Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

Guns: Put Up or Shut Up!
01/05/2013

In 1990, 78 percent of Americans thought we needed stricter gun laws. Today, only 44 percent of Americans think so. What has caused this dramatic shift in public opinion?

It is not because more people now own guns. In 1990, 48 percent of Americans had guns in their homes. Today, 45 percent of Americans do.

It is not because gun deaths are no longer a problem. Since 1990, a quarter of a million Americans have been killed by guns.

Why, then, has there been so precipitous a decline in the percentage of Americans who support stricter guns laws?

The answer lies largely in the democratic process. Those who oppose stricter gun laws have organized, they have aggressively promoted their positions, and they have been extraordinarily effective in electing candidates who support their policies and defeating those who oppose them.

The nation's largest and most potent anti-gun control organization, the National Rifle Association, increased its annual revenues from 1990 to the present by approximately 400 percent. It now has an annual operating budget approaching $300 million and 4.3 million dues-paying members.

The largest and most potent pro-gun control organization, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, has an annual budget of approximately $6 million and fewer than 30,000 dues-paying members.

The National Rifle Association spent more than $10 million in the 2012 election. The Brady Center spent less than $10,000.

These numbers bear repeating: The NRA has 140 times more dues-paying members than the Brady Center and it spent 1,000 times more money than the Brady Center in the 2012 election.

Is it any wonder, then, that those who support stricter gun laws are losing? This is, after all, a democracy. Advocacy, debate and politics matter. As Justice Louis Brandeis observed more than 85 years ago: "Those who won our independence believed" that the best "protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine" is freedom of speech, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people," and that "public discussion is a political duty."

That is why the NRA is winning. Their members are not "inert." They oppose and oppose and oppose what they deem to be "noxious doctrine."

Of course, the NRA does get a ton of money from gun manufacturers and vendors (including those who manufacture assault weapons and high-capacity magazines), such as Arsenal, Beretta, Browing, Brownells, DPMS Panther Arms, Glock, Remington Arms, Smith & Wesson, Sturm, Ruger & Co, and Winchester.

But the majority of the NRA's funds still come from ordinary citizens -- from its 4.3 million members.

Those who want to see more rational gun laws in the United States have to do more than complain about the NRA. We have to ask ourselves: Do we care enough about this issue to DO something about it? If we don't, then we can be sure there will be millions more needless and heartbreaking funerals in the decades to come.

I joined the Brady Center last week. If you are one of the 44 percent of Americans who want more reasonable gun laws, then you must DO something to make that happen. That is, after all, what our democracy is all about.

As President Obama said last week, "if we're going to change things, it's going to take a wave of Americans" who are truly committed to making change happen. It is time for that to begin. Or, . . . you should learn to duck.

Geoffrey R. Stone.
Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/guns-put-up-or-shut-up_b_2413562.html?utm_hp_ref=crime&ir=Crime

So you are blind now? Nowhere have I said here or anywhere in these fora for a moment that you called for the infringement of the second amendment. Read what I wrote again. So you are blind and deaf, and added to that you are ignorant. Take care of yourself old man.

There is nothing wrong with my analogy old man. If you don't like the second amendment and would like to infringe it, then stay in Canada and while you're there, do try to relearn what you've forgotten about the American Revolutionary War.

Giffords, Kelly Launch Gun Control Lobbying Effort
By Associated Press
Jan. 08, 2013

(TUCSON, Ariz.) — Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband launched a political action committee aimed at curbing gun violence on Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting that killed six people and left her critically injured.

Giffords and Mark Kelly wrote in an op-ed published in USA Today that their Americans for Responsible Solutions initiative would help raise money to support greater gun control efforts.

“Achieving reforms to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings will mean matching gun lobbyists in their reach and resources,” they wrote in the column.

They said that it will “raise funds necessary to balance the influence of the gun lobby.”

The move was hinted at in Kelly’s recent comments that he and Giffords want to become a prominent voice for gun control efforts.

The couple last week visited Newtown, Conn., where a gunman opened fire in an elementary school, killing 20 children and six adults in December. They also met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a gun control advocate.

The couple was expected to discuss the initiative in an interview airing Tuesday on ABC News. The network offered a preview of the interview Monday and during “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. Kelly described a meeting with a father of a Connecticut victim in which he “just about lost it” after the parent showed him a picture of his child.

When asked by Diane Sawyer about when such violence happens to school children, Giffords responded: “Enough.”

In the op-ed piece, Kelly and Giffords discussed what they deem lawmakers’ inaction on curbing gun violence.

“In response to a horrific series of shootings that has sown terror in our communities, victimized tens of thousands of Americans, and left one of its own bleeding and near death in a Tucson parking lot, Congress has done something quite extraordinary — nothing at all,” Giffords and Kelly wrote in the op-ed.

“This country is known for using its determination and ingenuity to solve problems, big and small. Wise policy has conquered disease, protected us from dangerous products and substances, and made transportation safer. But when it comes to protecting our communities from gun violence, we’re not even trying — and for the worst of reasons.”

They hope to start a national conversation about gun violence and raise funds for political activity, so “legislators will no longer have reason to fear the gun lobby.”

“The children of Sandy Hook Elementary School and all victims of gun violence deserve fellow citizens and leaders who have the will to prevent gun violence in the future,” they wrote.

As a House member, Giffords was a centrist Democrat who represented much of liberal-leaning Tucson but also more conservative, rural areas. The former state legislator voiced support for gun rights and said she owned a Glock pistol...
http://nation.time.com/2013/01/08/giffords-kelly-launch-gun-control-lobbying-effort/#ixzz2HQEgbTQk

Giffords and Kelly: Fighting gun violence
Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly
January 8, 2013

Our new campaign will launch a national dialogue and raise funds to counter influence of the gun lobby.

In response to a horrific series of shootings that has sown terror in our communities, victimized tens of thousands of Americans, and left one of its own bleeding and near death in a Tucson parking lot, Congress has done something quite extraordinary — nothing at all.

I was shot in the head while meeting with constituents two years ago today. Since then, my extensive rehabilitation has brought excitement and gratitude to our family. But time and time again, our joy has been diminished by new, all too familiar images of death on television: the breaking news alert, stunned witnesses blinking away tears over unspeakable carnage, another community in mourning. America has seen an astounding 11 mass shootings since a madman used a semiautomatic pistol with an extended ammunition clip to shoot me and kill six others. Gun violence kills more than 30,000 Americans annually.

This country is known for using its determination and ingenuity to solve problems, big and small. Wise policy has conquered disease, protected us from dangerous products and substances, and made transportation safer. But when it comes to protecting our communities from gun violence, we're not even trying — and for the worst of reasons.

An ideological fringe

Special interests purporting to represent gun owners but really advancing the interests of an ideological fringe have used big money and influence to cow Congress into submission. Rather than working to find the balance between our rights and the regulation of a dangerous product, these groups have cast simple protections for our communities as existential threats to individual liberties. Rather than conducting a dialogue, they threaten those who divert from their orthodoxy with political extinction.

As a result, we are more vulnerable to gun violence. Weapons designed for the battlefield have a home in our streets. Criminals and the mentally ill can easily purchase guns by avoiding background checks. Firearm accessories designed for killing at a high rate are legal and widely available. And gun owners are less responsible for the misuse of their weapons than they are for their automobiles.

Forget the boogeyman of big, bad government coming to dispossess you of your firearms. As a Western woman and a Persian Gulf War combat veteran who have exercised our Second Amendment rights, we don't want to take away your guns any more than we want to give up the two guns we have locked in a safe at home. What we do want is what the majority of NRA members and other Americans want: responsible changes in our laws to require responsible gun ownership and reduce gun violence.

We saw from the NRA leadership's defiant and unsympathetic response to the Newtown, Conn., massacre that winning even the most common-sense reforms will require a fight. But whether it has been in campaigns or in Congress, in combat or in space, fighting for what we believe in has always been what we do.

Let's not be naive

We can't be naive about what it will take to achieve the most common-sense solutions. We can't just hope that the last shooting tragedy will prevent the next. Achieving reforms to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings will mean matching gun lobbyists in their reach and resources.

Americans for Responsible Solutions, which we are launching today, will invite people from around the country to join a national conversation about gun violence prevention, will raise the funds necessary to balance the influence of the gun lobby, and will line up squarely behind leaders who will stand up for what's right.

Until now, the gun lobby's political contributions, advertising and lobbying have dwarfed spending from anti-gun violence groups. No longer. With Americans for Responsible Solutions engaging millions of people about ways to reduce gun violence and funding political activity nationwide, legislators will no longer have reason to fear the gun lobby. Other efforts such as improving mental health care and opposing illegal guns are essential, but as gun owners and survivors of gun violence, we have a unique message for Americans.

We have experienced too much death and hurt to remain idle. Our response to the Newtown massacre must consist of more than regret, sorrow and condolence. The children of Sandy Hook Elementary School and all victims of gun violence deserve fellow citizens and leaders who have the will to prevent gun violence in the future.

Gabrielle Giffords is the former Democratic U.S. representative from Arizona. Mark Kelly is a former astronaut.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/07/gabby-giffords-mark-kelly-tucson-shooting-gun-control/1816383/

This is the sort of organized lobbying and fund-raising effort that Prof. Stone said is needed to counter-act the influence and obstructionism of the NRA. And Kelly and Giffords are the perfect people to lead it, because they are not anti-gun.

Anyone who talks about the NRA as if they were bad, is someone who hates the US Constitution and hates America's freedom.

. . . If you want to see better solutions to our problem with gun violence, and
want to help to fight the influence of the NRA, visit it--and give them a contribution.[/b]
http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/

Quote:

Anyone who talks about the NRA as if they were bad, is someone who hates the US Constitution and hates America's freedom.

Sometimes Oralloy out-does himself with his amazing claptrap.

Mind how you go Dave. There's predators everywhere you look.
In the streets, om the TV, under your bed.

How often do you have to change your underpants?

The same as Social Security, the "influence of the NRA" is America 's majority
of freedom-loving voters, who believe in their own, personal right of self defense.

If we have to pry them from your cold, dead fingers, so be it.