Co-written with Colonel (ret.) Bill Badger and Mavy Stoddard
We are three survivors of the January 8th, 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona and we are a diverse group of real, patriotic Americans. We are a Republican, an Independent and a Democrat, and we strongly support the second amendment. We are retired Army Colonel Bill Badger, a gun owner who taught his children and grandchildren to hunt; Mavy Stoddard, also a gun owner who taught her four daughters how to shoot; and, Patricia Maisch, small business owner.
We are some of the too many faces of gun violence in this country.
Gun violence prevention is a deeply personal issue for each of us. That's why we traveled to St. Louis this past weekend -- where the NRA held its annual convention -- to ask the NRA leadership to join our efforts to pass commonsense gun laws and to help prevent future tragedies. As gun owners ourselves, we know that we can honor our great nation's heritage of gun ownership and hunting while still taking sensible steps to strengthen our gun laws to help prevent others from suffering the same horrors we've endured. For example, we should require a background check for every gun sale. And we must repeal the tragic "Shoot First" laws that the NRA leadership and their lobbyists have pushed for, and passed, in 25 states.
Our lives were changed forever by needless gun violence. Words cannot describe the horror -- the death and bloodshed -- that we witnessed that morning. Six good Americans were taken from us, murdered by a young man with a gun, that horrific day: Dorothy Morris, Dorwan Stoddard, Phylis Schneck, Federal Judge John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, and beautiful, little nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green are forever gone. Thirteen others, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, were injured. Shot on the sidewalk of our local grocery store by a young man that should never have had a gun.
That's why we have resolved to take positive action to temper the horrors of that beautiful Saturday morning in Tucson by working together to fix our gun laws.
We came to St. Louis to remind the NRA leadership that their obstruction has horrible, deadly consequences. Last year's shooting in Tucson is just another tragic example of what happens when a gun falls -- or is placed -- into the wrong hands.
The Trayvon Martin shooting is another example of what happens when NRA lobbyists have too much influence over our lawmakers.
Contrary to what the NRA leadership said this weekend, we know that the American people are with us. Their prayers have been with us since we started our endless journey of recovery from January 8th. And the American people, including the vast majority of the rank and file membership of the NRA, continue to stand with us in our effort to prevent future gun violence tragedies.
That's why we were trying to talk directly with the NRA leadership, to tell them "We don't want your guns, we want your help." Unfortunately, Wayne LaPierre and the other NRA executives wouldn't take our call this year in St. Louis, just like they refused to talk with us at their convention last year. But if they did, here's what we would ask them: How much more pain, how much more sorrow, how many more deaths by illegal guns must we endure before we get the NRA's support to do something about it?
Mark Osler: God and Guns at Walmart
You mean those laws that allow a homeowner to defend himself without allowing the criminal the first shot?
Not much "common sense" in THAT idea. If you WANT to wait until the criminal tries to murder you, go right ahead. Anyone breaking into MY home is a threat to my wife and my son. I will not wait until he tries to put a knife or bullet into me before dealing with such a threat.
The focus of the gun banners is to make the law abiding gun owner into a criminal. One has to ask:
Do you all own stock in the prison system?
He was kicked out of his community college for being a loony. The police, the courts, his parents, etc,. none of these people tried to prevent him from owning a gun. None of them tried to help this young man. None of them did anything to prevent the tragedy.
Ms. Maisch mentions traveling to St. Louis in what is (in my opinion) a glorified publicity stunt. That's great. What are you doing about the other Loughners in your community, at home? What are you doing about your sheriff, who did nothing about Jared Loughner?
Requiring government supervision when someone sells a gun to a neighbor or buys a .22 or youth shotgun as a gift for a young relative is not the answer to a failure of the courts and mental health care.
Common Sense gun laws are already on the books. Criminals, by definition, have zero regard for the law.
Turning the law abiding into criminals is what she is after. The NRA is the force that keeps people, like her, from turning gun owners into criminals.
Not in the way you are thinking about.
"How much more pain, how much more sorrow, how many more deaths by illegal guns must we endure before we get the NRA's support to do something about it?"
That statement said it all right there... " how many more deaths by illegal guns", stop the criminals, not the law abiding citizens. Punish the criminals who are in illegal possession of firearms, not the law abiding who are in legal possession of theirs. Stop the plea bargaining away of the penalties for committing crimes with guns. Enforce the penalties of criminals found in possession of guns, don't drop them or use them as plea bargaining points. Hold the criminals responsible for the crimes that THEY do, not the legal gun owners.
Why should I have to endure rigorous restrictions over a crime I did not commit? Why make me pay instead Loughner, Cho, and the others who broke the law. Hold them accountable for their actions alone, not the rest of us. Don't shift the blame onto anyone else but those who actually did the crime. Look into stopping the criminals, not the law abiding. How many laws have to be enacted and ignored before you realize that the criminals do not obey the laws?
The First step is to take advantage of high profile incidents.
The Second step is to marginalize legal gun use and historic precedent.
The Third step is to make some guns seem more dangerous than others, even if they are not.
The Fourth step is to register every sale.
The Fifth step is a robust “Shall Issue” permitting process.
The Final step is to encourage and incentivize the forfeiture of arms.
I cant tell if your being sarcastic or not. But in the event you aren't. How exactly will forfeiture of firearms prevent your local gang banger down the street from buying a gun out of his connections trunk?
But I agree with you. Why don't we make it part of school? 2nd Grade; teach Children to stay away from firearms and seek an adult. (Eddie Eagle?)
Also, if the reporting criteria was upheld by the various agancies, both Loughner and Cho [V Tech} would not had been able to legally purchase a gun.
I am not a Constitutional scholar or expert, but one thing is glaringly clear. In the time of the Founding Fathers, they did not have automatic, extended clip machine guns capable of firing hollow point cop-killer bullets. With one of those things one man might have conceivably liberated Boston by himself, or maybe with a force of 10.
It devolves on us to decide if the Founding Fathers, who severely restricted the right to vote, would have allowed criminals, the mentally unstable and the untrained dilettante access to weapons which, in their time, could be used to massacre an entire town.
I value your logic and reasonable point of view, but to imagine what one man could do with the weapons of today is cherry-picking the outcome by imagining this scenario with only a single man.
Of course one man with an M-16 could stop an army of musket-men. But in such a situation you are leaving out reality - weapons evolve with the times for all men - not a hypothetical, singular man while everyone else also hypothetically does not evolve.
In addition, your perspective only proves the counter point - the musket-men cannot defend themselves against a man who has the upper hand - if you limit access to arms legally, all those who follow the law will be more vulnerable to those who don't. Because the criminal will still buy M-16's while the law-abiding will keep their muskets.
Another moot point - voting has been restricted to certain classes of people throughout history. Who decides if 18 years of life is enough experience to decide matters for everyone else? To say the founders 'restricted voting' is moot too.
It was about how the Founding Fathers could not have conceived of the day when EVERY citizen, if they had enough money, could buy a weapon that could be used to kill everyone in their village if they so desired. In their day, if you wanted to commit mass murder I would guess you had to set fire to as many houses as you could at night when everyone was home. Now you just have to go to Wal-Mart and pay 600 or 700 dollars to get started. It may not be an automatic weapon, but it'll get you started.
Do you think just a few of those 200,000,000 people wished they had military style weapons or Gestapo-killer bullets?
The Second Amendment was included as a means to fight against predatory government. It has nothing to do with petty criminals.
THAT sounds like a "reasonable" change to the current law.