I am not a bleeding heart, liberal, left leaning, anti-second amendment person. I am a politically moderate conservative who believes in the right to bear arms, but not assault rifles.
I am also a retired school principal who is tired of seeing innocent children slaughtered in our schools. I am also tired of nothing being done.
Yes, mental health should be considered when legislating gun purchases. No, it’s not an easy answer. But Nikolas Cruz was allowed to legally purchase an AR-15 rifle, one that killed 17 children in short bursts of fire.
No, we cannot buy up all the assault weapons that have already been purchased. But through legislation, we can prohibit the sale of any more of these mass destructive guns.
Why not start here? Talking has gone on long enough.
Tom McCullugh
* * *
Thanks to Tom McCullough for suggesting that it was something other than assault weaponry that killed again yesterday. What is missing in Tom's few words is how.
I took some time today to do some investigation of my own and discovered that, not surprising, 90 cents of every NRA contribution goes to the GOP. Our Chuck Fleischmann gets money. Add to the state representatives Black and Blackburn and that rounds out the money given to those candidates. I could not find any references for our senators, so will leave that out of the equation of giving by the NRA. It turns out that the bulk of the money given by the NRA goes to state and local candidates. Suspect the reasoning being that those candidates that receive funds can more closely be watched. Can we make the conclusion that money spent for candidates does influence how they think and further what legislative actions are voted on and approved? I think the conclusion I could make is that the pervasive silence of the GOP again after another mass shooting answers my question. There is still more to this and want to share with you voting percentages of our state.
There is during presidential elections an excellent voter turn out. Sixty percent and more is a good percentage of voting. The statewide and local elections are another matter and do not have the data on those but know from previous readings voter turn out is very small. This voter turn out percentage for local and state elections could also be the reason the NRA spends 90 percent of their voting dollars on local elections. Still another puzzle.
The voters in this country percentages are slanted more toward the voter that does not have a college education. I am going to suggest here that the voter that does not have a college degree can be persuaded more readily then does the voter with a college degree. Percentages of the voting public with college degrees is around 25 percent, more or less. The simple numbers representing the voting heavily are those without that degree. Maybe, I might suggest, the high school graduate is more easily swayed by slick commercials, gifted wordsmiths, and a message that they, the politician, are privy to more "intelligence" than they. We all can be swayed by the gifted preacher or politician. They know the right words, the right emotional tone, and for some they know what is the outcome. Our president is not a gifted speaker and further lacks the language nuance and understanding of words. He does though, know how to speak to that non college degree crowd of Make America Great hats.
Robert Brooks
* * *
Just a few facts, taken from the Gun Facts website, concerning “Assault Weapons”, a Liberal term in my opinion.
Myth: Assault weapons are a serious problem in the U.S.
Fact: In 1994, before the federal “assault weapons ban,” you were 11 times more likely to be beaten to death than to be killed by an “assault weapon."
Fact: In the first seven years since the ban was lifted, murders declined 43 percent, violent crime 43 percent, rapes 27 percent and robberies 49 percent.
Fact: Nationally, “assault weapons” were used in 1.4 percent of crimes involving firearms and 0.25 percent of all violent crime before the enactment of any national or state “assault weapons” ban. In many major urban areas (San Antonio, Mobile, Nashville, etc.) and some entire states (Maryland, New Jersey, etc.) the rate is less than 0.1 percent.
If you, as am I, are truly interested in addressing the problem this country has with gun deaths, we have to start by being honest.
While I disagree with your proposal dealing with “Assault Weapons” let’s suppose that tomorrow all these type weapons were removed from our country. That would eliminate approximately 2-3 percent of all gun deaths in this country. I’m not hearing from the gun grabbers what their proposals are to address the other 98 percent of gun deaths. This makes me very suspicious of the motives. I don’t hear the gun grabbing liberals demanding that their chum buddies in Hollywood take gun violence out of their movies. I don’t hear them demanding the violent video games be banned. Why?
The culture in this country has changed. Assault weapons have been around for decades. Where were the mass shootings in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s? The family unit has broken down in this country. We’ve taken God out our schools.
Our forefathers were wise enough to know that our government could become a threat to Americans. Thus the 2nd Amendment which is not about hunting, or only being able to own a six shot revolver. The liberal democrats have a sole purpose and that is to confiscate Americans’ guns.
By the way, my daddy was also a school principal for 27 years. A noble vocation. Even though “assault weapons" were plentiful in those days, school shootings didn’t exists.
C.L. Leigh