After especially awful massacres, the public expects Congress to take meaningful steps to limit access to guns. Sandy Hook. No action. Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Florida. No action. The Pulse Nightclub. No action. The Las Vegas music festival massacre. No action. Uvalde. No action. The recent massacres in California? What do you think? Why no action? The Republicans block every attempt to enact meaningful restrictions.
CNN posted a summary of where America stands internationally a day before the killing of 11 people in Monterrey Oark, California.
CNN) – Monterey Park. Atlanta. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino. Uvalde.
Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.
I insert here that my understanding of the Second Amendment is that it pertains not to the right of every individual to “bear arms,” but to the maintenance and arming of a “well-regulated militia.”
For a time in the 1990s, the Supreme Court agreed, and let stand a decade-long ban on assault weapons.
The 2nd Amendment says:
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.
The CNN article continues:
There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people.
More guns than people!
Read the article.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It seems to be the same again and again…after each shooting all these condemnations, all the furor and when things have calmed down…same, old same…more guns, more shootings, more deaths. Why can’t politicians act? Or they rather look the other way to protect whom? The NRA? The weapons manufacturers? Is this freedom?
You should ask the most recent Russian general who died under “mysterious” circumstances. Oh, you can’t. He’s dead after all.
What country showered the NRA with dark money donations to flood our streets with guns? Hint: You extol their virtues every chance you get…
Maria Butina,
Oh have you seen huh?
No, she has fled
back to the Rodina.
My Senator Todd Young [R-IN] was given $2,896,732 by the NRA. [I wonder why he doesn’t support gun control.]
I do write protest letters to him saying, “Are you still enjoying the money the NRA gave you?”
The massacres will increase until something is done to correct the warped and historically ignorant interpretation of the Second Amendment by the BushWaco Supreme Court.
The Puritan Magistrate Extreme Court
“The massacres will increase until. . . ”
. . . we reign in the death and destruction machine that is the American Millitary/Industrial Complex (MIC).
2nd amendment issues pall in comparison to all the deadly issues that the MIC entail.
The headline says it all: Gun Culture.
It allows rationalizing that using a gun is ok.
It’s validation.
It normalizes gun violence.
It allows “let’s get a gun” to enter the conversation by teens or adults who 10 years ago would never have thought about it. No matter how irate or unprincipled one might be, anger and rage and acting on them is not new – – — breaking laws, car jackings, and robberies are nothing new.
“Get a gun” in the thinking and doing is and is skyrocketing.
And for the used-to-be-responsible NRA who love to talk about gun safety and hunting and nostalgia – – how about a few million on that?
Hundreds of thousands of guns (yes, even those bought legally) are unlocked in homes with children. More than ever.
Where’s your campaign on that? Where’s your legislation and candidate support on that?
Young men spend breathtaking amounts of their time playing first-person shooter games, and they spend enormous amounts of time in online communities talking to other young men about guns and ammo and other “cool stuff” from their games. Add to this the fact that young people in general have trading interaction IRL for interaction online, and you get a Petri dish for growing gun violence.
cx: Add to this the fact that young people in general have trading interaction IRL for interaction online and the ready availability of military-grade weapons and incredibly lax gun laws, and you get a Petri dish for growing gun violence.
“The headline says it all: Gun Culture.
It allows rationalizing that using a gun is ok.
It’s validation.
It normalizes gun violence.”
Using a gun is OK!
Those of us who ethically use firearms thoroughly understand the damage to flesh and bones that can occur when a bullet meets the bone. We’ve seen it firsthand in the deer, rabbits, ducks, squirrels, antelope, etc. . . that we have hunted. It isn’t “validation” by the ethical firearm user.
What isn’t OK is those who don’t understand that the problem of violence in America has little to do with the 2nd amendment but with the culture of death and destruction that is the U.S. Military/Industrial Complex. Eisenhower warned us of it. . .
. . .and we didn’t listen.
Again, another mis-identified root problem (that guns are the problem) that leads to faulty ‘solutions’. The root problem is the MIC and American’s love of all things military. (Man, did the Pentagon recover from the Vietnam malaise, even with the Iraq and Afghan war failures, continuing to deceive the public into thinking it is a force for positive in the world.)
Most Americans support common sense gun laws that include background checks and restricted access for people with a violent record or mental problems. Instead, we are living in a repeated cycle of mass murders because the gun lobby is backed by so much dirty, dark money. I watch some European TV shows, and America is often the butt of the joke in the civilized world because of our tolerance for gun violence. Shame on us! https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23141651/gun-control-american-approval-polling
It is no accident that Russia was funding the NRA. Chaos in the US works to their advantage.https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals
It ain’t the guns. . . it’s the American love affair with the death and destruction complex, the American Military/Industrial Complex.
An email letter from Senator Mike Braun [R-IN] states the following:
The Second Amendment guarantees that the right of the American people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. I am a strong believer that a person’s inherent right to self-defense and right to individual gun ownership must be preserved and defended….Still, legislators and law enforcement must continue to search for meaningful solutions that prevent instances of devastating gun violence from happening without subverting Americans’ right to keep and bear arms…I appreciate your input, and I will keep both your comments and the best interest of Hoosiers in mind when reviewing any legislation that affects the right to keep and bear arms…
………………………………………………………..
Here is part of a protest letter that I wrote to him.
Sent: 11/25/2022
Subject: Gunman killed 6 at Virginia Walmart; five people killed at a Colorado LGBTQ club; 22-year-old University of Virginia student killed three students during a school trip! This is acceptable?
Senator Braun, I hold you responsible for the killing of innocent
people. YOU continue to say that people have the right to possess a gun and
that those rights shouldn’t be taken away. How many people need to be killed before it even makes a dent your belief that it’s perfectly okay for people to die? Six victims in a Virginia Walmart obviously wasn’t enough. Five people at a Colorado LGBTQ club doesn’t count. Three people killed by a 22 year old University of Virginia student doesn’t matter one twit to you.
Perhaps those college students deserve to be shot because they wanted to go on a field trip. [Should all field trips now have hired gunmen to protect
them? I went on an excursion in Guatemala and that country is so dangerous a hired gunman came to ‘protect’ us tourists. Is the United States is now as
bad as Guatemala?}…
Senator Braun write you to say he will do nothing
Senator Braun always states that people have the right to keep and bear arms. He won’t do anything for gun control. Innocent children and adults don’t have the right to live. Gun lovers must have their guns.
There is no such thing as a ‘meaningful solution that will prevent gun violence’ but allows everyone to have a gun.
Braun is loyal to Trump
In the GOP primary, Braun competed against U.S. Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita in a spirited contest to show who would be the biggest supporter of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Braun: “I am a strong believer that a person’s inherent right to self-defense and right to individual gun ownership must be preserved and defended…Still, legislators and law enforcement must continue to search for meaningful solutions that prevent instances of devastating gun violence from happening without subverting Americans’ right to keep and bear arms.”
“. . .people have the right to possess a gun and
that those rights shouldn’t be taken away.”
Yes, we have that right.
It’s not gun ownership that is the problem. It is the underlying belief, fostered in this country that violent death and destruction as shown by this country’s obsequious and loving of all things military. That death and destruction machine is THE underlying reason for the gun violence that we see in America.
Congress has yet to enact an
“action” that would compel
lawbreakers to obey the law.
The blame game has yet
to end the dispossed,and
the irrational behaviors
that follow.
The afflictions of “our”
political system WON’T
be cured by another “dose”
of “our” political system.
Isn’t that obvious???
What is your recommendation as to how we should respond to and mitigrate gun violence, NoBrick?
As long as the Republican Party maintains control over state governments in RED states, or the White House, or Congress, or the US Supreme Court, there will never be meaningful firearms legislation except in BLUE state.
The theofascist Republican Party is drenched in the blood of our children and adults of all ages, and they do not care, because there are two things the GOP worships: power and greed.
To them, children being slaughtered in classrooms and people at concerts, theaters, shopping centers, churches and temples, is acceptable collateral damage.
To hold on to political party the GOP NEEDS the votes of rabid firearms owners as much as it needs the votes of anti-abortion freaks and Traitor Trump’s rabid MAGA lunatics.
These right wing extremists want us to spend public money making schools fortresses instead of enacting common sense gun laws. It is another example of the many being told they have to accommodate the insistence of the few.
My brother sent me this text message yesterday:
Time for well trained teachers to learn how to use a weapon. Police could use the help. Schools are gun free zones, that has got to stop. If someone that’s dumb enough to go to a gun free zone and kill, then it’s time to fight back. If a mall or a school had people around with guns, the killer would think twice before going in to shoot people.
[Disgusting!!]
“collateral damage”
Ahhh. . . collateral damage. . . one of the Military Industrial Complexes favorite terms. Let’s normalize it’s usage so that when we (MIC) use it, it doesn’t mean the death and destruction, maiming of innocents in war.
The next time I hear “motive” I think I might have to buy a gun. NRA has won the argument once that word comes out. Good way of avoiding saying, they had an effin gun.
Greg,
I do agree with you about the absurdity of searching for “motive.” Judge people by their actions, not their motives. Murder should be punished as murder. Why waste time on indeterminate motive? Like, I don’t care why the man who slaughtered 11 people in Monterrey did it. We may never know. He killed himself so he can’t be tried or punished.
nailed it, Greg
Dear gun lobby: Guns held by people shoot people.
No, the person shoots another person with a gun. The gun is an inanimate object with no capability of acting on its own. It is the person doing the shooting.
The gun is an inanimate object FOR THE PURPOSE OF SHOOTING THINGS–random wildlife AND PEOPLE.
THE SUPREME COURT HAS INVITED GUN REGULATION —
“Like most rights, THE RIGHT SECURED BY THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS NOT UNLIMITED…” [it is] “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Those are the words of the CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY of the U.S. Supreme Court justices in their Heller ruling that gun advocates hail as a victory.
Those gun advocates should take the time to read the rest of what the conservative justices wrote on pages 54-55 of the Heller ruling — for example, they declared:
“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller [an earlier case decided by the Supreme Court] said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’ [when the 2nd Amendment was written]. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’.” The Second Amendment became part of the Constitution more than 230 years ago in 1791. The very first semi-automatic gun was not invented until nearly a 100 years after that, in 1885. Most guns in use at the time that the Second Amendment was written were single-shot muzzle loaders.
And —
“Nothing in our [Heller] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or on 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.”
The CONSERVATIVE majority DID NOT HAVE TO write these things into their ruling — but they did because they were INVITING Congress and state lawmakers to write laws that control the sale of guns in general and especially control and limit the sales of assault rifles and high-capacity magazine cases. But Congress doesn’t have the moral integrity or the decency to do that, even in the face of repeated slaughter of school children.
You can read the Court’s Heller ruling for yourself at:
Click to access 07-290.pdf
Heller struck down DC laws prohibiting the carrying or registering of handguns [licensing them only for special circumstances], and requiring lawfully registered [e.g. long gun] arms in the home to be kept unloaded and disassembled or trigger-locked, separate from ammunition….
Those were extraordinarily strict gun laws. Perhaps that’s why SCOTUS found it necessary to append a laundry list of gun restrictions that illustrated what they considered reasonable restrictions under the constitution– but gotta scroll way down for those.
The harm Heller did was all upfront, making the 2nd amendment read like a screed for all guns all the time. They did that by “disassembling” the amendment. They detached the first clause from the second, in a supposedly ”grammatical” and “originalist” analysis which is completely opposite 18thC AND current standard English grammar and ignores/ misquotes historical usage. Heller decision arbitrarily dismisses the phrase “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” as “prefatory,” contending that the 2nd phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” is “operative.”
Small wonder the gun-happy states ignore the subsequent suggestions. They have all the “ammunition” they need in section 1.
p.s. plenty of scholars have debunked that SCOTUS argument and even submitted amicus briefs (to no avail).
BEAUTIFULLY SAID, Ginny!!!!!!!!
❤
The precondition for this is a long-term, comfortable democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Not a one-seat majority, but a comfortable majority that lasts for generations. That requires finding ways to elect Democrats election after election in states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Texas, etc. We’re not close to that now.
Could be, or perhaps the fracture and collapse of the Republican Party is inevitable and already underway. Ayn Rand’s heroes have an Achilles heel. They go too far.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. People vote against parties as much as they vote for parties.
A side note here, related to the January shooting of a VA teacher by her 6yo 1st-grade student. 8 states + DC and some other cities have strong safe-storage laws with teeth. Many states are typical of VA: no safe storage law; a CAP [Child Access Prevention] law that relates only to children 14 & under, where violation is a misdemeanor [in VA, Class 1, punishable up to max 18mos in jail &/or fine up to max $2,500]. States with strong CAP laws [protecting 15-17yo’s as well, with violation a felony] have 25% fewer under-18 suicides & unintentional shootings. Strong safe gun storage laws show approximately the same reduction.
Important!!!!
And in some cases those people have more guns than they do teeth.
And???
Diane Ravitch, more deaths have taken place as a result of abortion than as a result of gun violence. I find it to be sad in any event, however, there is a glaring hypocrisy in the thinking of people who decry the issue of murder of defenseless children at Columbine, to pick an example of a school shooting and yet can defend the murder of the unborn in the womb. My body, my choice? Tell that to dead children who could not defend their right to not be blasted to hell because the teachers could not defend themselves or the students in their care and see what happens.
Over 48,800 people were killed in the U.S. in 2021 by guns.
Frank Mrvan [D-IN] My Representative sponsors a bill to ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and import of military-style assault weapons.
Frank Mrvan: “Additionally, I am a proud supporter and an original cosponsor of H.R. 698, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2023. Introduced by Rep. Cicilline, H.R. 698 would ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and import of military-style assault weapons. Specifically, the measure would ban magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition, require a background check on any future sale of assault weapons, and require long guns to be stored in secure gun storage with a trigger lock.”
A Trump loving friend of mine told me that people need guns so that they can protect themselves. If the people had had guns when Hitler took power they’d have been able to fight back. [I’m sure owning a gun would have prevented Hitler’s soldiers from coming into a Jew’s home and killing everyone. Faulty thinking prevails with this crowd. How many people can you kill with one gun when faced with an army?]
My brother has a gun so that he can protect his family. At one time he said the U.S. military is saving up canned goods so that they can kill everyone. He said that FEMA camps were places where Obama was killing Jews and Christians.
Here is his current text message to me: “All that is, is to put laws into place so that the government can take our guns away. If the guns are taken from the American people then you’ll have tyranny. I know what your side is saying. I hear it every time I put on the news. No one will ever change my mind. We have laws on the books and they’re not following through with them. Understand this, guns don’t kill, people do. Knives don’t kill, people do. The problem is the heart, we’re all born into sin and some people like to run with it.
My thought: If someone has to kill with a knife, it won’t be a long distance massacre with automatic military weapons. How many cowards would not kill if they had to face their opponent one on one?
Carol Malaysia, more deaths of children have happened as a result of abortion and yet abortion is still perfectly legal. So spare me the crocodile tears.
The NRA bribed my Senator Todd Young [R-IN] by donating $2,896,732 to his campaign fund. Trump was given $30 million by the NRA.The far R has no problem with bribery.
The LOWEST rate of gun deaths is in Japan.
Lower number of guns means lower gun deaths. Congress has the power to cut gun deaths but they are afraid of not getting votes from the far R. Shed tears for the many innocent adults and children who die because of lax U.S gun laws.
The GOP only cares about fetuses until they are born. After that it’s okay to die from starvation, homelessness, parents on drugs, guns, lack of health care and to go to pubic schools that are underfunded. Keep putting out “thoughts and prayers’ after every mass shooting OR do you shed crocodile tears for those in poverty?
How are firearms regulated in Japan? | The Japan Times
May 31, 2023
According to the National Police Agency, there were nine incidents involving guns last year, in which four people died and two were injured. Of the nine, six cases appeared to be associated with organized crime syndicates.
Shootings have hovered between 10 to 50 cases annually in the past decade or so, with most having been linked to organized crime groups. According to World Population Review, Japan has seen 0.08 gun deaths per 100,000 people so far in 2023. In contrast, in the United States, where mass shootings have also made headlines recently, the number of deaths stood at 10.89.
The relative scarcity of gun-use and gun-related incidents in Japan is an indication of how strict the country’s gun control laws are. Here’s a closer look at how firearms are regulated in Japan.
Who can own a gun in Japan?
Japan’s domestic law basically bans citizens from possessing, carrying, buying and selling firearms, as well as importing gun parts unless they have a gun license.
Those age 20 or above who want to possess a gun need to go through a lengthy screening process by the local public security committee, which is the governing body for the prefectural police force.
The individual needs to take a written test and conduct shooting practice as well as pass a shooting test before they can apply for a screening process. The entire procedure costs about ¥60,000.
The screening process involves strict background checks by the police — which include a review of their criminal record, personal relationships and involvement in organized crime — along with psychiatric and drug tests at hospitals. Gun owners are required to renew their licenses every three years.
Even after one obtains a gun, police must inspect the firearm once a year and the owner must register it with police along with details of where the weapon and ammunition are stored.
How many actually own firearms in Japan?
The number of licensed firearms in 2021 was at 177,719, most of them for hunting, according to the police agency’s latest data. In the same year, 87,973 people had permits to possess hunting rifles and air guns.
In 2017, Japan had around 209,000 licensed hunters, compared to about 530,000 in 1970, according to the Japan Hunters Association.
Why does Japan have such strict gun control laws?
The Allied Forces ordered Japan to collect and hand over all guns and swords that were owned by the general public soon after Japan surrendered in World War II…
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/05/31/national/crime-legal/gun-control-explainer/
Diane Ravitch, while those left-leaning crackpots who stand on the graves of dead children are doing so to push a gun control narrative, something that is despicable, they also actively defend the rights of women to arbitrarily have abortions because pregnancy was an inconvenience. Shedding crocodile tears over dead children being done by the same people who would rationalize the murder of the unborn under the phraseology of “my body, my choice” is disingenuous. Even more absurd is how blanket gun bans are called for and assigning blame for gun-related deaths to law-abiding citizens instead of the real culprits.
Greg Hackley,
You claim that blue states get more federal aid than red states but that’s wrong.
Blue states are wealthier than red states and pay more in taxes than they get back.
Red states are takers. They take more from the federal government than they pay.
Senator Moynihan used to publish a chart every year showing how blue states subsidize red states.
https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/#:~:text=Red%20States%20Lead%20With%20Federal,government%20funds%20than%20they%20pay.
Diane Ravitch, that is because the blue states siphon wealth away from the red states. They are the real moochers and looters.
No, red states are poor because they don’t invest in education. Because they are poor, the need more federal aid so people don’t starve to death.
Blue states send more in federal taxes than they receive in benefits.
Please stop making claims without evidence.
I posted a link to a nonpartisan site.
Where is your evidence?
Opinion is not evidence.
More Teens Who Can’t Legally Buy Guns Acquiring ‘Ghost’ Weapons
At 18, Zachary Burkard was too young to buy a handgun from a licensed gun store, and he was an admitted drug dealer with mental health issues. He went to the website of 80P Builder, a seller of “ghost gun” parts with no serial numbers, bought a gun kit and assembled a complete pistol himself. Two months later, Burkard watched a fistfight between two schoolmates at a friend’s house. He entered the Springfield, Va., home’s garage and began shooting, killing them both. The families of the two teens, with the help of the anti-gun-violence group Everytown for Gun Safety, are suing the distributor of the parts Burkard used to make his ghost gun, 80P Builder of Florida, and the manufacturer, Polymer80 of Nevada, for gross negligence in providing a teenager with a weapon when he was not legally able to buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, reports the Washington Post.
Teenagers have discovered the ease with which they can acquire the parts for a ghost gun, and they have been buying, building and shooting the homemade guns with alarming frequency. Everytown for Gun Safety compiled a list of more than 50 incidents involving teens and ghost guns since 2019. Brooklyn Park, Minn., police arrested two teens with ghost guns in December after authorities said one of them attempted to shoot someone outside their car but instead killed their friend inside it. New Rochelle, N.Y., a 16-year-old created a “ghost gun factory” in his bedroom last year before killing another 16-year-old. In Montgomery County, Md., a teen using a ghost gun shot and seriously injured another student inside the boys’ bathroom at Magruder High School last year. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) estimated that Polymer80 was responsible for more than 88 percent of the ghost guns recovered by police between 2017 and 2021, though there are nearly 100 manufacturers selling parts, or full kits, which can be made into unserialized guns, a list compiled by Everytown shows. Last year, police departments seized at least 25,785 ghost guns nationwide, and those are just the weapons submitted by police to ATF for tracing, even though they don’t have serial numbers and largely cannot be traced.
https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenews/more-teens-who-can-t-legally-buy-guns-acquiring-ghost-weapons
Diane Ravitch, while those left-leaning crackpots who stand on the graves of dead children are doing so to push a gun control narrative, they are just as happy to deny a fetus a potential chance at life. These people who defend abortion under the phraseology “my body, my choice” are just shedding crocodile tears when school shootings happen that result in the deaths of innocent children. Those people are being colossal hypocrites.
In case you require a history lesson, the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting took place in a gun-free zone. Virginia Tech? Gun-free zone. The Columbine high school massacre? Gun-free zone. Mall shootings? Gun-free zones and yet when it all goes down, people don’t seem to be able to connect the dots.
If I had the power, I would require all people who want to own a gun to pass ea background check, be over 21, agree to locked gun storage, and agree to annual renewal of their permit. If we license cars, we can license guns. If we require people to get a drivers license, we can require them to get a gun license.
And I would ban civilian ownership of assault rifles.
I agree with what you are saying. However, I’d add a few things: there should be a person who comes at least once a year to check to see if the gun is properly locked in its cabinet. If not, the gun would be taken and there would be no gun issued again. The cabinet has to be checked to be reliable.
Each person should give a reason to own a gun. Hunting is an acceptable reason but only rifles used for hunting would be issued. If you don’t have a decent reason to own a gun, you won’t get one. [Killing people isn’t on the list.]
Retraining classes and a written test should be given at least once a year.
However, with Republicans saying that the 2nd Amendment rights can never be abridged, probably nothing will ever pass.
The GOP can continue to give their worthless ‘thoughts and prayers’ and do nothing. Innocent adults and children will never have the constitutional right to live.
Japan has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the world. We should model our laws to be similar to Japans if we are truly interested in stopping the deaths. [HA!] NEVER HAPPEN.
This comes from Thom Hartmann’s blog:
Parkland shooting survivor and activist David Hogg once asked, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. was still alive, why McCain had taken more than $7 million from the NRA (not to mention other millions that they and other “gun rights” groups spent supporting him indirectly).
McCain’s answer, no doubt, would be the standard politician-speak these days: “They support me because they like my positions; I don’t change my positions just to get their money.” It’s essentially what Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told the Parkland kids when he was confronted with a similar question.
And it’s a nonsense answer, as everybody knows..
Thus, the reason the NRA can buy and own senators like McCain and Rubio (and Thom Tillis, R-N.C./$4 million; Cory Gardner, R-Colo./$3.8 million; Joni Ernst, R-Iowa/$3 million; and Rob Portman, R-Ohio/$3 million, who all presumably took money much faster and much more recently than even McCain) is because the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that corporate and billionaire money never corrupts politicians. (The dissent in the Citizens United case is a must-read: it’s truly mind-boggling and demonstrates beyond refutation how corrupted the right-wingers on the Court, particularly Scalia and Thomas—who regularly attended lavish events put on by the Kochs—were by billionaire and corporate money.)
So here America stands. The Supreme Court has ruled, essentially, that the NRA can own all the politicians they want and can dump unlimited amounts of poison into this nation’s political bloodstream.
Meanwhile, angry white men who want to commit mass murder are free to buy and carry all the weaponry they can afford.
Diane Ravitch, if there was a meme about unborn fetuses with the phraseology “our bodies, our choice,” maybe these people who believe in taxpayer-funded abortion on-demand would change their tunes on the issue. Any person who can stand at the graves of deceased children and shed crocodile tears at seeing their bodies riddled with bullets who would have been just as happy to terminate their existence in the womb are just as much b.s. artists as Alex Jones is.
Greg,
As a man, your opinion about a woman’s reproductive rights are of no interest to me. What gives you the right and power to tell a woman carrying a dead fetus that she must carry it to term?
Diane Ravitch, what gives a woman the right to demand that taxpayers be forced to fund her ability to get an abortion?
I don’t think taxpayers should fund abortions. I think women have the right to determine what is done to their bodies. I support the right of women to get an abortion. Don’t you?
Diane Ravitch, as long as my pocket is not being picked to pay for it, I agree with you.
Diane Ravitch, unless and until elected representatives give up their armed security, I really don’t want to hear them tell us that our right to keep and bear arms is not absolute. Considering the fact that the very people who decry mass murder of innocents, particularly children are the same people who would terminate their existence in the womb, their crocodile tears are disingenuous.
Listen, Troll. Your right to carry any weapon you want is not unlimited. Soneday, when there is a sane Congress and a Supreme Court that actually cares about life, they will take your guns away. Meanwhile you and people like you have blood on their hands. Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Parkland…you are a disgrace
Diane Ravitch, the full text of the Second Amendment indicates otherwise. If you are a constitutionally-illiterate imbecile who cannot interpret the language as being absolute, then I can’t help you.