“It is unseemly for the Portland Press Herald to run an op-ed piece by Chris Cox, the National Rifle Association’s hatchet man for gun rights, seeking to pass the blame for recent and continuing tragic gun deaths on to the underfunded mental health programs of the state and nation (“Commentary: Exploiting tragedy to demand more gun control impedes real solutions,” Sept. 15).” That’s the opinion of one Bruce L. Rockwood [above], professor emeritus of legal studies at Bloomberg (PA) University. Sorry, Bloomsburg. Not Bloomberg. Same diff. Rockwood shares media mogul and anti-ballistic billionaire bully boy Michael Bloomberg’s opinion that pro-gun polemics should be prohibited. For the children! Like this . . .
From kids shooting their siblings with parents’ guns found in pocketbooks or lying around, disgruntled ex-employees shooting broadcasters on live television, to mass shootings in schools and movie theaters, it is the easy availability of weapons in our society, unlike every other democratic country, that is the cause of gun violence.
Addressing mental health service cutbacks is an important national goal, but I don’t see the NRA standing up for the Affordable Care Act or universal health care.
In fact, their primary reason for being is to fund right-wing politicians who protect gun manufacturers from tort liability for the inevitable consequence of their products, while repeatedly seeking to kill the ACA.
You might as well run an op-ed piece by a Taliban spokesman blaming terrorism on lack of mental health care in Afghanistan as run this piece.
Shame on you for giving Cox this chance to spread his disinformation.
Shame on you sir, for asking the Press Herald to censor free speech, associating the NRA with terrorists sworn to kill Americans and failing to respect Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms – a right that protects your free speech. A legal studies professor? Don’t make me laugh.
Legal Studies – Soviet style.
Percys like this guy are what are driving colleges to extinction.
Only question to Bloomberg University – Is this guy the best you can do?
Let’s see, he attacks the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution by demanding that the 1st Amendment is ignored.
And he’s not only a lawyer but is teaching law at a university.
This may be a clue as to why lawyers are held in such contempt by the vast majority of Americans.
Well said, Sir.
Lest we forget, the First Amendment only applies to government infringement on free speech. The Portland Press would be well within its rights if it told Cox to pound sand. As I’m sure hundreds of papers did without a second thought.
The wider point: gun control advocates call for a “debate” on guns. They want nothing of the sort. For them, the efficacy of gun control is settled science. (God knows they work hard to create that science out of contradictory data.) And efficacy trumps Constitutionally protected rights.
“debate” equals “bring me a representative of constitutional rights, and have him stand there with his mouth shut while I lie, and lie, and lie without the least shame, until the “debate” is complete (I’ll tell you when that is)”.
Not and maintain any credibility as a newspaper, it wouldn’t.
Yes the amendments apply only to the gov’t but the principles need to be upheld by the people in order for society to function.
If a right winger is scheduled to speak on a college campus tree students may shot then down and prevent them from saying anything. That doesn’t violate the first amendment but it does violate the ideal of free speech and can be just as dangerous. A tyrannical gov’t needs a complicit populous to go full 3d Reich.
Well, when Ronald Reagan relaxed the mental health laws, these incidents when way up, THEN came the call for gun control. The irony is that he and Brady were shot by a mentally ill person.
I’d love to see more discussion on treatment for mental health issues and how they can be handled with real confidentiality and kindness rather than the farce we have today.
When we were getting ready to have our first child, I went into full blown panic mode – are we ready, can we care for here, what if I do this wrong, etc. I got past it, but I wouldn’t talk to anybody because of the fear that just a visit would have a negative impact on my life. Losing gun rights because I’m a scared first-time parent? Doesn’t seem as far-fetched as some might have argued.
And keep in mind that while you must be an M.D. (following a rigorous academic and on-the-job training program to get that title) before you can become a psychiatrist, psychiatry is the only medical field for which you do not have to actually cure anybody (ever) in order to be certified in that specialty.
Then there’s psychology. The MD training is a major reason psychiatrists can write prescriptions and psychologists can’t.
A good friend who’s a psychiatrist put the difference this way: a good psychiatrist will look for biochemical and neurological causes of problems, and try to mediate or correct them if possible. A good psychologist knows when to call in a psychiatrist because just talking isn’t cutting it.
“The neurotic builds castles in the sky, the psychotic lives in them and the psychiatrist collects the rent.”
–Unk.
Irony is when you have an unexpected out come… like when someone uses the word irony correctly…
Reagan’s relaxation of mental health laws was a result of a SCOTUS ruling which voided most such laws. Let’s not blame Ronnie.
Okay, but I still blame ol’ Ron for signing the Hughes Amendment. Dark day on his administration, IMO, and he was my favorite president.
Because like most bills, it was attached to another one. The original 1986 Gun bill was actually meant to curtail the worst abuses of the ATF and other government agencies at the time, but a rider was slipped in last minute by a Democrat that restricted manufacture of fully automatic weapons to civilians after that year. You can blame Reagan for signing the bill regardless of that, but I don’t think that was on most people’s radar at the time, including the NRA.
Oddly, the Taliban terrorists support his view. A disarmed America would make it so much easier to commit acts of mass violence.
The corrupt political class wants a disarmed America too. They love the way Mexico has turned out.
Organized crime wants a disarmed America just as all criminals do. They want a safer place to work.
You are so right. The only ones that can see what is going to happen, are the one’s who want to keep their guns. Like Thomas Jefferson said, “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the People to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government”. England is now trying to ban certain kitchen knives, because too many people are being stabbed to death with them. It is common knowledge that if someone wants to kill someone, they will do it.
Man these fanatical liberal progressive anti-rights elitists like Rockwood are all over suppressing any thought or action that doesn’t comport with their mind view of how a collectivist utopian kingdom should be run, until it affects them personally.
Then they cry foul, kicking and screaming all the way.
We are or are supposed to be a republic… which college did you attend again?
+1
Cockroaches can’t stand it when you shine a light on them.
“Cockroaches can’t stand it when you shine a light on them.”
Here in central Florida, they’ll wave their antennae at you and give you the finger.
Wow, a professor at Pissant U. in PA! I guess he couldn’t find a job at an Ivy League school, where they already have surfeit of tenured communists.
>You might as well run an op-ed piece by a Taliban spokesman blaming terrorism on lack of mental health care in Afghanistan as run this piece.
But that’s exactly the kind of crap these bleeding-heart libs actually do…
First, we’re a “constitutional republic” NOT a democracy
Second, he may want to check out the gun homicide rates for OTHER republics.
Third, Rockwood obviously didn’t get the memo to use racial/bigoted/stereotyping terms like “industrialized” or “modern” or some other elitist term.
I think this article might actually be the perfect example of your average anti-rights message. It’s a collection of terms, loosely connected concepts, and political attacks. There’s nothing to debate; It’s all just noise designed to propagandize or p*ss people off while trying to push away all other relevant data and discourse on the subject. All standard boilerplate from the anti-rights democrat’s playbook.
Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
… especially because the good Professor (emeritus) likely doesn’t even realize that he’s doing it. I bet he’d be shocked if he actually looked up some of the numbers. But why should he? He trusts what he “knows” to be true.
I didn’t notice where the alleged “disinformation” was disputed. You fail at presenting a persuasive argument, professor. How about putting that proud academic acumen to work and educating us bitter clingers? Or are you just going to lash out like a keyboard command with a mind to condescendingly shame everyone you don’t agree with?
Thought so.
Never get a hatchet man to do a trigger man’s job.
Surprisingly this man is a veteran:
Bruce Rockwood
U.S. Army, June 1969-December 1971
Atomic demolition unit, 62nd Engineers, Vincenza, Italy
Judge Advocate General’s office and secretary to the base commander, Livorno
At BU: Faculty, Finance and Legal Studies
You describe a lawyer dodging the draft. Not the military that I knew.
Yep. Minimal time in, and in three years he went from an engineer unit to being a paper-pusher for the JAG and the base commander. Got a feeling the engineers couldn’t get rid of him fast enough and he was placed somewhere he could do the least amount of harm – filing things.
But he served and he enlisted. Being drafted meant only two years of service and he did 30 months. I have no problem with his service and thank him for it. I don’t see any need to disparage what appears to be his voluntary service and just because he didn’t go to Vietnam where there were no nukes deployed (his apparent Military Occupational Specialty) doesn’t mean anything. His “short” service was probably because his European tour was over and they had nowhere to assign him Stateside. The war was winding down and many people got multi-month drops. I got a ninety day drop myself.
Dear Prof. No problems for you to “solve” in good old PA/why do you care what is going on in Oregon?
But it is OK for newspapers, magazines and other news sources to quote the lies and propaganda from the Anti-Gun Folks, right ? Who complains publicly when that happens ? And it happens ALL the time. Often not even fact checked before going out to the Public. This so called “Lawyer” should be sent back to grade school for a few courses on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Why colleges employee idiots like this is a mystery to me.
There’s no fool like an old fool.
To be fair (snigger..when have I ever been fair…) he is following the Gun Control playbook. In the face of overwhelming evidence that recent gun incidents are either gang related or the outcome of a disintegrating mental health system, combined with a disorganized, fragmented effort at law enforcement, the not so good Professor blames all the problems on legal gun owners. He demonises the NRA as his natural enemy.
“Those who can do, those who can’t, teach” applies here. Or we could just call him a c*nt and have done with it. What a lightweight. And he is in charge of students? As they want to be lawyers, I hope they turn out as incompetent as their professor. There is already an oversupply of idiots.
As is stated time and time again . The #1 problem with people spouting off false claims , erroneous statistics and out and out lies , about gun owners , owners rights , and constitutional issues regarding these topics , is the fourth branch of government . A free and honest press . The majority of people don’t pay attention to what is actually happening in their own towns , much less nationally or internationally . They live on sound bites and most of those come compromised press sources . The small percentage of people that are trying to pay attention and make some sort of intelligent sense of stuff are relying on left or right leaning sources ( FOX , CNN , MSNBC ) and still have the information somewhat compromised . I know this has always gone on but I don’t believe to the extent we see today .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c
Seems like “attack the messenger” rather than responding to the serious mental health problem Cox raises.
So much easier to redirect attention by demonizing firearms owners. Not enough beds and too many mentally ill end up untreated. Our jails have become dumping grounds for the mentally ill.
One passive mentally ill inmate was recently beaten to death by Santa Clara County corrections officers. The 3 guards are now facing murder charges.
So he was a clerk in the base JAG office and a clerk for the base commanxer. He is NOT a law school graduate nor a lawyer. Proof once again that “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
Thanks. I didn’t find credentials either and was baffled why he would hired as faculty.
Guns don’t “cause” anything. Guns are pieces of metal and springs, wood and plastic… so forth. People “cause” things. Availability of any inanimate object isn’t going to “cause” anything else. The actions of people are to blame. You could make a weak argument that the easy availability of guns allow greater gun violence, but to say they actually “cause” gun violence is a complete non-sequitur.
Furthermore, the USA need not compare itself to other democratic nations. You may think it is a competition to get to the greatest socialist/authoritarian utopia as soon as possible, but we do not.
NRA stands for “National Rifle Association.” I think that should explain it. The fact that they actually make public statements regarding crime is already outside their element.
Manufacturers (any manufacturers) should not be liable for the criminal acts of individuals who use their products for harm. Owning a gun is not illegal and does not harm anyone. Shooting paper targets with your gun, or participating in hunting, IDPA, 3 Gun, or other shooting sports do not harm others. Just like you wouldn’t sue ford motor company for a hit and run, you don’t sue firearms companies for a drive by. The fact that this legislation was required is ridiculous and those that support the suing of manufacturers because people used their legal products in an illegal manner really show their credibility when they can’t make a rational argument for it’s fairness.
His digression into the Affordable Care Act is just random and bizarre. If the mission and expertise of the NRA dealt with mental health care reform, it would probably be called something like the National Mental Health Care Reform Association, not the National Rifle Association.
Uh, his name is Aho. Parents must have hated him. ?
When anti’s say they want a “conversation on gun control” they mean they just want to hear themselves talk and everyone who disagrees should be silent. Like petty, impotent tyrants.
it is the easy availability of weapons in our society, unlike every other democratic country, that is the cause of gun violence.
Except those democratic countries that have a lot more. Because they don’t count. Right? Because ‘Democratic countries’ are pretty much the entire world except for China, Nork, and some of the Middle East, and include all 110 countries with worse murder rates than the USA save, I believe, Uzbekistan.
How can Bruce L. Rockwood professor emeritus of legal studies at Bloomberg (PA) University teach law when his actions are treasonous? He is a hypocrite!The 2nd Amendment was put into the Constitution so the people could protect themselves from a corrupt government. That is why it says “shall not infringe” so we can have what the government has to prevent a Holocaust. I believe the people should have what the government has including machine guns. The only gun control law there should be is that criminals can’t have any firearms. Thanks for your vote, pass the word. mrpresident2016.com
Any school this moron is teaching at is one I would not want my children attending.
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