Why won't GOP act on gun control? - Republicans are cowards on gun violence (CNN)Last week, a married couple with two assault weapons, two handguns and over 6,000 rounds of ammunition killed 14 people and wounded 21 in San Bernardino, California. This week, the Supreme Court said it would not take up a challenge to a Chicago suburb's ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The Supreme Court made a wise decision. The Supreme Court seems to recognize what conservative Justice Antonin Scalia has said previously -- that the constitutional right to bear arms is "not unlimited." And yet, in light of the eerily regular occurrence of mass shootings in our country, Republican politicians remain firmly opposed to common sense gun control. Recently, Republicans even voted against a measure that would prevent those on our nation's terror watch list from being able to buy guns. Sally Kohn But what do Republicans want to ban? Muslims. GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump just called for Muslims to be banned from entering the United States. Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz have suggested barring Syrian refugees who are Muslim. Marco Rubio has talked about shuttering mosques..." http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/opinions/kohn-republicans-guns/index.html
How the gun lobby outsmarted itself and helped engineer its big Supreme Court defeat Monday "One of the rude awakenings of the mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., Newtown, Conn., and San Bernardino, Calif., was, as the Highland Park, Ill., City Council said in 2013, that gun violence on a large scale “is not limited to urban settings, but is also, tragically, in many suburban and small town locations as well.” But that wasn’t entirely why Highland Park was in such a rush on June 26 of that year to enact a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines. It was “sprinting” to pass a law, as the Chicago Tribune said at the time, because the gun lobby had forced its hand. At its urging, the Illinois legislature gave the cities and towns of the state ten days to pass assault weapons and other gun legislation before barring such laws entirely at the local level. It was a now-or-never situation and Highland Park, along with other towns, went for now, passing the law in a rush. And in part because that maneuver, that same lobby suffered a serious setback Monday when the Supreme Court let stand Highland Park’s law and an appeals court ruling upholding it, giving a green legal light, or perhaps a yellow one, to other cities and towns to enact their own ordinances if so inclined politically. [Supreme Court won’t review laws banning assault weapons] While the court issued no ruling and set no precedent when it acted, it was nonetheless a serious defeat for groups, like the National Rifle Association, which argue that the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller upholding the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment should be read in the most expansive fashion, barring bans on even the most lethal of automatic weapons. The gun lobby was counting on the court to stop what it sees as a wave of decisions flouting Heller. Seven states — Maryland, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — have similar bans. The NRA, in its submission to the court, said it was “critical” that the justices take up the case. “In the seven years since that opinion was handed down,” the Illinois Rifle Association complained when it petitioned the court to review Highland Park’s law, “the lower courts have assiduously worked to sap” the Heller ruling “of any real meaning. They have upheld severe restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms that would be unthinkable in the context of any other constitutional right.” It was time, the gun rights group said, for the court to act. Yet it could be said that the gun lobby, specifically that same Illinois Rifle Association, spurred on the very law in Highland Park, Ill., that the court declined to review, the one that produced Monday’s Supreme Court action. Here’s how it happened...." http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ho...eme-court-defeat-monday/ar-AAg9BjE?li=BBnbcA1
There are people in the government who are actually concerned about something like this only probably it would be nerve gas or something more like a WMD, something light that a drone can actually carry. I personally don't attend anything in a stadium anymore but that has more to do with the behavior of my fellow spectators than any perceived terrorist threat. I don't get to worked up over talk of gun control because as TT has been trying to elucidate the 300 millions guns in private ownership could and would overwhelm any government stupid enough to try to disarm the population. It simply isn't happening here in the USA due to decisions made 239 years ago. If you are dead set on living in a gun-free society you need to look for it in europe or australia instead of insisting that the United States be remade to suit your worldview.
Since we can't eliminate the guns, we need to get inside people's heads before they commit these mass shootings. What about a national Suspicious Utterances Database? It could track the things people say and write from about the time they're 10 yo onwards.
Alex Jones says semi-auto gun confiscations are planned for 2016. Something about how local municipalities will be given the authority to ban certain types of guns, and then enforce through collections. The recent Supreme Court refusal to hear the Chicago Semi-auto gun ban case is where it stems from. It's a nod to local administrators they have the right to enforce certain types of gun bans in their countys etc.
Home shopping network for guns. "A new home shopping channel is set to hit cable next month, but don't expect to see any sweaters, dresses or jewelry to appear on this particular network. The new outlet is called GunTV, the first live hosted cable network dedicated to firearms, industry insights and safety education. GunTV will launch on January 20, and comes in the midst of a wrenching debate about gun violence in America...." http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/12/gun-tv-aims-to-launch-in-2016.html
Texas gun-rights activists, students face off in Austin "AUSTIN — Gun-rights activists, many openly carrying their weapons, staged a march near the University of Texas' campus in Austin on Saturday, as part of a protest and planned mock mass shooting to oppose gun-free zones. About a dozen protesters with Come and Take it Texas and DontComply.com marched down down a street next to the university. Several carried rifles, and one carried a sign saying "End Killing Zones." Jason Orsek, vice president of the groups, said they’ve held similar "open-carry" marches before to bring “awareness to Second Amendment rights.” A group of students, however, interrupted the gathering, chanting "Mock shooting, mock victims" and "Our history is not a joke." Charlie Henry, sophomore and one of the counter-protesters, called the mock shooting, planned for later Saturday with cardboard cutout guns, “inflammatory" and "really insensitive," given the school's history. Nearly 50 years ago, a heavily armed man climbed the campus' clock tower and went on a 90-minute shooting spree that killed 15 and wounded 32. “The fact that these groups to want to do a fake shooting with cardboard guns and fake blood is completely ridiculous," Henry said...." http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/te...ents-face-off-in-austin/ar-BBntFNw?li=BBnb7Kz