Sunday, April 26, 2009

As The Gun Controversy Wages On...

The whole argument regarding the right to carry a firearm versus the right to having a peaceful neighborhood carries on and on and on.

Last week, on the anniversary of the Columbine tragedy nonetheless, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen tried to score some political points with the more extreme of the right wingers by issuing an unofficial opinion regarding open carry of firearms. Unfortunately, this opinion did very little, if anything at all, to clarify things.

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn responded by ordering his officers to uphold the peace, which of course led him to be attacked by most of the Posse Comatose. Some also tried to twist this into some kind of validation for concealed carry, like people are jumpy enough now.

Meanwhile, in the states that do allow all sort of uninfringed gun rights, we have a professor in Georgia who shot his estranged wife and two other men. The professor is currently missing and the police have found no trace of him whatsoever, which makes me believe that either this was very carefully thought out ahead of time or the professor went off somewhere and killed himself as well.

Even more tragic, in Florida, we have a National Guard soldier that shot and killed two sheriff's deputies before being killed himself in another gun fight with law enforcement officers. The soldier has a criminal record of domestic violence and the slain deputies were responding to a call regarding another episode of the soldier beating his wife. There is no rationale reason for this guy to be allowed to have guns.

These two horrific stories, I am sad to say, do not appear to be the exception to the rule. I have already related some other modern day horror stories here and here, to cite just a couple.

The esteemed Elliot Stearns made a bold statement awhile back, regarding this latest escalation of the gun controversy:
But, as far as I’m concerned, Jim Doyle is responsible for the death or injury of any law abiding citizen who was kept from defending him or herself because he twice vetoed conceal carry in Wisconsin.
In response, I would like to point out that, using this sort of logic, anyone who is part of the NRA or any other group that advocates for and works towards the undermining of any sort of restriction on gun ownership, should be held responsible for every death or injury that occurs by a shooter that shouldn't have had access to a gun.

7 comments:

  1. Not that he planned it that way, but what on earth is wrong with issuing an AG opinion on open carry on the anniversarty of the Columbine murders? Was it also wrong for the Colorado legislature to repeal the ban on private gun sales at gun shows this year also on the anniversary of Columbione? No. In fact, as we saw at Columbine, making all of Wisconsin a victim disarmement zone by banning open carry is a tasteless idea - victim disarmement zones don't work.

    Learn more at OpenCarry.org.

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  2. Mike,

    It does not surprise me that you lack that insight. Van Hollen issuing on that date would be like a racist politician making a disparaging remark on Martin Luther King's birthday, or an anti-Semite making a statement denying the Holocaust on a Jewish holiday.

    And there is no credible data that carrying a gun has any significant impact on preventing crime. In fact, most of these mass murders are happening in states that have very liberal gun laws.

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  3. If I ever had any doubts about the lack of leadership and common sense of AG JB Van Hollen and some local LE agencies they were put to rest when I watched the Law Enforcement and Judicial Roundtable hosted by Van Hollen dated April 20, 2009 on wiseye.org. I was literally depressed after watching the video. I am pretty sure our tax dollars went to pay for that little get together which just adds to the depression.

    (Sorry that was slightly off topic)

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  4. What I don't understand is what you have against the constitution of the US or the state? We have the right to carry some weapon somehow and if we cannot carry it concealed while being trained and permitted by the local and/or state officials then the only other option by which we are legally and constitutionally allowed to carry is openly. It would be similar to saying that we have the right to vote and then not opening the polls. Having the right to do something and then legally/illegally blocking all forms of exercising that right makes no sense at all. Then to have the Chief of police saying that he is going to instruct his officers to assault law abiding citizens by putting them on the ground and confiscating their legal property is just inviting constitutional lawsuits. If you insert the voting right example, then the Chief would instruct his officers to put anyone found to be voting on the ground until it is determined that they are legally allowed to vote and have a reason to vote. How can you be for that when it comes to one right and yet be so viscerally against requiring folks to prove they are legal citizens who are who they say they are when it is time to vote?

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  5. A) Comparing guns to voting makes no sense. No one has had a bad day, pulled out a ballot and killed people.

    A(1) The right has been trying to keep people from the right to vote. They call it Voter ID.

    B) Just because one has a right to do something, doesn't make it the right thing to do.

    C) What do you have against the common peace?

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  6. 1) No but the lazy products of the welfare state who make poor choices, don't go to school, and breed like rabbits, don't get jobs and destroy an entire republic. This last election was won on the promise of taking money from those that worked hard for it and giving it to people who felt deserving of it. I find that far more dangerous than one nut with a gun. I also find it interesting that you say that because as your side said after the last election, Hitler won in a fair election. Thos who say voting is not as dangerous as guns are kidding themselves.

    1A)And as I stated you are viscerally argueing against it on the point that it is a right and shall not be infringed in any way, shape, or form. I can't say you personally because I don't come around here often enough but I know enough of your side's arguement that it is a right and nothing shall do anything to stop the exercizing of that right even if it is free, and requires little or no effort on the part of the person excersizing that right. Ohio gave out the cards free and we, in this state put money in the bill to send trucks around so all people had to do was walk out their door to get their new card.

    B)I go back to voting. You are correct that with a right comes a responsibility and while I disagreed with portions of Bush policy as well as portions of the new policy. I believe that many of the voters this time around voted simply out of racism or because they thought he would actually pay their mortgage and bills. Not a good way to cast a vote.

    C) I have nothing against common peace. I just think that in many places it is not all that common. When you look at the seemingly random shootings, the beatings, the rapes and so on that takes place in many parts of the city and then you look at communities with almost 100% gun ownership, tell me how that matches. You are talking about people and not guns here. You have a city full of people who have bravado, selfishness, lack of empathy, and lazyness as central tenet of their exhistance and they kill and maim and rob from each other on a daily basis. Then you have a farm community outstate where there are guns unlocked and probably loaded in every kitchen and you don' have the same incidence of crime of any sort. I am thinking that what you are saying is that the folks in the city should not be allowed to own guns but the constitution does not discern. I would also say that because the predominant race in the city vs. outstate is not white, that you would be saying that certain groups can not possibly be held to the same responsibilities as another group. We in the Not City part of the state have less than a tenth of the violent crime per year than the City part of the state(milwaukee)has in a quarter. Most communities will go decades between a gun crime and milwaukee can't go a weekend. Why is that? Is it because of the guns? Guns are present in most households of most communities outside of the city and they are in the open and I don't know about you but the Common Peace is much more prevalent in say Menomonee Falls where I live than 5 miles to the east in Milwaukee.

    That brings me to the last comment. Just because you cannot see them does not mean that they are not there. I would hazard a guess that in any given day you will pass 10-20 people on the street that are carrying illegally. Do you feel any safer that you don't see anything? I don't. I would much rather either see the weapon or know that at least some of the weapons are being carried by folks that are trained and licensed to carry. That is what our constitution defines for us and those are the only 2 options the state govt has opened for us. Either carry concealled illegally or open legally.

    Regardless of the reason or rational, we have a right. That right cannot be infringed. Saying that the right is trying to do that with voting is silly because the right with voter id is not saying you have the right to vote but we won't let you. Let us do the same with CCW that we have with voting according to the right. Rather than have the left's idea of 'if you are in the country legally or illegally you can vote and not carry a weapon, Let us use the right's example of 'If you want to excersize a right you must perform certain actions. For Voting in US elections you must be a US citizen of 18 years or older, to carry a gun concealed you must be legal to own that gun and certified to carry it.

    Both rights carry grave responsibility and should be handled with care...not dismissed outright.

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  7. I will ignore the veiled racist comments and the Obamaphobia to get to the last point.

    You are correct. I am sure that there are many that do carry illegally. But as you pointed out there is 10-20, which is easier to handle than 50-60 nuts.

    BTW, gun rights have always been infringed on. Felons, people involved in domestic violence, etc. are not allowed to have firearms. And it still does not address the fact that if one has the right to do something, that that makes it the right thing to do.

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