Max Boot, foreign policy expert, wrote this article in the Washington Post about the NRA’s devilish distortion of the Second Amendment:
He begins:
“In 1791, when the Second Amendment was adopted, the state-of-the-art firearm was a flintlock musket firing paper cartridges loaded with gunpowder and a lead ball. Given the laborious loading procedures, a skilled soldier could fire at most two or three shots a minute. The smoothbore flintlock lacked both stopping power and accuracy; hence the need for lines of soldiers to fire from point-blank range at each other.
“Nikolas Cruz did not come to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., toting a musket. Police say he came with an AR-15 rifle, which typically comes equipped with 30-round magazines and can easily fire 45 rounds per minute. And it fires not lead balls but .223 rounds that at close range could make the head of a Viet Cong soldier “explode” or turn his torso into “one big hole.”
“Little wonder that the AR-15 and its variants have become the weapon of choice for mass shooters. It was employed not only allegedly by Cruz but also (among other weapons) by Adam Lanza, who used it to kill 27 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School; by James Holmes to kill 12 people in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater; by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik to kill 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif.; by Devin Patrick Kelley to kill 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex.; and by Stephen Paddock, who used a modified version which allowed near-automatic rates of fire, to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Three of these shootings — Sutherland Springs, Las Vegas and Parkland — have all occurred in the past five months. In other words, the danger is growing.
“No other country experiences this kind of terror on an ongoing basis — save places such as Afghanistan and Syria that are actually at war. The United States has 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but, according to a University of Alabama researcher , between 1966 and 2012 it had 31 percent of all gunmen involved in mass shootings. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Americans own 48 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns, far more per capita than any other country. (Yemen is No. 2 but lags far behind.)
“It simply beggars the imagination that Republicans, in thrall to the National Rifle Association, continue to insist there is no relationship between gun ownership and gun crime. Instead of effective regulations, they offer “thoughts and prayers,” as if mass shootings were acts of God like earthquakes and hurricanes that mere mortals are powerless to prevent. This was Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R.-La.) after the Las Vegas shooting: “I just hate to see this issue politicized. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but they do in this world, and what happened in Las Vegas was terrible. But we can’t legislate away every problem in the world.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We can try as we might, but nothing will change until someone walks into a private school and shoots down a bunch of kids and 1 happens to be the child of a politician who accepts big money from the NRA. I am not suggesting that someone do this and I’m not advocating for it to happen…I’m just saying that’s when it will become an issue. Bad things DO happen to good people, but when there is a way to stop this madness from happening over and over again, it is the job of the government to take a stand and do something. Unfortunately, greed rules. Our politicians are beholden to the money that keeps them in office making the rules that keep them rich and that means more gun deaths, more OD’s, lack of health insurance, poverty etc. Makes me wish we had moved out of the country when we had the chance a few years ago. My gosh, why would anyone want to immigrate to the US with all the ills that we have?
You make a valid point and it underscores how many, if not most, legislators and policymakers misunderstand their most fundamental responsibilities. If they only make decisions based on their personal experience, they will never be competent at doing their jobs. The point of being a representative of the people is to understand those issues with which they have NO personal experience. It is their duty to learn, legislate and make policies to better the lives of the people they represent, not the ones with whom they identify.
I remember venting and getting dirty looks at a cancer coalition meeting, when George W. Bush’s administration started to ignore medical research spending (which was also neglected by Barack Obama) that it would take Laura Bush being diagnosed with cancer before they took it seriously again (interestingly, funding for each Department of Defense medical research program, which can be earmarked, can be traced back to congressional patrons who had personal experience with a particular disease).
The same happened when Rob Portman’s son came out; all of a sudden Portman changed his stance on gay rights. Even climate change deniers base their views on sticking their heads out of the window and conflating their personal experience with climate science. Of course, with guns it can be different as we see with Steve Scalise’s (non) response to the gun violence he experienced. All of us can cite examples like these.
I think you are right, it will take a mass shooting at a well-known but unnamed private school in Washington, DC before they get it.
The gun lobby makes huge donations to a few Democrats and many Republicans. This is why we cannot get common sense gun laws passed. As with “reform” too many representatives represent the interests of a third party like the NRA rather than their constituents. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/gun-lobbying-spending-in-america-congress/
It’s not just the donations but the “grass roots” political actions of hard core supporters and also lobbyists that form the core of NRA power. The can easily run a candidate against anyone who opposes them, that threat works quite as well as money itself does.
The NRA contributes millions to members of Congress. NO to the NRA!
I am aware of the second Amendment: 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.
But I am also mindful of the Supreme Court’s 2008 Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller which did not authorize “anything goes.”
This, from the majority opinion, pp. 54 and 55, written by the late (conservative) Justice Antonin Scalia:
“It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.
Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said… that the sorts of weapons protected in the 2nd Amendment were those ‘in common use at the time’. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historic tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons. ‘ ” Source http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/the-supreme-court-ruling-on-the-2nd-amendment-did-not-grant-an-unlimited-right-to-own-guns :
The “historic tradition of dangerous and unusual weapons” protected at the time the Second Amendment was written included pistols and muskets. In that era, the feats performed by a musket in the hands of a skilled shooter depended in large measure on skill of the welder.
According to historians, a “typical Revolutionary-era musket” had a one-round magazine capacity, and it could fire around three effective rounds per minute with a maximum accuracy range of about 50 meters (half the length of a football field).
In contrast, a “typical modern-day AR-15,” has a magazine capacity of 30 rounds, an effective fire rate of 45 rounds a minute, and an accuracy range of 550 meters (about three football fields). On top of not having sights, muskets had smooth bore barrels, which made their projectiles less stable in flight than those fired from modern rifles. allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/the-inaccuracy-of-muskets
NRA and supporters of unrestricted access to assault weapons are basically thumbing their noses at the rule of law.
Basically, Libertarians are always thumbing their noses at the rule of law when it restricts their “freedom”….never mind the freedom of the majority. If these Libertarian types want a different system, why don’t they buy themselves an island somewhere and form their own society? That won’t happen because they KNOW it will become Lord of the Flies…with guns! Lord of the Flies is good enough for the majority of us stupid people living here and paying taxes so that the 1% can have their way and their money.
Conservatives often answer gun violence by supporting more, not fewer, guns. Alabama is proposing arming teachers. Teachers don’t have enough to do! This would surely result in more children figuring out a way to get their hands on guns. It’s a crazy proposal.
I admit, that I am aghast at the thought of a kindergarten teacher having to strap on a .38 special onto her hip, before she passes out the crayons. Absurd!
A .38 wouldn’t be much good against an AR-15
It would also be overkill to arm 3.5 million teachers working out of about 98k public schools spread across the U.S.
For instance, just in 2017, there were 9 incidents (school shootings) with 15 killed and 26 wounded — 9 schools out of about 98,000.
That means in 2017, alone, the odds of being in a school where a shooting took place was 0.0009 percent.
So far in 2018, there have been 8 incidents to date (with more than 10 months to go) with 20 killed and 35 wounded. The odds to date of being in the wrong school at the wrong time are 0.008-percent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings_in_the_United_States
But I’m sure the NRA and the firearms industry would love it if 3.5 million teachers were forced by legislation to arm up. Would that legislation require the teachers to buy their own weapons or the taxpayers from public dollars?
After all, I read that sales are way down for the weapons industry now that Trump is in the White House and the GOP controls all three branches of the federal government because the NRA and weapons industry can’t lie and scare people that Obama and the Democrats are going to take away their weapons anymore.
Q A .38 wouldn’t be much good against an AR-15 END Q
You are mistaken. I have fired both of these weapons. In a closed environment, like a school, a handgun is far preferable to a rifle.
In hallways, and small rooms, a handgun is more easily aimed, and fired. It is much more easy to manipulate.
A firearm is a tool. You should use the right tool for the job. You do not use a wrench to hammer a nail, and you do not use a hammer to turn a screw.
Security guards for banks, airports, etc. almost always perform their duties with a handgun, rather than a rifle.
Have you ever fired a weapon in your life?
I had weapons training, Charles, when my then-husband worked up in the public sector and his life was threatened. I was trained at a police shooting range.
If it were up to me, no one would have weapons other than military and police, and hunters would be able to buy only single shot rifles.
Q If it were up to me, no one would have weapons other than military and police, and hunters would be able to buy only single shot rifles. END Q
Ok, police, military and hunters may have weapons. How about security guards at banks? Bodyguards for celebrities? Target shooters? Collectors of antique weapons, like muskets/flintlocks?
And what about the 180 +million firearms already in circulation? Would you favor a total buy-back?
Charles,
Australia is a good example. It is very, very hard to get a gun license in Australia. They have had no mass shootings since 1996, after the Port Arthur massacre. Why don’t you read what happened at Port Arthur?
I’ve never been a fan of Max Boot. His modus operandi, as is evident in this piece, is to cobble together disparate facts without weaving them together and claim it is an argument. After the first paragraph, each one of the points he makes is accurate, but it falls apart as a coherent narrative. It’s the cutting and pasting the notes of research assistants. But he gets it completely wrong in the first paragraph.
The 2nd amendment is not about the nature of firepower. And it is most certainly not about the right to hunt nor to give citizens the right to rebel against their government when they feel oppressed. I will peat and repeat: the 2nd amendment is about the protection and preservation of the union, nothing more, nothing less. The framers feared the power a standing army would have on the pursestrings of the nation and because they believed it could become an institution to support and protect tyranny. They wanted citizens to have arms so that they could be called up to serve in militias in case the union was threatened by foreign or domestically organized (Aaron Burr being an example) enemies. If they had access to automatic weapons that could effectively counter the muskets of invaders, they would have been more enthused about the 2nd amendment because it would have made militias more effective and be called up for shorter durations. The experience of the War of 1812 changed the mindset about standing armies. Much like the inadvertent introduction of invasive species into a particular ecosystem, they would likely not have foreseen unintended consequences of the 2nd amendment that we know so well. But they were smart enough to know that they weren’t infallible and therefore created the Supreme Court and systems of checks and balances. We have never learned how to used them with the 2nd amendment.
The reason we should outlaw these weapons of mass destruction has nothing to with the fact that only muskets existed when the 2nd amendment was written and ratified. It has everything to with “the security of a free state.” That security includes the right to not have to live in fear of our neighbors; it’s not just about foreign invaders. And as other civilized countries in the world have proven, regulating firearms does nothing to infringe on the rights of people to bear arms responsibly, so those of you who fear that you won’t be able to hunt should excise that red herring from your justification to not touch the 2nd amendment.
Clearly, the 2nd Amendment was designed to allow Americans to own a firearm to protect themselves at a time when more than 90 percent of the 3.5 million population of the colonies lived in remote rural areas without the protection of police or military. Firearms were also used to hunt wild game for meat to eat since there were no supermarkets on every corner with packaged meat.
Now, thanks to all the nut cases that can easily buy firearms, the rest of us probably need at least a shotgun at home to protect our homes and family from them.
But what about victims like Christina Grimmie, a popular rising singing star that was shot dead whiles signing autographs after a concert in Orlando, Florida.
Yes, that Florida, Jeb Bushland, where everyone is a target for crazy haters.
“It was a two-gunned stranger — possibly a deranged fan — who murdered ‘The Voice’ singer and YouTube star Christina Grimmie as she signed autographs after concert in Orlando after a Friday night concert.
“Police said Grimmie, 22, did not know the 27-year-old gunman who opened fire as the pretty pop belter signed autographs.”
https://nypost.com/2016/06/11/ex-voice-contestant-shot-after-performing-concert-cops/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country
At this point, I hate the 2nd Amendment, would love to see it repealed and sent to hell in some far away alternate universe. Over and over again, after each and every massacre, the 2nd Amendment is used as a verbal weapon/shibboleth to abort any sensible gun legislation in its tracks. We can’t even have a discussion (on the legislative level) about possible solutions to this problem. “Oh, we can’t ban semi-automatic rifles because it infringes on my 2nd amendment rights.” [Profanity] your 2nd Amendment rights, what about my right to live, what about the rights of school children to live or not to be maimed and crippled for life.
Maybe, “we can’t legislate away every problem in the world.” But, the legislation did end slavery, child labor, poisoning air and drinking water, to name a few “problems.” Legislation made theft, rape, and murder illegal. Laws may not end all deplorable behavior, but it sure can limit it. That’s was laws are for.
Other than wanting to promote gun sales, why should the so-called right of a few folks to own an assault right trump the right of all of us to stay alive?
We must tell every politician: If you accept a penny from the NRA, we will not vote for you.
School shootings were an ongoing discussion topic for the Atlanta Area Deming Study Group back during my six years as president of the group and when our programming was dedicated to Deming applied to improving public education systems, especially Atlanta’s when Beverly Hall was superintendent. Hall made it easy for one to not delude oneself as to what “fool’s errand” means.
Anyway, by looking at school shootings through the composite lens known as Deming’s “System of Profound Knowledge,” the study group observed and advised that…
From 1 Feb 1993 through 19 May 1998, the instantaneous yearly rate of school shootings averaged 7.9 and was predictable within the limits zero and 30.0. Up until the 19 May 1998 incident, it was reliably predictable that a school shooting would occur approximately every 46 days and, given one shooting, the next one could occur as early as 12 days later and the incident would be not unusual in terms of rate of occurrence. Then on 21 May 1998, the unusual happened: the school shooting on this date happened just three days after the 19 May 1998 school shooting, causing the instantaneous yearly rate of school shootings to skyrocket up to 182.5! At this point, the instantaneous yearly rate of school shootings went “out of control” and has remained out of control to this day, so much so that “out of control” is the new normal. No longer predicable within limits, the next school shooting can happen any day and shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The opportune time to have dealt with school shootings systemically and economically has long past. Today, the matter, again, is out of control and so will require extraordinary will and resources to, first, get the matter back under control and then to dissolve it – no, not solve it – dissolve it, ideally.
Way too much drama on his posts and not factual. AR -15 is basically a 22 with more powder in the bullet. Do some research. It makes a small hole, it doesn’t blow crap up.
Does one hunt for food with an AR-15? and if no…why not? If a gun is not useful or have a purpose other than to blow the bits out of something/someone, why should it be legal? No one wants to take your guns away…..we just want some common sense. There is NO reason that anyone needs a gun that can fire 45 shots per minute. Only the military needs that kind of power. Please tell me the purpose of having a weapon with this much power?
The AR 15 is quite often used for hunting and is more the norm now. It looks pretty mean but shoots bullets that are standard for some rifles that you would not think twice about. As a semi automatic, it shoots one bullet at a time as fast as you can pull the trigger. This is not a “machine gun” and there are other guns more menacing. I am by no means a gun person. As a nurse, I don’t care about the size (perhaps I should). Grave damage can be done by any bullet and people can die.
There are studies out that suggest that most of the shooters are not mental health problems with defined diagnosis or on drugs but rather depressed or socially isolated, tend to blame others, are seeking revenge, money or are power hungry, and may want to do a payback for a perceived wrong. I have seen a few of these folks and would not consider them psychiatric cases. But for a few, revenge is their motivation and they are fascinated by violence and weapons. Some clinicians are suggesting that their misdemeanor records should be examined prior to getting a gun since gun violence escalates 7x after a history of 2 violent episodes. Twenty three states restrict those persons from guns.
We can’t blame a weapon for the ghastly deeds of humans. We would be restricting knives, cars, planes and even baseball bats if that were the case. I think we should raise the age of purchase to that of hand guns and study their background a little harder.
Why does a hunter need a weapon that fires 30 rounds instantly? I live in an area with a very active hunting community, and they all seem to carry single shot weapons. Really, April, what kind of hunter needs to pump 15-30 shots into a harmless deer?
I know one hunter. He doesn’t use a firearm. He uses a bow because he thinks it is more sporting and more of a challenge to hunt wild game with a bow and arrow.
response to:
April
February 18, 2018 at 1:34 am
“I am by no means a gun person.”
You’re not a “gun person,” good nurse April? Then why are you trotting out every dissembling apologetic of the NRA for the most lethal varieties of firearms?
Depends on distance to target, bullet type and weight, powder load, and other things. Stuff can absolutely be “blown up” and the entry hole is always small. The exit wound typically is not, nor is the trauma channel. Lots of folks here are ex military and hunters, so next time don’t waste our time by trying to disinformation us.
I think he means that a small bullet that leaves a small hole kills in a more socially acceptable way than an exploding bullet that kills. I think I now understand what Gomer Pyle meant when he said “He’s goin’ to kill me dead” when he got the sergeant mad. As opposed to kill me alive.
That maniac who shot up the Newtown, CT, school killed 26 people in about 7 minutes. I apologize for the graphic reference, but from what I’ve read, the bodies of the 6 and 7 year olds were ripped to shreds, parts of their faces were blown off. They were shot at close range and their small bodies absorbed multiple bullet entries. I wish all these yahoos who try to minimize the power of these semi-automatic rifles had to look at all the forensic photos of the slaughtered children.
“not factual. AR -15 is basically a 22 with more powder in the bullet. Do some research. It makes a small hole, it doesn’t blow crap up.”
Alphawolf1’s claims are, respectively, deceptive and false.
To say that the weapon is “basically a 22 with more powder” is deceptive because it deliberately withholds the fact that “more powder” means higher velocity, and higher velocity means more trauma and killing power than your average 22.
The poster’s statement is also deliberately deceptive because he/she omits the weapon’s other features – in particular, the large number of bullets the magazine can hold, and the rate at which it can fire those bullets – which also make it more deadly.
The claim that the weapon “makes a small hole, it doesn’t blow crap up” is simply false – insofar as it generally compares with non-high speed weapons. As discussed above, the AR-15 is designed to fire off high speed cartridges, and the purpose of this is to cause more physical damage, giving it greater power to kill.
“Do some research”? Yes, do some research – the doctor discussing AR-15 trauma in the linked article video is a start – and you will find that this poster is either ignorant or, more likely, deliberately lying.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-ar-15-americas-rifle-or-illegitimate-killing-machine/2018/02/15/743e66ca-1266-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html?utm_term=.d11168a80bc3]
There is an obvious military need for high capacity magazines that can be rapidly changed. The complete lack of need for this feature on civilian and hunting weapons is also obvious. Internal magazines would still be allowed as would semi auto weapons. All removable magazines should be banned and internal magazine capacity limited to a reasonable number based on actual hunting scenarios, something we have a lot of knowledge about from the hunting community. A similar downward adjustment to handgun magazine capacity could be informed by the data already available to law enforcement.
If you elect to do nothing are giving an implicit approval for the status quo?
Please consider these three points:
1. Feb 16 from Politico: School safety money would be slashed in Trump budget: Two days before the school shooting in Florida that left 17 dead, the Trump administration proposed cutting millions in federal education programs meant to help prevent crime in schools and assist them in recovery from tragedies. Funds targeted for reduction or elimination in the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 request have helped pay for counselors in schools and violence prevention programs. Such funds were used for mental health aid for students and teachers in the Newtown, Conn., school district following the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012.
Regarding the Second Amendment: specifically the Supreme Court’s 2008 Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller which did not authorize “anything goes.” The following excerpt is from the majority opinion, pp. 54 and 55, written by the late (conservative) Justice Antonin Scalia:
“It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.
Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said… that the sorts of weapons protected in the 2nd Amendment were those ‘in common use at the time’. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historic tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons. ‘ ” Source http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/the-supreme-court-ruling-on-the-2nd-amendment-did-not-grant-an-unlimited-right-to-own-guns :
At the time the Second Amendment was written, the “historic tradition of dangerous and unusual weapons” were pistols and muskets, not military grade AR-15, with a magazine capacity of 30 rounds, an effective fire rate of 45 rounds a minute, and an accuracy range of 550 meters (about three football fields). allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/the-inaccuracy-of-muskets
NRA and supporters of unrestricted access to assault weapons and military-grade weapons of mass destruction are basically thumbing their noses at the rule of law.
Perhaps most compelling: Listen to a student who survived the latest mass shooting. “Among the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School countering lawmakers’ vacuous “thoughts and prayers” and instead making passionate pleas for action on gun legislation in the wake of Parkland shooting is 17-year-old David Hogg.
“I don’t want this to be another mass shooting. I want this to be the last mass shooting,” the senior told MSNBC. “Everybody is getting used to this, and that’s not ok. … We’re habituating to this. And what happens when you do that is children are dying and they will continue to die unless we stop it, stand up, and take action.”
“We don’t need ideas. We need action,” Hogg continued. “We need action from our elected officials and we need action from the civil public because without that, this is going to happen again.”
June 20 is one of several planned nationwide demonstrations against mass shootings in schools. Learn why this date was chosen. The color for these events is orange. Be creative. Here is a link to more information.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/02/17/because-nothing-has-changed-columbine-students-teachers-call-nationwide-school