Where is the Common Sense Discussion on Gun Control from the Right?

Radical right is at it again distorting the facts about gun control

When over 60% of NRA members said something needs to be done with the semi-automatic rifles that in some cases can be converted in a short time to fully automatic and that no one needs clips over 15 bullets, you know something is wrong with the NRA.  Lo and behold Joe Scarborough, from Rep from the Florida Panhandle has the answer:

Scarborough: NRA is protecting gun manufacturers, not the Second Amendment

Jane C. Timm, @janestreet8:29 am on 01/11/2013 

“Can we just break through the BS?” Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said on Friday’s Morning Joe. “This is not—for the NRA—about Second Amendment rights.”
Scarborough slammed the NRA for fear-mongering for profits in the wake of the Newtown shooting, which has many calling for gun control. 

“Justice Scalia clearly laid out in Heller what Second Amendements were and what they were not. The most Conservative justice on the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia, made it very clear: assault weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment.” 

Instead, Scarborough said, the NRA is protecting themselves and their wealthy gun manufacturers.

This is about gun manufacturers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. This is about retailers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. Do you know how much money these people have made over the slaughter of 20 innocents in Newtown? Do you know how much richer these rich gun manufacturers have gotten over the past month, and how the NRA uses that tragedy to gin up fears, and websites use that tragedy to gin up fears that they’re coming to take your guns away? Hey, they can’t take your guns away, we’ve got something called the Second Amendment in the Constitution of the United States. Justice Scalia said in 2009 they can’t come and take your guns away, you can have a handgun to protect your family. But after that, they can regulate guns.

Supporting an NRA that fights for manufacturers instead of rights will be terrible for Republicans, Scarborough explained. “If we’re going to fight all these common sense gun measures, then we are a Republican party that’s headed for extinction,” he said.

Now we know that the NRA is the lobbying group for gun and ammo manufacturers, they have the credibility of a gnat.  How much are they getting paid to lobby to come up with their dumb statements on gun control refusing to tell the truth about the meeting with Vice President Biden yesterday.  Instead the NRA comes out and continues to inflame the situation like Drudge comparing Obama to Hitler.  Seems they don't have the facts even then.  You want real facts, check out The Pink Flamingo which has an excellent article, It's Not the Second Amendment but the Technology, where the author has delved into the issue of gun control including the Wild West giving pertinent information that flies in the face of what the conservative pundits are saying.  Imagine that, the conservative pundits are lying once again.  This time it is on gun control.

General McChrystal went from a hero of the right to a goat overnight when he dared to take on "assault weapons" and why the military needs them but not individuals:

Retired General Stanley McChrystal expressed a desire for stricter gun control laws this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. 

In light of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s upcoming appearance on her program, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked McChrystal for his thoughts on so-called “assault weapons.”
“I spent a career carrying typically either a M16, and later a M4 carbine,” the retired general explained. “An M4 carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 millimeters, at about 3,000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It’s designed to do that. That’s what our soldiers ought to carry.” 

McChrystal retired in 2010 after a Rolling Stone profile quoted him and his staff mocking civilian government officials like Vice President Joe Biden. Prior to his resignation, he was the general of U.S. forces in Afghanistan; and before that he was Director of the Joint Staff.
However, echoing a sentiment held by many gun control advocates, McChrystal then said, “I personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America. I believe that we’ve got to take a serious look. I understand everybody’s desire to have whatever they want, but we have to protect our children and our police, and we have to protect our population. And I think we have to take a very mature look at that.” 

Pressed for further thoughts, McChrystal added that, on gun control, “I think serious action is necessary. Sometimes we talk about very limited actions on the edges, and I just don’t think that’s enough.” 

Co-host Willie Geist then asked if McChrystal had a “message” for the National Rifle Association and the legislators who would oversee any new laws. 

The four-star general’s response: “I think we have to look at the situation in America. The number of people killed by firearms is extraordinary compared to other nations. I don’t think we’re a bloodthirsty culture, and we need to look at everything we can do to safeguard our people.”

Then there is the situation that Connecticut finds themselves in being surrounded by states with less strict gun control laws and you realize we need national gun laws no matter what the hard right is saying along with the NRA:

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy explained that neighboring states’ gun laws undercut the restrictions in his state and called for standardized, federal gun laws. 

“We just need to close some loopholes, we need to make sure that guns can’t be sold at shows in Florida and Virginia and work their way up to Philadelphia, where 219 people get killed, or work their way up to Bridgeport and New Haven and Hartford and Stamford and Norwalk,” he said on Thursday’s Morning Joe. 

Gun rights advocates have regularly cited Connecticut’s strict gun laws as proof that gun control doesn’t work, but Malloy explained that if laws aren’t consistent, neither is the control.
“Those guns shouldn’t be coming up to our part of the country, we don’t allow the sale of many of those types of guns of our states but you can go to the places where no one’s doing the kind of checking, no one’s doing the background. Let’s do the common sense things.” 

Neighboring state’s laws are notorious for undercutting the laws in states with tough restrictions. A report in New York this summer found that states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida provided the bulk of the illegal guns seized in New York: of 8,793 guns seized in New York last year, just 1,595 of them were bought in the state. 

“These high capacity magazines they don’t make any sense, we don’t need those in our country, no one is going deer hunting with them, you don’t use that to protect your house, this has gotten crazy,” Malloy added. He also noted that mental health and the glorification of violence also needs to be addressed. 

Federal gun law is needed to really control gun purchases and should limit ammunition magazines and standardize gun restrictions. 

“Limit magazines under the assault weapons ban, which was allowed to go away, you couldn’t have had the clips that that young man took into the Sandy Hook schools, it would not have been possible, that’s a common sense example,” he said. 

“Close all loopholes—every gun purchase has to have the same rigor attached to it regardless of where it’s occurs in our country. Those are two things that would make a gigantic difference in the amount of violence that’s taking place in our urban environments and, yes, under these environments where someone goes in and shoots up a movie theater or shoots up a school,” Malloy said.

I have seen some of the scariest statements ever that border on treason and frankly should be called treason that encourage people to take to the streets to protect their guns from the Government.  President has been called Hitler and Stalin by some of the pundits.  These people frankly scare me with their rhetoric because there are some people out there who believe every word a Glenn Beck, Fox News, or Rush has to say that could end up harming innocent people.  I am convinced that the hard right has gone way over the top when I received this article by Chuck Baldwin in email this morning:

I have been writing this column for over a dozen years, and I can safely say the column I wrote last week, “My Line In The Sand Is Drawn Here,” produced more response than any column I have ever written–maybe more than any two or three columns combined. And what is even more noteworthy: unlike most columns, the responses to this column were at least 90% favorable. 

In last week’s column I said, “Throughout the United States, there are tens of millions of fully-armed citizens who are more than capable of defending themselves and their communities against any enemy–whether that enemy is an internal or external one. In fact, many millions of these citizens have been trained in the US armed forces. Firearms–especially semi-automatic rifles–in the hands of millions of American citizens is truly the only thing that stands between freedom and tyranny for the people of the United States. That Barack Obama and Dianne Feinstein want to disarm the American people should be considered an act of war against our liberties! In other words, ladies and gentlemen, this is a line in the sand that none of us can afford to ignore.”

I also wrote, “Make no mistake about it: to take away an American’s right to a semi-automatic rifle is to FULLY DISARM HIM. There is no Second Amendment; there is no right to keep and bear arms; there is no citizen militia; there is no liberty without the semi-automatic rifle!”
I concluded the column saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, whatever the consequences might be, and whatever anyone else does or doesn’t do, I am prepared to become an outlaw over this issue! I don’t know how to say it any plainer: I will not register my firearms, and I will not surrender my firearms. Period. End of story. It’s not just a saying with me: when my guns are outlawed, I will be an outlaw! 

“My line in the sand is drawn here! 

“Make no mistake about it: it is not just semi-automatic rifles that these gun grabbers are after. Ultimately, they want to take all of our guns. We either stop them now or there will be no stopping them at all.” 

See the column at: 

My Line In The Sand Is Drawn Here!

No one I have heard from the left is talking about going into someone's house and taking guns away.  They want to control the sale of new high powered semi-automatics that can be converted in short order to fully automatic, the large clips, and tighten up once again the background checks that Republicans loosened when they were in charge of the Congress under President Bush.  If you are not willing to have a comprehensive background check, then you shouldn't be buying a gun.  Having large magazine clips along with being able to buy the same armor/clothing of the police and military is also unnecessary.  The very idea of an armed guard to protect the Country flies in the face of facts.  You know those pesky things that get in the way of the hard right narrative.

When you think it cannot get any more insane, along comes Ohio with a school board voting to arm janitors.  Maybe I am naive but how does a janitor go up against someone with a semi-automatic who is out to kill?  That seems to be like bringing a knife to a gun fight where if you have the knife, you are going to lose.

There needs to be common sense brought to the gun control debate including background checks no matter who sells the gun and limiting magazines to 15 rounds which still gives target shooters what they need.  The very idea private sellers at gun shows don't have to do background checks make them worthless.  Time to stop any semi-automatic that can be turned into fully automatic quickly from being sold.  Once again people are looking for common sense gun laws not laws to take away guns from individuals no matter how much the hard right media repeats that narrative.