The Long-Departed Gun Control Train
Guns can't and won't vanish from the US.
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The New York Times described our President's reaction to the latest slaughter in a victim disarmament zone:
Mr. Obama took a veiled swipe at the National Rifle Association, which has successfully fought most limits on gun use and manufacture and has pushed through legislation in many states making gun ownership far easier...
"And what's become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation," Mr. Obama said. "Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out. 'We need more guns,' they'll argue. 'Fewer gun-safety laws.' "
Mr. Obama completely ignores the realities of the gun issue.
It's Just Like Abortion
Pro-aborts speak of removing unwanted womb contents; pro-lifers condemn murdering babies. These views can't be compromised.
Pro-aborts won't accept "common sense" legislation even to limit horrifying partial-birth abortion and infanticide because they recognize the thin edge of the wedge. They know that if they accept any limits, pro-lifers won't stop until all abortions have been banned.
Pro-gun people know that if they accept "common sense" restrictions on gun ownership, the anti-gun forces won't stop until they take all the guns away. Governor Cuomo of New York said that his gun registration laws were a "first step" on the way to confiscation, and Mr. Obama has spoken favorably about the Australian and British confiscations of privately-owned guns.
What's more, pro-aborts are convinced that if they can't ban abortion outright, pro-lifers will stop at nothing to make it difficult. They'll use zoning, they'll say abortionists need admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, they'll require all kinds of expensive equipment in abortion clinics, all in the name of protecting women's health, but the effect will be to make abortion impossible.
Similarly, anti-gun people found another way when the Supreme Court overturned anti-gun laws in Washington DC. The pro-gun faction cheered, but the anti-gunners passed laws saying you had to buy a gun in the District in order to license it, then wrote zoning restrictions such that it's impossible to open a gun shop in DC. They couldn't officially ban guns in DC, but they made it impossible to own them all the same. Neither side trusts the other; there is no "common sense" to share.
The Gun Control Ship Has Sailed
Anti-gun activists won't admit that guns can't be banned any more than drugs can be banned - or, for that matter abortions; the only question is whether they'll be illegal or not. Mr. Nixon's "war on drugs" established billion-dollar distribution systems which bring an endless supply of illegal substances everywhere from urban welfare ghettos to the remotest rural hamlet.
Being illegal, these distributors have no access to the courts, so drug dealers throw lead at each other instead of lawyers in settling business disputes. They bring in just enough guns for their own needs, but if guns were harder to get, they'd be happy to import anonymous Russian or Chinese guns to sell to their existing customers. This is called "brand extension."
The Washington Post reports that in supposedly anti-gun Europe, terrorists have no trouble getting fully automatic weapons:
"It's very easy to get such a weapon," said Hans Jorgen Bonnichsen, a former operations director for the Danish security service PET. "It's not only a problem for Denmark. It's a problem for all of Europe."
We Need More Guns, Not Fewer
Mr. Obama said, "Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out. 'We need more guns,' they'll argue. 'Fewer gun-safety laws.'" He's right in noting that people like us will call for reducing the number of victim disarmament zones and making it easier for citizens to arm themselves.
He'll never admit it, but the NRA has been able to make gun laws much more permissive since he assumed the Presidency because people have lost confidence in the Obama Administration's ability to maintain public order. Gun sales skyrocketed when he first took office, again when he was re-elected, and as his "War on Police" leads to more gun violence, more and more women are getting gun licenses.
ABC News reports:
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said today the U.S. and the rest of the democratic world is at a security crossroads in the wake of last month's deadly al-Shabab attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya - and suggested an answer could be in arming civilians. ...
Noble said there are really only two choices ... : either create secure perimeters around the locations or allow civilians to carry their own guns to protect themselves.
Not even our disarmed military forces can protect themselves against "workplace violence" by armed bad guys. As the head of the NRA put it, "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Police can't be everywhere; the only way for us to be safe is for us to protect ourselves.
Mr. Obama accused Americans of becoming accustomed to shooting incidents, but he couldn't be more wrong. It's not that we're complacent or accepting, it's that we have no faith in his ideas of what to do about it.
Even Europe's super-strict anti-gun laws are so useless that the head of Interpol has recommended arming citizens. Knowing that, and knowing how many potentially terroristic Muslims Mr. Obama has admitted to our country, how can anyone pay serious attention to his calls for "common sense" anti-gun legislation?
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What does Chinese history have to teach America that Joe Biden doesn't know?
The New York Times essentially agrees that local gun control laws are easy to bypass, but their solution is a bit different - ban them all, everywhere. The workable solution is to arm honest citizens and made gun crime more dangerous.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/12/us/gun-traffickers-smuggling-state-gun-laws.html
In California, some gun smugglers use FedEx. In Chicago, smugglers drive just across the state line into Indiana, buy a gun and drive back. In Orlando, Fla., smugglers have been known to fill a $500 car with guns and send it on a ship to crime rings in Puerto Rico.
In response to mass shootings in the last few years, more than 20 states, including some of the nation’s biggest, have passed new laws restricting how people can buy and carry guns. Yet the effect of those laws has been significantly diluted by a thriving underground market for firearms brought from states with few restrictions.
About 50,000 guns are found to be diverted to criminals across state lines every year, federal data shows, and many more are likely to cross state lines undetected.
In New York and New Jersey, which have some of the strictest laws in the country, more than two-thirds of guns tied to criminal activity were traced to out-of-state purchases in 2014. Many were brought in via the so-called Iron Pipeline, made up of Interstate 95 and its tributary highways, from Southern states with weaker gun laws, like Virginia, Georgia and Florida.
A handgun used in the killing of two Brooklyn officers last year was traced to a pawnshop just south of Atlanta. A revolver used in a fatal shooting of an officer in Queens in May was traced to a roadside pawnshop, also in Georgia, about 100 miles from Atlanta. And a handgun used to kill an officer in East Harlem last month was traced to South Carolina.
“We’re trying to deal with it, but we have a spigot that’s wide open down there and we don’t have a national or local ability to shut that spigot down at the moment,” said the New York City police commissioner, William J. Bratton, as he announced an indictment against gun traffickers last week.
The economics are straightforward: A low-quality handgun that sells for $100 in an Atlanta store might sell for $500 or $600 in New York City, researchers say — and it can be transported cheaply. By contrast, the majority of guns used in crimes in Texas, Georgia and other states with more lenient gun laws are purchased in-state.
Forbes says that AK-47's are available all over the world, for cash.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/03/30/the-cost-of-an-ak-47-on-the-black-market-across-the-world-infographic/#1460e0b97442
Considering that the black market is awash with AK-47s, how much would it cost to illegally procure one? A new report from Global Financial Integrity has shed some light on the shady world of arms smuggling and the cost of an AK-47 in several different countries. In Afghanistan, the gun could cost as little as $600 while on Mexico's northern border with the U.S., the price would increase to $1,200. In Belgium where the Paris perpetrators obtained their Balkan Kalashnikovs, it has a pricetag of about $1,135. An authentic model would cost $1,200 in Pakistan but a locally produced model can be obtained there for as little as $148. It is also possible to obtain an AK-47 through the darknet where it costs an average of $2,800 to $3,600.
According to the report, the price of an AK-47 increases the further it travels, with a smuggled rifle crossing the U.S. Canada border expected to go up in price by as much as 560 percent. Arms trafficking is estimated to represent about 10 to 20 percent of the legal arms trade while the entire trade in black market guns, accessories and ammunition is estimated to be worth $1.7 to $3.5 billion every year. With over a million Kalashnikovs still produced each year, one of the world's foremost killing machines is still set to be at the center of the global arms trade for decades to come.
This article is accurate. With 300+million guns, the AR15 being just one model and the most popular model currently, gun control isn't going to stop anyone outside of disarming law abiding citizens. If you already have decided to kill someone, the threat of additional punishments for possessing a firearm or carrying a firearm to where it is prohibited are pointless.
There is no silver bullet. While mass shootings make the news, they are a small part of overall gun violence which is mostly criminals killing other criminals.
Seems like the objective is pretty simple ...make sure mentally disturbed and criminals don't have guns. Seems like the solution is simple require access to your medical records as well as criminal records if you want to buy/register a gun. Not much different than taking an eye exam and drivers test when you get a drivers license . Would screen out the law abiding and those who make it through the day without doing something crazy.
@Bsinn
While I don't wholly disagree, in the end it is merely an invasion of privacy and will likely accomplish little. After all, any sort of background information that is checked depends on the government acting in good faith and actually doing their job, neither of which has ever been in evidence, especially in the wake of the Pulse Night Club and Parkland shootings, where the perps had MULTIPLE interactions with LEO and even FBI, along with mental health "professionals", warnings from school personnel/Disneyland/ gun shops, etc. and yet there was no database entry in NICS, etc. that prevented them from getting their firearms.
Let's face reality: the government is full of corrupt and incompetent people. To rely on a government solution, which is what you propose, means relying on these idiots. That makes your proposal, well meaning as it is, ridiculous on its face.
There is really only one solution: make sure the Good Guys can get guns. At the end of the day I don't care if the bad guy has a gun - after all, they are dangerous even WITHOUT a gun. Naturally, I'd prefer it if they didn't have a gun, but I'm not willing to allow any dangerous infringements that prevent the Good Guys from being armed.
Good Guys being armed = lots of dead bad guys and lots less crime. That's the only equation you need understand. Don't fuss about the details and what you imagine is "common sense". When you understand the overall picture you will come to realize that getting rid of all gun control (i.e. "victim disarmament") laws is the only way to deal with crime. Even seemingly random stuff like school shootings.
And never forget what gun control is REALLY about. It is not about controlling guns, it is about controlling people.
Lawmakers who want to disarm you really want to control you. History is full of governments who first registered guns, then confiscated guns, then rounded up and systematically killed those who the government deemed were trouble makers...
170 million of them!
Don't think it could not happen here. Look at the freedom and liberties we have lost since 9/11. Sandy Hook Elementary is just another scapegoat to take another step at controlling the American people.
After every mass shooting, we hear the unenlightened politicians and knee-jerk liberals wailing, "If we can save just ONE life by getting guns off the street, then it is worth passing stricter gun control..."
Well, the next time you hear that from anybody, I want you to respond with: "Over 170 million people would disagree with you... if they could. You can't talk with them, because they are dead! They were killed by their own governments after strict gun control disarmed them."
Then I want you to hand them a copy of
Innocents Betrayed,
an award-winning documentary DVD that I co-produced with Aaron Zelman
and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO).
You have probably seen the e-mails that float around the Internet that look like this:
WORLDWIDE HISTORY OF Dangerous Deadly GUN CONFISCATION From Innocent Law Abiding Free Citizens
In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.
From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, disarmed left defenseless helpless & unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated...
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In 1911, Turkey established gun control.
From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians,
now disarmed left defenseless helpless & unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Germany established gun control in 1938
and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were now disarmed left defenseless helpless & unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
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China established gun control in 1935.
From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, now disarmed left defenseless helpless & unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Guatemala established gun control in 1964.
From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians,
now disarmed left defenseless helpless &
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Uganda established gun control in 1970.
From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians,
now disarmed left defenseless helpless
& unable to defend themselves, were
rounded up and exterminated.
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Cambodia established gun control in 1956.
From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people,
now disarmed left defenseless helpless & unable
to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Well, I co-produced Innocents Betrayed
because it dramatically and irrefutably documents the direct connections
between government gun control schemes
and the subsequent genocides of disarmed left defenseless helpless & unable to defend themselves free peoples
that have taken the lives of over 170 million people!