The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence released its traditional “America sucks” July 4th poster. That said, it’s a relief to know that guns are still killing people, rather than people. Bad guns! Bad bad guns! But I have to say that the organization is a real inspiration. I’m getting a gunsmith (hopefully one of our contributors) to make a flag gun for the site. And I’m going to contact a gunmaker to offer a Truth About Guns “Freedom” gun. Any suggestions as to what type of handgun we should use? I’m thinking something large enough to serve as a canvas, something all-American designed by John Browning. Remington R1? Meanwhile, here’s Brady’s annual agitprop . . .
On this Independence Day weekend, as Americans reflect on the history of the nation’s founding and contemplate its future, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has released the latest edition of its God Bless America poster, documenting that, in one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States.
Citizens of the U.S. are murdered with guns at a rate five times higher than our nearest high-income neighbor, Canada, and at rates 10 to 44 times higher than the other high income nations.
This holiday weekend marks the 11th anniversary of a tragedy that could have been avoided. On the Fourth of July weekend in 1999, white supremacist and anti-Semite Benjamin Smith murdered Northwestern University head basketball coach Ricky Birdsong and Indiana University graduate student Wan Joon Yoon, and wounded nine others before committing suicide.
Smith was prohibited from purchasing firearms, and would have been stopped by a Brady background check if the nation required the checks on every gun sale. He bought his “Saturday Night Special” handgun from Donald Fiessinger, a “private seller” who had purchased 65 handguns over two years from the same Pekin, Ill., gun store. The store remains open, but no longer sells firearms. The owner and his customer were indicted on gun trafficking charges, pled guilty and served jail time.
“We make it too easy for dangerous people, like Benjamim Smith, to get dangerous guns,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center. “And we haven’t closed the loophole that allowed this to happen 11 years later – the loophole that says if you buy a gun from a private seller, you don’t have to pass a background check.”
The Brady Center believes that the U.S. Congress should extend Brady criminal background checks to all gun sales, particularly those at gun shows.
guns don’t kill people. people kill people. i’m sick of people saying guns are dangerous.
Are you a moron? Honestly, are you?
“guns don’t kill people. people kill people.” Seriously? This has been the idiotic involuntary response for all anti gun control nuts for a excruciatingly long time. Yes, guns don’t ACTUALLY kill people. I think i can point out the capabilities of inanimate objects for myself, but you never know, sometimes i grow suspicious of my keys when im not around. Anyways, yes people do kill people, but guns are lethal weapon whose design was not for defense, unfortunately they were designed to kill. So therefore, guns don’t kill people (duh!!), people kill people (tell me somthin i dont know) and finally people with guns find it so much easier to kill other people.
And yes guns are dangerous. This is why the military are extensively about how to safely handle one. People have right to bear arms, well what exactly is arms? Guns? That seems to be the consensus, but under the same extent a nuclear weapon is also an arm, so why cant people have those? Oh yeah! They are fucking dangerous!! SO ARE GUNS!!!!!! And from whom do all these people need protecting from? OH ya i remember, they need guns to protect them from other people with guns. How about eliminating guns altogether? Oh wait, that means that only the bad guys would have them. How can you buy into that bullshit!
Ignorance reeks . . . .
Not just anyone can have a nuclear weapon, but it has nothing to do with them being “fucking dangerous!!” It has to do with the meaning of the terms in the Second Amendment. “Keep and bear arms” was what is called a term of art, meaning the words don’t stand alone in their meaning but are part of a system of expertise where various terms have special meanings. For an individual, in that system (the militia concept) the term “keep and bear arms” referred to common personal weapons, specifically the common personal weapons of a regular soldier. There is no military in which a nuclear weapon is a common arm of a regular soldier, so it does not come under the term “keep and bear arms” for an individual.
The meaning of the term, as far as the arms it includes, changes with the number of people involved. At the highest level, an organized militia, “keeping and bearing” a nuclear weapon might well be legitimate — tanks, APCs, fighter jets, even aircraft carriers would certainly be included under the corporate (=organized militia) right to keep and bear arms.
Note in this context that “organized militia” does not equal “government-run” militia; it merely means that the militia in question is an officially declared entity, with officers, organizing documents, training, known membership, and other characteristics of any private not-for-profit enterprise.
The 1911 has to be the top contender for this honor (45 caliber of course) and it should be made in the USA by KIMBER. I also love Smith & Wesson and Colt.
RF, since you were once really big into cars, could you please post a similar stat showing how many people are killed by that evil menace, THE AUTOMOBILE.
I’m all for background checks for all sales (I own more than 20 guns). I will not resell a gun to someone without a CCP because I know nothing about them.
Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear from background checks. I’m sick of hearing about family heirlooms and how passing guns on to family members shouldn’t requine background checks. Your family member may be out of jail on parole, or may be a violent alcoholic, or be under a restraining order, or have an arrest warrant pending.
If I need to pay a $5 ATF fee for a background check, it’s a small price to pay for keeping my community safe.
Wait — you’re “all for” a government endeavor that has no effect on crime and is useless to the government except for penalizing the non-criminal?
If you aren’t self-disciplined enough to not give a gun to one of those family members such as you listed, a law that says you have to do a background check isn’t going to do more than slow you down.
So your conclusion is false: background checks do nothing to keep the community safe, because those who are a danger to the community already don’t bother with them — and they help train the community to blindly obey those who are the greatest danger to them.
Guns don’t kill people, black people kill people.
The overwhelming majority of lawful gun owners use their weapons for self defense only, as is the right of every human being. When we conflate the number of illicit, offensive use of firearms used in the commission of crimes with the number of times law abiding individuals defend themselves, as is their right as human beings, the numbers are tremendously skewed.
My opening sentence was intentionally provocative. The fact is, Black on Black crime is the great scourge of our country, and pretending it is not only makes things worse.
To solve the problem of gun violence, we must first change the inter-city culture that glorifies violence. Until that day, the only solution is to arm everyone who is vulnerable to assault and potentially subject to attack.
Arm everyone, and train them to defend themselves.
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