Posted on 01/20/2011 10:03:46 AM PST by Kaslin
Once again, we hear the old refrain that making it harder for law abiding citizens to purchase guns will make us safer.
Following the January 8th shooting in Tucson, an understandable discomfort swept through the American populace. Jared Loughner had killed six people in cold blood, which means six families were irreversibly changed in an instant. Yet while the discomfort is understandable, many of the suggestions for how to prevent the re-occurrence of such a crime have not been.
This is mainly because the majority of suggestions have included some mention of new gun control measures, whether they are tied to guns themselves or to the magazines used to hold bullets in semi-automatic pistols. Worst of all, these suggestions are being pawned off on the American people as a way for the government to keep us safe.
Have we not yet existed long enough as a nation to know that the government cannot keep us safe under any and every circumstance? Are we not lucid enough as citizens to know that any new government involvement in our lives will diminish our liberties, even if safety is the proposed aim?
Therefore, we should always be wary when politicians are quick to pounce on disaster for political gain as was seen in the aftermath of Tucson.
Since January 8th, members of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” (MAIG) have been among the most vocal pushing for new gun control legislation. One of the members of that group, Carolyn Comitta, mayor of West Chester, PA, said as much when she posited partial blame for the shooting on a “lack of common sense gun laws.”
In March 2009, my Pajamas Media article, “Common Sense Gun Laws: Obama’s Attack on the Second Amendment,” highlighted the manner in which such laws serve as a subterfuge by which the Second Amendment can be skirted, thus opening the door for the government to pass new laws infringing on the very rights our Founders declared should not be infringed upon.
In 2011, as in 2009, the key to understanding the revived push for “common sense gun laws” can be found in the way Mayor Bloomberg implies over and again that there aren’t enough regulations on gun purchases, while MAIG explicitly states that the Tucson shooting was the outgrowth of “insufficient regulations,” among other things. Because more regulations are the real substance of “common sense gun laws,” the push for more such laws should send shudders down the spine of every freedom-loving American. For they entail nothing less than further encroachment into our lives by a government that has taken to itself the extra-constitutional job of babysitting us and looking out for our good — Founders’ intents be damned.
I wonder if Bloomberg, Comitta, and the rest of MAIG have ever really asked themselves this hard question: How many more regulations can be placed upon guns? The idea that they’re not already hyper-regulated is laughable to anyone who has ever tried to buy a handgun in a state in which they aren’t a resident, or walked into the gun store three blocks from home and tried to buy one, or driven across certain state lines with one in the car.
For example, it’s illegal to make a new handgun purchase in any state other than the one in which you’re a resident, unless you purchase it over the internet, have it shipped to a firearms dealer in your state, then go through a background check with that dealer and pay a processing fee for his involvement. And if you walk into a gun store in your town or city, federal regulations require that you go through an “instant background check” that can take up to three government business days. (Only in federal government lingo can three government business days equal “instant.”)
And when driving, many states have extensive regulations they’ve placed upon guns over and above what the federal government has put in place. Thus, if you drive from a gun friendly state like Missouri, where you can keep a loaded handgun in your car for protection, into a state like Obama’s old stomping ground, Illinois, you’ve got to pull over, unload the gun, take it apart, and store it in a locked container away from the ammunition while you’re in that state.
What additional regulation would Bloomberg and Comitta place here? Should gun owners be required to store each part of the gun in a separate container while driving through states like Illinois? Is that the missing regulation that will lead to peace on earth and good will among men?
What is really common sense about this issue is the fact that criminals will be criminals, no matter how burdensome the regulations become on law-abiding citizens. Thus, more “common sense gun laws” will only mean fewer law abiding citizens keeping and bearing arms, which in turn, will make the road for the next Loughner a little bit easier to tread.
Yeah, because 10 thousand gun laws aren't enough. It's that 10 thousandth and ONE law that will make all the difference.
***Once again, we hear the old refrain that making it harder for law abiding citizens to purchase guns will make us safer.***
This was supposed to be settled back in 1968.
“Today we make America safe by taking the guns out of the hands of criminals!”-Lyndon Johnson, 1968(when he signed the 1968 Gun control act into law.)
Yeah ... the problem is you can NOT predict what people will do. When they are nuts or working their way towards it, they can make nearly anything a LETHAL WEAPON! As usual LIBERALS expect perfection in predicting this and punishing those that are not nuts.
OTOH, abortion is fine with them as well as death panels for HEALTH CARE! The true reason they don’t want gun laws to be liberal is that CRIMINALS would hesitate to commit crimes and they cound’t define punishment DOWN for them. LIBERALS ALWAYS STAND UP FOR EVIL. Guns are NOT EVIL. Many people are EVIL.
Yet the solidly anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer seemed content to propose that citizens who've been denied entrance to military service because of drugs or psychological disqualification be marked as prohibited persons in attempting to acquire a firearm in the National Instant-Check System (NICS).
On one hand, I am in full agreement with the notion of labeling people as unhinged moonbats who should be prevented from purchasing a new firearm at the point of sale, but on the other hand I don't trust Chuck Schumer and suspect that he's got far more nefarious plan as part of his proposal.
While America gets sidetracked with a lot of nonsense about 'high capacity clips', blaming Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, pointing out that the shooter was a wild-eyed left wing fruit, or claiming that he's actually some gold standard right wing paleo-Conservative, the fact remains that it's long past time to talk about schizophrenics walking around amongst us who belong in the booby hatch.
My opinion is that liberals will fight to the last man if any notion of mental health is brought up because that's the issue they fear most: Getting permanently and officially labeled a dangerous kook.
Think about mental health the next time you walk the shopping mall and see some young liberal out in public with facial tattoos and doorknobs plugged into his earlobes like some Bantu tribesman's wife.
Long past time to call a nut a nut in this country, and make it stick. Nuts have no business possessing firearms, as I see it.
We have gun laws. Maybe about 22,000, according to some estimates.
What’s lacking is common sense in enforcing them.
Sheriff Clarabelle Dumprick is the poster boy for the lack of common sense in using existing gun laws. He knew all about the toxic environment, Loughner’s criminal history and instability, and his purchase of a gun one month before the shooting.
And yet...And, even when stopped an hour before the incident.
All of his bloviating can’t distract from the fact that this moron has no business even referring to himself as a lawman, much less being trusted with a badge.
The primary purpose of additional gun laws appears to be for the purpose of diverting attention from those buffoons who are our putative protectors, but lack the simple sense to find their butts with two hands.
>Yet the solidly anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer seemed content to propose that citizens who’ve been denied entrance to military service because of drugs or psychological disqualification be marked as prohibited persons in attempting to acquire a firearm in the National Instant-Check System (NICS).
>
>On one hand, I am in full agreement with the notion of labeling people as unhinged moonbats who should be prevented from purchasing a new firearm at the point of sale, but on the other hand I don’t trust Chuck Schumer and suspect that he’s got far more nefarious plan as part of his proposal.
The obvious problem with this is that the different branches have different mental-screening standards. I served [in the Army] with a guy who was denied entry into the Marines because of mental-screening; if this sort of system were in-place it could be feasible to think that after failing the Marines’s standards he would have been denied entry in the Army because he was now a “prohibited person.”
After they stumble and stammer for awhile, I tell them to look me up when they know what they are talking about. Shuts down the anti-gun arguments pretty fast.
Absolutely everyone knew he was a nut: His parents, teachers, students, college administrators, girlfriends, pals, cops, the Pima Co. Sheriff, mere acquaintances, bank tellers, and a dozen managers of every menial job this fruitbat ever held. Those in authority even had recourse to have him checked into a mental health facility, but they did nothing at all: "He's just an excitable boy".
The only mental health activist that I've heard so far in relation to this case has said that they want to "erase the 'stigma' of those with mental problems" and somehow at the same time flag them from being able to buy guns, adopt children, or fly a passenger aircraft.
The hell with some liberal activist's feelings: bring back the booby hatch. That Loughner kid should have been sitting in a rubber room all this time playing dominoes with another lunatic who believes that he's Napoleon.
But no. Let's blame it all on Sarah Palin, so say the lunatics who should also be playing dominoes with Loughner and his friend 'Napoleon'.
Not that I disagree - I don't - but my concern is this: who gets to define who the nuts are, and how can that decision be appealed? I can see lots of room for abuse in this area...
Murder is illegal. What is needed after that?
Clearly it should be required that everyone at political rallies be armed.
Bingo.
There are documented cases of people stating publicly that “Conservatism is a mental illness” or “Liberalism is a mental illness” and then label anyone disagreeing with them as liberal/conservative [as the case may be] and then ‘vola!’ you can dismiss ANY point they make because they’re suffering from a mental illness.
I’ve been called a liberal/insane/living-in-a-fantasy-world/anarchist because I would actually approve of disbanding the DOD & the Active Duty Army.
Why? Because Constitutionally speaking the Army is supposed to only get funding for 2-years at a time; coupled with the responsibility of “raising armies” this is a strong argument that, Constitutionally speaking,” armies are to be ‘commissioned’ (raised & funded) for SPECIFIC duties/wars and then merged back into the [State] Militias from which they came.
Although I cannot outline the larger scheme in detail, I can at least suggest that the basic minimum criteria for determining who is a stone cold nut would be to ascertain all of the episodes which were ignored in the Jared Lee Loughner episode and make that the national standard.
That kid should have had a butterfly net thrown over his heads years ago based on every account I'd ever heard from those who had any interaction with him whatsoever.
It’s amazing how Dems keep managing to shoot themselves in the foot when they’re all about controlling the guns.
According to some sources 25% of Americans suffer some kind of mental issue. Now think of your three best friends. If they seem okay... you're the one!
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