Another prominent member of the nation's law enforcement community has spoken out for common-sense gun laws.
Col. Gerald Massengill, now retired as a Virginia State Police Superintendent, chaired the Virginia Tech Review Panel that studied the worst mass shooting in modern American history. According to his short bio on the Panel's Web site, Col. Massengill served the people of Virginia with distinction:
He led the state's law-enforcement response to the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon in Northern Virginia and the 2002 sniper attacks. Massengill retired in 2003 after 37 years in the Virginia State Police, and came out of retirement in 2005 to serve as interim director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries for 18 months.
On Monday, Col. Massengill made news by saying something that really shouldn't be controversial at all: "The thought ... of people losing their firearms is just something that Americans can't tolerate and quite honestly shouldn't. But on the other hand, we cannot allow the proliferation of guns to continue like they're continuing."
As Chair of the Virginia Tech Review Panel, Col. Massengill saw first-hand the effects of the damage done by a deranged shooter seven months ago. "I guess I'm one of those people who sees the devastation that firearms bring," he said in one report. "There's got to be reasonable checks and balances out there."
Col. Massengill describes himself as "a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights," someone who isn't in favor of gun bans or "of people losing their firearms." So what are the reasonable checks and balances on responsible gun ownership that he and the Review Panel proposed [pdf document] to help prevent another tragic shooting?
The Brady Campaign is proud to stand with America's law enforcement representatives like Col. Massengill who call for such basic requirements. None of these recommendations should be controversial. But even now - seven months after the Virginia Tech shooter murdered 32 people with guns he should never have been allowed to buy - the NICS Improvement Act of 2007 still languishes in the U.S. Senate. Why?
This bill will give states incentives to supply records of the dangerously mentally ill to the National Instant Background Check System. Senate leaders from both parties strongly support passage of the bill, including Virginia Sen. John Warner, and New York Sen. Charles Schumer. There is no reason this bill should be stalled another day.
We should urge Congress to make America's gun laws stronger. The Senate should pass the NICS Improvement Act as soon as possible, and send it to President Bush for his signature.
(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)
Just minutes ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take what could be the most significant Second Amendment case in our country’s history.
Thanks to your support, your Brady legal team had already begun preparing for this announcement, but now our lawyers have swung into high gear to prepare our “friend of the court†brief.
We have a tidal wave of work to do in the weeks ahead and we need your help now.
This fight is so critical that we need to raise $50,000 by November 30. And since your gift will be going to our Brady Gun Law Defense Fund, it will be fully tax deductible!
We need your help today to build a strong Brady Gun Law Defense Fund to protect America’s gun laws. Please give today.
Earlier this year, a U.S. Court of Appeals struck down a gun law as violating the Second Amendment for the first time in American history. We believe this decision was judicial activism at its worst and was clearly wrong.
This legal case at its very core is the most important battle we have ever waged. The U.S. Supreme Court has the chance to reverse a terribly erroneous decision and make it clear that the American people can adopt restrictions on firearms in their communities.
If the Supreme Court does not reverse the federal appeals court decision, gun laws everywhere could be at risk…
…from the long-standing machine gun ban…to the 1968 Gun Control Act…to the Brady background check law.
…to your local and state laws…like the ones in California and New Jersey banning military-style Assault Weapons… and many more.
If that happens, then your Brady Center will defend these laws in the courts as we have done so many times in the past against the attacks of the gun lobby. But now we must focus on the immediate challenge at hand as we prepare for the fight in the U.S. Supreme Court. Please give generously.
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WE ARE GOING TO THE SUPREME COURT MY FRIENDS.
http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/gunbook4.pdf
"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950])
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244)
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46.)
"The Constitution shall never be construed....to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms" (Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87)
"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution. Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,...taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed. Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386)
"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." --(Thomas Jefferson)
In fact, when I went & checked with the latest news release from the well-known gun law writer, Alan Korwin, just now... I discovered to my surprise that he does not provide an exact number of all gun laws on the books.
And, as you folks ought to realize by now ~ Korwin has written several books on America's gun laws/debate, & has also provided numbers in the past on federal gun laws including word counts of specific laws. In 2004, for example, he cited a total of 271 federal gun laws.
However, in his Q & A, he does not provide a figure for the question of "how many gun laws are there?" So I'm surprised that several of you progun folks think you know more on this.
Interesting,
KELLI
People like Paul Helmke, the BC, VPC, Bloomberg and the likes actually contribute to the anti-rights continued failure. Contrary to Kelli's comparison of the pro-gun campaign to "knuckle-dragging" Neanderthals (on the now defunct BC blog, I think she actually joked about kaveman's handle and how appropriate it was), the majority of us are educated professionals who are capable of rational thought which would allow for compromise. However, knowing the TRUE agenda of the anti-rights campaign (gun BANS, al la Austrailia and the UK) makes us cautious. VERY cautious. As I said before, I personally don't think that gun show background checks are THAT obtrusive to the 2A, provided that everyone would have access to NICS and there was no interference with the legal/lawful sale or transfer of a firearm between individuals. AS LONG AS IT STOPPED THERE. However, the problem is that radicals like the VPC, Bloomberg, Kennedy, Schumer, Feinstein, Clinton, etc... would certainly not stop at "common sense" legislation. They would seize the opportunity to push their true agenda. The educated pro-gun campaign can see this, therefore, there is an unwillingness to compromise.
If someone came up to me and said "how 'bout this...you agree to gun show background checks and as a compromise, we'll acknowledge the decades of gun control failures and pursue other avenues of curbing violent crime, preferrably by addressing the criminal, and leave the law-abiding alone" I would jump all over it. But the way it is now, with the anti's pushing and pushing for restrictions and laws which have already proven to be failures, and some that make no sense at all ("assault weapon" bans) I am less willing to compromise in ANY way. Even if it means being against certain "common sense" measures which may actually have value.
TUCKER, Ga. — A 14-year-old girl used a pencil to ward off two men who tried to kidnap her Monday on her way home from dance practice, WGCL is reporting.
When the men tried to grab her, she used a pencil to stab one of the men in the arm, police said.
Click here to see the WGCL report.
"I'm glad that she just didn't become a victim and let them take her," the girl's mother told WGCL.
The girl did not suffer any serious injuries.
No offense, but I don't want to be caught in the crossfire of poorly-trained policemen (face it, most are regarding shooting skills) and criminals who don't care about collateral damage. Charles Whitman was taken down because of civilians, not because the police were great shots (if we're still using school shootings as examples).
He certainly did. That's why Col. Massengill & many others including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence are concerned ... and hope to prevent such horrific instances of gun murders in the future, IMHO. We owe it, not only to the victims' families, but to others who trust that they can send their children to college/university without firearms or bulletproof backpacks.
KELLI
I also agree that concerns about violence stemming from the use of guns both on & off campus in our country, are well-founded & must be adequately, promptly addressed.
Thanks for sharing this, Paul & the BC.
Kelli
"The instant background check for everyone, maybe except family, to me is just a reasonable approach."
Massengill attempts to make an idea a little sweeter by mentioning an exception, but surely he knows his gun control buddies would be howling about closing the "family loophole" shortly after they got this passed into law. Massengill and Helmke are being disingenuous for not pointing out that that would be the next step.
"Massengill said the perfect system would have everyone undergo a mental health screening before being able to get a gun".
So, our system of looking at a person's historical criminal and mental health record isn't good enough? Massengill believes a doctor has to sign off that you are mentally OK to exercise your rights, even though you have demonstrated no historical record of problems? By the same logic, Massengill would have you get a sign off from an appropriate professional stating that you are not a threat to slander, libel, plagiarize, incite people to riot, etc., before you can get the tools to exercise your right to free speech. Here is crystallized perfectly, for all to see, Massengill's true nature.
Massengill is just another gun control advocate who talks like he's for gun rights but whose notions of "sensible" gun laws betray his true attitude. He's a sheep, or at least he wants you to be one. No matter how well he or Helmke think they have him camouflaged, it's not hard to spot a sheep in wolf's clothing.
The last couple of columns by Helmke unusually ran for a couple of days. They didn't have the word gun in the headline so maybe I'm not alone in noticing what kicks a column off of the Huffpost.