Move past our history of violence
By John Kitterman
Did Mike McHugh of the Virginia Gun Owners Coalition actually say, “We’re going to have to face down Barack Obama’s federal plantation”?
Forget the mixed metaphor: Now white people can refer to the government as a plantation? Does McHugh think there’s an escaped slave in the White House, Baracko Unchained, bent on payback?
Kitterman lives in Ferrum.
February 26, 2013 - 7:54 AM
Mr. Kitterman makes some excellent points and pretty well nails the truth to the wall. THANK YOU!
None so blind as those that will not see. As far as the NRA one day being ` Non-relavant anymore` ? Betcha .
I love the comments from this liberal bubble dweller. He is obviously not interested in our Constitution, however, we are. Guns are part of this Country`s heritage. The majority of gun ownerws are responsible folks and everyone, except the libs, know it.. Is this guy telling me that I don`t have the right to protect myself, family, friends from whatever threat may arise ? Does this guy think that we, as a Country, can`t be attacked ? Does this guy see our porous borders ? I suppose when you dwell in a `protective bubble`, these thngs just don`t resonate with the `blind`. Wake up and smell the reality, kitterman…We`ve owned, We now own, and we will continue to own guns. If ALL guns were taken from everyone, then obviously everyone from the Mayors details of the cities right up to Mr. Obama wouldn`t have to have armed men surrounding them……….would they ? Now that you know that the last statement was astoundingly ludicrous, the threat of danger exists everywhere. I`ll try and pierce the stubborn, blind, liberal bubble once again….“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns“….Guess I`d be an outlaw….along with the majority of this Country.
If you read his commentary, you would know what he is “telling” you.
Awood, I do believe in 1995 George H.W. Bush relegated the NRA as ‘Non-relevant anymore,’ and his letter of resignation was pretty scathing, too.
I find it fascinating that he proclaims that maintaining the right to self-defense is an abdication of civilization. In fact, the social compact is doomed to failure when citizens are rendered defenseless.
As Rachel Maddow so aptly notes, rights are those things that are not subject to vote by the majority.
Like a unicorn, there is no such thing as “sensible gun control” Mr. Kitterman. We’ve tried gun control and it both fails and, worse, backfires. Chicago and DC are both shining examples of the failure of gun control.
6 – nicely said.
“…maybe we should only have the guns they had in 1791.”
How ludicrous! Should the First Amendment only apply to the kind of communication media available in 1791, writing by hand or a mechanical printing press, and not to the electronic and digital media of today?
In DC v. Heller, the SCOTUS ruled that the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of individual citizens to bear arms in lawful common use TODAY, in or outside the home, for self defense, and is not limited to a militia.
Liberals just can’t accept the reality that Heller affirmed the 2nd Amendment and the government cannot make unreasonable laws restricting gun ownership.
This includes trigger locks, storing guns dismantled, carrying liability insurance, on site inspection of storing facilities, burdensome licensing regulations, and the like.
Banning guns based merely on cosmetic appearance will be determined unreasonable and thus unconstitutional.
Well let me jump in here. The current gun laws are not effective because they are not properly and diligently enforced, especially in cities like DC and Chicago. So called rights are subject to revocation including those of the second amendment. Convicted felons, mentally ill, and others cannot legally purchase and own a firearm though the NRA is working hard to reverse those restrictions. Finally, well written opinions like this one always brings out the best counterintuitive nonsense of the gun rights crowd.
#10 Please sir…..show me where/how the NRA is “working hard to reverese those restrictions” “on convicted felons, mentally ill…”
Is it not the pro-control side insisting on such restrictions for everyone? Or is it just their contention that to own a gun is a crime, per se?
You speak of “revocation” of “rights” as if it were a beauty contest title. I suggest to you that revoking someone’s rights is a very serious matter, and should not be used as anecdotal example of “gun control”.
As to, “well written opinions like this one”….well.
#10 How would enforcement of existing laws have prevented Sandy Hook?
If you really believe that “revoking someone’s rights is a very serious matter”, I think you are not seeing the reality of everyday life in America. One of the dirtier little secrets in disarming black people (why gun control started), and poor people, is just how easily someone in this nation gets a felony and revocation of rights and how hard it is to ever get the right to own a gun (for ANY purpose) back.
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The NRA is complicit in keeping guns easy to get and background checks hard to do outside of a narrow scope. In that way, they are most assuredly part of the problem.
I’ve said this before, and will say it again: It’s funny how the rightists such as the ones in this thread will call us more progressive folks “defeatists” whenever we scoff at their claims that they can forcibly transform Middle Eastern nations into U.S.-style democracies, but when it comes to such things as gun control and universal health care, it’s these exact same rightists who become the cynics who say nothing can be done.
13 – you are partially right. Actually gun control (and weapons control before there were guns) goes much further back than keeping blacks disarmed.
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Even in fuedal times, serfs and peasants were not allowed to be armed with, or trained in the use of, the arms of the “nobility” (swords, etc.). It sounds a little fantastic in an age of guns and laser-guided munitions, but a skilled swordsman had an incredible advantage over an unskilled, and an almost insurmountable advantage over a peasant armed with a pitchfork.
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I mentioned in a different thread that there were statutes as early as the 1640s aimed at keeping the American Indian population unarmed, and I don’t think I need to paint a picture to explain why.
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And that includes measures meant to keep blacks unarmed.
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And yes, the great tyrannies in the far and recent past – from the Nazis, to the Communists in USSR and Red China and on and on – have enforced strict gun control measures. Because it makes control so much easier.
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Yes, the elite have always meant to keep us great unwashed disarmed because it makes it easier for them keep their stranglehold on power.
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All of which which should lead one to a view that the only reason to try to control guns is to control people, and should lead one to the conclusion that gun control is a form of tyranny.
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Is it your position, Sandi, that the NRA and like organizations, oppose gun control measures because they want to keep this segment or that unarmed? I’ve never seen any evidence of prejudice in the NRA policies; do you have any? How do their positions and policy advocacy promote this goal?
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And finally, if the NRA did not exist (i.e., if the racist motivations you see in them were gone) would you support gun ownership as a means to ensure that the great unwashed are not subject to tyranny?
Mrs. Saunders…..maybe your “dirty little secret” just seems so because it doesn’t exist.
The NRA has fought, and been successful, to obtain gun rights for the poor & minorities for decades & in hundreds of cases nationwide.
Most recently the Heller & the McDonald cases.
I’ve seen pretty good examples of newthink & doublethink but for you to argue the NRA fights against gun rights is among the best.
Thanks for the chuckle.
Since I am so obviously not equipped to discuss issues with the intelligent posters here, I won’t.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/
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“The Secret History of Guns
The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.”
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I am too ignorant to understand you, but I think I understood this article very well.
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“…for much of our history, gun regulation has been tainted by the stains of racism and discrimination. Today, the story is more complex than the simplistic slogans of gun-rights advocates. But there is no denying that racial politics have profoundly shaped America’s gun laws.
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Gun-rights hardliners are fond of dismissing nearly any gun-safety effort as a violation of the Second Amendment. Yet the men who wrote and ratified that provision had extensive gun laws—and many of them were racially discriminatory. Not only did they support laws prohibiting slaves from possessing guns, they also disarmed free blacks, who the Founders feared might join together with their brethren in chains to revolt.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/09/adam-winkler-gun-fight-author-on-gun-control-s-racism.html
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112322/gun-control-racism-and-nra-history#
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Enjoy your “chuckle”.
Sandi, thank you for the links. Contrary to what I suspect is your goal of convincing that there should be more gun control and not less, it only confirms that when people are disarmed they become victims. I applaud the stories of those illegally detained refusing – peacefully, respectfully – to relinquish their rights because a badge with a bully pinned to it tells them to.
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I ask again, then: how would enforcing gun control make things better? How would disarming, and letting the bully-badges have free reign over the disarmed, increase the ability of people to defend themselves?
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And I would still like you to address the final question I asked you:
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If the NRA did not exist (i.e., if the racist motivations you see in them were gone) would you support gun ownership as a means to ensure that the great unwashed are not subject to tyranny?
her reference to dig. double standard. FYI. thanks.
#17 The “history” you cite is the history of states & local governments, from post civil war history, using gun restrictions to deny Constitutional rights to minorities (mostly blacks….beginning with freed slaves)….while maintaining such “rights” for the elite. It is something the NRA has fought from it’s incipience.
or is it just that I had the # wrong. sorry.