Obama is 100 percent right on this one. Damned straight the issue of gun safety in this country needs to be politicized. The NRA has long ago politicized the issue of "gun rights."
I'm posting a story on Obama's reaction to the Oregon shooting, because the numbers contained in this story are staggering. This is the FIFTEENTH major mass shooting during the president's less than six years in office!
Until American citizens wake up and REALLY care about this issue, it's only going to get worse. The Internet is a major contributor to making this country less safe from gun nuts. In this case, apparently other people in a chat room encouraged the Oregon shooter to do it. And the NRA is also making this country less safe, by making it easier and easier for each and every gun nut to have a house FULL of guns of any and all types if that's what they want.
I've posted here on mass shootings before, because they really make me angry. Outraged that the politicians in this country REFUSE TO DO ANYTHING except make guns more and more accessible to people who should not have them. Obama is right. If you live in a district that is represented by lawmakers who are beholden to the NRA and consistently vote against our right to a safer America, VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE.
As the victim of a previous mass shooting said, "Your right to gun ownership is not more important than my right to LIVE."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-deliver-state … 04047.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/us/tennessee-girl-k … index.html
Here's an excellent op-ed from the NY Times that came out yesterday. If anything, it demonstrates how taking even incremental steps towards limiting the sales, movements, and tracking of guns in the US are absolutely stymied whenever and wherever possible. :(
At the end of the day, it's all about guns and money: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/opinion/who-the … pe=article
Cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez from the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/t … th-gun-lob
And yes, Art, Fur is right on what I meant. Because of the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court rulings, and the fact that gun control is for the most part political poison to lawmakers, there isn't anything that can address the central issue that you point out. So the best we can do is try to come up with measures that nibble around the edges and try to restrict some types of weapons and limit some types of people (such as those with mental illness and criminal records) from legally acquiring them. The NRA and GOP won't allow any real discussion of the issue, so all the mass shootings are like Groundhog Day. They're incredibly sad, incredibly stupid, we say something should be done about it, and nothing ever is. Repeat cycle every few months. ...
The Oregon shooting was almost deja vu of Sandy Hook. The young man's mother was a gun extremist and bragged online about taking the young man shooting and always keeping a fully loaded AR 15 and AK 47 in the house. The young man may have been Autistic, and on top of that he grew up in a household like that!!!! He (and his victims) never had a chance.
The only thing that we citizens can do is advocate for our legislators to pass laws, such as Bear argues in his letter, to restrict the unfettered sales of arms.
You're right too: just because it's legal to bear arms does not mean that they can be used for criminal activity. From my perspective, your hospital analogy is off the mark. The right to bear arms is tied up in a tension between the government and citizens that existed over 200 years ago, and that, depending on where you live in the US today (and/or how paranoid you are), is prevalent today. No one, even the most hardened gun rights' supporters, would see good in the killing of innocent people.
Regardless of how you view it, I agree, the world is a sad place at times.
BearinFW, you wrote - "Yes, I am fully aware that the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment guarantee the right of gun ownership. That isn't the issue here." -
I think it IS the issue. The same way laws can provide security - like all laws relating to equality rights - , laws can lessen the security. The 'right' to own a gun does implicitly mean that the owner CAN use it. Can legally use it to commit a ilegal crime.
And there is no big a difference if bombing a hospital in name of the 'greater good'.
The World is sad place sometimes. :(
But if we are just answering the "outlaw" question theoretically ... if guns were banned, it wouldn't have an immediate effect because there are so many out there. However, it would make a difference over time. Guns would gradually become rarer and rarer and more and more expensive. Countries with little to no gun ownership suffer relatively little gun violence. Fifty, 100 years down the road, gun violence would decrease here, too.
But as has been noted many times, politicians have no interest in doing ANYTHING other than expanding gun rights. It's impossible to even do something like limit guns to mentally ill people. We've reached the point that the political view on guns is ridiculous! Despite the carnage, the public doesn't seem to care that much. Until the public voice (and dollars) is louder than the NRA's, nothing's going to change. I won't be surprised if Republican lawmakers in some areas start pushing for mandatory gun ownership!!!
This has always been a concern I've had but at same time I'm sick of hearing about yet another waste of promising life. You are very intelligent and probably thought this out already is why I ask
This will do about as much good as beating my head against the wall, but I can guarantee you I'll never vote for this bitch:)
She's my state Senator, but she doesn't represent me or anything I care about at all. I wish I could run against her.
Ms. Burton:
I'm a constituent of yours, and although I am not a Tea Party activist, you do represent me, too. My vote and my safety should matter to you, too.
Today, 10 more innocent people were slaughtered. This time in Oregon. This was the 15th MAJOR mass slaying in the 5 1/2 years that President Obama has been in office, and the 124th school shooting since Sandy Hook.
Yes, I am fully aware that the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment guarantee the right of gun ownership. That isn't the issue here. Nobody is coming to take your constituents' guns away.
But there are common-sense things that can be done to help prevent tragedies like this. I hope you are not so much in the hip pocket of the NRA that you think the only solution to the gun problem in this country is to arm Americans with MORE guns.
Did you realize that gun deaths in this country have either surpassed traffic fatalities or are on the verge of it? (They were just slightly behind in the last figures I saw from 2012.)
We have been improving automobile safety for decades, yet on guns we're moving in the opposite direction, and no one seems to care.
We focus heavily on the drug problem in this country. Yet one could easily make the same logic that hard-core gun advocates do: Heroin doesn't kill people. They kill themselves by using it. So why is heroin illegal?
Guns that are manufactured whose sole purpose is to kill people, and there are many of them, should be much more tightly regulated. There is no constitutional right to kill other people.
This quote from a victim of another recent mass shooting really struck me and made an impression on me:
"Your right to gun ownership is not more important than my right to LIVE."
I hope you will keep that in mind the next time minor restrictions on, for example, the mentally ill being allowed to own guns, come up. The 2nd Amendment does NOT guarantee the right of all Americans to own any kind and as many weapons as they want. Even on the 1st Amendment, there are restrictions on the amendment's scope. The same is true of the 2nd, even if the NRA fails to recognize it.
And I am not an anti-gun activist. Merely one of your constituents who is tired of the SLAUGHTER of innocents. There are things that could be done to address it. But nobody seems to have the compassion and the courage to do so.