Buckrub
01-21-2013, 10:59 AM
Interesting Editorial from our state paper yesterday............
Guns, Ammo & Clips
Mr. President, how will your plan help?
By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
This article was published January 20, 2013 at 1:58 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — MR. PRESIDENT, thank you for your time. You must be super-busy these days. To take some time to read little ol’ us is decent of you. It can’t be easy, what with Iran, North Korea and Syria causing all kinds of trouble, the economy still sputtering, and Joe Biden down the hall mugging for all the secretaries. You must have your hands full.
Like many of us, you probably thought something had to be done after the latest school massacre, the one last month in Connecticut. Like many of us, you’d be right, too.
Something does have to be done. So you took the stage Wednesday to say what you’d do.
You came up with an impressive list, all right—if impressive only by its length.
Some of us wonder how all these many programs you propose would help, exactly. Were you and your people trying for change we can believe in, or just a list of talking points to show the American people that you, um, feel our pain? We’ve already had one chief executive like that.
Speaking of Bill Clinton, you propose to go back to the 1990s and reinstate the ban on assault weapons that was in place between 1994 and 2004. Ohhh-kay. But we have to ask: How would that help?
It’s one thing to complain about assault weapons. It’s another thing to solve the problem of mass shootings. In the main, the differences between an assault rifle and a regular rifle are cosmetic. If it has a strap, is painted black, and has pistol grips, it could be called an assault weapon. But that doesn’t mean it shoots one whit faster than any other semi-automatic rifle that’s used mainly for hunting.
If you could somehow ban assault weapons overnight (good luck taking them off the streets) what would prevent the next school shooting with another kind of firearm that shoots just as fast?
How would your plan help? Or is that even the point?
We understand your plan would also ban armor-piercing bullets. Goodness. Armor-piercing bullets? There are a lot of gun owners in Arkansas, and we know some of them, but we’ve never seen an armor-piercing bullet. Was that the kind of ammunition used in Newtown last month, or in Colorado at that movie theater shooting back in July? We hadn’t heard that, maybe because they weren’t.
Most hunters we know would shrug their shoulders at a ban on armor-piercing bullets. Who needs ’em anyway? Or, to put it another way, who uses ’em, Mr. President? And would banning them help? Or is that even the point? If another box of those awful things was never sold again, what would keep the next nutcase from buying a box of regular shells at Wal-Mart and going bloody crazy?
YOU PROPOSE background checks for anybody buying a gun, including those offered by private sellers.
But how enforce such a law? If, say, Cousin Ed wanted to sell a .22 rifle to Cousin Zed for a hundred bucks, and the transaction took place in Ed’s living room, how require either to submit a form for a background check? An unenforceable law is a bad law, if only because it makes a mockery of the law. If you want to require background checks of those who buy firearms at gun shows—a good idea—shouldn’t the law be more specific?
Dispatches say you also want Congress to eliminate a restriction that requires the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) to allow imports of weapons that are 50 years old or older. Are vintage guns being used in school shootings? Are collectibles a problem? We hadn’t heard that, either.
As the chief executive of the federal government, you say you’re able to take some action that won’t require, ahem, help from Congress. RHIP and all that. Wouldn’t the Constitution have something to say about that? Specifically, the Second Amendment? You’re the head of the executive—not legislative—branch, right?
For starters, you say you could launch a national Safe and Responsible Gun Ownership Campaign. That would prevent mass shootings how? And doesn’t the NRA already have such a program?
You say the feds could review “safety standards for gun locks and gun safes.” So the safety standards for gun locks and gun safes are a problem? We didn’t know that. Maybe because those standards aren’t a problem at all.
One of your executive orders, it’s said, will be to direct the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence. So creating another desk job in Atlanta is going to help somehow? Tracking mass shootings isn’t the same thing as preventing them.
Here’s another bullet point in your call for better gun laws: “Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.”
You’re kidding. Somebody on your staff was paid to write that? Even to think it? You, or your people, are trying to bring the debate back to Obamacare? Isn’t the debate over gun control dizzying enough?
Mr. President, if we didn’t know better we’d say you were playing politics. And the problem of mass shootings in this country is too important to play politics with it. Maybe you should ask Joe Biden to go back to mugging for the secretaries.
NOT THAT you don’t have some good ideas thrown in among all the bad ideas and non-ideas. For example, you call for limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. That sounds like a fine idea. In theory.
After you’ve banned making or importing those magazines, how get the millions of high-capacity clips off the streets?
The kind of folks who’d turn in their 20-round magazines because the government says so aren’t the kind of folks any of us should be worried about. You’ll have to explain how your idea, good as it is, would work. If it would.
Also, you’re asking Congress to increase the penalties for so-called straw purchasers—those who buy guns for others they know shouldn’t have them. Now you’re talking, Mr. President.
You want to fund more programs that train police and school officials to respond to attacks? And provide millions more to help schools develop response plans?
Sir, here’s our program, free of charge, and you don’t even have to give us a government study grant: Put more police in the schools. The schools could use the security, and there have to be a lot of cops who could use the part-time work. Every school district in the country should be checking security systems at their schools, but does every one of them need a federal grant to do it?
Not all of your ideas are bad. Some are even good. But we need ideas that would work. This debate is too important for a president to propose solutions to non-problems. Or change the subject. Or just play politics. We’re interested in solutions, not more Power-Point talks.
Guns, Ammo & Clips
Mr. President, how will your plan help?
By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
This article was published January 20, 2013 at 1:58 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — MR. PRESIDENT, thank you for your time. You must be super-busy these days. To take some time to read little ol’ us is decent of you. It can’t be easy, what with Iran, North Korea and Syria causing all kinds of trouble, the economy still sputtering, and Joe Biden down the hall mugging for all the secretaries. You must have your hands full.
Like many of us, you probably thought something had to be done after the latest school massacre, the one last month in Connecticut. Like many of us, you’d be right, too.
Something does have to be done. So you took the stage Wednesday to say what you’d do.
You came up with an impressive list, all right—if impressive only by its length.
Some of us wonder how all these many programs you propose would help, exactly. Were you and your people trying for change we can believe in, or just a list of talking points to show the American people that you, um, feel our pain? We’ve already had one chief executive like that.
Speaking of Bill Clinton, you propose to go back to the 1990s and reinstate the ban on assault weapons that was in place between 1994 and 2004. Ohhh-kay. But we have to ask: How would that help?
It’s one thing to complain about assault weapons. It’s another thing to solve the problem of mass shootings. In the main, the differences between an assault rifle and a regular rifle are cosmetic. If it has a strap, is painted black, and has pistol grips, it could be called an assault weapon. But that doesn’t mean it shoots one whit faster than any other semi-automatic rifle that’s used mainly for hunting.
If you could somehow ban assault weapons overnight (good luck taking them off the streets) what would prevent the next school shooting with another kind of firearm that shoots just as fast?
How would your plan help? Or is that even the point?
We understand your plan would also ban armor-piercing bullets. Goodness. Armor-piercing bullets? There are a lot of gun owners in Arkansas, and we know some of them, but we’ve never seen an armor-piercing bullet. Was that the kind of ammunition used in Newtown last month, or in Colorado at that movie theater shooting back in July? We hadn’t heard that, maybe because they weren’t.
Most hunters we know would shrug their shoulders at a ban on armor-piercing bullets. Who needs ’em anyway? Or, to put it another way, who uses ’em, Mr. President? And would banning them help? Or is that even the point? If another box of those awful things was never sold again, what would keep the next nutcase from buying a box of regular shells at Wal-Mart and going bloody crazy?
YOU PROPOSE background checks for anybody buying a gun, including those offered by private sellers.
But how enforce such a law? If, say, Cousin Ed wanted to sell a .22 rifle to Cousin Zed for a hundred bucks, and the transaction took place in Ed’s living room, how require either to submit a form for a background check? An unenforceable law is a bad law, if only because it makes a mockery of the law. If you want to require background checks of those who buy firearms at gun shows—a good idea—shouldn’t the law be more specific?
Dispatches say you also want Congress to eliminate a restriction that requires the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) to allow imports of weapons that are 50 years old or older. Are vintage guns being used in school shootings? Are collectibles a problem? We hadn’t heard that, either.
As the chief executive of the federal government, you say you’re able to take some action that won’t require, ahem, help from Congress. RHIP and all that. Wouldn’t the Constitution have something to say about that? Specifically, the Second Amendment? You’re the head of the executive—not legislative—branch, right?
For starters, you say you could launch a national Safe and Responsible Gun Ownership Campaign. That would prevent mass shootings how? And doesn’t the NRA already have such a program?
You say the feds could review “safety standards for gun locks and gun safes.” So the safety standards for gun locks and gun safes are a problem? We didn’t know that. Maybe because those standards aren’t a problem at all.
One of your executive orders, it’s said, will be to direct the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence. So creating another desk job in Atlanta is going to help somehow? Tracking mass shootings isn’t the same thing as preventing them.
Here’s another bullet point in your call for better gun laws: “Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.”
You’re kidding. Somebody on your staff was paid to write that? Even to think it? You, or your people, are trying to bring the debate back to Obamacare? Isn’t the debate over gun control dizzying enough?
Mr. President, if we didn’t know better we’d say you were playing politics. And the problem of mass shootings in this country is too important to play politics with it. Maybe you should ask Joe Biden to go back to mugging for the secretaries.
NOT THAT you don’t have some good ideas thrown in among all the bad ideas and non-ideas. For example, you call for limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. That sounds like a fine idea. In theory.
After you’ve banned making or importing those magazines, how get the millions of high-capacity clips off the streets?
The kind of folks who’d turn in their 20-round magazines because the government says so aren’t the kind of folks any of us should be worried about. You’ll have to explain how your idea, good as it is, would work. If it would.
Also, you’re asking Congress to increase the penalties for so-called straw purchasers—those who buy guns for others they know shouldn’t have them. Now you’re talking, Mr. President.
You want to fund more programs that train police and school officials to respond to attacks? And provide millions more to help schools develop response plans?
Sir, here’s our program, free of charge, and you don’t even have to give us a government study grant: Put more police in the schools. The schools could use the security, and there have to be a lot of cops who could use the part-time work. Every school district in the country should be checking security systems at their schools, but does every one of them need a federal grant to do it?
Not all of your ideas are bad. Some are even good. But we need ideas that would work. This debate is too important for a president to propose solutions to non-problems. Or change the subject. Or just play politics. We’re interested in solutions, not more Power-Point talks.