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WILLIE BROWN: Assault weapons have no place on streets
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/29/9 | Willie Brown

Posted on 03/29/2009 9:21:14 AM PDT by SmithL

If there's one lesson to be learned from the tragedy in Oakland, it's that there should be no debate about taking assault weapons off the streets.

There is no civil liberties issue here. There is no justification for an AK-47 in private hands. Period.

There used to be a nationwide ban on assault rifles, until it expired in 2004. We should bring it back.

As for what to do in high-crime neighborhoods, I've been there, and the only answer is to be tough.

Public safety cannot be subjected to popularity. You've got to execute on the basis of what you believe will make it safe, and you've got to be prepared to take the heat.

Police departments are paramilitary organizations. They can't be made up of social workers. Officers risk their lives every day, and you've got to back them.

If there's an incident like the BART police shooting of Oscar Grant, you have to be decisive as well. Investigations have to be quick and they have to be thorough.

But regardless of the rhetoric you hear in some street protests, this is not the '60s.

In the '60s, African Americans didn't have all the protections we have now.

We didn't have power in the cities, with people like Elihu Harris or myself as mayors. We didn't have Eric Holder as attorney general. We didn't have Barack Obama as president.

We're past the time when people weren't being served at lunch counters because they were black.

It's a new day and we should be living in it, not always looking back.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; assaltweapons; banglist; willieword
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To: Joe Brower
The gun-grabbing zombies of yesteryear continue to come out of the woodwork.

Also titled..."When Idiots Attack".

61 posted on 03/29/2009 3:20:21 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: SmithL
His words were for the black community; obviously. reading between his lines, Willie Brown is telling the black community to just "toughen up" and let law enforcement do all the protecting against the gangs.

This is hidious counsel. Oakland was there back in the 70s and 80s; and it made things worse, not better, and because people were having to live below the window line all the time.

As for what to do in high-crime neighborhoods, I've been there, and the only answer is to be tough.

Yeah right. Willie was "there" when he was a cabbie starting to hook up ladies of the night to form COYOTE from which Willie got his first political constituency - madams and their Johns. Back then, "high crime" was equivalent to what goes on in suburbia. No, Willie, you haven't been "there". Once you made it big you lived in the good gated parts, taxpayerfunded security, cars, etc. And you still live that way. Comparing your "then" to what is now is incomparable.

People in the community need to have self-defense, and to also work with the police.

62 posted on 03/29/2009 3:45:59 PM PDT by Alia
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To: Allegra

Willie-Pooh is Pet Rock dumb.

Gun control in America was racist in origin.

When the KKK night riders found their dirty sheets were cotton, not Kevlar, they got together and had gun laws passed that disarmed the Blacks.

Night riding was made safe for the KKK by gun control.

Got that bit of history, Willie?


63 posted on 03/29/2009 3:52:57 PM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: SmithL

Damn! I’m missing out. I’ve never seen one in the street, I’ve only seen them in gun shows or shops, where they were offered for a pretty penny. Tell me, O great politician, where I can find them in the streets, so that I may take them off your mind (for only a nominal fee).


64 posted on 03/29/2009 5:16:53 PM PDT by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: OKSooner
Pity, you missed the point of my sarcasm.

You are lost in the weeds on the details.

It is not how you divide up the weapons that is important.

Gun ownership is either a Constitutional right or it is not.

With all new laws you have to ask: How will this stop the CRIMINAL mis-use of weapons.

65 posted on 03/29/2009 6:11:11 PM PDT by Mikey_1962 (Obama: The Affirmative Action President)
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To: SmithL; All

“There is no justification for an AK-47 in private hands. Period.”


Why not? Full auto military arms in the streets of Switzerland has worked out very well indeed. It kept them out of WWII and has kept them one of the most free and most prosperous nations on earth.

On days when there are shooting competitions, the streets of Switzerland swarm with men, women and children carrying full auto rifles.

It is common to see full auto rifles being carried by citizens in Israel.

Automatic rifles in the hands of citizens is a sign of freedom the around the world. It is those who are disarmed that are in danger.


66 posted on 03/29/2009 8:22:06 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: SmithL
comment vigorously removed by moderator

Where does this guy get the audacity to say that a group of firearms should be banned due to cosmetics?

67 posted on 03/29/2009 9:03:47 PM PDT by wastedyears (April 21st, 2009 - International Iron Maiden Day)
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To: SmithL

Enforce the laws you’ve got, Willie. Better yet, relax the laws so that the good guys can arm and protect themselves since it is clear that your pathetic government can’t or won’t protect them.


68 posted on 03/29/2009 9:05:50 PM PDT by behzinlea
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To: Joe Brower
The gun-grabbing zombies of yesteryear continue to come out of the woodwork.

Indeed.

WWGARD?

(What Would George A. Romero Do?)

69 posted on 03/29/2009 9:12:10 PM PDT by Charles Martel ("Endeavor to persevere...")
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To: OKSooner
If you look closely at their list, you'll see a clause for "anything procured for military use".

That language should make for a field day ta SCOTUS. How would they ever reconcile that with the language of the Miller decision?

70 posted on 03/29/2009 10:49:13 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: SmithL
[Willie "Grafter" Brown, in Article] There is no justification for an AK-47 in private hands.

You're right, Willie, you scumbag, there isn't any "justification" -- but there is a right, which you are not about to take away!

And yes, Willie -- they're all pointed at you, just as Hamilton and Madison intended they should be, when they wrote their Federalist articles about the Militia as the guarantor of the People's safety from the conspiracies and machinations of characters like you!

You scumbag! Get lost!

71 posted on 03/30/2009 2:14:09 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: SmithL
[Bagman Willie, in Article] As for what to do in high-crime neighborhoods, I've been there.....

Yeah, you sure were, bag man, slumming around the red-light district in one of your dozens of Armani suits and repping for pimps and pushers.

You, the archpimp's lawyer, are gonna tell us how to make the streets safe -- LOL!

What a scumbag!

72 posted on 03/30/2009 2:16:59 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: Mikey_1962
So a traditional 30.06 M1 Garand, or 30 caliber M1 Carbine, are ok, but a semi auto CAR15 with the far smaller .223 caliber is not.

Check me if I'm wrong, but don't .30 Carbine (feeding the M-1 carbine), .223/5.56mm NATO, and the AK's 7.62x39mm ammunition pack about the same ballistics (roughly)?

All of which come up very short against the 30-06 and .308 (7.62 NATO) "full-sized" .30-cal. rounds, which group energywise with .300 Savage, .303 British, .30-30, .30-40 Krag, and the full-sized Russian 7.62x54R (rimmed).

73 posted on 03/30/2009 2:31:25 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: SmithL
Willie should get down to the root of black violence in black communities - absentee black fathers.

Kids with no parents - especially male kids with no fathers - find role models and “families” elsewhere - in the wrong places.

So, when Black Americans get serious about their community's lack of responsibility in parenting black youth, then maybe I'll listen to them about gun violence.

But my guess is if they ever do, gun violence will cease to be a major problem for Black Americans.

74 posted on 03/30/2009 9:56:38 AM PDT by ZULU (Obamanation of Desolation is President. Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.)
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To: SmithL

What if you just keep criminals with convictions for previous gun crimes off the street, instead of letting them out on parole?


75 posted on 03/30/2009 10:00:59 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Domandred
Yes it was an SKS. Gun grabbers don’t know, and don’t care about the difference.

Nor do they seem to know that both were readily available under the AWB.

76 posted on 04/01/2009 2:15:34 PM PDT by gundog
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