Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
In the weeks since the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the call for more action in controlling military style guns and large capacity magazines has increased, but as of yet, nothing concrete has been done on the national level. In fact, the NRA was recently quoted as suggesting that nothing will be done, once the country gets over the “Connecticut Effect”! “The National Rifle Association will wait until the “Connecticut effect” has subsided to resume its push to weaken the nation’s gun laws, according to a top NRA lobbyist speaking at the NRA’s Wisconsin State Convention this weekend.” Think Progress
I did not realize that anyone ever could “get over” the shameful massacre of 20 small children along with 6 staff members of the school they attended. Is this kind of statement from the NRA just hubris or is it indicative of a disgusting level of ambivalence to the violence wrought upon citizens when semi-automatic guns and large capacity magazines are allowed and allowed in the wrong hands? I know we have discussed the gun control issue many times here, but when I read statements like the one quoted above from a Wisconsin NRA official, my head explodes.
The Think Progress article linked above also discussed further statements made by Wisconsin Lobbyist, Bob Welch, that indicate that he has little or no concern over the violence of that sad day in Newtown, but rather is sad that there has been a delay in the progress of the NRA’s agenda since the Newtown shootings. “Welch went on to bemoan the fact that the public’s focus on Newtown was preventing the NRA from pushing such bills through the legislature, but his remarks soon turned to braggadocio about the NRA’s legislative influence. He relayed an anecdote about how, following the Connecticut shooting, a pro-gun Democrat in the legislature had mentioned his desire to close the gun show loophole. “And I said [to him], ‘no, we’re not going to do that,” Welch boasted. “And so far, nothing’s happened on that.”
WELCH: We have a strong agenda coming up for next year, but of course a lot of that’s going to be delayed as the “Connecticut effect” has to go through the process. […] What’s even more telling is the people who don’t like guns pretty much realize that they can’t do a thing unless they talk to us. After Connecticut I had one of the leading Democrats in the legislature—he was with us most of the time, not all the time—he came to me and said, “Bob, I got all these people in my caucus that really want to ban guns and do all this bad stuff, we gotta give them something. How about we close this gun show loophole? Wouldn’t that be good?” And I said, “no, we’re not going to do that.” And so far, nothing’s happened on that.”
Think Progress
I was glad to read that the NRA’s massive amounts of money donated to politicians may not have as large an impact on the election process that they claim. “The answer is no, because once again, though the NRA may spend a good deal of money in total, it spreads that money to multiple races across the country. In the last four elections, the median NRA House independent expenditure has spent less than $10,000, and the median Senate IE only around $30,000 – numbers too small to have a real impact.
All right, but is the organization spending token amounts on a large group of friendly candidates, but putting its real weight behind a few high-profile races and producing results? Yet again, the answer is no. In the last four elections, the NRA spent over $100,000 on an IE in 22 separate Senate races. The group’s favored candidate won 10 times, and lost 12 times. This mediocre won-lost record, however, tells only part of the story. Let’s take one example, the largest IE the NRA conducted over this period. In 2010, they spent $1.5 million on the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race between Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak. Toomey won by 2 points, but could the NRA claim credit? Toomey’s campaign spent just under $17 million, over twice as much as Sestak’s $7.5 million. The NRA was one of a remarkable 62 outside groups that poured a total of over $28 million into the Pennsylvania race. Put another way, in the NRA’s single largest independent expenditure over this period, the group accounted for less than 3 percent of the money spent in the race.” Think Progress Justice
Maybe the NRA is spinning its wheels because the Newtown shootings finally tipped the scales of public opinion in favor of sane and reasonable gun control measures. I, for one, would hope that is the case. In light of the vast amounts of weapons being purchased since the shootings, and the continued violence, I am not so sure. The latest totals that I have seen show that at least 1822 people have died due to gun violence since the Newtown shootings in December of 2012! Reader Supported News
Does the NRA really have a significant influence on the political process? Will the Newtown shootings force Washington to do something about the gun violence in this country? What do you think? What do you think should be done?
I may be the only person commenting here who has had to use a firearm to defend my life. I didn’t have to fire it; I didn’t even have to point it at the bad guy. He saw it and suddenly had more important business elsewhere. I did not report it to the police because he was long gone, and given the way many cops feel about citizens with guns I believed I would only be making trouble for myself. It happened at one of the most remote highway rest stops in the eastern US, so the cops “always there to protect” were many miles away.
I was lucky I had that little Hungarian police surplus pistol that night. So was my girlfriend – I believe the would-be attacker just wanted to get me out of the way so he could rape/abduct/murder her.
I am not here to debate gun control. As a former Mass. resident, I know it’s useless, but you are entitled to your own opinion. I will simply make a statement: regardless of how YOU may feel about firearms, and regardless of the laws that exist or will be enacted, I will always have one. If the situation warrants, I will carry it concealed even if that is illegal. You may argue that I will be a criminal. That’s fine, I will argue back that I will be alive and protected in a society that has renounced its obligation to protect its citizens. See Warren vs. DC 444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981
If what causes the first bullet to be shot at someone can be accurately understood, such that the first bullet is never shot, it will not matter if there are a quadrillion more bullets in a high-capacity firearm magazine.
Stopping the n+1 bullet allows murdering n people. To make n=0, which I regard as the only useful goal, it is required that accurate enough understanding of what happens to human brains that make some people willing to fire bullet 1.
Once bullet 1 has been fired, the next person to fire a bullet will again fire bullet 1, and this will go on endlessly until what allows, or requires, people to filre bullet 1 is discerned with sufficient accuracy that bullet 1 is not ever again fired.
There are folks who have worked on aspects of the bullet 1 problem. One such person, in my view, was Benjamin Libet (1916-2007), who summarized his life work in “MInd Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness,” Harvard University Press, 2004.
Libet observed that “most people” make a decision unconsciously about half a second before becoming consciously aware of the decision made outside conscious awareness, and also observed that “most” peoples’ conscious awareness reconstructs the temporal aspect of decision-making so that conscious experience is of the decision having been made consciously in spite of such reconstruction being both readily and tangibly demonstrably false.
Whereas people who have developed through the traditionally normative socialization stages of infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood consistently employ mind time as a coping mechanism for attempted reconciliation of consciousness with actual unconscious decision-making, my bioengineering research demonstrates that sufficiently language-delayed autistic people tend to be consciously aware of their decision-making process.
Some few such language-delayed autistic people can actually verbally articulate their decision-making process during the process itself. I find that I am a living example of such an autistic person; I never went through the infant-child transition (aka, the terrible twos) and never developed the unconscious decision-making mind that is typical, in my research findings to date, of about 98 percent of adult age people with whom I have shared my research methodology and results.
Asked by me, “Ever make mistakes?” about 1 in 500 people replies, in effect (in my composite paraphrase), “No, I never make mistakes because I only have learning experiences, and I need to learn what is worth avoiding at least as much as I need to learn what is worth doing.”
The problem I have with “free will” is simple. if my will were truly free, it would be free of any sort of informed and disciplined learning, and it, if unconscious, would freely coerce me into doing things contrary to my conscious will, purpose, and intent.
If, in the manner of Libet’s ,mind time, my consciousness confabulates having made the decision actually made outside my consciousness, I would be vulnerable to succumbing to the neurological-biological absurdity that I have come to regard as the fallacious and severely traumatizing socially conventional notion of guilt.
Only when the process of humans making decisions is fully conscious, as it is with me and with some other autism-adequate people I have known, will it be possible to stop the firing of bullet 1, so I find.
Is that JAMES in LA LA land? I was hoping that you might have had a thought that you could articulate, but no, all you could muster is insult.
A real, genuine idiot’s delight.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/18/1187146/-The-tree-of-liberty Great cartoon……..
Funny to read the gun control crowd comparing the second amendment to owning a car and those that post news links from media operating out of cities like Chicago and New york. Nobody is forcing anyone to own a gun. I have many handguns, semi auto rifles and shotguns. They havent killed me, nor any of my family members or any neighbors.
The supreme court has already ruled that Citizens have the right to protect oneself outside the home. IMO we should right to arm ourselfs with the same weapons as Law Enforcement. If they need them; then so do those citizens that take it upon themselves to want to protect their properties and not rely on the nanny state.
There is a name for what bill mcwilliams desires: anarchy.
That and he laps up the negative attention better than any 3-year old ham ever could.
rafflaw
Yes, really. No DUI laws. And no law against driving while mad, depressed,
talking on a cell phone, texting, listening to music, right-wing blowhards etc.
WOW. Only laws against causing injury, harm, or property damage…ut just for you, i might support a law against driving that scares the bejesus out of
nervous people. Oh, I support wide highways and nickle beer, Too. Any objections — other than Bow Wow Wow?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/us/gun-control-laws-clear-initial-hurdle-in-colorado.html?_r=0 “After hours of debate that lasted well into the evening Colorado’s House of Representatives gave initial approval to legislation requiring backround checks on private gun sales and placing limits on ammunition magazines.” These Colorado measures are being watched nationally.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/14715658-418/chicago-gangs-dont-have-to-go-far-to-buy-guns.html Straw buyers arm the gangs in Chicago due to a loop hole in the law.
rafflaw 1, February 17, 2013 at 5:21 pm
Dredd,
I agree with the goal of demilitarizing the police forces. However, the semi-automatic weapons and large capacity magazines gives them an argument why they need some of the hardware.
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And that raises the value of history … what really happened.
We know who armed up first and why.
Follow the watering down of Posse Comitatus as the police became militarized.
Like General Wesley Clark said, there was a coup.
The government started all this so it is incumbent on them to set the proper example and do like the Bobbies of England.
If it is sincere, the people will do likewise.
It must be getting late. I really do know how to spell perspective! 🙂
Thanks for the perpespective Darren. I would agree with your exigent circumstances example!
the poor. And, the safest drivers are those driving UNinsured vehicles. THINK about it.
~+~
That is actually the opposite of what really is the case out there. Every state in the US requires liability insurance in one form or another. People who drive without insurance are in general the most irresponsible drivers. Often they drive without insurance because they received too many traffic violations and their rates are so high, they do not buy it, further reinforcing the position that they are irresponsible because they choose to drive despite that being illegal.
Nearly all suspended or revoked drivers drive without insurance. People have their licenses suspended or revoked because they are are either habitual traffic offenders or because they do not pay their traffic fines. ( a few are suspended for not paying child or spouse support, but again, irresponsible)
plus, how can it be considered something that should be decriminalized when half of a fatal traffic collisions involve DUI? Just because someone hasn’t YET been killed by a drunk driver doesn’t mean it is not illegal. Otherwise non-traffic crimes such as Reckless Endangerment would not be enforceable since nobody was actually injured.
I have been involved in hundreds of DUI incidents. In all that time I have seen only one incident where a person was legally excused in doing so. In that case it was a legally drunk woman had been feloniously assaulted by her husband who chased her with a weapon. The only way she could get away from him was to jump into her car and drive away because she feared for her life. We did not charge her for DUI due to she having an affirmative defense and there being exigent circumstances. Her huband was later arrested and she was given a ride to a relative’s house. The remainder of the DUI incidents at the very least put others in great jeopardy or at worse innocents were killed.
If there was no deterrant for others to drink & drive, great numbers of people would do so. And if the thinking was out there that someone would not get charged unless a collision happened, 99% of drunks out there would in their drunken bravado and foolishness would belive they are good enough to make it home. Then someone gets hurt (and it is usually not the drunk)
No DUI laws Bill? Really? Wow.
Bill
Would it also be safe to say that you belive, as a sovereign citizen, that the gov’t cannot require you to have a driver license?
Tell that to my daughter, bill. Two of her high school classmates were recently killed by a drunk driver. Their little Mitsubishi was no match for his big Volvo. And he was going the wrong way on the four-lane highway. It was a little late for reckless driving charges. I just wish an officer had been in the area to see him weaving all over the road before he killed two young women.
mespo –
BOTH fall under Reckless or Careless driving.
DUI shouldn’t even be illegal. Causing harm or property damage,YES.
Driving while mad, nope. But these, and other things could perhaps be
considered “enhanced” violations, if the driver is indeed, e.g. intoxicated .
bill:
Or driving on the right-hand side?
bill:
How’s DUI grab you?
Actually, Mespo, imo, only one traffic law is really needed: Reeckless or Careless Driving.
The Constitution gives us the right to own firearms NOT merely because we
NEED them — although some people think we most certainly do need them.
Oh, and regarding cars – so-called safety inspections are no longer needed. They’e a regressive form of taxation that hits the poor. And, the safest drivers are those driving UNinsured vehicles. THINK about it.