Guns, God and Background Checks

Ms. Estrick wrote:
"For the life of me, I can't understand why any law-abiding, mentally healthy person would oppose background checks. If you have a right to purchase a gun, why would you object to those who don't being prohibited from doing so? No one is taking your gun away."

Do you read the responses to your own blogs? If you have, it is pretty plain that in the last 30-40 years a great deal of mistrust has built up between left and right in this country. Many on both ends of the political spectrum truly believe that the individuals on the other side of the debate are "the enemy" and "hate" everything that they stand for. They look for "the real reasons" behind any act by the other side. For example, many on the right really do believe (Aided by the intemperent remarks from the past by the likes of Mike Dukakis) that the purpose of these increased background checks is to eventually disarm the public so the left can rule unopposed. I would note that this type of conspiratorial thinking isn't limited to just the right. At least one of your bloggers recently accused the right of opposing gun control as part of an active plot to revolt and overthrow the government. Also consider the massive numbers of "9-11 truthers" who believe GW had our own planes fly into the twin towers. With this kind of thinking rife, why do you expect anything the least bit controversial to be accomplished without a massive fight?

Now to the issue at hand. My own reason for opposing additional background checks is that, as you yourself conceded, the present regime of checks just isn't working properly. Several of these recent nut cases (i.e., "the dangerously ill" in PC terms) got their weapons despite having undergone the required checks (N.B., In at least one case, the shooter had been placed in restraints to prevent him from harming himself and others only a few months before buying his guns.) Why should we double down on something that is failing in such a spectacular fashion??? This proposed fix reminds me of Einstein's definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

With Einstein in mind, lets first fix the system we have in place. Only when the present system is actually working well would a rational political system even consider coming to the people and proposing expanded background checks. Until the politicians are willing to examine the laws we already have and amend/junk the stuff that doesn't work, I'm opposed to writing more laws. (I suspect Uncle Al would agree.)

As an alternative, I suggest that we put aside the more radical ideas before us and start concentrating on things both sides can agree upon (e.g., Getting the "dngerously ill" off the streets, making the present laws work, etc...). If we do that, we might stop arguing and actually get something done. Accomplishing something meaningful together might just build up some trust between the two sides. And without some trust and comity between the warring parties, expect every issue (Be it judicial nominations or gun control) to result in all out battles.

Susan Estrich, it seems you can't understand because you don't want to consider the actual facts. Saying one wants to take your guns away is uninformed as that is exactly what many have said but most notably Dianne Feinstein for starters.
To say the pro gun group is anti-background check is also uninformed as folks that buy guns from stores and dealers do submit to background checks. Private sellers are not required, nor private buyers, to undergo those checks.
There are pros and cons here because by all the data available, the number of violent crimes committed involve stolen weapons and at one point in time, that weapon was bought from a dealer legally or worst case, stolen from the dealer. Harsh, swift and severe punishment has been called for against those negligent but there's been no action taken on that end.
Nor has there been action taken to examine the mental issues involved with murderers nor the socio-cultural issues.
But this is exactly where you begin - you hold those negligent as firstly responsible as the person who chose to murder with the weapon.
That's why Susan - there's no unity on this subject - when you continue to perpetrate the division by saying "I just can't understand". Others 'just can't understand" infringement on this unalienable right - not an inalienable right - to bear arms and why the millions upon millions of firearms owners that there have never, and will never, cause harm are the ones being subjected to denigration, threats, and even more unnecessary government control and regulation.

Re: Lemme
You said it beautifully! I agree 100%. "I don't understand" why the left cannot grasp the meaning of "shall not be infringed."
There has already been strict gun laws and background checks, but the left doesn't look at the cold hard facts that criminals will NEVER obey laws, that is why they are called criminals. Enforcing more laws and regulations on already law abiding citizens carrying firearms is NOT going to do diddly about criminals. It is taking away the rights of we the people that do follow the law and punishing us, meanwhile the criminals just keep at it and even more so.

Its true that not many people oppose the idea of background checks, but the debate lies in how those checks are to be conducted. You say that anyone with a mental health problem shoulden't have a gun. What about someone with tourettes symdrome? Or ADHD? There are lots of less severe mental illnesses out there that aren't going to make people do out and shoot someone. This could be the start of using mental health as an excuse to get rid of more and more guns. Also, doctors would be required to fork over confidential medical records to the government. It could be the start of a national database and might include non-gun owners as well.

Lets cut to the case.

Estrich, lies when she says that she does not understand " why any law-abiding, mentally healthy person would oppose background checks.." As do Reid, Biden, Obama, Feinstein, et al.

As Lemme rightly points out it is a phrase carefully rehearsed to divide.

They all understand perfectly well why, as do all the other gun grabbers. They know and we know that they know that the checks envisioned will lead to a gun registry and will eventually lead to gun confiscation as it is all designed ultimately to do. Period, end of story! Such confiscation has already commenced in NY.

The pushing of the proposed legislation (just as obamacare has nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare) has nothing to do with saving lives and has nothing to do with making our children safer. Because none of the measures will have that effect.

It is simply the statists letting no crisis or incident go to waste and willfully trampling all over the graves of dead children murdered by a nutcase and of callously using the tragic parents of those murdered children as pawns in order to attack the Bill of Rights and to impose their will and to subjugate.

After 911 I can't image way any sane person would not support:

(a) Racial profiling of all Muslims, particularly on airplanes;

(b) Strict monitoring of all Muslims mosques ;

(c) Securing the boarders and registering ALL illegal aliens, especially Muslims; and

(d) Why an ID is not required to vote.

Could it be that most illegal aliens and Muslims vote democrat and most gun owners vote Republican?

Susan ask: “I can't understand why any law-abiding, mentally healthy person would oppose background checks.”

Because Democrats are such hypocritical azzes and unjustifiably arrogant and the rest of us are not the fools Democrats believe us to be.

Nothing a Democrat says can be believed including the stated goals of their actions. One will always be closer to the truth thing a Democrat is a liar in whatever they say.

Does that answer your question, Susan?

As a professor, you have every reason, in fact a responsibility, to contemplate how to deal with a crazy, violent person threatening you and your students. But the options you've chosen to consider here seem unrealistic to me.
Assuming you're in a room, and not in a corridor or open space, your sturdy locks and desks might delay entry of a killer IF you are forewarned, have time to assess the situation and act, have moveable, heavy furniture and enough muscle available to move it quickly, AND the locks and furniture actually hold. They will do you no good at all if the attacker starts with your room, or you're not in a room. Following this response plan virtually guarantees the first room attacked is helpless. I suppose you could pray that yours isn't first. But then you're effectively praying for someone else to get slaughtered.
As far as relying on "big guys" goes, that assumes they're present, capable, close enough to the attacker to act, and not shot first. If I were the attacker, these would likely be my first targets. Perhaps they should be bulletproof as well. Seems like wishful thinking.
A far more reasonable option would be an armed response / deterrent. A gun in the hands of a responsible person or persons in the first room attacked could likely stop the attack right there. That person need not be the professor or teacher, nor a "big guy". People of any stature can learn to use a handgun effectively and responsibly. The handgun is an equalizer. The crazy mass-killers are typically looking for helpless victims. If they wanted a fight, they'd attack a police station or military base. They don't want a fight, they want a slaughter. They typically surrender or kill themselves when confronted with armed resistance. Simply knowing that armed resistance is likely makes a potential target much less tempting.
But you don't want to contemplate armed self-defense, despite the fact that having an armed "first-responder" at the scene WHEN IT BEGINS is the best way to minimize the damage done, as well as to deter an attack in the first place. So you imagine legislating guns away from crazy, dangerous people.
So what's wrong with background checks?
Yes, I too will argue that they are largely ineffective. Most of the gun crime in the country is committed by people who are ALREADY legally disqualified from purchasing or even possessing guns, most often due to previous felony convictions. Yet they have guns. How so? They steal them. They buy them from someone who has stolen them. They get someone else to buy them. Background checks may prevent criminals and crazies from personally buying guns from a legitimate dealer, but they don't stop them from getting guns.
Even so, you say if background checks are ineffective now, we should figure out how to make them work better. You imply we need to get people on a prohibited list before they are convicted or involuntarily committed. Wow, think about the implications of THAT statement! You say this should be a non-controversial issue. But this is exactly the source of the controversy. This is where there exists a huge potential for abuse. I'm sure that, as you point out, there are people out there who are dangerously unbalanced and should be on a prohibited list. But who makes the decision - judges, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, school nurses? What kinds of behavior put someone on the list - specific threats, general aggressiveness, drawing stick figures with guns, drunk driving, a taste for violent video games, recreational drug use, excessive consumption of caffeine, bad taste in fashion, contributing to the wrong political party, reading the wrong books, living in a high-crime area, an ADHD diagnosis? How does someone get themselves removed from the list? How transparent is the process? What prevents the prohibited list from incrementally becoming a back-door way of denying gun purchases to most everyone? Or is that really its purpose? The fact that these concerns are not seriously being addressed by the proponents of strengthened background checks gives plenty of justification for controversy.

Re: SusansMirror

Right on again Susan's Mirror.

Continuing on from your last post, it seems to me that if abortionists just dragged live babes from the womb and then shot them on the table, liberals, Democrats and their ilk would then in full court press supporting the Second Amendment and a gun would become just a medical device or an instrument of choice.

The Newtown tragedy (and it is a tragedy) is being deliberately exploited by antiConstitution power grabbers. Gun control is not one of the enumerated powers of the federal government. The Second Amendment specifically says 'shall not be infringed'. If a change is to be made to The Constitution, Article V of the Constitution spells out the processes by which amendments can be proposed and ratified. All the popularity polls in the world must not trump Our Constitution. The underhanded, wheeler-dealer, shenanigans being acted out by the very people who were elected and took an Oath to preserve, defend and protect The Constitution of The United States is, at a minimum, shameful. A case could be made that deliberately side-stepping The Supreme Law of Our Republic is treason. It is undermining Our Nation.

I learned at a very young age the danger of guns. I had a friend who went over to play at a friend's house. Somehow they found a 22 cal. rifle that the dad had left just inside the door after some varmint hunting. Three of my friends picked the gun up and after carefully checking to see if it was loaded by pulling the trigger a few times, one of the boys pointed the gun at my friend's heart and pulled the trigger. After mis-firing several times, this time it went off and killed my friend almost instantly. All of the boys involved and the father would have passed background checks.
So background checks would not solve all of the killings in this country. But it could cut down on many of the crimes. The proliferation of guns in our society makes us all a little bit more unsafe due to the many accidents such as the one my friend endured. I dont know what the answer is to this problem but doing nothing is NOT the answer either.

Re Lipka
I learned at a very young age the danger of cars. I had a friend who was going over to play at a friend's house. Somehow they found a road in the way and cars on the road that people had not locked up in their garage but were in them driving. After carefully checking that no traffic was coming from their left hand side one of my friends ran across the road. Nothing happened. Then another stepped out to do the same thing. This time there was a car coming from the left. It went all over him killing him instantly. All the car drivers had passed background driver license checks.

So driving lisences will not solve all the car accidents in the country but it could cut down on many crimes. The proliferation of cars in our society makes us all a little more unsafe due to the many accidents such as the one my friend endured. I don't know what the answer to is to this problem but doing nothing is NOT the answer either.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

JW wrote:
"The proliferation of cars in our society makes us all a little more unsafe due to the many accidents such as the one my friend endured. I don't know what the answer to is to this problem but doing nothing is NOT the answer either."

A very poor analogy. Numerous things have been done over the years (e.g., seatbelts, air bags, etc...) to make cars safer. Is there some reason you wouldn't want to get the violently insane off the street or prevent them from obtaining guns? Most rational people would.

JW also wrote: "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! "

You really should avoid giving yourself away like that...

Re: David Henricks;... Jeeeziss... The irrational fears of gun owners are being eploited; but the real agony and grief of those who have lost children and loved ones to mass murder cannot be exploited in the hope that it will avert another horrible tragedy??? What sort of sick world do you live in where what is good for the goose is not good for the gander... I don't think it makes for good government to have public opinion invoked or inflated at will to sway the course of government...It is hardly good for government to have put so much beyond the reach of democracy, like property privilages, and religious privilages, and even the right to bear arms...
It is paranoia on the part of government that is allowing these weapons of warfare to pass for defensive weapons...How about some reasonable requirment for these gun owners to actually belong to a militia... Okay; there the paranoia of the government equals the paranoia of the citiizen... The government fears people getting together and plotting insurrection or assasination...Valid only to a point; because most of these change the worlder's types would struggle changing a flat tire...... But there is such a danger from idiots and lunatics with guns that no one would need a PHD to notice, that people in a militia would pick up in a heart beat...
How many of these insane mass murderers could have gotten by a militia??? Some one would have called a rubber truck...There is insanity on both sides... Just as you have to fear a scared dog, it only makes sense for people to fear their scared government, and for the people to fear scared insurrectionist... To date, neither has done the damage of the some times very intelligent lunatics who do not have any sort of emotional side with which to feel fear, love, or anger...
Colleges and industry lick their lips at super intelligent genius IQ prospects that come their way... Inside so many of them is a unibomber unable to calculate in human terms the damage they do to the humanity around them...
There will always be a yearning for the gruesome, and the Macabre... We get enough of that fulfilled on television... Life is such wonder that only with its passing do we grasp what an enormous thing is life, all in fact, to each of us...Most of the time that struggle for life goes on without a lot of gore and violence and we can become bored with it...Then some car crash or accident complete with bloody and broken bodies brings us back to what it is all about: Will against distruction; Meaning against insignificance...
Of course people are sick to want to see others turned wrong side out; and natural too...It is only truely insane to think there is no meaning in the event... It is hard to argue that the destruction of those young lives should be meaningless only so that the paranoia of the right can be taken as meaningful...All of us wanting the violence of guns there as an option, like people who want the wildness of the sea outside their window -can not all be gratified...
I own guns, and I take it as a right, and it means something wonderful when I choose not to use them... It is what makes freedom moral, that only those with the moral choice can choose good, or choose God, or can choose society and social living...
Without extreme cause, the moral choice should never be denied because it makes people better to make it.. But here is a war with miles of no man's land, and trenches two stories deep... What are we fighting over, and what ground can we give???... Clearly, people do not want to be judged as worthy or unworthy of the right to bear arms, and yet if this people would all join together, that is, have militias membership the standard by which possession of assault weapon was made permissable, then the nut heads would have to get judged by their neighbors, and more guns would be denied than permitted...
We have too much of the outlaw in our mythic affection for guns... We are not making an individual last stand alone against society... Even if you stand against the government you must stand for society, or else, you should not have weapons...
Thanks...Sweeney

Re: Lemme;... I do not think there is a bit of interest in taking guns away from people... From a practical point of view they are about useless against government, but are dangerous to each of us who do not have the protection government has...I think there is recognition that the police can not be everywhere, but that guns where the police can be makes dangerous situations more dangerous for them...
I think you may be seeing the beginning of a realization of what a profound and insurmountable problem is mental illness... Given the chance, asylums were emptied, and poor damaged and insane people were cut loose without support to live out their miserable lives on the street...It is only when one of these terribly insane people gets power without moral restraint that we suffer as they suffer their insanity...But if you look at all the wealth of this place, truly remarkable wealth even with much of it exported to capitalize the world; that you can see through it to our own individual bankruptcy, moral and financial for so many, and behind all, the bankruptcy of our government and social institutions when it comes to facing up to, and dealing with, the massive amounts of depression, anxiety, unhappiness, paranoia, and pathological disregard for humanity, for emotions, and rights...
Do you see these parents dragged out of their grief to plead for some humanity and common sense in gun regulation??? Why must they be dragged out in their pain for people to recognize their pain, the tragedy, and senslessness of it all???...Who does not see the horror of it without being told... What do those who do not own guns think they are owned for??? They will every one of them be used to break the heart of some poor mother who wanted so much more from the life she gave her child... It is a fine thing, rare in most lives to stalk a deer and shoot him down, and if you cannot stand there with that deer dying fawn like, and not know with what horrors for beasts we buy our lives, what beauty we crucify, what natural love we part with to eat fine fair, then we are stupid indeed... That one who buys a gun contemplates the use of it, and it's use is outrage...
The second great story in our first great book involved the killing of one by another, a brother no less, over a matter of injured pride...Is it not insane to kill, and in quiet moments unthreatened to consider killing???... We are used to it, numb to it, inured to it... Whose life do we thus deny??? Does it matter if it is our own meaning that is denied with that of the victim???
Will we doctor ourselves, makes ourselves daily more well to face the inevitable disease that age heaps upon us without taking that oath to first do not harm??? This is madness, and America is a vast madhouse... We need asylums for the well because there is no roof that can be put over all the insanity about us...
Honestly; it is easier to think of where sanity may be found than to imagine where it is not...But; if you see my point; it is that the general moral bankruptcy of this people, our economy, our religion, and government is demonstrated best by this percent of the people who seek weapons, and are active in their paranoia of government, and of their fellow human beings... To weed out the grossly insane from the only normally so is the problem, but it is one that government facing its own problems and insanity is ill equipt to deal with...
Thanks... Sweeney

Re: Old Navy.
I have not said that I am not in favor of getting the criminally insane off the street and neither can that be inferred from my post. That is except by you and by you alone. I fully support putting the criminally insane away forever.

I have not said that I am not in favor of preventing the criminally insane from acquiring guns and neither can that be inferred from my post. That is except by you and by you alone. I support keeping guns away from the criminally insane.

As usual, however, if there are two ends to any one stick you manage for no obvious reason to grasp the non existent third end. It is an extraordinary gift. LOL !

Please point me to any provision in the current proposed legislation that addresses getting the criminally insane off the street. Oh, don't bother to look there is no such provision. The Dems and Libs took care of preventing the involuntary committing of the insane some time back which is why we have so many nutcases roaming the streets and indeed in high office.

The present gun hysteria has nothing whatsoever to do with getting the violently insane off the streets. Existing gun laws if enforced would get the gun criminals off the street. The problem is that existing legislation is not enforced.

Further, none of the proposed legislation provisions would have prevented the recent tragedies and what is worse the proponents of the legislation know this to be true.

My point, re Lipka, is that liberals in general consistently roll out meaningless anecdotes and victims real or imagined in order to pursue their goals.

The presently artificially created hysteria has one purpose and one purpose only, which is to set up a gun registry, to ultimately make gun ownership by law abiding and sane citizens illegal and to lead to confiscation.

That is not true I hear you say! They said it will not happen I hear you say! BS. I say. Do you actually have any modicum of trust in the scum that makes up this administration or in the proponents of the gun legislation.

My analogy is perfectly fine. As usual your knee jerk criticisms miss the mark entirely. Seat belts, air bags I hear you cry. But, these do nothing other than to make travel in a car safer. It remains the case that such legislation has no effect in the analogy I cite, Indeed you make my point for me. All the legislation in the world will not prevent incidents.

I can almost hear you echo Moochelle and barry boy and the rest of them. "If we can save just one life" Properly translated: let no crisis go to waste.

All states (Alaska, Montana, Arizona, and Oregon excepted) have vehicular homicide statutes, which say a vehicle is a deadly weapon. The only difference between vehicular homicide and other homicides is the use of a car as a weapon instead of say a gun. More people are murdered by vehicle where alcohol is involved than are killed by guns.Twice as many people die in vehicle incidents than any other form of homicide.

Clearly then we should have background checks into sanity, or propensity to become insane, or propensity to drink alcohol, or propensity to drug use prescribed or not, or propensity to text, or propensity to scratch one's butt, talk to one's passengers, or generally become momentarily distracted when driving, in order to own a car, and we should do so if only it could save just one life.

Perhaps we should ban "assault cars" like Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes and the like. What about banning fully automatic or semi automatic cars or cars that could be made automatic.

Or maybe we should pass legislation limiting the engine to 4 cylinders or to 3 gears or to 3 wheels because.... because ........................something should be done.

Of 36,000 illegal aliens cut loose by federal law enforcement between October 2008 and July 2011, some went on to commit 19 murders and 142 sex crimes. The charges against some of the said 36,000 included 2000 DUIs, over 1400 drug violations, and over 1000 major criminal offences including murder, rape, battery, assault, kidnapping, child molestation. Yet we are about to see a bill legalizing millions and letting them loose on our streets. Maybe if we don't pass amnesty or if the feds did not let these criminal thugs loose we could save just one life, ya think! Maybe we should do something!

Over 50 million babes have been murdered (supposedly legally) in the womb purely for convenience. If the priorities are to save just one life then maybe repealing abortion legislation might be a good place to start? Something should be done! Right !

Are any of the above being considered? No. Why? Because doing something would not lead to disarming the lawful sane citizen.

Re: Old Navy
The analogy is perfect!
You and Joe have to stop hating each other and pay more attention to the decline of our nation!

Re: James A, Sweeney
The people in Germany and the Soviet Union didn't believe there was anything nepharius about collecting their guns either. Don't be fooled into thinking there are'nt progressive people in this government who wish to do the same!

JW correctly states:
"Please point me to any provision in the current proposed legislation that addresses getting the criminally insane off the street."
There are none. Read my original response to Ms. Estrich's article. I rejected her proposed solution on the basis that we already know that it doesn't work and that it won't address the real problems. As usual, the left has trotted out a list of the 'usual suspects' (i.e., A parade of 'solutions' which long ago were proven to be inadequate/wrong). Now they can't understand why rational individuals aren't falling all over themselves to adopt their failed ideas.

JW further stated:
"Existing gun laws if enforced would get the gun criminals off the street. The problem is that existing legislation is not enforced."

Maybe, maybe not. I certainly don't think that anything in existing law would have prevented the last nut-job in CT from doing what he did. But surely we can meaningfully tweek something and make the world a bit better? Is the law so perfect that you can't think of one thing we could do differently? For example, perhaps we could roll back our treatment regimes for the mentally ill to what they where back in the 1960s and 70s. Let's change the the issue from guns to why the left prevents us from institutionalizing the 'dangerously mentally ill' for their own protection as well as our own. Let's demand real solutions, not psychological lollipops for progressives.

JW also stated:
"My point, re Lipka, is that liberals in general consistently roll out meaningless anecdotes and victims real or imagined in order to pursue their goals...The presently artificially created hysteria has one purpose and one purpose only, which is to set up a gun registry, to ultimately make gun ownership by law abiding and sane citizens illegal and to lead to confiscation."

I don't think he is "rolling out meaningless anecdotes". I think he is pointing out real world problems that may need solutions. You apparently don't like his ideas. Fine. But since you object to his solutions, let's hear yours.

By endlessly voicing conspiratorial theories and not providing alternate/real solutions to problems, the right marginalizes itself. In the minds of a lot of people, conservatives have become Dr. No, preventing and/or hindering any solutions to real problems. Is it any wonder that the LIV's flock to someone like the dear leader, an individual who offers simple/tempting solutions, no matter how bad or delusional his solutions are? What alternative do they have?
You can't beat something with nothing. The Democrats learned that lesson again and again in the 80's and 90's (e.g., Welfare reform). Now the right is now relearning the same lesson it was last taught in the 1950's and 60's. We should be smarter than that.

Finally, JW wrote:
"My analogy is perfectly fine. As usual your knee jerk criticisms miss the mark entirely. Seat belts, air bags I hear you cry. But, these do nothing other than to make travel in a car safer. "

You obviously didn't read my post too closely. The "e.g." placed before the examples indicates that they are simple examples only, not an exhaustive list. A little mature consideration would have led you to other examples(e.g., Stiffer drunk driving laws, enhanced requirements for teen drivers to obtain their license, sobriety check points, etc...), all intended to make it safer for pedestrians to walk the streets. My point was that rules and regulations have evolved over the years in an attempt to reduce some of the more common dangers associated with automobiles. Why isn't the right advocating similar worthwhile changes to the law to counter the worthless 'solutions' from the left? People just might vote for political parties that show they can actually solve a few problems.

Re: Oldtimer

I genuinely have no real animus for Old Navy. For me it is all a game. Just some banter back and forth to that provides some amusement. However, I cannot nor would not presume to speak for Old Navy.

Re: Old Navy
I don't recall uttering any express agreement or disagreement with your original post. I think, that if you revisit the posts it was you that seemed to wrongly and preposterously attribute a desire in me to keep the criminally insane armed and on the streets and then attack my fairly innocuous reply to LIpka.

Further I don't recall Likpa offering anything other than not only a meaningless anecdote about a gun accident and a victim ( oh how the libs love victims) but an entirely irrelevant one.

You may want to revisit the solution proposed by Likpa which was " I don't know what the answer is to this problem but doing nothing is NOT the answer either." Seems that you have attributed, to me, disagreement with a solution that was never offered up and disagreement that doing nothing was NOT the answer. Hmmmm !

You do not yet see it, but this is the trap we fall into each and every time. The left takes a situation, turns it into a false crisis, that urgently needs a predetermined response which coincidentally advances the leftist agenda whether or not the response deals with the underlying problem or incident.

This way the left gets what it wants incrementally and with the agreement of the right which feels pressed in a politically correct way to abandon its first principles.

And so it is with the proposed gun legislation and extended back ground checks, all of which were matters waiting in the wings for a suitable incident to occur and for the leftists to exploit and which are ultimately aimed at registration and confiscation.

And yes one can beat something by simply saying NO! That is if one has the courage to do so. But stasis is not and never has been the conservative position. I subscribe to the notion that change, or legislation for the sake of change or legislation, particularly if it advances the leftists position is folly. What we are witnessing from the RINOs in the Senate is the height of cowardice driven folly and indeed an affront to our liberties.

The present GOP led by the Weeper of the House lacks necessary testicular fortitude and is in fact comprised in the main of no more than liberals and statists in drag as small " r " republicans.

I guess my reply to Lipka and to you is that the answer to be given as to solutions to be suggested depends entirely upon the question or proposition or the problem posed, does it not?

The real problem has yet to be defined. But irrespective of that, we see all sorts of pandering to a solution to....... what precisely?

For the left the problem is not gun violence ( just think of any inner city that has been under liberal control, e g, Chicago) and neither is it the deaths of children (since when were the lives of children any concern of the left? Think abortion, think late term abortion and think the killing of born alive infants).

Instead the problem for the left is the existence of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and in particular the existence of the Second Amendment.

The left's solution to any problem universally involves an attack on freedom and an attack on the Constitution and to do so via regulation and diktat.

In the words of another it is better to seek clarity rather than agreement.

Re: Barney;... You are pointing out the fallacy of preparation as deterrant... As they used to say in War: Some bombers will get through... Freud thought we all had a death wish; but many of these people have a wish strong enough for you or me... I think it is clearly worthwhile to try to keep some guns out of all hands without permit specific to them, and to try especially hard to keep guns away from the deranged... The problem is that to have a man killing gun is to accept at some level the use of that gun to kill... To me; that is the normal level of insanity surrounding guns...There are times when the use of any available weapon for defense or vengeance is more than justiifed because it is a public service... To look forward to that hypothetical day with any sort of anticipation is madness, and it only passes for normal because so many people are mad in that fashion...
Trust me on this... I have killed deer with both my hand guns, and when I had patience could get quite close... I am not hyperactive, but I can't sit in the cold without freezing, so I would have to walk, and for brush cover and moving, pistols are great... But when I hunted, I thought little different of killing a person who had harmed me, or a deer who had not harmed me... I used to sleep with a pistol under my pillow... The smell of gun oil entered my dreams, my mind, and filled the room like pine at christmas time... If I woke up with the wrong person in my place they were bound to be some kind of dead when I stood up...
I think it was crazy... I think even killing deer was crazy, but only because I finally got enough of death... It can happen, but how it happened is unique to me... But, I got it again with the Boston Marathon... My son is a good runner, and has run in all the major races, and often with his family, meaning my daughter in law, and grand children there for support...I could not talk, even to give my wife details... It hurts... Violence hurts...
Violence is a form of communication for those ill equipped to express what they feel through words, or art..
What is it that Americans are trying to express to Americans with the mad preparation to destroy each other???
If the problem is that our society and government are not working, then realistically, what are the chances the people are all the problem, and the ideals are really ideal??? Because we have seen the tyranny of the idea, and even if we are not so far gone, people are unrealistic about their principals in the face of their absolute failures...
Principals can be changed more easily than people, and it is because of the basic needs of people that all forms/ideals are changed...People cannot evolve, and have not evolved once they have learned to adapt by changing their forms...People do not change their forms so often that they learn to do so consciously... It is the lesson of history that only a few learn...
Thanks...Sweeney

It does not long take for the leftists to start to politicize does it.

It did not take 5 minutes before the left tried to utilize a heinous deadly terror incident in which the innocents were slaughtered and maimed for political gain.

Obama through Axelrod has pondered whether the explosion at Boston had something to do with tax day, Franks has declared that a tax cut would not have prevented what happened in Boston, Obama's propaganda wing the media are in full fledged blame an American and it may have been a right wing terror group because it was Patriot Day, it was Tax day or maybe just Monday. It was Boston therefore must have been the Tea Party.

This is why I despise all leftists, all statists and this admin in particular.

And where is barrry boy today? Working the phones trying to save his gun grab bill. Can't let a " provident" terror incident go to waste in the disarmament of the people, can he? Can't let an attack on America stall the making of the law abiding people defenseless, can he?

But always remember that Islam is a religion of peace. How do we know, because the muslim killers and their apologists and barry boy say so. That's how! Riiiiight!

Re: Oldtimer;... I don't trust anyone who thinks they know better than me what's best for me... There is a lot of unsofistication in the examples of Germany, and Russia... They never had the tradition of gun ownership, or much of a need from the perspective of their former rulers... The authority of the state was nearly complete, while we merely co-exist with our state, pretty much on the same bounty and source of revenue...
There is a good reason for the natural antipathy we now hold for the state... Apart from supporting many we see as unworthy, it is not doing all it might it regard to morals, or with law to achieve a domestic state of harmony and peace, but it is taxing anyone it can, meaning the little guy into poverty to support poverty... Have I stated it about right, because the only thing they are getting relatively right- which is defense, is costing us through the nose, and is the largest part of the budget... And if you include law, and all money spent in the direction of law, the cost is too extreme, and reaps little peace and security...
My point here is not that we should trust the state, but revolt, which would not require more than a concerted effort, and no guns... What government like ours in its dottage could resist a done deal??? But that is the hard part, because the distrust so many share for the government they hold for other people in the country; and the spectacle of a people with quite minor differences being unable to talk about things in a rational fashion, being little trained in the methods of philosophy, and much given to emotion, even when confronted with reason- is tragic when it is not laughable... People suffered the same sorts of stresses moving from tents to dungeons, or from horses to autos... When people do not have the concepts, or the terms and definitions of what they are trying to do their chances of success are minimal... Consider the Declaration... Jefferson knew what he was about... He was an educated person, educated in philosophy and in law... The Declaration of Independence is a legal brief for revolution, but it is also a philosophical statement... And much of it goes back to classic Greek Philosophy and Plato's theory of forms, and Aristotles Metaphysics... I don't mean to bore you with the details, because they have not yet got it right, but people have to work out their own forms even when we grow up with a form, and think our form is hot shet...
When things don't work, people have to fix them, and other people do get in the way, but that does not make them the problem because a good form will heal people and improve their relationships...If people are the problem they are also the solution, and who the solution is for... In a sense, the problem is not human's but human nature because if the face of great need for change we are all too conservative, and when we should be conservative, which is when things seem to be going well, then we are too self serving...
Thanks....Sweeney

Re: joseph wright;... All you are proving with your paranoia is that there is no defense from stupidity no matter how many guns you own...
I own guns, and they are an impediment to anything I want to do... They are pretty much buried in the woodwork, but they should, perhaps be lodged in a safe... Just another expense you say; but where do you think the criminals are getting their guns??? It is not always out of a car trunk... People have guns in their bed side stands to protect them, and because they are not responsibly stored some criminal gets it and holds up a hundred and one people with the threat of death... If you want to keep your gun everywhere, you have massive headaches and hardships ahead... There will be places you will not be welcomed... And talking to local police who are expected to be armed, even off duty; the obligation is nothing short of onerous after a while...
Rather than forcing the world to deal with your paranoia, and with your fears- out of all proportion to the threat you face; why not deal with your fear, and more importantly, with the fear behind your fear... A gun is sort of a phalic symbol... Do you fear impotence... Do you fear death???
When I started ironwork I was certain I would be dead before 21, and now I am almost 60; but the fear of life, of loving life, or jumping for joy, or really caring for life, for people, and truly loving humanity- and then having it snatched away by death is frightening, -NOT!!! It is terrifying, until you realize that completion of purpose, of learning to love life is the very thing that makes dying so fear-less..To carry bitterness, resentment, and anger into death is terror... I would not face my God with that baggage chained to me...
What is frightening to me, and sad to see, are all the people who lose life little knowing what they have lost, who never capture the romance or adventure, the tragedy of it all... Isn't it cosmic... Even if you swallow all that bait about God; is not the idea of having conversation with the head man remarkable???. In what hierarchy can you go over the head of everyone, and slap a complaint about your ill treatment right on the bosses desk???
If I were you; I would say: In the target rich environment of Godless liberals, why isn't every true conservative born with a pistol on the end of their wrist and an endless supply of amunition in their free hand???
I sentence you to death; not really; but figuratively... And I want you to know about those people on death row with you... Each and every one of them will learn from the experience of waiting for death to be delivered like a cold pizza on a rainy night... They will learn what it is all about, what they have taken out of ignorance and anger, and what no person can put back...And the very learning of it will make them human, will give them the moral sense that most human beings have without ever being taught: The sanctity of life... Then they will say: I have changed, and I am no longer that animal who killed wantonly... Don't kill me now, because now I understand... Then I would say: We the people were only waiting for you to acknowlege the extent of your crimes, the awarness of your guilt, the limits of your remorse... Though you had to learn behind prison walls the value and irreplacablity, the meaning and pricelessness of life, it is only fair now that you should lose what you destroyed...
Some people never grasp the meaning and value of their own lives... They spend all their time in contemplation of who and how they might legally kill, and spend no time what ever thinking of whose life they may save, or whose soul, for the very thought of it puts them on the path of salvation...
Liberal are idiots... I will give you that... They are too often scared mice who think to always call a cop for protection... They want to cure the world of all its pox with kindness, sympathy, and understanding... Are they any more obnoxious than those who think to cure brutality with ever greater brutality up to, and including death???
Thanks...Sweeney