Why Gun Control Is So Contentious in the US

[mkm]

Here's an article that popped up about an hour ago discussing the polarizing nature of gun control. What do you think?

http://news.yahoo.com/why-gun-control-contentious-us-194705349.html

Should gun control really be so controversial?
 
"There are people who want to own guns for recreational or self-defense purposes, and on the other side, I don't think anyone wants to see someone walk into a crowded movie theater and kill people," said Art Markman, professor of psychology at the University of Texas. The goal is obvious: protect the former while minimizing the chance of the latter.
 
But history seems to have brought us to a point where the two considerations cannot be reconciled. Here's how it happened.

more at the link

[MikeBjerum]

Barely into the article and I find the first major error that costs them credibility:

"The 1968 Gun Control Act placed an extensive system of federal gun control, for the first time, on ordinary weapons. This marked a fairly large expansion of the federal involvement in gun control,"

Some where along the line we have forgotten about the National Firearms Act of 1934.

[tombogan03884]

^The article doesn't get any better as you go on, here's a gem that is a dead give away of the writers political philosophy.

" Ever since, the NRA has argued that the Second Amendment concerns individual gun ownership, rather than people's right to form armed militias for their common defense, as constitutional law scholars believe the Second Amendment intended."

He's full of crap, only liberal professors advance the BS argument of the "living document" and they only do so when it suits their purpose.
The same elitist a holes would scream bloody murder if you made that argument about "freedom of expression", which is not in the Constitution, but in fact comes from the UN statement of human rights.

[twyacht]

So far, the author should count his blessings regarding militias.....With the multi-MILLIONS of legal gun owners in this country, pray we don't form a "National Restoration Of America" Militia.....and run them all out on a rail....

A "reset" button if you will,.....Think Jefferson.

Complete with tar & feather accoutrements....

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
President Thomas Jefferson

Many don't have the "belly" for it,.....but more and more, it started with a nudge, and we accepted it,....than a push,....and we accepted it,....the next is a shove,.....

and at that point,   some will shove back.

[santahog]

It's contentious because they don't have it yet..
As long as they remember how to use the 1st Amendment, the 2nd will be on defense.
In my mind, the 2nd is for when the 1st fails to secure liberty, from a Jeffersonian/national point of view..

[Sponsor]

[philw]

funny you say that.. 


guess what they have been going on about over here.. 


http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3551573.htm

MARK COLVIN: Australia went through a massive national debate about gun control in 1996, after the Port Arthur massacre. The then-new prime minister, John Howard, pushed the states for comprehensive national reforms, and eventually got them.

A key part of the push to regulate gun ownership, especially semi-automatic assault rifles, was the National Coalition for Gun Control.

It was chaired by an Australian, Rebecca Peters, who later in the '90s went to the United States to play a major part in the gun control lobby there. Then for many years, she was the director of the International Action Network on Small Arms.

Rebecca Peters is back in Australia at the moment, and I asked her first about figures I'd seen showing Americans were actually becoming more hostile to regulating gun ownership.

REBECCA PETERS: It's interesting the thing with figures because it - one thing that was very noticeable in America is that people don't have a very clear idea of what the law us. So, for example, when you ask people do you support gun control? They - a lot of people would say no.

Americans are very averse to the word control particularly. But if you said to them - I mean we did focus groups and surveys and things. If you asked Americans, including American gun owners, would you support a law that required you to have a licence to have a gun? Most of them said yes. So it was - they don't have, they're not opposed to - they don't have a very good understanding of what is meant by gun control I suppose.

They see the gun control as kind of an ideology. Whereas if you talked about the particular measures, to say what do you think about the - since you have to have a licence to drive a car should you also have a licence to have a gun? Most people say yes to that, which is at odds with the other thing so.

MARK COLVIN: Could a politician like Barack Obama take this one on? And if so what could he do?

REBECCA PETERS: Well it's interesting at this moment - I mean we've all been very disappointed with Barack Obama because in his pre-election his big promise was that he was going to bring back the assault weapons ban, which was a law that banned these weapons like the AR-15 that was used in the massacre in the cinema.

MARK COLVIN: This is the same gun that Martin Bryant used in Tasmania?

REBECCA PETERS: Used in Port Arthur, exactly. And that - so Barack Obama, when he was running for election said that he would bring back a ban on these weapons. They had previously been banned and that ban expired during the George Bush administration and Bush decided not to renew it. And so then they became available again.

So Obama had said that he would bring back that ban, but since being elected he's not done anything about it. Mitt Romney, actually, when he was governor in Massachusetts, he presided over a ban on assault weapons. There is a ban on these weapons in Massachusetts brought in under Mitt Romney so he obviously…

MARK COLVIN: Could he do it?

REBECCA PETERS: Well what is interesting now I think is since both of them we know that personally they do support a ban on assault weapons, but somehow because they're caught up in the machinery of the American presidential election, neither one of them has said a word about it. And it seems like they won't.

I mean it would be one of those moments where, if both candidates support it then the gun lobby has nowhere to turn, so it should be possible for them. But the reason they won't is because the Congress itself, the congressional election which is on at the same time as the presidential election, is where the gun lobby will bring its power to bear to try to defeat, particularly Democrats and try to stack up the congress with pro-gun-type Republicans.

So they just feel …

MARK COLVIN: Does that mean it'll never happen? There's always another election, another congressional election, every two years.

REBECCA PETERS: It's true, it's true. It seems as though - it doesn't seem very likely Mark, even though it seems imp…I mean there would have to be a shooting of a very, very, just a really enormous scale.

I mean, remembering that…

MARK COLVIN: But how enormous? I mean they've had children killed, you know, schools…

REBECCA PETERS: Member of congress shot.

MARK COLVIN: …universities I mean…

REBECCA PETERS: Yeah exactly.

MARK COLVIN: …what would it take?

REBECCA PETERS: Well I mean it's helpful to remember, in Port Arthur, when the massacre occurred in Port Arthur there were 35 people were killed on one day. And those people came from all over Australia, so they weren't from just one state.

And at that time the number of people, the number of gun homicides per year in Australia at that time was about between 80 and 100 each year. So that was nearly half of an entire year's gun homicide victims killed in one day in Port Arthur.

And so that's - that gives a sense of how enormous that was for us just in terms of numbers. So the numbers would have to be much larger in America to have that similar an impact. But it just - I mean it must come eventually, it can't be possible that America, which has so many smart people and so many people who love their kids just as much people love their kids in other countries, that they would continue to tolerate this degree of carnage. But I don't see it happening in this election.

The gun laws - the national gun law that they do have in America, which is quite limited, it came in after the murder of John F Kennedy. And so it's possible that if a really, really high-profile person perhaps was a victim; but it's terrible to speculate about that.

MARK COLVIN: Rebecca Peters, gun control activist back in Australia for the moment at any rate.

[tombogan03884]

I notice there is no mention of the fact that Rebecca Peters was picked by George Soros to head the International Action Network on Small Arms. which he funded.
Or that she was fired after nearly 20 years with out even producing a draft of a treaty.

[TAB]

Um bush said he would sign a awb if it made it too his desk.  It just never did.

[MikeBjerum]

Um bush said he would sign a awb if it made it too his desk.  It just never did.

So it doesn't matter does it.  Do you think he had information on the odds it would ever make it to his desk?  Remember when the law sunset and the anti's tied it to something they were sure the majority wanted?  They passed on a pet project to keep the ban extension from passing and moving to the President's desk.

My fear is that Pres. Obama has a history of supporting anti-gun measures, Mrs. Clinton has begged for stiffer rules than her hubby pushed, and Gov. Romney has shown that he doesn't get it either.

[tombogan03884]

So it doesn't matter does it.  Do you think he had information on the odds it would ever make it to his desk?  Remember when the law sunset and the anti's tied it to something they were sure the majority wanted?  They passed on a pet project to keep the ban extension from passing and moving to the President's desk.

My fear is that Pres. Obama has a history of supporting anti-gun measures, Mrs. Clinton has begged for stiffer rules than her hubby pushed, and Gov. Romney has shown that he doesn't get it either.

Actually you have shown you did not do your home work on this.
Romney had a veto proof Dem majority in the State legislature. (that also over ruled his annual attempts at tax reduction )
But he still managed to block several of the more objectionable aspects the dems were after and clarified in favor of gun owners some ambiguities of the then existing state laws.

Um bush said he would sign a awb if it made it too his desk.  It just never did.

NEWS FLASH
Bush is not involved in this election
You sound similar to those dips who voted for BO because they hated Bush, he wasn't in that election either.