Tag: 2nd Amendment

Dr. Fauci declares gun violence is a public health issue. I say, “YES!”

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Dr. Anthony Fauci said (last) Sunday that the “horrifying” spate of mass shootings in the U.S. shows why gun violence is a public health issue.

“As a public health person, I think you can’t run away from that,” Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when host Dana Bash asked if gun violence is a “public health emergency.”

“I mean, in this last month, it’s just been horrifying,” replied Fauci, the U.S. government’s foremost infectious disease expert. “How can you say that’s not a public health issue?”

When criminal violence, when cold-blooded murder is minimalized as a defense of 2nd Amendment Rights…that is a corrupt act. As a lifelong gun owner, I may be irritated by legal checks and balances initiated to prevent criminals or demented mass killers from easy legal access to firearms. So be it! I would rather survive another American bureaucracy…than to be guilty of giving in to the myth of our founders’ foresight…defending muzzleloaders used to fend off invading redcoats. A myth spelled out by people who had no idea of the future of blood spilled every week in this land by nutters armed with modern auto-loading firearms and quick-change magazines.

Live frite or die!

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“We’re going after Virginia with your crazy governor. … They want to take your Second Amendment away. You know that right? You’ll have nobody guarding your potatoes.”

— President Trump, to farmers assembled at the White House

I am a potato guardian. This is the only life I have known. Here is my tale, one no doubt familiar to you, just as the concept of a person who guards potatoes in Virginia is familiar…

US deaths from gun violence vs. US deaths from terrorism

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In his impassioned address in the wake of Thursday’s horrible shooting at an Oregon community college, President Obama issued a challenge to the media. “Have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks in the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side by side on your news reports,” he asked.

Okay.

Here’s what that looks like (at least, for 2001-2011, the period for which we could find the most reliable data quickly courtesy of the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Micah Zenko).

gun deaths chart

Any surprises? Think we have fair and balanced priorities?

On 2nd anniversary, school shooting takes another victim

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The funeral procession of Russell King Jr. winds through Chardon streets in March 2012

The father of a boy killed in the Chardon High School shooting died Thursday morning at his home on the second anniversary of the rampage.

Russell King, 48, was found in his bed by a family member at his home in Chardon Township, said Lt. John Hiscox of the Geauga County Sheriff’s Department. He said there were no signs of foul play. He said Coroner Robert Coleman is investigating.

Geauga County Prosecutor James Flaiz said Thursday that he could not comment on the case, saying it “was an ongoing criminal investigation, although we believe foul play was not involved.”

King’s son, Russell, was one of three students killed Feb. 27, 2012, at Chardon High School. T.J. Lane opened fire in the school’s cafeteria with a .22-Ruger before classes began. He also killed Daniel Parmertor, 16, and Demetrius Hewlin, 16. Russell was 17. Three other students were wounded…

Lane pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault for a shooting that shined an unwanted spotlight on a suburban school district and plunged it into the political donnybrook of gun control…

Russell King Sr. went to all of the court hearings involving Lane. He was a tall, strong man who seemed deeply hurt by the senseless loss of his son. He and other family members of the victims struggled last March, when a Geauga County judge sentenced Lane to three life sentences in prison.

Lane mocked his victims during that hearing, wearing a T-shirt with the word “Killer” on it, swearing and flipping his middle finger to their parents and families.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he was saddened and stunned by the news.

“That’s just horrible,” he said. “Anyone who loses a child never gets over it. Anything anyone says to you has no relevance.”

The NRA gives the finger to every sensible American who wants to support the 2nd Amendment with strict regulations against criminals and disturbed individuals having access to deadly weapons.

I’ve been a gun owner and hunter most of my life. I own guns, right now. I also support the efforts of gun owners to manage access to firearms by strict regulation, licensing and record-keeping. I consider fools who dedicate time and money to maintaining easy access for criminals to be no better than the thugs they aid.

It doesn’t take a whole boatload of logic and reasoning to increase the safety of our populace without infringing on anything more than individual ignorance and fear.

Sooner or later, we have to grow into a society where children and their parents are less likely to fear death on a daily basis.

Guns & Ammo editors retired and fired – way too rational about constitutional rights and responsibilities!

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Dick Metcalf

The U.S. magazine Guns & Ammo has fired a contributing editor and a top editor said he will retire early after a backlash over a pro-gun control column.

The magazine, based in Los Angeles, fired contributing editor Dick Metcalf after a column he wrote for the December 2013 issue, arguing there should be some government regulation of firearms, provoked a backlash that including threats to cancel subscriptions…

“Way too many gun owners still seem to believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement,” Metcalf wrote. “The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”

In the editorial, titled “Let’s Talk Limits,” Metcalf said U.S. citizens “have a right to keep and bear arms but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly…”

“Dick Metcalf has had a long and distinguished career as a gun writer, but his association with ‘Guns & Ammo’ has officially ended,” Bequette wrote, saying it was a mistake to publish Metcalf’s column.

“I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple,” he wrote. “I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness.”

What passes for principles, nowadays. He retired effective immediately.

BITD, when I still spent time hunting and recreational shooting it was possible to have a sensible discussion about constitutional rights and responsibilities. In fact, Guns and Ammo was a regular worthwhile read. I haven’t peered inside a copy in decades; but, it surely sounds as if it has joined the Holy Fatherland Church of NRA – heretics not allowed.