FactCheck.org busts false rumors about Feinstein weapons ban bill

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

The Tea Party is not known for being factually accurate about anything - and that includes the Feinstein bill.

http://factcheck.org/2013/02/proposed-weapons-ban-exempts-government-officials/

Proposed Weapons Ban Exempts Government Officials?
Posted on February 4, 2013

TheTeaParty.net falsely claims in an email that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposed assault weapons ban would exempt “all government officials” from the ban. While the bill would exempt military and law enforcement officials, it would not exempt legislators or administrative staff.

The email further misrepresents the proposed bill, claiming that “she [Feinstein] wants to take your handguns, rifles and other weapons away from you.” In fact, the proposal would grandfather in all of the existing weapons owned by Americans, so no weapons will be “taken away” from anyone.

Feinstein, a Democratic from California, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat from New York, unveiled their proposed legislation at a press conference on Jan. 24. The bill, called the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, seeks to reinstate and expand on the 1994 assault weapons ban, which was allowed to expire in 2004.

According to an email blast from TheTeaParty.net, under the Feinstein-McCarthy proposal, “We are not all equal under the law.”

TheTeaParty.net email, Jan. 30: It is bad enough that Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein (CA) has proposed a national attack on our gun rights. Today, it has been revealed that although she wants to take your handguns, rifles and other weapons away from you, she wants to exempt all government officials from her proposed gun ban! If you needed any more evidence that in our government officials eyes we are beneath them in stature and should bow down before them in reverence, then this is it. Their message is ‘guns are bad for you, but they are good for us’. Their message is ‘we are entitled to protect ourselves and our families with firearms if necessary, but you cannot’.

The message that Senator Feinstein and all who support her bill are sending is that their lives, families, and property are valuable and worth defending; yours, however, is not.

and FactCheck.org goes on to elaborate on how and why this false information started circulating.

[ManiacJoe]

1. See the link to the actual text of the bill:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:S.150:

[Riftaxe]

3. Now if only we all could indulge in a rich man's sport

Like the picture of our president...whoever released that picture did us no favors.

[krispos42]

4. That was obvious to anybody that read the bill.

The only false rumor about the bill that needs to be debunked is that it will somehow lower the homicide rate.

[iiibbb]

5. ba-da-dom

clapping.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. tell us something we don't know.

[iiibbb]

7. Dog Gone thinks everyone here has an affinity for the tea party

gun owner = tea party

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

12. Not exactly - please see below in my answer to Eleanors38

I believe that will clarify for you.

But yes, in one respect, I am making an assumption.

The hallmark of the tea party is their hatred and distrust for government, which tends to be reflected in a belief that they have a god given right to shoot people who are part of government, such as law enforcement, if there is any limitation on their 2A rights.

The reality is that the 2A is like any other right, a matter of consensus, and subject to limitations, not absolute.

So the 'from my cold dead hand' crowd tends more often to be tea partiers or conservatives than otherwise.

[gejohnston]

13. distrust cuts across the spectrum

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/19/us-americans-government-poll-idUSTRE63I0FB20100419

Most of it is healthy, since putting to much trust in government, corporations, political parties, etc. is based on a basic aspect of reality, institutions are only as good as the people who run them.

When you go to the fringes of the left and right is when you get into the hatred.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

15. you also get into very different levels of distrust

the distrust you see from the right is rampant with conspiracy theories.

the left really has nothing that equates to the birthers, truthers, tenthers, those who believe the Sandy Hook massacre was an
act by the government - a false flag action - to take away people's guns. There is a difference to both the quantity of distrust AND the quality of that distrust.

Institutions are only as good as the people who run them and the rules under which they are run which limits the power of people at the top of institutions, corporate AND government.

We have had some very disastrous de-regulation of corporations that we need to redress.

But we clearly have individuals who are behaving with guns in ways which are causing ten times the deaths by the means of firearms to the number of deaths on 9/11 at the world trade center. Guns are not making any of us safe from the institutions of government OR corporations. More than that, they cannot.

Every comparably developed country in the world that is even remotely similar to us has more strict gun control than we have, and most have had it for decades. In the case of the UK, they have had it for a hundred years plus.

What makes ALL of those countries more free and safe than we are is that people are more safe from gun violence, their children are not killed by guns, their law enforcement are not killed by guns, etc. Those countries are free because those countries have representative government. In pretty much EVERY one of those countries they have not just fewer guns but many times fewer guns AND significantly higher voter participation.

Bullets do not make us either safe or free; ballots do. Sharron Angle who ran against Harry Reid in 2012 in Nevada had it the wrong way round.

So long as we have a very clear and very serious issue of public health and public safety to be addressed, then we have a need for government to intervene and reduce our gun violence, because WE give government the authority to do so and because that is the proper function OF government - to provide for the general welfare and the domestic tranquility, as the preamble of our constitution puts it.

[gejohnston]

16. a bit of an over simplification

Last edited Tue Feb 12, 2013, 04:03 AM - Edit history (1)

level of "development" isn't defined nor is it relevant. They also don't have the wealth inequality, organized crime, etc. Our violence is concentrated mostly in a few urban areas of over 250K people.
We also have representative government. They, are mostly constitutional monarchies. They trust their governments or "the man" more than we do. It is about differences in cultures not gun laws.

the left really has nothing that equates to the birthers, truthers, tenthers, those who believe the Sandy Hook massacre was an
act by the government - a false flag action - to take away people's guns. There is a difference to both the quantity of distrust AND the quality of that distrust.

The only person I heard claiming that was Alex Jones to make a buck. Strange thing is some of what Jones talks about I heard on Pacifica (and some proven true) 20 years ago like Operation NORTHWOODS and the CIA/Contra/cocaine business. I'm not saying that Jones is correct about that claim. I'm simply saying calling him right wing might not be totally accurate. Simple pointing out that he would be the first right winger talking about the Gulf of Tonkin incident being a hoax, or being a Gary Webb supporter. Both of those are often associated with the left.

I would not call UK nor Germany more free. They have less privacy and greater restrictions on speech. Japan isn't more free by any stretch of the imagination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

In pretty much EVERY one of those countries they have not just fewer guns but many times fewer guns AND significantly higher voter participation.

Maybe. I have not seen any real data on that. In Australia, voting is mandatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manditory_voting

[iiibbb]

14. like occupy Wall Street?

They trust government?


Earth First

[Recursion]

9. Neither the proponents nor opponents of the AWB ever seem to bother to read it.

It's a regulation of what semi-automatic weapons that accept detachable magazines can look like and what they can be named. That's all. (This, incidentally, is why I oppose it; I absolutely don't care what the shape of a grip and the brand name of new AR-15s are.)

[Eleanors38]

10. So, dog gone, are your fellow DUers who have guns now Teabaggers?

Why are you posting here? Perhaps you should pose this argument before a Tea Party site (whatever that may be) since the bone you are picking seems to be with them.

I hope you and others who may disagree with me will consider this a respectful and quite reasonable request, and not a something worth alerting on. Now, if I may, I most humbly request leave so that I may retire for the evening. Please sleep well.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

11. clearly, not all tea partiers have guns, and not all gun owners are some stripe of conservative

But the reality is that there appears to have been a marked change in gun ownership in this country such that fewer liberals/ democrats own guns than was previously the case.

Here are several links that make the observation about different groups of people where gun ownership is tracking along party lines or political ideology lines or that there are similar party line divides on gun control priorities:

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2013/02/06/gun-ownership-in-colorado-delegation-party-lines/90376/

http://www.pewresearch.org/2013/02/07/gun-control-key-data-points-from-pew-research/?src=rss_main&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pewresearch%2Fall+%28PewResearch.org+|+All+Feeds%29

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/in-gun-ownership-statistics-partisan-divide-is-sharp/

In contrast, more conservatives appear to be owning guns, and the trend appears to be that the more conservative the greater the probability of having more guns, up to the point of the personal arsenal.

Therefore while DU is generally not frequented by tea partiers, there is a larger general perception on the rest of the DU that there are a significant number of right wing gun owners who frequent the gungeon, as distinct from the rest of the more typical DU participants.

Perhaps someone should devise a poll to see where the gungeon members fall in gun ownership, partisan politics (if any), and their positions on gun control?

I hope you rested well.