Tag: gun control

Next Saturday marks the first anniversary of the school shooting that took 26 beautiful lives for no reason. The families and people of Newtown have requested that everyone, including the news media stay away and let them mark this sad day within the community. Rachel Maddow reports on Newtown’s request to be left alone on the Sandy Hook tragedy anniversary, and slams the playing of the 911 tapes from that day.

Since Newtown there have been 26 more school shootings. The gun control group Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America wants to know “is silence what America needs right now?”

The following commercial is an effort by the group to bring attention to the need to tighten gun control in a country obsessed with guns as we all mourn with Newtown

Blessed Be

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

In the aftermath of another mass shooting that took the lives of 12 people and the gunman in the heart of the nation’s capital at the Washington Naval Yard, Washington Hospital Center Chief Medical Officer Janis Orlowsi, a trauma surgeon spoke to the press. After reporting on the status of the victims who were being treated at her hospital, Dr. Orlowsi made a powerful plea for gun control.

You know what, we see a lot of trauma. And you know, sometimes it’s just, you know – accidents that occur that we get to help people with, because they’re accidents. And then you see what I call senseless trauma. And there is – there’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate.

   I – I have to say, I may see this everyday, I may, you know, be the Chief Medical Officer of a very large trauma center. But there’s something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries. There is something wrong. and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it.

   I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots and not to be an expert on this. We are – we do it well. Very experienced surgeons. But, quite frankly, I would rather they were doing their surgery on other things. And you know, it’s a great city. It’s a great country. And we have to work together to get rid of this. Because we just cannot have, you know, one more shooting with, you know, so many people killed.

   We’ve got to figure this out. We’ve got to be able to help each other. We’re dealing right now with three innocent people. But my prayers and my thoughts go out to those people who have died as a result of today. And, you know, their families and what they’re going to have to go through. So I have to say, you know, it’s a challenge to all of us. Let’s get rid of this. This is not America. This is not Washington D.C. This is not good. So we have got to work to get rid of this.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Actor and comedian Jim Carrey took on the right win gun nuts and the gun lobbyist organization, the National Rifle Assosciation.

Jim Carrey’s ‘Cold Dead Hand’ Music Video Spoofs Gun Enthusiasts Like Charlton Heston

The late Charlton Heston might be rolling in his grave today thanks to Jim Carrey, who debuted a new satirical song about gun enthusiasts appropriately titled, “Cold Dead Hand.”

The Funny Or Die music video features Carrey and alt-rock band Eels as “Lonesome Earl And The Clutterbusters,” a country band on a TV show set inspired by the classic variety show, “Hee Haw.” Carrey also portrays the aforementioned Heston, who is continuously mocked throughout the song for his NRA spokesman-ship. Carrey even implies that Heston and all other gun enthusiasts buy weapons to compensate for having, um, “diminished” sexual organs.

Carrey, who has openly supported gun control, said in a release: “I find the gun problem frustrating and ‘Cold Dead Hand’ is my fun little way of expressing that frustration.”

I think Jim Carrey says it all in this Tweet

And here is the video that set them off.

Priceless.

  What nation can intentionally target children for death and still expect the world to love us? Didn’t we used to denounce the Soviet Union for this stuff?

“In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”

 – Lt Col Marion Carrington, Marine Corp Times

 It sort of puts those school shooting deaths in perspective, doesn’t it? Our lack of respect for the lives of children overseas will eventually come home.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

In the light of the Sandy Hook tragedy, stricter gun regulation should be a no brainer. Apparently there are still many who are willing to place the blame on anything but the easy access to an semi-automatic assault rifle with multi-round clips. In the Los Angeles Times, Larry Alan Burns, a federal district judge in San Diego, who recently sentenced Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for his shooting rampage in Tucson, makes the case for new gun control legislation.

Burns is a self-described conservative, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, and he agrees with the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, which held that the 2nd Amendment gives Americans the right to own guns for self-defense. He is also a gun owner.

But while sentencing Loughner in November, Burns questioned the need for high-capacity magazines like the one Loughner had in his Glock, and said he regretted how the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. On Thursday, reacting to last week’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., Burns publicly called for a new assault weapons ban “with some teeth this time,” in an op-ed published by The Los Angeles Times.

Lawrence O’Donnell reads Judge Burns’ op-ed in its entirety.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

From Politico

NBC’s David Gregory said Sunday that not a single pro-gun-rights senator accepted a “Meet The Press” invitation to appear on the show.

“A note here this morning: We reached out to all 31 pro-gun rights senators in the new congress to invite them on the program to share their views on the subject this morning,” he said. “We had no takers.”

One did appear on right wing morning show proffering the inane argument that if the principal had a M4 carbine, an assault rifle designed by the U.S. military for urban warfare, this tragedy could have been prevented. Apparently, he missed the  fact that even well trained law enforcement officers can’t shoot straight under stress often shooting one of their own or innocent civilians and that is only part of the problem with that ridiculous idea. Arming teachers is not a solution but gun rights advocates will still put it out as a solution to avoid discussing better regulation of all fire arms in this country.

Mr. Gregory’s guests were NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who said she would introduce gun assault weapons ban legislation on the first day of Congress.

She should also add a provision for mandatory background checks and waiting periods at gun shows; tighter background checks in general and reporting all gun purchases to Department of Homeland Security or the FBI.

Will this be enough to prevent another tragedy like Sandy Hook? Probably not. It won’t take the assault rifles away from their current owners but it will make it harder to get one.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The infamous line that was uttered by Clint Eastwood ‘s character, Harry Callahan from the 1983 film Sudden Impact.

This morning Associate Justice Antonin Scalia made the day of every  weapons of mass destruction lover’s day. During an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, Wallace asked the Supreme Court Justice about gun control, and whether the Second Amendment allows for any limitations to gun rights. In Scalia’s opinion, under his principle of “originalism”, if the weapon can be “hand held” it probably still falls under the right to “bear arms”:

Referring to the recent shooting in Aurora, CO, host Chris Wallace asked the Supreme Court Justice about gun control, and whether the Second Amendment allows for any limitations to gun rights. Scalia admitted there could be, such as “frighting” (carrying a big ax just to scare people), but they would still have to be determined with an 18th-Century perspective in mind. According to his originalism, if a weapon can be hand-held, though, it probably still falls under the right o “bear arms”:

   WALLACE: What about… a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute?

   SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried – it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons – but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.

   WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?

   SCALIA: Very carefully.

Law Professor Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago observed in a guest opinion at Jonathan Turly’s blog:

Maybe Justice Scalia needs to see the photos of the carnage a semi-automatic weapon or a shoulder fired rocket launcher can create. Under this thinking, RPG’s might be legal for all citizens to own and carry.  Grenades can be hand-held and therefore under Justice Scalia’s warped sense of thinking, they too might be legal for citizens to carry.  Do we draw the limit at briefcase nukes that can be carried in one’s hand?

Obviously the theory that Justice Scalia is promoting can be carried to extreme and hilarious lengths.  The real scary part is that Justice Scalia doesn’t understand how hilarious and dangerous his concepts are in the real world. [..]

Since Justice Scalia thinks that these kind of weapons may be legal, is it too far-fetched to wonder if the current crop of right-wing Militia’s are free to purchase these kind of weapons, even if they hope to use them against the government?

Justice Scalia was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan with a Republican held Senate and the unanimous blessings of the Democrats. Al Qaeda must be thrilled.

N.B.: For more about Justice Scalia and his concept of “orginaliasm” read this article at Huffington Post written in 2011 by Prof. Stone: Justice Scalia, Originalism and the First Amendment

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

New York (FNS)-In an effort to help dispel concerns of racism, Terri Stocke, President of the Second Amendment March, agreed to coordinate with members of the Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition in an effort to encourage more members of the Black community to bear arms and to carry them publicly.

In return, members of the Black community have agreed to flood the 2nd Amendment March, scheduled for April 19, 2010, in Washington, DC, with hundreds of thousands of heavily armed residents of Chicago’s South Side and New York City’s Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods.

“We hope that the Black community understands that 2nd Amendment rights apply to all Americans” Ms. Stocke told the crowd outside Mr. Sharpton’s offices.