Democrats, as usual, took full advantage of the Las Vegas massacre to politicize their hatred of Other People owning guns. They say now is time for the debate. You know what? They’re right. Let’s have this debate, so we can see exactly what they will propose.
Late night shows, which are supposed to be funny, but gave that up long ago, were in high dudgeon. Jimmy Kimmel had a long diatribe, long on blamestorming, short on policy proposals. Stephen Colbert went with the same laundry list
He then highlighted a number of legislative options that have been proposed to combat gun violence, such as universal background checks, semi-automatic weapons bans, and mental illness screenings. “Doing nothing is cowardice — doing something will take courage,†Colbert stated.
Same old same old, with nothing showing what this will bring, other than gun confiscation and categorizing people as mentally ill when they aren’t.
James Cordon didn’t offer any more, just complaints. Seth Meyers made it purely political. Trevor Noah did the same. But, what of actual elected officials, who can, get this, submit legislation? Senator Kamala Harris goes political
My thoughts on the horrific shooting in Las Vegas. pic.twitter.com/52UN7mbMsh
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) October 2, 2017
She has no policy proposals. The Washington Post gives a platform to Senator Chris Murphy, D-Ct
Mass shootings are an American problem. There’s an American solution.
On awful, gut-churning days such as Monday, I find it important to remind myself that mass shootings happen almost nowhere else but the United States. As we become normalized to the regular pace of massive, execution-style killings — Sandy Hook, Charleston, Orlando and now Las Vegas — it’s critical to understand that the Groundhog Day phenomenon of horrific mass shootings is exclusive to the United States. I find consolation in this fact, because if the problem is particularly American, then the solution can be, too.
If you’re thinking that this is going to be one long diatribe against the NRA, Republicans, and gun owning Americans, you’d be correct. Almost the entire thing is meant to bring emotion without really offering that “American solution”. Just this short part
First, contrary to the mythology spread by the gun lobby, there is not much real controversy around the first steps we should take to trim rates of gun crime. Large majorities of Americans support universal background checks, permit requirements for gun ownership and bans on the most dangerous kinds of weapons and ammunition. The gun lobby, and the loud vocal minority it echoes, make the issue seem like more of a hot button than it is.
Second, scores of research shows that these interventions work to a stunning degree. In my states of Connecticut, which has expanded background checks and requires issued handgun permits, gun crimes have dropped by 40 percent.
The Las Vegas shooter purchased multiple guns at gun stores and passed the federally required background checks. The rest? The 40% stat is bordering on a complete load of mule fritters. All it does is make it hard for law abiding citizens to arm themselves per their Constitutional Right to protect themselves. It doesn’t stop criminals from doing what criminals do.
That’s it from Chris, who, like Kamala, and so many other Democrats, forgets that he can submit legislation as an elected lawmaker.
The NY Times gives former Democratic representative Steve Israel a shot, and he makes complaints, rather than offer solutions. It’s the gun lobby this, Republicans that. The list of Democrats, both in and out of Congress, could go on and on and on, but it comes down to one thing: what policies do you recommend to reduce actual gun crimes? Put them up for a vote. Let’s see them. Because, so far, most of your recommendations only affect the law abiding citizens who want to protect themselves, not those who use weapons for crimes.
Why not crack down on criminals? How about this: if you use a gun in the commission of a crime, you get sent away for life to a prison built in the cold wilds of Alaska. No parole. Let’s crack down on the criminals. Remember, these same Democrats are against stop-and-frisk, which takes so many criminals, and even ones who have illegal guns, off the streets. Democrat ideas are to disarm the law abiding citizens.
Yet, interestingly, these same Democrats refuse to give up their own armed security. Weird, right?
Double interestingly, these same Democrats never connect the dots when it is Islamists perpetrating the attacks, ones which do not always use guns.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
If you believe the mainstream media, in 2012 a 20 yr old walked into Sandy Hook Elementary school with his Bushmaster XM-15 and shot and killed 20 six and seven yr old children. As a nation we did nothing to prevent the next mass killing.
We will continue to do nothing. There have been hundreds of mass shootings (3 or more shot in an incident) since the alleged Sandy Hook killings. Twenty dead children every few years is a small price to pay for our freedoms.
Well, what are your solutions? Almost everything we’ve heard from Democrats are things that punish the law abiding engaged in their Constitutional Rights. How about doing things that actually deal with the criminals?
dave and TEACH,
I’m on your side! We will never do anything. We just need to admit to ourselves that our children, brothers, sisters, friends, spouses etc are forever at risk. Who knows the next time a mad man decides to shoot into a crowd from above with military weapons. We just need to accept it and stop being pussies about it. People will continue to die in these sorts of attacks and we are helpless to prevent it, short of an absolute ban on these weapons, and that will never happen. My advice is don’t worry, be happy. It’s like the risk we all live with every day with heart attacks or strokes – you never know when.
The Las Vegas murderer was not a criminal until he pulled the trigger. How to stop someone like him? You can’t. He bought dozens of high-powered weapons legally. He bought thousand of rounds of lethal ammunition legally. Trained policemen with firearms were a quarter mile away and couldn’t help. We should be glad he only wounded 500 or so.
My friends on the left will argue that a ban on the types of weapons the murderer had would have reduced the slaughter and they are right, but banning those types of military-style weapons erodes the Constitutional rights of patriots to have the military-style weapons they need for protecting themselves and others from mad men in high rise buildings with military-style weapons raining death down on innocents. If a few hundred of the concertgoers had been armed with automatic weapons the outcome may have been different.
As TEACH rightly points out, banning military-style weapons burdens the patriot more than the murderers. A patriot’s right to feel safe is at least as important as an innocent’s right to stay alive. Bushmaster’s right to sell their products is at least as important as a child’s right to stay alive.
This is the America we have built and we need to get used to it. Freedom!
Snark noted little guy.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-02/news/mn-1281_1_police-car
TEACH: You have all the answers. What would YOU do to solve the problem? Do you think our gun laws are too strict now?
Jeff,
Correction the gun was his mother’s that he stole. You see, people that are going to kill and disregard the law don’t really care about rules and regulations. Now, if the liberals had not killed mental health care, maybe we could do something.
dave,
I stand corrected. After he killed his mother, he took one of her military-style weapons and used it to kill twenty 1st grade children.
Maybe if the Con Man stopped putting military weapons in the hands of the mentally ill, maybe we could do something.
Would you have locked up the Sandy Hook murderer before he killed? Would you have locked up the Las Vegas murderer before he killed? How about Dylann Roof? Do you now advocate more billions being spent on mental health?
Jeffrey channels Minority Report:
How would you go about incarcerating people who had not yet committed crimes?
I have seen the societies of Australia England Korea and Japan. They took their citizens guns . It seems that when you do that then gangs and bad guys rule the streets and citizens have no defense.
dave,
We should be so lucky to have the homicide and violent crime rates of Australia, England, S Korea and Japan.
Yep, but those countries don’t have St. Louis, East St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, etc. either, little jeffvckery, so what’s your point?
Actually if you dropped some major democracker controlled cities from the totals, our human violence is much lower, so I guess we who live in civilized non-democracker cities are indeed lucky. Lackwit.
Leah Libresco, former writer from 538, writes on her research into gun control…
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/opinion-i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/ar-AAsRR7y?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp
I read the linked article. If 2/3 of firearms deaths are suicides, why would the left, many of whom favor assisted suicide laws, care? If someone wants to kill himself, why is that any of anyone else’s business, as long as they don’t leave a big mess for someone else to clean up?
This, of course, is part of the reason that the left aren’t as up in arms — pun most definitely intended — about the murder rates in our big cities: most of those murder victims are just as bad a guys as their murderers, so it’s a strange form of cleaning the streets.
It’s only when we get to the next group, women murdered by angry husbands or boyfriends, that the deaths become a societal problem.