial oil-war in Iraq.
In all fairness to rationality, if not Congress, no informed person would ever mistake the politicians in Congress for political philosophers or political economists. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the purely political class, in what P. J. O’Rourke called our “Parliament of Whores”, does not see, or want to see, the common thread in all of this intentional confusion of smoke and mirrors, and media induced emotionalism and patriotism of guileful lies and deadly distractions.
Thankfully, however, the average public is beginning, in their desperation for answers to their individual and societal survival, to see a common thread between the entirely preventable gun deaths, cigarette deaths, asbestos deaths, war deaths, and the global warming death of our common human environment.
A corporate controlled Congress may continue to diddle and distract because they work for entities erroneously defined as ‘people’ by corporate law, but people who do not breathe. However, real living and breathing average people are beginning to understand the deadly threat of inhumane and non-democratic “Economics of Empire”.
Yes, I know, Derrick said it better, but it needs to be said, again, and again, and again.
If the lobbies of the NRA to support domestic gun slaughter, and AIPAC to support foreign war slaughter are not soon stopped, we will start running out of warm (live) people.
amacd Guns aren’t the problem, criminals are and as long as we continue to release violent people from prison to make room for non-violent recreational drug users, things aren’t going to get any better. Get off the gun control kick because that is a cop out.
Time for a truism…
Everyone who uses a gun in an act of violence is convinced they are fully, morally justified in using it at the time they use it. They don’t regard themselves as criminals, and many murderers, like the student at Virginia Tech, had perfectly clean criminal records.
So, how is controlling criminals going to prevent gun violence?
rickster, how about ‘free market’ gun insurance to solve the problem?
As an obvious ‘free market’ private sector guy, how about having that glorious free market automatically solve the problem of gun ‘accidents’ — with no government regulation?
if you’re a little bit odd, but you want to own a .44 mag asault weapon you simply go to the free market and a private insurance company sells you insurance (just like your car, which can also cause damage to others).
Through the right wing christian miracle of the free market the insurance companies (plural) automatically compete on price and offer a policy that covers any damage that gun does, with not pre-stigma to the owner or allowance of gov’ment regulation.
Then the price of the insurance exactly matches (per Smith’s invisible free market hand) the real market price for the probability that that particualr gun might do given the characteristics of that particular owner.
Any bets on how many gun nuts would pay the real price for really aggresive type guns? Zero, is my guess.
But honest farmers and hunters and target shooters with .22s and shotguns would be very reasonable.
Sound good rick? Or does this sensible ‘free market’ solution also not meet your insane logic?
If gusn are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Do you think that the criminals will turn in all of their weapons, think again. The areas that hsve less gun control have a lower crime rate than those with higher gun control. In Australia, the confiscation of guns initially had a lower crime rate, then it skyrocketed, worse than before gun control.
Regardless of how squeamish the idea of death makes you, there is a fundamental idea that supporters of gun control are forgetting (or, sadly, were never taught). It is that the right to survive is the first and most intractable of our natural rights.
Samuel Adams wrote that life, liberty, and property, together with the right to support and defend them as best one can, “are evident branches of, rather than deductions from”, this duty of self-preservation.
Let’s go with another quote to further clarify:
“In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation.” - Samuel Adams
While you may renounce your right to defend yourself (although reason should justly vacate such renunciation legally), it is contrary to the natural state of freedom to deprive other people of the means to exert their right to defend themselves.
Another point that supporters of gun control fail to apprehend is that criminals don’t need guns to commit violent acts.
Supporters of gun control exhibit fallacious thinking, where the inanimate object, the weapon, is confused with the ugly reality of the violence and damage itself. So the anti-gun-nut (usually with little or no first-hand experience with violence) incorrectly reasons that the occurrence of future violence can be prevented by forbidding the possession of weapons. This also doesn’t follow, because the intent to do violence is not arrested by removing the weapon — a criminal who is determined to attack can be just as effective (and arguably more disgustingly violent) with a sharp kitchen knife or hammer than with a firearm. Future violence is not prevented by changing the weapon that an assailant holds. Perhaps it shrinks the sphere of influence of the attacker by limiting the effective range, but at point-blank range this would be small consolation. The point is that the criminal is the problem, not the weapon — the weapon is just a tool with a specialized purpose.
The notion that passing legislation which forbids possession will prevent criminals from obtaining weapons is pure fantasy. What it WOULD do is to inhibit law-abiding citizens from legally obtaining firearms, which would hurt the profits of firearm manufacturers, which would most likely cause a slowdown in production and fewer guns actually in existence compared to if production continued or flourished. The problem is that the guns which still exist can still be obtained by criminals — they can just steal them.
It is not acceptable for any citizens to deprive another group of citizens of the means to exert their natural right to self-defense.
Indeed, reacting to tragic events (faith-based terrorism or maniacal school shootings) by passing legislation to curtail “gun violence” by banning the legal possession of the most useful weapons is EXACTLY what the despotic, war-mongering-and-profiteering white-collar criminals who have hijacked our federal government WANT.
Don’t fall for it, Americans.
The problem with the VT murders is untreated mental illness. Period.
GOP New York Mayor Michael is the most prominent voice for sensible gun control in the country. Check out
http://www.protectpolice.org
I was disgusted with Howard Dean when he ran for President. He was proud of his “A” rating from the NRA when he was Vermont Governor.
Sorry I meant to say “Mayor Michael Bloomberg”.
You are in fantasy land CGB–humans dont have a natural right to survival(if you think they do, ask Nature why gravity crushes them, fire burns them and water drowns them).It sounds like you are the squeamish one. And unless they can manufacture bullets from their rear ends they dont have a right to firearms.
Samuel Adams never heard of a technology that could wipe out a room of people in a few seconds–so your reference to him when it comes to modern technology is as pointless as looking to the Bible to learn about computers.
As someone else said–anyone who uses a gun does not regard themselves as a criminal.
The answer is to have draconian laws and control over the ingredients for gun powder–it will reduce crime–because eventually the ability to get and make ammunition will be compromised.
You cant stop violence or mental illness-humans are like that–but you can reduce their access to the technology to cause violence.
The alternative–arming everyone–will just increase the incidents of people shooting each other.
Case in point–the number of hunters who shoot themselves.
Politicians won’t tackle political hot potatoes like this one and many other familiar ones, so they languish and people get hurt. Instead of having a hundred impotent heads not working on our problems, why not try having millions of our own actually making the decisions? For grassroots democracy, join the Greens.
Yes, lets have draconian laws. Then, progressives can scream that instead of locking up two million of its citizens, the United States locks up ten million, or more. Because, with 50 million armed households in the country, nothing short of a police state will ensure “real” gun control.
Would handgun supporters willingly comply with the mandate of a public referendum on handguns?
CGB, you are close to insane. Do children deserve the right to survive?
“Those who are interested in the safety and well-being of children should keep in mind that only motor vehicle accidents and cancer kill more children in the U.S. than firearms. A study released a few years ago by the Harvard School of Public Health compared firearm mortality rates among youngsters 5 to 14 years old in the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership with those in the five states with the lowest rates.
The results were chilling. Children in the states with the highest rates of gun ownership were 16 times as likely to die from an accidental gunshot wound, nearly seven times as likely to commit suicide with a gun, and more than three times as likely to be murdered with a firearm.
Only a lunatic could seriously believe that more guns in more homes is good for America’s children.”
Bob Herbert NYT
We’ve had a war-time economy probably since WWI, a government that’s somewhat in shambles, a rise in the use of mercenaries (ahem, civilian contractors), and decline in civil liberties. Is the call to disarm private individuals really appropriate at this time?
We should demand that the government return us to a peace-time economy, restore (perhaps for the first time?) integrity in office, restore the habeas corpus, and set us back on track with regard to civil liberties in general.
Articles calling for disarmament under such a situation are awfully worrisome. Let’s disarm corrupt politicians first, get our country on the right track from top on down. The first weapon to be removed ought to be The Button from the hands of a lunatic politician. The last should be Joe Sixpacks.
People should sit back and carefully rethink any of their prior conclusions on this issue.
kelmer: “As someone else said–anyone who uses a gun does not regard themselves as a criminal.”
This is a wild assertion. I’d love to hear how you try to back this up.
kelmer: “humans dont have a natural right to survival”
OK, my paraphrasing of Samuel Adams was a little off, I admit, when I said “right to survive”. I should have said “right to exert the means to attempt to survive”.
kelmer: “And unless they can manufacture bullets from their rear ends they dont have a right to firearms.”
Another wild assertion (and not as funny as you hoped). Can you back it up? Please show your work and quote the U.S. Constitution or relevant case law exactly. Even if you could, the law doesn’t define what our rights are. We define what our rights are, and the law recognizes or fails to recognize those rights.
kelmer: “Samuel Adams never heard of a technology that could wipe out a room of people in a few seconds”
Sure he had. They had cannons. Have you any idea what a cannon (firing, say, grapeshot) can do? How about a BARREL of black powder? Small pox?
See, the problem with your argument is that you don’t have one. You FEEL that “guns are bad”, but you don’t know why. Like user ‘amacd’ above, you want to protect everyone from themselves. Unfortunately for you, the supreme law of the land provides us with protection from you, so that you can’t do that to us “for our own good”. Get it yet?
amacd: “Only a lunatic could seriously believe that more guns in more homes is good for America’s children.”
This is basically an ad hominem argument. You are calling me a lunatic rather than dealing with my argument. It’s a common fallacy. “More guns in more homes” is not, in itself, good for America’s children. However, if the children are properly educated to NEVER mishandle such a dangerous weapon, it could be. Indeed, if you dig deeper in the land of statistics, I think you’ll find that in the cases where children were wounded by negligent discharges, the mishandling was done by a child from a household where guns were not kept, the child was not taught how to safely handle a weapon, and that the ignorance and lack of satisfaction of natural curiosity were the catalysts of the events which led to the accident. I have two children, both well-educated in the danger of firearms and ammunition (as well as sharp objects, poison, electricity, exposure, etc.). I make them safer through knowledge and experience, not through ignorance and fear.
It’s beautiful that you envision a world without weapons. You should find a creative outlet for that. But don’t think that disarming citizens will improve the state of children’s safety, because the Pandora’s box that is the human history of warfare and cruelty is open and can’t be closed by hope and wishful thinking.
As long as there are standing armies and religious fundamentalists, our children are not safe. Iraqi children are not safe, and we languish each day in our complicity. I submit that it is our duty to put a stop to the threats our tax dollars are financing.
Speaking of financing, it certainly IS disgusting that the NRA funds the Republicans. It’s painful to be mistaken for aligning myself with Bush-supporters (let’s just call them Loyalists) on such an important issue. However, it’s even more painful to see people duped into thinking that restricting law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms will curb violence — it’s preposterous, and I worry that the studies and statistics to which you refer are not conducted with sufficient rigor.
But even worse BULLSHIT is Derrick Z. Jackson’s attempt to use the recent Virginia Tech shooting as political capital so that he can advance the anti-Constitutional agenda of gun control. Shame.
My letter to the editor, which appeared in the Fort Myers newspaper last Sunday made a point similar to Jackson’s. It read:
Following shooting sprees in Port Arthur and at Monash University during the 90’s, the Australian government effectively banned semiautomatic rifles, instituted universal firearm registration and licensing and tightened restrictions on handguns. In the past decade, Australia has seen its rates of gun crime drop steadily.
Great Britain, in response to the Hungerford massacre and to a school shooting in Dunblane enacted similar measures. In Great Britain, with a population of more than 60 million, only 58 homicides involving a firearm occurred in 2006.
In the US, by contrast, since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, the federal government has allowed the assault weapons ban to elapse, has made it harder for states to track delinquent gun shop owners, and has made it impossible for the states or cities to sue gun manufacturers, even if they market their patently dangerous product in a patently irresponsible manner.
Stunned as we are by the Virginia Tech shootings, the carnage should surprise no one. Our priorities are perfectly clear to the rest of the world if not to ourselves: In America we love our guns more than our kids.
Here in Florida we have heard our state legislators stand up for the right of an owner to carry his gun to work, but we have heard no mention of a corresponding right of a child to accompany her parent to work. Nor any mention of the right of a Florida child to grow up in a society as free of gun violence as France, or Spain, or Canada.
“If gusn are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Do you think that the criminals will turn in all of their weapons, think again.”
“The notion that passing legislation which forbids possession will prevent criminals from obtaining weapons is pure fantasy. What it WOULD do is to inhibit law-abiding citizens from legally obtaining firearms, which would hurt the profits of firearm manufacturers, which would most likely cause a slowdown in production and fewer guns actually in existence compared to if production continued or flourished. The problem is that the guns which still exist can still be obtained by criminals — they can just steal them.”
Only in the USA will you find such retarded arguments from people. Criminals are called “criminals” because they have guns and aren’t shy about using them. If you live in the US there is a good chance there is a crime prevention unit pretty close to you. They’re called cops. If the crime rate in a region is going up, it’s probably time for the govt. to consider changing their law enforcement structure and investing in social reforms instead of arming people and passing the responsibility onto them.
Slowing down gun production is actually a good thing for a civilized society if the society is looking to move away from violence. The government should completely regulate every gun that is being manufactured. In fact, gun manufacturers should only produce guns for law enforcement and the military. Will criminals not be able to have access to guns this way? No they will still find guns illegally but the good thing about gun control is the number of deaths from crime will go down considerably which for me is a good trade off. If I am going to be mugged in NY, I’d rather be mugged by a guy wield a kitchen knife that a 9mm.
The assumption that gun control supporters are looking to eliminate crime through gun control is far fetched. Crime CANNOT be eliminated completely. Crime is the result of the social structure that we all embrace which has created unequal situations for different peoples. Even if we were living in an ideal society where everybody is well off and happy, we would still have violence for other reasons because humans are inherently attracted to violence against others. Hunting wild animals is one of these psychological disorders which we accept in our society as perfectly natural behavior.
I agree as adults we have the right to choose our way of life but this argument is not applicable to guns. I’d prefer if drugs were made legal instead because with drugs the user is killing him/herself. It only makes sense for us to let people decide whether they want to live healthy lives or kill themselves with drugs. And if you want to use the 2nd Amendment as a reason for your love of guns, like Bill Maher said, “They should be only allowed to use muskets!” Just like the times when the founding fathers framed the amendment!
Spartanladkenny: “No they will still find guns illegally but the good thing about gun control is the number of deaths from crime will go down considerably which for me is a good trade off.”
Baseless assertion.
Spartanladkenny: “If I am going to be mugged in NY, I’d rather be mugged by a guy wield a kitchen knife that a 9mm.”
Which way you would “rather” be mugged is not at issue here.
Spartanladkenny: “The government should completely regulate every gun that is being manufactured. In fact, gun manufacturers should only produce guns for law enforcement and the military.”
This is exactly what MUST NOT HAPPEN. Think harder. Think of the potential for abuse — think of the abuse of power happening right now!
Spartanladkenny: “Hunting wild animals is one of these psychological disorders which we accept in our society as perfectly natural behavior.”
It’s cute that you want to save the bunnies. However, for the last 300,000 years or more, wild animals have been food for humans, and our evolution as a species is tied inextricably to the hunt (See “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan). To claim that hunting is a behavior which is un-natural is pure idiocy.
Spartanladkenny: “I agree as adults we have the right to choose our way of life but this argument is not applicable to guns. ”
My argument is that we have an inherent right to defend ourselves, and that society must allow the means to exert that right.
Spartanladkenny: “‘They should be only allowed to use muskets!’ Just like the times when the founding fathers framed the amendment!”
Muskets and cannons and tomahawks and small pox and black powder, grapeshot, knives, swords, dogs, etc. We were talking about personal firearms ownership, but you bring up an interesting point for me: The right to “bear arms” doesn’t just mean the right to carry guns. It means that the security of a free state necessarily requires that citizens have the means to take up arms against aggressors, foreign or domestic. The term “arms” in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified, encompassed a large variety of weapons. The Bill of Rights were adopted as limitations on federal government power. The intention of the Second Amendment was to enshrine The People’s right to possess their own caches of various weapons and practice the tactics and techniques of war (a.k.a. “arms”).
So, in the final analysis, the answer is: No, you can’t have the guns.
Would handgun supporters willingly comply with the mandate of a public referendum on handguns?
Well, would you?
I read this recently:
As a hunter and US Army officer I have been familiar with weapons of all kinds most of my life. I realized, like other hunters have, that hunting many kinds of big wild game has become unsustainable, so I do “Catch and Release” hunting with tranquilizer darts.
I’ll dart large male “trophy” animals, measure, weight, take videos, cure diseases as much as possible, remove parasites, tag and release them to pass on their superior genes. In season, I only take young animals whose meat is more tender and tastier and who are not of breeding age.
Catch and release hunting allows me to hunt anywhere in any season and to “shoot” any big game, including some endangered animals. There are dart guns comparable to the finest sporting rifles and handguns. Longer range tranquilizer darts are available.
I sometimes hunt with a veterinarian friend. He’s taught me a lot about meds and dosages and keeps the records on the animals darted, whether he’s hunting with me or not. I’ve had few problems with local government in most countries, once they see my dart guns and equipment.
I recommend catch and release hunting and have never had an animal die of overdose or accidentally from a darting. Most if not all of these occurrences can be minimized by proper training that should be mandatory for use of any firearm. What catch and release fishing has done for game fishing, it can do for hunting.
For personal protection I recommend a shotgun with buckshot. Other than for licensed target shooting, there is no need for civilians to own handguns or even rifles. Most firearm homicides are committed with handguns. Hunting rifles can be replaced by dart guns. And if you want to use fully automatic weapons, join the Army.
ezeflyer, do think abortion supporters in, say, Alabama should willingly comply with the mandate on a public referendum on abortion’s continued legality? Should those blacks in Louisiana who like to vote willingly comply with the result of a referendum to repeal the Voting Rights Act? You are a moron. Should progressives willingly comply with a referendum forbidding criticism of the President? Rights are not negotiable, and my right to say what I choose, vote, profess a religion, or even own a firearm are not negotiable. You are a moron. Over my, and 50 million other American’s cold dead bodies will guns be banned.
A democratic majority has given us our constitutional rights. If a majority decides by referendum that HANDGUNS should be banned because over 90% of all homicides are caused by HANDGUNS, you will comply regardless of reactionary bravado.
The Right to Choose, the Voting Rights Act, the right to free speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms and other rights were given by the majority in its wisdom. And they can be taken away if it decides to, not by the decision of a few lobbyists or handgun enthusiasts.
The public may decide that we all have the right to live without getting shot by psychopaths with concealed HANDGUNS. Or they may decide to require strict licensing, training, liability insurance for owner and manufacturer of HANDGUNS used for target shooting or for hunting. In any case, ours is allegedly a democracy that many have died to defend and we can’t choose what laws to follow or not.
HANDGUNS are the problem because they can be easily concealed. Long guns can’t be easily concealed and we can identify potential psychopaths and get away from them.
Speaking as an ill-informed foreigner, it seems to me that the US constitution was drawn up by some very paranoid founding fathers.
I cannot name another country where it’s citizens so distrust their government that they’ve given themselves, or voted for, or have constitutionally enshrinened rights to bear lethal weapons ‘just in case’ their liberties are threatened.
Keeping weapons armed and ready for a potential rebelion seems ludricrous. Unarmed people can quickly become armed rebels - as is demonstrated many times in history.
“Keeping weapons armed and ready for a potential rebelion seems ludricrous. Unarmed people can quickly become armed rebels - as is demonstrated many times in history.” That is the exact point, Samski. One of the times history has demonstrated this, curiously, is the AMERICAN REVOLUTION. If we had had the kind of gun control envisioned here, we would still be led by the queen. As to EZEFLYER, you can take your European positivist approach to rights and keep it. Over here, we believe in Inalienable Rights. If the democratic majority votes to reinstitute slavery, ban guns, or make everyone become a Muslim, then we have a right and duty to resist that, too the death if necessary.
Ken Mitchell April 25th, 2007 7:52 pm
“”"”"If gusn are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Do you think that the criminals will turn in all of their weapons, think again. The areas that hsve less gun control have a lower crime rate than those with higher gun control. In Australia, the confiscation of guns initially had a lower crime rate, then it skyrocketed, worse than before gun control.”"”"
Retardrican babble. Gun deaths are out of site in the United States Of Corporate America compared to the rest of the first world nations that practice some form(s) of common sense gun control. The numbers are there and they are overwhelming. You’re either a liar, or an idiot, or, like most retardricans…both
Tijuanalibre April 27th, 2007 10:45 pm
“Keeping weapons armed and ready for a potential rebelion seems ludricrous. Unarmed people can quickly become armed rebels - as is demonstrated many times in history.” That is the exact point, Samski. One of the times history has demonstrated this, curiously, is the AMERICAN REVOLUTION. If we had had the kind of gun control envisioned here, we would still be led by the queen. As to EZEFLYER, you can take your European positivist approach to rights and keep it. Over here, we believe in Inalienable Rights. If the democratic majority votes to reinstitute slavery, ban guns, or make everyone become a Muslim, then we have a right and duty to resist that, too the death if necessary.
YES, the inalienable right for 8 children to be shot to death every single day so that white cowards like the idiot above can arm himself to the teeth in response to his lack of tolerance and complete lack of balls