Assault weapons ban dropped, gun control supporters move on
The uphill climb to pass an assault weapons ban grew steeper yesterday, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced he was setting the legislation aside for now to focus proposals to reduce gun violence that could win more support. But rather than put up a fight, some of the biggest gun control proponents are focusing this week on building support for other key proposals.
"The assault weapons ban was always an uphill battle this session," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a statement. "As we have known all along, we face a marathon effort and not a sprint."
It was the tragedy in Blumenthal's home state last year -- the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. -- that sparked the ongoing debate over reducing gun violence. Blumenthal and other lawmakers have been working on a number of proposals to reduce gun violence, covering everything from combating illegal gun trafficking and enhancing school safety to strengthening background checks and improving the mental health system.
Reid insisted yesterday that all of these measures deserved a vote -- but that including some of them in the main legislative package brought to the Senate floor would sink the entire effort. The main bill that Reid will introduce will have to get at least 60 votes to get past a GOP-led filibuster, he explained. So by starting with a pared-down bill, Reid said he could at least get a gun control measure on the Senate floor. At that point, the assault weapons ban and other less popular measures could be voted on as amendments.
Reid: Assault weapons ban won't be in my gun violence bill
"I think the worst of all worlds would be to bring something to the floor and it dies there," Reid said. "People are deserving of votes on their issues they feel so strongly about."
The chances of an assault weapons ban passing as an amendment, however, look dim. Reid said there are less than 40 votes of support for the measure in the Senate at this point.
Cruz, Feinstein spar over 2nd Amendment at assault weapons hearing
The proposal, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee last week with only Democratic support. It passed following a heated exchange between Feinstein and freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. After Cruz lectured Feinstein about the Second Amendment, the California senator snapped at him, "I am not a sixth grader!"
In the Judiciary Committee, Feinstein's assault weapons ban was combined with legislation banning high-capacity magazine clips . The ban on high-capacity clips is important to gun safety advocates who argue that it is among the most surefire ways to prevent shooters from killing dozens of people within minutes.
Now that Reid will only put the assault weapons ban up for a vote as an amendment, some advocates for gun control want the ban on high-capacity clips to be put up as a separate amendment -- essentially acknowledging it has a better chance of passing if it's not tied to the assault weapons ban.
"Families in Newtown and across the country deserve a robust debate on efforts to reduce gun violence," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in a statement. "While the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 is an incredibly important part of this debate, I continue to believe that a more targeted ban on high capacity magazines is an equally effective way to reduce casualties in episodes of mass violence. I believe we need to have a separate floor vote on a high capacity magazine restriction, and I look forward to working with other senators in the coming weeks to develop a reasonable restriction on large volume magazines that can gain bipartisan support."
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The Supreme Court also may explain gangster societies are not well regulated Militia and are not the people, who are supposed obeying the laws, stated in this Constitution Law, so they don't have such rights to keep and bear Arms.
U.S. Constitution - Amendment 2
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Infringe
infringe vb [Latin infringere] 1: violate, transgress 2: encroach, trespass Source: NMW
In the context of the Constitution, phrases like "shall not be infringed," "shall make no law," and "shall not be violated" sound pretty unbendable, but the Supreme Court has ruled that some laws can, in fact, encroach on these phrases. For example, though there is freedom of speech, you cannot slander someone; though you can own a pistol, you cannot own a nuclear weapon.
God doesn't rule the world of humans directly with letter physically.
God authorizes the officials, who are humans, at law enforcement of the government with the concepts of the laws to maintain the order of the world of humans.
Extreme cases of this Constitution law are just criminals and ones who lose their minds or ones who can't guarentee keeping Arms away from ones who lose their minds, and such extreme cases should be excluded from having such right, and this fits the apparent meaning of this sentence, and just normal people should have such right according to this Constitution law.
dAN329292 said, "... it is companies who provide jobs and wealth... not your vaunted government."
------
You may not have noticed government leadership in projects like aerospace technology, space exploration, energy research, an entire health provider infrastructure for Medicare and MedicAid, highways and public transportation, medical research, law enforcement, higher education, national defense and a host of other projects.
This includes the internet, begun and developed by government. Government involvement also includes substantial aid-to-industry, from lavish tax breaks to business to practically giving away our national assets like coal and oil rights on federal land. Government aid also includes giving taxpayer-developed assets to industry, gratis, to spare private firms the research and development costs.
And all this government activity is economic activity-- it generates jobs in and out of government, creating wealth as surely as any private investment. In fact, the slowdown in the economy after stimulus funding ran out was only one of many clear measures of how much the economy needed the federal stimulus it did receive. Likewise, even GOP governors recognize Affordable Care Act funds can provide jobs and business growth, and have sought federal funding.
Yet, predictably simplistic political arguments advanced by the GOP against government continue to snare the ignorant and naive. But for all its preaching of fiscal austerity, the GOP has done more federal spending than any other party to create the national debt. As only Shakespeare could have put it, the GOP version of austerity was "honored more in the breach than the observance."
But preach as the GOP may about the role of government, the GOP cannot ignore government as the core of our democracy. In a democracy, the people own their government, and call it to serve their interests. Government is the American people at work.
As government develops into the 21st century, we have a profound affirmation by the people of the United States they expect to accomplish more, not less, with their government. This government is their own instrument, and flaws notwithstanding, the proudest expression of what it is to be an American.
Government is a drain on overall funds. It drains funds from productive efforts to provide necessary services that cannot be provided by individuals or businesses. When government attempts to "invest" in the economy, it most often is inefficient. Money is spent on research that has no economic benefit. Shrimp on a treadmill? In addition, even when spent on beneficial research, it costs more and produces less benefit. Government is a necessary evil, but a bloated government is a drain on the economy and often on personal liberties.
Smoking dope tonight?
The GOP has a record of promoting feeling over reason. As taught by business marketing, the GOP exploits hate and fear to appeal to the voter's "reptilian brain".
You know what you fear, but not why.
A Proposal on How to Save our Next Generation of Children from Senseless Deaths by Gun Violence
It's a radical but simple proposal, given the alternative of continuing to suffer thousands of lives lost each year, senselessly.
My question is this: how many millions of lives would be saved when the weapons and ammunition which are currently out in circulation become obsolete, and useless?
I propose a complete redesign of the ammunition and loading mechanisms for all handguns and all rifles available to the public to purchase, to be phased in a quickly as possible.
Bullets would have a cartridge with a square seat (the part that delivers the charge to the bullet projectile, which of course must remain round), and guns would have a corresponding redesign of the weapon's chamber so that it could only accommodate the newly redesigned bullet.
Just as at one time our forefathers used muskets and pistols with lead balls, which then evolved into the current design (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musket ), it is well past time that we phase out production of conventional ammunition and weapons to the next generation of handguns and rifles that can only fire bullets with the square cartridges.
This year we begin phasing in a law to take full effect by the end of 2016 banning the manufacturing of ALL weapons with conventional bores as well as the ammunition they fire, and only make available for sale redesigned square-chambered handguns with a maximum of 4-6 rounds, and similar rifles with no more than 3 to 4 rounds—both suitable for target practice and hunting only.
We will need to require all arms makers to phase out the sale of conventional bullets and weapons; and will need to subsidize their doing so, given the retooling costs.
When the ban is in full effect, any ammunition manufacturer who refuses to do so would be shut down and their assets seized, as would be done to any criminal organization.
Obviously, it would be in their best interests to evolve or risk closure; the larger question would be, who would be criminal enough to continue manufacturing the previous generation of guns given the violence.
In 1993 I lost 4 members of my family—my 35 year-old brother, his wife and 2 very young children—to an execution by a neighborhood gang over a minor drug deal gone bad.
The trauma and pain that was visited upon me, my wife and daughter, and remaining survivors of our family (as well as the entire community that loved my brother and his family) was unfathomable and, of course, indelible.
By the grace of God and the support of friends and loved ones, time has allowed me to heal enough to be willing to speak up about it to do what I can to stop the killing and senseless deaths.
After all (and tragically so), it isn't exactly a unique story in America, particularly in the barrios where I grew up in East Los Angeles.
But I cannot stand by and don't want anyone further to suffer at the hands of gangbangers or other malevolent individuals, or the unstable and delusional who already have weapons and assault rifles and must be disarmed or rendered harmless.
This method disarms them without firing a shot by making their weapons obsolete.
Is it possible to dream that this could happen? With enough resolve, we can guarantee it. In the names of the children of Sandy Hook, we must.
Within 10 years the common footsoldiers of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the paramilitary militia throughout the world who have conventional weapons and ammunition would be put out of business, as the ammunition sources became exhausted, and access to the new design is unavailable to them through the cooperation of our allies and sanctions against manufacturers who don't comply.
What becomes of the current round cartridge weapons that responsible collectors, hunters, sportsmen and other properly screened individuals own?
Much like the musket and flintlock that preceded them, they are enjoyed as the finely engineered piece of history, while we all rest assure that our children are safe from maniacs.
Would there still be suicides and homicides?
Of course, but far, far fewer. Tens of thousands fewer, God and Congress be willing.
Let me close with a message that has always been a guiding light to me about our children, and our responsibility to the generations that follow us.
I saw it on the wall during a visit to Manzanar, a Japanese Interment camp in eastern California, many years ago. On that wall at Manzanar, the following statement was scribbled on the wall:
"Our Children are living messages we send to a time we will not see."
Let's start TODAY to save the next generation of children, around the world.
There can never be another Newtown. Ever. Never again.
So remember this message through a simple song.
"It's hip to be square."
Many Many ways to kill
"Bob Beckel, the liberal co-host of Fox News' "The Five," had some harsh words for the executives at CBS over the network's "idiotic" decision to air what some are calling communist propaganda disrespectful to Vietnam veterans.
CBS' "The Amazing Race" had its contestants travel to Hanoi, Vietnam where they learned communist anthems and were subjected to state propaganda. The contestants also traveled to Vietnam's B-52 memorial, the site of a downed U.S. B-52 bomber.
Roughly 60,000 Americans died fighting the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the Vietnam war.
"I am so outraged by this, I can't believe it," Beckel began. "CBS is idiotic, they're stupid. The idea that they would put something like that on the TV — don't blame it on young producers. It had to go through somebody at the executive branch at CBS."
He went on: "If CBS can't do any better than that, to go to a memorial where Americans died, then you ought to get off the network. Take that show and shove it!"
Beckel also said CBS executives should apologize for the segment.
Beckel isn't the only one furious about the offensive episode of "The Amazing Race." In addition to Beckel's co-hosts, several other websites have condemned or acknowledged the controversial content included in the CBS show.
Media Research Center:
Unfortunately this singing wasn't the only tactless task. Later in the episode, the teams were required to go to the B-52 Memorial in Hanoi. This memorial is really just a wreckage site, which gloriously displays a shot down American bomber plane. One wonders if it was shot down using the prop from another of the communists' big propaganda moments, when Jane Fonda posed grinning on an NVA anti-aircraft gun.
Nearly 60,000 Americans died fighting the Soviet- and Chinese-backed North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were massacred in Southeast Asia in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal. For CBS to return to the scene and incorporate anti-American propaganda into a game is insensitive and disrespectful to all Americans who honor the lives lost in the Vietnam War.
Yahoo! TV:
However, the viewer vibe turned quickly from sad to mad when the Roadblock forced teams to watch a pro-communism song be performed and then run to another room during a five-minute intermission to search rows of political posters for the Vietnamese phrase revealed at the end of the number. Only Pam got it on take one, and it took two more performances, which one of the country blondes likened to "One Direction," for the rest of the pairs to put up the right poster. Later on, a clue was hidden at a memorial of a downed B-52 bomber from the Vietnam War. Reaction ranged from threats to quit watching to labeling it "a strange episode" and "disrespectful to Americans killed there."
Meanwhile, CBS News didn't acknowledge the potential for outrage:
"[T]he other teams were told to head to Gallery 42, where they're given a Roadblock. One member of each team had to watch a performance of a patriotic anthem, which included dancers holding up a phrase written on umbrellas. They then had five minutes to find that exact phrase in a room filled with Communist propaganda posters. Those who didn't find it in time had to watch the performance before they could search again
I DAMN SURE AIN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Congressman Timothy Huelscamp revealed this week that the Department of Homeland Security has refused to answer questions from "multiple" members of Congress regarding its recent purchase of huge amounts of weapons and ammunition.
"They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that," Huelscamp said."
Bob Beckel - one of your fellow Leftist, just threw you under the bus -- called you the "Communist Broadcast Station" for disrespecting Vietnam Vets on your "Amazing Race"
He said you owe us VN Vets an apology -- so I'm waiting....