The Liberal Case FOR Gun Control - Democratic Underground

MrBenchley

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Wed Feb-11-04 03:28 PM
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The Liberal Case FOR Gun Control

No other first world industrialized country suffers the bloodshed that the United States does…and of course none allows a corrupt industry to set public policy, either.

Most developed nations have crime rates equivalent to the U.S.--but America’s rate of lethal and life threatening violence from assaults is much much greater due to the more frequent use of guns in crimes.

Guns are just about the only consumer product that is not subject to regulation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. There are no basic safety requirements imposed on the manufacture of handguns. And under a little-noticed amendment in the recent Omnibus Spending Act, the public is now blocked from learning basic information about the gun industry, including information regarding multiple handgun sales by dealers (where 2 or more handguns are sold to the same buyer within 5 days) and basic information regarding crime gun traces. Absurdly, the amendment also prohibited BATF from requiring gun dealers to conduct an annual physical inventory. A further proposed bill would give the gun industry immunity from tort laws.

According to a recent study, about one of every seven guns linked to American crimes or considered suspicious from 1996 through 2000 can be traced back to the same 120 gun stores. Of the 120 high crime dealers named, ninety-six remain open and only twenty-four have been inspected by federal agents during the past three and a half years. Eighteen of these twenty-four dealers were cited for at least one violation of the law. Thanks to the crooked gun lobby, the public cannot see what gun dealers have been flagged for violations, or how many violations a gun dealer has been hit with.

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the percentage of violent crimes committed with a firearm dropped in 1994 - the same year that the Brady law went into effect. This decline ended the steady increase in gun violence from 1985 to 1993. The firearm crime rate has continued to drop each year since Brady became law.

Loopholes in the Brady Law, however, allow criminals to buy guns at gun shows without undergoing background checks. The gun lobby has spent millions on support for the Republican party, which has kept this loophole propped open and has bottled gun control legislation up in committee.

Besides serving as "tupperware parties for criminals," gun shows have also served as a network for assorted Nazis, white supremacists, neoConfederates, Klansman and other right wing crazies. Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh worked the gun show circuit for years, and did not stand out among his fellow nutcases.

The gun lobby has also spent millions on propaganda to mislead Americans about the Second Amendment. In fact, the courts and legal experts agree that the Second Amendment refers to well-regulated state militias (ACLU: "We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government. In today's world, that idea is somewhat anachronistic and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles. The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons nor does it prohibit reasonable regulation of gun ownership, such as licensing and registration.")

The National Rifle Association, the public face of the gun lobby, tells its inbred membership that the Second Amendment makes gun control unconstitutional. However, over the years it has been notably reluctant to back that up in court.

Furthermore, the National Rifle Association has become the public face of right wing extremism. Several of its board members have ties to extremist groups or have made racist statements. The NRA’s imbecilic enemies list includes just about every moderate and liberal organization in the country, including the NAACP, the Children's Defense Fund, the A.F.L.-C.I.O, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the ACLU, the American Academy of Pediatricians, the League of Womens Voters, the PTA and the YWCA.

Nor is the next largest gun owners’ group, the Gun Owners of America any better…Larry Pratt, head of the GOA is a racist so vile that even Pat Buchanan had to flee his company when he came to light.

In fact, some notion of what the whole "gun rights" movement really is all about can be seen from the public figures who trumpet those lies: John AshKKKroft, Tom DeLay, David Duke, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, David Horowitz, Ann Coulter, etc.