Tag Archives: NRA
First New York, now Connecticut …
According to news reports Connecticut lawmakers have announced a deal calling for some of the toughest gun laws in the country following the December mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, including a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the brutal massacre of 20 children and six adults.
The proposed new legislation creates the nation’s first statewide “dangerous weapon offender registry”, requires new registration for existing magazines carrying 10 or more bullets, imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, creates a new “ammunition eligibility certificate,” and extends the state’s assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms stipulating a weapon would need only one of several features in order to be banned and could no longer be bought or sold in the state, while those already legally owned would be grand-fathered in owners will be required to register the weapons with the state; the legislation also addresses mental health issues and school security measures.
“No gun owner will lose their gun,” said House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., a Norwalk Republican. “No gun owner will lose their magazines.”
While states like New York strengthened local gun laws quickly following the attack, momentum has stalled in the United States Congress, whose members have decided it’s better to be the lick spittle’s of the National Rifle Association (NRA) than to protect innocent lives from weapons designed for the battlefield.
Connecticut should be seen as an example for lawmakers elsewhere, said Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., a Brooklyn Democrat.
“In Connecticut, we’ve broken the mold,” he said. “Democrats and Republicans were able to come to an agreement on a strong, comprehensive bill. That is a message that should resound in 49 other states and in Washington, D.C. And the message is: We can get it done here and they should get it done in their respective states and nationally in Congress.”
The proposed legislation will be brought up for a vote this week in the Democratic Party controlled General Assembly, where passage is thought to be all but assured, after which it will be sent to Governor Dannel P. Malloy for signature.
Connecticut’s taking the lead the Federal Government should be taking, and that’s OK; if those who believe the gun industry has acquired too much power, and that it’s past time for sensible gun control can’t convince lawmakers in Washington that 20 butchered first graders is where we, as a nation must draw the line on the Second Amendment can’t convince the members of Congress we’ll take it one state at a time; two down, 48 to go.
NRA Robocalls Newtown residents?
According to news reports some moron at the National Rifle Association thought it was either a good idea, or maybe just funny, to make robocalls to residents of Newtown, Connecticut site of the infamous Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December, and the states two senators were not amused.
- NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre
Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy posted a letter to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre demanding his organization stop making the calls.
Saying the calls “absolutely beyond the pale,” the two Democratic senators went further declaring the calls, which contained political messages attacking gun control, “open a wound that these families are still trying hard to heal.”
“You’d think [the NRA] could have scrubbed the list [of Newtown residents], just to be decent,” Newtown resident Tom Maurath told HuffPost. “Instead, you’re making an unsolicited call with no opt-out that my children could answer.”
Senator Blumenthal also reportedly wrote a blog post about the robocalls for Think Progress, saying, “NRA leadership demonstrated yet again last week just how low they are willing to go in their unconscionable effort to block any and all common sense, life saving gun violence legislation.”
Perhaps the NRA has overplayed its hand and enough people will take this latest affront to common decency as the opportunity to slap the group and its followers with real gun control – but I doubt it, the Democratic leadership in the Senate lacks any such courage.
If Not Now, When?
I’m sitting here wondering what kind of bloody massacre will happen in this country before members of Congress do the right thing?
How many first graders will have to have their bodies ripped into shreds in their classrooms before Congress decides some weapons and magazines should not be generally available?
There are times when I’m ashamed of those who serve in Washington, and this is definitely one of those times.
Shame on Congress, but especially shame on the Democratic leadership for not putting up a fight. Shame on Senator Harry Reid, and the other weak kneed members of the Senate (Democratic and Republican); you’re cowards and don’t deserve the high honor to serve.
If you’re not going to ever fight the tough fights, step down and let someone step up who will, as Lawrence O’Donnell once said, “Some things are worth fighting for, even if you lose.”
NRA’s LaPierre’s claiming the President’s ‘Trying To Take Away’ Americans’ Guns?
According to his appearance, and subsequent spanking, on “FOX News Sunday”, Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is accusing the President of the United States of wanting a universal gun registry, “trying to take away” guns and believing his children deserve security while others do not. The spanking then ensued at the hands of host Chris Wallace.
Wallace begin LaPierre’s comeuppance by asking the NRA “spokes head” to explain – if he could – the NRA’s video accusing President Barack Obama of wanting armed Secret Service Agents for his own children but allegedly opposing armed security for others. Wallace was quick to point out the President’s children face a larger threat than most – if gee, I don’t know? All other American children?
“Tell that to the people at Newtown,” LaPierre brazenly replied attempting to deflect the fact the so-called “right” for private citizens to own the XM-15 assault rifle used in the monstrous massacre of 20 first graders is being protected by his organization.
“Do you really think that the president’s children are the same kind of target as every schoolchild in America?” Wallace asked. “It’s ridiculous, and you know it, sir.”
LaPierre wasn’t able to defend his asinine argument so he attempted to change the subject by claiming while there could be more severe law enforcement against gangs, measures such as regulating certain semi-automatic weapons would have dire consequences. Just one problem Mssr LaPierre, gangs weren’t responsible for any of the mass shootings using assault rifles in America.
“If you limit the American public’s access to semi-automatic technology, you limit their ability to survive,” he weakly mewed. Because we’re likely to be invaded any minute by North Koreans, or perhaps you were referring to the conspiracy theory threat of the federal government coming to throw its citizens into secret prisons?
LaPierre also attempted to prophesy a universal gun registry’s next; a measure, Wallace reminded him, has not been proposed.
“Forgive me, sir, but you take something that is here and you say it’s going to go all the way over there,” Wallace said. “There’s no indication — I mean, I can understand your saying that’s the threat, but there’s nothing that anyone in the administration has said that indicates they’re going to have a universal registry.”
LaPierre’s falling back on the same old tried and true method of the uber-right, fear monger. You don’t need to tell the truth, you don’t need facts on your side, just fear monger. He’s a liar, and sooner or later the majority of Americans, members of the NRA, and hopefully the members of Congress will call him on it; hopefully before anymore of our children are lost.
President has secret strategy to dismantle 2nd Amendment?
The Huffington Post is reporting that the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 has “apparently led to a dramatic increase in the sale of guns and applications for concealed handgun permits. As a result, Obama has been labeled the ‘greatest gun salesman in America,’ by online gun and ammunition retailer Ammo.net.”
But don’t let the title confuse you, it isn’t a compliment, according to the story Ammo.net has said, “President Obama’s perceived hostility towards gun owners has been one of the key factors behind the multi-year financial boom the firearms industry continues to enjoy.”
Due to its good old boy backing – meaning white male conservative Christian rednecks – the National Rifle Association is preparing to (surprise, surprise) oppose the President’s re-election this year.
According to Ammo.net, since the beginning of the President’s term, taxes on the sale of new firearms and ammunition has gone up 48 percent, not due to new federal firearms taxes by-the-way, but to new hoarding of weapons and ammo in fear of a government crack-down, which just goes to show how little most right-wing gun owning nut-jobs understand either our nation’s history or its Constitution. No President can do away with any of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution, it takes an amendment to the Constitution to achieve that you numb nuts.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre is leading the current charge of fear mongering claiming the President is after our guns.
“Lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term,” LaPierre told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC this month.
“We see the president’s strategy crystal clear: Get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.”
LaPierre no doubt has a bunker filled with survival equipment and racks of firearms, ready to defend his 2nd Amendment rights, and he’s also no doubt divined this “conspiracy” theory through his tin foil hat.
The President’s made no, repeat NO, moves against either the 2nd Amendment or the Bill of Rights and contrary to LaPierre’s bizarre theories he’s actually expanded gun rights beyond anything any conservative President’s ever done, including Saint Reagan, signing a measure into law allowing Americans to carry guns inside national parks. And according to Huffington, he’s been criticized by his own party, in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, for not enforcing stricter measures on high-capacity ammunition clips, such as the one used by her shooter.
According to the Post, last year, the President went so far as to write an op-ed for the Arizona Daily Star in which he stated that most gun owners are responsible people.
“I believe that if common sense prevails, we can get beyond wedge issues and stale political debates to find a sensible, intelligent way to make the United States of America a safer, stronger place,” he wrote.
Gun owners need to calm down; do you really think if the President wanted your guns the police and military would just gleefully go along with it? Both have sworn oaths to protect and defend the Constitution, not oaths to this or any other President. Time to grow up and stop fear mongering; I have no doubt LaPierre’s opinions have less to do with the 2nd Amendment however and more to do with his pocket book; fear mongering is good for gun sales, and for kick backs to CEO’s of organizations promoting them.
