Arizona Proves That the Politics of Guns Leave Us Defenseless

Your Opinions
On Saturday, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was targeted and shot in the head during a mass meeting with voters. During the contentious Elections last fall, her opponent, Jesse Kelly, held fund-raisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle (Page 1A, Jan. 9). Hate Speech proclaimed by politicians and political pundits riles up the violent to violence. Those politicians and pundits can't escape charges of complicity. Ther...

You're Damn Right that America's Macho Gun Culture Played a Role in Arizona Shootings
It's not about Gun Control; it's about the devastating impact of our gun culture. As an advocate of gun control, I believe in the strong Regulation of lethal weapons. It's just common sense. But until we start changing the gun worship of far too many American males, we are going to have a difficult time stopping the ravaging of our society by bullets. More than 10,000 Americans die in gun homicides each year, a figure that far surpasses any Western nation. In Arizona, obtaining a gun is about as...

Daly: Bam's mum as Bloomy leads fight vs. guns
Our mayor was at his undeniable worst during the blizzard, but he has always been at his indisputable best when it comes to bullets. And the horror in Arizona proves once again how right he is to campaign so tirelessly against gun violence. When even our President has been cowed by the supporters of "Gun Rights," Mayor Bloomberg has done everything in his power to stem the unending carnage. He has been that rare political leader who acts because he believes it is the right thing to do. He cert...

Gun Control and Individual Responsibility
Is it time for stricter gun-control laws in light of the Arizona shooting? Or would it be an overreaction to an isolated incident? Except as it pertains to international or interstate shipment, gun safety Legislation belongs properly to the states, not to the Federal Government, and state laws vary to reflect local circumstances. Over the past two years the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Second Amendment right to keep and Bear Arms is an individual right, but that states may ...

Tuesday: Guns for everyone (and bullets for every gun) edition
As realists we know that here in the United States we aren’t ever going to outlaw private ownership of guns. But, you might (realistically) think that this Tuesday Morning — nearly 3 days after the terrible shooting in Tucson — there would be a steady stream of articles calling for more serious Regulation of the guns in this country. There isn’t. Apparently Gun Control is off the table. With my background in programming and maintaining databases I should have known bett...

Political Rhetoric and Political Violence: Are Conservatives to Blame for the Arizona Shooting?
In the wake of Saturday’s deadly shooting in Arizona, the Assassination attempt on Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with fingers being pointed (justifiably, I think) at the likes of Sarah Palin (and the Tea Party, as well as much of the Republican Party), much of the talk today is about Political Speech: Do Palin and others deserve any of the blame for what happened yesterday? More broadly, what is appropriate and what isn’t? At Slate, Jack Shafer defends “inflammatory rhet...

Shooting tests US West love affair with guns
A billboard in Tucson, Arizona, invites residents to a gun show. Arizona ha... Months before she was shot in the head, US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords won a tight re-election battle vowing to be "moderate" -- including by staunchly backing the right to own guns. As she lies in critical condition, some are publicly questioning the gun-slinging culture of the American West where weapons at restaurants do not cause a second glance and opposition to guns is considered political Suicide. Jared ...

Polls suggest gun control unlikely to be a campaign issue
With some Democratic lawmakers calling for stricter gun-control measures in the wake of Saturday's shooting in Arizona, polling suggests it's unlikely to morph into a campaign issue for 2012.  Across the board, polling from the past several years shows that support for stricter gun-control laws has declined, even after Mass Shootings like the one that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech in the spring of 2007, which killed 32 people. Saturday's shooting killed at least six people and criti...

Arizona Shootings and the Gun Debate: How Will The Public Respond?
Tragic and shocking events like the shooting rampage in Arizona inevitably revive the debate over Gun Control laws and no doubt will do so again in the aftermath of the spree in which suspect Jared Lee Loughner used a legally-purchased semi-automatic woman to put a bullet in the brain of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and kill or injure 19 others. But over the last decade, major shooting incidents across the country has not led to a surge in public support for tougher Gun Control laws. There ha...

Democrats move to limit guns, threatening language in shooting's wake
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., plans to introduce a bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition clips. Reacting to the assasination attempt on one of their own, two House members on Monday said they will introduce Legislation that would ban certain amunition clips and make it illegal to threaten a federal official, both of which they say contributed to the mass casualties in a shooting rampage in Tuscson over the weekend. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., plans to introduce a bill that would ban h...

Lautenberg addresses gun control in wake of Arizona shootings
As more fallout continues after the shooting in Arizona, one senator raised the red flag on Gun Control. On Monday, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) announced his plan to introduce Legislation banning high-capacity ammunition clips similar to the one used by Jared Lee Loughner this past Saturday when he killed six innocent bystanders and seriously wounded Arizona Represenative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8). Senator Lautenberg is looking to bring forth a prohibition that was established in 1994 ...

Chris Matthews: Hardball: Tea Party Under Fire Over Arizona Tragedy
Below is the video and transcript of my interview with Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. If people on the right and Sarah Palin and so forth are responsible for all of this and this vitriolic Rhetoric is so pitched, how come this isn't happening every day? Why is it the vast exception to the rule? There's no logic in any of the assertions they're making. None. Chris Matthews: That was Rush Limbaugh responding to the Giffords shooting and overheated Rhetoric swirling around. How doe...

Waning Support For More Gun Control
It is possible that the latest violence will spark a resurgence in interest in stricter Gun Control measures. But the long range trends, despite the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, is hard to mistake. The simple fact is that less and less Americans have been calling for more gun control, with little variation, since the early 1990s. Here are the numbers from Gallup: I wonder if this isn't partly because we have more Gun Control now than we used to? The convergence is among those who wa...

Local Gun Rights Group Hosts John R. Lott
Honolulu, Hawaii - John R. Lott, Jr., author, Activist, speaker and Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, will be in town speaking on the topics of Gun Control, Public Policy and other points of interest at a dinner hosted at The Plaza Club Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 starting at from 6:30 p.m. John is an American senior research scientist  at University of Maryland, College Park. He has previously held positions at other prestigious institutions such as, University ...

CBS Poll: Nearly Six In Ten Say Heated Rhetoric Unrelated To AZ Shooting
In a CBS poll released this morning, almost 60% of Americans said they don't think strong political Rhetoric is to blame for Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona that left six dead and wounded over a dozen others, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. In the poll, 57% of respondents said that intense political discourse had nothing to do with the attack, versus 32% who said that it was a contributing factor to the shooting. By political demographics, Republicans were less inc...

Dems ready gun control legislation regulating ammunition clips
Stumble This! Democrats in the House and Senate are preparing to introduce Legislation that would limit purchases high-capacity gun ammunition clips like the one used Saturday in the tragic shootings of 20 people in Arizona. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), two of the most outspoken Gun Control advocates in Congress, are sponsoring the Legislation in their respective chambers. "The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a Handgun is to kill a lot of people very q...

M.S. Bellows, Jr.: After Arizona, Reconsidering the Second Amendment
The Arizona shootings are a good opportunity to reconsider the current Supreme Court's oversimplistic analysis of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court's conservative majority declared in 2008 that the Constitution gives people a personal right to possess Firearms, ignoring the 2nd Amendment's limiting clause, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." There's no serious movement today to take away people's hunting firearms; politically, the fight is ove...

Tuesday Open Thread
Tweety talks about this country’s history with political violence, including talking to a so-called leader of the Tea Party, asking him why sane people would bring a GUN to a political rally. Chris Matthews talked to Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips today, and grilled him on Second Amendment issues and the “history of violence” in America. Referencing the fondness of tea partiers for bringing guns to political rallies, Matthews asked: “Why are guns talked about so...

Matthews Links Palin&Bachmann; to Giffords Shooting, Portrays U.S. as Gun Crazed Nation
Chris Matthews, on Monday's Hardball, used the attempt on Gabrielle Giffords' life, to not only portray America as some sort of gun crazed country, but also to blame the likes of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann for political violence as he blurted : "Sarah Palin using gun play language. What is she talking about crosshairs and reloading...and Bachmann out there with her kind of talk . I mean it seems like the way people talk now has, has gotten more ballistic... Why are guns talked...

Christianity and Gun Control
In the wake of the horrific massacre in Arizona Saturday, there are calls to renew restrictions, some of which lapsed when Congress permitted the federal assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, on certain types of weaponry, particularly the high-capacity magazine used by the Arizona shooter. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), whose husband was murdered in a 1993 rampage on the Long Island Railroad, plans to introduce a measure in the House, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in the Senate. The General B...

Support for Gun Control Has Dropped in Recent Years
In the wake of Saturday’s shooting in Arizona, there are likely to be new polls out this week measuring the public’s support for stricter Gun Control laws. Until the surface, it is worth noting that support for stricter Gun Control has significantly dropped over the last couple of decades, and there is little evidence to suggest that major gun crimes change opinions on the issue. In a Gallup Poll conducted in October, just 44 percent of Americans said the laws covering the sale of Firearms ...

Arizona's response to the Gifford shooting: Only guns can stop gun violence.
It makes sense. Pima Community College Prof. Benjamin McGahee had been telling reporters that he'd "always turn back quickly" from the whiteboard when he taught alleged Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, fretting over whether his Student had a gun. And while he hasn't introduced it yet, Harper has talked about filing Legislation to let students carry Concealed Weapons, too, and has talked up his chances of success. "A couple of 'country club Republicans' who were opposed," he said in December, ...

Lawmakers push to exempt Kentucky-made guns from federal regulations
FRANKFORT — Lawmakers are pushing three identical bills to exempt Kentucky-made guns and ammunition from federal Background Checks, dealer licenses and other national regulations if the items remain in the state. The effort comes as a recent report shows Kentucky is one of the nation’s biggest exporters of guns that cross state lines — legally or illegally — and end up at crime scenes in other states, often in cities with tight Gun Ownership restrictions. At the same time...

The gun consensus
Molly Ball and Shira Toeplitz write: A Bipartisan truce is in effect on Gun Control issues in Washington — a truce on the National Rifle Association’s terms. The NRA’s recognition of this is evident in the group’s response to the Arizona tragedy. It hasn’t bothered to mount a major Lobbying push to make sure lawmakers have their guns-don’t-kill-people talki...

Apparently, The Real Culprit In The Giffords Shooting Was..Guns!
Now that we are a few days from the shooting of Representative Giffords, and the cold blooded Murder of many others, including a judge and a 9 year old, the media and Democrats are slowly ratcheting up the meme that guns are to blame. They haven’t dropped their fixation on “vitriolic Speech”…….you know, all the blamestorming coming from the mostly liberal media, elected Democrats, and liberal talking heads could be considered “vitriolic speech.” You also...