NRA
I have written too many times about guns after innocent people have been killed by a lone crazed gunman. We are the only civilized country in the world that is killing each other because of access to guns. I understand we come from a culture where people brought up their families in areas far from others and having a gun was protection. I understand that those guns were also used to kill for their meal. I also understand today that only 3% of people in this country own a gun and in some states almost anyone can buy a gun easier than buying alcohol. I don’t know the answer on how to separate the two but certainly Australia has figured it out as there has not been one mass shooting since they enacted an extremely strict law back in 1996.
What I do know is that the only reason we continue to see mass killings from one person with a gun in their hand or stupid killing in homes when a child finds a gun is in many ways similar to our opiate crisis. It is about greed, cash and money in politicians pockets. I know many non-profits and ventures funds who will not take cash from the Sackler family because that money to them is blood money. All of those organizations who refused that cash are fine without it. Why our politicians don’t have the wherewithal aka the guts to say no to NRA money is beyond me. It speaks clearly to why we have an incompetent group running the White House and weak leaders in the House and Senate who can’t get anything done. We got here through lobbyists who have put money into those hands to get their agendas passed and our elected officials have happily taken it. The NRA’s agenda is to make money not keep anyone safe just as the Sackler’s agenda is to sell and market legalized heroin so that the purchases of more drugs continue and keep their pockets full of cash. It is vile and it speaks to the sad state of affairs of our country.
No parent should have to worry about their kid going to school. No person should have to worry that if they are in pain that the drug that they take to get through it will send them down an life of addiction. This is not what our country should be about. The saddest part of all of this, is that nobody in our Government will change a thing and we will continue to have mass killings in normal everyday places, we will continue to have an explosive opiate crisis and we will be having this same conversation over and over again. Keep in mind that today opiates are killing more people than guns. The only thing we can do is vote against politicians who take money from the NRA and others who are making America a place where we are killing each other for the sake of money. Remember that recently Paul Ryan was given $500K from the Koch family after he passed the tax plan.
Sad for all of us.
Comments (Archived):
I see only two options–unrelenting attention to the voices of real people who are being decimated by this disfunctional government and elect an entirely now body of people.Things are really out of whack.
I wish that it happensNot sure if you caught the photo of the man in the car with his phone showing the picture of his daughter who was killed. His T-shirt said Trump 2020. Will be interesting to see if he just crawls into his bed and weeps or becomes active against what he supposedly stands for. Beyond sad and upsetting
.As it turns out, the Florida shooter was a registered Democrat. I point that out as it is just as silly an observation as attributing anything to President Trump. President Obama did NOTHING about gun control. Did I get that wrong?The poor man, whose daughter was killed, deserves better than this.Y’all are just in the Blame Trump for Everything Game which shows why there is no real solution to be expected from your side of the discussion.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Where exactly in her post is GG blaming Trump? I read the post as blaming our leaders – WH, and both sides of Congress (am I missing something?) I wish all the young people in FLA and other states that don’t allow them to buy a beer until they are 21 but do allow then to by an assault rifle at 18 would go on a school strike until they raise the assault weapon buying age to the same as alcohol. Will it solve the problem, no – but will it make s statement – yes. Maybe one that you wont understand or agree with but that’s OK. The author Cheryl Strayed posted this and I have yet to see anything that says it better.”Dear leaders who do nothing to end gun violence in America (and the people who vote for them): Save your empty prayers for the dead and injured and forever suffering. Without action, your prayers are meaningless. Any God worthy of your faith would tell you to go fuck yourself.”
.”His T-shirt said Trump 2020.”Reading comp? Did not say it was “in her post.”JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Oh, “y’all” did not mean GG. So sorry.
.Why when President Obama had control of the Congress didn’t he revise the gun laws?The Trump admin has NOTHING to do with the current body of law. It is the same body of law which he inherited from Obama.You betray the problem — you are not working toward a solution. You are blaming it on President Trump who has nothing to do with it.You’re way off the reservation here.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I don’t think she is way off the reservation here at all. I think she is right on the reservation and the right reservation. Obama is the only president we had who tried time and time again and they would not even put his bills before the congress. The dickhead Mitch McConnell cut him off at every pass. Not to mention Obama was not owned by the NRA. But the NRA like the Christian Right who walk kind of hand in hand far too often for my “elitist” taste do run the country. And I fear, fear, fear we are trapped in this terrible sitiaion. And at this point I blame Trump for everything Howeve, Bush and Clinton who I happened to like, (I liked Clinton not Bush) refused too. They all take NRA they have so so much power and it’s blood money and people especially in govt love money far too much to care if there is blood on it our not. Now it’s childerns’s blood spilling into our streets on weekly basis. We live in a sick sick depraved land and it’s horrifying.
I don’t disagree with much of what you are saying.But if you read my comments elsewhere you will see that I have a saying. It’ is ‘you can only be as honest as your competition’. It means in short that you will have a hard time doing what (in a free market) your competitors choose do do lacking some outrageous advantage over them (because for sure there are always exceptions). In the case of politics someone running for office needs money. And they can get money if they support a certain cause (which they might be against). And if they don’t take the money their competition will. And then they won’t (in theory) win the election. So really the question then becomes is it better to run with dirty money and potentially get some good things done (because you have control) or to let someone else run (with the dirty money) and not get anything done? [1] [2]What would you do?By the way found out this AM that my stepdaughter alerted her middle school to a crazy kid who was making threats. Nothing happened the school looked into it and decided nothing needed to be done.[1] And we are not even talking about big prizes like winning in the Olympics. To a 20 year old who wants to grab the golden ring and sees all of the attention that goes with it they might cheat especially if they feel others are going to cheat and they will lose if they don’t.[2] I remember a time when the search engine at the time excite told me there would never be a case where someone would be a able to pay to be ranked higher in results than someone else (1990’s). Then of course not only it became the norm but it’s the way it’s done now. For any search that matters the organic results fall far below the ads.
I understand the laws of politics and money. Sadly often the good initiatives don’t get past even with dirty money. We are as you are aware living through the craziest – polarized time. But the fact that the only country on earth that rivals us in terms of civilian gun ownership is Yemen is beyond fucked up. And you’re right there are endless cases of people reporting things and govt or powers that be ignore. It’s endless. The crazy have more rights than the sane.
.Pres Obama by his own words made gun control a second term initiative. That is well documented.https://www.thoughtco.com/o…The NRA, of which I am a member so I speak with some small authority, has been on record for decades — since the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban — on creating the Crazy Person List.As part of the 1994 AWB, each state was to have created its own list of criminals, domestic violence persons, DUIs, gun violators, psychiatric patients, certain drug users, etc. Texas did. It is used to this day to prevent crazy people from buying guns.Other states, California I am talking to you, did not. Imagine the hypocrisy of that. The liberal states, the ACLU, the Dems joined forces to prevent the Crazy Person List from being created.In the instant example, wherein the kid had the cops at his house 39 times since 2010, he would have been on the list.Again, the NRA is in favor of the creation of this list.Y’all talk a good game, but when it comes to action, all you do is talk.Pres Obama emoted well, but he didn’t actually introduce any real legislation, did he?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
JLM why do we sell assault weapons? Why do sell guns that are only meant for war? You’ve been in the military. It’s a simple question.
.An “assault” weapon, as used in the Florida context, is not the type of weapon the military uses. Military weapons are capable of being fired on full automatic while civilian weapons are semi-automatic. Military weapons are much more rugged than these type weapons which are produced for a civilian market anticipating target practice, hunting, or self-defense.Automatic weapons = press the trigger, bullets keep coming out until you run out of ammunition.Semi-automatic weapons = press the trigger, a bullet comes out. Press the trigger again, another bullet comes out.There is a misconception that the term “AR” such as AR-15 is an “assault rifle” when in fact it is the designation of Armalite, a manufacturer of weapons.Soldiers also carry pistols – depending on their job. As an officer, I carried a pistol and a rifle.The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was passed by a vote of 52-48 and its re-authorization in 2013 was defeated by a vote of 40-60. The reason why it was defeated was because there were several studies which showed it had no impact on crime.It is important to note that the 1994 AWB was a ban against the manufacture of such weapons and did nothing about the existence of such weapons. It also regulated the size of magazines based on the number of bullets.The AWB Ban did not do anything because assault weapons are rarely used in the commission of crimes. It is obvious to rational thinkers that the absence of assault weapons is not likely — as it did not — to keep criminals from using a firearm. They will just use a pistol which is what is used by the vast majority of criminals and murderers.The issue is not what we sell, but to whom we sell it. The 1994 AWB required states to create a Crazy Person List to be aggregated into a national database. Places like Texas did it. Still use it. Places like California did not.The Dems, ACLU, liberal states attacked the Crazy Person List even though it was an integral element of the law.It seems clear that had we had such a working national database virtually every murderer would have fallen into that net.It does not do anything effective to dampen the supply of a certain type of gun which is unused in the vast majority of crimes and murders when we could control the murderers directly.The issue of assault weapons is a red herring.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I disagree. You cannot cause the types of carnage we are witnessing with a pistol. Totally bogus NRA argument. Otherwise we would not be the only country where this happens on a weekly basis.
.There is a reason why a cop or a criminal carries a handgun. They are easier to shoot and more accurate at close distance.An assault weapon is difficult to conceal.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Got it. Hodgepodge of State laws are ineffective. So what’s Trump’s plan?
What do you think about Trump undoing this? http://fortune.com/2018/02/…
The obvious question is why would he do that?
Agree with you completely. And Joanne.I do not think it is of any value to argue with Trump apologists or with those who don’t want to understand another view. There are more productive uses of my time at least.I simply block the most egregious of those and move on with life in a more focused manner.Those who think means can be justified by an end are simply not worth the effort.
They tried. Look it up.
.Actually, they did not.https://www.thoughtco.com/o…They made it a second term initiative.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
.Not sure where you’re getting your info suggesting that only 3% of citizens own a gun. Here is a better view of things. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…As you can see more than 30% of households in the US own guns.Cars do not cause DUI — drivers do.Guns do not cause murders — people do.The problem is keeping guns out of the hands of crazy people. This kid was turned into the FBI and the FBI blew it.Turns out the cops went to this kid’s home 39 times since 2010.The kid had a YouTube comment up suggesting this behavior with his name on it. How much more prodding did law enforcement require?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I think there was a statistic that USA has 4% of the world population but 50% of guns produced worldwide.
Only Yemen rivals us in gun ownership. Nobody on the planet lives the way we do in terms of civilians being armed for combat.
isn’t it a reflection of the history of the country, one founded on a strategy of conquest and expansion through warfare? where America is today with guns seems to be completely consistent with its past.It seems to me as a foreign observer that America has not yet transitioned to become a civil society. That phase of its development is still to come…hopefully. It remains configured as a ‘war machine’. That has to end.
UGH. We have crazy people who have access to guns that are used in military combat and have the capacity to kill and maim hundreds within five minutes. This is insane. We have a leader who is in and out of being psychotic and clearly has a psychopathic personality, completely corrupt and actually working to overthrow most of the institutions involved in our Government. This is crazy. We have a foreign leader who murders his opponents, sometimes in broad daylight, who has been successful in undermining the US electoral process, who is not seen as subversive by the leader of our government. Our leader has more bad things to say about the FBI than about Putin. This is the stuff of fiction. Our daily reality. What are we arguing about? Things need to change.
100% with you
http://www.pewsocialtrends….Interesting info about gun ownership in this country in above link – 30% of the country owns a gun currently. I think the way to “protect the 2nd amendment” is give everyone a musket and call it quits – get rid of everything else.
For anyone who hasn’t heard of End Citizens United, they’ve put together a fund and are backing candidates who pledge not to take corporate PAC money. You can see who they endorse here:http://endcitizensunited.or…You might be surprised by some of the names on the list. I’m proud to say that Corey Booker is (of course) someone who’s taken the pledge. We have a lot of problems to solve, but getting big $ out of politics will be a strong head start.Friendly warning: if you sign up with ECU, they’ll send you some pretty cheezey emails (like, flashback to the ’90’s crazy). But I guess it works.
Had to share this here https://youtu.be/gFKkJwDGlys