My heart broke on December 14, 2012. Many of us are still in shock. How could something like this happen in Newtown? How could the shooter be from my neighborhood? My shock immediately turned into anger at the politicians who failed to protect our children and our teachers because they consistently align with the gun lobby to further their political careers rather than passing sensible laws to prevent gun violence.
I am also angry with myself for not doing anything after a decade of news of other mass shootings in schools, malls and movie theaters and senseless gun deaths in our cities. I am culpable for the escalation of gun violence and for proliferation of guns in our society with my silence. I did not pay attention. I never looked at the NRA ratings. I never sent a letter or an e-mail or made a phone call to our elected representatives to ask them to do something about the escalation of gun violence in our country. I am forever changed by what happened on December 14th. I promised to get engaged to honor the 26 lives lost by doing everything I can to create the change that is necessary for our children to grow up feeling safe in schools and other public places.
I worked with 16 other co-founders to launch the Sandy Hook Promise and I fully support their long term mission to reduce the culture of violence in our nation. The state and federal lawmakers are moving fast in response to one of the most horrific events our country has seen and I feel compelled to work to ensure that our lawmakers strengthen the laws to protect our children from gun violence.
I have made a decision to work with Newtown Action Alliance (NAA), a grass roots organization being formed by a group of Newtown residents who traveled down to march in Washington DC on January 26th. The NAA will be fighting to strengthen the gun laws for marked reduction in gun violence and death in our town, our state and our country. The Connecticut General Assembly’s Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety is expected to present a bill by February 15th and the General Assembly is expected to vote on a bill by the end of this month.
I encourage anyone who is interested in helping the NAA to sign up for the e-mail alerts: https://tinyletter.com/NewtownAction and “LIKE” NAA on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NewtownActionAlliance . Please attend the NAA Action meeting on Thursday, February 7th at 7pm in the Alexandria Room at Edmond Town Hall on 45 Main Street in Newtown.
The NAA sent its first “Newtown Action Alliance Action Alert” on Saturday encouraging Connecticut residents to make phone calls and to send letters/e-mails to some lawmakers that need our special attention. I believe it is critical for Connecticut to pass the most comprehensive gun safety legislation that this country has ever seen. The State of New York passed its bold legislation last month. The world is watching Newtown and Connecticut! Please join me and take action!
and search for ban notice how its brought up almost exclusively by pro-gun people, and not by anti-gun people?
Try again, DBJ. Try harder, much, much harder.
Enjoy this one. It's about a mother who refuses to protect her children with a gun should someone break into her house. Nice. http://wr2a.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/leslie-marshall-her-anti-gun-rhetoric-shows-her-inability-to-be-a-mother/
On to your link... so what, she clearly stated that she doesn't need a gun to defend herself, and since statistics show you're more likely to die from the gun in your house then to kill someone with it.. shes probably right. anybody who NEEDS a gun for self-defense in a non-combat zone, and says they can't defend themselves without its puting themselves at a serious disadvantage. The first thing a criminal is going to do if he/she wants to rob your house and you brandish a gun is going to be to disarm you... so while you were so ready to defend yourself with a gun, all of a sudden you have no gun.. the only method you know of to defend yourself. Shes weighing the probabilities and risks. she is allowed to come to her own conclusion. keep on arguing against bans though, when i was younger and i was in a debate and I had the weaker position i would always change what the debate was about or make the opposition try to defend a statement I would trick them into thinking they made.... its a very useful tactic when you can't debate the actual talking point.
Class is now in session. Take notes. You said: "The first thing a criminal is going to do if he/she wants to rob your house and you brandish a gun is going to be to disarm you..." Nope. The first thing they will do is run. Or get shot. Whichever. http://www.akdart.com/gun3.html Leslie Marshall is a sorry excuse for a mother. Any mother that would shrug their shoulders and glibly reply that if someone breaks into her house has 'earned it' is a danger to herself and her children. Criminals fear armed victims, hence, they prefer unarmed victims. Derp.
There is also no science to support the reductions of murders from a ten round limitation. There is studies conducted after the 94 assault weapons ban showing no effect. Most shooters who you talk to believe the 10 round restriction would be ineffectual and replaced (unless overturned by the courts) by a series of more restrictive limits until we are left with our 6" swimming pool no longer able to swim. If you do not support armed self defense, that may not be a problem for you but the Connecticut and US bill of rights would need to be changed.
I understand criminals don't obey laws. Restricting me to 10 would be the same as tying one arm behind my back against a madman and wishing me luck. If a 10 rd restriction makes sense, than the police should be the first to embrace this limit on themselves. If not, they should explain why! Our wise leaders could just draft a few more laws and we'd all be safe, well, at least in their minds. I suspect the police know better. My thoughts, well, I agree with our founding Fathers. "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.". ~ Thomas Jefferson Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples " Liberty's teeth." ~ George Washington. Lastly, my favorite when it comes to what " I Need " from the misinformed, " Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom, it is the arguement of tyrants: it is the creed of slaves."
You said: "Enlighten me as to the undesirable side effects that have occured as a result of gun laws." Chicago. Unarmed legal citizens by draconian laws. Criminals (non-law-abiders) killing Chicagoans in record numbers with illegal guns. The undesirable side effect: no good guys with guns to intimidate the bad guys with guns. Welcome to Chicago! We have the strictest gun control laws in America! Please don't get shot, by the way, because we need the tourism money.
http://wilton.patch.com/articles/malloy-to-commission-i-do-not-support-confiscation-of-firearms-5559f6fa Over the objections of the Commission's chair, the Mayor of Hamden (no friend of gun owners), the SHC is going to recommend a reclassification of "assault weapon" to included any weapon, RIFLE OR PISTOL, capable of shooting more than 10 round without reloading. That means ANY PISTOL capable of holding a 9-round magazine (i.e. 9-in-mag + 1-in-chamber = 10) will be considered an "assault weapon" and be BANNED under the thinking of the emotion-driven on the SHC. Oh, and no grandfathering which is a BAN WITH SURRENDER/CONFISCATION. Now, I appreciate that such an egregious definition warms you gun-taker's heart, but even Dannel Malloy knows over-reach when he hears it. WHY? Because the Governor knows exactly what Scalia meant by "in common use" and he knows that what the SHC is calling for would violate that treatment. Also, he knows that it would first violate the Connecticut State Constitution's right to bear arms for self-defense since such an AW definition would capture the vast majority of semi-automatic sefl-defense handguns in COMMON use today. I own five semi-auto handguns and that definition would ban four of them. So sorry, Soyboy, bans are being discussed openly by elected officials.
If you have not seen them, you might find some of my earlier posts of interest: http://wilton.patch.com/blog_posts/compendium-of-thomas-paines-firearms-related-patch-posts Be well!
So please OZ, spare us the righteous indignation of using an anti-gun thug like Nocera or I will have to start linking to the hundreds of example of positive civilian gun usage from the NRA or Cato Institute.
http://wr2a.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/malloy-guns-and-the-idiocy-of-ct-liberalism/ -The sale and possession of assault-style weapons including semi-automatics like the rifle used to kill 26 people in Newtown would be prohibited under a recommendation approved Friday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy‘s Sandy Hook Advisory Commission. But the panel did not address how Connecticut gun owners would surrender their weapons to authorities. -Under the simple language preferred by commission members, weapons capable of firing more than 10 bullets without reloading would be illegal. -“They’re capable of firing a lot of bullets very quickly because they’re supposed to be used by the military or the police,” Sullivan said. “My whole thing here is, the more bullets that somebody can shoot, the more danger there is to our society. I don’t think we can walk away from that because as long as there are weapons out there that can fire that many bullets that fast, it just means there is that much more danger to our society.” -Chris Lyddy said gun owners should have to give up their weapons to assure public safety: “I’m on the side of let’s take a stand and give a damn about those lives that have been lost. You know what? Those legal-abiding gun owners, I do feel bad for if we pass this recommendation. But when I try to measure the cost and benefit of such a recommendation, I’m going to err on the side of the safety of those children.."
In the hands of a child,words are systematically slaughted daily. Millions of these pencils of mass destruction are manufactured without reguard to proper spelling . The government must stop this carnage by banning the production of pencils and pens..
Oh, please. "Unneeded", "capabilities", "above the innocent and defenseless"...can you try any harder, Ed, to stir up suspicion and animosity? You are losing it, Ed. You used to make sense, now you''e just parroting silliness and non-factual talking points of the anti-gun cult.
On the otherhand, they did NOT say "right to bear arms AND cannon, artillery or bomb". Why such a generic construction using "arms"? Because the Framers knew that firearm technology would progress over time and to use "flintlock" or "muzzleloading" would limit future generations of citizens to less capable firearms they would be possessed by any future foe, domestic or foreign. Justice Scalia's opinion in Heller, referencing the Miller decision, looks at firearms that are in "common use" and whether a firearms is "extraordinary" as indicators of whether a type of firearm should be considered beyond the original intent of the 2A. You are disgusted by those who own "high capacity magazines" - please define "high capacity". I own three types of pistols whose STANDARD capacity magazines are 9, 12 and 15 rounds. My black rifles came with standard capacity mags of 30 rounds. So please tell me how you define "high". And then look up the shootings at Oikos University last April - 8 dead w California compliant 10-round mags.
No no, no, the liberals already have the whole "Less Children" thing wrapped up with their "abortion-on-demand and without apology" mantra. However, if liberals anted to use guns to perform abortions-on-demand, would they suddenly become pro-Life? I often wonder if they hate guns so much that they would stop wanting to kill unborn babies if a gun was used....
For anyone interested in a discussion of magazine capacity limits and their potential impact on all forms of gun violence, I humbly recommend the following: http://wilton.patch.com/blog_posts/gun-violence-magazine-capacity-part-one http://wilton.patch.com/blog_posts/gun-violence-and-magazine-capacity-part-15-interlude http://wilton.patch.com/blog_posts/gun-violence-and-magazine-capacity-part-two http://wilton.patch.com/blog_posts/gun-control-restrictions-and-compliance-not-what-you-think
"Oz - Really, Joe Nocera as an authoritative source?!" He is not a source. He simply compiles quotes from various news sources. BTW, here is today's edition: http://nocera.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/the-gun-report-march-12-2013/ "...or I will have to start linking to the hundreds of example of positive civilian gun usage from the NRA or Cato Institute." Have at it.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sandy-hook-urges-broader-gun-control-increased-school-182807887.html
http://news.yahoo.com/colo-governor-sign-gun-restrictions-005357128.html
http://newtownaction.org/come-hear-chris-kocher-plus-learn-of-opportunities-to-help/ Hey, isn't Mayor James Schiliro part of MAIG? And didn't he just take a kid hostage with a gun? http://wr2a.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/marcus-hook-mayor-james-schiliro-gun-incident/ Bring popcorn. This will be enlightening. See ya there!
http://wr2a.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/harry-reid-shoots-down-dianne-feinsteins-gun-control-package/ Oh, how utterly delicious. This is what happens when emotion hits realism.