MILWAUKEE, Feb. 15, 2008
Obama: U.S. Must Eradicate Gun Violence
Democratic Candidate Also Says He Believes In An Individual's Right To Bear Arms
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Play CBS Video Video Meet Michelle Obama In an exclusive interview, Michelle Obama talks with Katie Couric about her career, her family, and her husband's historic quest for the presidency.
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Video Obama Ad: 'Debate' Barack Obama's campaign refutes charges he is ducking a debate in Wisconsin, pointing out the 18 debates he's attended and the 2 more scheduled. Narrator: "It's just the same politics as usual."
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Video Eye To Eye: Michelle Obama "Only On The Web": In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Katie Couric speaks with Michelle Obama about her husband's presidential bid and why she thinks he is best qualified to lead the nation.
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Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a news conference Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, in Milwaukee, Wis. (AP)
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Interactive Lecture Hall Horror Gunman opens fire at Northern Illinois University, kills five people before killing himself.
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Interactive Guns In America State-by-state gun laws and death rates, maps of recent school and workplace shootings and facts on who's at risk.
Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University's president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his Senate office could provide in the investigation and improving campus security. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the Illinois shooting to reporters while campaigning in neighboring Wisconsin.
The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.
"I think there is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation" like background checks, he said during a news conference.
He said he would support federal legislation based on a California law that would facilitate immediate tracing of bullets used in a crime. He said even though the California law was passed over the strong objection of the National Rifle Association, he thinks it's the type of law that gun owners and crime victims can get behind.
Five people, including the shooter, were killed during Thursday's ambush inside a lecture hall. Authorities said the two guns used were purchased legally less then a week ago.
"Today we offer them our thoughts and prayers, but we also have to offer them our determination to do whatever it takes to eradicate this violence from our streets, from our schools, from our neighborhoods and our cities," Obama said. "That is our duty as Americans."
Although Obama supports gun control, while campaigning in gun-friendly Idaho earlier this month, he said he does not intend to take away people's guns.
At his news conference, he voiced support for the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month.
"The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang bangers and random shootings on the street isn't born out by our Constitution," Obama said.
Obama also:
"I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal," he said. "But I think this kind of gamesmanship is not what the American people are looking for."
"If I am the nominee, then I will make sure that our people talk to John McCain's people to find out if we're willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward," Obama said. "But it would be presumptuous of me to say now that I'm locking myself into something when I don't even know if the other side is going to agree to it and I'm not the nominee yet."
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- sjbj2322,
The thing about campaign promises is that if you promise 12 things which are fairly realistic to achieve, you promote them as hard as you can but only accomplish 6 you are still better off than to make phony promises that can never be achieved, push them hard and accomplish none.
Hillary says she will achieve universal healthcare by forcing those who can''t afford insurance to pay for it
anyways. The fact that the same strategy is being used in Massachusetts and not insuring the uninsured does not seem to faze her.
McCain says he won''t raise anyones taxes under any circumstances and may respond to the recession from cutting taxes, all the while continuing the money drain called Iraq. That can''t be done in a rapidly shrinking economy. It''s been tried as well. George Bush, Sr.(who will be endorsing him today) called ot "voodoo economics".
Obama won''t accomplish everything he''s promising but he''s right to try and he''s offering more sensible and doable proposals than the others.
Also, you can''t put young people so neatly in a box as you do; it''s slander, not fact. - Reply to this comment
- NRA: The Largest Civil-Rights Group Ever
"The NRA is committed to constitutional rights. While most people think of us as focused on firearms, we are rather more focused on freedom. Yes, we concentrate on the Second Amendment, but the Second Amendment is about liberty. It''s an insurance policy for all of your constitutional rights. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to make sure that you have the ability to protect your life, liberty and property, and those of your loved ones, against any who would try to take them from you. That includes your freedom to speak, worship, protest and vote. It includes the things you hold most dear.
- Sandy Froman, former NRA president - Reply to this comment
- sjbj2322 - ALL the politician make promises they cannot keep it apparently comes with the job.
The difference is whether they attempt to KEEP some of those promises or like W - the minute they''re securely ensconced begin to DESTROY everything they promised to protect and defend.
He starts an oil war with NO end in sight in a country that DID NOT attack us and has peed away already over half trillion monetary cost and a half MILLION innocent lives while DIVERTING our troops from catching the SUPPOSED REASON - his BILLIONAIRE family friend Bin Laden!
W promised "compassionate conservatism" and the US got a war of choice, a gutting of the surplus his administration inherited from the previous administration along with a now TEETERING on the brink of depression ECONOMY - we got neither compassionate OR CONSERVATIVE.
The CONSTITUTION he SWORE to "protect and defend" has been GUTTED and in the eyes of the world this nation has become the exact OPPOSITE of compassionate or even diplomatic or intelligent for that matter. Heck the man claims to be a "rancher and he''s AFRAID of horses!
From my perspective, ANYONE would be better than a pathologically lying megalomaniac with delusions of being intelligent.
So WHO would be YOUR choice? McBush Lite? - Reply to this comment
"Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government."
-- Congressman Ron Paul, June 26, 2006
www.a-human-right.com- Reply to this comment
- How are you going to make guns go away if you ban them?
Send SWAT teams bursting into every home and business in America looking for guns?
Make the Army or Blackwater Soldiers bust down every door in America to take our guns?
Send anyone who does not cooperate to a giant prison camp?
There are enough guns in America to arm every adult in the whole country.
Millions of Americans would never give up their constitutional rights and their best means of self defense.
Where are we going to lock up many millions of people?
Our jails are already full!
I don''t know why people are choosing to harm others and themselves but blaming guns and making everyone defenseless will never solve a single thing. - Reply to this comment
- Believe me..I am not an Obama supporter; however, it should be noted that with this last incident at NIU, it was not just hand guns that were an issue. He carried a shotgun into that building in a guitar case. Geez....a guitar case. Does anyone have any idea how many thousand guitar cases are on our college campuses or for that matter other instrument cases where such weapons could be concealed. You know if there was any one slogan that I would rather hear out of ANY of these candidates it would be that we need to return to the idea of A kinder and gentler nation but that infers that we are able to raise our children with any degree of discipline and to a large extent parent''s hands have been tied. Many of these kids are in the Entitlement Generation - they want what they want now and feel they deserve it. And if they don''t get what they want - heaven help anyone who gets in their way. That''s what scares me about Yes We Can....THEY ALREADY ARE!! And Obama is feeding into this mentality for his own personal gain but boy does he have another thing coming. You just wait to see how they will turn on him when he doesn''t come through with his promises and he''s made so many that its just unrealistic to think he can keep them all. As the old saying goes....you can please some of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time.
- Reply to this comment
- I don''t think that the malfunction with government started with GWB. I think it started LONG before that!!!
To Me, the thing that would help us all the most, is to realize that we have been collectively duped, for many, many years by the biggest snow-job artists ever. And, once we realize that, and know that we''ve all been "given the treatment" (and I do mean Liberals and Republicans alike!) and realize that it would be much better for us to get along and face what is happening collectively, the better prepared we will be to face what is coming.
I don''t think the outlook is too good. It would really behoove us all to find common ground and figure our collective way out of this mess.
I know that my husband is really opposed to guns. I think that if it makes a person feel more secure to have a regular gun, FINE!!! Why would I care any more about some other person owning a gun than I would feel about them being gay? Makes no difference to me! (Not too big on the assault weapons, though!)
Anyway, I think that the whole argument over guns is a sidetrack and a trap. "Look This Way!!" while we do "THAT!"
Just my thoughts this evening.
- Reply to this comment
- Hi, I''m not Taotxzen1, I''m his wife, just wanted to be honest and let you guys know that it''s me, not him.
The way that I think about government is that it''s absolutely necessary. How will we get roads built, how will we have schools for our children, how will we make sure that we aren''t snowed into taking lethal drugs that are money-makers for the drug industry or having tainted meat served up in the schools (did you hear about this one? Not good!)? How will we come together and even have a military, without government?
I think our present government has malfunctioned terribly. I feel like it''s mostly because the citizens of our great country became too complacent and paid zero attention to what was being done in their names, and now, here we are. In this mess. (Going to continue in another post, sorry about the length of this one...)
- Reply to this comment
- 2008 WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON %u2013 The electrifying presidential campaign of Barack Obama faces a new challenge %u2013 a Minnesota man who claims he took cocaine in 1999 with the then-Illinois legislator and participated in homosexual acts with him.
When his story was ignored by the news media, Larry Sinclair made his case last month in a YouTube video, which has now been viewed more than a quarter-million times. And when it was still ignored by the media, Sinclair filed a suit in Minnesota District Court, alleging threats and intimidation by Obama%u2019s staff.
this is the link copy it to your search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVeFVtcdSYY&e url=http:%2F%2Fwww.anorak.co.uk%2Fpoliticians%2F 179725.html
See Larry Sinclair''s allegations:
Larry Sinclair lawsuit, pages1-2-3
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId =56627
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId =56628
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId =56629 - Reply to this comment
- One thing that really surprised me is how much tax money goes to defense, not the troops, but the (military) over $670 Billion this year. That is a lot, but when you think that our troops are not getting the equipment they need and those that are injured are not getting adequate health care, they deserve the absolute best, it really makes me wonder where is that $670 + Billion going?
- Reply to this comment
- Posted by JT_Lancer at 12:28 AM : Feb 18, 2008
Unless you''re the other half who pay absolutely no federal taxes and get thousands of dollars in EITC and child tax credits. - Reply to this comment
- JT - Help me out here because I''m hearing several things. You are very anti big government and pro gun rights. That is a little unusual, most gun owners are big time America, love it or leave it types.
- Reply to this comment
- Most people look to the govt to do one of two things:
1. To force others to live as they see fit.
2. To get ''free'' stuff (govt services, subsidies, etc.) at the expense of others.
People vote based upon these two ideas, which I find to be reprehensible. - Reply to this comment
- I do not seek to use the police power of the State to force my neighbors to do as I wish.
For example, if I had kids in public schools, I would not vote for higher property taxes that those w/o kids in public schools are forced to pay. - Reply to this comment
- taotx - how do I live in a peaceful manner? I am honest and ethical in my interactions with others.
I refuse govt subsidies that are paid for at the expense of other Americans.
I do not champion politicians that seek to use govt force against peaceful people. Of course, that rules out just about all of them. - Reply to this comment
- The average American family pays 40% of their total annual income in taxes (direct AND hidden) - more than they pay for food, clothing, and shelter COMBINED! We are essentially wage slaves to the State.
- Reply to this comment
- "peace, by definition, is a state of mutual harmony between people or groups. In other words, their interactions are voluntary and consentual."
That is a great definition and I agree wholeheartedly, but how do you live it? - Reply to this comment
- Government control of the money supply has resulted in a 95% reduction in the value of a dollar since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was established.
Govt caused inflation takes away purchasing power from Americans; in turn, the govt uses the money to fund their excessive, expensive welfare/warfare state. - Reply to this comment
- Free trade and commerce is a peaceful, consentual act.
Freedom of travel (without govt control) is a peaceful act.
Freedom of association, as opposed to coercive govt associations. - Reply to this comment
- taotx - peace, by definition, is a state of mutual harmony between people or groups. In other words, their interactions are voluntary and consentual.
Government, by definition, is the use of coercive force against people, peaceful or not.
Thus, less government will generally lead to more peace.
Foreign government intervention gives us unnecessary wars at a tremendous cost.
Govt intervention at home makes things more expensive for everyone. - Reply to this comment
