Hatch's call for loosening of gun laws questioned (Lots of good news here)

The Salt Lake City Tribune ^ | 7/27/03 | Rita Bibbs-Daniels

[DPB101]

Orrin Hatch has a thing for timing. The same day this month that a Virginia court moved the trial of Washington sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad far from the city he allegedly terrorized last fall, the Republican senator from Utah decided it was time to loosen up gun restrictions in the nation's capital.

The District's 1976 law bans handguns (designed only for killing people), requires firearm and ammunition registration and prohibits guns in the workplace. Hatch wants to loosen all these public safety restrictions while redefining "machine gun" to boot.

What's notable here is that Hatch is no exception. He is behaving exactly like the Utah Legislature and 18 other statehouses that have aggressively weakened public safety laws in this calendar year alone.

This represents an extraordinary reversal of fortune for the country, whose gun-related murder rate has plummeted with tighter firearm restrictions imposed during the early 1990s.

More important to those concerned about domestic security and home rule, most of these rollbacks are specifically targeted at much tougher city ordinances that keep deadly firearms off urban streets, where they are more likely to be used to terrorize citizens or shoot cops.

For months this quiet campaign, backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), has simmered at the state level without boiling over into national debate, where gun-waving is still too risky for a closely divided Congress.

So the stealthy state-level crusade has made fast, alarming reversals. West Virginia and Arkansas recently exempted firearm makers from product liability. Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah enacted "reciprocity" laws, allowing legally permitted citizens to cross their state line fully armed.

Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah enacted concealed-weapons laws, allowing more people to carry weapons virtually anywhere undetected.

In case the laws' intent were unclear to some cities, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine and Virginia enacted "pre-emption" laws to blunt municipal gun restrictions. Utah has a similar law.

Such a top-down power play by statehouses too far removed from urban reality is matched only by Hatch's federal mandate to inundate violence-weary District residents with more cheap, deadly guns.

He's doing us no favors, and neither are his NRA-backed allies across the country. Without tight restrictions on deadly, unregulated weapons of mass death, we will careen back to the body counts of the 1980s.

We have 10 years of evidence that the solution to gun violence in Washington -- or Denver, Minneapolis, New Haven, Conn., and Memphis, Tenn. -- is not more guns, but fewer. Moreover, it is for the cities to decide. "Gun laws should be made to fit the needs of individual communities," said Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter. "People don't want the state legislature telling them the best way to deal with . . . firearms. That should come from local governments." City residents and their municipal leaders get it because they live it. That hardly can be said for legislators like Orrin Hatch and his statehouse counterparts.

The right to bear arms is no substitute for freedom from fear.

Rita Bibbs-Daniels grew up in the District of Columbia. She is Violence Prevention Program director for Physicians for Social Responsibility.

[umgud]

Our lowering of murders rates and crime in general had more to do with tougher penalties for said criminals, not more gun laws. How do you respond to an idiot like this? I guess you can't.

[George W. Bush]

Yeah, but next week Hatch will sponsor a constitutional amendment to repeal the Second Amendment.

Orrin should retire. He's gotten weird.

[rontorr]

How do you respond to an idiot like this? I guess you can't. ...........


exactly, there is no intelligent response to ignorance, we can discuss it among ourselves, but to respond would be to give it substance.

[TexasCowboy]

"We have 10 years of evidence that the solution to gun violence in Washington -- or Denver, Minneapolis, New Haven, Conn., and Memphis, Tenn. -- is not more guns, but fewer."

What planet do you inhabit, little girl?
That is simply a bald faced lie!

"The right to bear arms is no substitute for freedom from fear."

Bearing arms is the solution for fear!

[FreedomCalls]

DC's homicide closure rate is 55%. That means that almost half of DC's murders are unsolved. For every murderer they put in jail another is roaming free ready to kill you. Removing handgun restrictions will lower DC's crime rate, not increase it. The murderers already have guns. Their victims don't. That's why they are victims.

[jammer]

"This represents an extraordinary reversal of fortune for the country, whose gun-related murder rate has plummeted with tighter firearm restrictions imposed during the early 1990s."

Whoever makes this statement is too ignorant to be writing or is an outright liar. The change in demographics (by far), tougher penalties, and, probably, concealed carry laws are what reduced gun-related murder rates.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I'm not going to respond to this female dog of an author. Stupid, stupid article.

[squidly]

He is behaving exactly like the Utah Legislature and 18 other statehouses that have aggressively weakened public safety laws in this calendar year alone.

What's this jerk's problem? If he wants gun control, you'd think he could at least have the decency to say so. "Public safety laws" grrrr

[squidly]

Excuse me, she, not he.

[RDangerfield]

umgud: Our lowering of murders rates and crime in general had more to do with tougher penalties for said criminals, not more gun laws. How do you respond to an idiot like this? I guess you can't.

Well, how do your explain a president who was given millions by the NRA for his campaign and then announced that he endorsed the Assault Weapons Ban extension. I guess you can't. Oh but that's right; he's just pandering for votes from the Soccer Moms. "Never mind, Charlton, I was just lying because that is how I'll win next time to help the NRA." Sigh. --Raoul

[donmeaker]

With more guns, the fear will be in the hearts of the criminals!

[blackbart.223]

"Bearing arms is the solution for fear!"

An armed society is a polite society. Crime rates drop where honest citizens are armed.

[Alain2112]

Orrin should retire. He's gotten weird.

Amen to that! Where is Jake Garn when we need him?

[TexasCowboy]

Any woman who uses two last names is a weirdo anyway.
Seems like these gun grabbing weirdos are coming out of the damn woodwork lately!

Blackbart, I have an H&K .223 assault rifle that is a dream to shoot!

[autoresponder]

"He's doing us no favors, and neither are his NRA-backed allies across the country. Without tight restrictions on deadly, unregulated weapons of mass death, we will careen back to the body counts of the 1980s.

We have 10 years of evidence that the solution to gun violence in Washington -- or Denver, Minneapolis, New Haven, Conn., and Memphis, Tenn. -- is not more guns, but fewer. Moreover, it is for the cities to decide.

"Gun laws should be made to fit the needs of individual communities," said Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter. "People don't want the state legislature telling them the best way to deal with . . . firearms. That should come from local governments." City residents and their municipal leaders get it because they live it. That hardly can be said for legislators like Orrin Hatch and his statehouse counterparts.

The right to bear arms is no substitute for freedom from fear."

Rita Bibbs-Daniels grew up in the District of Columbia.

She is Violence Prevention Program director for Physicians for Social Responsibility.

This above statement is a willful huge lying crock.

Let former US Presiden t Bill Clinton President Bill Clinton set them straight:

301 Handgun Murders 1999
Washington DC - 100% Gun-Banned over 28 years
340,000 Population TOTAL

-V-

300 Handgun Murders 1999 COMBINED 17 States TOTALS!
17 Legal Concealed Carry States
23,000,000 Population COMBINED 17 States

SOURCE:

1999 Clinton/Reno/Freeh FBI-DOJ
Uniform Crime Report

Sent to me by:

(D-CT) US Sen. Joe Lieberman's DC Senate Staff Office



The Handgun Murder Rate in 100% Gun-Banned Washington DC is over 70 times that of 17 Legal Concealed Handgun Carry License State COMBINED!

Check this out yourself!

I post!

You double-check me!

You decide!

a u t o r e s p o n d e r



"Cut & Paste" the above DC -V- 17 CC States stats and email them to your firearms buddies, gun rights groups, your US Senators, your US Reps, your State legistlators, your local politicians, and your Aunti Gunn lib aquaintances and relatives.


It is time to allow blacks their 2nd Ammendment Constitutional Right to own and bear arms to protect their families, themselves, and their businesses!


Will blacks in the Sudan be freed and allowed the freedom to own and bear firearms before the blacks in the USA?


It is time the blacks were finally allowed to leave the gun-banned urban plantations that the Democrats put them on after the Civil War!

[TigersEye]

The right to bear arms is no substitute for freedom from fear.

Should read: There is no substitute to the right to bear arms for freedom from fear.

[blackbart.223]

"Blackbart, I have an H&K .223 assault rifle that is a dream to shoot!

That would be an H&K 93 if I'm not mistaken. Good weapon.

I prefer The H&K 91 however. It shoots 7.62 Nato (read that .308). I think it packs more punch.

[TigersEye]

Also: Freedom from fear is no substitute for the bearing of arms.

[blackbart.223]

"There is no substitute to the right to bear arms for freedom from fear."

Yea! Though I walk through The Valley Of Death, I'm armed to the teeth, so I don't fear much.