The NRA stands for National Rifle Association. It was founded in 1871 with the mission of creating rifle clubs comprised of mostly Civil War veterans to improve their marksmanship. Today it has a membership of over four million people with an annual budget of around $220 million dollars, $20 million of which is spent on political lobbying. It no longer just focuses on rifles.
They say that the NRA is the most powerful lobbying organization in our country. They say that after President Clinton put a ban on assault weapons in 1994, the NRA was the reason why many of the Democrats who voted in favor of the ban lost their jobs. They say because of what happened in 1994, every politician is now afraid of the NRA. President Bush reversed the ban on assault weapons and President Obama has not touched the subject. We have been left with laws that allow people to own weapons that are more powerful than any regular police officer has access to and on par with weapons of war. And not only does it allow people to own these weapons, the NRA has been successful at blocking attempts to pass reasonable legislation that would require background checks at gun-shows (currently there are none), as well as blocking people on the terror watch list and those who are mentally unstable from obtaining guns and putting an end to the sale of accessories like 100 round drums. They are also the group behind the "Stand Your Ground" law that George Zimmerman's defense claims protects him from being convicted of killing Trayvon Martin. Our nation has been held hostage by 4 million people and $220 million dollars. The safety of our schools, our streets, our homes, our movie theaters, is being controlled by those who cling to their guns, their assault weapons and their weapons of war. They don't intimidate me, so I will speak my piece, as I am a man of peace.
Let me break down two high-profile shootings. The gunman in the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona used a 9mm handgun, killing six and injuring fourteen. The shooter had a thirty bullet magazine with one in the chamber and was able to get off 31 shots.
It was during a moment when he had to re-load his weapon that 61-year-old Patricia Maisch wrestled him to the ground and stopped the massacre. Contrary, the shooter in the Aurora Theater shooting had a AR-15 semi-automatic assault weapon with a 100 round drum, along with two hand-guns and a rifle. He had bought 6,000 rounds of ammo and loaded up on body armor, all of which he bought legally on the Internet. The AR-15 has the capability of shooting 50-60 bullets per minute that would pierce through a steel door. The shooter killed 12 people and injured 58 before his gun jammed. The two police officers who first arrived on the scene would have been out-powered by the shooter, as all they had were handguns and shotguns. Their lives were potentially saved by a jammed weapon. Both incidents were horrific. Both incidents should never have happened. But in the case of Aurora, the shooter was able to injure or kill 50 more people than the shooter in Arizona (and he was shooting in the dark, compared to broad daylight). So, it is difficult for me to swallow the argument that if we ban assault weapons, people will just find a way to continue killing at the alarming numbers they do now. We might have saved multiple lives and stopped the injury of dozens of others if the shooter in Colorado didn't use the weapon of his choice.
When anyone dies from senseless violence in this country, I will raise my voice of support for tougher gun laws. It is unfathomable to me that the only time this country or the media wants to broach the subject is when there are mass shootings, and most of the victims are white. Well, I hate to break the news to you, but there are mass shootings in Chicago every weekend. There are mass shootings in New York City every weekend. There are mass shootings in Los Angeles every weekend. EVERY 31 MINUTES, A BLACK CHILD OR TEENAGER IS SHOT IN AMERICA, AND THE MEDIA DOESN'T MENTION IT AND EVERYONE ELSE KEEPS IT MOVING. And we only want to mention the word "gun reform" when white people are killed? My heart is heavy for the victims in Colorado, but I can't be silent because every politician in Washington and around this country is afraid of the NRA. No other country in the civilized world allows this to happen. Only in the land of the free, where politicians can be legally bribed and our democracy is for sale, do citizens have access to weapons of war. Well, I'm not a politician, so the NRA can't silence me and they certainly ain't gonna punk me!
The time has come for our nation to face the National Rifle Association and its bullying tactics. There is no way that our forefathers envisioned twelve innocent people lying dead on the floor of a movie theater when they wrote the Second Amendment. They didn't even know what an assault weapon was or what urban communities would become. A man walks into a movie theater dressed as "The Joker" from Batman and shoots seventy people, and how do we respond? We ban people from wearing costumes!? How about we address the real problem by banning weapons of war, so we never deny the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for another innocent American again.
p.s. If you want join in fighting the NRA's control of our country, please visit www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org or www.secondchanceonshootfirst.org.
Follow Russell Simmons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/unclerush
Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Gun Control is a Religious Issue
Sanjay Sanghoee: Why Gun Control Is Patriotic
Ira Chernus: The Fantasy of Absolute Safety
Jack Levin, Ph.D.: Can We Prevent the Next Mass Murder?
Where in the Constitution does it say "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed...as long as they are much weaker than what the government has".
"We have been left with laws that allow people to own weapons that are more powerful than any regular police officer has access to and on par with weapons of war."
The police do have access to anything you or I have access to and more.
"reasonable legislation that would require background checks at gun-shows (currently there are none),"
Every FFL at a gunshow must run the purchaser through NICS. That is federal law.
The "terror watch list" is a secretly compiled and demonstrably erroneous list of only names and no other identifiable information, thus a listing for a "John Smith" would affect any individual using that name. No due process is applied to the list and those affected by the list are afforded no means of appeal.
What other Constitutionally protected liberties does Mr. Simmons advocate abridging based upon this secretly complied and demonstrably erroneous list while offering those affected neither due process nor means of appeal?
As such accessories are rarely criminally misused, prohibiting the sale of such is not reasonable.
Evidently, Mr. Simmons is unaware of the "Oklahoma City Bombing", a mass murder incident in which no firearms were used. Mr. Simmons is also evidently unaware that "assault weapons" are a subset of rifles, which are amongst the least commonly criminally misused classes of firearms; more individuals are killed by unarmed attackers than are killed with use of "assault weapons" in any given year in the United States of America.
"EVERY 31 MINUTES, A BLACK CHILD OR TEENAGER IS SHOT IN AMERICA, "
And who is doing the shooting? What are they using? Where is this most commonly happening?
It's primarily by another 'black child or teenager' belonging to a gang, with a history of criminal activity, and using a stolen or straw bought handgun.
"The AR-15 has the capability of shooting 50-60 bullets per minute that would pierce through a steel door."
What bullets are these? What kind of steel?
"weapons that are more powerful than any regular police officer has access to and "
'Regular police officers commonly have AR's in their vehicles and have for some time. In fact, the militarization of police is what's becoming the concern w/ SWAT raids and armored vehicles over things like student loans.
"on par with weapons of war. "
I have several bolt action rifles used in WWII. The semi-auto's arbitrarily referred to as 'assault weapons' haven't been used by any modern military
Criminals have ALWAYS sought to obtain weapons more powerful than the police. Did you do ANY research prior to writing this blog?
Gun ownership increased 6% between 2001 and 2010; as of October 2011, 47% of Americans admit to owning a gun. As gun ownership increased between 2001 and 2010, violent crimes across the country decreased by 13.4%. Imagine that.
While we currently have more than 900,000 sworn officers serving in the U.S., as of 2009, we had 1,613,740 adult prisoners under jurisdiction of Federal or State Correctional Authorities (not counting juvenile criminals). So, let's do a little third grade math, Russell. Criminals outnumber law enforcement by almost double. And you want to take gun rights from citizens, so they are unable to protect themselves from the criminals who already outnumber law enforcement? Are you deranged??? You'll never get criminals to give up their firearms. I certainly want the right to own a firearm to protect myself and my family should the need arise....with no criminal history, why should I be denied the right to self preservation?
Signed,
One of the four million
Sources:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/violent-crime/violent-crime
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/enforcement/
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0348.pdf
"The mentally ill are the biggest buyers of guns, by definition." False.
In case you haven't noticed, we have also outlawed drugs. And we are universally applying those laws. We have filled the prisons with drug users. How is that working for us? What will another law do that isn't already being done?
I want to be very clear in my comments. I fully support the outlawing of assault rifles, large ammo magazines, steel jacketed bullets, etc. I want very stiff sentences for those who use guns in the commission of a felony. But we must not kid ourselves that these measures are going to appreciably change what is going on.
We are having these heinous acts of violence not because guns exist, but because morality and decency have collapsed in our culture. Violent intent is going to find a way to do it's evil.
Assault rifles are full-auto military weapons, and in the US only police or military can have them since 1986.
Steel jacketed bullets are very common, but are not what you are thinking of. Steel CORE bullets are typically what would be called armor piercing bullets, and are also illegal for 'civilians'.
As for large magazines, define 'large'. Do you mean more than the arbitrary 10 rounds sought by the gun control lobby? Why 10? If we had six fingers on each hand would the magic number be 12?
All of these laws have been tried before, and shown to have absolutely no effect on violence involving firearms. In fact some, specifically 'gun free zones', have actually caused increased violence.
You yourself make an excellent point that outlawing anything only means outlaws (by definition) will have that thing. Yet then you turn around and say that you support the very ideas that you dismissed the paragraph before.
In general I think your comment was very germane and rational, but I am confused by your support for these gun control shibboleths. They contradict everything else in your comment and make me wonder how you deal with this contradiction.
Is your belief in these gun control tenets simply inertia? It sounds like you need to think some more on this subject.
What I desire is a compromise that both sides could live with. Bolt action weapons and revolvers with limited magazines seems the place we might bring together an agreement. I would only do as part of a larger law that led to instant gun buys through a national registry, and the absolute right to be armed in your home and place of business. I am seeking a national agreement that would lock out the extremists of both ends of this argument, and that would bring together the reasonable across the broad middle.
As to automatic weapons being outlawed, be honest now. You know full well how easy it is to take one of the legal single shot AK rifles, and alter it back to full automatic. That would be difficult if only bolt action rifles were allowed.
This really isn't a matter of opinion and interpretation. We have the correspondence and diaries of so many of the founders of this country. They believed an armed populace was absolutely essential to the preservation of liberty, and to keep governments from overreaching their permitted powers.
Indeed, it was the King of England's attempt to disarm the American populace that set off the Revolution.
But I also doubt the Wild West was a safe time, at least not safe for many, as it was a time of lynchings and frontier justice, and the annihilation of Native Americans.
That is one sentence. A sentence is a complete thought. It is clear that the authors of this amendment were speaking of the right of states to maintain a militia, which was common practice in 1789. The British had tried to disband the colonial militias, and seize the weapons. The British marched out of Boston to Lexington and Concord Massachusetts to seize militia munitions. The militia met the British. That was what the authors of the Amendment were thinking about. Militias.
Nothing in the sentence can be read to say that individuals can have assult weapons without regulation. Regulation is a key part of the sentence. So "the right to bear arms" is a sentence fragment having no support in a reading of the second amendment. The Supreme Court that misread the Second Amendment is the same group of justices that gave us Citizen's United.
So the Supreme Court is made up of the smartest people on the planet when they decide with Obama on healthcare, yet they are the dumbest people on the planet when they side with 2nd Amendment activists?
I guess if cover your bets on both sides of an issue, your never wrong, eh?
Horrid situation, for sure.
www.dofr.org
Who exactly stated these words, Russell Simmons? I find it fascinating that HP continue to make the case that’s black voices are in all cases Ghetto. Other than that, the column is spot on.