“We the people” affirm that the government of the United
States exists to serve it citizens.” Written in 1787 and ratified in 1788 and
in operation since 1789 is the constitution of the United States.
The second amendment to the United States constitution is
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. On
December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the
Constitution was adopted having been ratified by three- fourths of the United
States.
Now what? Weapons have changed along with the minds of
people who own them. I am all for individual rights. What would the founding
fathers of this country say about this right to bear arms and the effect it is having on
society in modern times? The right to bear arms was to protect citizens
allowing citizens to bear arms, self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the
civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state.
Thanks WikipediA
Now what? Everyone should be able to own a flint lock musket like the one we had over the book case in our family home for years. In 1790 the only
guns available to citizens was this type of long rifle.
You were not able then to mail order a high powered rifle
the Carcano Model 91/38 that killed John F. Kennedy that was purchased for 19.95
plus shipping. Robert Kennedy was killed by a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet
revolver. A Remington 30-06 rifle killed
Martin Luther King Jr. John Lennon was shot in the back with a Charter Arms .38
caliber pistol. All were killed by deranged gunmen with access to guns.
Does anyone have any ideas about what to do about gun
violence in America? I thought maybe we should just keep the American flag at
half-staff and raise it only once a year maybe on Independence Day. It seems as if every other week we have another senseless tragedy take place. Our political leaders, religious leaders and other prominent
figures in society have been gunned down over the last half century. If this
has not brought about an attempt to deal with the plague of gun violence what
ever will. Has Pandora’s Box been opened?
Now movie theaters
class rooms of children people walking on the street, drive by shootings. The
list goes on and these are just what we hear about in the news. What can we do, anything? I could not continue with this day without airing my thought and
frustrations. The gift of life taken from so many people.
It would seem as if now the citizens of the United States need protection from the second amendment to the constitution - the bill of rights, to live not in fear of
getting shot point blank in the back of the head while you are watching a movie
comedy with your boyfriend. At school, on the playground, on the street, in a
restaurant, while you worship in church. Guns in the wrong hands is a very
dangerous thing that ruins and ends innocent lives.
In the United
States gun violence results in thousands of deaths and thousands more injuries
annually. The ownership and control of guns are among the most widely
debated issues in the country. In 2010, according to the facts, 67% of all homicides in
the U.S. were conducted using a firearm.
According to the FBI, in
2012, there were 8,855 total firearm-related homicides in the US, with 6,371 of
those attributed to handguns. 61% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are
suicides. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078
firearm-related homicides in the U.S. In 2010, 358 murders were reported
involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving handgun;
another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. The statistics are staggering.
Gun violence is most common in poor urban areas and
frequently associated with gang violence, often involving male juveniles or
young adult males. Although mass shootings have been covered extensively
in the media, mass shootings account for a small fraction of gun-related
deaths and the frequency of these events had steadily declined between
1994 and 2007. Between 2007 and 2013, however, the rate of active shooter
incidents per year in the US has increased. Hand guns figured in the many
mass shootings in America were committed by assailants armed with multiple
weapons.
In 2009 estimated there were 310 million firearms in the
U.S., not including weapons owned by the military. 114 million of these were
handguns, 110 million were rifles, and 86 million were shotguns. In that
same year, the Census bureau stated the population of people in the U.S. at 306
million.
President Obama pointed out the other day in an interview
the number of Americans killed by gun violence opposed to terrorism. I Googled
gun deaths in America for 2014 was 12,557 with 51,687 incidents. In 2014 According to the Huffington Post of the 17,891
deaths from terrorism last year, 19 were Americans. What can we do about this
constant assault on the lives of innocent people and our ability to enjoy our freedom?
Can we do anything ? Pray? Write your congressman? Anything? Or nothing, I wrote this after the last shooting in Louisiana since a few news programs have addressed the issue. And then again the subject goes silent until the next time it happens.
One of the most intelligent people on TV, CNN's Fareed Zakaria's GPS had a segments on this subject of gun violence. He has aired information most recently a couple of weeks ago. And before this last episode a similar program aired a couple of years prior to his latest. Here is a transcript from that show;
From; FAREED ZAKARIA GPS
Since 9/11 America has responded aggressively to the danger of terrorism. Taking extraordinary measures, invading two countries, launching military operations and many others, and spending over $800 billion on homeland security.
Americans have accepted an unprecedented expansion of government powers and invasions of their privacy to prevent attacks. Since 9/11 74 people have been killed in America by terrorists according to "New America." And calculating using CDC data in the same period, over 150,000 Americans have been killed in gun homicides.
And to tackle that problem, we have done nothing. Our attitude seems to be one of fatalism. Another day, another mass shooting, which is almost literally true. The Web site ShootingTracker.com documents that in the first 207 days of 2015 America had 207 mass shootings. After one of these takes place now, everyone goes through a ritual of shock and horror and then moves on, aware that nothing will change, accepting that this is just one of those quirks of American life. But it is 150,000 deaths. That's almost three Vietnam's.
ZAKARIA: But it makes little sense to focus on mental health. Look at these statistics for the United States and other countries provided by gunpolicy.org which uses official data. America has a gun homicide rate that's at least a dozen times higher than those of most other industrialized countries. It is 50 times higher than Germany's, for example. We don't have 50 times as many mentally disturbed people as Germany does. But we do have many, many, many more guns.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry's solution is to loosen the few restrictions on guns that do exist so that in the Lafayette movie theater other patrons would have been armed and could have shot the gunman.
The notion that the solution, in dark, crowded movie theaters, is a mass shootout is so dangerous that frankly it should rule Perry out as a serious candidate.
When asked about such proposals after the last mass shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, William Bratton, who has been police chief in three major American cities, dismissed the notion entirely. To him the solution is obvious. "We need some sanity in our gun laws. Gun control can reduce these numbers of incidents," he told CNN.
We have done the opposite. We have actually loosened restraints on the ability and ease with which people can buy, own and carry guns. This is partly because, in June 2008, the Supreme Court broke with 200 years of precedent and in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia created an individual right to gun ownership that has made common sense regulation of guns much harder.
In his powerful dissent in that case, Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out that Scalia's opinion was an act of extreme judicial activism that for two centuries federal courts have recognized that the government had the power to regulate the sale of firearms and that the Supreme Court in particular had for at least seven decades consistently ruled in this way. It is not an act of fate that has caused 150,000 Americans to die over the last 15 years. It is a product of laws, court decisions, lobbying and pandering politicians. And we can change it.
After last week's incident in Lafayette, Louisiana, the governor of the state and presidential candidate, Bobby Jindal, pointed his finger at what has now become the standard explanation for these events. Three days after the tragedy he said on "Face the Nation" -- GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every time this happens it seems like the person has a history of mental illness.
" We do need protection from people who mistakenly believe the 2nd amendment paves an unrestricted highway to unlimited gun ownership. Why should guns be singled out for this unrestrained dignity ? Let us stop registering cars, pick-ups, tractor trailers, let us rip from the ground all speed limit signs, no passing signs, slow down construction zone signs. Why should we have are freedoms restricted when we get behind the wheel by an overbearing , heavy-handed government bureaucracy dedicated to squeezing the last bit of freedom from the American Way of life ? If guns are to be unrestricted then so should our highways be .Get rid of every state DMV in the nation, fire all traffic cops, quit regulating tractor trailers, let Freedom run free from Interstates 5 to 95, from 8 to 94. Everything will get better once people get used to the spike in traffic deaths. Grandpa might have to keep it in the garage or get killed, but what the hell Freedom isn't Free, as long as it is someone else paying the price for it." Mark Winkel
