Gun control debate back in spotlight after Colorado shooting
Very few politicians are willing to publicly battle to ban certain weapons
/ CBS News(CBS News) Two days after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., took the lives of 12 people, the debate over gun control returned from dormancy Sunday.
The issue has gone virtually undiscussed in this year's presidential election and has not been much of a part of the national conversation since former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in January 2011.
"My thoughts are these -- pure and simple -- weapons of war don't belong on the streets. This is a powerful weapon. He had a hundred round drum," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said on "Fox News Sunday."
"I think -- you know, we've got to sit down and really come to grips with what is sold to the average citizen in America," Feinstein added. "I have no problem with people being licensed and buying a firearm. But these are weapons that you are only going to be using to kill people in close combat."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, said that "we need to look at everything" but was skeptical that more gun control is necessary.
"I think that the strongest Second Amendment rights people would be glad to have a conversation, but to somehow leap to the conclusion that this was somehow caused by the fact that we don't have more gun control legislation, I don't think, has been proved," he said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Meantime, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, added that even if there were stricter gun laws on the books, it might not have mattered in this case; suspect James Holmes seemed determined to commit the crime, calling him "diabolical".
"I mean, if he couldn't have gotten access to the guns, what kind of bomb would he have manufactured," Hickenlooper said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Politicians discussed the issue this morning after 12 people were killed and an additional 58 people were injured at a screening of Batman's "The Dark Knight" in Aurora, Colo. early Friday morning.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate of stricter gun laws, said President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney need to lead the discussion on guns.
"The two people, President Obama and Governor Romney, talking in broad things about they want to make the world a better place, ok, tell us how," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." e
On the same program, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., whose husband was killed in a 1993 shooting spree and is a proponent of the assault weapons ban, said there is one element that is consistent in mass murders at Virginia Tech, Columbine and Fort Hood. "They had a gun with large magazines," she said.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat who represents the Aurora, Colo., district where the shooting took place, said he will work with McCarthy to bring debate into Congress.
"[S]hould we reinstate the assault weapons ban? I think we should, and I think that's where it starts," Perlmutter said on "Face the Nation."
McCarthy said voiced pessimism at Congress passing gun control legislation. She said the gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, has too strong a grip on Congress.
"But the thing of it is, as a politician, a lot of politicians know it's the right thing to try to fight for something to save lives. They don't have the spine anymore. They pander to who's giving them money," she said.
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You know that there are gun designed for hunting ground hogs, then there are guns designed for killing dear, bear elephants etc. All of these protected buy gun laws and the NRA.
But then we have the AK47 assault rifle designed and used primary to kill humans.
So in that logic the NRA believes that humans are just another "game animal".
Perhaps if they realize that they to are a game animal they might reconsider.
In my state which has a $2 Billion hunting industry, you cannot use an assault rifle for hunting, and I imagine most of the other states besides MT are the same way. First off, a semi-automatic rifle cannot hold more than 6-rounds in the magazine and chamber combined to be a legal hunting rifle, and it must be a minimum of .24 caliber (6mm) which disqualifies the Aurora shooter's AR-15, .223 cal. assault rifle.
I have only hunted in 6 states, so I'll admit I don't know the rules for all the states, but none of the states I've hunted in allowed assault rifles as legal hunting weapons. I was amazed to find out that MT's hunting requirements were so liberal, since it seems as if anything goes including AR-15's, but there's a reason why the other states don't allow such small caliber ammunition. They must have some pretty poor marksmen in MT! LOL!
Perhaps in the 1780's, the rise of a tyrant to a leadership position in the U.S. was a cause for concern, but the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, after we had already gained our independence by revolution. Today, in my opinion, the voters are much too sophisticated to elect a leader whose stated aims would be to suppress freedom or declare martial law. For the leader whose unstated aim it was to seize the nation, the task would be more than daunting -- it would be next to impossible. The size and scope of the conspiracy needed, the cooperation of patriots who would see right through such a plan -- it is unfathomable, the stuff of fiction.
But, I've seen some doozies of conspiracy theories in the past decade, and don't put anything past those divorced from reality.
I wish she would also take on the banks, Wall Street, mortgage lenders, oil companies, drug companies and every other entity that has too much influence over Congress, and expose bot them and Congress for the crooks and bloodsuckers they really are.!!
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia in 2008 wrote that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and is subject to reasonable prohibitions and regulations and subsequently federal court rulings have upheld existing gun prohibitions and regulations.
"The Volokh Conspiracy -- Yet Another Early Post-Heller Second Amendment Case:"
Johnson v. United States (E.D. Mo. July 2, 2008), summarily rejects a felon's Second Amendment challenge to the federal ban on felons' possessing firearms:
Moreover, on June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court completely foreclosed Movant's Second Amendment ... constitutional challenge to this statute:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
Johnson, who was representing himself, had felony convictions from the mid-1990s for assault with a deadly weapon, theft, and escape from custody. The pistol that he possessed in 2005, when he was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm, had been stolen. Because of Johnson's criminal history, which also included "a series of traffic and drug-related misdemeanors, and an additional misdemeanor resisting arrest," he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
"..nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."
Seriously, not only did you change the word "militia" to "military," but also the line "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," to "the right of the people to own and carry arms."
BIG DIFFERENCE that even a 5th grader could distinguish! LOL!
Today, the state militias have evolved into the National Guard in every state. These soldiers, while part-time, are professionally trained and armed by the government. No longer are regular, non-Guardsmen, expected to take up arms in defense of the state or the nation (though the US Code does still recognize the unorganized militia as an entity, and state laws vary on the subject [10 USC 311]). OTOH, the U.S. Military is a full-time, federal force of professional soldiers -- nothing even close to the old meaning of "MILITIA".
The definition of "BEAR" is: "to be equipped or furnished with (something)" -- since it was a militia term in the late 1800s.
Even Merriam-Webster says nothing about "carry".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bear?show=1&t=1343077564
As a matter of fact, even guncite.com differs with your meaning:
To Bear Arms:
"Bearing arms," throughout the 18th century, most likely meant to serve as a soldier or to fight (including bearing arms against another man in individual self-defense). Where the term "bear arms" appears, itself, without further modifiers it DID NOT infer a broader meaning such as hunting or the mere carrying or wearing of arms.
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."
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The actual 2nd Amendment ratified in 1791:
"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."
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dl373's "slightly different" version according to him:
Because the government must regulate a military to ensure its security, the right of the people to own and carry arms shall not be infringed.
Actually dl373, nobody is buying your NRA political rhetoric, since your "slightly different" version, is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
Nice try though!
They are NOT the same, and most documents of the era, always said: "well regulated militia," -- NOT MILITARY!
From the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776): "That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state."
From the Articles of Confederation (1781): ..."every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered"
From the New York Ratification Document (1788): "That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, including the body of the people capable of bearing arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state."
From the Rhode Island Ratification Document (1790): "That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, including the body of the people capable of bearing arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state..."
Hey "dl373" -- go out and buy a dictionary before posting again!
Today, the state militias have evolved into the National Guard in every state. These soldiers, while part-time, are professionally trained and armed by the government. No longer are regular, non-Guardsmen, expected to take up arms in defense of the state or the nation (though the US Code does still recognize the unorganized militia as an entity, and state laws vary on the subject [10 USC 311]).
This is in great contrast to the way things were at the time of adoption of the 2nd Amendment. Many state constitutions had a right to bear arms for the purposes of the maintenance of the militia. Many had laws that required men of age to own a gun and supplies, including powder and bullets.
I, like most Americans do not want to ban guns or their ownership by American Citizens but the extreme right gun lobbying groups only care about gun proliferation at any cost.
The NRA, their lobbyists, supported polititions and cronies should be run out of Washinton DC so that sensible gun laws can be put into place."
I agree, and as a gun owner myself, see the need to neuter the NRA -- the strongest lobbying group in Washington -- "so that sensible gun laws can be put into place."
The trick is finding that balance between freedom and reasonable regulation, between unreasonable unfettered ownership and unreasonable prior restraint. Gun ownership is indeed a right -- but it is also a grand responsibility. With responsibility comes the interests of society to ensure that guns are used safely and are used by those with proper training and licensing. If we can agree on this simple premise, it should not be too difficult to work out the details and find a proper compromise.