It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns.

[Andylusion]

We have not banned smoking...only made is socially unacceptable and inconvenient

We are slowly doing the same thing with guns as the number or households owning guns has dropped significantly

Who says the left ain't fascist? What other ideology went out there and made some XYZ act socially uneaccptable to the point where no one wants to do it anymore. Just tell gunowners that guns are dangerous and people who own them are crazy and dangerous. That should created a lot of peer pressure on people so that they no longer want to buy guns.

Since gun ownership is down why complain about how many guns are in the U.S.?

Just reporting a trend

But you don't have to worry...you can still go to bed at night cuddling your gun. Just be aware there are fewer and fewer of you

That's fine. So what? I'd rather be a minority that is right.... than be the majority and wrong.

Just be aware there are more and more of you people, who are wrong.

 

[Chuz Life]

Any ban on assault style weapons would not have prevented the shooting in Orlando. The killer was a security officer and was seen as more eligible to have one than most other citizens are.

Not even a government effort towards total confiscation would have stopped him. He was prepared to not only kill for his cause. . . He was prepared to DIE for his cause too. And he did exactly that.

Laws are only for the law abiding. When guns are outlawed, that means more guns in the hands of criminals and fewer in the hands of the law abiding.

 

[LadyGunSlinger]

By Dennis A. Henigan

The American people can overcome the gun lobby, but only if we confront, and expose, three myths that have long dominated the gun debate and given the politicians a ready excuse for inaction.

First, we must not let the opponents of reform get away with the empty bromide that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Does any rational person really believe that the Sandy Hook killer could have murdered twenty-seven people in minutes with a knife or a baseball bat? Guns enable people to kill, more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon.

Second, we must challenge the idea that no law can prevent violent people from getting guns. This canard is refuted by the experience of every other western industrialized nation. Their violent crime rates are comparable to ours. But their homicide rates are exponentially lower because their strong gun laws make it harder for violent individuals to get guns.

Third, we must not accept the notion that our Constitution condemns us to the continued slaughter of our children. It is true that the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in recent years; it is equally true that the Court has insisted that the right allows for reasonable restrictions. In his opinion in the Heller Second Amendment case, Justice Scalia listed restrictions on "dangerous and unusual weapons" among the kinds of gun laws that are still "presumptively lawful." Assault weapons that fire scores of rounds without reloading surely are "dangerous and unusual."

The tobacco control movement overcame some equally powerful mythology to fundamentally alter American attitudes toward tobacco products. The tobacco industry's effort to sow confusion and uncertainty about the link between smoking and disease eventually was exposed as a fraud. The entrenched view that smoking was simply a bad habit that individuals can choose to break was destroyed by evidence that the tobacco companies knew that nicotine was powerfully addictive and engineered their cigarettes to ensure that people got hooked and stayed hooked. The assumption that smoking harms only the smoker was contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of the danger of second-hand smoke.

Once these myths were exposed, attitudes changed, policies changed and we started saving countless lives. Since youth smoking peaked in the mid-1990s, smoking rates have fallen by about three-fourths among 8th graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and half among 12th graders. A sea change has occurred on the tobacco issue.

Similarly fundamental change can come to the gun issue as well. The myths about gun control, however, still have a hold on too many of our political leaders and their constituents. We will hear them repeated again and again in the coming weeks of intense debate. Every time we hear them, we must respond and we must persuade.

There is too much at stake to be silent.

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

 

[rightwinger]

By Dennis A. Henigan

The American people can overcome the gun lobby, but only if we confront, and expose, three myths that have long dominated the gun debate and given the politicians a ready excuse for inaction.

First, we must not let the opponents of reform get away with the empty bromide that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Does any rational person really believe that the Sandy Hook killer could have murdered twenty-seven people in minutes with a knife or a baseball bat? Guns enable people to kill, more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon.

Second, we must challenge the idea that no law can prevent violent people from getting guns. This canard is refuted by the experience of every other western industrialized nation. Their violent crime rates are comparable to ours. But their homicide rates are exponentially lower because their strong gun laws make it harder for violent individuals to get guns.

Third, we must not accept the notion that our Constitution condemns us to the continued slaughter of our children. It is true that the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in recent years; it is equally true that the Court has insisted that the right allows for reasonable restrictions. In his opinion in the Heller Second Amendment case, Justice Scalia listed restrictions on "dangerous and unusual weapons" among the kinds of gun laws that are still "presumptively lawful." Assault weapons that fire scores of rounds without reloading surely are "dangerous and unusual."

The tobacco control movement overcame some equally powerful mythology to fundamentally alter American attitudes toward tobacco products. The tobacco industry's effort to sow confusion and uncertainty about the link between smoking and disease eventually was exposed as a fraud. The entrenched view that smoking was simply a bad habit that individuals can choose to break was destroyed by evidence that the tobacco companies knew that nicotine was powerfully addictive and engineered their cigarettes to ensure that people got hooked and stayed hooked. The assumption that smoking harms only the smoker was contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of the danger of second-hand smoke.

Once these myths were exposed, attitudes changed, policies changed and we started saving countless lives. Since youth smoking peaked in the mid-1990s, smoking rates have fallen by about three-fourths among 8th graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and half among 12th graders. A sea change has occurred on the tobacco issue.

Similarly fundamental change can come to the gun issue as well. The myths about gun control, however, still have a hold on too many of our political leaders and their constituents. We will hear them repeated again and again in the coming weeks of intense debate. Every time we hear them, we must respond and we must persuade.

There is too much at stake to be silent.

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

 

[Conservative65]

Hardcore NRA wingnuts need to be thinking about two words: "Compromise" and "Consensus"...

Gun hating leftwing nuts need to stop defining compromise as doing it your way or it doesn't qualify.

Consensus is he absence of leadership.

 

[Conservative65]

By Dennis A. Henigan

The American people can overcome the gun lobby, but only if we confront, and expose, three myths that have long dominated the gun debate and given the politicians a ready excuse for inaction.

First, we must not let the opponents of reform get away with the empty bromide that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Does any rational person really believe that the Sandy Hook killer could have murdered twenty-seven people in minutes with a knife or a baseball bat? Guns enable people to kill, more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon.

Second, we must challenge the idea that no law can prevent violent people from getting guns. This canard is refuted by the experience of every other western industrialized nation. Their violent crime rates are comparable to ours. But their homicide rates are exponentially lower because their strong gun laws make it harder for violent individuals to get guns.

Third, we must not accept the notion that our Constitution condemns us to the continued slaughter of our children. It is true that the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in recent years; it is equally true that the Court has insisted that the right allows for reasonable restrictions. In his opinion in the Heller Second Amendment case, Justice Scalia listed restrictions on "dangerous and unusual weapons" among the kinds of gun laws that are still "presumptively lawful." Assault weapons that fire scores of rounds without reloading surely are "dangerous and unusual."

The tobacco control movement overcame some equally powerful mythology to fundamentally alter American attitudes toward tobacco products. The tobacco industry's effort to sow confusion and uncertainty about the link between smoking and disease eventually was exposed as a fraud. The entrenched view that smoking was simply a bad habit that individuals can choose to break was destroyed by evidence that the tobacco companies knew that nicotine was powerfully addictive and engineered their cigarettes to ensure that people got hooked and stayed hooked. The assumption that smoking harms only the smoker was contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of the danger of second-hand smoke.

Once these myths were exposed, attitudes changed, policies changed and we started saving countless lives. Since youth smoking peaked in the mid-1990s, smoking rates have fallen by about three-fourths among 8th graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and half among 12th graders. A sea change has occurred on the tobacco issue.

Similarly fundamental change can come to the gun issue as well. The myths about gun control, however, still have a hold on too many of our political leaders and their constituents. We will hear them repeated again and again in the coming weeks of intense debate. Every time we hear them, we must respond and we must persuade.

There is too much at stake to be silent.

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

 

[rightwinger]

By Dennis A. Henigan

The American people can overcome the gun lobby, but only if we confront, and expose, three myths that have long dominated the gun debate and given the politicians a ready excuse for inaction.

First, we must not let the opponents of reform get away with the empty bromide that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Does any rational person really believe that the Sandy Hook killer could have murdered twenty-seven people in minutes with a knife or a baseball bat? Guns enable people to kill, more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon.

Second, we must challenge the idea that no law can prevent violent people from getting guns. This canard is refuted by the experience of every other western industrialized nation. Their violent crime rates are comparable to ours. But their homicide rates are exponentially lower because their strong gun laws make it harder for violent individuals to get guns.

Third, we must not accept the notion that our Constitution condemns us to the continued slaughter of our children. It is true that the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in recent years; it is equally true that the Court has insisted that the right allows for reasonable restrictions. In his opinion in the Heller Second Amendment case, Justice Scalia listed restrictions on "dangerous and unusual weapons" among the kinds of gun laws that are still "presumptively lawful." Assault weapons that fire scores of rounds without reloading surely are "dangerous and unusual."

The tobacco control movement overcame some equally powerful mythology to fundamentally alter American attitudes toward tobacco products. The tobacco industry's effort to sow confusion and uncertainty about the link between smoking and disease eventually was exposed as a fraud. The entrenched view that smoking was simply a bad habit that individuals can choose to break was destroyed by evidence that the tobacco companies knew that nicotine was powerfully addictive and engineered their cigarettes to ensure that people got hooked and stayed hooked. The assumption that smoking harms only the smoker was contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of the danger of second-hand smoke.

Once these myths were exposed, attitudes changed, policies changed and we started saving countless lives. Since youth smoking peaked in the mid-1990s, smoking rates have fallen by about three-fourths among 8th graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and half among 12th graders. A sea change has occurred on the tobacco issue.

Similarly fundamental change can come to the gun issue as well. The myths about gun control, however, still have a hold on too many of our political leaders and their constituents. We will hear them repeated again and again in the coming weeks of intense debate. Every time we hear them, we must respond and we must persuade.

There is too much at stake to be silent.

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

 

[Conservative65]

By Dennis A. Henigan

The American people can overcome the gun lobby, but only if we confront, and expose, three myths that have long dominated the gun debate and given the politicians a ready excuse for inaction.

First, we must not let the opponents of reform get away with the empty bromide that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Does any rational person really believe that the Sandy Hook killer could have murdered twenty-seven people in minutes with a knife or a baseball bat? Guns enable people to kill, more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon.

Second, we must challenge the idea that no law can prevent violent people from getting guns. This canard is refuted by the experience of every other western industrialized nation. Their violent crime rates are comparable to ours. But their homicide rates are exponentially lower because their strong gun laws make it harder for violent individuals to get guns.

Third, we must not accept the notion that our Constitution condemns us to the continued slaughter of our children. It is true that the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in recent years; it is equally true that the Court has insisted that the right allows for reasonable restrictions. In his opinion in the Heller Second Amendment case, Justice Scalia listed restrictions on "dangerous and unusual weapons" among the kinds of gun laws that are still "presumptively lawful." Assault weapons that fire scores of rounds without reloading surely are "dangerous and unusual."

The tobacco control movement overcame some equally powerful mythology to fundamentally alter American attitudes toward tobacco products. The tobacco industry's effort to sow confusion and uncertainty about the link between smoking and disease eventually was exposed as a fraud. The entrenched view that smoking was simply a bad habit that individuals can choose to break was destroyed by evidence that the tobacco companies knew that nicotine was powerfully addictive and engineered their cigarettes to ensure that people got hooked and stayed hooked. The assumption that smoking harms only the smoker was contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of the danger of second-hand smoke.

Once these myths were exposed, attitudes changed, policies changed and we started saving countless lives. Since youth smoking peaked in the mid-1990s, smoking rates have fallen by about three-fourths among 8th graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and half among 12th graders. A sea change has occurred on the tobacco issue.

Similarly fundamental change can come to the gun issue as well. The myths about gun control, however, still have a hold on too many of our political leaders and their constituents. We will hear them repeated again and again in the coming weeks of intense debate. Every time we hear them, we must respond and we must persuade.

There is too much at stake to be silent.

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

 

[rightwinger]

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

You are welcome to it

But our gun culture is slowly eroding. Fewer households have guns in them. Children are not raised shooting guns, women will not allow a gun in the house

 

[FA_Q2]

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

You are welcome to it

But our gun culture is slowly eroding. Fewer households have guns in them. Children are not raised shooting guns, women will not allow a gun in the house

And yet, as already proven, gun and gun rights are GAINING in importance/popularity. A fact that you continue to ignore to parrot the same line over and over again.

 

[Conservative65]

lmfao Dumb Dumb compares cigarettes which are still legal to a Constitutionally protected right... Where do they find you Marxist morons??

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

You are welcome to it

But our gun culture is slowly eroding. Fewer households have guns in them. Children are not raised shooting guns, women will not allow a gun in the house

My children were raised to shoot guns and do it safely.

My wife didn't have a choice about whether or not guns were in the house.

 

[Conservative65]

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

You are welcome to it

But our gun culture is slowly eroding. Fewer households have guns in them. Children are not raised shooting guns, women will not allow a gun in the house

And yet, as already proven, gun and gun rights are GAINING in importance/popularity. A fact that you continue to ignore to parrot the same line over and over again.

He's another gun hater that thinks since he doesn't believe people should own them the rest of us should do as he says.

 

[dannyboys]

Well, another gun massacre will prompt another gun debate.

Ya. For a couple of minutes. Then the real debate becomes why are we allowing these fucking rag head muslims to live among us?
Every muslim who claims to follow the teachings of Islam is in fact condoning the murder of gays and everyone else on the planet who is a 'non-believer'.
There is NO way of avoiding this FACT!
There is not a single practising muslim on the planet who will EVER claim they follow 'some' of the teachings of the coran but not all of the teachings. That is unless they are suicidal.

 

[rightwinger]

There were no bans on selling cigarettes......no confiscations
Society just turned against them and now less than 20% of people smoke

Same needs to be done with guns......we need to stop tolerating them

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

You are welcome to it

But our gun culture is slowly eroding. Fewer households have guns in them. Children are not raised shooting guns, women will not allow a gun in the house

My children were raised to shoot guns and do it safely.

My wife didn't have a choice about whether or not guns were in the house.

And there are fewer and fewer families like yours

Guns are not as important to most families and a majority want nothing to do with them

 

[Conservative65]

So you choose not to tolerate something specifically protected as a right by the Constitution? What we need to stop doing is allowing idiot Liberals to find words in the Constitution that don't exist and claiming that the Constitution grants rights to things that aren't there.

I have the same Constitutional first amendment right

Gun nuts are not being tolerated as they once were. The number of households owning guns are decreasing. The gun culture of teaching your kid to shoot is diminishing.

Has nothing to do with your second amendment rights

We need to stop tolerating idiots like you.

You are welcome to it

But our gun culture is slowly eroding. Fewer households have guns in them. Children are not raised shooting guns, women will not allow a gun in the house

My children were raised to shoot guns and do it safely.

My wife didn't have a choice about whether or not guns were in the house.

And there are fewer and fewer families like yours

Guns are not as important to most families and a majority want nothing to do with them

I can't help it you're such a pussy you let your wife tell you what to do. How sad.

 

[dannyboys]

LIB pussies 'hate' guns.
They are literally terrified of guns.
Guns are 'cold'.
Guns make a lot of noise.
A gun's sudden recoil 'hurts'.
Guns are too 'heavy' to hold.
Big men who wear work boots like guns.
Guns kill 'innocent' animals.
Those inner city black men all have guns and big 'you know what's'. And if only their guns were taken away they wouldn't be slaughtering each other every day.
White men who like guns also 'hate' women and minorities. Nancy Pelosi said so.

 

[dannyboys]

Legal gun purchases have skyrocketed since Obama took office.
He's been the best gun advocate President in US history.
Contrary to what a fucking well known liar claims gun ownership is increasing not decreasing.

 

[rightwinger]

LIB pussies 'hate' guns.
They are literally terrified of guns.
Guns are 'cold'.
Guns make a lot of noise.
A gun's sudden recoil 'hurts'.
Guns are too 'heavy' to hold.
Big men who wear work boots like guns.
Guns kill 'innocent' animals.
Those inner city black men all have guns and big 'you know what's'. And if only their guns were taken away they wouldn't be slaughtering each other every day.
White men who like guns also 'hate' women and minorities. Nancy Pelosi said so.

Most Americans are just not obsessed with guns
Fewer and fewer allow them in their homes....just like smoking

The gun culture is eroding.

 

[rightwinger]

Legal gun purchases have skyrocketed since Obama took office.
He's been the best gun advocate President in US history.
Contrary to what a fucking well known liar claims gun ownership is increasing not decreasing.

Gun nuts are suckers

Obama is gunna take your guns is being replaced by Hillary is gunna take your guns

Cash in the kids college fund and go buy more guns

 

[kaz]

By Dennis A. Henigan

The American people can overcome the gun lobby, but only if we confront, and expose, three myths that have long dominated the gun debate and given the politicians a ready excuse for inaction.

First, we must not let the opponents of reform get away with the empty bromide that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Does any rational person really believe that the Sandy Hook killer could have murdered twenty-seven people in minutes with a knife or a baseball bat? Guns enable people to kill, more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon.

Second, we must challenge the idea that no law can prevent violent people from getting guns. This canard is refuted by the experience of every other western industrialized nation. Their violent crime rates are comparable to ours. But their homicide rates are exponentially lower because their strong gun laws make it harder for violent individuals to get guns.

Third, we must not accept the notion that our Constitution condemns us to the continued slaughter of our children. It is true that the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in recent years; it is equally true that the Court has insisted that the right allows for reasonable restrictions. In his opinion in the Heller Second Amendment case, Justice Scalia listed restrictions on "dangerous and unusual weapons" among the kinds of gun laws that are still "presumptively lawful." Assault weapons that fire scores of rounds without reloading surely are "dangerous and unusual."

The tobacco control movement overcame some equally powerful mythology to fundamentally alter American attitudes toward tobacco products. The tobacco industry's effort to sow confusion and uncertainty about the link between smoking and disease eventually was exposed as a fraud. The entrenched view that smoking was simply a bad habit that individuals can choose to break was destroyed by evidence that the tobacco companies knew that nicotine was powerfully addictive and engineered their cigarettes to ensure that people got hooked and stayed hooked. The assumption that smoking harms only the smoker was contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of the danger of second-hand smoke.

Once these myths were exposed, attitudes changed, policies changed and we started saving countless lives. Since youth smoking peaked in the mid-1990s, smoking rates have fallen by about three-fourths among 8th graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and half among 12th graders. A sea change has occurred on the tobacco issue.

Similarly fundamental change can come to the gun issue as well. The myths about gun control, however, still have a hold on too many of our political leaders and their constituents. We will hear them repeated again and again in the coming weeks of intense debate. Every time we hear them, we must respond and we must persuade.

There is too much at stake to be silent.

More: Dennis A. Henigan: It Was Done on Tobacco. It Can Be Done on Guns

So seriously, you think people can't get tobacco in this country? WTF?