The NRA is wrong again --as wrong as it was in 2009 when its President, Wayne LaPierre, suggested that our founding fathers believed that so-called "Second Amendment remedies" were the way to ensure democracy.
The NRA is misleading again -- as misleading as Glenn Beck was when he said he wanted to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. by hosting his ego-driven rally on August 28.
The NRA can't help exposing itself and its any gun for anybody anywhere agenda again -- the way Lady Gaga can't help exposing her...well, you get my point.
The NRA's latest lie is just an updated twist on the old one that more guns equal less crime. Using the FBI's recent crime rate report, which indicates that violent crime fell last year for the third year in a row, the NRA has taken to its perch to wave and shout and dance and steal the credit.
It's clear the NRA bosses don't want just to make the rules; they want also to treat us as fools.
Wrong. Again.
In 2009, gun sales increased. Which means that in 2009, after a successful campaign of fear-mongering about President Obama among its followers, more of the same guys who love guns bought...wait for it, more guns.
In truth, the average number of guns per owner has gone up, but the percent of American households with a gun? That's right: it's gone down. Gun ownership by household has gone down from a high in 1977 of 54 percent to 33 percent in 2009. But for the NRA bosses, any excuse to fear-monger is better than none.
If more guns meant less crime, then we should be the safest people in the world. In truth, more guns mean more gun violence. While I cheer the news that violent crime rates in America have gone down, most of us know that there are many factors that contribute to crime rates. And most importantly, I know the all-too-sobering truth: America has the highest number of guns in the industrialized world and our citizens make up 80 percent of people in the industrialized world who die from bullet blasts.
I know that within the last two weeks, Paul Warren Pardus, a distraught man with a semi-automatic handgun, took his own life, his mother's, and tried to take the life of Dr. David B. Cohen at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
I know that within the last two weeks, Stephen A. Carr, of Fairfax County, Va., was terrorized and then shot and killed by his neighbor, David A. Patton, who had a Concealed Carry permit. Patton reportedly was ticked off that Carr had led the successful charge to have a speed bump installed in the neighborhood they shared. He apparently decided that his outrage over having to drive more slowly warranted Carr's murder. (Patton might also have killed Carr's girlfriend, but she escaped and called police.)
I know that every day in America, 35 times, somebody's mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, and child dies because of gun violence.
I know that, contrary to the gun lobby's fantasies, if you keep a gun in your home, the person most likely to kill you already has the key to your house.
The heart-crushing, unending pain of this truth is endured daily by countless American families, including the family of Brady Campaign activist Joan Peterson of Minnesota, whose sister died at the gun-wielding-hands of her husband in 1992. Still today, the ache, pain, and trauma of her family's loss lingers.
I know that, in a nation that is experiencing the most disruptive economic climate in 70 years, when homelessness is exploding, and poverty is growing, and people are going without jobs for years at a time, more guns in more hands or more homes is not a policy those who love their country should want to promote.
As researchers in a recent report on gun violence pointed out, "Whatever our basic level of violence... readily accessible firearms -- by making killing easy, efficient, and somewhat impersonal -- increase the lethality of violence. "
Knowing this, those who love their country should be expected to support sensible gun laws, such as the Brady law, which requires criminal background checks on anyone who seeks to buy a gun from federally licensed dealers. Since 1994, more than 1.8 million prohibited purchases have been stopped by this law. Tell former Ronald Reagan Press Secretary Jim Brady, who was shot and seriously wounded by a man who should not have gotten a gun, that those numbers don't mean anything.
Or tell that to Tennille Jefferson, the mother of 7-year-old Nafis Jefferson, who was struck in the head and killed by a bullet fired by another child, who found the gun underneath a car in his South Philadelphia neighborhood. A man who was prohibited by law from owning a gun had abandoned the Rossi revolver that took the 7-year-old's life.
But, maybe that's where I'm wrong. The guys with the guns talk about loving their country, but if we examine their actions, it seems clear that above all, darn the bloody consequences: they love their guns more.
Paul Helmke is president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Follow the Brady Campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
I don't hunt, I don't target shoot, I don't have a job that necessitates a gun. So, if I truly want a handgun, it must be for safety. There must be something I feel I need protection from.
I don't. I don't live in a particularly high crime area. I don't feel particularly targeted by anyone for violent acts. There are certainly legitimate rational reasons to own a gun, including completely real and rational fears (battered spouse, etc.). But the only reason I would have to buy a gun is out of irrational fear.
Yet, my guess is that a lot people are in my position (regular job, decent neighborhood, etc.) and still go ahead buy a gun because they are scared. They don't know what they're scared of. The media certainly helps perpetuate it, as do probably anyone who has a hand in gun manufacturing or dealing, alarm systems, the list goes on.
Personally, I try not to make any decisions out of fear. More often than not, they come back to haunt you in ways much worse than what you were scared of.
One does not need to face a highened specific threat to take precautions. Having something in response to a general possibility is quite common and gun purchases are no different. One does not need to face a specific threat to their life to make the decition to own a gun.
The real people who act out of fear are Paul and his ilk, who want to scare everyone away from owning guns with wild tales of doom and gloom. Clearly his tactics are not working.
The fact is this: Gun purchases keep going up while crime keeps going down, and there is no way around it.
But I can understand Paul's desperation. His organization hasn't have a significant win in the courts or legislature in over a decade. CCW continues to sweep the nation, while his groundless lawsuits against the gun industry have all been thrown out as his legal arguments are shot down at every level of the court system, including twice in the Super Court over the last two years.
When one is in such a desperate situation, he can't help but grasp at straws. Sorry Paul, but the you will keep losing because the defenders of the second amendment love our country more then you hate our guns.
How can Paul think that's a decrease when that number is more then all his members? It must be one of those gun control group statistics.
Having blind hatred for guns and their owners doesn't jibe with the reality that gun bans disarm no one but the lawful and protect no one but the criminals. Guns are the best self defense tools in the world, and to believe otherwise is no different then believing in the tooth fairy.
Perhaps the pro-unregulated gun lobby could manufacture another YouTube?
Have camera and gun ... ready ... aim ... action?
Your logic would make George Orwell proud.
I think you're referring to the cases where big cities have had more stringent gun laws. But you guys won cases in the Supreme Court.
And universal gun confiscation is far from a pressing problem for you, right?
You are right. But those regulations must be subjected to strict scrutiny, which is a far higher level than has been used customarily. Old regulations are going to be overturned en masse...new regulations must be very carefully targeted.
There is a broad consensus of reasonable regulation that is already reflected in the considerable body of law on the books. Tight controls on automatic weapons, for example. Background checks for purchase from a dealer, as long as the system is not abused (i.e., registration or arbitrary denial), is probably in that category as well.
The problem comes in when people on the gun-control side propose regulation that is aimed at curtailing or harassing lawful gun ownership and use, rather than being focused as narrowly as possible on criminal misuse. It seems to me that most gun control that has been proposed since the NICS background check law has focused almost exclusively on harassing the people who are NOT the problem.
2. So, when the Supreme Court comes across "regulation that is aimed at curtailing or harassing lawful gun ownership and use, rather than being focused as narrowly as possible on criminal misuse," they have declared themselves the final arbiter.
If so, what indication do you have that there is a large membership?
The reason I ask is that it seems that there are many here who seem to be defending themselves against such folks.
I sometimes think advocates of any cause seem to want to magnify the opposition to motivate themselves.
Josh Sugarmann, head of VPC, has long supported a complete ban and confiscation of handguns.
The CSGV was formerly known as The National Coalition To Ban Handguns.
HCI, which was what the Brady Campaign/Center used to be known as, had as its stated goal:
-- ""We'll take one step at a time, and the first is necessarily - given the political realities - very modest. We'll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law and again and again. Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down production and sales. Next is to get registration. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and ammunition (with a few exceptions) totally illegal." HCI Chairman Pete Shields
Am I wrong or is it you're trying to find people with positions in favor of gun prohibition because they are easier to argue against?
If so, what indication do you have that there is a large membership?"
These organizations, in spite of their scant membership, have substantial influence in national politics. Their talking points, no matter how poorly substantiated, readily find their way into the discourse of those who consider themselves enlightened. You need only witness the weekly or semiweekly offerings provided here on Huff Po. You will never find a pro-RKBA blog here.
If their arguments are imperfect by your lights, why is it not enough to point out their imperfections? Deleting or flagging comments seems to me to be an expression of insecurity.
No one who "loves" their gun , abandons it under a car. Looks like someone didn't love their gun enough.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-scotland-11411577
Bricks??????
R/ PRONESE
By analogy does that mean all countries should be able to own nuclear weapons? After all, most of them would be wise with them. Of 192 countries I bet 185 would use them appropriately.
But you might read Heller and McDonald SCOTUS decisions, to understand more of the history and reasons behind rights in the USA
Are you really trying to equate a nuclear weapon to a personal defensive tool?
Dude. C'mon.
Makes me think the NRA is a pretty defensive group and if a gun control article pops up they make sure someone is there to defend the death machines.
So to me these are life saving machines.
If you were murdered in the 20 century, odd are that you were murdered by a Government, in Europe, Africa, Asia, all palces where the individual is not sovereign, and the people are not allowed the tools of self defense.
You are however free not to defend yourself, your wife and children and community. That's your choice, and your responsibility.
I applaud your great and noble efforts to keep guns out of the hands of innocent law-abiding people who have no need to defend their property, family, children, and spouses from torture, rape, murder, and being at the mercy of violent criminals and or psychopaths who trespass into the privacy of their own homes.
Who needs guns to defend oneself and other loved ones when the police are available to arrive 45 minutes to an hour later to deal with an armed perpetrator? We are all better off not having a means to defend ourselves and we should all lie down and take whats coming to us! It isn't inhumane AT ALL to deprive human beings the means to self-defense against criminals who 9 out of 10 obtain guns through ILLEGAL means and not thru a Federally Licensed Gun Dealer! Keep up the good work!
Well said, sir.
Those guns are used more often in defense than crime, but the brady center liar chose to leave that statistic out.