President Obama said, “In the days ahead, I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality. If there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.”
President Obama has announced his plan to reduce gun violence in America. The plan includes universal background checks, a ban on military-style weapons, limits on high-capacity magazines, and new gun trafficking laws. The New York Times reports,
President Obama called upon Congress on Wednesday to toughen America’s gun laws to confront mass shootings and everyday gun violence, betting that public opinion has shifted enough to support the broadest push for gun control in a generation.
He also promised to act without Congressional approval to increase the enforcement of existing gun laws and improve the flow of information among federal agencies to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others who shouldn’t have them.
Wednesday’s announcement reflected a decision by the White House to seize on public outrage to challenge the political power of the National Rifle Association and other forces that have successfully fought new gun laws for decades.
This is the first major push on gun control at a federal level in nearly twenty years, though it remains to be seen how the legislative portion of the agenda will fare with an entrenched Republican majority in the House, and whether the proposed provisions will prove effective.
Photo:AP/File
Terry.
Two points. The Bushmaster is a tricked-up, small caliber semi-automatic rifle. Exactly the same thing is sold looking like my grandfather’s varmint rifle from the farm. But the tactical cosmetics change exactly nothing about its use or effectiveness.
Secondly, the Second Amendment is not about hunting or sportshooting. It is, as one judge said, about shooting tyrants.
Starting with redcoats.
Yawn- NRA gets its knickers in a twist over even the most restrained gun control proposal(NB assualt style weapons such as the Bushmaster AR-15 that Adam Lanza used in his killing spree at Newton have NO hunting or sporting applications) As an outsider (British) I for one am bemused by the demonization of any who point out that other Western style democracies( UK and other EU states, Australia, Canada and Japan)have much tougher gun controls without demonstratably impairing democratic principles such as my expatriate countryman Piers Morgan!
Cracked up, not in a good way, at an observation about this:
The elites really don’t care about you. They don’t want you to be able to defend yourself. It gives you too much power and independence. They’ve hired these nice people to draw chalk lines around your kids’ bodies. You should feel good about that.
I gather it was the CDC which studied the previous ten-year assault weapons ban and discovered it had no effect whatsoever.
Now, let’s presume for the sake of argument that the president’s plan saves one life. That is, a mass shooter shoots one less kid. Somehow. But do the restrictions reduce the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against criminals who pay no attention to the new program and cost, say, one life? Two?
This is not a one-sided coin.
Interesting that people pretend it is.
I’m on Obama’s side on this one, but I cringe whenever I hear rhetoric like “if we save one life, it will all be worth it.” Because, that’s not always true! A single human life cannot be worth an infinite amount of money. It just can’t. If every single life is worth infinity, then society would completely fall apart. It is possible to waste resources or restrict everyone else’s freedom to such a degree that it’s NOT worth the saving of only one life. I’m not saying Obama’s plan is more trouble than it’s worth, but I get really nervous… Read more »
That’s a fair point. Unpleasant from a purely idealistic stance, but legitimate nonetheless.
Did I miss the part where Obama decided not to ship weapons to drug cartels?
Okay, I’ll speak for my side of the Valles Marianas. To those of us who own guns, the short answer to further gun control is “Foxtrot Yankee, over!” At this point, the Administration is well aware of how serious the gun community has gotten about armed conflict. There are roughly 100,000 actual shooters out there who are ready to go live *right now* and another half million or so who would jump in not too far after. This is not a ‘redneck fantasy’ since .gov does monitor the web and is well aware of how quickly the tide could turn… Read more »
Yep, fantasies of armed revolt and rebellion are depressingly commong among the gun-fondlers. Which should be all the evidence we need to conclude that
1) they’re crazy, and
2) they have no legitimate voice in the running of our society.
Sadly, the Republican-dominated House will continue to grovel to these anti-American lunatics, so nothing will be accomplished.
Ironically, the parts of the country with the loudest secession rhetoric are the states that are the most dependent on federal spending and who receive far more federal money than they pay out in federal taxes. The most vocal secessionists and pseudo-secessionists are in places like Alaska, where the federal government, i.e., the national government, sends way more money than it takes out. It’s the blue states with the cozy liberal pro-government voters who are subsidizing the states with the people who want to leave the union. We bluestaters might actually save a lot of money by letting them leave.… Read more »
copy.
Long as we’re swapping stereotypes, I got a kick out of this one: dems grovel to the folks who can tell the Kardashian sisters apart. Or how many there are.