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

[hadit]

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

The worm has turned on the nRA. All the right wing dings that cling to guns like a security blanket will soon see regulation, which is clearly in the 2nd Amendment, of guns and gun ownership, which we already have to a degree don't we. And the nRA will be neutered and become perhaps a sportsmans club which it began as. The far right confiscated the nRA from normal gun enthusiasts and turned it by design into a political football they can use every election to anger their base. Before this transformation there wasn't the mouth frothing from gun owners we see now. The nRA uses them.

And after you do all that, children will still die in schools.

Why do we want to keep the one thing that stops a mass murdering shooter as far away from his target as possible?

I'd like to know when gun huggers first got this notion that laws don't stop any crime as far as guns go, but they do stop other crimes. This nincompoop argument that laws don't do anything is ludicrous. Why have any laws at all then. No law stops all crime, that is why we have police and why some people carry pistols. How tiring it gets to hear people use the same tired old bullshit over and over even though it has no truth to it.

Laws won't stop all crime? Tell me a point in history when they ever have, even in a totalitarian state there is crime. Let's have a law that dynamite is a heavily regulated item because of the potential harm it can cause if in the wrong hands. Laws don't stop criminals? Bullshit, this vomitosus that lumps all human beings that ever broke a law into the 'devil that will slaughter millions if given the chance' is another fallacy. Laws do work because most humans don't want to go to prison for years or lose everything they have. The equation has never been 0% or 100%. You idiots that try to argue from fallacy are just ponderously dense.

You missed the point entirely. First, there are A LOT of guns in America and they're NOT going away for A LONG time. Therefore, mass murders will continue and schools will continue to be targets.

I have seen no one present anything more effective at stopping a shooter who has gained access to a school and is in the act of killing as many as he can than another person with a gun.

Given that, I ask again. Why are we trying to keep the most effective means of stopping a shooter as far away from his target as possible?

 

[hunarcy]

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

Tobacco is not a right. Try again.

 

[hunarcy]

America has a strong (socialist) standing army. There is no longer need for "militia" as stated in the Second Amendment.

If you say so...but the 2nd amendment is not ABOUT militia. It's about the right of the PEOPLE.

 

[hunarcy]

The 2nd amendment will stay in place a long-long time. The only chance for liberals on the matter is to draw emphasis on that "well regulated" part.

"well regulated" in the context of the time the Amendment was written meant in good working order. Doesn't help them.

 

[miketx]

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

The worm has turned on the nRA. All the right wing dings that cling to guns like a security blanket will soon see regulation, which is clearly in the 2nd Amendment, of guns and gun ownership, which we already have to a degree don't we. And the nRA will be neutered and become perhaps a sportsmans club which it began as. The far right confiscated the nRA from normal gun enthusiasts and turned it by design into a political football they can use every election to anger their base. Before this transformation there wasn't the mouth frothing from gun owners we see now. The nRA uses them.

And after you do all that, children will still die in schools.

Why do we want to keep the one thing that stops a mass murdering shooter as far away from his target as possible?

I'd like to know when gun huggers first got this notion that laws don't stop any crime as far as guns go, but they do stop other crimes. This nincompoop argument that laws don't do anything is ludicrous. Why have any laws at all then. No law stops all crime, that is why we have police and why some people carry pistols. How tiring it gets to hear people use the same tired old bullshit over and over even though it has no truth to it.

Laws won't stop all crime? Tell me a point in history when they ever have, even in a totalitarian state there is crime. Let's have a law that dynamite is a heavily regulated item because of the potential harm it can cause if in the wrong hands. Laws don't stop criminals? Bullshit, this vomitosus that lumps all human beings that ever broke a law into the 'devil that will slaughter millions if given the chance' is another fallacy. Laws do work because most humans don't want to go to prison for years or lose everything they have. The equation has never been 0% or 100%. You idiots that try to argue from fallacy are just ponderously dense.

You missed the point entirely. First, there are A LOT of guns in America and they're NOT going away for A LONG time. Therefore, mass murders will continue and schools will continue to be targets.

I have seen no one present anything more effective at stopping a shooter who has gained access to a school and is in the act of killing as many as he can than another person with a gun.

Given that, I ask again. Why are we trying to keep the most effective means of stopping a shooter as far away from his target as possible?

Why? They relish in mass murder of children. There is no other possible reason.

 

[defcon4]

‘WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT’

NRA gun nutters brought this on themselves!

We will vote them back in. There are more of us, than of you. You will not succeed. There will be civil war, before we let tyrants like you, dictate our lives.

I am sorry to disappoint you that but we are becoming the minority. Just look at the "young faces" of the gun control issue. They are not white Americans. They belong to the invaders to genocide us. Symbolically tearing up our founding document sacred to us. That's is reality. Click on the picture

 

[miketx]

‘WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT’

NRA gun nutters brought this on themselves!

We will vote them back in. There are more of us, than of you. You will not succeed. There will be civil war, before we let tyrants like you, dictate our lives.

I am sorry to disappoint you that but we are becoming the minority. Just look at the "young faces" of the gun control issue. They are not white Americans. They belong to the invaders to genocide us. Symbolically tearing up our founding document sacred to us. That's is reality. Click on the picture
View attachment 184594

The little Cuban dyke is showing us, huh?

 

[hadit]

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

The worm has turned on the nRA. All the right wing dings that cling to guns like a security blanket will soon see regulation, which is clearly in the 2nd Amendment, of guns and gun ownership, which we already have to a degree don't we. And the nRA will be neutered and become perhaps a sportsmans club which it began as. The far right confiscated the nRA from normal gun enthusiasts and turned it by design into a political football they can use every election to anger their base. Before this transformation there wasn't the mouth frothing from gun owners we see now. The nRA uses them.

And after you do all that, children will still die in schools.

Why do we want to keep the one thing that stops a mass murdering shooter as far away from his target as possible?

I'd like to know when gun huggers first got this notion that laws don't stop any crime as far as guns go, but they do stop other crimes. This nincompoop argument that laws don't do anything is ludicrous. Why have any laws at all then. No law stops all crime, that is why we have police and why some people carry pistols. How tiring it gets to hear people use the same tired old bullshit over and over even though it has no truth to it.

Laws won't stop all crime? Tell me a point in history when they ever have, even in a totalitarian state there is crime. Let's have a law that dynamite is a heavily regulated item because of the potential harm it can cause if in the wrong hands. Laws don't stop criminals? Bullshit, this vomitosus that lumps all human beings that ever broke a law into the 'devil that will slaughter millions if given the chance' is another fallacy. Laws do work because most humans don't want to go to prison for years or lose everything they have. The equation has never been 0% or 100%. You idiots that try to argue from fallacy are just ponderously dense.

You missed the point entirely. First, there are A LOT of guns in America and they're NOT going away for A LONG time. Therefore, mass murders will continue and schools will continue to be targets.

I have seen no one present anything more effective at stopping a shooter who has gained access to a school and is in the act of killing as many as he can than another person with a gun.

Given that, I ask again. Why are we trying to keep the most effective means of stopping a shooter as far away from his target as possible?

Why? They relish in mass murder of children. There is no other possible reason.

I have posted that question multiple times. As of yet, no one has even attempted a solid answer.

 

[rightwinger]

The 2nd amendment will stay in place a long-long time. The only chance for liberals on the matter is to draw emphasis on that "well regulated" part.

Nobody has made smoking illegal......it is just no longer socially acceptable

Same thing will happen with guns as young generations no longer are enthralled with them like their parents and grandparents are

 

[defcon4]

The 2nd amendment will stay in place a long-long time. The only chance for liberals on the matter is to draw emphasis on that "well regulated" part.

Nobody has made smoking illegal......it is just no longer socially acceptable

Same thing will happen with guns as young generations no longer are enthralled with them like their parents and grandparents are

Looking at these pictures here, these creatures' parents and grandparents have no roots in North America therefore your observation is a non sequitur.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Machine guns or Valhalla!!!

 

[rightwinger]

The 2nd amendment will stay in place a long-long time. The only chance for liberals on the matter is to draw emphasis on that "well regulated" part.

Nobody has made smoking illegal......it is just no longer socially acceptable

Same thing will happen with guns as young generations no longer are enthralled with them like their parents and grandparents are

Looking at these pictures here, these creatures' parents and grandparents have no roots in North America therefore your observation is a non sequitur.

View attachment 184651 View attachment 184652

Smart kids

Smarter than you

 

[Claudette]

‘WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT’

NRA gun nutters brought this on themselves!

Nope. Nuts who will use a gun to kill any and all. The gun is the tool. The person using it is the weapon.

I for one am glad to have my guns and I'm not going to shoot anyone unless its self defense just like most gun owners.

There are those out there though will use that tool to kill as many as they can and its only idiots like you who view the gun as the cause, not the killer who uses it.

 

[defcon4]

The 2nd amendment will stay in place a long-long time. The only chance for liberals on the matter is to draw emphasis on that "well regulated" part.

Nobody has made smoking illegal......it is just no longer socially acceptable

Same thing will happen with guns as young generations no longer are enthralled with them like their parents and grandparents are

Looking at these pictures here, these creatures' parents and grandparents have no roots in North America therefore your observation is a non sequitur.

View attachment 184651 View attachment 184652

Smart kids

Smarter than you

Lame troll, lamer than them. Lol

 

[rightwinger]

‘WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT’

NRA gun nutters brought this on themselves!

Nope. Nuts who will use a gun to kill any and all. The gun is the tool. The person using it is the weapon.

I for one am glad to have my guns and I'm not going to shoot anyone unless its self defense just like most gun owners.

There are those out there though will use that tool to kill as many as they can and its only idiots like you who view the gun as the cause, not the killer who uses it.

Why provide him with the best tool to slaughter children?

 

[defcon4]

‘WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT’

NRA gun nutters brought this on themselves!

Nope. Nuts who will use a gun to kill any and all. The gun is the tool. The person using it is the weapon.

I for one am glad to have my guns and I'm not going to shoot anyone unless its self defense just like most gun owners.

There are those out there though will use that tool to kill as many as they can and its only idiots like you who view the gun as the cause, not the killer who uses it.

Why provide him with the best tool to slaughter children?

 

[defcon4]

Why provide him with the best tool to slaughter children?

 

[Lakhota]

Thank you, New York!

New York passes bill to restrict guns for domestic abusers

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Saturday announced the passage of legislation that would strip all firearms from New Yorkers convicted of domestic violence, updating a previous law that prohibited abusers from owning handguns.

In a press release on the governor's website, Cuomo said the law, which passed the state Assembly by 85-32 and Senate by 41-19 this week, will make the state "safer and stronger."

"New York is once again leading the way to prevent gun violence, and with this common sense reform, break the inextricable link between gun violence and domestic violence," Cuomo said.

The law forces convicted domestic abusers to turn in rifles, shotguns, and any other firearms they were not previously prohibited from owning under a law passed after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that barred abusers from owning pistols or revolvers.

More: New York passes bill to restrict guns for domestic abusers

 

[Sun Devil 92]

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

Actually, steady and aim high.

The first left winger who comes looking for their guns will be the beneficiary.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

America has a strong (socialist) standing army. There is no longer need for "militia" as stated in the Second Amendment.

The second amendment is needed more today than any other time in American history. Why should we allow that right to be taken away?

You hardcore NRA wingnuts are the Second Amendment's worst enemy. Remember, we can still smoke...

And people do.

And people die from smoking. More than die from guns.