If we as a civil society outlaw hand grenades and propelled explosives because their design is to harm a lot of people quickly, then why can’t we do the same for automatic weapons and large clips of bullets? They too are weapons designed only for the killing of people quickly and efficiently and like hand grenades they have nothing to do with hunting. Yet, somehow it’s different and the National Rifle Association (NRA) is holding firm in not putting gun controls of any kind on the table of options to avoid another Newtown, Connecticut massacre. The NRA claims in its defense that it’s a slippery slope from a society banning military weapons to wanting to take away hunting rifles and second amendment rights. This is the central myth that fuels NRA membership.
To any and all NRA members that may be reading this, I would like to ask if they know of any hunting group that experienced a political attack on their rights when the Federal Assualt Weapons Ban was in effect from 1994 to September 2004. Do you know of any Alaskan that was unable to protect family and property because of not having an assault weapon during this 10 year time period? The answer is no. And why? Because there was no slippery slope then and nor is there one now. Civil societies are capable of drawing the line at military weaponry.
The next NRA myth that needs busting is that the NRA leadership fairly represents the desires of its membership. A poll conducted by the coalition, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, showed that 69 percent of self-identified NRA members favor closing the gun show loophole which allows persons to purchase assault weapons without a background check. The release of this poll by Republican pollster Frank Luntz has the NRA leadership fuming. Not only is the NRA out of step with its membership but also with gun owners in general. A recent survey by the Washington Post showed that only 24 percent of gun owners are NRA members and when you ask gun owners in general about banning the sale of magazines with more than 10 bullets or requiring a 5 day waiting period, a significant majority say ‘yes, please do so’.
By blaming gun violence in our society on everything except guns (media, school administrators posting ‘gun-free’ zones, video games, mental health screening) not only is the NRA out of step with gun owners but they appear to be taking themselves out of the current national debate. Several pro-gun lawmakers, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) Sen. Joe signaled they would support measures like an assault weapons ban. Even prominent Republican Senators Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) favor a re-evaluation of the nation’s gun policies. Additionally President Obama has appointed Vice-President Joe Biden to lead an interagency effort for developing a multifaceted approach to preventing mass shootings like the one in Newtown. All these developments suggest that the Sandy Hook massacre is serving as that all important tipping point where the NRA is no longer the sole determinant of gun control policy.
The other type of tipping point action that is merited in light of the horrific shootings at Sandy Hook is to ask, “What are we, as a community, doing to promote safe and reasonable use of guns?” Is permitting an indoor gun range aimed at seeking commercial benefit from the shooting of machine guns the best direction for Juneau? Will there be mental health screenings of customers? Do we risk planting the thrill of automatic weapons into the wrong hands?
In explaining the commercial attraction of the indoor gun range, Sloane Swendsen, part-owner, notes, “Shooting machine guns is a pastime spreading across the U.S.”
Why is promoting more attraction to machine guns not a threat to public safety, particularly when you consider that Alaska has one of the lowest record among the 50 states for mental health screenings in association with gun purchase background checks. Why not make permit approval contingent upon machine gun restrictions?
These types of questions emerge when we look to apply the Sandy Hook tipping point locally. For those inclined to raise such questions, the permit was approved by the Planning Commission and will only be heard by the Assembly if an appeal is submitted by Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2013.
• Troll, a writer, resides in a hunting household with 10 guns in her home.
Comments (53)
Add commentHuh?
What is a mental health screening anyway? Does that mean that some lady who was temporarily treated for a blue mood loses the right to own a firearm for the rest of her life?
Does the government get access to read and make notes on her personal medical records - her intimate conversations with a councilor over her breast cancer surgery or an abortion ten years ago?
Just how do you do a big sweeping screening of America and still call the place America. Sounds like a new federal agency - department of internal intrusion.
Millions of American women have bought firearms for self defense. Kate and others with similar world view would drop cumbersome and incredibly intrusive and discouraging things in their path.
This opt-ed is just knee jerk liberal blather.
Bobc is correct
Over the years I have seen FBI statistics cited in this very newspaper that entirely back up and substantiate the 1.5 million to 2 million times annually that firearms are used in the US to stop a crime.
The firearms murder numbers usually include people shot while committing a crime, drug dealers shooting one another in the course of a drug transaction, crime perps shot by the police, people mistakenly shot by police, and many other instances of shooting that most honest people would not include when trying to portray use of firearms in crime. Another way to look at is that within the numbers are some killings that most of us would think are a good thing!
There is no getting around it; Anti-gun people misuse statistics and studies to perpetrate myths about guns. In a way the Old Troll has done that here when she asks why automatic guns cannot be outlawed thereby baiting liberals into believing that anyone can buy an automatic gun. Possibly her recommendation that indoor range customers pass mandatory health screening could be considered to apply to opinion writers in the Empire.
Gun owners and the NRA do not reciprocate with lies and half-truths. If laws would make us safer then calling a school or university a gun-free zone would be an easy solution in what may well now be the beginning of a 4 year political battle.
There is no getting around it;
If these weapons were never mass produced in the first place, we wouldn't be having this debate.
I'm convinced
bobc claims an enormous number, and geedog "has seen" statistics (in the Empire no less!) that entirely back him up. Folks, we have just witnessed the birth of a 'fact'.
BTW geedog, don't you still have some electrical work to take care of? Get on it, boy!
Happy New Year!
And I mean it! May your new year and many to come be filled with happiness in whatever sate of existence you find yourself in. May many Xs on your calendar mark each day as another day of liberty. May you be surrounded now and always with love as you surround your world with love. Peace!
Data on gun control
I know this is a lot of reading, but here is some intresting unbias data on gun control.
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
Comparing Seattle to Chicago
The answer lies in the gun laws? I cannot even begin to touch how culturally out of touch that is.
Seattle is pretty green liberal metropolis. Gun toting hippies? I don't think so.
Chicago has the highest rates for gang violence nationally. More children involved in gangs per capita there than anywhere else in the world. Within those gang pockets is where you find a majority of those homicides.
The real difference between these two places? The views by the citizens towards guns. Those who choose to live life, and respect life of their neighbors. Crazy Seattlites know this is real life not an Eastwood flick. Then there are those who do not respect their life nor those around them. Collecting weapons like baseball cards. You will find the gun violence is what "triggered" the gun laws.
The problem isn't guns, it is how we view them. The NRA's view has gotten very skewed and off point. They are part of the problem. Sending out the same message as violent media. Seriously, why do you want the bigger and better? At the core it comes down to what you have seen on tv, what has been imprinted on you by media.
akstyle
"unbiased" is a fluid term, now isn't it? There's such a thing as dredging up 'facts' which support your position, but ignoring the facts that don't. Or presenting the facts to lead the reader to a specific conclusion.
Here's the president of JustFacts:
"James D. Agresti, the president and primary researcher, holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University and... is the author of Rational Conclusions, a highly researched book evidencing factual support for the Bible across a broad array of academic disciplines."
I think that tells me enough about Mr. Agresti and JustFacts.
Latitude58
I don't see you posting anything showing unbiased facts on gun control, until then your post is irrelevant.
If you do happen to have an unbiased source, please share it with the rest of us. I promise i'll read it.
Happy New Year!
@AlaskanStyle
It appears you mistake 'unbiased' with 'something I agree with'.
The mere presence of footnotes will in no way guarantee unbiased work. All that a 'footnote' guarantees is that the information noted is from a different source. Because all outside sources are suspect, we came to this method of noting them when present so that a reader may peruse the data in original form and context.
In referring us to this ‘site’ you are in effect footnoting a footnote. There is no original work to be found at this site. It is nothing more than a compilation of the work of others. As such it cannot escape bias.
While easy to do and largely forgivable, a mistake none the less.
It's a simple correlation
Alaska has some of the most lenient gun laws in the nation. And Alaska is the state with the highest rate of gun-related deaths. http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000
Coincidence? I think not. Especially when you look at the tone and attitude of many of the commenters here and have to wonder would they pass a mental fitness exam to own a gun?
@Human?Being?
You are the one claiming you were a "Teacher"....
That said, i'll bet your gonna 'teach us a thing or two' now.........
dobieman
Your own data defeat your purpose and intent. The District of Columbia has a far higher rate than Alaska in your data yet private firearms ownership was functionally illegal there during the time period evaluated. Data sets seemingly moving together do not imply correlation, and certainly there is no validity in concluding that one moves the other even if valid statistical tests show the data sets do in fact move together (which is not the case here). You might well find that violent crime is much more closely tied to racial make-up of a city population than with anything else for instance.
Anyone doing research would have to isolate other factors such as alcohol and drug abuse, age of the population, whether one sex is more likely than the other to be involved with gun violence e.g. does one sex use guns without ever being involved in violence, and age distribution of populations being compared. For instance, some people theorize that availability of abortions in the inner city beginning about 25 years ago in large part explains the fall off in violent crime within some inner city environments.
Any data that purport to link firearms ownership with crime or violence are misleading in that the data must also include the amount of crime or violence prevented by firearms ownership. Otherwise there is no way to reach even the conclusion that the researcher undoubtedly intended.
@dobieman - it appears that
@dobieman - it appears that some "funny" math may be taking place to skew the statistics and promote the anti-gun agenda.
"The "percentage of 1,000" ratio is also used to skew the statistics heavily against sparsely populated states. Alaska had only 19 gun-related homicides in 2010; with a population of 710,231, its adjusted total is 2.7 gun-related homicides per thousand (2.7/1K). Meanwhile, in the first two months of 2010, the city of Chicago had 27 gun-related homicides (Crime Summary Chicago 2010, January-February, 2010, Research and Crime Division, Chicago Police Department). Despite the fact that more people were killed in the first two months in one Illinois city than in the entire State of Alaska for the full year, Illinois' adjusted gun-related homicide total is only 2.8 per thousand (population of 12,830,632 with 364 gun-related homicides). The "percentage of 1,000" makes densely populated states appear more safe, despite substantially higher gun-related homicide totals, and sparsely populated states as unsafe.
Of particular interest is the oft-repeated 30,000 figure for gun-related deaths. Approximately 18,000 were suicides using a firearm. Also included are people accidentally killed in police action, or through accidental discharge of a firearm. According to the FBI and state agency sources, the actual number of people murdered by a firearm in 2010 was 11,533 (0.0000381). The total number of murders (including knifes, blunt objects, person's hands/feet, etc.) is 14,504."
More here -
http://www.arlingtonvoice.com/node/1153
@Calypso
Who's using funny math? Well now it depends on who you ask!
If you use the figures from JustFacts.com it is similar to getting your info from Americans for Prosperity. You really learn more for the "about us" tab
For another perspective on the numbers....
From CNN.com July 30 2012:
"When we hear the phrase "defensive gun use," we're inclined to imagine a gun owner producing a weapon to defend himself or herself against bodily threat. Not so fast. The authors of the 1995 study aggregated 13 prior polls of gun users, most of which did not define what was meant by "use." As the authors of the 1995 aggregation study themselves ruefully acknowledged: "The lack of such detail raises the possibility that the guns were not actually 'used' in any meaningful way. Instead, (respondents) might be remembering occasions on which they merely carried a gun for protection 'just in case' or investigated a suspicious noise in their backyard, only to find nothing." In other words, even if the figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses had been correct at some point back in the early 1990s or early 1980s, the vast majority of those "uses" may be householders picking up a shotgun before checking out the noises in the garage made by raccoons rooting through the trash."
More from CNN
"Meanwhile, over in the world of hard numbers, the FBI counted an average of 213 justified firearm homicides per year over the period 2005-2010. If the figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses were any way close to accurate, it would imply that brandishing a gun in self-defense led to a fatality only 0.00852% of the time. That seems almost miraculously low."
And:
"Underneath all these statistical problems is a larger conceptual problem. When we hear "defensive gun use," we're invited to think of a law-abiding citizen confronting a criminal aggressor. Yet crime does not always present itself so neatly. The vast majority of homicides take place between intimates, not strangers. Assaults, too, are often an acquaintance crime. When guns are produced by two parties to a confrontation, one party may deter the other. Yet it may be seriously misleading to designate one of these persons as a "criminal" and the other as a "law-abiding citizen." Perhaps when we hear "defensive gun use," we should not imagine a householder confronting a prowler. Perhaps we should think of two acquaintances, both with some criminal history, getting into a drunken fight, both producing guns, one ending up dead or wounded, the other ending up as a "DGU" statistic -- but both of them entangled in a scenario that would have produced only injuries if neither had carried a gun."
Human Being Judgmental
Wow Human Being, can you get any more hypocritical when you judge someone else's opinions for having them. And then end your post with this ?
Now, you may chime in and ridicule me, "It's in you nature"!!!!!!!! But I'll still be LMAO........
The "human beings" of the world seem to think only they matter.
Happy New Year everyone.
@XXL - that's what we call
@XXL - that's what we call projection - when one side accuses the other of doing exactly what they themselves are doing. The progressives have it perfected to a science.
Okay dust, chime in...
@mamat - (and what is it with Alaskan "women" calling themselves mama this and mama that?!!) Nice job cutting and pasting from CNN (which I can't understand any sane person even watching or reading) but it has nothing to do with my post on the skewed math used to make gun related deaths look higher in sparsely populated states, which usually have more lenient gun laws, like dobieman insinuated.
Nice try, changing the subject though.
so, does anyone disagree?
I didn't read every post, but of the ones I read, I didn't notice anyone disagreeing with the author. Am I wrong?
"If we as a civil society outlaw hand grenades and propelled explosives because their design is to harm a lot of people quickly, then why can’t we do the same for automatic weapons and large clips of bullets?"
I mean, if everyone agrees that semi-auto weapons with high-capacity clips are in the same league as explosives, why are explosives regulated? Why does the ATF regulate firearms at all? If we know weapons will make it to the wrong hands, why do we have gun laws at all?
Or alcohol? Or anything for that matter? Why do we have laws at all? If we know that inevitably someone will break a law, why bother having them?
Newspaper That Printed Gun Owner Names Hires Armed Guards
The New York newspaper that printed a map with all of the names of residents who have handgun permits has hired armed security to patrol its headquarters.
The Journal News, which covers Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam Counties in New York, faced a backlash from readers after publishing the names of residents who had handgun permits registered to their names. The newspaper created an interactive map which showed permit owners’ names and addresses, which they posted on Dec. 23, 2011, as part of their coverage of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.
The Gannett-owned paper received a wave of angry comments in which readers published the names and addresses of reporters and editors at the paper.
"Skewed" math?
@Calypso
Seriously? Using rates instead of totals is skewed? That is the only way to present that kind of data. Do you think they should rank our income in Alaska by the total? We would look quite poor aside New York. What if you lived in a town that had 20 people, but people said "Ok, but we only have 4 homicides a year and Chicago has 400, I feel safer here." Skewed math, that's just funny, skewness describes statistical distributions that are non-normal, not presenting a rate versus a total.
Gee, if only guns were
Gee, if only guns were outlawed we would all live lives of peace and harmony. No aggression or anger would exist to intrude on our Nirvana...
A good girl with a gun.....
A GOOD GIRL WITH A GUN
On Sunday December 17, 2012, 2 days after the CT shooting, a man went to a restaurant in San Antonio to kill his X-girlfriend. After he shot her, most of the people in the restaurant fled next door to a theater. The gunman followed them and entered the theater so he could shoot more people. He started shooting and people in the theater started running and screaming. It’s like the Aurora, CO theater story plus a restaurant!
Now aren't you wondering why this isn't a lead story in the national media along with the school shooting?
There was an off duty county deputy at the theater. SHE pulled out her gun and shot the man 4 times before he had a chance to kill anyone. So since this story makes the point that the best thing to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun, THE MEDIA IS TREATING IT LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.
Only the local media covered it. The city is giving her a medal next week.
A good girl with a gun.....
A GOOD GIRL WITH A GUN
On Sunday December 17, 2012, 2 days after the CT shooting, a man went to a restaurant in San Antonio to kill his X-girlfriend. After he shot her, most of the people in the restaurant fled next door to a theater. The gunman followed them and entered the theater so he could shoot more people. He started shooting and people in the theater started running and screaming. It’s like the Aurora, CO theater story plus a restaurant!
Now aren't you wondering why this isn't a lead story in the national media along with the school shooting?
There was an off duty county deputy at the theater. SHE pulled out her gun and shot the man 4 times before he had a chance to kill anyone. So since this story makes the point that the best thing to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun, THE MEDIA IS TREATING IT LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.
Only the local media covered it. The city is giving her a medal next week.