Bloomberg Offers Interesting Twist in Martin Shooting
Despite nearly constant coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, some media outlets seem to suggest that the cries for gun control are hitting a brick wall. This past Friday Bloomberg offered a story titled, “Stand Your Ground Rollback Stalls as Gun Foes Clash With NRA.” The title practically suggest that the NRA is somehow responsible for Martin’s death, and made at this outlandish claim:
Gun-control advocates are finding it difficult to capitalize on outrage over the Martin case. The dynamics are similar in other states where efforts are under way to weaken or repeal the National Rifle Association-backed measures known as Stand Your Ground.
Should the gun control advocates actually “capitalize” on this tragic event? And if they are finding it difficult isn’t it because the case is still pending? Of course capitalizing on tragedies is what the media and anti-gun zealots both do so well.
Huff and Puff Rant Proves Why No Compromise is Possible
This week, writing for the Huffington Post “comedian” Dean Obeidallah asked “Why Would NRA Denounce Media Coverage of Trayvon Martin Case?” The answer should be obvious.
The media has covered the story in length, blaming the shooter – even before he had his day in court – and of course blame guns in general. But in this rant Obeidallah shows that he is just another anti-gun zealot, who doesn’t understand the issue.
Among his statements:
Did Mr. LaPierre offer any sympathy to Trayvon Martin’s family? No.
The tired cliché espoused by the NRA that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” should be retired. It is an over-simplification of a problem that doesn’t have easy answers.
There’s no doubt that both those who love guns and those who detest them, want to lower the number of people killed by guns each year. However, comments by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre simply do not help us reach our common goal.
The big question is what are those common goals? We all want to see less gun violence, but the answer too often from the anti-gun crowd is simply gun control or a prohibition of firearms in general. Many anti-gun types feel there is not enough gun control, but the question is whether criminals, terrorists and other bad guys would heed the law anyway. Thus gun control would disarm the law-abiding, and do nothing to stop the violence.
So is the goal really about stopping gun violence, or just gun control?
Economist Offers Snide Take on NRA Convention
With the mainstream media send a football-hating journalist to the Super Bowl? Does the media send technophobes to the Consumer Electronic Show? The answer of course is no, so why did so many gun-hating journalists to descend on St. Louis?
The Economist was there, and it offered some “interesting opinions,” including:
The people who buy guns, it seems, are usually those who already own them. One probable cause of this decline is a shift to urban living. Moreover, safety-conscious Americans are increasingly aware that, statistically, a gun is a far greater risk to friends and family than it is of potential use in self-defence.
This fact, is not necessarily accurate. The recent surge in gun sales, could include women and young people, who previously were not gun owners.
The story added:
Nonetheless, some Americans hang on to their weapons because they enjoy hunting or target practice, or live in places with too many wild animals or too few policemen. The right to gun ownership is enshrined in the constitution and is regarded by many as an issue of civil liberty—something that Europeans struggle to understand. So even as outrage is sparked over shootings such as that of Trayvon Martin in Florida and former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, there is little appetite for gun-control legislation.
There are two issues here. First why is this just about hunting or target practice? Time and time again, the media ignores collectors, and those who just wish to express their Second Amendment rights.
The other issue is that outrage over the shootings should not be a rallying cry for gun-control. Except this is how the media tends to see it.
Oklahoma Daily Editorial Notes Dangers of Gun Control
This week the Oklahoma Daily, the student paper from the University of Oklahoma, offered a compelling editorial that addressed the dangers of gun control. In the editorial titled, “Restricting private gun control won’t address dangers of police abusing power,” the article addressed the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case in Florida. The writer noted:
If Zimmerman is found guilty, racism will not magically be over.
And added:
No matter how much damage a Zimmerman can do, it pales in comparison to the damage an Officer Zimmerman could accomplish, and accomplish without it being a national news story.
These are interesting points that the mainstream media has thus far has ignored or simply pretended do not exist.
More Huff and Puff About Stand Your Ground
This week Joe Grace, a gun violence prevention advocate, writing for the Huffington Post called on the NRA to stand down on “stand your ground.” The irony is that grace says he’s actually sick of the silence coming from the gun lobby. How can the gun lobby stand down on any issue that they aren’t making an issue?
Of course this isn’t about just “Stand Your Ground,” but guns in general. Grace offered some thought:
I was in St. Louis this past weekend, where more than 60,000 gun enthusiasts gathered at the NRA’s annual convention. You could enter a booth and squeeze off virtual rounds from an array of high-powered weapons, hear pro-gun speeches by candidates, and join debates about the right to carry concealed guns.
First would like to know what he actually means by a high-powered weapon, as most of the firearms are not actually high-powered. However, the use of this adjective is common from anti-gun zealots, who use it to evoke fears in the uninformed.
He added:
What was absent from the NRA convention, however, was any real discussion on the “Stand Your Ground” law that encourages armed confrontations, and makes all of us less safe. This dangerous “shoot first, ask questions later” law has been raised as a potential defense for George Zimmerman, the self-styled neighborhood watchman who stands accused of murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
We’d like to ask whether the NRA noted examples where guns were actually used in self-defense? In other words why should a single shooting, or bad example, be used at the convention?
Grace and his rant with the following statement:
Stand Your Ground should be abolished from the land.
However we don’t believe him, as what he really wants abolished from the land is the Second Amendment.
WaPo: Virginia Tech massacre’s $48 million tab makes the case for gun control
This week The Washington Post offered an editorial titled “Virginia Tech massacre’s $48 million tab makes the case for gun control.” But the argument is weak, suggesting that beyond the human toll gun violence is expensive:
How about instead we talk about the Benjamins, baby. What do guns in the wrong hands cost us?
All the arguments made, including background checks and even bans are great – but will any criminal even care? These laws would only stop the law-abiding!
NY Times Takes Aim Again at Another State’s Laws
The New York Times editors once again showed that they don’t know the America past the Hudson River last week in an editorial titled, “The Law of the Gun in Florida.” The piece noted:
Florida leads the pack in passing bills written by the gun lobby that block any sensible attempt to control the purchase and use of firearms.
We’re not sure what they mean by “sensible,” except that to many in the mainstream media, the only sensible “control” is a complete ban on guns. It is also interesting that the “gun lobby” – not actual gun owners – seems to be the blamed time and time again by the MSM.
Patch.com Says Gun Control Would Prevent Next “Martin Tragedy”
The sub-headline, or deck, for a Patch.com story this week noted, “Guns Kill Thousands of Innocent Victims Each Year. It is Time to Put A Stop to these Senseless Deaths.” That is strong language to be sure.
There is no denying that there is something tragic about the Trayvon Martin shooting. One young man is dead and another man’s life is surely ruined. But to suggest that all out gun control is the answer is narrow minded and just wrong. As with so many other anti-gun rants this one just assumes criminals will heed the laws of gun control. And as with so many anti-gun rants this one makes a wild statement:
Let’s be clear, it is highly likely Trayvon Martin would be alive today if George Zimmerman did not possess a handgun.
But what about those times guns are used in self-defense? What about those people who might be victims and in fact DEAD themselves if they didn’t use a gun in self-defense? Why don’t we hear more about those stories?
The author also noted another interesting take on this issue:
In my “Mayberry” world, no one owns guns. You don’t need to because you know your neighbors and we all watch out for each other. So I decided to take an informal poll of my actual neighbors. Turns out, many more than I imagined do own firearms. Sure some of the guns were hunting riffles,[sic] but a surprising number of them were handguns, owned for security.
And maybe that is the problem. So many anti-gun types live in their “Mayberry” world that they don’t understand the culture. There is the root of the problem. For many anti-gun types they see this as about hunting or security, but what about sport shooting, and gun collecting. Of course the anti-gun types have an answer – get another hobby they often say. Our response, get another topic to be passionate about because we aren’t going away.
Firing Back: Bill Maher on Liberals and Guns
Last week on his program on HBO, not very funny comedian Bill Maher suggested that George Zimmerman is a liar – suggesting that a man who hasn’t been yet charged with anything was lying about the circumstances in his shooting of Trayvon Martin. But surprising Maher also blamed liberals as well. Maher noted:
We can go on and on about hoodies and the neighborhood watch guy who looks like Chaz Bono, but it’s not really a discussion until you save some blame for the liberal politicians who unconditionally surrendered in the fight for sensible gun laws. When are they going to stand their ground?
Yet again this guy, who by the way rallies for legalized drugs and other narcotics, somehow manages to pin the blame for a lack of “sensible gun laws.”
We’d like to respond to Mr. Maher and say there are plenty of sensible gun laws. You have to be 21-years old in most state to own a gun. Machine guns are tightly controlled through the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA),and there is also the Gun Control Act of 1968 to be considered.
Today we have a national background check system in place. Some communities require EVERY gun to be registered with the police, some communities have waiting period, some states (California for one) limits the size of magazines, some cities such as New York City have bans on whole types of firearms, some communities (Chicago and Washington) have in the past banned private ownership of firearms, some states (Michigan for one) require a purchase permit for handguns. The list goes on and on.
To us these aren’t even sensible. These are actually unreasonable laws. So what does Maher want? Like most he probably wants a ban on all guns! But what should we expect from a profane admitted drug user who shows little respect for women or those who disagree with his narrow world view.
Gun Control Myth15: Gun Ownership is not a Constitutional Right
Gun control zealots often try to suggest they know the intentions of the Founding Fathers, and as such these gun prohibitionists argue that the Second Amendment confers a right to bear arms only on duly enrolled members of a state militia. But that is not what the document says. It specifically grants the right to keep and bear arms to “the people”.
“The phrase `the people’ meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments — that is, each and every free person,” writes constitutional scholar Stephen Halbrook in his book That Every Man Be Armed.
Even Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe – a gun-control advocate known for his liberal views – admitted, in the 1999 edition of his book American Constitutional Law, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right on U.S. citizens to “possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes.”
