Tag Archives: Sandy Hook School
Four Step Plan to Prevent Senseless Gun Violence
This really isn’t rocket science; here are my thoughts on helping to prevent another Sandy Hook or Aurora.
Step one – get the right-wing to stop making excuses for needing assault weapons and high capacity magazines – of course if they don’t we’ll just move on to step two without them.
Step two – ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines
Step three – increase funding for school security throughout country, mandate federal standards for security, i.e., doors, windows, armed police officers etc
Step four – increase federal funding for mental health care, or simply fully fund it under the Affordable Care Act.
If the right-wing won’t police its own house – ie, the NRA – then the rest of us will; the Congress and the Tea Party oppose meaningful gun legislation at their own political peril; in case they didn’t notice they didn’t win in November. This isn’t about the adults rights to own whatever thing (gun) they want, personal property rights do not trump another individual’s right to life – as in 20 first grade students slaughtered at Sandy Hook.
Bushmaster myth
The next time a right-wing fringe-type tries to claim the XM-15 Bushmaster isn’t a dangerous assault weapon share the following information:
Comparison between M-16 A2 (standard US Army weapon)/Bushmaster XM-15 (used in Sandy Hook)
Length 39.63 in / 38.25 in
Weight 8 pounds, 13 oz / 8.27 pounds
Gas system Direct Impingement / Direct Impingement
Maximum Range 3,600 meters / 3,534 meters
Maximum Effective Range 550 meters / 550 meters
Muzzle Velocity 3,100 feet per second / 3,260 feet per second
Rate of Fire (Semiauto) 45 rounds per minute / 45 rounds per minute
Rate of Fire (Burst) 90 rounds per minute / N/A
Magazine capacity 30 round magazine / 30 round magazine
Ammunition 5.56 mm / 5.56 mm
Specs were taken from the Army manual for the M-16 A2 and from the Bushmaster manual for the XM-15
The XM-15 is as much an assault weapon as the M-16 A2, and this is the time for serious discussion on gun control, and it’s going to require serious people; if all the right-wing fringe can offer is fantasy comparisons perhaps they should keep their mouths shut; I’ve no more patience for moronic diatribes. If one of those dead first graders was their child or grand-child I don’t think they’d be so flippant.
Time to wake up
Enough with the excuses already; the shooter who murdered 26 people, including 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, didn’t commit this unspeakable crime because there wasn’t prayer in school, or because he was allegedly addicted to “violent” video games. He did it because he was mentally ill and had easy access to semi-automatic weapons.
Did you get that? Let it sink in please. He did it because he was mentally ill and had easy access to semi-automatic weapons.
President Ronald Reagan defunded mental health care in America and President George W. Bush allowed the assault weapons ban to expire – that’s the NRA, uber-conservative legacy that was bequeathed to those 20 first graders at Sandy Hook. Enough with loving guns more than children; enough with claiming to be “pro-life” protecting the fetus in the womb at all cost but allowing innocent lives to be sacrificed on the altar of the second amendment. You don’t need semi-automatic pistols with 30 round clips or AR-15s and AK-47s to defend your home or to hunt with.
The Second Amendment was written to guarantee the “well regulated” arming of a militia, not for gun collecting or target shooting. The Second Amendment isn’t sacrosanct; it wasn’t written on a stone tablet by the finger of God; it was written in the 19th century to help a young fledgling nation protect itself in a world dominated by the military powers of Europe. We no longer defend our nation by citizen armed militias; we do it by a well trained, well armed and well lead professional military, and spare me that you need your weapons to protect yourself and your prosperity from the heavy handed federal government. It’s time to remove the tin foil hats, and face reality. There isn’t going to be a zombie apocalypse, nor an invasion from North Korea, China or Russia, nor is the 101st Airborne Division going to come rolling into small town America to enforce the ranting of a police state.
We need to wake up in America. We need to make mental health care a priority in this country again and fully fund it, and we need to make it illegal to own semi-automatic and automatic pistols and assault weapons. Not one more child will be lost because we won’t face the truth. Not one more child will be lost.
Please sign my petition calling upon Congress and the President to outlaw weapons used in these mass murders. Not one more child.
http://signon.org/sign/not-one-more-child.fb23?source=c.fb&r_by=5958749
No more children
NO MORE CHILDREN WILL BE SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT!
I don’t know how, but this grandfather has had enough. I’m going to start a campaign, movement, whatever it takes, and we’re going to go after the guns. Americans don’t need handguns and we don’t need assault weapons, and clearly the system we have today doesn’t work.
Twenty kindergarten children were murdered today; an entire classroom full of six and seven year olds. The shooter reportedly used two 9mm handguns, one made by Glock and the other by Sig Sauer, and an AR-15-type rifle also was found at the scene.
Spare me the whining about your Second Amendment rights, I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t think the twenty sets of parents, or the forty sets of grandparents care one whit about your right to own an AK-47, AR-15 or semi-automatic pistol; while you’re screaming about your precious gun rights, stop and think about the erased rights of those 20 children to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Their blood and their futures are too high a price for your right to go “target shooting”, to “collect” weapons, or to prepare for whatever post apocalyptic future you’ve dreamed up in your foil encrusted head.
The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They’re our children, grandchildren, students, teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels.
NO MORE CHILDREN WILL BE SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT!
Please sign my petition calling upon Congress and the President to outlaw weapons used in these mass murders. Not one more child.
http://signon.org/sign/not-one-more-child.fb23?source=c.fb&r_by=5958749
The Liberty Tree 