WASHINGTON — Leaders of the National Rifle Association said Sunday that they would fight any new gun restrictions introduced in Congress, and they made clear that they were not interested in working with President Obama to help develop a broad response to the Connecticut school massacre.
During an appearance on the NBC’s “Meet the Press,’’ Wayne LaPierre, the vice president of the powerful gun lobby, was openly dismissive of a task force established by Obama and led by Vice President Joe Biden that is examining ways to reduce gun violence.
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My wife thinks it might be time for Lindsay Graham and his band of obstructionists to secede from The Average America. They could create their own little world with assault weapons and be the center of a new auto manufacturing movement, thereby killing Detroit. The only problem is that some of these lawmakers never really follow through on their Meet The Press promises. What in the world could those poor parents in Newtown be thinking when they hear the NRA and Lindsay Graham speak?
I doubt that parents who lost a child a week ago are sitting around watching Meet the Press.
Average America as you call it, has been hoping the weird Northeast and the Left Coast would drift off into the oceans sooner, rather than later. They won't miss you, at all.
Your problem, History, is that you think the average person thinks just like you. You're wrong.
And that Northeast and Left Coast? About a third of the country's population. Add in the other major urban areas, mostly Democratic, and you have well beyond the majority of the citizens.
Where do you find those "average" Americans of which you speak? I suspect you mean people who think like you, even if there are only 10 of you.
Amazing how any talk about restriction suddenly evolves into talk of jack-booted policemen coming in the middle of the night to put you in the gulag and take away your "rights". That straw man never works. Perhaps if there was some common sense and thought into some restrictions on things not needed for hunting or shooting, which is what the NRA says they are all about, then maybe some common ground can be found. I'm ok with guns, but I am not ok with military style weaponry sitting in someone's house waiting for the untrained, or the unbalanced, to pull out the weapon. Sportsmen don't need high powered rifles or large capacity magazines to enjoy their sport, and if they do maybe we should just know who they are for safety sake. It'd be nice to hear more sportsmen talk about what they would accept rather than a single issue lobby-group.
If you want to scare people into donating money to your lobbying effort that particular strawman is highly effective.
Especially when said donators are already wearing tin foil helmets.
Don't you just love how these 'super-patriots', most of whom never served in the military, always pose with an American flag pin and with the Stars and Stripes in the background of the photo. LaPierre was 'excused' from service in the Viet Nam era because of 'mental instability'. Well, at least the doctor got that diagnosis correct.
‘‘The NRA is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people,’’ he said.-------OK, let's have a national referendum. The people of this country have had enough. Excessive gun ownership has done nothing but kill. The thing the NRA has going for it is organization, which it uses to bully legislators. Time for the people to get organized.
The NRA missed a great chance to get out in front and lead. A proposal by them to eliminate high capacity magazines, armor peircing bullets and high capacity weapons would have been reeived by cheers from the entire nation. Sad.
What's disheartening is that, given the lack of political will and personal courage in Washington, the NRA will carry the day AGAIN!
Well said Dehumanist. I grew up in rural Vermont and was around guns most of my life. We raised chickens so there was always a shotgun by the kitchen door to discourage the occasional fox or hawk. It was a single-shot and not loaded, although the ammo was close at hand. I started hunting with my father and uncles around the age of 10 and safety was pounded into my head. Sometimes, literally. I no longer hunt, but am an avid target shooter and reloader. I do not belong to the NRA due to philosophical and theological differences. After 23 years in the military, I have seen all of the assault type weapons and high capacity magazines I need to. I learned to shoot with a single-shot rifle and have never found the need to shoot more than once at an animal. Due, in part, to many hours of target practice. The assault rifle ban should never have been allowed to expire and should have been made into law. Thinking people should leave the NRA in droves and sent a clear message to its leaders. Those in congress who continue to support the NRA will need to be sent a message also.
Where do I sign up to make sure this guy is out of a job?? I am ready to fight this fight!
Here is the problem as some gun owners see it:
1) They do not believe that all the "assault" type weapons will ever be turned in. Therefore, this is a non solution.
2) The same holds true for high capacity magazines as in (1) above.
3) Should another mass killing take place, using a different type of weapon occur, then the anti gunners will howl for that type of weapon to be banned. Eventually leading to total gun bans.
That would make some of you very happy, indeed.
It is the old "give an inch, they will take a mile" theory. Just commenting....
The pro gun types firmly believe they have a right to defend themselves (that does not necessarily mean using an AR15), but given that they forsee a "slippery slope" of gun control, they are not willing to "give in". They read incredibly naive statements calling them "paranoid", referring to their self defense weapon as a "toy", saying they have feeling of "inadequacy", etc.
But in reality, violent crime happens every hour of every day in this country. Not just at night, not just in poor neighborhoods. Gun owners do not believe that anyone else has the right to tell them how they are allowed to defend themselves.
It is very convenient for the anti gun crowd to throw bombs at male gun owners, questioning their manhood, etc. However, many women use guns for self defense as they walk to the train stations or parking lots at night. Why should a woman, old person, small person have to be at the mercy of a 22 year old pumped up on drugs because someone else just doesn't "like" guns? If that person does not feel the need, fine, let THEM risk their life. They have no authority to risk mine or my wifes.
So, if you want to have an INTELLIGENT gun control conversation, it had better include writing in STONE about future gun laws. What we have now is ridiculous at best.
Please stop kicking those strawmen. It's embarrassing.
Stereotypes and simplistic explanations of a complex and non-stereotypical situation. "The anti-gun crowd" all think the same way, of course. and they all "throw bombs at male gun owners." What a shallow, but highly verbose screed by a "gun nut" pretending he's giving an objective analysis of the issue.
He thinks he knows what everybody on both sides of the issue is thinking. He's feeling horrible fear that someone might put some restrictions on his deadly toys. He doesn't seem to know the 1-to-4 ratio -- a gun is four times more likely to be used on someone in his household than on an intruder, mugger, or other criminal. He doesn't seem to realize that it makes gun owners *less* safe, because that doesn't make common sense. But common sense is often common ignorance.
Two N.Y. firefighters fatally shot A total of four firefighters were shot, two fatally, while responding to a blaze in Webster, N.Y. near Rochester, officials said. (AP, 11:13 a.m.)
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Gun control advocates are from Venus. Gun owners are from Mars. Neither one understands the other. Both think the other is illogical. Some school systems in the USA will put on extra guards, at least until the budgets get tight again. Basically, count on nothing of any significance to be accomplished after all the dust has cleared. A year from now, when the media are doing their summaries of events during 2013, they will mention the gun/safety discussion and they will say, "Wow! That fizzled out fast, huh?"
I agree that nothing meaningful is likely to come of this, but I disagree with the implication that equate gun owners and those who advocate control as equally deranged. (I know that's an exaggeration.)
Some anti-gun advocates are not thinking logically. They have the right idea, but they don't know enough about guns to have realistic solutions. Banning "assault" weapons will probably have only limited effect, like the last version. Gun manufacturers found alternate ways of providing the equal firepower. There's also a huge inventory of existing weapons that aren't going anywhere. The Australian solution is apparently successful, but it won't happen here.
Psychiatry is no solution because it's such an inexact science.
Attacking the availability of certain types of ammunition is probably the only effectual means at our disposal, and it will take several years for it to have a major impact.
My point is that there are countless studies of the impact of guns on society, and none I know of that support prolific gun ownership. But maybe there is one that was done by the NRA.
The NRA be their own statement represents 4 million people. That is about one percent of americans. Why do they deserve a voice in the discussion???