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Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?
Try to imagine that hundreds or thousands of guns including assault weapons were pouring across the Mexican border into Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, arming criminal gangs who were killing American law enforcement officials and other U.S. citizens.
Then imagine the Mexican president saying, "Well, we would really like to do something about this, but our political system makes helping you very difficult." Wouldn't Mexico's usual critics attack that country's political system for corruption and ineptitude and ask: "Why can't they stop this lawlessness?"
That, in reverse, is the position President Obama was in last week when he visited Mexico. The Mexican gangs are able to use guns purchased in the United States because of our insanely permissive gun regulations, and Obama had to issue this unbelievably clotted, apologetic statement at a news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon:
"I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe, to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence. Violence in our own country as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."
In other words: Our president can deal with all manner of big problems, but the American gun lobby is just too strong to let him push a rational and limited gun regulation through Congress.
It's particularly infuriating that Obama offered this statement of powerlessness just a few days before the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado-and during a month in which at least 57 people were killed in eight mass homicides across the U.S.
No other democratic country in the world has the foolish, ineffectual gun regulations that we do. And unfortunately, what Obama said is probably true.
Earlier this year, when Attorney General Eric Holder called for a renewal of the ban on assault weapons-he was only repeating the commitment Obama made during his presidential campaign-the response from a group of 65 pro-gun House Democrats was: No way.
Their letter to Holder was absurd. "The gun-control community has intentionally misled many Americans into believing that these weapons are fully automatic machine guns. They are not. These firearms fire one shot for every pull of the trigger." Doesn't that make you feel better?
Those Democrats should sit down with Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Time and time again, our police are finding themselves outgunned," Rendell said in Harrisburg last week. "They are finding themselves with less firepower than the criminals they are trying to bring to justice."
The Democratic governor told his own state's legislators that if they didn't support such a ban, "then don't come to those memorial services" for the victims of gun violence. "It's wrong," he said. "It's hypocritical."
And why can't we at least close the gun show loophole? Licensed arms dealers have to do background checks on people who buy guns. The rules don't apply at gun shows that, as the Violence Policy Center put it, have become "Tupperware Parties for Criminals."
But too many members of Congress are "petrified" by the gun lobby, says Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., a crusader for sane gun legislation ever since her husband was killed and her son paralyzed by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.
Family members of the victims of gun violence, she says, are mystified at Congress' inability to pass even the most limited regulations. "Why can't you just get this done?" she is asked. "What is it you don't understand?"
Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him-and failed to stop him.
According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present-barely different from John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But in the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points on Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?
Yes, I understand about swing voters, swing states and all that. But given Congress' default to the apologists for loose gun laws, it will take a president to make something happen.
- Posted in
63 Comments so far
Show AllWho will face down the coordinator class?
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Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com
Who will face down the coordinator class?
Well we will need to "face down" Prof. Robin Hahnel Ph.D., Professor Noam Chomsky, Ph.D., and Professor Howard Zinn Ph.D. Then, there is Michael Albert, no letters after his name. but he does spend most of his time at a desk, thinking and writing, so he is a "coordinator" too.
Eric, I really think this vilification of the "coordinator class" (white collar desk jockeys) is really a non-starter. In our current economy, where the sons of the former steelworkers work in offices in "coordinator"-like positions - at lower pay than their steelworker fathers made - you are going to have trouble finding people to join your revolution.
"Who will face down the coordinator class?"
There is no such class. It is a figment of Michael Albert's imagination and the followers of "parecon".
Obama, good Rockefeller Republican that he is, will never forcefully advocate gun control. He knows that Amerika is a "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" nation, and that any politician who threatens to harsh the righteous, inalienable buzz of gun-owning is putting his or her political future at risk.
Obama's no profile in courage. He's not taking on the gun lobby, period.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obedient Servent
Extremely well said. More obsequious panderings to the NRA by a president who claimed to be, apparently with a straight face, an agent of change. And America was gullible enough to believe it.
Sorry but no.
This president made it clear that he was not going to change gun laws. And Americans knew this, and voted for him.
Which is something that you gun control advocates don't like acknowledging: it isn't just NRA gun nuts who don't and won't support you.
Americans voted for Obama in spite of his position on guns, not because of it! Polls (except those conducted by the NRA) uniformly show that a majority of Americans favor the imposition of sane, effective gun laws. The NRA is rabidly opposed to such measures partly because it fears what Americans will discover: that sensible restrictions on gun ownership and use increase their safety.
Only 1.6% of the US population are NRA members.
Many of the 35% of the population that own guns do not own handguns, assault weapons or other military ordinance.
Restoring the assault weapons ban IS a possibility.
It is a possibility. But is it a priority?
The 90s assault ban was achieved in part because law enforcement, especially suburban law enforcement, made a concerted effort to defy the NRA and press the case. Despite the henious killings in Pittsburgh, I fear that we will have to suffer thru a regrettable spike in killings of local police and sheriffs to see the same mobilization by local law enforcement, and thus for "undecided America" to conclude that the current state of affairs is out of balance.
Let's hope Obedient Servant is right, and Obama remembers what happened to his Demo predecessor when Clinton "faced down" the "gun lobby" in 1994; i.e., loss of control of both houses of Congress.
If hoplophobes hate the Second Amendment so much, why not start a movement to repeal it, instead of quibbling over what it means?
PaulfromGA: hoplophobia? Damn, man, a new word for me and here I thought I knew them all. Seems it's a phobia that even Lucy Van Pelt hasn't heard of and it sent me scurrying to Wikipedia to discover that "the most common manifestation of hoplophobia is the idea that instruments possess a will of their own, apart from that of their user." I wondered why as a hoplophobic I had been trying to beat the devil out of my assault rifle. Now that I know I will seek psychiatric help immediately and never again criticize Obama and all those blue dog Democrats who join with the NRA and all their Republican friends in moving to keep the world safe for criminals to roam the streets and wilds of Mexico and even the U.S. of A. with "instruments" that have no will of their own but only that of the hunters and the criminals who "use" them. I'm a tad concerned, though, about the "will" of these folks to use assault weapons to kill gang rivals or animal predators like wolves. But with intensive psychotherapy I'll get over that "phobia" as well.
Jeff Cooper coined that word back in the 60s, Jerry, to define people who are scared of guns in an irrational way. Me, I've never been scared of guns; I handle them every day and fire them frequently at the range.
There are laws against a lot of dangerous things even when they are useful when used for a specific purpose. Since Oklahoma City, people cannot possess high explosives or ANFO in their homes - because the stuff has no legitimize purpose outside of a construction site or mine.
Drugs and pharmaceuticals can only be bought on the order of an MD.
Automobiles have all kind of restrictions on how they are built and used.
What legitimate hunting purpose does an assault rifle or any kind of pistol have? Virtually no good purpose. My home state doesn't even allow semiautomatic rifles at all for hunting - even .22 semi's for squirrels.
It is the NRA/gun people who harbor all kinds of fetishes about guns - the wildest ones being that they somehow assure the US will never use military force against it's citizenry. I mean, look at how all well those AK-47's in the hands of many Palestinians and every Iraqi did in keeping the US and the Israeli Blackhawks, F-15's and Predator drones away, and before that, keeping Saddam from ruling with violent impunity.
You did know that the dictator Saddam encouraged every Iraqi male adult to keep an AK-47 and supply of ammo, didn't you?
It is the rule of law and a constitution that preserves democracy. Assault-rifle wielding, cop-killing crazies like Richard Poplawski do not further the cause of democracy. Three fine policemen would probably sill be alive if that gun-crazed right-wing nut didn't get his hands on an AR-15 at a nearby gun shop. And now, we can forget about any progress on abolishing the death penalty - a prerequisite for being considered a democracy in much of the world. Pennsylvania will probably now start on a orgy of executions including Mumia Abu Jamal.
If the fear du jour is Mexican drug gangs armed with military weapons, there's an even easier solution than banning gun sales: legalize drugs. The cartels would go out of business overnight, the Constitution and Bill of Rights would suffer no further abuse, and scarce resources could be reallocated (like maybe chasing down Wall Street fraudsters?) for the benefit of all.
Agreed. Personally, I fear not having the same if not better weaponry than the police and the military. I sure as hell don't want to be disarmed or have the arms I have to be so completely inadequate that I can't defend myself against the biggest armed gangs that I know of...the US Military and the local PD.
edit: I believe that the Second Amendment was placed there to allow citizens to be armed with the same type of weaponry as the army. All you constitutionalists out there can correct me if I'm wrong.
I thought the 2nd amendment had a part that said something along the lines of 'as part of a state militia'. Seems to me that if you're in the militia, you can have access to firearms. The idea of letting civvies have the same firepower as the army has is insane; the army does have nukes after all, it also has napalm, access to white phosphorus, chemical weapons, artilery, etc.
Saturnalia
Intelligently and persuasively well stated as the first part of the 2nd amendment dealing with a well regulated militia always seems to be ignored by the gun fanatics.
I would love to see the USA have the same sane approach to gun ownership as New Zealand, but one has to wonder about a citizenry which would give more power to control their everyday lives as the one government we have.
This government cannot be trusted. Have not you figured this out? The USA government tortures with impunity, invades nations without legal authority, commits the worst kind of war crimes murdering millions of children and innocent people, robs the treasury of trillions of dollars, ships good production jobs to Communist countries, and enforces draconian drug laws.
Need I go on? If you support more gun control, which will be run by the criminal administration in Washington, you don't deserve freedom, rights, or a job.
You got to be the stupid.
So you need a gun to protect yourself from the government? Well, good luck with that!
In the meantime, kids are dying because daddy went berserk and killed his wife and the kids before killing himself. If he lived anywhere else in the world, he’d probably go to a bar, get drunk and start a brawl. He’d spend a night in jail and that would be the end of the story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/opinion/14herbert.html?_r=1
Excerpt: "Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country’s attention understandably turned to terrorism, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in nonterror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it — 120,000 dead. That’s nearly 25 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Not to mention all of the times that people have taken up arms against the us gov't. From the Whiskey rebellion to the civil war to the branch dividians, each time a group has tried to 'preserve their freedoms' from the 'evil federal government' the rebels have had their butts kicked six ways from sunday. It's never worked, why do people insist that they still need their guns to do a job that cannot ever be accomplished?
By now it should be evident that gun nuts don't approach these issues rationally. It's all pubescent, ego building fantasy for them. Why else would the Turner Diaries be such a perennial favorite among them? Americans swim in a sea of guns, legal and extra-legal; and 81 of us die by gun violence every day, half by suicide, half by assault. Yet we're assured by the crazies that we're safer because of their guns. It's hard to decide who's crazier. It would almost be worth having a military takeover by the "gummint" to see all these Rambo wannabes confront reality for a change.
Then why not disarm the army? Switzerland has no problem training all regular citizens (and arming the lot, btw) to DEFEND their country. Why can't we wield the same arms as an infantry soldier? Is it perhaps because our army is not for defense but offense?
What makes a soldier or a police officer any better of a person than you? Hir is no more moral, ethical or righteous than I and in most cases, they're probably less so because there are no checks upon hir ability to kill with impunity.
I refuse to accept the notion that the government should be armed and I defenseless. If that was a valid viewpoint, then the Revolutionary War would never have happened and trust me, a revolutionary ass whipping is just what the power elites need right now.
I don't see anyone in government addressing the reasons why people are running around killing themselves and their families. They don't address the horrible mind destroyer that is our education system. They won't address the poverty and lack of resources that their financial pyramid schemes have thrust millions into. They just talk about the guns. As if a well fed, well paid, well housed and well treated person goes around doing these things.
Black_Anarch;
The revolution in the 18th century was one that was conducted by the elite of the time against a government that was accross an ocean. It took weeks to months to get a message from London to New York. It wasn't the weaponry that won that revolt, it was the fact that England was banko from the 7 years was and France was willing to back your little escapade to get revenge against the English for winning the 7 years war.
The fact remains that all those who've taken up arms against the us gov't since 1789 have been hanged, shot or jailed for life. You are defenceless, even if you have the arsenal of Koresh...
You guys sometimes make me so angry sometimes!
Sure Obama is a shill and all that other stuff you say all the time.
But, you seem to forget that politics is a game! To make a point think of it like this.
Picture we had a person that wanted to and was able to do 10 great things for the country, but comes at a cross road where if that person goes down the wrong road, will commit political suicide and then will never accomplish a single one of those 10 Great things.
Or a person that comes to that road, and makes the choice that may not be the best, but will allow him/her to stay in office long enough to do at least a few of those 10 things.
I hate this system, but I hate more people that don't understand the system, and instead insist that a person do what progressives see as the "Right Thing" even though they would cease to exist as a politician ever again.
You know what you get in this system when you try and do the right thing? You get Gravel, McKinney, Kucinich, Paul, etc.....
Sure they sound good on paper, but they have officially failed, because they will never get into office to do any of the "Right Things". Because this is AMERICA. We don't have a system that will allow the "Right Thing" To be done.
It's the system stupid's!! Just saying how bad Obama is, makes you just as foolish as people that voted for him hoping for change.
Nothing good will ever come of this country unless we change the system. Until we do, the best we can hope for is another Obama.
Someone that will do some bad, but will also do a little good. I will take a person that can get a little done that will move the country forward, over someone who couldn't get a damn thing done. Not because of fault of there own, but because we live in a broken country with a broken system.
So that's why people like me voted for Obama. Since everyone keeps saying we were fooled.
Because yes the Lesser of two Evils is the system we have. And please don't give me that if people only voted in there interest line.
Because of the broken system, People don’t know what their interests are. Madison Ave tells them what their interests are. Fox tells them what their interests are.
Ugh, this is so hopeless
O Rei de Reis:
Ah, the Dr. Panglosses of this world never cease to be spawned. Didn't Dr. P teach Candide that "this is the best of all possible worlds" and isn't this the credo of "lesser evilism" today? (It ain't perfect, but its the best you can get). When Candide met Pangloss after his enforced exile in the world and discovered the excruciating evils of "this" world, he beat the crap out of his old mentor. While Candide retired into the passivity of "cultivating his own garden," revolutionaries like Rousseau took the opposite conclusion of the "social contract" which is mimicked in our Declaration of Independence: that governments are instituted among men for the good (not the lesser evil) of the governed, and after a "train of abuses" they have every right to throw the government over and re-constitute it according to their ideals. (They could even---shudder---amend the 2d Amendment). It's probably too much to ask anyone today to read Voltaire's Candide, but even school children read and they used to memorize the Declaration of Independence.
I agree that we have every right to throw the Government over and Re-constitute it. I totally agree with that.
My only complaint would be HOW, when the SYSTEM, has tranquilized the people?
I'm glad to see we're in total agreement; and I hope you'll join me and many others in the relentless search for HOW meaningful change can be accomplished in a tranquilized poulation and an intolerable SYSTEM. If we can't find it, we may as well not have the "right." Jerry
Bill Clinton helped sell more "assault weapons" than anyone alive. I don't believe the AWB would have ever happened if the gun manufacturers didn't want it. Turned out to be a very profitable marketing strategy, didn't it?
Want to stop drug related violence? LEGALIZE IT.
Let's see... National Rifle Association membership, est. 3.5 million.
U.S.A. population: est. 304 million.
So our gun policies are based on not "upsetting" about 1 percent of the population?
Makes total sense to me...
... considering that the one percent is the most heavily-armed.
· Yr Obd't Servant
And considering that one perscent controls more than 75% of our elected officials.
Maybe some Hubris, but you get the point.
Or maybe, just maybe, there isn't the widespread support for gun control that some advocates for gun control, such as the writer, would like to believe.
Is the problem loose gun laws or the drug prohibition that produces drug gangs like liquor prohibition produced the mafia?
Sioux Rose
I can't recall the name of the film about Isadora Duncan; but when she came to the U.S. (New York) with her then Russian lover, reporters asked the man's opinion of America; and he summarized it in a succinct poem: The gun. Apt, I'd say.
Sioux Rose
Could that be the British 1968 film entitled, appropriately enough, Isadora, starring Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox, and Jason Robards Jr.?
Who will face down the gun lobby? Easy question to answer - no one!!
That one percent of the population (NRA) may control fifty percent of the weapons in the country and know how to use them. They also probably have about ten years worth of ammo stockpiled. Not a good group to oppose in a big way. Besides that, we all know that if everyone has a concealed weapon loaded up ready to go, violence will go down. In our state, we even are considering legislation to allow concealed carry in churches, and in other states, in colleges. Soon we will have no more killings and can thank the NRA for their wisdom. Obama even wants to take away our 410 gauge shotguns, I hear.
So violence will go down because everyone is in a constant state of preparedness to kill or be killed. "An armed society is a polite society" as they say. This idea is sick-sick sick! I would not want to live in such a society
And, of course, gun advocates are invariable a extremist right-reactionary bunch - full of all that racism and paranoia I encounter among typical suburbia-throwbacks.
You mean like in Dafur and Somalia? The fantasy of a wild west style pacem induced by an armed and ready citizenry works only in the fevered imaginations of the gun culture and its carefully culled examples.
...and totally fictitious 1950s TV serial-westerns.
Ther never were any Cartwrights, and "Ponderosa" is the just the name of a kind of pine tree. The never was a "Cheyenne" - it is a just the name of town in Cheneys home state.
No one will at the present time: and considering the sheer number of right wing crazies stocking up on guns and ammunition, progressives would be well advised to do so as well.
If we ban guns someday, how will we ever be able to rise up against corporate America and restore democracy?
How much simpler life would have been if the Second Amendment guaranteed ever American's right to live in a gun free society.
More Americans died from gunfire in Houston last year than in Iraq. Damn terrorists!
According to stats compiled by the FBI, a gun in the house has a 47 times greater chance of being used on a family member than an intruder. We need guns to protect us from our families stupid!
Every American should have the right to bear a small nuclear warhead... but in self-defence only.
A goverment that does not trust you with means to overthrow it, is not worthy of our trust. By the way a nuclear warhead is a bomb not a small arm. These drug gangs in Mexico have millions of dollars, you realy think the US is the only place they can buy guns from? I have seen those photos of arm stock piles confiscated from drug gangs, guys those guns did not come from the US, 90% from the US is a lie!
dagger;
Did you ever hear of the Whiskey Rebellion? You don't have the means to overthrow your government. (unless you do it thru the ballot box, and there aren't that many yanks who bother to show up anyhow) You never had the ability to overthrow a government, in your revolution you just established the principle of home rule, but your revolt didn't affect the British Government all that much (except, perhaps, it might have made them sneakier about how they ruled their colonies). Face it, in 1776 you cost Britain more than you were worth.
As far as the mexican drug gangs go, yes they do indeed get the majority of their arms from the usa. Just like the canadian drug gangs get most of their weaponry from your fucking ultra violent nation of barbarism.
The ballot box can be taken from the goverment if they so choose. I will not be some cowarding victom, the goverment can not protect you, it is up to me to take care of my family and by God I will, what ever it takes. I will not be ruled by some king or dictator.
Some argue that the goverment did take away the ballot box with the appointment of g bush as predident in 2000, he certainly ruled as if he were a king or dictator. All of your guns didn't help you preserve your freedoms from the tyrant then.
Dagger, you might be able to shoot a few people with them, but in reality should you be fool enought to shoot a cop with one of them, the media will portray you as a cowardly lunatic.
I do not plan to shoot anyone, thats not the reason I own firearms, to kill anther human out of anger or malac is a sin aginst God. But I see through out history how the armed oppress the un-armed and that will not be me. Rights are not established out of need but out of want. I have a problem with people who yell GUN CONTROL, they seek to punish all for the sins of a few.
War Criminals and banksters own the government and this bozo comes up with another way to distract the stupid population.
Gee, crime committed with guns is bad. But, crime committed by the government is orders of magnitude worse.
Get a grip, get a perspective, and get over it.
Re hoytdouglas April 20th, 2009 10:10 pm
Agreed that this is another wedge issue and a distraction.
And for a a small dose of perspective: full-auto AKs and M-16s, such as were recently confiscated from narcotraficantes, are not available over the counter anywhere in the US without a Class III FFL; 40mm RPGs and frags are unobtainable outside the military.
Obviously, when you have as much money as these guys, even the toughest laws are no obstacle to getting whatever you want.
Hoytdouglas,
I don't think Bernie Maddoff made shoplifting any more acceptable. A big crime doesn't make a smaller crime look any better. (That's not to say that crime committed with guns is necessarily "small crime". Not if you're the victim.)