Guns and Hate (Jesse Jackson)

... the banks have nothing on the gun lobby -- which has cowed Democrats and Republicans from what once was bipartisan common sense.

Now both parties scrape low to please. The credit card reform bill was amended to allow concealed weapons in national parks. In Virginia, R. Creigh Deeds won the Democratic nomination for governor while supporting measures to allow concealed weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol. Bush let the assault weapons ban die, and now Obama seems loath to take it up.

Adding guns to the festering hate in America is like pouring gasoline on fire. Now, our police are outgunned on our own streets. Gun show loopholes allow would-be terrorists or haters easy access to guns. Concealed weapons will take an ever-greater toll as they turn bar arguments into lethal encounters. There are at least 200 million guns in America.

This isn't about hunting deer or quail. This is about arming the haters, giving them the right to conceal weapons or arm themselves with assault weapons that are made for only one thing: killing lots of people ...

http://www.kfsm.com/sns-200906151656tmsjjacksontq--j-a20090615jun15,0,742640.story

That's news to a whole lot of competitive and recreational shooters in this country.

How "assault weapons" ARE used...

Mr. Jackson is stuck in the 1950's. More Americans lawfully own "assault weapons" (e.g., small- and intermediate-caliber civilian rifles with modern styling) than hunt, yet only 3% of U.S. murders involve ANY type of rifle.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_20.html

And no, the police are NOT outgunned. On the contrary, last year, fewer police officers were shot in the line of duty than in any prior year since 1956:

http://www.nleomf.com/TheMemorial/Facts/2008_endyear_FinalUpdate_Mar09_lores.pdf

The trend, per the U.S. Department of Justice:



But somebody has to keep spreading the fear, right? Be afraid, be very afraid...can't have the Obama administration continuing to successfully defuse the gun issue...

if we give up our guns, innocents will be totally defenseless against criminals who will have guns.
It is about keeping your government from marching in and rounding you up if you don't obey or disagree.
Here is an excellent link about just that.

http://www.eoffshore.com/real-reason-for-gun-ownership

This needs to be sent out for all to see and understand, especially in these turbulent times.

As we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, insurgencies and guerrilla tactics are damned hard to stamp out in a populated area that you're not prepared to carpet bomb.

This whole 'The Army'll kick yer ass' meme is pretty silly, because it assumes conventional warfare tactics on both sides. Two guys shooting out of the keyhole of a car trunk shut down DC. Estimates of the number of civilian guns in the US range from 200-300 million. The number of gun owners hovers around 80-90 million. If one one-hundredth of one percent of those gun owners decided to cause havoc, that's still 8500 folks. Imagine 8500 idiots sneaking around disrupting things.

.. it takes a relatively _few_ number of folks to disrupt every day activity.

Imagine 8500 idiots taking a chain pull come-a-long to railroad tracks around their neighborhoods. Or taking pot shots at gas tanker trucks on the interstate. Or shooting out transformers on poles in neighborhoods. Or dropping caltrops in potholes and mud puddles.

I'm not advocating any of the above. But if you think conventional tactics employed against a population harboring (intentionally or not) a minuscule number of agitators who are able to disrupt society would actually succeed without causing _more_ agitators to pop up, then you've missed the whole result of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Contrary to Jesse's claims, it doesn't result in a bloodbath. Why? Because the people who are law-abiding enough to have CCW permits are generally law abiding enough to only care about protecting themselves.

Look, I like Jesse on some things, but here he's just repeating nonsense that's long since been debunked. So-called "assault weapons" (low to medium powered rifles that resemble military models) account for a tiny, tiny percentage of crimes: 1% of crimes and 3% of homicides for ALL rifles.

And for fuck's sake, if there actually WERE any terrorists running around the country, besides the ones Glenn Beck creates, does anyone think they'd have nothing better to do than buy guns and start randomly shooting people?

http://opencarry.org/restaurant.html

Some states allow concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol, some allow in bars. Doesn't seem to be an epidemic of CHL shooting up restaurants and bars.