Topic: What's your opinion of gun control? - page 159. (Read 450471 times)

On Civil Rights Leader and Gun-owner Martin Luther King, Jr

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is best known as a man of profound peace, who applied Gandhi’s teachings of non-violent direct action to the plight of oppressed blacks in America and set the stage for the Civil Rights movement. It then may come as a surprise to some that the Reverend King, in keeping in line with Gandhi, believed strongly in the human right to self-defense and had even applied for a handgun carry permit after his house had been bombed to defend his family from the bigoted minds of that era. He was denied.

UCLA law professor Adam Winkler explains King’s relationship with firearms in his book Gunfight. He writes:

    Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the 1956, as the civil rights movement heated up, King turned to firearms for self-protection and he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

This was not out of the norm for Civil Rights organizers in the 1950s and 60s, nor was it the only weapon King kept around him. On the receiving end of countless death threats from both civilians and law enforcement, armed supporters took turns guarding King’s home and family after his permit was denied knowing too well that the Klan was targeting him for assassination and they would likely receive little assistance from the local authorities.

Indeed William Worthy, a black journalist who covered King in the 1950s, reported that he once went to sit down on an armchair in the King’s living room and almost sat on a loaded gun. King’s advisor Glenn Smiley described the great pacifist’s home as containing “an arsenal.”


T.R.M. Howard, the Mississippi doctor and founder of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, kept a Thompson submachine gun at the foot of his bed and escorted those affected by hate to and from their homes in a heavily-armed caravans. Likewise, white sit in organizer John R. Salter, always “traveled armed” while working in the South in the 50s, once said, “I’m alive today because of the Second Amendment and the natural right to keep and bear arms.”

Stories like these remind us today that even though these great minds preached peace and tolerance, they recognized the intimate connection between gun rights and human rights and the danger the oppression of one meant to the other. Though provisions mandating gun protocol for all Americans had existed since the colonial era, the first actual piece of gun control written in this country was targeted at blacks and keeping them unarmed. Though it would be hard to argue that all gun control is racist, it’s difficult to deny that its roots here in North America are in subjugation, a reality not lost on the thought-shapers of the Civil Rights era.

So on this day reserved for the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., Guns.com would like to encourage all of our readers to take a minute remember Dr. King as a man who did more than just pray for peace (he lived it), but was still prepared for war.


http://www.guns.com/2014/01/20/civil-rights-leader-gun-owner-martin-luther-king-jr/

Tearful Obama tightens gun control and tells inactive Congress: 'We can't wait'

A tear-stained Barack Obama marked his final year in office with a last-ditch call for US gun control on Tuesday as he outlined new rules that will close important background check loopholes but leave much of the political heavy lifting to his successor.

In a much-anticipated speech that focused more on what still needed to be done than the limited set of executive actions announced in advance by the White House, the president painted gun reform as the last great civil rights challenge of his generation.

“In Dr King’s words, we need to feel the fierce urgency of now, because people are dying,” a visibly emotional Obama told an audience of mass shooting victims and relatives in the East Room.

“Our inalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine, and from first graders in Newtown,” he added, his voice shaking. “First graders. And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun.”

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/05/obama-gun-control-executive-action-background-checks-licenses-gun-shows-mental-health-funding

Obama’s Gun-Control Plan Includes Gun-Ban For Some Social Security Beneficiaries


The White House released a fact-sheet Jan. 4 which previews the executive gun control Obama will unveil Tuesday and one aspect of the new controls is the inclusion of “information from the Social Security Administration in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm.”

On July 18 Breitbart News reported on Obama’s push to ban gun-possession for Social Security beneficiaries who are believed incapable of handling their own finances.

At that same time, the Los Angeles Times reported that a ban was being put together “outside of public view,” so all the details were not known. But the Times did  know that the ban would cover those who are unable to manage their own affairs for a multitude of reasons–from “subnormal intelligence or mental illness” to “incompetency,” an unspecified “condition,” or “disease.”

The ban pertaining to Social Security beneficiaries is now tucked into the “mental health” aspects of Obama’s executive gun control.


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/04/obamas-gun-control-plan-includes-gun-ban-social-security-beneficiaries/

Obama to meet with Loretta Lynch to discuss 'epidemic of gun violence'

The president will meet with the attorney general to talk about executive actions including expanding background checks, according to a source


President Barack Obama will meet on Monday with attorney general Loretta Lynch to discuss executive actions he could take to make it harder for “a dangerous few” to get their hands on guns.

Obama said on his weekly radio address that he gets so many letters from parents, teachers and children about the “epidemic of gun violence” that he can’t “sit around and do nothing”.

“The gun lobby is loud and well organized in its defense of effortlessly available guns for anyone,” Obama said. “The rest of us are going to have to be just as passionate and well organized in our defense of our kids.”

Obama recently directed staff at the White House to look into potential executive actions, such as expanding background checks.

Currently, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to seek background checks on potential firearm purchasers. But advocacy groups say some of the people who sell firearms at gun shows are not federally licensed, increasing the chance of sales to customers prohibited by law from purchasing guns.

A source familiar with the administration’s efforts said Obama is expected to take executive action next week that would set a “reasonable threshold” for when sellers have to seek a background check. That person didn’t know whether it would be based on the number of guns sold or revenue generated through gun sales.

The source, a member of a gun control advocacy group, was not authorized to discuss details before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. White House officials won’t confirm the timing.

Obama is in Hawaii for his annual holiday vacation with his family.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/01/obama-to-meet-with-loretta-lynch-to-discuss-epidemic-of-gun-violence

I'm sure there are many, many other stories where there was true heroism involved.  And here I'm not talking about the fake "hero" as the media portrays him - where they try to project an image that any and all "first responders" are "heroes."  They are not.

I'm talking about people who literally risk their own life to take out the bad guy.  Some, or many, will be law enforcement, sure.  But even then it should be examined.  For example, suppose some Islamic whackjobs are inside an area killing innocent people one by one.  Cops start to arrive.  If the cops wait until they have overwhelming force, then make their move, this is not heroism, not in the sense I would like to see the phrase used.

Anyway, you get my point. 

We are seeing the praise and the raising up of victimdom.  Not of heroes.

The inconvenient truth is that he needed a CCL at all, as Giffords held her event in the federal gun-free school zone of Edge High School Northwest, where "Constitutional Carry" is a federal felony.

Gun control hurts the law abiding citizen as those that are criminals do not follow such laws. Peaceful (those that haven't exhibited violent behavior) folks should have the right to life, and the corollary is the right to defend oneself. Defending oneself is a common right as you have the right to defend yourself against the common highwayman by all means necessary, which a firearm is the means.

No, I did not know of these people.  Neither of the incidents are ones which I've studied in detail, but if any reasonable amount of attention would have been paid to the people who were involved in resolving the situation I would have remembered it.  So, your point is taken and seems valid.

I do recall the fairly recent shooting in the mall in Oregon (it being the state I live in.)  That case was reported to have been brought to a speedy resolution when the shooter was confronted by a CCL guy and turned his weapon on himself.  This shooting did not get anywhere near the traction of the other more 'useful' events which did see (supposed) mass casualties.  I suspected that the CCL guy and his actions made the event non-useful.  For related reasons I also supposed that this was probably one of the non-hoax events that are prone to happen on rare occasion.

Some people say that the Giffords thing was fake and she is faking her injury.  The event happened before I became suspicious about stuff, but I don't remember anything especially questionable about the various reports, footage, etc.  I also think that it would be difficult and risky to try to fake an injury of this nature for the rest of one's life.  So, I'm not buying the 'conspiracy theory' on that one.  But I've not gone back and looked at the event in detail.  I'm not certain it is not a hoax either.  Just seems unlikely to me.  I'm almost never more than about 99% sure of anything since the world chronically surprises me with it's complexity.

I definitely support gun control. There are countries in Asia where gun control is very strict and so their crime rate is much better. The catch though is that crimes are more bloody
If you have seen the movie "Yellow Sea" I believe it won several awards, its plot was in Korea where civilians can never own a gun so gangsters use knives and axes. so if gun control were implemented in certain areas, crimes will be lower in rate but more brutal and bloody.

Another interesting aspect of "gun control" is hiding the heros, and only talking about (a) the terrorist (b) the victims.

Who knows anything about the brave woman who ran at the nutcase Islamic terrorist shooter at Ft. Hood, Texas?

How about the CCL guy that did the same with the Giffords shooting incident?

If I were commissioned to formulate a strategy here, I would do something like have the paramilitary (and/or military and/or contractors a-la Blackwater) show up at the doors of anyone who was registered and demand to see the gun.  If the victim was on a Kafka-esque secret list, the gun would be confiscated.  If the party could not produce the weapon, they would have to produce something like, oh, say, $10,000 in cash or be frog-marched off.  Enforcement then could search the rest of the property for anything else which caught their eye (e.g., your daughter)...and take it home as a fringe benefit of the job.  Civil asset forfeiture, bitch.

It's fairly easy for me to think like a left-winger since I was one an embarrassingly long part of my life.

Actually, I was at one point interested in a situation where gun owners needed to hold a bond to be forfeited if a gun were used irresponsibly.  I think that such a bond could be obtained for very reasonable costs on the open market since irresponsible use is nearly a non-problem.  These days I have no interest in anything but having these gun control slime have a high capacity clip shoved up their asses.  All the way.  It is increasingly clear to me that there is a deeper and darker agenda which they have.

I would be kind of interested in a trade:  Some ostensibly realistic thing (say, gun-show loophole if that even actually exists) for a situation where if more than, say, one percent of guns are confiscated in a 12 month time period, all gun control legislation is null and void.  If these gun-grabbers resisted such a structure (and they would) it would show their true colors.

Two major places.

1. All the nations that have violent, tyrranistic, oppressive governments that control their people with guns.

2. All the crooks that the free nations can't keep from getting guns one way or another.

Is it true? Where?

There already are, and can stop exactly zero criminals from getting guns.

I think there should be some kind of test 'due diligence'

My prized (best) TIG weld was on an aluminum AC line under a car hood that had developed a kink and leak.  Cut the tube, butt joined it together, and went all the way around that (1/4 or 3/8 OD tube) with a 1/16 AL rod.  Three times, then I was done.  Looked ugly.

Worked perfectly.

But this dude, I'm not even sure he knows what he's doing with his furnace.....

OMFG!  A guy can get decent work with shitty technique.  Not this dude.  I would not be proud of this weld working on the blind side of a muffler lying on my back under a car and using a torch.  The result was seriously embarrassing, and especially with TIG.  I had problems for a little while since I was habituated to moving the torch in and out to modulate temp from oxy-acetylene welding.  When I got past that I found it fairly easy to get beautiful work on mild steel.  Dirty aluminum castings, not so much.  (It's amazing how most aluminum casting is like a piece of swiss cheese when one starts to melt into it with TIG.)

How are they going to take the gun away from you? Ask you to hand it over nice-like? Throw a tantrum when you don't hand it over? No. They will use gun violence to stop you from what? Carrying a gun?

Folks who know what to do have the chance to make a lot of money off taxpayers if their property is stolen from them by government and cops.

California Law Allowing Seizure Of Guns Without Notification, If ‘Potential For Violence’, Begins January 1, 2016…


Gun-safety legislation going into effect in California next week will allow authorities to seize a person’s weapons for 21 days if a judge determines there’s potential for violence.

Proposed in the wake of a deadly May 2014 shooting rampage by Elliot Rodger, the bill provides family members with a means of having an emergency “gun violence restraining order” imposed against a loved one if they can convince a judge that allowing that person to possess a firearm “poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself or another by having in his or her custody or control.”


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/29/california-gun-violence-restraining-order-law-goin/

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