Posted on 06/08/2005 10:49:17 AM PDT by 45Auto
So much for "anti-gun hysterics" and predictions of "blood running in the streets," a Second Amendment group says.
Nine months after the Clinton-era "assault weapons ban" expired, the FBI has released crime statistics showing a drop in homicides in 2004 -- the first such drop since 1999. The FBI report said all types of violent crime declined last year, and cities with more than a million people showed the largest drops in violent crime.
When the Clinton ban on certain semiautomatic weapons expired last September, gun control groups warned that violent crime would escalate, including violence against children.
But those "doom and gloom" forecasts have been exposed as "pure clap-trap," said SAF President Joe Tartaro.
"Where is the news media on this?" Tartaro wondered. He said if the number of homicides had gone up, reporters would be writing front-page stories linking the rise to the end of the semi-auto ban.
"But that's not the case, and the mainstream press, with the exception of an April 28 New York Times article, has been pretty quiet about it," Tartaro said.
The FBI crime report is more proof that the rhetoric from anti-gunners is bogus, Tartaro added. "The press should now question all the other outrageous claims and predictions from the gun control crowd."
"The gun control movement is, and always has been, built on a foundation of hysteria and lies," SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb said.
"From their lawsuits against gun makers to their assaults on the firearm civil rights of law-abiding American citizens, these gun grabbers have been deliberately deceitful and consistently wrong."
Amen! Love my gun.
DESPITE????????You mean because of.........
Not likely.
"More guns, less crime!"
It is amazing how that seems to happen all over America.
Throw in some mandatory 2 or 3 strike rules to keep liberal judges from releasing professional criminals with the above, and crime rates drop.
Dang it.
The powerful figures in the gun control crowd like Sarah Brady are simply liars; they know the facts but still seek to disarm us because they're evil. I never make the assumption that Brady and folks like her are just dumb like her activist followers. They know what they're doing, they know they're out for more control.
No, like other liberal causes, it has been built on the certainty of certain assumptions the intelligensia have formed. These assumptions could be questioned with evidence and facts -- like the FBI report in this story -- but since the assumptions are "known" to be correct the left must wait until some intellectual elite comes up with another explaination. When this new explaination is found, the media will be only too quick to give it press and air time.
BTTT
Don't be so sure of yourself, Mr. Tartaro. One school shooting with a once-banned gun and it's all over, my friend. They're just biding their time.
Increases and decreases in crime are a product of highs and lows in collective social mood, not availability of firearms:
http://www.socionomics.org/
http://www.babylontoday.com/stocks_bonds.htm
Bing, bang, boom!
Maybe "crime" has dropped because more criminals have realized its easier to make a fortune as attorneys and they all went to law school. There is probably some kind of character link between lawyers and crooks.
Now instead of mugging little old ladies, they are chasing ambulances and running adds about the possible side effects of medicines.
Gun CONTROL
and only the hoplophobic graboids are surprised by this.
I doubt this.
first: define "collective social mood"
second: prove that this exists
third: demonstrate how this will affect the decision making processes of individual hoodlums, where the likelihood of having their heads blown off would not.
Uhm, I thought that was Bush 1's baby.
I printed it out, but I don't have a web link to the article. It said all you might expect, closing with something like "The reason crime didn't drop is because of all the loopholes. If the government were serious about affecting crime rates, it should enact a greatly strengthened AWB that bans many more things, and will never sunset."
If you're not going to read links try using a little logic. Collective social mood is also what drives markets and economies, and when economies sink into recession/depression it further increases low social mood and pessimism. This in turn reduces individual purchasing, manufacturing optimism, and following that job creation. When folks get laid off they can't pay their bills and don't feel so warm and fuzzy. Of course the poor guy in the ghetto has never seen worse prospects for employment and acts accordingly figuring he's got nothing to loose. At least on the inside he gets 3 squares.
The U.S. is BEGINNING to reap the after-effects of the greatest economic and faux money bubble spike peak in the history of the republic.
http://www.babylontoday.com/general_assets.htm#mania
Now suppose that we roughly follow Japan's correction, which would be consistent with EVERY historical correction following this kind of event. However, the Japanese started their depression as the world's leading creditor nation with the world's highest personal savings rate. Today their housing market is at 50% of former values even 25 years later. Do you really think that the kind of economic/banking fallout, from a similar social mood in the U.S., wouldn't increase crime and thereby gun violence?
And then they run for political office and then they pass laws that enable the crooks and disable the good guys.
There is probably some kind of character link between lawyers and crooks.
Well, there certainly is a finacial link.
My apologies to the honest attornies we have here on Free Republic for painting with a broad brush, but they make me mad, dammit!
Now overlay your above graph with one of our increased population over time.
If I recall correctly, it was commonly referred to as the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.
The Bush 1/Clinton years don't look so good.
BANG!
Not doubting you. I just can't recall what was that Bush signed, and what it did. Do you remember?
TY!
The next school shooting rampage is Bush's fault - MSM already has the stories written - just waiting to fill in the where at's and how many's
I think the numbers most closely reflect the crack cocaine phenomenon of that time.
W's stance is hardly comforting either.
In fact, the only party that supports the 2A as written and as intended are those kooks in the LP.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Be Ever Vigilant!
Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!
I recall being miffed when he signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Interesting relationship between M3 and your chart on crimes committed with firearms. Money supply gets squeezed and crime goes up. More phony money printed, crime goes down? Housing market suffered a setback with high mortgage rates in this period as well (as I remember 9%+ rates at peak). Some might say it's a coincidence but I would suggest it is the product of low collective social mood. The same low social mood that threw out a 90% popular George Bush after one term, just months later, perhaps from the same M3 reduction.
http://www.babylontoday.com/#m3
Rubbish.
Republicans have rolled back gun control laws in state after state. At least 46 states have now legallized concealed carry...a far cry from President Carter's last full year (1980).
Dubya's been excellent on pro-gun action, too.
Consider:
Signed TWO bills into law that arm our pilots with handguns in the cockpit
Currently pushing for full immunity from lawsuits for our national gun manufacturers
Ordered Attorney-General Ashcroft to formally notify the Supreme Court that the OFFICIAL U.S. government position on the 2nd Amendment is that it supports INDIVIDUAL rights to own firearms, NOT a leftist-imagined *collective* right
Told the United Nations we weren't interested in their plans for gun control (i.e. the International Ban on Small Arms Trafficking Treaty)
Signed the 2004 Omnibus Budget 1/26/2004 that now MANDATES that gun buyers' background check information be fully and permanently destroyed within 24 hours of the completion of the check, no matter what.
Enacted powerful tort reform legislation that moves many class action lawsuits from state to federal courts. Requires federal courts to hear cases where the amount of the dispute is more than $5 million, and when the defendant and any of the plaintiffs live in different states.
http://www.grangier.fr/news/journal-2004-04-022.txt
Better link for that last URL.
The TSA has so hopelessly snarled the Arming Pilots program that only a handful have even bothered rather than be subject to a Federal equivalent of a proctology exam.
None of which proves the President Bush is any more pro-gun than his father was. If the President is all that gung-ho on Second Amendment issues, why doesn't he repeal Clinton's extension of Bush the Eldar's NORINCO import ban? That'd be easy enough to do and would not require any Congressional help at all.
Face it. Bush just isn't as conservative as we would like. We knew that when we elected him. He was simply better than the alternative even though far from the ideal.
What gun bill should President Bush have vetoed?! He signed the two arming pilots bills into law (and had Mineta fire Magaw for trying to slow that program down). You'd prefer vetoes there?!
He signed the bill into law that lets retired and active cops take concealed weapons into every local, state, and federal "protected" zone. You'd prefer a veto there?!
He signed the bill that took anti-gun-manufacturer product liability cases from state courts into federal courts, too. You'd prefer a veto there?!
Methinks you've got it backwards.
Not true. TSA states clearly that THOUSANDS of commercial pilots are now armed.
You know *NOTHING*.
President GHW Bush's attorney general supported "collective" rights of gun owners.
President GW Bush, in contrast, ordered AG Ashcroft to formally notify the U.S. Supreme Court that the 2nd Amendment supports the rights of the *INDIVIDUAL* to keep and bear arms.
Go study up on the vast legal differences between Collective versus Individual rights. You need a primer for this issue.
Guns save lives!
Out of tens of thousands who have applied. And why do they need to go through MORE background checks? Airline pilots have higher security checks on them than most military contractors do.
And why are you relying on the TSA to tell you what the TSA is doing? Isn't that like trusting the devil to tell you the truth?
Is that why as a State Rep he voted FOR the CGA of '68? Is that why he BANNED import of hi cap mags, "assault weapons", and even endorsed the Brady Bill? Let's also not forget that the groundwork that eventually led to the Waco massacre was done under his watch. Clinton's Reno just pulled the trigger.
And no, it wasn't the President who order the AG to do a damn thing. If you actually read it, you'd see that this report went back to Ashcroft and apparently no where else. Especially considering that this came out around the time of the Silveria case, the handgun case in Washington DC, and the other one in New York where some poor schmuck shot someone breaking into his home with a handgun he was in the process of trying to register.
So why didn't this ever so pro-2A administration step in and throw their weight around? Answer: Because they aren't all that pro-2A. The President is still on record as approving of the AWB. If Congress could have gotten it to his desk, he would have signed it. His positions on the issue from the 2000 elections are STILL on record and even YOU can't be that blind to them.
I'd also point out, that if we had the full force of our individual Second Amendment RIghts, that none of those Laws you are so proud of him signing would have been necessary.
People like you are why our 2A Rights are now little more than a privilage.
You're exactly right; thanks for the links.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.