Posts by BaldrOdinson:
- December 6: Silverton, Oregon: Sheriff’s deputies chased a suspect in a stolen vehicle. While searching for the suspect, there was a shootout between the suspect and at least a couple deputies in a Christmas tree field. Both the suspect and one of the deputies were wounded.
- December 6: Halsey, Oregon: A Salem police detective was passed by a reckless driver on Interstate 5. When the detective pulled over the driver, the driver then got out and threatened the detective with a gun. The detective then shot and wounded the driver.
- December 3: Fairview, Oregon: Police and sheriff’s deputies performed a welfare check on a man acting erratically at an apartment. The suspect then fired upon by the officers, and was subsequently shot and wounded.
- November 23: Bend, Oregon: An officer responding to a reported break-in shot and killed the suspect.
- November 21: Eugene, Oregon: A school resource officer at Churchill High School made a traffic stop of a man who was riding a mini-bike next to school. The driver then attacked the officer, armed with a gun, knife, and hatchet. The officer then shot and killed the suspect on school grounds.
- Senate Bill 700: Universal Background Checks – Closes the private sales loophole so criminals and other dangerous people can’t buy guns.
- Senate Bill 347: Gun-Free Schools – Gives school districts the authority to prohibit guns on campus.
- Senate Bill 699: Guns in Public Buildings – Ensures that citizens cannot openly carry guns in buildings where public bodies are deliberating.
- Senate Bill 796: Training for Concealed Handgun License – Requires citizens to attend an in-person class before obtaining a concealed handgun license.
- March 6, 2013: A recently-started armed resource officer program at schools in Highland, New York, was suspended after one of the security guards unintentionally fired his weapon in school. Children were present, but luckily no one was injured.
- March 1, 2013: During a conceal carry training class, on school grounds, which was part of a new program to arm school staff, a school maintenance worker who was a student in the class unintentionally fired his weapon, wounding himself in the leg.
- January 17, 2013: A charter school in Lapeer, Michigan, decided to start having an armed guard on campus. Three days after hiring a guard, the man left his weapon in a school bathroom where kids could have found it.
- October 8, 2012: A man with a concealed handgun visited an elementary school classroom in Moore, Oklahoma, to help the teacher with her computer. His gun fell out and he left without it, only realizing it was missing after the media reported it. Small children were present in the room at the time.
- September 12, 2011: An armed security guard, patrolling schools at night in Salem, Oregon, unintentionally lost his loaded firearm somewhere during his rounds. The gun was never found.
- around one-third of schools already have campus security.
- two different studies (HERE and HERE) have shown that armed guards in schools make students feel less secure, possibly affecting their performance
- in the Columbine shooting, a sheriff’s deputy who was patrolling the grounds, and another who arrived immediately, both of whom shot at one of the shooters, failed to stop the gunmen.
- in 62 mass shootings over 30 years that Mother Jones could find, not one of them was stopped by a conceal carry permit holder. In the recent Clackamas Mall shooting here in Oregon, there was a conceal carry holder with his gun trained on the shooter when the shooter’s gun had jammed, but he didn’t shoot. Why? Because he wisely realized there were too many innocent bystanders who could be hit if he fired. He instead hid in a store while the gunman escaped (then killed himself minutes later), and the gunman apparently never noticed that he had a gun trained on him.
- even John Lott, the only “researcher” that the NRA always dusts off to spout discredited statistics backing the NRA’s “more concealed guns in more places” argument, actually says the NRA’s plan won’t work.
- conceal carry gun owners are all-too-often responsible for leaving loaded guns where children find them (even in schools!), sometimes resulting in injuries or death, unintentionally discharge their gun in public or leave it behind in public, or, yes, purposely use their guns to murder people.
Mikhail Kalashnikov, Regretted Inventing the AK-47 On His Deathbed
February 5th, 2014By Baldr Odinson.
Mikhail Kalashnikov was an inventor. He started inventing things soon after he joined the Red Army tank brigade, after his family was sent to Siberia during the Soviet purges. He invented a tank shot counter, a time meter, and even an electric lawnmower. But the invention that made him famous was an assault rifle — the AK-47.
Designed over the course of 6 years, what he ended with in 1947 was a very rugged and reasonably reliable, fully-automatic killing machine which was quickly adopted by the Red Army, anywhere in the world that they fought. It is cheap to make, easy to maintain, and has a reputation of being very dependable even in the worst environments.
“I made it to protect the motherland,” he is quoted as saying.
But the weapon wasn’t just in Soviet army hands. It wasn’t long before the gun, and its variants, were in 
the hands of terrorists, jihadis, and Soviet-armed allies all over the world. It is still one of the most preferred weapons. It is arguably the most fired gun in the world, and has been used to kill millions of people and launch revolutions, including in the hands of child soldiers. It’s estimated that there are at least 100 million of the guns currently in use around the world.
It’s even featured on the flag of Mozambique , the flag of Hezbollah (see image), and the flag of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The AK-47 also has become popular with gun nuts in the United States. Even the little pawn and gun store down the street from me sells a semi-auto version of the AK-47. “We sell AK-47s!” a sign reads out front.
Last December, Mikhail Kalashnikov died of natural causes at the age of 97:
As his rifles became synonymous with terrorists and rebel armies he was asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other.
“I invented it for the protection of the Motherland. I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it,” he told them.
In fact, he earned many awards and was regarded as a hero of his nation. He never profited from his deadly invention.
But as the years went by, he began to regret his invention, slowly at first. Also from that article:
“I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by terrorists,” he said once.
“I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower.”
And in the last few days, news broke about statements that Kalashnikov had made on his deathbed. This inventor, who had made a weapon to protect his nation’s interest, watched over the decades as that weapon was turned against Russian soldiers, against other nations, against citizens by militant extremists, and even against innocent citizens in far away American streets.
Said Mr. Kalashnikov in his deathbed confession to his priest that he felt “spiritual pain” for his lethal invention:
But he wrote to the Patriarch of the Russian church said the designer felt a degree of guilt and “ spiritual pain” towards the end of his life for inventing the killing machine.
The letter published by Russian newspaper Izvestia quotes his daughter, Elena, saying she believes a priest helped her father compose the letter, which said:” My spiritual pain is unbearable.”
He asks: “I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?
“The longer I live “the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression”.
The letter is typed on Kalashnikov’s own personal notepaper and with the wavering signature describing himself as “a slave of God, the designer Mikhail Kalashnikov”.
And since pro-gun extremists love all things that go “boom,” particularly assault rifles, they naturally praise the weapon and its designer, even though he was part of the big, bad evil communist Russia and his invention was used to mow down Americans in every war we’ve fought since Korea.
Just read what the gun guys have to say about Kalashnikov, his death, and his lethal weapon, on the pro-gun forums and web comments section:
“Damn that sucks. Father of the most famous assault rifle. RIP Mikhail!” (source)
“I just told my AK about it. We had a good cry together. RIP to one of the greatest weapons designers of the 20th century.” (source)
“The world has lost a true genius and a hero today.” (source)
“Guess I’ll fire a 21 gun salute from my own AK-47 variant.” (source)
“Rest in Peace. The master tinkerer’s invention has probably done more to shape world events than any ideology.” (source)
“It was an honor to live in the same century with him.” (source)
Here’s one gun nut firing through 700 rounds of ammo with his AK-47 in honor of Kalashnikov’s passing. The heat from firing the gun actually causes the wood on the barrel to start smoking. Say’s the shooter, “What can you say? The guns just don’t stop runnin’.”
Some people would say that having such a fascination with lethal weapons and their inventors is a sign of mental illness.
Nevermind that the semi-auto version of the AK-47 has been used over and over again to threaten, rob, maim, and kill untold numbers of Americans in our homes and streets. HERE are some examples, just involving children, that have been posted at the Kid Shootings blog, over the last year or so, including the death of a baby, a 13-year old girl shot by her 19-year old brother with his personal AK-47, two teens killed while riding on ATVs, two boys ages 11 and 14 injured in Miami, and a 5-year old girl here in Oregon shot by a man in the apartment below when he stupidly used his AK-47 as a “crutch.” Cases aren’t so hard to find.
So was Kalashnikov a hero or a villian?
You can’t blame a man for designing a weapon meant to be used to defend his nation. Someone has to do it. And can you really blame him for mis-use of that weapon? Probably not. Though I can say that I don’t think I would be able to design a lethal weapon, knowing full well that people would be killed and maimed by my handiwork, and that, like every weapon, it would in some manner wind up in the wrong hands. Plenty of Russians, jihadists, and revolutionaries would consider him a hero. Just don’t say that to anyone who has lost a loved one or been maimed by an AK-47.
No, the real problem, for us in the United States, is that weapons like the AK-47 have wound up in on our streets, freely available to be bought by anyone — not just with a background check in a store, but without a background check in a private sale just about anywhere in the U.S. And, all too often, that gun will wind up in the hands of those who would use them for evil, intentionally or not. They are designed, by Mr. Kalashnikov, to kill large numbers of people quickly and efficiently. And, sadly, the AK-47 is being held up as some sort of symbol here in America by the pro-gun crowd who are buying them in record numbers. Those guns will likely outlive those who purchase them.
Good-bye, Mikhail, but please pardon me if I have no sympathy for your end-of-life regrets. Your weapons work remarkably well, and homes in the U.S. are still being bloodied for it.
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Why Does Iceland Have So Few Officer-Involved Shootings Compared To The U.S.?
December 12th, 2013by Baldr Odinson.
It’s the scenario that all law enforcement officers train for, but hope never to use: a seemingly routine traffic stop or investigation of a suspect suddenly turns into a life-and-death shootout. It happens all the time in the United States, where there are as many guns as there are citizens.
In just the last two weeks here in the state of Oregon, there have been five law enforcement shootings that I’m aware of:
That’s one law enforcement personnel injured, three suspects wounded, and two suspects killed, in just two weeks, in Oregon.
And those, of course, don’t represent the many other non-law enforcement shootings and gun crimes in Oregon in that time. You can see these and others reported at the Oregon Shootings Facebook page.
It was with those shootings in mind that I read a surprising article about Iceland. You see, on Monday, December 2, Iceland had its first-ever fatal shooting of a suspect by law enforcement. The suspect died.
That’s right. Let me re-state this for the record: In the 69-year history of independent Iceland, no law enforcement person there has ever had to shoot to death a suspect while in the line of duty!
In fact, most police don’t even carry firearms. Violent crime is almost non-existent there. From an article:
“The nation does not want its police force to carry weapons because it’s dangerous, it’s threatening,” Arnorsdottir says. “It’s a part of the culture. Guns are used to go hunting as a sport, but you never see a gun.”
In fact, Iceland isn’t anti-gun. In terms of per-capita gun ownership, Iceland ranks 15th in the world. Still, this incident was so rare that neighbors of the man shot were comparing the shooting to a scene from an American film.
The Icelandic police department said officers involved will go through grief counseling. And the police department has already apologized to the family of the man who died — though not necessarily because they did anything wrong.
“I think it’s respectful,” Arnorsdottir says, “because no one wants to take another person’s life. “There are still a number of questions to be answered, including why police didn’t first try to negotiate with man before entering his building.
“A part of the great thing of living in this country is that you can enter parliament and the only thing they ask you to do is to turn off your cellphone, so you don’t disturb the parliamentarians while they’re talking. We do not have armed guards following our prime minister or president. That’s a part of the great thing of living in a peaceful society. We do not want to change that. “
Did you catch the details there?? The police department apologized to the suspect’s family! And even the prime minister and president don’t have armed guards!
And neighbors “were comparing the shooting to a scene from an American film.” There’s a reason why other countries compare such shootings to America.
Iceland rates 15th for civilian gun ownership rate out of 178 countries, according to www.gunpolicy.org (the U.S. is 1st). There are 30.3 guns for every 100 citizens there (the U.S. now has 101/100 people). These guns are almost exclusively used for hunting and target shooting, not self-defense. Despite all these guns, there have only been 5 shooting deaths in the last year in Iceland, with four of those being suicides. Compare that to about 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S., 11,000 of those being homicides (you can also see crime statistics at the Icelandic police page).
So what is Iceland doing right? According to one article, there is almost no drug problem, and because Iceland is a socialist nation, there is almost no class distinction. But the real kicker is gun regulation.
Despite being awash with guns, those guns are heavily regulated to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. Unlike the United States, Iceland requires gun licensing, gun registration, strict recordkeeping by dealers and manufacturers, and markings and tracing of all guns owned and sold. Iceland also takes part in all United Nations programs to prevent illegal trade of small arms, such as the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty and the U.N. Firearms Protocol, neither of which the U.S. has signed. As with other such nations around the world that have such regulations, shootings are almost non-existent.
If only it could be the same here! Unfortunately, police have to arm themselves against the legion of criminals and mentally insane who can, so easily, arm themselves with guns in America. Sadly, far too many have to draw their weapons in the line of duty, and a disturbing number wind up getting shot by the suspect. The Officer Down Memorial webpage memorializes them. At least 27 have been shot to death in the line of duty in 2013. Recently I wrote about one who died here in Oregon in early November, reserve officer Robert Libke, shot to death by a mentally-unstable man who had set fire to his own home.
Sadly, here in America, we have a culture of violence, where the “open carry” gun crowd, like this advocate, call for open insurrection and even attacking police if they “feel” their rights as gun owners are being infringed. “Do you have the spine to cross that line?” said that advocate. With an atmosphere like that, and easy availability of guns to criminals, it is little wonder that police have a dangerous job here.
Our men and women in blue are heroes every day. Let’s protect them by demanding rational gun laws to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals.
Reactions to George Zimmerman’s “Not Guilty” Verdict For Killing Trayvon Martin
July 18th, 2013by Baldr Odinson
George Zimmerman, suspicious that 17-year old Trayvon Martin was a burgler as the boy walked home from the store, stalked and chased the boy at night through an apartment complex, confronted him, and shot him to death, despite the boy being unarmed. Yet, last week, he was found “not guilty” of either murder or manslaughter by a Florida jury, due to that state’s broad definition of justifiable self-defense shootings.
Reactions to the Zimmerman verdict run the gamut from sad acceptance and calls for calm to angry outrage. But, with the exception of some minor vandalism during a protest in Oakland (no injuries or arrests), there has been no violence. Many peaceful demonstrations have occurred. HERE is a good news video on those.
See excerpts, below, of some statements from important figures in the case:
Trayvon’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, gave an interview for the first time since the verdict, on CBS This Morning. See HERE for video and article from HuffPost:
“I was in a bit of shock,” [Fulton] said. “I thought surely that he would be found guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter at the least. But I just knew that they would see that this was a teenager just trying to get home. This was no burglar. This was somebody’s son that was trying to get home.”
When asked about the prospect of racial profiling, Fulton revealed that neither of them knew the details of the case, including George Zimmerman’s previous 911 calls and the fact that authorities were looking for a young black male.
“Trayvon was simply not that person,” she said. “Trayvon was not a burglar, he was not doing anything wrong. He simply went to the store and was headed back home. And for somebody to look at him and perceive that he was a burglar, that was the problem that initiated everything.”
Tweeted by Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin (via CNN):
Even though I am broken hearted my faith is unshattered I WILL ALWAYS LOVE MY BABY TRAY.
Tweeted by Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton:
Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you. You are all that I have. At the end of the day, GOD is still in control. Thank you all for your prayers and support. I will love you forever Trayvon!!! In the name of Jesus!!!
From the Martin Family attorney, Ben Crump:
“We are very saddened by the jury’s verdict. The family is heartbroken. Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin would like to thank people around the world for their support. To everybody that put their hoodies up. To everybody that said, “I am Trayvon.
To Tracy and Sabrina, your tireless work. We know Trayvon is up there, proud. This morning, Martin Luther King’s daughter Tweeted me that this was a defining moment for the progress of her father’s dream. He would want us to conduct ourselves on the higher plane of dignity and discipline.
For Trayvon to rest in peace, we must all be peaceful.”
From the Prosecutor, Bernie de la Rionda:
I am disappointed, as we are, with the verdict, but we accept it. We respect the jury’s verdict.
From President Barack Obama (via CNN):
The president, in a written statement, acknowledged an emotionally charged climate but concluded that “we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken.”
Obama called Martin’s death a tragedy for America.
“I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher,” he said.
“I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities.
“We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis,” Obama said.
From The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence:
The Brady Campaign has been one of the leaders in fighting against “Stand Your Ground” or so called, “shoot first” laws like the one in Florida. As evidenced by the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, these laws have deadly consequences. They promote a dangerous mentality and misperception about weapons, by overemphasizing their value in self-defense relative to the other dangers that they pose.
In the end, George Zimmerman’s mentality, and what emboldened him to approach Trayvon, may be debatable. What is not debatable, though, is the fact that Trayvon Martin is dead because Zimmerman had a gun. Zimmerman was given a concealed carry permit by the state of Florida despite an arrest record and a history of violence, as a direct result of the influence of the gun lobby, and if it weren’t for that, this tragedy never would have happened.
From the NAACP (via CNN):
“When you look at (Zimmerman’s) comments, when you look at his comments about young black men in that neighborhood, about how they felt specially targeted by him, there is reason to be concerned that race was a factor in why he targeted young Trayvon,” NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Jealous said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
From the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence:
Turning the other cheek is supposed to be a sacred virtue. But by removing the duty to retreat from a confrontation in public when one can safely do so, the “Stand Your Ground” law allowed George Zimmerman to stalk and kill an unarmed teenager and walk away a free man. That’s a tragedy, because there can be no doubt that Zimmerman could have avoided a confrontation with Trayvon Martin on the evening of February 26, 2012.
The NRA’s law represents a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in the use of force in the public space, allowing individuals to kill when they merely fear “great bodily harm” (i.e., a fistfight, shoving match, etc.). The concept of responding with proportional force has been obliterated. In this case, the “harm” done to Zimmerman, by whatever source, was so minor that EMTs didn’t even offer him treatment minutes after the shooting.
Americans should also question why Zimmerman was allowed to carry a loaded gun in public in the first place. He had been previously arrested for assaulting a police officer and placed under a restraining order for a domestic battery involving a former fiancee. Again, Zimmerman has the NRA to thank. Their “Shall Issue” law in Florida awards concealed carry permits to individuals with minimal screening/training and removes any discretion law enforcement might have in approving applicants.
The message to would-be killers is now clear. You need not fear carrying your gun in public, or using it. If you do, just make sure you are the only one remaining to testify about the nature of the confrontation in question.
From Moms Demand Action:
The shooting death of Trayvon underscores the growing danger of increasingly lenient gun policies across the United States. Stand Your Ground laws, which give everyday citizens more leeway to shoot than the U.S. military gives to our soldiers in war zones, endanger our children, families and communities. These laws grow even more dangerous when coupled with some states’ permissive concealed carry policies that empower untrained, average citizens to carry a gun, and turn everyday conflicts into deadly tragedies.
From The Southern Poverty Law Center:
“They always get away.” These were the words George Zimmerman uttered as he followed and later shot Trayvon Martin — words that reflected his belief that Trayvon was one of “them,” the kind of person about to get away with something. How ironic these words sound now in light of the jury verdict acquitting Zimmerman.
Trayvon is dead, and Zimmerman is free. Who was the one who got away?
From Trayvon’s pastor, Antioch Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Arthur Jackson III :
“I believe that this situation has not paralyzed us, has not traumatized us, but is mobilizing us,” Jackson said. “It’s going to be a call to rally at the polls to vote. If we’ve never voted before, we’re definitely going to rally to change these unjust laws.”
“For us in this generation, this is our Medgar Evers moment,” he went on, comparing Trayvon’s killing to the assassination of Evers, the World War II hero and civil rights leader.
“This is the moment that we’re not going to forget. We’re going to keep this in the forefront of our minds. This is going to continue to live. It will be something that we talk to our children about, now and forever.”
U.S. Legislators: Voting Against Commonsense Gun Regulation Will Get You Unelected
April 30th, 2013by Baldr Odinson.
Despite 90% of Americans supporting universal background checks, including 91% of gun-owning households, and even 74% of NRA members (see the data here), the U.S. Senate voted down a watered-down background check bill sponsored by two NRA-rated senators, with a vote of 45 against and 55 for, despite a majority”yes” vote (it needed 60 votes to prevent a filibuster).
Shame on those who voted against it!
Not surprisingly, the 93% of those who voted against it were paid by the NRA, to the tune of $800,000. Don’t like how they voted “no”? Let them know. Here are their Twitter handles.
For one senator who voted “no”, her polls showed an immediate drop in approval rating. Republican New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte’s approval rating suddenly dropped 15 points:
Forty-five percent of independents in the state disapproved of Ayotte, up 13 points since October. Half of voters said her vote on background checks made them less inclined to vote for her, with only a quarter saying it made them more likely to support her.
Among the critical third of voters who described themselves as moderates, disapproval of Ayotte increased by 21 points, with two-thirds saying her vote against background checks made them less likely to vote for her. Only 13 percent said it made them more likely to back her, an overwhelming 5-1 margin.
In face, according to a recent article, Ayotte is one of five senators who saw significant drops in their approval ratings after voting “no”:
Senator Flake, for example, has a 19-percentage point spread between those who approve of his performance (32 percent) versus those who don’t (51 percent), making him the most unpopular senator in PPP’s polling data.
Senators Ayotte, Portman, and Murkowski saw their approval ratings decline by more than 15 percentage points, compared with previous PPP polls taken in recent months. Senator Begich saw an eight-point decline, and Senator Dean Heller (R) of Nevada held roughly steady with a three-point drop in approval.
But what about the polls for those who voted “yes”? One example might be one of the co-sponsors of the compromise, Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey. Even though he’s also a Republican, his approval rating got a positive bump following the vote:
Voters approved 34-29 percent of the way Toomey handled the gun control vote and hey gave him an overall 48 – 30 percent approval rating, his highest ever. By a 54 – 12 percent margin, voters think more favorably of Toomey because of his co-sponsorship of legislation to require expanded background checks, Quinny pollsters found.
State voters were dissatisfied with the way the Senate vote went down, with 34 percent of voters “angry,” while 36 percent are “dissatisfied.” Only 5 percent are “enthusiastic,” with 22 percent “satisfied,” with the vote.
Let this be a strong message to legislators: If you don’t follow the wishes of your people, but instead put ahead of them the wishes of a dangerous lobby, you’ll lose your job.
But strong support for universal background checks and other sensible gun control measures isn’t just nationwide, it’s here in Oregon, too.
Consider a poll of 500 Oregonian adults performed for KATU TV back in January. As with the national numbers, Oregonians approve of universal background checks to the tune of 90%:
When asked whether criminal background checks should be required for every person who wants to buy a new gun, 90 percent of people polled said they should be required. Seven percent said “no” and four percent were not sure.
That poll’s margin of error was +/- 2.7 percent.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales on Monday said he joined a group of hundreds of mayors across the country calling on local and national lawmakers to take steps to end illegal gun violence. Hales said he wants to require criminal background checks for all new gun owners.
There are currently four gun bills in the Oregon Legislature which are likely to pass, but they need our support:
As you can see, the first of those, SB 700, clearly seeks to do what 90% of Oregonians want: universal background checks.
But don’t just look at the numbers. Here are the voices of Oregonians who have, unfortunately, been touched by gun violence, as I have.
So the big question is this: Will U.S. legislators follow the will of the people and vote in commonsense gun reforms to help keep guns out of prohibited hands, keep our kids and citizens safe in schools and other public buildings, and make sure that the people who can carry guns in public places can at least hit a target? Or will these legislators continue to bow to the gun lobbies and the very-vocal, but tiny minority of extremist gun owners?
Gun Sales Boom In The U.S., But Who’s Buying?
March 24th, 2013by Baldr Odinson
We’ve seen the headlines about booming gun sales: 
With headlines like that, it makes it sound like everyone and their brother are running out to be first-time gun buyers. Why, the percent of the population who own guns must be skyrocketing!
Particularly, sales are souring for assault weapons, which face a potential ban. From one article:
“If I had 1,000 AR-15s I could sell them in a week,” said Jack Smith, an independent gun dealer in Des Moines, referring to the popular style of semiautomatic rifle that drew national attention after Adam Lanza used one to kill 20 children and 6 adults at a Newtown school. “When I close, they beat on the glass to be let in,” Mr. Smith said of his customers. “They’ll wave money at me.”
From another article:
“The firearms industry is certainly seeing explosive sales growth in the last several months,” Wedbush Securities analyst Rommel Dionisio told Reuters.
Background checks for firearm sales, mandatory for all purchases made at U.S. gun stores, rose nearly 50 percent year-on-year in December, data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System showed.
This was the highest monthly percentage rise ever reported for a measurement commonly used to gauge the firearm industry’s performance. It eclipsed the 30.8 percent rise of November 2012.
These reports of surging gun sales are based only on the FBI reports of background check numbers. Everyone who buys a gun from a licensed dealer (not a private seller, mind you!) has to have a background check with every sale. So, yes, sales have soared, but they can’t discriminate between first-time buyers and gun nuts with 100 weapons stockpiled in their basement.
Those of us who keep track know better. These aren’t first-time buyers. These are primarily people who already own guns who are buying into the NRA propaganda that Obama’s comin’ for your gunzzz.
The truth is almost certainly that the sales are predominantly to prior owners.
Evidence: Sales of guns have been steadily declining for decades, across a wide swath of different demographics. As reported in the New York Times (see link for a revealing graph of declining ownership):
The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad cross section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years that asks a sample of American adults if they have guns at home, among other questions.
The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and in all regions of the country. It has fallen among households with children, and among those without. It has declined for households that say they are very happy, and for those that say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews.
The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times.
I’m not alone in my feeling about who is buying these guns, by any means. One who agrees is Daniel Webster, who has studied and published studies on the issue of gun violence for a very long time. From that same NYT article:
“There are all these claims that gun ownership is going through the roof,” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “But I suspect the increase in gun sales has been limited mostly to current gun owners. The most reputable surveys show a decline over time in the share of households with guns.”
Of course, the NRA refutes this theory. It doesn’t help sell guns to point out that their popularity is declining. But every other entity who has polled the public on the issue or studied it in any way has found a comparable trend.
Suggested reasons for the decline? A steady decline in hunting, more urbanization of the population, changing demographics, and generally lower rate of violent crimes in most areas. The decline is also age-related, with younger people declining in ownership faster.
So to all you gun nuts out there who buy into the NRA propaganda and are stocking up your arsenal: you are increasingly fringe in your fetish. Buying up all the guns you can handle succeeds in only one thing: emptying your pocketbooks and proving that you are paranoid.
Guns In School Make Our Kids Less Safe
March 16th, 2013By Baldr Odinson.
A little less than a week ago, the little town of Harrisburg, Oregon, just north of where I live in Eugene, held a meeting to discuss the idea of arming some of its school staff, following the lunatic advice of the NRA. 
From an article:
At the meeting, [state representative Dennis] Richardson said that upgrading fences and locking doors make schools feel like prisons, and that building prison-like schools are an ineffective deterrent to school shootings, as determined shooters will find access to a campus.
Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller agreed and added that Sandy Hook Elementary was locked down and secured when the attack happened and that no matter what schools do, a shooter will gain access if desired.
Richardson suggested that Oregon schools should consider allowing several staff members to act as campus responders by bearing a concealed weapons permit, with permit bearers partaking in frequent training and practice.
(Maybe you remember Sheriff Tim Mueller? He’s one of the insurrectionist Sheriffs who, before President Obama had even unveiled his proposals to reduce gun violence, declared that he would rebel against his sworn duty to uphold and enforce the laws of our nations by refusing to enforce any gun legislation that was passed. But I digress…)
We wouldn’t want to add sensible security features like fences and locking doors. Let’s instead arm our teachers! We don’t pay them enough to actually teach our kids, with 30+ students per class, and expect them to sometimes parent our kids, too, and serve other roles, like street-crossing guards, coaches, or even bus drivers, for little-to-no additional pay, but now they are expected to be the school armed security, too?
What representative Richardson failed to acknowledge is that there isn’t a single instance — ever — of an armed school security guard actually stopping a shooting by pulling out their weapon. In fact, they have tried and failed.
Perhaps this is why teacher and parent organizations have roundly come out against the idea of guns in schools. From one article:
The American Federation of Teachers called the suggestion “irresponsible and dangerous,” while the National Education Association described it as shocking and based on the “delusional assumption that everything other than guns contributes to these tragedies.”
From another article:
The National Parent Teachers Organization said today it was pleased with many of President Obama’s new proposals to improve school security but that his call for more armed guards at schools “comes as a disappointment.”
But there HAVE been instances where conceal carry permit holders, including armed security guards, have had accidents at schools. Consider the following examples:
There’s no clear evidence that having armed guards has reduced the violence rate. The vast majority of schools have never demonstrated a need, nor likely ever will demonstrate a need, for armed interference. One report for armed schools in Mississippi reported that the guards engaged in “overly harsh school disciplinary policies,” unnecessary arrests, and racial prejudice. Further, two different studies (HERE and HERE) have shown that armed guards in schools make students feel less secure, possibly affecting their performance.
Conceal carry gun owners are all-too-often responsible for leaving loaded guns where children find them, sometimes resulting in injuries or death, unintentionally discharge their gun in public or leave it behind in public, or, yes, purposely use their guns to murder people.
And God forbid if a troubled child were able to get the gun off of the concealed carry permit holder to arm themselves.
Walking onto the grounds of a school won’t magically change human nature, including for conceal carry permit holders. It is an unacceptable risk to our children.
What Do The Families Of The Newtown Massacre Have To Say About Gun Regulation?
February 3rd, 2013By Baldr Odinson.
There have been strong opinions on both sides of the gun violence issue since the horrifying massacre of school children in Newtown.
But what do the parents and families in Newtown think?
Recently, I was reading a post at the Mikeb302000 blog about the NRA’s shameful attack ad that targeted the President’s kids, and left a comment there. That’s when a pro-gun extremist there challenged my opinion by writing (with the usual tactfulness):
Why don’t you go to Newtown and tell the parents of those killed there what you think. Dumb ass.
Apparently he doesn’t read the news. You see, the parents of those children, and others in the Newtown community, have spoken out in favor of stronger gun regulation.
Examples:
–> Monday, there was a legislative hearing on gun violence at the Connecticut capitol building in Hartford. Doing everything possible to stall any meaningful conversation, as usual, the gun guys actually heckled the parents of the dead children as they delivered their testimony.
Let me repeat: they heckled the parents of the dead children (just as they have harassed another hero of the massacre who gave shelter to some of the child survivors).
Here is video of the heckling.
In fact, there were parents of three different kids who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, all of whom delivered testimony in favor of stricter gun regulation in Connecticut.
From the Connecticut Post:
“The Second Amendment!” was shouted by several gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.
“There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened,” said Heslin, who grew up using guns and seemed undisturbed by the interruption of his testimony.
Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, co-chairman of the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group, threatened to empty the meeting room in the Legislative Office Building — jammed with hundreds of people — if the outbursts and chatter from the audience continued.
“That wasn’t just a killing, it was a massacre,” said Heslin, who recalled dropping off his son at Sandy Hook Elementary School shortly before Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults. “I just hope some good can come out of this.”
Another father of a 6-year-old boy murdered in the shootings fought back tears as he told lawmakers to make any changes in gun laws simple.
“I don’t believe it’s so complex,” said Mark Mattioli, whose son, James, was among the first-graders slaughtered on Dec.14.
“We need civility across our nation,” said Mattioli, who appeared with his wife, Cindy, before the legislative panel. “The problem is not gun laws. It’s a lack of civility.”
Veronique Pozner, whose son, Noah, was killed in the massacre, said his grave is only a five-minute drive from Chalk Hill School in Monroe.
Pozner said her two other children, both Sandy Hook School students, are haunted by their brother’s death, especially his twin sister.
“It is our feeling that assault weapons should be comprehensively banned in the state of Connecticut,” she said. “Faster weapons equal more fatalities.”
Also in that hearing, the state chiefs of police said they supported mandatory background checks, and a state, and during the news conferences the state teacher’s union said 85% of their members opposed arming teachers.
Here is video of Neil Heslin testifying, though it does not include the heckling in it.
and here is a link to a little video and description of Heslin’s son, Jesse Lewis.
–> Last Saturday, thousands marched in D.C. for support of gun control measures. Marching along with them were many residents of Newtown, including parents and pastors.
–> The parents of one of the slain children in Newtown, Chase Kowalski created a fund in their son’s name, which will be used to foster gun control, after his mother had a vision of her son visiting her (bolding added):
Becky takes a deep breath on Wednesday in the funeral home and says, “Okay, the best day of my life started on Sunday morning when my son came to me in a vision. He came to tell me to explain to my husband that the scope of this event was so large and that there were so many people around the country and the world we were touching. I felt that my son was here in this vision to tell me that the not-for-profit scholarship organization that we are starting in Chase’s honor will save lives, change building codes, demand gun and ammunition control, and that in Chase’s name I would like to bring God back to America. These are the first starting goals of the organization.”
–> The parents of Noah Pozner, a child slain at Sandy Hook, has been in communication with the White House and has made recommendations in support of stronger gun reforms:
Pozner’s family has submitted a detailed proposal to a White House task force, recommending a range of legal reforms including federal grants to review security at public schools and requiring gun owners to lock weapons if mentally ill or dangerous people could access them otherwise.
Pozner also says it’s not right that the law protects the release of any mental health information on the gunman. She says she plans to challenge that because it could shed light.
“Those are all answers that I feel that we’re entitled to,” she says.
The family also is suggesting a new law requiring people to notify police within 24 hours if they know about an imminent threat of harm or death made by a person who has access to guns or explosive devices.
–> The police chief of Newtown has called for a ban on assault rifles, high-capacity ammo magazines, and better background checks:
The police chief of Newtown, Conn., the site of the Sandy Hook school massacre, urged the White House to ban assault rifles, saying he was “sickened” by the unimaginable horror that has rocked his quiet family community.
“Ban assault weapons, restrict those magazines that have so many bullets in them, shore up any loopholes in our criminal background checks,” Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe told NBC News, when asked what his message to President Obama would be. …
“We do a good job of securing dynamite in our society,” Kehoe said. “(Assault rifles) are another form of dynamite…I think they should ban them.”
Remember, Newtown is also the home of the National Shooting Sports Federation, which aggressively markets assault rifles, rebranding them as “modern sport rifles” and marketing them as no different than hunting rifles.
–> The superintendent of the Newtown school district calls for help in protecting her students “without creating fortresses.”
What do I say to the parents who want to be assured that when they put their children on the bus to school that they will come home. How do I protect our students without creating fortresses.
–> A congressman who represents Newtown, reacted badly to the NRA’s “guns-in-school” suggestion:
Democratic congressman and senator-elect Chris Murphy, whose congressional district includes Newtown, tweeted a sharp reaction from Connecticut after the group’s comments: “Walking out of another funeral and was handed the NRA transcript. The most revolting, tone deaf statement I’ve ever seen.”
“How dare they?” fumed Elizabeth Murphy, 42, who lives in [Newtown]. “We are all still grieving. This is the wrong time to discuss their goal of putting more guns on the street . . . The bodies haven’t even all been buried yet.”
–> And another resident:
Lee Shull a Newtown resident: “I don’t think it’s reasonable for assault weapons in any way in our society -except for military or police”.
Newtown resident David Stout, 49,an energy consultant and hunter, said he had hoped to hear an honest announcement from the NRA regarding background checks on all gun sales or closing other loopholes – not putting more armed guards in schools.
“Folks in Newtown are appalled by that suggestion,” said Stout, who owns several hunting rifles. “I understand we want to protect our kids, but there are other ways to do that. We don’t want to turn our schools into prisons.” ….
“It’s ridiculous we can’t all come together and say, ‘Ok, what makes sense?'” Stout said. “Something has to change.”
He added: “More guns is not the solution.”
Martin Blanco, 49, a stay-at-home Newtown dad, said the NRA missed a real opportunity to endear residents of Newtown and across the USA with sensible recommendations on gun legislation. Instead, he called their suggestion of putting armed guards in schools “madness.”
“Just an awful slap in the face, particularly to the people in Sandy Hook,” he said.
“The overwhelming majority of people in this town will find it a foolish, self-serving statement that has no place in Newtown or the United States of America,” he said.
Craig Mittleman, 50, a Newtown emergency physician, said he wasn’t surprised by the NRA’s position but was nonetheless appalled by the brazenness of the comments, especially coming just a week after the incident.
“Completely ludicrous,” Mittleman said of LaPierre’s suggestion of placing armed guards in schools. “It is an insensitive response at a time like this when there are families I know and have a connection with who have just sustained the greatest loss any human being can ever encounter.”
Like others in Newtown, Mittleman said he had hoped to hear a more conciliatory tone from LaPierre and a sign that the gun lobby would cooperate with Congress to improve gun laws, not arm more Americans.
“I think even the most ardent gun owners in town are going to see the shame in that comment,” he said.
–> A number of the grieving parents and other residents have formed a group called Sandy Hook Promise: SandyHookPromise.org. Their promise:
I Promise to honor the 26 lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I Promise to do everything I can to encourage and support common sense solutions that make my community and our country safer from similar acts of violence
They have not come out in support or opposition to any one particular policy yet, but they have released a statement in support of the President’s plan.
–> The father, David Wheeler, of another Sandy Hook child victim, Ben Wheeler, gave testimony in favor of stronger regulation of guns.
Speaking in front of a 52-member task force, Wheeler decried the inability of agencies to share relevant information about at-risk individuals’ personal histories, mental states, and proximity to firearms. He also advocated a ban on military-style assault weapons, saying they “belong in an armory under lock and key,” and for annual registration of personal firearms.
Finally, Wheeler invoked Thomas Jefferson’s inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from the Declaration of Independence. “I do not think the composition of that foundational phrase was an accident,” he said. “I do not think the order of those important words was haphazard or casual. The liberty of any person to own a military-style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine and keep them in their home is second to the right of my son to his life.”
As usual, the victims and families of victims of gun violence overwhelmingly come out in favor of stronger gun reform. Once you’ve held a dead or dying child in your arms, guns lose their false symbolism of freedom and justice and become exactly what they were intended to be — a killing machine — which has once again fallen into the wrong hands. It’s time to listen to the families of Newtown and support stronger gun reforms to make a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.
..
The Myth Of The Conceal Carry Hero: Coming To Your Kid’s School?
December 27th, 2012
By Baldr Odinson.
It’s been more than a week, now, since the horrible mass murder of 20 young children and 7 adults in Newtown,
Connecticut. Adam Lanza, armed with a .223 Bushmaster AR-15 semi-auto assault rifle, multiple 30-round high-capacity magazines, two pistols, and a bullet-proof vest, first shot his mother to death in her sleep, then stormed the Sandy Hook Elementary School, murdering 6 adult staff members and 20 children, ages 5 and 6, before killing himself.
It’s been a time of worldwide shock, a week of mourning, a week of burials, and a week of nationwide discussion about gun violence like we haven’t had since the Columbine massacre.
It’s also been a week of discussion about what could be done to reduce the danger, by keeping guns out of the hands of madmen before they can act. The President, for instance, suggested strengthening background checks and banning assault weapons again, visited the mourners in person, and appointed Vice President Biden to form a task force to find solutions. There have been so many articles written from so many good viewpoints, about what could be done, that I’ve hardly had time to read even a fraction of them. If anything good has come of this horror story, it’s that the country has finally opened their eyes and ears to the overwhelming problem of guns getting into the wrong hands. It’s a shame it took the death of 20 innocent elementary kids to do it, but now is the time to discuss the problem.
It’s also been a week of cowardly silence from the NRA and the NSSF (National Sport Shooting Foundation) which has its headquarters in Newtown, ironically!). The NRA even shut down its Facebook page during that period, and silenced its Twitter feed. It’s like they stuck their fingers in their ears, shut their eyes tight, and hollered, “Lalalalalala!” After all, the death of innocents is too inconvenient for their “more guns in more places” rhetoric.
And the NSSF? When they finally recover from the shock I wonder if they will still claim, as they do on their website, that “groups wanting to ban these rifles have for years purposely or through ignorance spread misinformation about them to aid their cause.” If by “misinformation” they mean our claim that assault rifles are purpose-made for killing large numbers of people quickly, making them unnecessarily dangerous for civilians to own, then I think the bodies of 20 small children and seven adults at their doorstep should be enough to validate our claim. Will this make them admit it, finally? “CONSIDER YOUR MAN CARD RENEWED,” reads a disgusting ad for these weapons. Apparently Adam Lanza’s “man card” is very active. Bushmaster must be so proud.
And so, after a week of shameful silence, the NRA’s finally unveiled what they consider a plan to help reduce shootings on school campuses. Basically, it boils down to this: put armed guards on every school campus across the nation, and the problem is due to “gun free zones,” the old scapegoats of violent movies, music, and video games — Oh, and it’s the media’s fault, too. The problem doesn’t have anything to do with guns and their availability, apparently. Don’t believe me? HERE is a transcript. An excerpt:
LaPierre: Now, the National Rifle Association knows there are millions of qualified and active retired police, active, Reserve, and retired military, security professionals, certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel, an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every single school.
We could deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America’s schools safer, relying on the brave men and women in America’s police forces. The budgets — and you all know this, everyone in the country knows this — of our local police departments are strained, and the resources are severely limited, but their dedication and courage is second to none. And, they can be deployed right now.
That’s right, you read it correctly. The NRA wants more people with guns to solve the problem. Shocker! And they weren’t willing to take any media questions, either (no surprise, given that they blame the media for not towing the line of their propaganda).
Nowhere in their “plan” is strengthening of background checks, or getting rid of assault rifles, or mandatory safe storage of guns. And nowhere in their “plan” is there any mention about guns being too easy to get into the wrong hands. The problem couldn’t possibly be guns! Guns are just inanimate objects no more dangerous than staplers, right?
He then pulled out one of the NRA’s top lapdogs from mothballs, former Congressman Asa Hutchinson from Arkansas, to lead their “plan, ” who added:
Whether they’re retired police, retired military, or rescue personnel, I think there are people in every community in this country who would be happy to serve if only someone asked them and gave them the training and certifications to do so.
And, according to Hutchinson, these “watchdogs” will be 100% volunteer!
That’s right. In other words, they’re going to get citizens with conceal carry permits to voluntarily carry guns around schools, looking for someone suspicious. Sorta like George Zimmerman did for his apartment complex. I think we all know how that turned out.
This isn’t the first anyone has suggested this. Other politicians have as well in recent days. In fact, the extremist group here in Oregon, the Oregon Firearms Federation, has suggested the same thing in an alert entitled “Time To Arm Teachers“:
Training in classroom lock-down techniques is valuable, but passive. Classroom lock-down procedures alone fail to protect the children and adults who continue to be murdered before the police arrive. A police officer in every school is not the answer; a police officer would be the first target of a shooter and the cost would be prohibitive for most school districts. …. Lives would be saved by stopping the shooter. Seconds count when the police are five minutes away. It would be simple, inexpensive and enable immediate response after the first gunshot in a school was fired if two or three volunteers in every school (administrators, staff members or teachers), were encouraged to obtain additional training and practice in the use of firearms and were encouraged to have a firearm concealed on their person or locked in their desks. …. In short, having armed and trained personnel in every school would enable immediate response with lethal force if and when the lives of our children and teachers were endangered by a mass murderer.
If this procedure had been implemented, the number of children killed in every school massacre from Columbine to Sandy Hook would have been greatly reduced.
Did you catch that? They don’t want police. They want to arm teachers and school staff. Because, you know, it’s not enough that they teach our children all day for minimal pay. They should be school security, too! For free, no less!
After the Aurora massacre, I posted about the pro-gun fantasy of the “conceal carry hero.” Pro-gun guys, like Ted Nugent and Glenn Beck, were sputtering on about how they wished they had been in the theater, to take on the (armored, assault weapon-armed) bad guy with their little concealed handguns. It’s a common fantasy of the gun guys. They always consider themselves to be more cool-headed and better aiming than the police or the bad guy, no matter what the odds. Now they want to extend that fantasy to classrooms, too.
Never mind that …
Just because someone has a conceal carry permit doesn’t make them sensible, well-trained, or safe (here in Oregon, for instance, you don’t even need to fire a single bullet to qualify for a permit). And stepping onto school grounds won’t magically change basic human failings.
Reaction to the NRA statement was swift and negative:
Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele called the NRA’s remarks “very haunting and very disturbing.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Steele said on MSNBC after the NRA’s statement. “As a supporter of the Second Amendment and a supporter of the NRA, even though I’m not a member of the NRA, I just found it very haunting and very disturbing that our country now that are talking about arming our teachers and our principals in classrooms. I do not believe that’s where the American people want to go.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told reporters in Newark Friday morning he doesn’t agree that placing armed guards in schools would effectively deter violence, according to a Bergen Record report.
“In general I don’t think that the solution to safety in schools is putting an armed guard because for it to be really effective in my view, from a law enforcement perspective, you have to have an armed guard at every classroom,” he said. “Because if you just have an armed guard at the front door then what if this guy had gone around to the side door? There’s many doors in and out of schools.”
Christie said his comments were not specific to the NRA’s proposal as he had not yet seen the statement.
Outspoken gun-control advocate New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the statement “a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country.”
“Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe,” he said. “Enough. As a country, we must rise above special interest politics.” ….
Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut and husband to former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was seriously injured in a shooting in Tuscon last year, expressed disappointment in the NRA’s remarks in a post to his Facebook page.
“The NRA could have chosen to be a voice for the vast majority of its own members who want common sense, reasonable safeguards on deadly firearms, but instead it chose to defend extreme pro-gun positions that aren’t even popular among the law abiding gun owners it represents,” Kelly said.
But what about the people of Newtown? How do they feel? After all, this horror occurred in their town. Given that their town is also home to the NSSF, surely they feel armed guards in every school is a good idea, right? Nope. From one article:
Democratic congressman and senator-elect Chris Murphy, whose congressional district includes Newtown, tweeted a sharp reaction from Connecticut after the group’s comments: “Walking out of another funeral and was handed the NRA transcript. The most revolting, tone deaf statement I’ve ever seen.”
From another article:
“How dare they?” fumed Elizabeth Murphy, 42, who lives in [Newtown]. “We are all still grieving. This is the wrong time to discuss their goal of putting more guns on the street . . . The bodies haven’t even all been buried yet.”
Also, the parents of one of the slain children in Newtown, Chase Kowalski created a fund in their son’s name, which will be used to foster gun control, after his mother had a vision of her son visiting her (bolding added):
Becky takes a deep breath on Wednesday in the funeral home and says, “Okay, the best day of my life started on Sunday morning when my son came to me in a vision. He came to tell me to explain to my husband that the scope of this event was so large and that there were so many people around the country and the world we were touching. I felt that my son was here in this vision to tell me that the not-for-profit scholarship organization that we are starting in Chase’s honor will save lives, change building codes, demand gun and ammunition control, and that in Chase’s name I would like to bring God back to America. These are the first starting goals of the organization.”
And the American people want gun control. Poll after poll have shown very high support, even among gun owners and NRA members, for gun control measures such as mandatory background checks, mandatory training and certification, assault rifle bans, and waiting periods. They’ve started 32 petitions for gun control on the White House’s “We The People” site, which have garnered nearly 200,000 signatures. And the President has responded to this huge outpouring of support:
I am also betting that the majority — the vast majority — of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war. I’m willing to bet that they don’t think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas — that an unbalanced man shouldn’t be able to get his hands on a military-style assault rifle so easily; that in this age of technology, we should be able to check someone’s criminal records before he or she can check out at a gun show; that if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the one in Newtown — or any of the lesser-known tragedies that visit small towns and big cities all across America every day.
Teacher organizations, too, are quickly releasing statements against this NRA “vision.” From one article:
The American Federation of Teachers called the suggestion “irresponsible and dangerous,” while the National Education Association described it as shocking and based on the “delusional assumption that everything other than guns contributes to these tragedies.”
Wayne LaPierre should have gotten his first clue about the negative reaction to his statement when, twice during the speech, he was interrupted by protesters from CodePink, one of which held a sign stating, “NRA KILLING OUR KIDS” and another saying “NRA BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.”
NRA: Sour Grapes for Sore Losers
November 22nd, 2012by Baldr Odinson.
It’s been two weeks, now, since President Barack Obama’s overwhelming defeat of Mitt Romney and launch into his second term, with an astounding 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206, and a comfortable majority of popular
vote. This, in spite of four years of a concerted and purposeful effort by the GOP to block any and all legislative efforts by Obama, anti-Obama fearmongering by conservative groups like the NRA, and even a wide array of crazy Obama conspiracy theories.
The far-right conservatives are still in shock and denial, with disbelief that their polls could have been so wrong. But what could have been the reason for the loss? “Gifts” to women and minorities? Hurricane Sandy? Today, a couple of GOP leaders insisted that the reason the Republicans lost so many races wasn’t because of their out-of-touch party platform, but rather that they simply didn’t have the right candidates or communicate their stances well enough.
Mmmm hmmm. You guys just go on thinking that way. Do phrases like “legitimate rape” and “47 percent” come to mind as pretty good examples of “mis-communicated” stances?
The NRA, too, once again completely misread the people of this nation. They spent more than $17 million and made scores of misleading and doom-and-gloom ads to try to defeat Obama and other candidates who might possibly want some form of reasonable legislation to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them. See the image above for some examples (from the Living for 32 Facebook Page). In all, the NRA only got back less than 1% of their value because of the failure of the candidates they backed, and the NRA-ILA only got back around 10%. These are pretty good indicators that the NRA is out of touch with the people, and certainly counter to the myth of NRA political power.
Pro-gun extremists are positively fuming over this obvious rebuke of their fringe perceptions. Consider one Arizona gun dealer, for instance, who is refusing business to anyone who voted for Obama, and posted a sign on his door saying as much. “If you voted for Barack Obama,” his sign says, “your business is NOT WELCOME at Southwest Shooting Authority. You have proven you are not responsible enough to own a firearm.” Fine by me. If he wants to lose half his business, all the better. Of course, there are plenty of gun guys who demonstrate they are not responsible enough to own a firearm, and not because of the way they voted. And let’s not forget pro-gun extremist extraordinaire, Ted Nugent, who lashed out at Obama voters by calling them “Pimps, whores, and welfare brats.” This, from the guy who has made threats against the President, warranting a visit by the Secret Service.
| The NRA’s sour grapes |
Naturally, the NRA is eating sour grapes over this election, too. I wonder how they justify to their members such a wanton waste of donations. Chris Cox, the Executive Director of the NRA-ILA, blames it on all the voters who supposedly polled one way but voted differently:
I know a lot of folks are still down about last week’s presidential election. It’s puzzling how so many Americans can tell pollsters that the country is on the wrong track, then vote to keep the same guy driving the train. ….
As long as dedicated patriots continue to band together and fight as though freedom itself is on the line — because it is — we will defend the Second Amendment in Obama’s second term and save it for generations to come.
For gun owners, the next four years won’t just be the fight of our lives, it will be a fight for the future of our nation.
Of course, freedom isn’t being threatened, but fearmongering seems to be the only way the NRA thinks it can win. In that same article, Cox once again brings up the ridiculous conspiracy theory that President Obama is working with the U.N. to ban all guns. Whatever. Sane people don’t buy into it.
The NRA has said that “This year’s election could prove the most disastrous in the history of this country” and mustered every last bit of its vile energy in fighting it, but failed miserably.
Like the GOP, the NRA fails to look inward and blame its own out-of-touch platform for its failure. Instead, they remain in denial and blame “dim journalists” for pointing it out.
Again, I say let the NRA keep opening its extremist mouth this way and throwing away its money on failed candidates. Since their goal is to do everything possible to keep guns flowing to those who shouldn’t get them, by opposing any and all reasonable regulation of guns, then I savor their continued failures.
Below are some excellent examples of the so-called “dim journalists” who point out the NRA’s miniscule return on their investment:
From Timothy Johnson writing for Media Matters: NRA Lashes Out At “Dim Journalists” For Shattering Electoral Powerhouse Myth:
The non-partisan Sunlight Foundation concluded that less than one-percent of the nearly $12 million spent by NRA Political Victory Fund went to races where the NRA-backed candidate won.
These results do not comport with the widely-accepted media narrative that the NRA is an electoral powerhouse.
Despite research by American Prospect contributing editor (and former Media Matters staffer) Paul Waldman proving that the impact of both NRA campaign contributions and endorsements is overblown, the fable of NRA influence has persevered. Slate’s Brian Palmer encapsulated this narrative in July when he wrote that the NRA “can reliably deliver votes” and “is considered by many the most powerful lobbying group in the country.”
From the Brady Campaign’s Daniel Gross writing for Huffington Post: The NRA Behind the Curtain:
The NRA went “all in” on the 2012 elections. The NRA and its PAC spent more than $19 million against President Obama and candidates who support sensible gun laws. The NRA told its members that the stakes could not be higher; “Americans will vote either to defend or surrender freedom in the most consequential national decision in U.S. history.”
The NRA’s bark was certainly loud, but its bite was toothless. ….
As it always does, after the returns came in last Tuesday the NRA spin machine claimed that it did far better in the elections than the evidence showed. Like the Wizard who yelled, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” when Toto revealed him, the gun lobby will keep propagating the myth of their electoral might long after it has been exposed as untrue. But one lesson of 2012 is that facts matter, and that the American people across the political spectrum are serious about addressing real solutions to our national problems.
From Mike Lillis writing for The Hill: NRA Shoots Blanks This Election:
The figures challenge the popular political wisdom that the NRA is among Washington’s most influential lobbying forces and that candidates who buck their agenda do so at their own peril.
From Rachel Weiner writing for the Washington Post: National Rifle Association Shut Out on Election Day:
The Sunlight Foundation ran the numbers and found that after spending nearly $11 million in the general election, the National Rifle Association got a less than one percent return on its investment this cycle. That is, less than one percent of the money went toward the desired result.
From Paul Waldman writing for The American Prospect: Another Defeat for the NRA:
To all this, the NRA would probably respond, “Well, this was just a bad election for Republicans. That’s not our fault.” But that’s precisely the point. When Republicans do well, the NRA is happy to take credit, but when Republicans do poorly, they say they had nothing to do with it. They’re right about that, but the same applies to Republican victories: they had nothing to do with it.
Veterans’ Day, But No Armistice On Our Streets
November 13th, 2012by Baldr Odinson.
Monday was Veterans’ Day in the United States — a day when we stop to consider the sacrifices of our military veterans, and especially those who served in war, living or dead. 
I have family in the military (one currently in the Army, another in the Army National Guard), both of whom served as MPs in Baghdad. I have a friend who is a veteran of Afghanistan and the Balkan war, and is still a recruiter in the Army. And I have a number of family members, living and dead, who served our country, including in battle. I take their service very seriously. They fought and risked their lives to serve the interests of our country and allow us the luxury of the lives that we live today.
Veteran’s Day coincides with Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day) which marks the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, and end of one of modern history’s worst nightmares. May we never experience another like it.
“In Flanders Fields” — A poem written in 1915 by Colonel John McCrae in honor of his friend who had fallen early that year in The Second Battle of Ypres:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
And yet, the killing continues in the streets and homes of America, in the form of never-ending gun violence. 53,402 American servicemen died in WWI. But here in America, that many citizens die from gun violence every 20 months.
Last Memorial Day, I posted a blog post where I showed that more citizens die every year in America than American soldiers who died in any year of any war since WWII. Go to that link and see the shocking statistics.
Yes, WWI was a nightmare on foreign battlefields, but we are living with a nightmare right now on our streets.
The people I know and love, living and dead, who served in foreign wars, did what they did in order to preserve peace at home. But we don’t have peace at home. Instead we have 100,000 shootings a year, a gun culture that allows 40% of gun sales to go without abackground check, and streets in some areas so violent that people don’t let their kids play outside. There can be no armistice without sensible reform. There are no poppies where our children are gunned down.
It’s time to change our culture of violence. It’s time to demand a plan to reduce the shootings. It’s time to make a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.
Presidential Candidates Finally Debate On Gun Control
October 18th, 2012
By Baldr Odinson.
I’ve been annoyed by the fact that not one single question about gun violence came up in the first presidential debate or in the vice-presidential debate. You would think that 100,000 shootings a year, almost 33,000 of which are lethal, would be enough for at least one question, right? It’s a very serious national health issue that even eclipses death by car accident in 11 states and Washington D.C. You’d think something like that might warrant a plan, right?
But Tuesday’s presidential debate, at least, had one question on the issue:
“President Obama, during the Democratic National Convention in 2008, you stated you wanted to keep AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. What has your administration done or planned to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?”
HERE is a complete transcript of the candidates’ responses.
You can also watch a video clip of their answers.
In short, the President came out in support of reinstating some version of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which was allowed to expire in 2004. He also voiced support for enforcing existing laws, while also strengthening background checks and mental health reporting to the background check system.
So my belief is that, (A), we have to enforce the laws we’ve
already got, make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of
criminals, those who are mentally ill. We’ve done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we’ve got more to do when it comes
to enforcement.
But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for
soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets. And so what I’m
trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce
the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault
weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other
sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago,
there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s.
They’re using cheap hand guns.
He then also backed that up by suggesting better childhood education to create more opportunity for youth, as well as working more with community faith groups and law enforcement.
Fair enough, and I’m happy to hear it. This is a reasonable response. Back in July he had made a similar statement, including support for reinstating the Assault Weapons Ban and strengthening background checks, during a speech to the Urban League in New Orleans. Good news for the President, laws are already being introduced on Capitol Hill to do exactly that, including the “Fix Gun Checks Act” (S436).
Romney, on the other hand, stated that he wanted to see no further changes in gun regulation or bans on any guns whatsoever, except for adding that he wants to enforce existing gun laws:
Yeah, I’m not in favor of new pieces of legislation on
– on guns and taking guns away or making certain guns illegal. We,
of course, don’t want to have automatic weapons, and that’s already
illegal in this country to have automatic weapons. What I believe is
we have to do, as the president mentioned towards the end of his
remarks there, which is to make enormous efforts to enforce the gun
laws that we have, and to change the culture of violence that we have.
In other words, Romney is just fine with 100,000 shootings a year and 33,000 deaths by gunfire.
And as the remark about wanting to “enforce the gun laws that we have,” I should point out that law enforcement is already doing this to the fullest extent they can, and that neither he, nor any other pro-gun legislator or leader who utters those words, can seem to think of any instances where gun laws aren’t being enforced (in fact, Romney’s benefactor, the NRA, and other organizations are constantly tearing down those laws instead of advocating for them). This is a position that Romney has recently stated, despite the fact that, as governor, Romney was very much for stronger gun control legislation, including putting in place a permanent ban on assault rifles in his state, something which Obama was quick to point out as an example of Romney’s many flip-flops on issues.
Romney then went a bit off the deep end by strangely blaming gun violence on single mothers and then throwing a red herring by bringing up the Fast and Furious debacle (which had nothing to do with the Assault Weapons Ban and was responsible for killing exactly one American).
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the talk from both candidates “gibberish”:
“Polls show that more than 80 percent of Americans and more than 80 percent of gun owners support some common sense reforms that are bipartisan.”
“And then they had all this gibberish talking about education. That education is the solution to stop the killing. My recollection is that the Aurora theater shooter? He was a PhD candidate. Ok? The Virgina Tech massacre was committed by a student at a first class university! Gun are a plague and I don’t think education is going to keep guns out of the hands of gang members. The solution is to prevent all people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them.”
“Let’s get serious,” he went on later in his lengthy answer, “these are people who have guns, and the only reason to carry a gun is to use it. To kill people. People who buy assault weapons… Governor Romney signed an assault weapon ban, today he has changed his mind. The President campaigned four years ago that he was going introduce a bill to ban assault weapons, the bill never saw the light of day. Romney said ‘oh, well, automatic weapons are already banned.’ And yes it is true, machine guns are banned. But a semi-automatic weapon, which is what an AK-47 is, that is not banned. And you can pull a trigger awful fast.”
“One candidate has had four years to do something and hasn’t. And the other candidate says he won’t even do what he once did!“
In the end, I’m encouraged by President Obama’s words. But I’m not holding my breath. Actions speak louder than words, and so far that’s all the President has done to strengthen gun regulation. We need to do more to demand a plan from our presidential candidates.
Threats Against Obama? Words Matter
October 13th, 2012By Baldr Odinson
Yesterday afternoon someone fired a shot at the Obama campaign field office in Denver, Colorado. The shot smashed a window, but luckily none of the campaign workers inside were injured. A suspect has not yet been caught. What could have motivated the shooter?
Last month a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic man with a criminal history was nonetheless able to obtain three guns and at least 500 rounds of ammunition and ran a police roadblock where President Obama’s motorcade was about to pass through. He had previously made threats against others, including President George W. Bush. What could have motivated him to run the roadblock while armed to the teeth?
During the Democratic National Convention a gun owner who had previously been charged for drug offenses made threats on Twitter to kill the President, threatening to “aim the Assault Rifle at Barack’s Forehead” and, in his words, “plotting president Obama’s murder.” The Secret Service interviewed him. What could have led this man to make threats?
In August a man in Washington state sent emails to the FBI threatening to kill the President, saying, “I will kill the President. I don’t give a f*** but you know that.” When U.S. Secret Service agents arrived at the man’s door, the guy charged at them with a shotgun, ammo, and pistol. He had an arsenal of assault rifles at the ready. Luckily they subdued him without gunfire. What could have spurred this man to make threats and act violently?
Could it be that these paranoid and violent gun owners could have been motivated by calls for insurrection and conspiratorial thinking from conservative leaders and the NRA?
About a year ago, NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre declared that the President’s inaction on gun control was a “big fat stinking lie!” and “part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment.” Since then a number of completely unfounded pro-gun conspiracy theories have been rolled out, accusing the President, specifically, of plotting to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the United Nations, declare martial law and take away our guns, purposely letting guns go to Mexican drug lords in order to justify taking away guns from Americans, and even staging the mass shooting in Aurora. The NRA even started a website, www.gunbanobama.com, wherein they expound on LaPierre’s conspiracy theory (and make numerous appeals for donations).
And various conservative pro-gun leaders have taken the NRA’s call and spread it. This month, a Republican congressional candidate in Tennessee “welcomed” President Obama to Tennessee by posting a picture of a handgun on his campaign Facebook page.
This summer, the chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party responded to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act by calling for armed insurrection, calling our government a “gang of criminals” and writing, “To resist by all means that are right in the eyes of God is not rebellion or insurrection, it is patriotic resistance to invasion. May all of us fall on our faces before the Heavenly Judge, repent of our sins, and humbly cry out to Him for mercy on our country. And, may godly courageous leaders rise up in His wisdom and power to lead us in displacing the criminal invaders from their seats and restore our constitutional republic.”
Only the day before that, a former Michigan Republican Party spokesman declared, “There are times government has to do things to get what it wants and holds a gun to your head. I’m saying at some point, we have to ask the question when do we turn that gun around and say no and resist.”
And let’s not forget the king of all pro-gun extremist haters, NRA board member Ted Nugent, who earlier this year publicly and loudly announced a threat against the President which warranted a visit from the Secret Service:
Speaking at the NRA’s annual meeting Nugent accused President Obama of having a “vile, evil America-hating administration” that is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” He went on to tell a crowd that “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November” and said that “If Barack Obama becomes the President in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
It’s not the first time he’s done this. Nugent has said Obama was “a piece of shit” who should “suck on my machine gun.” Nugent has a long, long history of illegal, racist, hate-filled behavior. But he’s famous, and a certain fringe of extremists love to pay attention to his hatred and gun-worship. So much so that Nugent now has a cable TV show on Discovery Channel, wherein he shoots stuff up (and markets his line of ammunition, of course — follow the money).
Should we hold public figures accountable for calling for violence? The gun guys, who often echo this hateful rhetoric on their own blogs, argue that these people are only exercising their right of free speech. Even if the guy who shot the window of the Obama campaign, yesterday, were caught and told police that he did it because of something Ted Nugent said, for instance, Nugent still wouldn’t be held accountable. It’s just words, right? They didn’t make the shooter pull the trigger.
Public figures such as these should understand that words matter. Their followers listen to them for cues on how to act and what to think. Their words form a cloud of thinking in the minds of the impressionable. Mix that with a violent or mentally unstable mind and an arsenal of guns, and you have a recipe for murder or insurrection.
When a mentally-unstable and potentially violent pro-gun extremist hears LaPierre say, “The guys with the guns make the rules,” and buys into the false assumption that the Second Amendment allows for armed insurrection against our elected leaders, it’s a small step toward that extremist arming himself and shooting up a window of a campaign office or running a presidential roadblock with guns at the ready.
Hate-speech, whether toward an individual, our President, or our government, should never be tolerated or spread. It should be condemned, and those who speak it should be held accountable, in order to make a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.
A Timeline of Pro-Gun Conspiracy Theories in the United States
September 12th, 2012By Baldr Odinson.
Hey, did you hear it? The government’s out to get your guns! The mass shooting last month was “staged” by the government! The President is intentionally trying to kill Mexicans to justify an attack on the Second Amendment! The government is gearing up for civil war and martial law! The United Nations is about to invade us!
These are the ridiculous assertions that the pro-gun extremists want you to think (or, if they are schizophrenic, that’s what they think themselves). This isn’t the belief of mainstream, average gun owners, but rather the delusions of the fringe extremists and fearmongers. Unfortunately, as you’ll see below, some of them are in positions of power and influence.
There have been so many crazy conspiracy theories in the last half year that I had to start listing them.
Fear and paranoia are the stock and trade of the gun industry, at least in the self-defense market. You wouldn’t buy a gun for self-defense unless you had an unhealthy dose of fear to drive the purchase. Unless you make your livelihood in law enforcement, security, bail bondsman, or some other high-risk job, or are actively being stalked, then chances are that fear is better characterized as paranoia, since the average citizen isn’t likely to ever need a gun to protect themselves, and having a gun actually increases your chance of being killed.
If you doubt that last statement, consider the facts. A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used to harm you than to protect you. And if you carry that gun on the street with you, you are 4.5 times more likely to be killed.
But the gun industry wants you afraid — very afraid. Not just of the bad guys, but even of our government. Be afraid of the stranger on the street, too, and in coffee houses, restaurants, and schools. You never know what they may be thinking, so you’d better carry a loaded gun with you at all times! Guilty until proven innocent.
Consider, for instance, the NRA’s “circus of fear” of statements they’ve made to keep you afraid. Fear sells guns. LOTS of guns. And that’s just fine with the gun manufacturers who “donate” tens of millions of dollars a year to the NRA in return for NRA lobbying on their behalf.
And, furthermore, these fringe fearmongers don’t want you to believe that gun owners are actually responsible for shootings. They would rather you believe that ALL gun owners are responsible citizens only interested in self-protection. Those shootings by previously law-abiding citizens? Never mind those! That’s just some sort of government set-up staged to give them reason to take away your gunzzz.
I submit, if the pro-gun side wants to find REAL conspiracies, they need only look to themselves.
Here are some pro-gun conspiracy theories that I’ve collected:
August, 2012: President Obama is going to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the United Nations, which is then going to invade small-town America and take away your guns, which will lead to civil war!
County Judge Tom Head, from Lubbock County, Texas, stated publically that he believed that, if President Obama is re-elected, he would hand over the sovereignty of the United States of America to the United Nations, and all hell would break loose, including invasion by the United Nations, removal of gun rights, and all-out civil war! He said, in a media interview:
“He is going to do what he wants to do. Now what do you think he is going to try to do in this next term? One of the things, my opinion. One of the things is he’s going to try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations. What do you think the public is going to do when that happens? We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war, OK? Now what happens? What happens? Now I’m not talking just talking riots here and there. I’m talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the UN troops, personnel carriers, tanks and weapons.”
Not unrelated, Judge Head is the local emergency response coordinator. This, apparently, is the emergency response he is preparing for.
Local Democrats called for Judge Head to resign in embarrassment. Head’s response:
“I cannot divorce my theology and my philosophy from my office,” Head told the newspaper. “I am pro-life, I’m pro-gun rights, and if you’re gonna vote for me and if you’re not for gun rights, then you probably don’t want me in office.”
August, 2012: The Government is buying up enough ammunition to declare martial law and take away your gun rights!
This is a conspiracy theory that was recently discussed at the “El Cafe” here at The Daily Journalist.
A couple of government agencies (the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security) made large but routine purchases of hollow-point ammunition. Onepro-conspiracy theory website and radio show decided that this was evidence of a massive government preparation for coming civil unrest due to economic meltdown. “It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest,” they wrote. I disagree; it is very outlandish.
In response, another extremist website took it one step further, writing that preparations were underway by the government to declare martial law and take away everyone’s gun rights! From the article:
A few observers, however, see a much more ominous motivation behind the mass purchase of ammo. Some believe that the federal government is preparing for Martial law during which citizens would be deprived of the freedom to their firearms and during which curfews would be imposed nationwide.
But what would precipitate the implementation of such a broad based effort at preparation on the part of multiple agencies of the federal government at the present time?
Several factors are possibly at play. Citizens as never before have been purchasing firearms and ammunition at an unprecedented level since 2008. Many believe that unelected forces that are not under the control of citizens are wielding undue influence over the federal government, even to the point of breaking the law and violating the time honored principles of the U.S. Constitution. And some believe that at some point, inevitably citizens who are dedicated to preserving liberty as encapsulated in the Constitution will rise up to depose the shadowy figures lurking in the background, and their puppets within the government, who have determined to impose on the United States a way of thinking and form of government that are foreign to every known principle espoused by the Founding Fathers.
Thankfully, the fact-checking site, Snopes.com, put this nonsense to rest. While confirming that a government order had been placed, the hype about preparing for civil unrest was false. The order, along with an order for paper targets, is for law enforcement training and qualifications.
Additionally, a fellow contributor at The Daily Journalist, Sylvia Longmire, who was a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, said that the same hollow point ammunition was regularly used by her department for target practice and qualifications.
July, 2012: The Aurora, Colorado mass shooting was actually staged by the government as an excuse for more gun control!
When a mentally ill young man, James Holmes, opened fire on a crowded movie theater in Aurora, killing 12 and wounding 58, he did so with an arsenal of weapons and body armor which he purchased legally on the internet, and then booby trapped his apartment. Such mass shootings happen all too frequently in the United States. But, as I said above, pro-gun extremists don’t like to believe that “law-abiding” citizens are capable of such atrocities, or that lax gun regulation that allows such weapons into dangerous hands could be partially to blame. Instead, they would rather blame the government. Such is the case when an extremist “news” site declared that the Aurora shooter was “enlisted” by the government to carry out the act. From the site:
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there’s no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to “do something!” Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it’s never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.
He then tried to tie this conspiracy theory to the U.N. Small Arms Treaty conspiracy theory, because of its timing (see below). He also, incredibly, tried to confuse the issue by denying that the weapons and body armor would be easily available or that a college student would be able to purchase them, despite the fact that they are.
This ridiculous conspiracy about the Aurora shooting, with no evidence whatsoever, was then repeated and propagated by the president of the Gun Owners of America, Larry Pratt, who also tried to tie the shooting to the U.N. Small Arms Treaty conspiracy theory.
The closest thing the conspiracy theorists have to “evidence” is what they perceive as slight differences in facial features in before and after pictures of the shooter, implying that the person who was arrested couldn’t possibly be the actual James Holmes but rather an “impostor.”
July, 2012: The U.N. Small Arms Treaty will remove your gun rights and create a U.N. global gun control bureaucracy!
The United Nations Small Arms Treaty is intended to control the illicit international trade of guns to keep them out of the hands of human rights abusers. It would have no affect on domestic arms laws in the United States. The only people who would be affected by this oversight would be the abusers and the gun industry who sells to them and their middlemen. Naturally, representing the gun manufacturers, the NRA came out against it and engaged in a campaign of fearmongering. Said Chris Cox, a top lobbyist for the NRA:
But according to Cox’s theory “the world’s socialist, tyrannical and dictatorial regimes” will use the treaty to “implement international gun registration requirements, bans on commonly owned firearms, tracking and registration of ammunition purchases, and create a new U.N. gun control bureaucracy” thus fulfilling “President Barack Obama’s vision for America.”
Of course, this conspiracy has no grounding in reality. From the article (italics added):
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also said that treaty is “opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes.”
A senior policy advisor to the humanitarian organization Oxfam America has also pushed back against claims that the treaty has the nefarious purpose of interfering with domestic law:
“No government is discussing a treaty that would ever impact the right to bear arms, nor require regulation of domestic sales of arms,” said Scott Stedjan, a senior policy adviser at the relief group Oxfam America. “This is totally about international transfer of arms so that they don’t go to human rights abusers.”
But pro-gun extremists don’t pay attention to facts. Instead, they ran with the distortions from the NRA. From one extremist blog, which took Cox’s assertions and stretched them even further:
It is expected that the Washington Gun-Grabbers will package the treaty as legislation to assist in the fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates.” But the truth is this: The U.N.’s Small Arms Treaty is nothing more than a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
American organizations supporting the Second Amendment have warned that the U.N.’s Small Arms Treaty would almost certainly FORCE national governments to:make gun licensing requirements far tougher than they are now, which would force law-abiding citizens to have to trudge through even more bureaucratic red tape just to legally own a gun;
It would also give the U.N. the power to CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms. Of course, all firearms owned by the government will be excluded.
The treaty would BAN the trade, sale, and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons.
There will be an INTERNATIONAL gun registry created. Once they know who has the guns — and where the guns are — we can expect full-scale gun CONFISCATION.
Conservative politicians, such as Rand Paul, have propagated this conspiracy theory for political gain.
June, 2012: “Operation Fast and Furious” wasn’t just a failed attempt to track guns to Mexican drug lords, but rather an attempt to create gun violence in Mexico as a means of justifying tougher gun laws in the U.S. and attack the Second Amendment!
Between 2006 and 2011 the ATF’s Project Gunrunner attempted to track straw purchases and illegal gun trafficking to Mexican drug cartels. Since a database of gun sales isn’t allowed in America, and loose gun regulation, particularly in the state of Arizona, makes it almost impossible to prevent large gun sales and trafficking, the ATF had to work with a patchwork of local regulations to monitor and track gun sales to illegal parties. Around 2000 guns were sold and attempted to be monitored as part of the program, but only a few small-time illegal gun sellers were actually arrested. As a result of internal disputes, many guns went untracked, though the ATF never intended for those guns to “walk” out of their control, as discovered by a six-month investigation by Fortune magazine. One federal agent, Brian Terry, was killed with one of those guns, as well as an unknown number of Mexican citizens. Only around 700 of those guns have since been recovered.
The project was clearly a failure, with tragic consequences, but the NRA came up with a more extreme conspiracy theory. According to them, Operation Fast and Furious, led by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, intentionally allowed thousands of guns to go into Mexico, hoping that the deaths of innocents would give more reason to pass stricter gun laws here in the United States and attack the Second Amendment. This, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that President Obama had any knowledge of the workings of the program, or any evidence that Holder was in control of the program, and despite the findings of Katherine Eban for a Fortune Magazine investigation that no guns were intentionally allowed to “walk” by the ATF.
Nonetheless, FOX News was quick to pick up the conspiracy and advertise it as news as well as GOP pundits like Rush Limbaugh, and certain conservative GOP politicians, such as Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“The whole point, don’t forget, the whole point of Fast and Furious was to create mayhem in Mexico among drug cartels with American-made weapons easily procured so that you and I would stand up in outrage and demand tighter gun laws. It was deceitful. It was sneaky. It was going against the will of the American people. It was liberalism on parade. It’s who these people are. They want tighter gun laws. Folks, I want to make this as simple as I can. They created crimes. There’s no other way to characterize this. They created, they manufactured crime. They enabled crimes. They saw to it that American guns ended up in Mexican drug cartel hands. And, of course, those people get the guns, they use them. When, in fact, it probably was difficult for the drug cartels to get the guns. It probably was not easy for the drug cartels to get the guns. Certainly not walking into gun stores in Phoenix and elsewhere, then crossing the border.
“So they set that up. They created crimes. It would be no different than if they wanted to ban airplanes, to engineer a bunch of crashes. I’m trying to think of a smart analogy to give you. If this bunch wanted all airplanes grounded, sabotage a bunch so they crash, and the people of the country demand that all airplanes be grounded. They wanted these guns that were used in these crimes to come from America.”
After the Fortune magazine investigation by Katherine Eban, one blog post by the People for the American Way summarized it thusly:
Eban’s reporting unearthed absolutely no evidence that the tactic of “gun walking”, which Rep. Issa and his allies continue to put front and center, was ever actually in play. “The ATF’s accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn’t actually exist”.
Predicated upon erroneous and misleading information, the Fast and Furious ‘scandal’ is heavy on political intrigue, yet light on substance.
May, 2012: The murder/suicide of four people at the hands of militiaman J.T. Ready was actually staged!
J.T. Ready was a “citizen’s militia” leader, self-appointed patroller of the border with Mexico, dabbler in politics (as a Tea Party speaker and candidate for Sheriff), and an ardent neo-Nazi. He made waves with his staunch, hardline aggressive stance against illegal aliens and his extreme pro-gun, vigilante opinions. Then, one evening, he strapped on body armor, armed himself with two handguns and a shotgun, then walked into a home in Gilbert, Arizona and shot four people to death, including a baby. He then killed himself.
Unhappy with the thought that one of their fiercest supporters could have carried out such a heinous act, the pro-gun extremists quickly jumped to the conclusion, with no evidence whatsoever, that Ready hadn’t actually committed the act. Rather, they speculated, it must have been carried out by some other organization that opposed his views. One conspiracy-theory website accused the Mexican mafia, opponents of “immigration reform and the 2nd Amendment”, or even the U.S. government. From the website:
This political position – particularly from someone running for Sheriff in America’s most embattled county, made him a target of the federal government.
If there was motive to kill J.T. Ready, perhaps it was his role in intercepting drugs from the powerful Sinaloa Drug Cartel. Perhaps it was his open distaste for the Federal Government and Arizona’s open borders. Or maybe it was his ambition to become Sheriff – in a border county which is currently the number one theater for drug smuggling and border crime in the United States of America.
These baseless speculations were then echoed on neo-Nazi and pro-gun forums, such as THIS ONE.
September, 2011: President Obama hasn’t passed any laws to restrict gun owners, which is evidence that he wants to destroy the Second Amendment!
President Obama has done nothing to restrict gun ownership, and has only strengthened gun rights by allowing them in national parks and on Amtrak trains. But if you believe the NRA’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, President Obama’s support of gun rights is only evidence that he actually wants to remove your gun rights. From LaPierre’s speech at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida:
“They’ll say gun owners — they’ll say they left them alone … In public, the president will remind us that he’s put off calls from his party to renew the old Clinton ban, that he hasn’t pushed for new gun control laws … The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment. But it’s a big fat stinking lie! … It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country … Before the president was even sworn into office, they met and they hatched a conspiracy of public deception to try to guarantee his re-election in 2012.
That’s rich! Next time someone does you a favor and tries to see your side of an issue, be sure to accuse them of plotting against you on that issue. See what happens.
Here is what ThinkProgress.org had to say about LaPierre’s statement:
LaPierre’s iron-clad logic is that Obama’s failure to take any action against gun owners in his first term means he is conspiring to launch an all-out assault on their rights in his second term. Equally ridiculous is LaPierre’s suggestion that he somehow has secret knowledge that the president “makes fun of gun-owners” when he’s in private or had a conspiratorial meeting with advisers before he took office where he plotted the Second Amendment’s downfall.
“Our freedom is at risk at this election like never before,” LaPierre claimed at the beginning of his speech, using the same fear-mongering the NRA has depended on since Obama took office to enhance their own membership and financial contributions.
It’s unclear, however, why anyone should believe the NRA’s paranoia. By LaPierre’s logic, Obama also has a secret plan to launch a manned mission to Uranus, convert the nation to Pastafarianism, and wipe out the pink flamingo. After all, Obama has done exactly as much to accomplish these three goals as he has done to undermine gun owners’ rights.
How Many Shootings Does It Take?
August 20th, 2012By Baldr Odinson.
I just read a blog post at Random Musings, where the author wonders what the “magic number” of gun deaths is to lead to real action. In his words:
I don’t know if anyone from the NRA/gun lobby will read this, or would dare to admit it if they did, but if they happen to do so, I have a couple of questions for them:
How many guns have to be sold before your benefactors in the firearms industry find that even their unbridled avarice is met?
How many innocent people have to die before your bloodlust is satiated?
It’s a good question. When confronted with all the horrifying numbers the gun extremists write it off as “the cost of freedom,” or attribute all the shootings only to gangs or drug dealers or the random mentally ill loonies out there. The NRA doesn’t seem to care as long as the “donations” from gun and ammo manufacturers keep rolling in.
So what does it take for the NRA to agree to stricter gun regulation, as they used to before extremists took over in the late 70s? You remember, back when the NRA was actually more about gun safety and hunting than it was about politics? They actually supported and proposed some of the earlier pro-control gun regulations.
How many deaths does it take for our legislators to stop listening to the NRA?
How many deaths does it take for citizens to stand up and demand the legislators pay attention? After all the VAST majority of citizens (including gun owners) supports stronger regulation such as background checks for all gun sales, blocking terrorists on the terrorist watch list, and bans on assault weapons and high-cap ammo magazines.
I mean isn’t it enough already that there are 100,000 people shot a year in America? That’s 270 people shot each day in homicides, assaults, suicides, and accidents, and 87 of them die. Thirty three of them are murdered. Aren’t those numbers shocking enough? The gun lobby insists that “an armed society is a polite society” as the bumper sticker slogan says, but we are already the most armed country of them all. Their way has not worked.
Isn’t it enough that we lead the advanced world in gun-related deaths?
… that we have more gun deaths in a year than during any war since WWII, including Vietnam?
… that there are more gun deaths in the U.S. each year than death by any means in war-torn Somalia or Yemen?
… that there are now more gun deaths in 10 states than car deaths, with other states coming close to even?
… that we now have multiple mass murders every month — whereas years pass between them in most advanced nations.
So what will it take?? At what point will our leaders take action to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them, such as by demanding background checks for all gun sales, including private sales? How many mass murders will it take to finally ban assault weapons? At what point will the background check system actually be strengthened? At what point will we mandate safe storage of guns in homes with children?
Will it take running gun battles in every town every week?
Will every school and theater have an armed guard in every room?
Will every family in America have to lose someone to gun violence first?
Will every city and organization have to make evacuation plans for shootings as the city of Houston did with a recently produced video?
How much of a war zone are we willing to tolerate? How much blood will it take?
Or will the gun lobby continue pressing for gun deregulation and more guns in more hands until we are all dead or living in fortresses?
I want to know Mr. LaPierre. How many deaths does it take?