Can we have a conversation about guns now?
We've had two mass shootings in the space of less than two months. Eighteen people are dead, scores more are injured, and those are just the shootings that made it to the front page. Those aren't average days in America, but they might as well be. On any given day, 85 people die from gun violence. Another 182 are injured.
Do we get used to it? Do we become numb and resign ourselves to the fact that this is the new normal? As hard as I try to resist, I'm no longer surprised when a news alert starts with a body count and the words "many more injured." That's a tough reality to face, and not one we should accept in America.
Tougher still is listening to politicians from both sides of the aisle tell us that their "hearts go out" to the families of shooting victims, and that they're "in our prayers." Because prayers don't bring back the innocent people in Colorado, or the Sikhs who gathered together to worship and build community, or the scores of police officers and other innocent bystanders lost to gun violence. Our hearts and our prayers don't prevent the tragedies that took them from us, so they don't matter.
What matters is that we've let this happen. We've let our very American love of rights and liberties create a society that's far more dangerous than it should be. We're ignoring the practical reality that guns are causing our society harm, and instead we're giving powerful weapons to the sick and the hateful. I don't think that's what the founders had in mind.
For those of us who believe in gun control, we're told that it's antithetical to the founding principles of our country. That the lives of the 31,347 people killed by firearms in 2009 are somehow less valuable than the right to walk around with automatic weapons. That the only way to protect the Second Amendment is to let the mentally unstable and the violent purchase weapons whose only purpose is to kill others. Because that's their right. And your right. And my right. End of story.
But that's not the end of the story, is it? It's not the society we want to live in, and ignores the fact that our founders gave us a principle far more important than anything in the Bill of Rights. In fact, it's more than a principle. They handed us a mandate to maintain and extend our self-governed society. Of the people, by the people, for the people. That doesn't always mean majority rules -- in fact, rights are often developed and protected by a vocal minority.
In this case, the vocal minority is holding the rest of us hostage. They've scared us into submission. Politicians are afraid to speak out for gun control, worried about the wrath of powerful lobbying groups representing gun owners. Even the mildest restrictions on things like assault weapons, "cop killer" ammunition, and high-capacity magazines are met with vehement resistance in our state houses and Congress.
I don't have answers, but I'm tired of our public debate around guns to be so defeatedly deferential to gun owners. We need to open up the floor and hear from everyone, not just the powerful lobbying groups whose job it is to keep the guns firing. So speak up, gun control advocates. We need you.
Follow Greg Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gregpalmer
To begin with I'm not a gun owner, I'm a constitutionalists!
Quote : "the right to walk around with automatic weapons"
I don't know where you live but I'm unaware of any place in the U.S. where it's okay to walk around with automatic weapons. Please advise me of these locations.
Quote :"That doesn't always mean majority rules."
I can't help but to expect in a democracy the majority does rule. Your comment is nothing I have ever heard in a government class.
Quote :"We've let our very American love of rights and liberties create a society that's far more dangerous than it should be"
Quote :"Our very American love of rights and liberties"
What kind of remark is that?
Quote :"Politicians are afraid to speak out for gun control, worried about the wrath of powerful lobbying groups representing gun owners."
Would these be the same politicians that are afraid of Wall St so they continue to let them screw the citizens out of wealth and equity?
Quote :"Even the mildest restrictions on things like assault weapons, "cop killer" ammunition, and high-capacity magazines are met with vehement resistance in our state houses and Congress."
Where in The U.S. do you live? Even California your argument is bullshit!
It is every American is responsible for homeland security. The Army is not to be a standing Army. It is to be disbanded within 18 months of the end of the conflict that brought it together. The Army was to be pulled from State Militias' But we love war and we are never out of a conflict. To the point that people like you has come to believe militias are some how unamerican and everyone of them wants to overthrow the government when in fact there purpose is to protect the U.S. from within.
As I said in my last posting , I did what I could so you could enjoy your civil right's to marry another man!
You have your pistol, Don't attempt to negatively impact the gun owners to have their pistol'
Like you they have rights also.
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Ladies and gentlemen we do not have a gun problem in the United States. We have a mental health problem. Until you deal with the root of the problem instead of the tool being used you will never solve that.
Maybe you want to check that out.
It's a fact proven by our own crime statistics (FBI, DOJ, police, etc) and those of other governments (like England and Australia) that when you add gun control, other violent crimes go up, and when you remove gun control, violent crimes go down. As a person who is not in favor of seeing murders (via other things than guns), robberies, rapes, assaults, home invasions, and so forth on the rise, I have to stand against your position. You mention these shooting sprees, but you neglect to consider that they happen in gun free zones. Virginia Tech, Texas A&M, Luby's, etc etc. All gun free. Except the criminals don't care about that.
LGBT rights? Try talking to the Pink Pistols about it sometime.
Frankly, you're twisting the facts to misrepresent things. That "gun violence" statistic includes defensive shootings. It includes gang vs gang crime. It includes drug dealers shooting drug dealers. It includes ALL shootings. For comparison, you're FAR more likely to be killed by your doctor during surgery than you are to be shot and killed. So please, read the book, get the real facts, and stop trying to make this country LESS safe.
You are the despot, the person who wants to take away my firearms. You are my enemy, since only my enemy wants to disarm me. Liberals preach tolerance, so why not be tolerant and just ignore my God-given and Constitutionally-enumerated right to firearms ownership.
The 85 a day number is pure bunk - unless the author is trying to fudge his numbers by including accidents and suicides. Tragic as these events are, they do not qualify as acts of violence which are generally committed deliberately by one person against another with some kind of malicious intent.
guns
beer
tobacco
my kind of lgbt....