FROM Sojourners, a response to the unholy reaction of the nra to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and their attitude to sane and reasonable gun control.
Tuesday was the 84th birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I don’t know about you, but I miss his words, so I offer a few. King said “people often hate each other because they fear each other, they fear each other because they don’t each other, they don’t know each other because they cannot communicate, they cannot communicate because they are separated.” I would add to his words: ‘and in that separation they seek guns.’ As an evangelical Christian, I’m going to make this theological.
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said this as his response to the massacre of children at Sandy Hook elementary in Newtown, Conn.: “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
That statement is at the heart of the problem of gun violence in America today — not just because it is factually flawed, which of course it is, but also because it is morally mistaken, theologically dangerous, and religiously repugnant.
The world is not full of good and bad people; that is not what our scriptures teach us. We are, as human beings, both good and bad. This is not only true of humanity as a whole, but we as individuals have both good and bad in us. When we are bad or isolated or angry or furious or vengeful or politically agitated or confused or lost or deranged or unhinged — and we have the ability to get and use weapons only designed to kill large numbers of people — our society is in great danger.
As we have just seen again, when such destructive weapons are allowed to be used out of powerful emotion without restraint or rules, that is bad. In dangerous situations, we as parents cannot tell our children they are safe. We cannot, because they are not. After Sandy Hook many child psychologists were counseling parents like us (I have a 9-year-old and 14-year-old) to hold and love our children, tell them they were safe. We can and did hold and love them, but we cannot tell them they are safe. Not as long as such weapons are available to human beings when they are acting badly.
When we are good, we want to protect our children — not by having more guns than the bad people, but by making sure guns aren’t the first available thing to people when they’re being bad. Being good is protecting people and our children from guns that are outside of the control of rules, regulations, and protections for the rest of us.
Let me be personal and theological again, this time with Rev. Phil Jackson, a young pastor from Chicago who I talked with earlier this week. A young, dynamic street pastor, he told me that Chicago had 2,400 shootings in 2012 — 505 of them resulting in death. More than 100 of them were children from elementary to high school. Almost all of the murdered ones were people and children of color — African-American and Latino. That’s more gun deaths in Chicago than American troop deaths in Afghanistan last year. One city.
Rev. Jackson thinks that God cares as much about murdered children of color in Chicago as God cares about murdered white children in Connecticut. But it seems that mostly the white children get our attention and break our hearts. He thinks those murdered black and brown kids also get God’s attention as much as murdered white kids. But he wonders why they don’t get ours. It’s morally mistaken and also religiously repugnant.
Finally, what will make a difference this time? Only two things I can think of. First, is if people of faith respond differently just because they are people of faith — that our faith overcomes our politics here, and that gun owners and gun advocates who are people of faith will act in this situation as people of faith, distinctively and differently. Second, that we act differently as parents. What has hit us all so hard — what caused the president’s tears and my own on that day — was looking at all our own kids, feeling their own fragility. Parents across the spectrum, gun owners or not, must demand a new national conversation on guns.
I was putting my 9-year-old to bed a few nights ago. He said, “Dad I heard you talking on the phone about guns and the press conference you’re talking at tomorrow. “
“What do you think about it Jack? What do you think about it Jack?” I asked him.
And here’s what Jack said:
“I think that they ought to let people who, like licensed hunters, have guns if they use them to hunt. And people who need guns — who need guns for their job like policemen and army. But I don’t think that we should just let anybody have any kind of gun and any kind of bullets that they want. That’s pretty crazy.”
I agree with Jack.
Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery, and CEO of Sojourners. His forthcoming book, On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned about Serving the Common Good, is set to release in April. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.
BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label wayne lapierre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wayne lapierre. Show all posts
17 January 2013
16 February 2011
Wayne LaPierre said that violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the 'right to carry' is lower than in areas that prevent it. FALSE! from POLITIFACT 16FEB11
MORE LIES FROM THE NRA, big surprise there. I still want to know if a person with a carry permit can keep his/her gun on their person inside the NRA offices. I also want to see the restrictions on guns in government buildings done away with so the "playing field" is leveled so the politicians who feel it is OK to put us at risk of random gun violence face the same risk. This from PolitiFact...
The Truth-O-Meter Says:
"Across the board, violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it."
National Rifle Association on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 in a speech by Wayne LaPierre at the Conservative Political Action ConferenceWayne LaPierre said that violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the 'right to carry' is lower than in areas that prevent it.
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Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association delivered a stirring defense of gun ownership at the Conservative Political Action Conference in the wake of the mass shooting in Arizona.
"It's time to acknowledge what we know in our hearts to be true -- that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said. "Just knowing there's a good guy with a gun around -- a cop, a guard, a soldier … and, yes, a law-abiding citizen with a gun -- makes us feel safer … because we are safer."
LaPierre said it was time for a national "right to carry" law, a measure that many states already have adopted. Generally speaking, it means that law-abiding citizens have the "right to carry" guns as they go about their daily business. (There are typically a few exceptions, such as in government buildings and schools.)
"Right now, in the United States, 7 million law-abiding Americans legally carry a concealed firearm, 7 million in almost every state in the country," he said. "And across the board, violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it. The whole flock is safer when the wolves can't tell the difference between the lions and the lambs."
It's a matter of opinion whether a national "right to carry" law is a good idea, but we were interested in his statement that "violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it." So we decided to check it out.
We contacted the NRA and asked them about the statement, but we didn't hear back. We decided to begin with information from the NRA website, which claims that 40 states have "right to carry" laws, while 10 restrict it.
We should note that opinions may differ on whether a state has a "right to carry" law or not. The NRA says a state has a "right to carry" law if permits to carry are issued to applicants who meet uniform standards established by the state legislature. If state officials have the discretion to refuse individual applicants, then in the NRA's view, they're not "right to carry" states. The NRA identifies 10 states as lacking "right to carry" laws: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
We next turned to the FBI's crime statistics, looking particularly at the violent crime rate. This is a statistic that counts violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. We should note that the FBI warns people not to create ratings from these statistics, saying that rankings "provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region." We went ahead and created a state ranking anyway, knowing that it wouldn't necessarily establish a causal link between "right to carry" laws and a lower crime rate. At this point, we simply wanted to see if the statistics were consistent with what LaPierre said.
We found the the states without "right to carry" were spread out across the list, not bunched together at the top. The District of Columbia, which has strict gun control laws, ranked highest for violent crime. The other states ranked as follows: Delaware, No. 5; Maryland, No. 10; Illinois, No. 13; California, No. 17; Massachusetts, No. 18; New York, No. 24; New Jersey, No. 30; Hawaii, No. 36; Wisconsin, No. 39, and Rhode Island, No. 42.
We also couldn't help noticing that some states with laws that favor gun ownership placed at different points along the list. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence rates state gun laws, so we looked at the 14 states that had the weakest gun laws. Here, we also saw a wide variation in where the states ranked in terms of violent crime: Alaska, No. 6; Louisiana, No. 7; New Mexico, No. 8; Arkansas, No. 11; Oklahoma, No. 12; Missouri, No. 15; Arizona, No. 21; West Virginia, No. 32; Kentucky, No. 38; Montana, No. 41; Idaho, No. 44; Utah, No. 47; North Dakota, No. 48, and South Dakota, No. 49.
So using the 2009 data, we don't see any evidence that state gun laws correlate with violent crime rates one way or the other, at least not "across the board" as LaPierre suggested in his speech.
Still, there's a more in-depth way to study violent crime rates, using many sets of data over multiple years and controlling for external factors. The book More Guns, Less Crime, by John R. Lott, first published in 1998, makes a case that by using extensive data sets, one can see clear reductions in crime over many years in states and counties that have "right to carry" laws, and he has continued to make that case in new editions of the book. But Lott's work has also been critiqued as flawed by other academics, who say that relatively small adjustments to the data sets yield different results or that Lott doesn't account for other factors that could be affecting crime rates.
The National Academies of Sciences concluded in 2005 that current data do not allow for firm conclusions about how "right to carry" laws affect crime. We think it's worth quoting the conclusion from Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review:
"The literature on right-to-carry laws summarized in this chapter has obtained conflicting estimates of their effects on crime ... No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates."
Getting back to our rating. LaPierre said, "Across the board, violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it." LaPierre could have used a qualifier here about studies that control for various effects, but he didn't: He said flat out that violent crime is lower in areas with "right to carry." We do not find that current crime statistics support this point. Some academics have said trends over time show that "right to carry" laws lower crime rates, but that argument is contested. There's certainly not straight-line correlation between states with "right to carry" laws and crime rates. LaPierre made it sound like the data clearly supported his view. They don't. We rate his statement False.
"It's time to acknowledge what we know in our hearts to be true -- that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said. "Just knowing there's a good guy with a gun around -- a cop, a guard, a soldier … and, yes, a law-abiding citizen with a gun -- makes us feel safer … because we are safer."
LaPierre said it was time for a national "right to carry" law, a measure that many states already have adopted. Generally speaking, it means that law-abiding citizens have the "right to carry" guns as they go about their daily business. (There are typically a few exceptions, such as in government buildings and schools.)
"Right now, in the United States, 7 million law-abiding Americans legally carry a concealed firearm, 7 million in almost every state in the country," he said. "And across the board, violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it. The whole flock is safer when the wolves can't tell the difference between the lions and the lambs."
It's a matter of opinion whether a national "right to carry" law is a good idea, but we were interested in his statement that "violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it." So we decided to check it out.
We contacted the NRA and asked them about the statement, but we didn't hear back. We decided to begin with information from the NRA website, which claims that 40 states have "right to carry" laws, while 10 restrict it.
We should note that opinions may differ on whether a state has a "right to carry" law or not. The NRA says a state has a "right to carry" law if permits to carry are issued to applicants who meet uniform standards established by the state legislature. If state officials have the discretion to refuse individual applicants, then in the NRA's view, they're not "right to carry" states. The NRA identifies 10 states as lacking "right to carry" laws: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
We next turned to the FBI's crime statistics, looking particularly at the violent crime rate. This is a statistic that counts violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. We should note that the FBI warns people not to create ratings from these statistics, saying that rankings "provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region." We went ahead and created a state ranking anyway, knowing that it wouldn't necessarily establish a causal link between "right to carry" laws and a lower crime rate. At this point, we simply wanted to see if the statistics were consistent with what LaPierre said.
We found the the states without "right to carry" were spread out across the list, not bunched together at the top. The District of Columbia, which has strict gun control laws, ranked highest for violent crime. The other states ranked as follows: Delaware, No. 5; Maryland, No. 10; Illinois, No. 13; California, No. 17; Massachusetts, No. 18; New York, No. 24; New Jersey, No. 30; Hawaii, No. 36; Wisconsin, No. 39, and Rhode Island, No. 42.
We also couldn't help noticing that some states with laws that favor gun ownership placed at different points along the list. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence rates state gun laws, so we looked at the 14 states that had the weakest gun laws. Here, we also saw a wide variation in where the states ranked in terms of violent crime: Alaska, No. 6; Louisiana, No. 7; New Mexico, No. 8; Arkansas, No. 11; Oklahoma, No. 12; Missouri, No. 15; Arizona, No. 21; West Virginia, No. 32; Kentucky, No. 38; Montana, No. 41; Idaho, No. 44; Utah, No. 47; North Dakota, No. 48, and South Dakota, No. 49.
So using the 2009 data, we don't see any evidence that state gun laws correlate with violent crime rates one way or the other, at least not "across the board" as LaPierre suggested in his speech.
Still, there's a more in-depth way to study violent crime rates, using many sets of data over multiple years and controlling for external factors. The book More Guns, Less Crime, by John R. Lott, first published in 1998, makes a case that by using extensive data sets, one can see clear reductions in crime over many years in states and counties that have "right to carry" laws, and he has continued to make that case in new editions of the book. But Lott's work has also been critiqued as flawed by other academics, who say that relatively small adjustments to the data sets yield different results or that Lott doesn't account for other factors that could be affecting crime rates.
The National Academies of Sciences concluded in 2005 that current data do not allow for firm conclusions about how "right to carry" laws affect crime. We think it's worth quoting the conclusion from Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review:
"The literature on right-to-carry laws summarized in this chapter has obtained conflicting estimates of their effects on crime ... No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates."
Getting back to our rating. LaPierre said, "Across the board, violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it." LaPierre could have used a qualifier here about studies that control for various effects, but he didn't: He said flat out that violent crime is lower in areas with "right to carry." We do not find that current crime statistics support this point. Some academics have said trends over time show that "right to carry" laws lower crime rates, but that argument is contested. There's certainly not straight-line correlation between states with "right to carry" laws and crime rates. LaPierre made it sound like the data clearly supported his view. They don't. We rate his statement False.
About this statement:
Published: Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 at 9:11 a.m.
Subjects: Crime, Guns
Sources:
National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre's remarks at CPAC, Feb. 10, 2011
NRA-ILA, Right to Carry 2010, April 22, 2010
NRA-ILA, The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Bill, Jan. 12, 2009
The Legal Community Against Violence, Carrying Concealed Weapons, February 2008
The Legal Community Against Violence, Recent Developments in Federal & State Law (by Firearms Policy): Carrying Firearms
U.s. Department of Justice, FBI crime statistics, 2009, and a PolitiFact analysis of the statistics
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Brady Campaign State Scorecards: Most States Have Weak Gun Laws, Feb. 18, 2010
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, by John R. Lott, 2010
Stanford Law Review, "Shooting Down the 'More Guns, Less Crime," Hypothesis, by Ian Ayres & John J. Donohue III
Journal of Economic Studies, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not, by Steven D. Levitt, Winter 2004
Regulation, Torturing the Data? (A review of More Guns, Less Crime, 3rd edition), by Stan J. Liebowitz, Winter 2010
The National Academies, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review and its conclusions on right to carry laws, 2005
Written by: Angie Drobnic Holan
Researched by: Angie Drobnic Holan
Edited by: Martha Hamilton
Subjects: Crime, Guns
Sources:
National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre's remarks at CPAC, Feb. 10, 2011
NRA-ILA, Right to Carry 2010, April 22, 2010
NRA-ILA, The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Bill, Jan. 12, 2009
The Legal Community Against Violence, Carrying Concealed Weapons, February 2008
The Legal Community Against Violence, Recent Developments in Federal & State Law (by Firearms Policy): Carrying Firearms
U.s. Department of Justice, FBI crime statistics, 2009, and a PolitiFact analysis of the statistics
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Brady Campaign State Scorecards: Most States Have Weak Gun Laws, Feb. 18, 2010
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, by John R. Lott, 2010
Stanford Law Review, "Shooting Down the 'More Guns, Less Crime," Hypothesis, by Ian Ayres & John J. Donohue III
Journal of Economic Studies, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not, by Steven D. Levitt, Winter 2004
Regulation, Torturing the Data? (A review of More Guns, Less Crime, 3rd edition), by Stan J. Liebowitz, Winter 2010
The National Academies, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review and its conclusions on right to carry laws, 2005
Written by: Angie Drobnic Holan
Researched by: Angie Drobnic Holan
Edited by: Martha Hamilton
How to contact us:
20 May 2010
NRA MEMBERS ON THE TERROR GAP 18MAI10 & NRA Looks To Build On Tea Party Movement 17MAI10
Did you know that a gap in federal law leaves the FBI powerless to stop terror suspects from buying guns and explosives?
Even NRA members overwhelmingly support new laws to close the Terror Gap.
A divide is growing between NRA members and their leadership.
At the NRA's Annual Meeting this weekend -- headlined by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck -- NRA members shared their candid opinions on the Terror Gap. Bloggers from the Center for American Progress attended the meeting and recorded a short video.
This video, by the Center for American Progress, reinforces a national poll conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz last December. Luntz's poll revealed an overwhelming 82% of NRA members want Congress to close the Terror Gap.
Yet the NRA's leadership and lobbyists continue to oppose any legislation that would change the law and protect our families and communities.
We can't let them get away with it.
See what NRA members have to say and ask your friends and family to join you in closing the Terror Gap:
www.TerrorGap.org/video_nra.
Thank you for supporting common sense gun laws,
Mayors Against Illegal Guns
NRA Looks To Build On Tea Party Movement
The National Rifle Association held its annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., over the weekend with a pledge to be more aggressive and more organized heading into this year's midterm elections.
The main theme was protecting Americans' right to own firearms, but the tone of many of the speeches would have been familiar to anyone listening in on Tea Party rallies held across the country over the past year.
The NRA annual meeting is a lot of things — but first it's big. Organizers put attendance at around 70,000, with the big attraction being the massive display of firearms on the convention floor.
Driving into town, billboards boast acres of guns and gear. It's a promise kept.
The annual meeting also is a big-time political rally, designed to fire up the faithful and send them home to volunteer for NRA endorsed candidates — and to defeat those the NRA sees as the enemy.
That was the message from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and TV tough guy Chuck Norris. He spoke during an arena-sized rally, saying, "We're going to the polls on Election Day together and take our government back."
Remember the MTV campaign to get young people to the polls called "Rock the Vote"? Norris is the honorary chairman of a new NRA ad campaign called "Trigger the Vote."
"I hope you won't be missing in action on Election Day," he says in the ad. "Register to vote. I'm Chuck Norris and I approve this message. For more information go to Triggerthevote.org."
This year's convention also demonstrated the NRA's interest in new technology. It includes all the usual methods: Facebook, Twitter, texting and so on.
The challenge is to get the organization's huge membership to begin using such tools. The official NRA page on Facebook has more than 164,000 fans. That's a large number but just a fraction of its nearly 4 million members.
Another trend emerged over the weekend — a sense that the NRA, which has long been fighting political and legislative battles, has found a new ally this year in the Tea Party movement.
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre spoke to a group of about 100 who attended a side meeting on the 2010 elections.
"I'm out there every week listening to people, and I've never seen people as disgusted and upset as they are right now, wherever you go in this country," LaPierre said.
To be sure, the highly centralized NRA and the various, sometimes disjointed, Tea Party organizations are different structurally.
The NRA views every issue through the prism of the Second Amendment, while Tea Party groups offer a broader variety of complaints about big government. But there is a lot of overlap as well.
"I was at a Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., on Tax Day," said Bob Culver, 64, of Laurel, Md., who attended the NRA weekend meeting. "There were a lot of people that I recognized from the gun rights side of the issue, and there were a lot of people I didn't know. So there is a cross-pollenization, if you want to put it that way."
Don't look for active collaboration among the different groups. Sharing at least some goals with the Tea Party movement seems to be enough for NRA leaders right now.
They are happy to encourage any group that is anti-incumbent, and whose anti-government anger and energy can provide a boost to the NRA's cause as well.
The main theme was protecting Americans' right to own firearms, but the tone of many of the speeches would have been familiar to anyone listening in on Tea Party rallies held across the country over the past year.
The NRA annual meeting is a lot of things — but first it's big. Organizers put attendance at around 70,000, with the big attraction being the massive display of firearms on the convention floor.
Driving into town, billboards boast acres of guns and gear. It's a promise kept.
The annual meeting also is a big-time political rally, designed to fire up the faithful and send them home to volunteer for NRA endorsed candidates — and to defeat those the NRA sees as the enemy.
That was the message from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and TV tough guy Chuck Norris. He spoke during an arena-sized rally, saying, "We're going to the polls on Election Day together and take our government back."
Remember the MTV campaign to get young people to the polls called "Rock the Vote"? Norris is the honorary chairman of a new NRA ad campaign called "Trigger the Vote."
"I hope you won't be missing in action on Election Day," he says in the ad. "Register to vote. I'm Chuck Norris and I approve this message. For more information go to Triggerthevote.org."
This year's convention also demonstrated the NRA's interest in new technology. It includes all the usual methods: Facebook, Twitter, texting and so on.
The challenge is to get the organization's huge membership to begin using such tools. The official NRA page on Facebook has more than 164,000 fans. That's a large number but just a fraction of its nearly 4 million members.
Another trend emerged over the weekend — a sense that the NRA, which has long been fighting political and legislative battles, has found a new ally this year in the Tea Party movement.
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre spoke to a group of about 100 who attended a side meeting on the 2010 elections.
"I'm out there every week listening to people, and I've never seen people as disgusted and upset as they are right now, wherever you go in this country," LaPierre said.
To be sure, the highly centralized NRA and the various, sometimes disjointed, Tea Party organizations are different structurally.
The NRA views every issue through the prism of the Second Amendment, while Tea Party groups offer a broader variety of complaints about big government. But there is a lot of overlap as well.
"I was at a Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., on Tax Day," said Bob Culver, 64, of Laurel, Md., who attended the NRA weekend meeting. "There were a lot of people that I recognized from the gun rights side of the issue, and there were a lot of people I didn't know. So there is a cross-pollenization, if you want to put it that way."
Don't look for active collaboration among the different groups. Sharing at least some goals with the Tea Party movement seems to be enough for NRA leaders right now.
They are happy to encourage any group that is anti-incumbent, and whose anti-government anger and energy can provide a boost to the NRA's cause as well.
06 May 2010
Terrorists who want to buy guns have friends on Capitol Hill 6MAI10
This article ask is the NRA is a terrorist organization....YES IT IS!
Is the NRA a terrorist organization?
By George W. Bush's standard -- you're either with us or against us in the fight against terrorism -- NRA chief Wayne LaPierre should be just a few frequent-flier miles short of a free ticket to Gitmo right about now. Seems he and the rest of the gun lobby are fighting for terrorists' right to buy firearms.
The Bush administration urged Congress to pass a law barring people on the terrorist watch list from buying explosives and guns. The gun lobby objected. Now the Obama administration is urging Congress to pass the same legislation, and the gun lobby continues to object.
On Wednesday, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, using the star power they acquired in the apprehension of the Times Square bomb suspect, came to Capitol Hill to plead for Congress to change the absurdity in the law that keeps those with alleged terrorist ties off airplanes but enables them to legally buy guns and explosives.
The New Yorkers' case was strengthened by the news that the Times Square suspect bought a gun in Connecticut as he set his plot in motion and had the gun with him when he drove to the airport Monday.
"At a time when the threat of terrorism is still very real, as we in New York City know all too well," Bloomberg told a Senate committee, "I think it's imperative that Congress close this terror gap in our gun laws and close it quickly."
"Failure to do so places this country at even greater risk," seconded the commissioner.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who has joined the cause, warned that if a terrorist uses a gun that he buys legally, "there would be blood on our hands."
The hearing, before Joe Lieberman's homeland security panel, provided a rare chance for gun-control advocates to take the offensive in a debate that has mostly gone against them in recent years. More broadly, the issue allowed Democrats to exploit the war on terrorism in a way Republicans have been doing for years.
The bill to close the gun loophole isn't on the radar of Democratic leaders, making it unlikely that it will reach the Senate floor. Still, Lieberman's hearing was fascinating because it forced the pro-gun crowd to take their philosophy to its logical extreme: Are they so absolute about the Second Amendment that they'd risk national security by fighting for the right of would-be terrorists to own guns? Alarmingly, they are.
The NRA, restating its opposition to the bill a few months ago, said it is all part of a conspiracy by "politicians who hate the Second Amendment" and who "think that more gun owners can be placed on the list over time." At Wednesday's hearing, a representative of the conservative Liberty Coalition made a similar argument: "The bill should be titled the Gun Owners Are Probably All Terrorists Act."
Faced with a choice between conspiracy theories and the testimony of the heroes of Times Square, it was no surprise that pro-gun Republican senators on the committee such as Tom Coburn (Okla.), John McCain (Ariz.) and John Ensign (Nev.) declined to participate in the hearing. Also taking a pass was pro-gun Democrat Jon Tester (Mont.).
The lone pro-gun lawmaker to engage in the fight was the fearless Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who rolled his eyes and shook his head when Lieberman got the NYPD's Kelly to agree that the purchase of a gun could suggest that a terrorist "is about to go operational."
"I'm not so sure this is the right solution," Graham said, concerned that those on the terrorist watch list might be denied their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
"If society decides that these people are too dangerous to get on an airplane with other people, then it's probably appropriate to look very hard before you let them buy a gun," countered Bloomberg.
"But we're talking about a constitutional right here," Graham went on. He then changed the subject, pretending the discussion was about a general ban on handguns. "The NRA -- " he began, then rephrased. "Some people believe banning handguns is the right answer to the gun violence problem. I'm not in that camp."
Graham felt the need to assure the witnesses that he isn't soft on terrorism: "I am all into national security. . . . Please understand that I feel differently not because I care less about terrorism."
But Lieberman wasn't going to let him get away without a challenge. "I must say I'm troubled by your concerns about this proposal," the chairman said. "I don't see an argument that holds up."
That was particularly so because, as various participants in the hearing had pointed out, the Government Accountability Office found that people on terrorist watch lists had bought guns or explosives from U.S. dealers 1,119 times over the past six years -- largely because the federal government has no power to stop them.
"Can I take a shot at that?" Graham asked when Lieberman finished. After some laughter, he added: "Probably a bad choice of words."
Is the NRA a terrorist organization?
By George W. Bush's standard -- you're either with us or against us in the fight against terrorism -- NRA chief Wayne LaPierre should be just a few frequent-flier miles short of a free ticket to Gitmo right about now. Seems he and the rest of the gun lobby are fighting for terrorists' right to buy firearms.
The Bush administration urged Congress to pass a law barring people on the terrorist watch list from buying explosives and guns. The gun lobby objected. Now the Obama administration is urging Congress to pass the same legislation, and the gun lobby continues to object.
On Wednesday, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, using the star power they acquired in the apprehension of the Times Square bomb suspect, came to Capitol Hill to plead for Congress to change the absurdity in the law that keeps those with alleged terrorist ties off airplanes but enables them to legally buy guns and explosives.
The New Yorkers' case was strengthened by the news that the Times Square suspect bought a gun in Connecticut as he set his plot in motion and had the gun with him when he drove to the airport Monday.
"At a time when the threat of terrorism is still very real, as we in New York City know all too well," Bloomberg told a Senate committee, "I think it's imperative that Congress close this terror gap in our gun laws and close it quickly."
"Failure to do so places this country at even greater risk," seconded the commissioner.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who has joined the cause, warned that if a terrorist uses a gun that he buys legally, "there would be blood on our hands."
The hearing, before Joe Lieberman's homeland security panel, provided a rare chance for gun-control advocates to take the offensive in a debate that has mostly gone against them in recent years. More broadly, the issue allowed Democrats to exploit the war on terrorism in a way Republicans have been doing for years.
The bill to close the gun loophole isn't on the radar of Democratic leaders, making it unlikely that it will reach the Senate floor. Still, Lieberman's hearing was fascinating because it forced the pro-gun crowd to take their philosophy to its logical extreme: Are they so absolute about the Second Amendment that they'd risk national security by fighting for the right of would-be terrorists to own guns? Alarmingly, they are.
The NRA, restating its opposition to the bill a few months ago, said it is all part of a conspiracy by "politicians who hate the Second Amendment" and who "think that more gun owners can be placed on the list over time." At Wednesday's hearing, a representative of the conservative Liberty Coalition made a similar argument: "The bill should be titled the Gun Owners Are Probably All Terrorists Act."
Faced with a choice between conspiracy theories and the testimony of the heroes of Times Square, it was no surprise that pro-gun Republican senators on the committee such as Tom Coburn (Okla.), John McCain (Ariz.) and John Ensign (Nev.) declined to participate in the hearing. Also taking a pass was pro-gun Democrat Jon Tester (Mont.).
The lone pro-gun lawmaker to engage in the fight was the fearless Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who rolled his eyes and shook his head when Lieberman got the NYPD's Kelly to agree that the purchase of a gun could suggest that a terrorist "is about to go operational."
"I'm not so sure this is the right solution," Graham said, concerned that those on the terrorist watch list might be denied their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
"If society decides that these people are too dangerous to get on an airplane with other people, then it's probably appropriate to look very hard before you let them buy a gun," countered Bloomberg.
"But we're talking about a constitutional right here," Graham went on. He then changed the subject, pretending the discussion was about a general ban on handguns. "The NRA -- " he began, then rephrased. "Some people believe banning handguns is the right answer to the gun violence problem. I'm not in that camp."
Graham felt the need to assure the witnesses that he isn't soft on terrorism: "I am all into national security. . . . Please understand that I feel differently not because I care less about terrorism."
But Lieberman wasn't going to let him get away without a challenge. "I must say I'm troubled by your concerns about this proposal," the chairman said. "I don't see an argument that holds up."
That was particularly so because, as various participants in the hearing had pointed out, the Government Accountability Office found that people on terrorist watch lists had bought guns or explosives from U.S. dealers 1,119 times over the past six years -- largely because the federal government has no power to stop them.
"Can I take a shot at that?" Graham asked when Lieberman finished. After some laughter, he added: "Probably a bad choice of words."
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