Guns: Democrats vow to end the American Plague

[Omaha Steve]

http://iowadailydemocrat.com/news/2015/10/guns-democrats-vow-to-end-the-american-plague/

By Rick Smith10/08/15

Des Moines, Iowa – If there was a virus killing 90 Americans a day, we would rally all our health resources to find a cure. If that same virus was injuring an additional 270 Americans a day, we would search for a solution. If that virus was cutting down more than 80 of our preschoolers per year, we would demand our political leaders act.

Remember the scare over Ebola? Americans reacted with fear when the first person died in the United States. There was no cure but that didn’t prevent our health care leaders from protecting all our citizens by regulating contact with infected patients. All our medical facilities immediately implemented safety measures to contain the virus. Ebola, a deadly virus, was contained in America and it has been nearly eliminated in the world because we chose to find a solution.

We currently have a virus that is killing Americans at the rates described above. Americans are walking around with an Ebola-like killer in their pocket or stuffed in their belt. It’s more deadly than Ebola (Ebola requires contact with bodily fluids in order to be infected). This deadly virus is spread as easily as pointing it and pulling the trigger. This virus…this plague…this disease is a gun.

In the case of Ebola we quarantined people with a deadly disease capable of killing others. In the case of guns we can’t even debate modest proposals to restrict the distribution of guns to criminals, abusers and the mentally incompetent. We can’t seem to set the most basic safeguards on the power of weapons, the capacity of ammunition clips or gun free zones.

FULL story at link.


Guns available to nearly everyone in U.S. Ebola contained and eliminated in U.S. Both killers, but we refuse to find the cure for one of these. Gun photo credit: Glasgow, Licensed for re-use by CC 2.0. Ebola image credit: Centers for Disease Control, Public Domain.

[yeoman6987]

1. 1994 was the last time democratic politicians did the decent thing

Finally 21-years later they are looking out for Americans. Took them long enough.

[lancer78]

3. Getting beat

in a national election does that too you.

[branford]

7. Do you remember what happened in 1994?

Democrats lost control of Congress, and the Democratic Speaker even lost his bid for reelection. Bill Clinton believed that the AWB was largely responsible for most of the losses in the House. Not long afterward, Gore's gun control positions were later also widely attributed to his losing his home state of Tennessee, and thus the presidency. What kind of progressive legislative and policy solutions were sacrificed for a AWB and other gun control measures that the DOJ later held had no measurable impact.

Support for gun rights and opposition to restrictions have since increased in the intervening decades, all while gun laws have liberalized, the Supreme Court has affirmed individual gun rights, the 1994 AWB expired without fanfare, crime rates have halved, Democrats couldn't even pass UBC's in a Democratic Senate despite claims of overwhelming popular support, and Republicans now control all of Congress, with their largest majority in the House in generations.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/bill-clinton-assault-weapon-ban-newtown-shooting

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BECE5F84-7675-4ABC-B09E-91A268F975EC

[SecularMotion]

12. I see you're still slinging the NRA propaganda.

It is hard to make a case that the assault weapons ban was decisive in 1994.

The law certainly enraged many N.R.A. members and might explain the loss of certain Democratic seats. However, there were other major factors in the Democrats’ 1994 loss, starting with perceived Democratic arrogance and corruption (overdrafts at the House bank came to symbolize that).

Add to that voter unhappiness with Mr. Clinton’s budget, his health care fiasco, the Republican Party’s success in recruiting appealing candidates, and that ingenious Republican vehicle for nationalizing the elections known as the “Contract With America.” The contract, by the way, did not mention guns.

Mr. Clinton’s successful 1996 re-election campaign actually stressed his gun control achievements. James and Sarah Brady spoke in prime time at the ’96 Democratic convention, and Clinton campaign ads trumpeted his role in enacting the assault weapons ban and the ’93 Brady law requiring background checks for gun buyers.

Those who blame the assault weapons ban for the Democrats’ defeat in 1994 also tend to finger gun control for Al Gore’s loss in the 2000 presidential race — especially his failure to carry his home state of Tennessee.

But Mr. Gore’s bigger Tennessee problem was his failure to seriously compete there by providing adequate resources to answer N.R.A. distortions, for instance, and matching George W. Bush’s numerous visits. Largely obscured by the 2000 presidential drama was the loss in Florida’s Senate race of an N.R.A. stalwart, Bill McCollum, to a consistent Democratic supporter of gun control, Bill Nelson.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/opinion/09sat4.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=176681

[GGJohn]

13. Mr. Clinton disagrees with you and the author.

Whom to believe, Mr. Clinton or you and the author?
I'll believe Mr. Clinton, who was, you know, actually there.

[world wide wally]

2. Let's see if something gets done now

I sure hope so!

[GGJohn]

4. Like what?

What laws would have stopped this maniac?
What laws would you like to see passed?

[world wide wally]

8. It is a simple fact that states with stricter gun control laws have lower rates of gun deaths.

Anything is better than nothing.

I really don't care if the NRA goes broke

[Straw Man]

9. Simple facts.

It is a simple fact that states with stricter gun control laws have lower rates of gun deaths.

Really? Then lax Vermont should be near the top of gun death rates, right? But lo-and-behold it's ... #37! How does Live-Free-or-Die New Hampshire end up with a lower rate of gun death than California, which vies with New York for the toughest laws in the nation?*

Could it be that there are other factors involved?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws/

Anything is better than nothing.

You have no idea how dangerous that statement is.

I really don't care if the NRA goes broke.

Goes broke? What you're talking about here will swell their coffers beyond their wildest dreams! You should be getting a recruitment bonus from them.


*(All figures from 2013.)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. I think gun control is something we've gotten about right here in the UK.

Obviously, there's no prospect of anything like that happening in the USA.

But leaving realpolitik to one side, the answer to the questions you ask is "repeal the second amendment; roughly copy Britain's gun laws".

If you want, you could replace the 2nd amendment with something beginning "Armed militias being the worst possible threat to the security of a free state, ..."

[BlueJazz]

5. We could sell guns infected with Ebola Virus. Some won't like the "2 birds with one stone thing"

[Krytan11c]

6. What about something that kills 88,000 a year?

The people killed by alcohol are just as dead as those killed by guns, they just don't make headlines.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. A number of possible responses:

Firstly and most importantly, alcohol users mostly kill themselves; gun users kill a lot of other people.

Secondly the cost-benefit calculation is very different: a lot more people derive a lot more pleasure from alcohol than from firearms. Similarly, cars kill 45,000 Americans a year to guns 30-35,000, but again they do much more good.

Thirdly and least importantly, it's much harder to stop people making and selling alcohol than it is to stop them making and selling guns, because it's much easier to make.

[Krytan11c]

14. I get what you're saying

I get what you're saying, I really do. For the record I'm all for UBCs, a gun purchase waiting period, and mandatory prosecution of violation to current laws.
However, I am going to talk about the points you brought up.

1) Gun users also mostly kill themselves 22k suicides vs 8k homicides. Duis accounted for 10000 deaths in 2013 according to the cdc.

2) Many Americans enjoy target shooting, hunting, collecting guns, etc. I. Terms of cost benefit to society alcohol costs taxpayers much more than gun violence does every year

3) We agree.

[Waldorf]

15. You can pretty much say the same thing about guns.

"Firstly and most importantly, alcohol users mostly kill themselves; gun users kill a lot of other people."

The figure for gun deaths is around 30k a year. 2/3's of those are suicides.

[Lizzie Poppet]

16. Gun users, when they kill anyone, mostly kill themselves, too.

That is to say, 2/3 of the gun deaths in any given year are suicides. It's not that much higher the ratio for alcohol, in which there are c. 80,000 deaths per year related to abuse of alcohol, and about 12-18k DUI-related fatalities (it varies a lot by year and obviously some of the latter will be the drunk driver themselves).

I'm also not sure the cost-benefit ratio is as far apart as you assert. There are c. 80,000,000 gun owners in the US. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (part of the NIH) states that 56.4% of Americans drink at all regularly (defined as at least once within the last month). That's about 180,000,000. So yes, there is more "benefit" to alcohol...but it's not wildly disparate.

You're correct in stating alcohol is a lot easier than guns to make (although the latter are possible even for very low tech bases). However, alcohol is a consumable. Guns are durable goods. You don't have to make as much of the latter.

[Bucky]

17. very thoughtful. My responses

1. Alcohol, via motor vehicles, kills 1000s a year. The number 1 case of gunfire death is suicide.
2. A lot of people derive pleasure from shooting guns... target practice and hunting are wholesome, fun, family friendly activities.
3. The reason we need gun regulation is the VERY SAME REASON we regulate alcohol & cars. They're dangerous.