"Only criminals should have guns!"
Posted on 01/11/2011 9:04:15 PM PST by Second Amendment First
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is rejecting gun-control legislation offered by the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in response to the weekend shootings of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 19 others in Arizona.
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) announced plans Tuesday to introduce legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.
King, who has previously called for the removal of illegal guns from the streets, made the announcement alongside New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation’s loudest voices for stricter gun laws.
King said the legislation is not intended only for the safety of government officials but also to protect the public. He said elected officials are not necessarily more important than constituents, but by protecting them in this way, they would feel safer in meeting federal officials at public events.
“The fact is they do represent the people who elect them, and it’s essential, if we’re going to continue to have contact, that the public who are at these meetings are ensured of their own safety,” King said.
King’s legislation got the cold shoulder from Boehner and other Republicans after it was announced.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the Speaker would not support King’s legislation.
The office of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the majority leader is reserving judgment until the King bill is finalized.
“Mr. Cantor believes it’s appropriate to adequately review and actually read legislation before forming an opinion about it,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring stated in an e-mail.
The immediate rejection of King’s legislation by Boehner illustrates the difficulty gun-control advocates will face in moving forward with any legislation.
Even Capitol Hill’s most ardent gun reformers don’t anticipate any changes to the nation’s gun laws will be forthcoming in the 112th Congress. They say the combination of a GOP-led House and the powerful gun lobby is simply too formidable to take on over an issue that’s become a proverbial third rail of Washington politics.
“Anything you can get through the gun lobby is going to have little consequence,” Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a longtime supporter of tightening Second Amendment restrictions, said in a phone interview. “I don’t see the likelihood of much progress — I don’t see much hope.”
Aside from King’s proposal, longtime gun-control advocates Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) are working on legislation to prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines like those allegedly used by Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old college dropout who’s been charged in the Arizona rampage.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers say the public debate about whether incendiary punditry helped ignite the Arizona rampage has overshadowed the more important role that mental health played in the deadly shooting.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said the sometimes violence-laced remarks from Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and other political commentators should be toned down, but were likely not the impetus for the shooting spree.
“Whether you blame them or any of those things on what happened, I don’t think is the issue,” Brown said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Rather, the reportedly erratic behavior of Loughner should have raised red flags about his mental health, Brown said — flags that might have led to treatments that could have prevented the tragic shootings.
“The mental health issues here haven’t been talked about much. We don’t really have much of a mental health safety net in this country. You know, there’s almost nobody watching today,” Brown said.
Although Loughner’s behavior reportedly set off enough alarms that he was expelled from community college and denied entrance into the military, he had no problems buying a hand gun from a local sporting goods store in November .
“This young man should have been [red-flagged] when he was thrown out of that community college,” Brown said. “The mental health safety net’s pretty shredded in Arizona, as it is nationally.”
King’s proposal perplexed some members of Congress, who wondered how it would be implemented because members are so mobile and often encounter individuals without knowledge that a congressional event is taking place.
“I think my concern would be, how do you put a 1,000-foot bubble around a member of Congress and what are you going to do about judges and Cabinet secretaries?” asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). “If you get past the logistics of it, it would seem to have a ripple effect throughout the upper echelons of appointed and elected officials.”
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, Andrew Arulanandam, said this week that it would be “inappropriate” for the group to comment on potential reforms so soon after the tragedy.
Our liberal lords want to be protected from the peasants... and while they’re at it, they want to take away our 2nd Amendment rights.
HELL, NO! OVER OUR DEAD BODIES!!!
MOLON LABE!
I never will comprehend why those who want to ban firearms can’t comprehend that those who want to kill someone already plan on breaking the law and aren’t going to quibble over a gun law!! All these laws do is disarm those who would protect themselves and their loved ones. Liberalism is not being able to take something to its logical end from a specific premise.
"Only criminals should have guns!"
What, 20,000 gun laws aren’t enough?
Everything this cretin did in Arizona is ALREADY illegal.
At one time I had a lot of hope for Cantor but he’s striking me as being way too soft.
I knew someone was going to bash Cantor. I kinda liked what he had to say. It was a slam at Pelosi and the Democrats. See I want him to read EVERYTHING no matter if he agrees with or doesn’t agree with the legislation. I am a supervisor for twenty Sailors and they will request all kinds of things from liberty, leave, schools, second jobs, etc. They do a request and I read each request even if I don’t agree with what they are asking. It is just the right thing to do. If you think about it, this was a total slam on Pelosi.....you have to see the humor in it. Canton will vote it down but he is doing the right thing by reading it.
No, KIng needs a primary challenge. What a moron!
Yep. The 1000’ gun-free zones works really well for schools.
“Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) announced plans Tuesday to introduce legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.”
My first reaction to that was - will that also apply to gun-toting SEIU thugs at town hall meetings???
You make some excellent points and I hope someone in our new Congress thinks of them as well.
I was shocked and disappointed when I saw today that Pete King proposed this. He’s usually so outspoken about terrorism and radical Islam that I don’t know what he was thinking here.
“Like any manager, expect Cantor to be respectful of his troops in public — especially when discussing their actions with the press.”
Indeed, I hope that’s the case, because I’ve been having a lot of doubts about Cantor lately.
Kill 0bamaCare!
First, it's 1,000 feet for members of Congress. Next it will be 1,000 feet from any elected member of any level of government. When that happens, there will not be anyone who could possibly own (or possess) any gun in any manner that would not be illegal since it would be impossible to be in any area that is not 1,000 feet from some type of elected official, from the federal level down to the local level.
What a great plan to circumvent the 2nd Amendment!
"A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, Andrew Arulanandam, said this week that it would be “inappropriate” for the group to comment on potential reforms so soon after the tragedy."
It would be "inappropriate" would it???????? Just when would it be appropriate?
The NRA has become gutless and during my long lifetime I supported the organization with vigor. Now it has become politically correct and walks on "political eggshells" and is afraid to offending it's adversaries.
Not the right time my butt...it is exactly the right time for them to speak out loudly and often for we are engaged in a total war with those who wish to disarm us in order to make us slaves to the government. If the NRA does not have the stomach to fight it, then it's time to find (or organize) a movement that will.
Why don’t we have a rule that politicians have to stay 1000 feet away from our money?
The loons are only making themselves look stupid and opportunisitc making allegations and pushing new laws before the dead are in the ground. Even some of my liberal friends can see this and they are becoming quite vocal against their own side about this stupidity.
If this prohibition includes the Secret Service as well, I'm all for it.
I hope The Human Tear duct can keep a tight reign on the RINO’s in the House.
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
Full stop.
End of story.
King is on the Homeland Security Committee. This kind of stupidity might explain why we are all being ritually sexually molested at our airports now.
All the Republicans (and Lieberman) who have been involved in creating extreme “safety” measures and expanding the meaning of terrorism from Islamic terrorists to politically determined “domestic terrorists”, need to be removed from anything to do with fighting terrorism at this point.
They have carelessly betrayed the American people and the constitution with their stupidity - political correctness. King is still advancing that ball of molestating the Bill of Rights in the name of “safety” even after the election.
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