UPDATE BELOW
Guns kill more people. So why does terrorism get all the attention?
"The next time you play airport security theater — remove shoes, display laptop, toss water bottle — think of the children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Think of the moviegoers in Aurora, Colo., the citizens in Tucson peaceably assembled to meet with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the worshippers at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old Chicago girl killed by gunfire days after coming to Washington with her high school band for President Obama’s second inauguration.
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A commemoration of the march is scheduled to begin Sunday in Selma, led by Mr. Lewis and Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., and will end in Montgomery on Friday. Its urgent purpose is to underscore why the Supreme Court must uphold a central provision of the Voting Rights Act, which is now under challenge in Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder. That provision — Section 5 — applies in Alabama and other places where voting discrimination remains much worse than elsewhere in the country. It requires that any change in voting rules be preapproved by the Justice Department or a special court in Washington. Without this provision, there would be no way to prevent new efforts to block blacks and Hispanics from voting or to reduce their electoral power.
Americans suffer assaults on their privacy — they are groped in public and wiretapped en masse — and surrender their constitutional protections against unwarranted searches in the name of the war on terror, yet they cannot muster the will to protect children from mass murder with military-style weapons. We have spent more than $1 trillion on homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001, yet have withheld annual funding of less than $3 million for research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on gun violence."
Get rid of the Voting Rights Act because Antonin Scalia is a proud white man?
"March 7, 1965, became known as Bloody Sunday in the annals of the civil rights struggle in America. That day, around 500 people set out to march the 54 miles from Selma, Ala., to the state capital in Montgomery in support of what would become the Voting Rights Act. The voting rights movement was transformed into a national cause when the marchers were stopped on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they left Selma.
A state trooper told them they were “an unlawful assembly” and ordered them to disperse. When they did not, they were attacked by about 150 troopers and others who wielded billy clubs and tear gas. Fifty-eight people were treated for injuries at a local hospital, including Representative John Lewis, then 25 and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, for a skull fracture.
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The justices heard oral argument on the Shelby County case last Wednesday. This week’s events in Alabama should remind them of the enormous cost many Americans have paid to win the right to vote, and why that remains under persistent threat and must be defended." --Lincoln Caplan, NYTimes, March 2, 2013
Leonard Pitts on gutting the Voting Rights Act:
"Watching media empires built upon appeals to racial resentment, seeing the injustice system wield mass incarceration as a weapon against black men, bearing witness as the first African-American president produced his long form birth certificate, all helped me understand just how silly we were to believe bigotry was done. So a chill crawled my spine last week as the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could result in gutting the Voting Rights Act.
That landmark 1965 legislation gave the ballot to black voters who had previously been denied it by discriminatory laws, economic threats, violence and by registrars who challenged them with nonsense questions like, “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap.”
Jon Stewart explain "teh crazy."
UPDATE
More things that don't make sense:
Why do people believe ANYTHING they get from The Daily Caller, or the vomitous Breitbart.crap?
The story about Senator Menendez has been racing around wingnuttia and not a few easily duped blogs for months and has finally been shown to be false, false, FALSE.
Is there anything that the pathetic little bow-tied twit, Tucker Carlson can do right? He and his fellow travelers at Breitbart.vomit continue to give a bad name to stupidity.
From Andrew Sullivan's blog:
"This is a pretty definitive exposure of a total fabrication in the Daily Caller. But along with its sister propaganda sheet, Breitbart, what defines this new form of hackery is not that it makes shit up, but that even when it is busted, it keeps up the Baghdad Bob routine. its imperviousness to truth even when it is presented with it. The detachment from reality – the strongest feature of today’s degenerate Republicanism – is embedded in its own fabricated media. That’s partly why they were living in never-never-land even on election day last November. Another piece detailing the DC’s being a party to a con, concludes, after ABC News destroyed the lies: The ABC News story isn’t a game changer; it’s a game ender.
Not if you live in what’s left of Tucker Carlson’s brain."
34 comments:
... and swimming pools take the lives of more children than "assault weapons," yet the backyard swimming pool is safe from activist scrutiny...
Yes, "we crazy." Or at the least, we are quite irrational.
20 children and 8 adults were killed in Newtown, yet, that many (more) are killed everyday by guns, in America. No cry for the 10,000 killed every year in America by gun shot? The price of a right, which is not a right, is thousands of dead Americans. What do we do when our laws are the instrument of our downfall? Allow money to be considered free speech. Legal, but unconstitutional searches. legalized slavery. The ability to kill Americans without due process, and more. All legal according to our Supreme Court. Oh yes, we are crazy. Self destruction is crazy.
We not crazy. Them crazy!
A swimming pool is not a gun. Accidents happen.
Incidents of gun deaths include accidents where guns were carelessly left unsecured in a home where children can get at them. But also included are gun deaths by suicide, and homicide--when two people are in a rage and a gun is used to solve an argument.
We still have the highest number of children's deaths by guns than any other western democracy.
And the highest overall death by firearms than any other country in the world.
Comparing swimming pools to firearms is a specious way of arguing, IMO.
The story about Senator Menendez has been racing around wingnuttia and not a few easily duped blogs for months and has finally been shown to be false, false, FALSE.
Yeah, but Menendez is a member of the Friends of Hamas!
Right! Lets compare guns to swimming pools. Geeezz
A FEW FACTS NOT FROM RIGHT WING SOURCES
Gun Deaths About One Third of Auto and Drug related Deaths. Blunt Instruments Kill More in DC than Guns
The number of people killed [in auto accidents] dropped to 33,808 in 2009, a total of 3,615 below the previous year. It was the lowest total since 1950 and marked the fourth consecutive year highway fatalities have declined since 2005, when 39,252 people died.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090902511.html
Drugs now kill more people than motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. -- a monumental shift that reflects gains in road safety amid a troubling rise in prescription drug abuse.
Drug overdoses and brain damage linked to long-term drug abuse killed an estimated 37,485 people in 2009, the latest year for which preliminary data are available, surpassing the toll of traffic accidents by 1,201. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Drugs/drug-deaths-exceed-traffic-deaths/story?id=14554903
WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Annual FBI crime statistics show that more people are killed with clubs and hammers [in DC] each year than by rifles or shotguns.
In 2011, there were 323 murders [in DC] committed with a rifle but 496 murders [in DC] committed with hammers and clubs. There were 356 murders in which a shotgun was the deadly weapon of choice.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/01/03/fbi-hammers-clubs-kill-more-people-than-rifles-shotguns/
How many people were killed by guns in America last year?
Answer:
The Centers for Disease Control says 11,493 people died from gun homicides.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_were_killed_by_guns_in_America_last_year
Automobiles are necessary in our culture. Guns are not.
Drug deaths usually involve people overdosing THEMSELVES.
Firearm deaths, such as the ones in Sandy Hook, CT, involved an armed crazy person who killed not only only himself, but 6 and 7 year old children.
I'm afraid you, FT, and SF keep trying to make the case that swimming pools and cars and prescription drugs are the same as firearms.
They're not.
The comparison fails. Miserably.
Free,
You might as well say 100% of people die. There are no survivors. The cause is immaterial. That appears to be your position. Fortunately, you represent an insignificant minority.
It's worth pointing out that many municipalities require fencing and other protection in order to install certain pools.
Remember John Edwards (D - Sleaze), he made his first large fees suing a swimming pool company over personal injuries.
He won, not so if you attempt liability suits against firearm manufactures, Silver.
Pitch till you win.
FT, are you going to make the ridiculous attempt to demonstrate that strict Federal regulations have not made automobile traffic safer?
Are you really going to try to play the Sophist on that one?
"I'm afraid you, FT, and SF keep trying to make the case that swimming pools and cars and prescription drugs are the same as firearms."
Add cylclist on the roads, not wearing a helemet, running STOPs, speeding, etc. Same. And I ride 300-400 miles a week. I get it.
Automobiles are necessary in our culture. Guns are not.
But the natural right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the constitution.
"Drug deaths usually involve people overdosing THEMSELVES."
As do over half of the gun deaths.
Somehow, this discussion reminds me of Shelley’s worst poem -- perhaps the worst poem produced by any poet deemed “great."
Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere, All around, within, beneath, Above is death -- and we are death.
Death has set his mark and seal On all we are and all we feel On all we know and all we fear, All we see and all we hear
First our pleasures die -- and then Our hopes, and then our fears -- and when These are dead, the debt is due, Dust claims dust -- and we die too.
All things that we love and cherish, Like ourselves must fade and perish; Such is our rude mortal lot -- Love itself would, did they not.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
"In the midst of life we are in death."
Half empty?
Half full?
Your choice.
Life is part comedy, part tragedy, part romance, largely farce.
shaw...the usual suspects coming whining here as soon as you put up a post about gun control...swimming pools kill children...so they're worse than guns...why do you have anything to do with mentally challenged people who write that crap...they come running here because...you make your points...and that pisses them off...lol
Leading Cause of Childhood Deaths, 2007
Perhaps it is my perception only, but I do not see activists going after other causes of death with the same zeal.
If you care about children, you put the most emphasis on the leading causes. Gun deaths, while tragic, are only a small percentage.
If you further break down those deaths, criminality and social pathology are at the root.
I do this to provide some perspective. It's an emotional issue.
LOL Anonymous:
Do you care about children, or not?
If you did, you would not laugh about the causes of their death.
no one is laughing at children's deaths...i'm laughing at comparing swimming pool deaths to massacres by firearms...lol...madmen don't go crazy and drown 28 kids because slaughtering them in 5 minutes...is way easier...
SF,
The right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the constitution. (Although I am not sure by what you mean when you say "natural" right.) but it has been well established that the constitution does not say ANY arms.
The argument is over types of guns, not any gun. Many gun advocates seem to forget that.
To SF and LOL Anon: Interesting new study:
Study: States with more gun laws have less gun violence:
"States with more gun laws have fewer gun-related deaths, according to a new study released Wednesday by Boston Children's Hospital.
The leader investigator behind the research hopes the findings will drive legislators to pass gun reform across the country and increase federal funding to research on gun laws and violence. However, at least one critic argues that the study fails to take into account several important factors such as the types of laws, enforcement of laws, and gun ownership rates in states.
"Our research gives clear evidence that laws have a role in preventing firearms deaths," said Eric Fleegler, the study's lead investigator and a pediatric emergency doctor at Boston Children's Hospital. "Legislators should take that into consideration."
Fleegler and researchers from Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health studied information from all 50 states between 2007 to 2010, analyzing all firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and data on firearm laws compiled by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
States with the most laws had a mortality rate 42% lower than those states with the fewest laws, they found. The strong law states' firearm-related homicide rate was also 40% lower and their firearm-related suicide rate was 37% lower."
Also, SF, I imagine states with fewer swimming pools will have fewer swimming pool deaths.
I'm guessing that "natural rights" means those rights endowed by a "creator."
But damn! I'm having a difficult time seeing a Christian god, or any god, tenderly placing an AK-47 in Adam or Eve's hand and saying "Go forth and shoot."
I don't recall the right to bare arms as one of the ten commandments. Hell, Muslims don't want their women to bare anything...except children.
Shaw: you'll have to take up your natural rights bugaboo with the founders and historians. That's what they said; not me.
And it says a right to bear arms, not slaughter people, so your argumentation is specious.
@ Jerry: "The argument is over types of guns"
Yes, that appears to be the argument. And when you make it, you are now dealing with an even smaller percentage of deaths.
To the Laughing Hyena Anon: I am focusing on the death of children; you are obviously focused on grabbing guns. our agenda is showing.
Speaking of statistics, Shaw. I invite you to compare gun crime statistics for Boston and Denver.
I've brought this out once before, but don't have time to repeat myself.
SF -- "Yes, that appears to be the argument. And when you make it, you are now dealing with an even smaller percentage of deaths."
That's right and that's why gun restrictions are not enough.
"That's right and that's why gun restrictions are not enough."
So what is enough?
What is enough regulation? I don't think that question can be answered now, except to say, we need more regulation than we have now.
How many dead children are you willing to accept in exchange for more regulation?
Deja Vu...
"How many dead children are you willing to accept in exchange for more regulation?"
How much freedom are you willing to surrender in the vain attempt to overcome human nature?
It's an absurd question. If we lowered the speed limit to 5 mph we could eliminate thousands of children's deaths.
Are you willing to do it?
Guns are not necessary, except in rare instances, to live our lives.
Motor vehicles are necessary.
Swimming pools are not necessary to live our lives either, but mass murderers don't use swimming pools to massacre people.
You keep throwing out stats that don't address the fact that cars and swimming pools all have other purposes for their use, and accidents from the use of them do occur, but that is not their primary purpose.
Firearms, on the other hand, (except for target practicing) are used to threaten or kill things. And they do, in massive numbers in this country.
If you have a gun in your home, you are more likely to kill yourself or someone in your family, either accidentally or worse, purposefully, than people who do not have guns in the home.
See, SF, my question is as absurd as yours. The question is never how much is enough.
.
Homes with pies in them are more likely to see a pie thrown than in a home that does not contain pies.
Wow! What a revelation!
Shaw, you enjoy huffing out broad pronouncements about what is necessary and what is not, and that belies your progressive need to control and punish others.
How the hell do you know what is necessary for me and what is not?
How dare you, with your grave concern for "the children!!!" not stand up immediately and demand the immediate demolition of all swimming pools.
People bludgeon other to death, start fires, and run others over with cars. We cannot cure human nature, and violating the rights of others and denigrating those you disagree with will not change that.
Jerry: No your absurdity has backed you into a corner. I am for the rule of law, while understanding that bad people and the bad things they do can never be eradicated.
You are the one who invoked "dead children" in you shambolic clamor towards whatever political point you were trying to score.
You invoked the children, and I have pointed out how we could lower their deaths. Live with it.
How much freedom are you willing to surrender in the vain attempt to overcome human nature?
It's an absurd question. If we lowered the speed limit to 5 mph we could eliminate thousands of children's deaths.
Are you willing to do it?
BRAVO, SF! You took Benjamin Franklin's famous words regarding liberty and safety right out of my hands. ;-)
Unfortunately, I doubt very much that leftists care anything at all about freedom, the goal they obviously pursue, hough perhaps unwittingly, is a MICRO-MANAGED SOCIETY, TOTALLY-CONTROLLED by CENTRALIZED POWER.
They may not realize it, but they actively embrace the nightmare dystopian societies vividly and convincingly evoked in works by E.M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell.
By the way one is just as dead whether shot with a gun, stabbed with a knife, bludgeoned with a hammer, strangled with someone's bare hands, poisoned with cyanide, strychnine, arsenic or prussic acid, smothered with a pillow, run over by a car, thrown from a tall building, drowned in a swimming pool, a lake, a river or an ocean or hit at random by a falling object, etc.
Death would be a lovely thing to eliminate, but it AIN'T gonna happen.
And for the record I'd rather DIE being hit by a stray bullet than live in the moral equivalent of a Concentration Camp, which is exactly what people like New York's Mayor Bloomberg would transform this country into, if given free rein.
Life is not worth living unless one is FREE.
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