Drawing a crowd of hundreds that spilled onto Beacon Street on Saturday afternoon, firearms advocates waved Revolutionary-era flags, hark back to historic battlefields, and quoted founding fathers as they decried legislation filed last week by Governor Deval Patrick that would place limits on certain firearms transactions and high-capacity cartridges.
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed!” yelled Yang Li, 42, an engineer from Canton who was the first speaker at the ‘Guns Across America Rally’ in front of the State House, drawing up to 700 people. The rally was conceived through social media that spawned similar noontime rallies in other cities across the country, according to organizers.
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The solution is simple. Pass a law. That will solve any problem.
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HHK: Yup, it is all in the pictures, well, at least the ones that are chose to be shown, anyhow. I have looked at about 200 pictures from that rally, and video. I saw women, children, mothers and fathers. Oh, I did see one anti gun protester, driving by in a van screaming at the top of her lungs like a lunatic. The gun owners just ignored her.
In another comment you mention being protected by Police. Great idea, when it works. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Police actually have no legal obligation to protect you, SC ruled on that long ago. But all this theoretical talk about Police protection, limiting guns, passing laws, mental health registries is just a bunch of theory when someone starts attacking you with a club or fists and there is no else to help you.
As one of the signs at the rally said yesterday, carried by a lady, "I would carry a cop, but they are too heavy".
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Mr. Linsky, you speak of knee jerk reaction by the pro gun people? Really? What is more knee jerk than what you and your ilk have been doing for the last month? A seven round magazine is ridiculous. The responsible gun owner that is protecting his family or his business against armed individuals will be at a distinct disadvantage for surely the suspect(s) will be armed with high capacity weapons. Even the best trained police officers hit their targets 15% of the time in a gun fight. A citizen, with a revolver or a 7 round mag, up against two suspects armed with semi-automatics with high capacity mags has no chance. Did you see the video of the armed robbery in Lawrence the other day? You think your law will stop those suspects from carrying their high capacity weapons? You're alright with that I guess.
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If you think that by banning them now they will be out of circulation in the next several generations then you are dellusional.
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We regulate cars. We regulate drivers. We even have places where no cars are allowed at all.
In 1952, there we 7.2 fatalities per millions of miles driven in the US. In 2010, there were 1.1 fatalities per millions of miles driven.* Common sense calls for rules in society that make everyone safer.
If you just think "car" instead of "gun" we might eliminate some of the emotion and make rational progress towards reducing gun deaths the way we reduced traffic fatalities.
We didn't make cars illegal, but we came up with regulations that made everyone safer. Imagine how many fatalities there would be today if the same hostility from a small number of people and the same power in a lobbying organization (NRA) we see towards regulating guns was in place about regulating cars and drivers!
*http://www.statisticbrain.com/car-crash-fatality-statistics-2/
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Cars and airline travel are priviledges, not rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Proposed laws will do absolutely nothing to affect criminals and everything to disarm licensed gun owners, who had to take training, pay substantial amoutn for thair gun license, have interview with local police, adhere to strict storage requirements, etc, etc, etc already. MA has 3rd strictest gun laws out of 50 states, we don't need to make normal citizens defenceless agaist heavily armed criminals who will laugh to the new laws same as they laugh at current ones.
You don't like guns - don't buy them.
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@HHK, I read your response below. I appreciate that you do not feel you have a need to protect yourself. Great. I know you do not have a right to deny anyone else the right to protect themselves.
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All one liners. No substance.
The Supreme Court specifically stated in the Heller v. DC decision that the "Arms" in Right to Keep and Bear Arms are not military weapons or weapons designed for the military. (see http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf top of page 8)
"The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.
Term here means "arms".
Even though this case was hailed as a victory for the gun lobby, in reality it makes clear that military and military-design weapons are not in cluded in the 2nd Amendment Right. Semi-automatic handguns for example, were invented for military use, which standardized on John Browning's early 1900's side arm. Specific military research and test work was done to settle on the .45 caliber to insure penetration on human targets. The performance of semi-automatic versions of the AR-15, AK-47 and similar rifles is consistent with their military forebearers.
The ban on these weapons should be easy to leg to make it effective and enforceable, that's another story.
Interesting, that is YOUR interpretation of the SC's decision. You conveniently ignored their use of the word the "specifically". The AR15 is "specifically" not designed for military in that it is not capable of burst or full automatic fire. The same is true of the AK47 that is sold to civilians, it is NOT the same weapon that is sold to armies around the world, no full automatic capability. It was "specifically" redesigned for the civilian market. Contrary to popular belief, these weapons are not easily converted to full automatic fire. Indeed, an expert from the FBI testified before congress that after examining over 50K confiscated weapons of this type, not one had been altered to full automatic.
As for the 1911 sidearm you referenced, the US Government sold those as surplus into the civilian population, John Browning developed that sidearm and THEN began work with the government, who added some modifications to it. Therefore, it was not "specifically" designed for military use.
I believe any such attempt would come up against the Heller decision which contains some language to the effect of "entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. "
One of the reasons the decision was hailed as a victory is the following:
"Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modernforms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."
Yet even after this ruling, I constantly see people on here arguing that the 2A means we should only have the arms that were in existence at the time. Of course, all the folks who comment here are much, much smarter than Supreme Court Justices.
The ban on these weapons should be easy to leg to make it effective and enforceable, that's another story.
Should read: The ban on these weapons should be easy to legislate, but to make it effective and enforceable, that's another story.
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@HHK: To reply to your reply "You have purposely mis-represented my posts and my view. So, riddle me this: How would YOU go about diminishing gun violence in the USA today?"
First, I did not think I was misrepresenting your point of view, if so, I apologize.
More importantly, solving the gun violence problem. I have read suggestions from several people, one of them a state rep, Paul Heroux, that suggest a multiple faceted approach because it is a multi-faceted problem. First, school shootings are one category. Secondly, violent gun crimes. Third, accidental shootings. Fourth, suicides. But let's only discuss homicides since you asked about gun violence. Not that the others should not be addressed.
The premise is that a "one size solution does not fit all the problems". I agree with that. School shootings could be prevented by increased security, possibly the video games are influencing the incidents, mental health definitely plays a role. The shooters come in two varieties, students and those who are not in school, but enter a school to murder. Other mass shootings have different components, media plays a role, people talk about "one upmanship" fueled by 24/7 media coverage and instant celebrity. Weapons, a Forensic Psychiatrist was on "The View", he stated that "We had guns and mental health problems long before we had mass shootings in schools". he also discussed how video games can aid with a "disconnect" enabling shooters to become murderers. There is something new in the mix. President Obama wants to study the problem, I agree 100%. Heroux wrote a long description about how finding a "causation" is very convenient, but rarely accurate.
Violent crime? The UK went ape on banning guns, yes, their violent crime rate with guns has gone way down, however, their violent crime rate is now 5 times ours. Is it caused by disarming the people? I will stick with what Heroux wrote about, without a real study, no one can be sure. Lots of things changed in the UK at the same time they disarmed the people.
All that said about violent crime, what we do know what works is what happened in NYC in the 90's, more police work. It was a concerted effort to reduce crime, it produced measurable results. The murder rate dropped dramatically along with all other crime, not like in the UK.
I am eagerly waiting to see what a real study by the CDC tells us about the influence of video games.
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The argument about gun "rights" and cars is interesting. As I understand it, gun rights folks don't like it because gun ownership is a constituional right. Our constituion, they correctly observe, is silent on car ownership. Therefore, owning a car is a privilege, not a right. OK, fair enough. I'm absolutely a fan of being precise. However, I think that arguing about rights and privileges sort of misses the boat. The reality is that gun ownership is a privilege in the US. We have laws that prevent people from owning guns if they have committed a felony. There are efforts to keep weapons out of the hands of folks who have been diagnosed with a mental illness. You cannot own a nuclear device, or perhaps more relevantly, machine guns (unless you are a collector). If we take the 2nd Amendment literally - these types of laws interfere with the "right of the people to keep and bear arms".
The other way in which this argument falls short is that it if often premised on the idea that individual rights are sacrosanct in the US. Again, I think this is far too simplistic an interpretation. There are limits on free speech (pornography laws, protest bans aimed at groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, etc). There are also legal limits most of the other Amendments. Furthermore, these limits have changed over time as American society has changed as well. So we do not have a legal tradition of treating "rights" as beyond reasonable regulation.
I think this debate would be better served by dropping the pretense that Constitutional "rights" are absolute, and that they are static. Screaming loudly and arguing that the right to bear arms "shall not be infringed" ignores the real and useful ways (IMHO) in which we have decided as a society that there are situations where it is reasonable to infringe on this "right".