With President Obama heading out on the road today for another campaign stop to promote his gun control package, thanks go, as they often have in the past, to Vice President Biden for helping to put the issue in perspective with some unscripted candor. The tenor of the discussion about the proposals has, since the president first unveiled them last month, been largely emotional as it seeks to tap into the universal horror felt by Americans about the Newtown shooting. But Biden made it clear that any thought that the White House’s advocacy on guns was geared to prevent a recurrence of that massacre is something between a fib and a forlorn hope. Speaking Thursday at the Capitol, Biden told reporters the following:
Nothing we are going to do is fundamentally going to alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down.
This is both fair and honest. But it also raises an important question. If the new measures, even the parts of the package, like universal background checks on gun sales, that most Americans view as both reasonable and appropriate, are not going to “bring gun deaths down,” then why are we being asked to support them and told that opponents of this legislation are extremists who don’t care about the children who were gunned down in Newtown? And it is exactly the answer to that question that makes some people regard the assurances coming from the administration of their unswerving support of the Second Amendment as being disingenuous.
The president and the vice president both say they view the proposed legislation about assault weapons and ammunition as well as background checks as a necessary response to Newtown. Yet, almost in the same breath they are forced to admit that none of it would have prevented the tragedy had it already been in place. Nor would it do much, if anything, to prevent other forms of gun violence.
To concede that point is not to render all forms of gun control as being beyond the pale. The state has the right to regulate the sale of guns in a manner consistent with public safety (for instance, private ownership of machine guns has always been illegal) and actions that would make it harder for criminals or the insane to get such weapons is not likely to be opposed by most Americans. Yet the insistence on making it harder for law-abiding individuals to buy and own guns has always been motivated more by an ideological prejudice against gun ownership on the left more than by a rational response to Newtown or any other outrageous crime.
The president and his supporters continually assure us that any further attempt to limit the right to own guns is off the table and prevented by the Second Amendment. Yet the lack of a rationale for the post-Newtown legislation leads many to not unreasonably conclude that the incident was merely the excuse that liberals are using to resurrect old proposals that have always been motivated by anti-gun sentiment.
Though there is nothing unreasonable about limits on certain types of military-style weapons or ammunition, so long as these proposals are unconnected to any plausible hope of saving lives it is quite reasonable to think that once these restrictions are made law, they will be followed by other more draconian bills that are also not tethered to a measurable goal. Under those circumstances, it will be harder to deny that what is going on is a campaign to steadily erode Second Amendment rights, not a way to stop another Newtown from happening. So long as the administration cannot assert that their gun package will actually make the country safer, it is hardly paranoid for gun rights advocates to think this is merely the thin edge of the wedge of a legislative campaign that will ultimately lead to something that will infringe on the constitutional rights of Americans.
Tobin actually made sense today. I think I'll start drinking early.
No, gun control efforts might not prevent another madman from opening up on a crowd of youngsters (or oldsters, for that matter), but stricter controls might have prevented at least some of the more than 1500 shooting deaths that have occurred in this nation SINCE Newtown. n nAs one pundit pointed out, we went to war — two wars, in fact — over the deaths of 3000 New Yorkers. But in the face of the many, many more thousands who have died by gun violence since 9/11, we've done nothing.
This is a nonsense statement by you. How many deaths and injuries were prevented by those possessing firearms, which didn't make the news? You need to read, study, and absorb some facts, statistics, and add to your knowledge, in order to appear foolish and thoughtless.
Those stories aren't reported because they don't fit the statist’s agenda. Gun free zones do nothing to curb gun violence. Look at Chicago, Obama’s home town. That’s a perfect example of what happens when you take the right to protect yourself away from others.
or because they don't happen. and about gun free zones. people get in their cars to and go where they need to go to supplement supply. what Chicago doesn't have, which other gun free zones have, is stop -and-frisk laws to identify probably holders of illegal weapons and then confiscate the contraban. just imagine the holders of illegal guns are … illegal aliens.
"You need to read, study, and absorb some facts, statistics…." n nAll depends on what you read and study. Meanwhile, a study of gun violence by the Center for Disease Control was blocked by the GOP because the results might contradict their agenda, goon.
I'll bite. On balance, in the United States a teensy weensy fraction of the deaths that are caused by the distribution of firearms to criminals siphoned off of a weapons distribution market geared to serve legal use and cover the spread of shrinkage through theft (illegal use)–or laundered through the gray market of gun shows. Are there even any statistics available to suport your point?
How would those stricter controls be more effective in preventing shooting deaths than the strict gun laws in Chicago have been?
1) is anyone keeping track of how much in borrowed taxpayer dollars it costs every time Obama takes his unending campaign (for whatever issue he decides is important) on the road? n n2) if the media covered auto accidents as often as gun violence, maybe Obama could get back to his war on cars…or start a new war on violent video gaming, or cigarettes, or sugary soft drinks, or the death-by-stress that is now epidemic in our Brave New World.
We're not allowed to question our dear leader's travel. If we do we're racists.
Maybe Obama should instead host those phony town meetings like W, where adoring participants asked such hard-hitting questions as, "What can I do for YOU, Mr. President?"
Okay, I'll play… I think those are currently called "press conferences." You have yet to provide any proof that shows enacting more government control will provide some benefit in preventing mass gun shootings. Sounds like you just want more gov't based on the old "hope and change" mantra. But, hey, we've GOT TO DO SOMETHING!!! Right?
Some Brit once referred to the Politician's Mantra as: n"Clearly we must do something. nThis is something. nTherefore, clearly we must do it."
The "something" I wish Backcrack Hussein Obama would do is to sit on and use the toilet, reducing the amount of material excreted in his brain.
wait, that pretty much describes every public event and town hall meeting he's ever had. after the exceptions they change the rules to make sure *that* doesn't happen in the next one
"universal background checks on gun sales" n nThe devil is in the details. It sounds so reasonable. How can any rational person say no? The problems is that these background checks will almost certainly prove to be an utter nightmare. It is a not so subtle way to discourage firearm purchases.
Good!
You should have someone take you shooting one of these days HillelA. You might find it fun.
works for me!
This quote “(for instance, private ownership of machine guns has always been illegal)” is quite incorrect. During the Al Capone era, machine guns were legal to own — I believe you could even buy a Tommy Gun from Sears. If the purpose of the second amendment is to enable the populace to protect themselves from a tyrannical government, then we should be able to have “military style” weapons including full automatics.
No, private ownership of machine guns has not always been illegal. It is not even currently illegal. There are hundres of thousands of legally owned machineguns in the United States. To own a machinegun you must pay a $200 federal tax before you purchase. Some States outlaw them, others don't. And you cannot bring a new machinegun into interstate commerce. In 1986 manufacture and introduction of new machineguns into private commerce was prohibited. Those in circulation are still legal for ownership and transfer.
I have a hard time getting your point. My reaction is the Andrew Breitbarian, "So?".