Liberals here want to blame conservatives for Ariz shooting?

[buckman]

Using the death of a 9 year old to push a political agenda speaks volumes of the class of people we still have in office. This will push people more to the right of center.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Jim: I commend your position on this. There is hope for you yet.

I wonder how much is from seeing the injuries these weapons can cause at close hand. You have a perspective many of us dont have.

[buckman]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Jim: I commend your position on this. There is hope for you yet.

I wonder how much is from seeing the injuries these weapons can cause at close hand. You have a perspective many of us dont have.

Any "weapon" will cause injury. That's why they call them weapons.
We have all kinds of restrictions on guns and ammo. They don't help or work.
The NRA has always been for the toughest enforcement of criminal laws. Commit a crime with a gun and go away for life. I'm all for it. Try that for a change.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Jim: I commend your position on this. There is hope for you yet.

I wonder how much is from seeing the injuries these weapons can cause at close hand. You have a perspective many of us dont have.

Rockhound, if I'm not mistaken, we're finding some common ground here, on what I think is a serious issue.

I've been opposed to private ownership of assault weapons (and things like armor piercing bullets) since before I was in the service. Maybe my time in, and my knowledge of what these things do up close, has solidified my opinion, but not by much. There were 2 occasions when I was awfully glad I had my weapons with me, so I do believe they have their place. But not in the hands of any private citizen.

[RIJIMMY]

no comments on Scotts posts? The liberal reaction to this is disgusting (not ALL liberals Johnny D, just the ones being published/quoted).
reminds me of Katrina, libs could care less about the people living there, they just wanted another reason to vilify Bush. I really cant believe this.

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

no comments on Scotts posts? The liberal reaction to this is disgusting (not ALL liberals Johnny D, just the ones being published/quoted).
reminds me of Katrina, libs could care less about the people living there, they just wanted another reason to vilify Bush. I really cant believe this.

Its actually a good thing nobody is commenting on it....means they can't find fault with it.

It is disgusting using this for furthering ones agenda.

Patrick Kennedy's comments are idiotic.....what else are you going to call the guy but a psycho

[Chesapeake Bill]

Jim,

Assumptions are a dangerous thing. I did serve. In fact, I will carry the card with me until the day that I pass from this world. The card is a reminder of the duty...and friends lost to maintain the freedom of opinion that you enjoy.

I always enjoy when others want to tell me what I need. Thanks. I am now more educated because of your information.

[fishpoopoo]

Good read. The Hammer nails is on the head.

Charles Krauthammer - Massacre, followed by libel


Massacre, followed by libel

By Charles Krauthammer
Wednesday, January 12, 2011;

The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires.

The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.

As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings - and in all the testimony from all the people who knew him - there is not a single reference to any of these supposed accessories to murder.

Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head.

A climate of hate? This man lived within his very own private climate. "His thoughts were unrelated to anything in our world," said the teacher of Loughner's philosophy class at Pima Community College. "He was very disconnected from reality," said classmate Lydian Ali. "You know how it is when you talk to someone who's mentally ill and they're just not there?" said neighbor Jason Johnson. "It was like he was in his own world."

His ravings, said one high school classmate, were interspersed with "unnerving, long stupors of silence" during which he would "stare fixedly at his buddies," reported the Wall Street Journal. His own writings are confused, incoherent, punctuated with private numerology and inscrutable taxonomy. He warns of government brainwashing and thought control through "grammar." He was obsessed with "conscious dreaming," a fairly good synonym for hallucinations.

This is not political behavior. These are the signs of a clinical thought disorder - ideas disconnected from each other, incoherent, delusional, detached from reality.

These are all the hallmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic. And a dangerous one. A classmate found him so terrifyingly mentally disturbed that, she e-mailed friends and family, she expected to find his picture on TV after his perpetrating a mass murder. This was no idle speculation: In class "I sit by the door with my purse handy" so that she could get out fast when the shooting began.

Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner's fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to at least 2007, when he attended a town hall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who had begun an article thus: "I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it."

Finally, the charge that the metaphors used by Palin and others were inciting violence is ridiculous. Everyone uses warlike metaphors in describing politics. When Barack Obama said at a 2008 fundraiser in Philadelphia, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," he was hardly inciting violence.

Why? Because fighting and warfare are the most routine of political metaphors. And for obvious reasons. Historically speaking, all democratic politics is a sublimation of the ancient route to power - military conquest. That's why the language persists. That's why we say without any self-consciousness such things as "battleground states" or "targeting" opponents. Indeed, the very word for an electoral contest - "campaign" - is an appropriation from warfare.

When profiles of Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, noted that he once sent a dead fish to a pollster who displeased him, a characteristically subtle statement carrying more than a whiff of malice and murder, it was considered a charming example of excessive - and creative - political enthusiasm. When Senate candidate Joe Manchin dispensed with metaphor and simply fired a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill - while intoning, "I'll take dead aim at [it]" - he was hardly assailed with complaints about violations of civil discourse or invitations to murder.

Did Manchin push Loughner over the top? Did Emanuel's little Mafia imitation create a climate for political violence? The very questions are absurd - unless you're the New York Times and you substitute the name Sarah Palin.

The origins of Loughner's delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman's?

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

[RIROCKHOUND]

I have ZERO issue w/ gun ownership for law-abiding citizens.
Want some pistols for target/personal protection, fine.
Want hunting rifles? fine Shotguns? Fine.

Seriously, a 33round mag for a pistol? Fully automatic weapons.
Not needed for the average citizen IMHO.

[JohnR]

Score one for Brokenhammer

Ooops, that may be taken out of context in order to incite violence

Politics has become the Spam Email of modern communications.

[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

I have ZERO issue w/ gun ownership for law-abiding citizens.
Want some pistols for target/personal protection, fine.
Want hunting rifles? fine Shotguns? Fine.

Seriously, a 33round mag for a pistol? Fully automatic weapons.
Not needed for the average citizen IMHO.

It's the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

It's the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs.

Ben:
We should have the right to bear arms, 100%. There should be a limit though, IMHO

[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Ben:
We should have the right to bear arms, 100%. There should be a limit though, IMHO

2A is not about duck hunting or any other "sporting purpose."

It is first and foremost an individual right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to enable citizens to rebel against a tyrannical government.

If the occasion calls for it ... I'd rather be rebelling with 30 round (standard capacity mags) rather than 10 rounders.

The Kentucky rifle, instrumental in helping colonialists prevail over those nasty Brits, was the assault weapon of its day.

The founding fathers today wouldn't blink at the private ownership of polymer frame striker-fired semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines or repeating rifles with detachable magazines.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

2A is not about duck hunting or any other "sporting purpose."

It is first and foremost an individual right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to enable citizens to rebel against a tyrannical government.

If the occasion calls for it ... I'd rather be rebelling with 30 round (standard capacity mags) rather than 10 rounders.

The Kentucky rifle, instrumental in helping colonialists prevail over those nasty Brits, was the assault weapon of its day.

The founding fathers today wouldn't blink at the private ownership of polymer frame striker-fired semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines or repeating rifles with detachable magazines.

I think you're spot on. The arguments about "legitimate" uses and "needs" for private citizens owning a gun rarely discuss this point (except by those who are referred to as "anti-government"), and these arguments are diversions from the true intentions of the Second Ammendment. The greatest fear of those that rebelled against British rule and created a free society with a Constitution to guarantee that freedom--their greatest fear was a tyrannical government that would take away that freedom. The creation of this country was precisely so that its individual citizens would have that freedom. And the Constitution which took over a dozen years to evolve from the First Continental Congress to ratification, and was hotly debated, wasn't about wasting precious words over hunting and sport issues. The Second Amendment stands out, like the other Amendments, and the brief enumerations of power, as as one of the rights that protected the people from tyranny, not some minor right to personal pleasure.

And you are exactly right--the founders meant by "Arms" weapons that matched the militias and the government troops of the Revolution. How else would they be of use to defend against tyrannical enemies, foreign or domestic. And for those who think the Constitution should change with evolution of technology, that's true not in regard to the Constitutional principle but in applications--such as weaponry. As weapons of military personnel become more deadly, so too must the private citizen have a right to match them.

And gun rights people, and tea partiers, and Sarah Palins, and right wing talk radio, are not anti-government. They are portrayed that way as talking points to paint them as radical and dangerous. They are all pro-goverment, not anti-government. They are pro good, Constitutional government. And that is not radical. And it is only dangerous to those who are against the Constitution as it was written.

[buckman]

Jim, you pointed out that guys with small "weewee's" may contibute to the death of more 9 year olds. Now I know your trying to be funny, but that's the sort of extreme BS that hurts your cause.

Every gun I own is used for hunting so banning assault type weapons won't hurt me. It does however lead down a slippery slope. The problem wasn't the gun.

Cars are a bad example unless you want to say fast cars. That would be a proper analogy. How many HP would Jim allow. How about beer? Kills more 9 year olds then assault weapons. We have tough drunk driving laws to hep prevent more deaths. How about tougher gun crime laws? Not tougher gun laws.

[spence]

That doesn't absolve you...well, perhaps just a bit.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device