By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut have left us all with a sense of shock and helplessness. Twenty elementary school children dead, six educators slaughtered, and a place we all like to think of as a safe haven from the misery of the world polluted by horrific violence wrought by weapons more properly used on a battlefield. Politicians from President Obama to New York Mayor Bloomberg have called for “meaningful action” to combat gun violence which is endemic to America.
But does this mass murder of innocents present the right case to support effective gun control? From what we know now the answer is “no.” The shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was a troubled teen who suffered from either Asperger’s syndrome or a personality disorder according to the New York Daily News. One family friend described the young man, saying, “This was a deeply disturbed kid. He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall.”
Lanza also had strange permutation of the syndrome in that he was impervious to normal stimuli. Another “longtime” family friend said Lanza had a condition “where he couldn’t feel pain. A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it.”
Asperger’s syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which allows the sufferer to maintain high academic and cognitive functioning but handicaps social interaction. It is the classic high school brainiac who is unable to ask a member of the opposite sex out on a date. The cause is unknown but certain genetic markers may be present to suggest that is its origin. Thus, Lanza may have acted from a motivation he had little control over and which no amount of gun control or mental health legislation could control.
Additionally, the guns used in the slayings were purchased legally by Lanza’s apparent first victim, his mother, Nancy. Lanza stole the weapons — a .223 Bushmaster assault weapon*, and two semi-automatic handguns, a 9 mm Sig Sauer, and a 9 mm Glock — after murdering his mother and thus began his rampage. The simple fact is that no gun control measures either on the books or reasonably under consideration could have stopped such a disturbed person from acquiring these weapons if he was willing to kill to get them.
As much as many of us would like to see guns regulated at least as much as cars or liquor, the facts here do not present the best case to achieve this goal. The American love affair with guns is seemingly getting stronger with sales of firearms setting new records. Gun manufacturers and their minions at the NRA have succeeded in scaring many Americans into believing that Obama and the Democratic Party have a secret agenda to disarm the public.
In fact, the public’s support for gun control has been on a steady decline according to polling conducted by Pew Research. Even the school mass murder at Columbine registered only a bump of support which quickly vanished. The chart below (from the Huffington Post) graphically demonstrates the public’s attitude about guns in an era of distrust with government and the political process.
It would take a paradigm shift in the culture to create the political will to take on the Second Amendment. It is a telling — and perhaps damning — fact that even the death of 20 children under age 10 is simply not enough.
Source: CNN; New York DailyNews; Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
PSs:
Our good friend, slartibartfast, has provided a link on the effectiveness of the federal ban on assault weapons. It’s good reading. Here it is: Did the federal ban on assault weapons matter?
*Also commenter, Roman Berry, (9:19 am) has provided some context for the term “assault weapon.”
Thanks, guys.
Blouise,
I’ll tell you like I told someone else: Being pro 2nd isn’t the equivalent of being anti reasonable regulation. I’m pro-Constitution period. I would think that is abundantly clear by now.
As to your reading of the 2nd? Agreement is not required. I think you’re wrong in your interpretation that the individual right is not protected and it’s not by “twisting logic” but rather by applying logic to the construction and history of the very article itself.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” – a governmental interest that requires that – “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” – a natural individual right – “shall not be infringed.” – be protected by the Constitution.
English! Yes. Have some. Logic too.
It was derived from a document – the English Bill of Rights of 1689 – that restored an individual right wrongfully denied to Protestants.
“I want to put it back where it belongs.”
Then it is a natural individual right protected by the Constitution. To twist it into some kind of collective right would have meant the Founders would have had to include language about arming everyone by some kind of mandate. They left the choice to own arms to you. To otherwise would have run afoul of the 1st as some religions prohibit owning and/or using firearms. The individual right itself though is clearly protected. Heller laid that argument to rest.
We agree there is room for reasonable regulation.
What we don’t agree on is the nature of the right.
Agreement is not required.
Even though you’re simply wrong. 😀
Just like you’re wrong about me loving Pelosi. She earned my perpetual and everlasting hatred when she said “impeachment is off the table”. She betrayed her oath of office and her duty to the Constitution. She enabled war criminals and allowed them to escape justice. I’d say she’s swine but I do love pork chops.
I may even love pork chops more than I love you. 😉
BettyKath, oh noooo! My condolences! I wish you long life. 😥
I will MISS being able to pick up the phone…
I want to share the obituary of really nice, gentle, generous man who did whatever he could to make change. Bob was a Quaker with a commitment to non-violence that was complete and extended to animals in that he was vegan. He was working on a biography of Gandhi, having made at least two trips to India for research. He was the Green Party candidate for Congress for Maryland’s 5th District several times, most recently in the 2012 election. I will being able to pick up the phone and talking with him. He will be greatly missed.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Md-Green-Party-Activist-Killed-in-Hit-and-Run-183433791.html
I think that ONCE the NRA realized that they could make TONS of money from gun manufacturers and retailers…. they ditched their ways of the 70’s…. and then decided that arming as many people as possible would get them MORE money and MORE power…….
Now, they will NEVER give up the power they have….
Power Corrupts…. and it has done a doozy on the NRA……
Shano, “Both Lanza and Holmes fathers will testify in the LIBOR scandal trial. Two mass murderers.”
Holmes was drugged. I don’t think he did it. I don’t know enough about Holmes yet.
LIBOR is HUUUUGE. Would murdering a bunch of kids be going to far to protect the perpetrators? Could be extreme witness tampering.
—————-
Now what would happen if the populace were disarmed but also required to undergo a mental health exam on a regular basis?
Nightmares tonight.
By the way… Shano…. I LOVED that comment by the long time gun advocate…..
and it is SO TRUE……
The NRA used to support gun control
By ADAM WINKLER
It came as no surprise Thursday when the White House announced that President Barack Obama would not seek any new gun control in the wake of the Aurora movie theater massacre. Obama can’t afford to alienate gun enthusiasts, who’ve been taught by the National Rifle Association that gun laws infringe the Second Amendment. The truth, however, is that America has regulated guns since its earliest days. Gun control is as much a part of the story of guns in the United States as the Second Amendment and the six-shooter.
The founding fathers who wrote the Second Amendment didn’t believe the right to keep and bear arms was a libertarian license for anyone to have any gun anywhere he wanted. While they believed that the right to have arms was an individual right and that government should never be able to completely disarm the people, they balanced gun rights with public safety.
The founders barred large portions of the population from possessing guns, including slaves and free blacks, who might revolt if armed. The founders also restricted gun ownership by law-abiding white people, such as those who refused to swear allegiance to the Revolution. Those weren’t traitors fighting for the British. They were among the approximately 40 percent of the citizenry who, in exercise of their freedom of conscience, thought 13 disorganized colonies taking on the most powerful nation in the world was a bad idea.
Of course, we shouldn’t mimic the founders and adopt gun laws that discriminate on the basis of race or political ideology. The point is that the founders limited access to guns when they thought it necessary to preserve the public welfare. Even though the threats to the public good we see today — such as criminals or mentally ill people with guns — are different, we should still be able to do what the founders did and find the appropriate balance.
The founders also imposed onerous restrictions on gun owners through militia laws. Men over the age of 18 were expected to serve in the citizen militia, armed and ready to defend the nation. They would be forced to appear, with guns in hand, at public musters where they and their guns would be inspected. The founders had an early form of gun registration: States conducted door-to-door surveys to identify where the guns were in case the government had need of them.
The founders even had their own version of an “individual mandate.” In 1792, Congress required all free men of age to outfit themselves with a military-style firearm.
Gun control was commonplace in the Wild West, too — the very heart of America’s gun culture. We all know the image: a gunslinger walking down Main Street, a gun on each hip, a rifle in his arms, ammo strapped across his chest, a hidden Derringer pistol beneath his pant leg. He’s so loaded down with iron it’s remarkable he can mount his horse.
There’s only one problem with this picture. It’s pure myth.
Frontier towns in the west — places like Deadwood, S.D., and Tombstone, Ariz. — had the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. When residents of Dodge City, Kan., formed their municipal government, what was the very first law they passed? One prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons.
When a visitor arrived in a frontier town, he was required to check his guns with the marshal. The gun owner would receive a token to reclaim the guns when he left town. It’s not much different from how New Yorkers check their coats at a restaurant in winter.
Once Dodge City expanded its laws to bar the carrying of guns openly too, a sign posted on the main street warned, “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited.”
And these laws were enforced. The illegal carrying of a firearm was the second most common basis for arrests in the old west — right behind drunk and disorderly conduct. Gun violence was also rare, and gunfights extraordinary. Frontier towns averaged less than two homicides per year. Turns out there really wasn’t any need to get out of Dodge.
The first major federal gun control laws were passed in the 1930s in response to the mob violence of the Prohibition Era. Invented for use in the trenches of World War I, the Tommy gun — the first easily portable machine gun — quickly became the weapon of choice for Al Capone’s gang and notorious desperadoes like Bonnie and Clyde.
Appearing before Congress, Karl Frederick, the NRA’s president, was asked whether the Second Amendment imposed any limits on gun control. Remarkably, he answered that he had “not given it any study from that point of view.” Indeed, the NRA at that time supported restrictive gun control laws, even drafting and promoting in state after state laws curtailing the concealed carry of firearms.
Today’s NRA files lawsuits and pushes legislatures to overturn these very same laws.
The change in the organization came in the 1970s. Considerable credit for that, surprisingly, belongs to the Black Panther Party. In the late 1960s, civil rights radicals took up arms as part of the “by any means necessary” philosophy. In an often forgotten incident, 30 armed Panthers invaded the California state capital building to protest enactment of new gun laws. This, coupled with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, spurred a wave of gun restrictions. Social order seemed to be breaking down.
Ironically, these laws, which were designed in part to restrict access to guns by black, left-leading, urban radicals sparked a backlash among rural, white conservatives. As gun bans spread from D.C. to Chicago, conservative whites began to worry that the government was coming to take away their guns next. Gun control, they thought, was just another example of failed big government.
Many of those people became single-issue voters. After Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives in 1994 — for the first time in half a century — President Bill Clinton blamed it on the gun control laws he’d successfully pushed through Congress. His agenda on other issues was stymied. Ever since, Democrats have, by and large, stayed away from gun control.
Today there are calls for reauthorization of the federal law barring assault weapons. But even though Obama says he supports the ban and, as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney signed one, those calls are likely to go unheeded. The original assault weapons ban was one of the two laws that sparked the backlash against Clinton.
Is it really any wonder that neither presidential candidate is going to push for it — or, for that matter, any gun control?
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/winkler-the-nra-used-to-support-gun-control-1.3865217
Gene…
I am SORRY if I offended you…. that was NOT my intention…..
Maybe it would be better put by adding that you wish to balance your protection of civil rights of gun ownership, with public safety….
THOUGH it should be a given that people feel that way… it is just not looking like that these days…….
that is what we hear the LEAST from Pro gun advocates….
even here… NOT YOU of course,…. BUT many other Pro Gun people just came here and ripped any idea apart… NOT ONCE offering a possible solution or even an idea….. heck… we have politicians advocating that we arm TEACHERS NOW…. and that we need MORE guns….
and fact is…. MANY times I have pointed out that 3,000 children a year die
from gun shot wounds…
You know what the reply is????
“well, out freedoms have a cost..”
and that is the AVERAGE answer to that number of deaths….. and I will admit… it is getting TIRING….
So…. PLEASE forgive me for insulting you….
Gene,
BTW … you keep confusing me with those who want to remove stuff. I don’t want to remove the Second … I want to put it back where it belongs. I don’t want to pry a hunting rifle or shotgun from a hunter’s hands … though you know I think hunting with a gun is for sissies.
I want strict regulation, licensing, banning gun shows and requiring registry of private sales, banning extended magazines, banning certain types of ammunition, banning folding stocks and bayonet mounts and some large caliber semi-automatic rifles like .50 cal sniper rifles.
And of course you still love me … and I know, deep down in your heart, you love Pelosi.
Oh, and I completely disagree with mespo’s chart and other points but it was useful enough to get the conversation moving.
Back to the theme of America’s foreign policy being a logical extension of domestic policy (since after all the same people make both) and the inextricable interconnectedness of rampage shooting violence directed at American schoolchildren & office workers, just consider this George Carlin piece from 20 years ago:
“Fear breeds irrationality. Irrationality breeds all manner of unintended consequences.” (Gene)
Something Nancy Lanza could testify to if she were still alive.
Gene, yes, the US Dept. of Fear had to take over this town because of the ‘crime’. You have to show them ID anytime they ask or else:
http://www.paragoulddailypress.com/articles/2012/12/15/top_story/doc50cbbb312e241511092932.txt
Gene,
The only point with which I disagree is that that natural right is not found in the Second and no matter how you twist the logic, it won’t be found where it does not exist.
However, we move on for there is much to be done.
Weird news of the night?
Both Lanza and Holmes fathers will testify in the LIBOR scandal trial.
Two mass murderers.
http://www.examiner.com/article/libor-scandal-grows-as-the-fathers-of-two-mass-murderers-were-to-testify
Goodnight to you too. I am tired and have had trouble staying awake today. Going to fold my tent for the evening too. Hope everyone has a good week coming up. Certainly better than the last one. Before I go, I want to share a pipe lament. The Bells of Dunblane was written by Pipe Major Robert Mathieson following the massacre at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996. He wrote it while he was grieving for the murdered children.
OS,
Wow. I just read that delightful exchange from Twitter over at DKos. Once again proving that you don’t have to be smart to play football. A little instant karma might do that imbecile some good. Or not.
Ah, racists!
You’ve almost got to hope they’re sterile.
OS, Thanks, and thanks for the video. I will need to watch it again. Goodnight.
SwM,
The Alabama football player who sent the tweet mentioned in the DKos story has already been thrown off the team and his Twitter account disabled. That was fast!
shano,
“They talked about gun ownership primarily as a function of hunting; the idea of ‘self-defense,’ while always an operative concern, never seemed to be of paramount importance. It was a factor in gun ownership – and for some sizeable minority of gun owners, it was of outsized (or of decisive) importance – but it wasn’t the factor.”
Your experience matches my own. That the attitude has changed is interesting, but ask yourself why that attitude has changed.
Couldn’t be a manufactured culture of inducing fear into the populace, could it? Perhaps by a government trying to strip away as many of your rights as possible in the pursuit of a “War Against Terror” that is as likely to kill you as your own furniture, could it? It couldn’t be a result of the “it bleeds it ledes” corporate media, could it?
Fear is a motivator, but it is a poor motivator. Fear breeds irrationality. Irrationality breeds all manner of unintended consequences.
Obama likely to consider calling for a ban on high-capacity magazines, aides say: http://on.wsj.com/U3vrXp