NRA Counter-Proposal?

After the horror of the Parkland school shooting, many were outraged that the perpetrator was able to buy a military-style rifle at the age of 18, when he was still too young to buy beer.  President Trump has suggested raising the minimum age for purchasing an assault rifle to 21, and so has Florida Governor Rick Scott, but the NRA isn’t having it. To address the gun/beer inequity, we expect the NRA to propose lowering the legal drinking age to 18 any day now.

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‘America’s Rifle,’ American Carnage

In the February 14th school shooting in Parkland Florida, 17 people were killed with an AR-15 type rifle, legally purchased by an 18-year-old American citizen too young to legally buy beer. It has long been known that the assault-style AR-15, which the NRA calls “America’s Rifle,” is the mass killer’s weapon of choice. After an assault-style weapon killed 5 children at a school in Stockton California in 1994, Congress passed a ban on the civilian sale of semi-automatic assault-style firearms and high-capacity magazines, but the law was allowed to expire in 2004. Since then, such massacres have increased 183 percent with a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.

After 2004, U.S. gun manufacturers re-branded variants of the military-derived AR-15 as the “Modern Sporting Rifle” even though the gun is terrible for hunting. It was designed to do maximum damage to the human body. Just ask Dean L. Winslow, MD.

It’s not just this Florida school shooting. Assault-style rifles have been used in recent mass killings in Aurora Colorado (22 dead), Newtown Connecticut (26 dead), Santa Monica California (6 dead), Colorado Springs (3 dead), San Bernardino (14 dead), Orlando (49 dead), Las Vegas Nevada (58 dead), Roseburg Oregon (9 dead), and Sutherland Springs Texas (26 dead).

Is it time to bring back the assault weapon ban? The surviving students at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School seem to think so. The Second Amendment shouldn’t be a suicide pact. The Founding Fathers never saw an AR-15.

More:

“The AR-15: ‘America’s rifle’ or illegitimate killing machine?” Marc Fisher, Washington Post

“Mass shootings are getting deadlier. And the latest ones all have something new in common: The AR-15,” Matt Pearce, Lost Angeles Times

“Nothing in the Constitution Prevents Sensible Gun Rules,” Cass R. Sunstein, Bloomberg

“Laws we used to have on the books could have prevented the Florida school shooting,” Robert J. Spitzer, Washington Post

“No one becomes a mass shooter without a mass-shooting gun,” George Skelton, Los Angeles Times

“Top GOP Donor Cuts Off Opponents of Assault Weapon Ban,” Chas Danner, New York Magazine

“Shooting survivors to press for gun control,” AP via ABC News

“Florida school shooting: Students demand tighter gun controls,” BBC News

“Florida high school superintendent shares calls for ‘commonsense gun laws,’” Josh Delk, The Hill

“Florida massacre: Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s plea for gun control,” Kyle Swenson, Washington Post

“Ex-CIA chief: Congress must act now to block access to semiautomatic weapons,” Jacqueline Thomsen, The Hill

“A Republican Governor Just Called for a Ban on Assault Weapons,” Dan Friedman, Mother Jones

“At vigil for Florida shooting victims, students who survived the attack chant, ‘No more guns!'” Catherine Garcia, The Week

“Stoneman Douglas survivors are emerging as the sanest voices on gun control,” Karen Hao, Quartz

“Murdoch’s New York Post shifts on assault-weapons ban, after Florida school shooting,” Callum Borchers, Washington Post

“All the things Fox News blamed the Parkland shooting on other than the gun,” Adam Epstein, Quartz

“Florida students protest Trump, NRA,” Morgan Gstalter, The Hill

“Surviving Teens of Parkland Massacre Tell NRA to Shove Its ‘Thoughts and Prayers,’ and Plan March on Washington,” Angela Helm, The Root

“Shooting survivor to NRA: ‘Don’t you dare come back here,’” Rebecca Savransky, The Hill

“Shooting suspect was on school rifle team that got NRA grant,” Michael Biesecker and Collin Binkley, Associated Press

“Outside NRA headquarters, hundreds gather in vigil and protest,” Clarence Williams, Washington Post

“NRA Goes Quiet on Twitter, Just Like After Previous Mass Shootings,” Matt Novak, Gismodo

“FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump,” Peter Stone and Greg Gordon, McClatchy News

“NRA contributions: how much money is spent on lawmakers?” Lauren Gambino, The Guardian

“Have your representatives in Congress received donations from the NRA?” Aaron Williams, Washington Post

“Lawmakers use campaign funds for NRA dues,” Ben Wieder, McClatchy News

“The NRA’s step-by-step playbook for responding to a mass shooting,” Heather Timmons, Quartz

Updates:

“Five types of gun laws the Founding Fathers loved,” Saul Cornell, The Conversation

“Florida shooting survivor: We should call AR-15s ‘Marco Rubio’ because they’re both easy to buy,” Brandon Carter, The Hill

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Image (“Old Glory”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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The Founding Fathers Never Saw an AR-15

When the Bill of Rights was drafted, the 2nd Amendment was added to allow state governments to form armed militias. In 2008 Supreme Court justices raised on Western movies decided that the Constitution guarantees firearms to individual gunslingers, not just well-regulated militias.

The military firearms known to the Founding Fathers were single-shot, muzzle-loading muskets that could fire slow-moving lead balls 2 or 3 times a minute, at best, with accuracy up to about 60 yards. Even if the framers had conferred military gun ownership as an individual right, they could never have envisioned weapons that hold 30-round magazines and fire 45 aimed rounds a minute at 3,500 feet per second with 600 yard accuracy, like the rifles favored by America’s mass murders.

Orlando: American Shoots Other Americans

A heavily armed native-born American walked into an Orlando gay bar Sunday morning and killed at least 49 other Americans before he was shot by police. Actually, some people may say the perpetrator was not a real American because he was born in New York.

50 49 victims are known dead and about an equal number have been hospitalized, many in critical condition. At this time investigators have not established and reported other facts, but this has not kept commentators and politicians from recklessly flapping their gums. We await the NRA’s inevitable pronouncements that the shooter was mentally ill and that the bar patrons should have been armed.

More:

“The gun used in the Orlando shooting is becoming mass shooters’ weapon of choice,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

“Ex-CIA Chief: It’s Way Past Time for an Assault Weapons Ban,” John McLaughlin, OZY

“Orlando nightclub shooting suspect bought guns within week of attack,” Mary Shanklin, Orlando Sentinel

“Assault weapons remain legal and easy to purchase in US,” Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press

“Ban on Weapon Used in Orlando More Distant Than Ever, Even If Clinton Wins,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

“Florida Nightclub Attack Just the Latest US Mass Shooting,” AP via NBC News

“Orlando shooting: The key things to know about about guns and mass shootings in America,” Max Ehrenfreund, Washington Post

“Orlando Shooting, 16 Front Pages From Newspapers Around The World,” Helene Snyder, Worldcrunch

Related:

“U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons,” Jonathan Masters, Council on Foreign Relations

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Image (“Old Glory”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

A Farewell to Arms

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will stop selling assault rifles in its US stores. Hope those aren’t on your kid’s back-to-school list.

The Big Box retailer, America’s biggest gun seller, claims there’s reduced consumer demand for AR-15s and similar military-style weapons. The NRA and other gun worshipers call such firearms “modern sporting rifles,” which makes perfect sense if you consider Adam Lanza and James Holmes “sportsmen.”

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Image (“Old Glory”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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Assault Rifles Stolen From Bass Fishing Shop

Thieves broke into a Bass Pro Shop in Macon, Georgia and stole 17 AR-15 military-style rifles. Now 17 Georgia homeowners cannot protect their families from the roving packs of savage Largemouth Bass menacing the Peach State. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a $5,000 reward for info on the bandits, matched by the arms dealer’s lobby, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, for a total of $10,000. That’s about 3/4 of the retail value of the firearms and the amount of first-place prize money at a medium-sized bass shooting tournament.

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Image (“Bass-Shooting Season in Georgia”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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When Is a Gun Not a Gun?

Q: When is a gun not a gun?

A: When it’s a hammer.

That’s what Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R, TX-1) thinks, anyway. Asked about proposed legislation to restrict the sale of assault weapons, military-style arms like those used in recent mass killings, Mr. Gohmert replied:

“I refuse to play the game of ‘assault weapon.’ That’s any weapon. It’s a hammer. It’s the machetes. In Rwanda that killed 800,000 people, an article that came out this week, the massive number that are killed with hammers.”

Louie Gohmert is an authority on hammers, being dumber than a sack of them. Perhaps he’ll be named Chair of the House Subcommittee on Hand Tool Terrorism.

Firearms kill thousands of Americans each year; blunt objects kill hundreds, but we don’t know how many are committed with hammers, perhaps dozens. We expect Mr. Gohmert to hold fact-finding hearings about that in the new Congressional session.

More:

“Republican Congressman Claims Hammers Could Be Outlawed Under Assault Weapons Ban,” Scott Keyes, Think Progress

“Gohmert: ‘Any weapon’ is an assault weapon,” Justin Sink, The Hill

“Conservatives demand hammer control,” Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon

Related:

“Louie Gohmert: Aurora Shootings Result Of ‘Ongoing Attacks On Judeo-Christian Beliefs,'” Jennifer Bendery, Huffington Post

“Former NRA president compares banning guns to racism,” Jillian Rayfield, Salon

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Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-fvm

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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