Americans And Gun Control
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-18/americans-and-gun-control
The horror and outrage in the aftermath of last week's mass shootings in Connecticut are galvanizing new efforts to ban assault weapons. Diane and her guests discuss Americans and gun control.
Guests
James Fallows
national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine.
Laura Meckler
White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
Adam Winkler
law professor at the UCLA and author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."
Congressman John Yarmuth
U.S. Representative from Kentucky's 3rd Congressional District.
Comments
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I hear Diane and her pro-gun control guests talk about including the NRA in formulating policy, but she's apparently unwilling even to allow a pro-gun rights advocate appear on her show. Both today and yesterday all I heard were several people all articulating the same point of view.
These are all great suggestions. I particularly agree with point three. It's time for gun rights to be tempered by some gun responsibility. All the points are great though.
(This is in response to TedMathias. Why doesn't the reply button put the reply directly under the comment replied to?)
how about terrorism?
We should not dismiss the idea of gun buyback programs. The program in Australia that you all mentioned earlier was highly successful. They managed to remove about 1/5 of the guns from the country. That is a huge 20% decrease! Not small!
Many of the people (criminals in particular) who we do not want to have these weapons are motivated by money, so offering substantial sums for these weapons and magazines could do a lot.
Today James Fallows (and some other guests) continue the long tradition of liberals and non-gun owners making themselves look dumber than they are when taking about gun control issues. Thankfully that's unusual for James, who usually is pretty spot on.
It should be noted that today's hunting rifle (most common are 30-06 bolt action long guns) was yesterday's assault rifle. The 30-06 caliber was made famous by the military's use of the caliber in many of their weapons in the first half of the 20th century. The infantryman's weapon in WW2 was usually a 30-06 rifle. Today no one would question the use of this caliber for hunting although it took millions of lives in the world wars - it was lethal.
The modern 'assault rifle' uses the .223 caliber, which like the 30-06 was developed largely by the military to kill people. Most folks have never hunted with the .223 caliber, except for smaller game and 'varmints' (ground hogs, etc.) and it isn't good for deer or larger game as it doesn't kill them fast enough. However, the platform of the 'AR' style rifle is very conducive to hunting for a couple of reasons. It's short, making it easier to carry in heavier brush applications (bear, elk country); it's lighter, meaning a hunter can carry it for longer periods of time - a very important characteristic of any good hunting weapon. And while lighter weapons usually have a more substantial 'kick' (simple physics really), the AR style has gotten around a huge kick by several technical improvements. All of these facts have lead more and more hunters to adopt the platform for their needs, and leave their older weapons behind. The platform has been modified to use larger calibers, more typical for hunting deer and large game, and it works very well for many hunters. In fact, many would say that the future of hunting will largely be with an AR style platform in the coming decades.
Everyone keeps saying that no legislation would have prevented this incident. What about locks on the gun triggers????? Only the owner (the mother) would have been able to use the weapon. At least she took training and I assume had to qualify as a sane person.
Nobody is talking about making gun owners responsible. From manufacturers to stores to individuals selling at shows or to otherwise, no one is talking about responsibility.
Pancake Rankin wrote: "nihilistic"
Nihilist, that is you, you don't see that?
1a : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless b : a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths
2a : a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility
Federal Hunting regulations for water fowl limit the shotgun capacity to three shells. Ohio regulations for hunting deer limit shotgun capacity to three shells. So when hunting deer or ducks you can only have a magazine capacity of three shells but when hunting people there is no magazine capacity limit.
Elena H.- Because many employments in the USA are predatory in nature nihilism has become vocational training in service to a pro-corporate mentality. People laughed at Ward Churchill when he cited Hannah Ahrendt's work and described increasing "banal evil"(9/11 Chickens Coming Home to Roost). His work was clumsy and provocative but I understood his insight. Gun violence and uncontrolled weapons of mass death are symptoms of a dog eat dog economy crowding out civilization: wealth before life. Keep rejecting and criticizing porn violence: You're doing the right thing.
I received a purchase permit and legally purchased a semi-automatic handgun for personal protection. I went through the CCW class (permit required to carry a concealed weapon program. The police officer that co-taught the class told us that if we did shoot and kill a person, even if we were in our rights to do so, we WOULD be arrested, we would spend a lot of time in jail. We would spend a lot of money in the courts defending our self in court. Probably lose everything we own defending ourselves or in the lawsuits from the surviving family of the person we killed. I would bet many of the people encouraged to buy and buying all of these guns knew this, and understand just what they were getting into, they might not decide to buy one at all.
I sold my gun and did not get the permit.
May I suggest having every single gun be registered to a user and all guns should have insurance to cover damages caused - similar to car insurance. The owner is responsible for all damages caused by the gun irrespective of who caused the damage(no stolen gun, gave it to my brother-in- law excuse). The insurance companies can collect data on risk and set premium).
The NRA will NOT comment. Did you hear that?
In Britain, one of the results of the Dunblane shooting was to restrict the supply of bullets.
In my opinion, it will not be possible to get effective national gun conrol legislation. But would it be possible to make guns, manufacturers, and sellers fully liable for the misuse of their product? This exposure to lawsuit and monetary loss would prompt the industry to devise its own controls and regulations to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
-Ron Ashcroft, Ann Arbor Michigan
At the very least one should be required to own a safe and store their guns in one if they wish to own a gun. There are safes available that give an owner quick access in case of
an emergency to protect one's home.
In Texas I can go to a gun show and buy a gun from an individual and bypass any background
check. Access to guns of any kind is a big part of the problem.
Couple that with the practically nonexistent mental healthcare access and you have what we
experience in the United States.
In production-
All You Need Is Kill (2014)
Cruise, Blunt, Paxton et al.
If you want to check out the violent video games you don´t need to actually play them. Youtube is full of recordings. Don´t forget to check out the comments.
Diane
Except for a ban on miltary style assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and armor piercing bullets, with over 300M gun in the U.S., it is really to late for meanful gun control. However, we can and should, immediately restrict access to ammunitions! After all, what is ammunition but an explosive material and we control access to all kinds of explosive materials. The U.S. take more care in dispensing antibiotics and RX medicine than deadly guns and ammunitions. Without ammunition, most guns would be rendered useless. While gun violence in the U.S. is a complicated problem and will require a multi-facited approach to solve, including better education and menthal health care, gun and ammunition control would go a long way to help solve this problem. Thanks for your show.
Gary Colton
Kensington, MD
As you speak, there is an apparent Colo. murder-suicide. It really seems there will be no way to control guns. I'm not a hunter and I understand it. But hunting humans needs to stop.
I, for one, would contribute to a fund whose sole purpose would be to give to any congressperson/senator an amount equal to what the NRA contributed to their last campaign id they agreed to not accept and money from the NRA.
Sort of bribery, but I think a lot of politicians would be happy to be free of the NRA.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Read the words and ask yourself honestly what they mean. Would the founding fathers have written the same words today? They were amazingly foresighted in the timeless nature of most of the text of the Bill of Rights. In a time of muzzle loading muskets, did they envision hand carried weapons with capabilities of those available today? Did they envision permanent standing and reserve military forces of the magnitude we currently have? Where do/should we draw a line, if at all, with respect to rate of fire, caliber, weapon type, etc? If so/not, what is the reason for/against drawing that line? Should I be able to buy a tank? A surface to air missile? A rocket propelled grenade capable of penetrating 2 ft of steel and concrete? A small nuclear weapon, perhaps? These are all "arms". If I am NOT allowed to own them, is that not "infringement" of my right to "keep and bear" those arms? In the hands of a sane, responsible citizen none of these would present a clear and present danger to anyone. Something to think about.
I see this whole debate as ridiculous. Assault weapons? You could have done exactly the same amount of damage in the same amount of time with the semi-auto pistols he had. Why spend so much time on ineffective bans that do not solve the problem. We need to limit all semi-automatic firearms - whether rifle, pistol or shotgun.
THX- Get help for your porn-violence addiction before you act out.
I think your posts illustrate nihilism as described by Stanley Kubrick in "Clockwork Orange." I was the victim of a violent gun crime 20 years ago and I see you as resembling my attackers. My recovery has given me insight. Your posturing on this blog only makes you sicker. Go get some fresh air (not Terry Gross).
It doesn't matter if I have a 30 round assault rifle or a 5 round pistol, if I can preload magazines I can still carry out a mass shooting. Get rid of all these magazine fed guns or you do nothing to fix the problem
For those who say that mental illness is a common denominator in these murders you had better be ready to say meds are too. People throw "mental health" out there as a one size fits all cure-all. Can we drill down to find out just what is meant by mental health? Aren’t we really talking about psychotropic drugs?
From what I've been reading, public spending for mental health IN THIS CASE would not have made a difference because it seems that for this family, money was not an issue. So, let's not just say "mental health" as if "mental health" means the same to every single person.
"A study by Auburn University found that stigma is increased if people think you have a mental illness caused by a biochemical imbalance as opposed to a mental illness resulting from understandable events in a person's life. People treat you harsher if they think you have a biochemical imbalance of the brain. They think they are doing it "for your own good." People include parents, even the most well-intentioned and kind ones. Stigma practiced by parents increases feelings of isolation and anxiety in the child.
"The biochemical model is an essentially a model that robs people of hope. It is run by the medical profession.."
This is from a woman who writes a blog about a relative who's been diagnosed with schizophrenia
"I`m hearing from some,we need guns to overthrow the government."
Who, Clifford?
"This really confounds me,because these same folks voted in the T-Party extremists."
No, people who want to overthrow the government are people like Bill Ayres, who actually tried. I doubt he voted for "T-Party extremists" (as if such a thing existed).
"This group is dedicated to NOT having a working government. Dozens of anti-American extremists groups vow to "PRIMARY" any politician(s) who dares to work to make our government function."
No. TEA Party stands for Taxed Enough Already. Tea Party groups will "primary" individuals who stand for higher taxes and bigger government, not any government. Tea Party conservatives recognize a proper Constitutional role of government, but think that it should be limited to that.
I say all this, not because I think I will change your mind or convince you of anything. Your body of posts, as well as a few others here, suggests that your mind is made up that the "T-Party" wants to destroy American and they're using Rush Limbaugh to rally the troops. That is far-left raving and nothing more. There's simply nothing to it, except that you don't like the message of people like Rush Limbaugh or the Tea Party and don't know how to express a counter-argument. But, I post it for the consideration of others to put your views in perspective.
Similar to the hopelessness that the biochemical model represents, is the point of view that we cannot do anything about the guns in circulation now. WE MOST CERTAINLY CAN! I don't know why anyone won't say that if you act now, you won't see a result, necessarily, tomorrow or next year or maybe five years down the road. The damage we have been doing with our chronic immaturity is such that it will take longer than that, but WE CAN DO IT. In 20 years, we can make HUGE strides to eradicating gun violence.
Once these dinosaurs who don't believe global warming exists, and don't want to raise taxes, and who don't believe guns kill people start to go extinct, maybe progress is somewhere in our future.
Pancake Rankin wrote: "I was the victim"
and now the permanent victim.
THX 1138: Thanks for bringing some sanity and clarity to the discussion. NPR-ites often make themselves look foolish when discussing guns. Today was largely no different. As the UCLA prof said on the show - when liberals craft gun laws, they often get it all wrong. And the show today shows why that was the case.
Pro gun rights activists are wise to keep a low profile for the time being. The emotional outrage of the left must be allowed to run it's course, it's self contained irrationality will in the end do it in.