NRA CEO: "I don't think you can trust" the White House
Closing the federal loophole that allows Americans to buy guns in private transactions without having gone through a background check would be a slippery slope, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre said today, suggesting that President Obama and his administration would insist on taking it a step further.
With a so-called "universal background check," LaPierre said on "Fox News Sunday," "I think that they'll do is they'll turn this universal check on the law-abiding into a universal registry on law-abiding people. 'Obamacare' wasn't a tax until they needed it to be a tax. I don't think you can trust these people."
LaPierre said he's "been in this fight for 20 years," with the NRA having initially proposed a comprehensive background check. But unable to surmount federal laws restricting access to someone's mental health records that could signify whether that person poses a threat, he said, he changed his mind on the issue. Additionally, he argued, "the criminals are never going to comply with it; they could care less. ...It's a fraud to call it universal."
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Also appearing on the program, Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who survived a shot to the head two years ago during an assassination attempt that left six people dead, advised LaPierre to "listen to his membership." Seventy-four percent of NRA members consider a universal background check "very reasonable," said Kelly, who also pushed for an assault weapons ban and limit to high-capacity magazines.
It's not the first head-to-head this week between LaPierre and Kelly: Both were witnesses in a hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is examining U.S. gun laws following last month's massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, by a gunman thought to have been mentally ill.
In his testimony, LaPierre made the case for stationing armed guards at schools across the country. Today, he stood by a controversial NRA ad that targeted the president for refusing to back the proposal while providing armed security to his daughters.
"It wasn't picking on the president's kids," he said. "The president's kids are safe, and we're all thankful for it." Pressed by host Chris Wallace on the "ridiculous" notion that other children share the same level of threats as the first daughters, LaPierre countered, "tell that to the people in Newtown."
"We've had all kinds of threats coming to us," LaPierre said, acknowledging his own armed security detail at the hearing. "I don't deny anybody the right to security when they need it. What I am saying is, it's ridiculous... for all the elites and all the powerful and privileged, the titans of industry to send their kids to schools where there is armed security, to have access to semi-automatic technology."
On Monday, Mr. Obama will travel to Minnesota to speak with law enforcement officials about his own plan to help reduce gun violence.
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As if you turn it around on the White House, no one will notice that you are a crazy, extremist, violent, frightened gun wacko.
I'm not against guns & hunting but I can't stand the NRA whose political manipulation and blackmailing is corrupting the public discourse.The extremists controls the NRA and it is reflected in this thread!
In Germany those who had guns had authority.
In China those that have guns have authority..
In N.Korea those have the guns have authority
In Russia those that have guns have authority.
In Egypt those that have guns have authority.
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Stop spouting NRA propaganda without fact-checking.
In Germany, after WWI, the allies imposed a complete ban on private gun ownership. That was lifted in 1928, which helped Hitler to come to power. In 1938 Hitler further loosened the laws on private gun ownership. The ban was reimposed during the allied occupation and remained in effect until 1956.
In the Soviet Union, in China and in Egypt, the presence of powerful weapons in the hands of the police and military did not and does not deter uprisings. The people of the Soviet Union brought the communists down without firing a shot. In Egypt they did so as well two years ago, and may do so again this year. In China, the attempt did not succeed. But two out of three proves your NRA crap to be wrong and deceitful.
You are correct about the restrictions on Jews. But he had not waited until 1938 to torment them. In 1933 the Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service banned Jews from working for the government. The Nuremberg Laws which took away citizenship from Jews, among other things, were passed in 1935. Guns played very little part in all this.
But you really missed the point. The point was that after the loosening of the laws in 1928, Hitler's Brown Shirts, the Sturmabteilung, used increasing violence to force the will of the Nazis on the German people. The restrictions on firearms gave them that much more intimidation power.
7lucky_seven said, "Why does Obama have to travel all the time. Every time AF 1 goes somewhere, a million dollars is wasted..."
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We know the GOP is bankrupt of ideas and bereft of direction when it complains about "excessive" use of Air Force One. But where were these critics during the reign of George W. Bush?
This item, reported by national press on March 11, 2008, provides a flashback--
Bush recently spent his 879th day at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. This was a record-setting day for Bush, whose days on vacation broke the record of another GOP president for days off, Ronald W. Reagan.
That old news story innocently suggests another question-- why wasn't Bush at the White House, hard at work, instead of traveling to Texas at taxpayer expense?
But never mind...
Questions for President Obama-- (drum roll, please)
1. How does the president travel--
(a) motorbike
(b) subway
(c) light plane
(d) commercial bus
(e) commercial air, commuter
(f) a plane of his own
2. Why does the president use an expensive airplane?
(a) He uses the same aircraft Bush used, so ask Bush
(b) To assure safety and security at all times from a variety of possible threats
(c) To assure constant contact with all components of the executive branch, and the armed forces
(d) To permit conferences and working sessions with as many of staff as needed
(e) all of the above
3. Did the press scrutinize every use of Air Force One with Bush?
(a) No
(b) They seldom brought it up, except in the context of a state visit
(c) They mentioned the presidential trips because they happened to cover the
presidential tour, which is an official function of the president, as a head of state.
(d) The press had more important things to cover than a Bush vacation
(e) Sometimes it did not matter where Bush was, bad news eclipsed everything else.
4. To reach the ranch in Crawford, TX, how did Bush travel?
(a) Air Force One
(b) muleback
(c) speedboat
(d) light plane
(e) chartered helicopter
5. How many trips to Crawford, TX, did Bush make?
Bush made-- at a minimum-- 77 taxpayer-paid trips to Crawford, TX, at $226,072 per trip. Total? $17.407,544. And that is only "trips home" for vacation, not counting his other travels, which were many.
These included a 2005 flyover of Katrina-battered New Orleans just after the storm-- on his way to help John McCain celebrate his birthday, and eat some cake with seniors in San Diego while he pitched his plan to put Social Security money into Wall Street banks.
Yours is the biggest tangle of non sequiturs ever to emerge in this forum in the last year. Not one coherent statement, and little hope of finding any line of reasoning in its support.
As for officers who lead with a white stripe anywhere on their helmets, they are barely stupid enough to be sniper bait. Likewise, leading like Custer in a cavalry charge belongs in the movies, not where lives depend on the outcome.
Despite your armchair-general's counsel, the smart officers are not into theatrical heroics, because a combat platoon does very badly without them.
Instead, the smart officers lead from whatever angle is demanded-- front, rear or sidelong-- but they get the job done, and everyone comes back.
And that is leadership by results-- always more inspiring than a line of body bags and a series of letters to next-of-kin.
Speaking of leading by results, even the GOP is secretly envious. After Obama nailed bin Laden, the GOP went into mourning. Despite eight years of George W. Bush mock heroics-- announcing victory in Iraq just before a massive insurrection and five years of protracted war began-- there was nothing to show for an effort Bush, himself, once trivialized by declaring he didn't think much about the location of bin Laden, anymore.
So, whether Obama vacations in the "wrong place", leads in the "wrong way", speaks about the "wrong things", vacations too often, or sends the First lady abroad are superficial and irrelevant issues for anybody but those with a racially-tinged hatred for Obama.
However, that accurately describes the shrinking circle of GOP bozos, the Archie Bunkers of a by-gone era whose only function today is to regurgitate Faux News garbage in public places.
In this country, alone, there are enough innocent victims of gun violence to fill a sports stadium-- non-violent men, women and children.
And you want to talk about evil agenda?
Speedeb said, "[A gun] is not about a weapons destructive capability but a symbolic representation of the power of the people over the government..."
Power over the government? In a democracy you are the government-- which is why crowned Europe feared the American revolution. The revolution was a fundamental transformation awarding authority to the people, infused with new hope and a vision of liberty through self-government.
Every American vote demonstrates that democratic power, but not every gun. And in that much, you confuse gun power with authority.
Democratic legitimacy-- symbolic or otherwise-- does not reside in a gun. For what makes one gun more legitimate than another? Of two citizens in a dispute, is the gun always right? Put differently, do you vote with your gun?
These are questions you must answer before understanding Wayne LaPierre's mythology about the second amendment's "right to bear arms". Democratic government is not a vigilante action, but the rule of law-- a rational marriage of collective and individual interests, expressed through civil institutions (in every sense of the word).
Again, guns may symbolize power, but do not symbolize authority. You must understand the difference to appreciate the rule of law and source of legitimate power in civilized society.
However much a symbol of power, a gun does not and cannot preserve civil liberties-- only your vote and other participation as a citizen can. Anything else falls into bloody anarchy.
And in claiming your own guns grant you some measure of authority somehow not found in the constitution.
Because in speaking of "well-regulated militias", the constitution clearly regards the militia as an instrument of state power, not a disparate collection of vigilante arsenals.
And in claiming your own guns grant you some measure of authority somehow not found in the constitution.
Because in speaking of "well-regulated militias", the constitution clearly regards the militia as an instrument of state power, not a disparate collection of vigilante arsenals.
@Nobodyhasthisname-- democracy describes the objective of government and its authority, whereas government by representative assembly describes the mechanics. In the United States, we are both. Debating that we are one, to the exclusion of the other, is a false dichotomy.
Taylorsucram said, "... The militia was the first and last protection from the omnipresent threat of slave insurrection or vengeance..."
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Taylorsucram states state militia were an instrument to control slaves in the plantation South, but militia is found throughout the original colonies and was used through colonial and post-colonial history for a variety of purposes. To suggest the second amendment to the constitution arose from slave control completely overstates the case.
Our constitution's second amendment was drafted and passed because framers of the constitution saw a need to defend lawfully constituted authority with militias. Shay's Rebellion, staged before the constitutional convention, and the Whiskey Rebellion afterward made clear that only a militia force could put down an insurrection and restore law and order.
This was the view of George Washington, himself, who personally led state militias against the Whiskey Rebellion insurgents. A "well-regulated militia", therefore, is an instrument of the rule of law, not a blank check for vigilantes to take the law into their own hands.