The Guns of Spring

[Richard]

No propaganda here - the latest balanced opinion piece on the 2nd Amendment from Pravda on the Hudson.

Richard's $.02

The Guns of Spring
Timothy Egan, NYT, 9 Apr 2009

Bam, bam, bam. Three dead in Pittsburgh, cops, all of them, murdered by a man with an AK-47 who thought President Obama was going to take away his guns.

Bam, bam, bam, bam. Four dead in Oakland, also police officers, their lives ended by a convict with an assault rifle.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Five dead in Washington State, kids mowed down in a trailer park by their own dad, a wife-abusing coward with a gun.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Thirteen dead in Binghamton, N.Y., immigrants and their teachers slaughtered by a shut-in with a Glock and Beretta. He sent a delusional note, in fractured English but for the sendoff: “And you have a nice day.”

American life in the spring of 2009 is full of hope, peril, and then this: the cancer at the core of our democracy.

In a month of violence gruesome even by our own standards, 57 people have lost their lives in eight mass shootings. The killing grounds include a nursing home, a center for new immigrants, a child’s bedroom. Before that it was a church, a college, a daycare center.

We hear about these sketches of carnage between market updates and basketball scores — and shrug. We’re the frogs slow-boiling in the pot, taking it all in incrementally until we can’t feel a thing. We shrug because that’s the deal, right? That’s the pact we made, the price of Amendment number two to the Constitution, right after freedom of speech.

As a Westerner, I’m sensitive to the argument that when politicians reflexively move to ban guns every after a high-profile slaughter, they often target law-abiding gun owners. Guns in the West are heritage, “a sacred part of being a Montanan and something that we will always fight to protect,” as Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus, both Democrats from the Big Sky state, wrote in a recent letter to the Justice Department.

But as someone who lost a nephew to gun violence, [!!!] I can only take these arguments so far. They are not abstractions, one side versus the other. I can’t help seeing faces, parents who no longer have a child to hold, hearts broken, lives destroyed when I hear bam, bam, bam.

A mother and her little girl, gunned down along with eight others in Samson, Ala., last month, were buried in each other’s arms — the still life of that second amendment.

In the aftermath of one of these atrocities, nothing is more chilling than a gun advocate racing before a camera to embrace a lunatic’s right to carry and kill.

If it was peanut butter or pistachio nuts taking down people by the dozens every week, we’d be all over it. Witness the recent recalls. But Glocks and AKs — can’t touch ‘em. So we’re awash in guns: 280 million.

Live with it, gun owners say, and if our murder rate is three times that of the United Kingdom and Canada, five times that of Germany, that’s the deal. The price. For consolation, I guess, there is the fact that the homicide rate has been flat for some time, down from the highs of the 1980s. Still, nearly 17,000 Americans are murdered each year — about 70 percent by guns — and 594,276 lost their lives betweens 1976 and 2005.

The recent twists involve Mexican drug cartels, who get their firepower from American retailers, [Guess he doesn't listen to NPR.] and the mass killings this spring by shooters who appear to have acquired their weapons legally. Assault rifles figured prominently in the murders of seven police officers.

The Pittsburgh shooter picked up his AK-47 through an online company that passed the sale through to a licensed firearms dealer, as required. He was apparently legal for these guns despite the fact that he’d been booted from the Marines for assaulting his drill sergeant and had a restraining order from his ex-girlfriend.

All a citizen can do is ask for some common sense around the Second Amendment. The assault weapons ban, outlawing 19 military style guns that no hunter with sense of fair play would ever use, ( ) should be reinstated. President Bush and Congress let it expire in 2004, even though it was a godsend for police officers and supported by a majority of gun owners.

To the senators who back assault rifles while speaking of the “sacred part of being a Montanan,” you don’t want this kind of heritage. It demeans you as Westerners to allow easy access to weapons that kill innocents, and it does a disservice to history.

Heritage? Old West towns like Dodge City had strict gun control, making people check their weapons at the city doorstep.

And the gun dealers, they should be hammered for selling to drug cartels or through loopholes to convicts. Throw federal racketeering laws at them. Make it as hard for a wife-beater or a felon to get an AK as it is to get a driver’s license.

The rest of us can only mourn and shrug, marking grim anniversaries: Virginia Tech, Columbine, and on, and on, and on.

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...uns-of-spring/

[HOLLiS]

The war on private ownership is escalating.

[Surgicalcric]

What an asshat...

Let us rally to ban pencils so idiots can no longer write shit like this.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by rltipton

Let us rally to ban pencils so idiots can no longer write shit like this.

Maybe someone who has the stomach for such a project could go through the last ten years of the New York Times and find examples of how the Gray Lady contributed to many of today's issues through sloppy reporting, missed stories, and bad editing.

I am beginning to think that the nytimes.com charges such high fees for getting articles out of its digital archives so readers will be discouraged from realizing how far the quality of the paper has fallen.

[Richard]

I am beginning to think that the nytimes.com charges such high fees for getting articles out of its digital archives so readers will be discouraged from realizing how far the quality of the paper has fallen.

And I'm beginning to think you're right!

Richard's $.02

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by HOLLiS

The war on private ownership is escalating.

Bring it.......

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday I liked:

I'll keep my guns, Freedom and money, you can keep the "Change".



Again, bring it......

TS

[FMF DOC]

Excellant bumper sticker, will look for that one...

Maybe if more citizens had their Conceal Carry Permits, the things mention above may have been stopped before the casulties escalated. The media will never print all the of the crimes that lawbiding citizens have stopped by owning a weapon.

[Kyobanim]

I see that he neglects to say that if the current laws on the books were enforced, none of those incidents would have taken place.

Should have had him fixed instead of my dog.

[DinDinA-2]

The Guns of Spring
Timothy Egan, NYT, 9 Apr 2009
________________________________________________

What a nit-wit...if you outlaw idiots in the media, only idiots will be in the media. Wait, they already are!!

It is always interesting they always bring up countries with gun bans, however a great deal of those populations...given the chance...would move to this country in a hurry.

Maybe it is time to ban the automobile and enforce public transportation. Afterall, look at the carnage on the highways. And what about those pesky drug dealers using automobiles to transport drugs & guns etc. Eliminate private transportation and the drug problem is solved!

[KClapp]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday I liked:

I'll keep my guns, Freedom and money, you can keep the "Change".

I found these on ebay for $2.99 each, shipped. I got several to take to the tea party in Des Moines and share with the folks in IowaCarry. Thanks TS!

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by KClapp

I found these on ebay for $2.99 each, shipped. I got several to take to the tea party in Des Moines and share with the folks in IowaCarry. Thanks TS!

KClapp,

Please show the URL you used to find this site..................

GB TFS

[Kyobanim]

http://www.discountbookdistributors....ersticker.aspx

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by HOLLiS

The war on private ownership is escalating.

Only against idiots who shouldn't have them in the first place. Nobody is saying take them from people like you. But, does it seem (maybe) a little reasonable to not let these loonies have them?

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Dozer523

Only against idiots who shouldn't have them in the first place. Nobody is saying take them from people like you.

Bullshit.

You better reread the proposed legislation.

There ain't any "good guy" exception.

It would apply to all of us.

TR