I plan on supporting national politicians, regardless of party, that will vote to implement universal gun background checks and limit the magazine capacity for semi-automatic assault rifles to 10 rounds or less. Only our law enforcement and military need higher capacity weapons of war.
We have an absolute gun violence epidemic in this country and most of these mass shootings where dozens are being killed in minutes, are being carried out with high capacity, semi-automatic weapons of war.
As a nation, we should be able to go to church, concerts, movies, festivals, elementary school, high school, college, restaurants or any other public venues without unreasonable fear that someone with whatever warped belief, with a high capacity assault rifle, is going to bust in and begin spraying dozens of rounds per minute without stopping.
By limiting high capacity fire power easily available to the public and instituting universal background checks for anyone purchasing a gun we will finally do something toward helping reduce the carnage like we witnessed twice this past weekend.
Will it stop all mass shootings? No, but it will over time reduce them and slow down the bloodshed and kill rate capacity of those who carry them out.
“Guns don’t kill people, people do,” is a popular saying. Yes, but people without high capacity weapons of war on the street will be either unable or much less likely to use their gun to kill so many people, so quickly.
And before I get accused of not being pro Second Amendment, I support law abiding citizens being able to carry handguns, own shotguns and own low capacity, semi-automatic rifles for sport. However, it just doesn’t make sense for everyone to have access to the high capacity, semi-automatic weapons of war that are being used to carry out most of the mass shootings we continually experience in this country. High capacity magazines are designed for high capacity kill rates on a battlefield.
So, I ask you to join with me and start voting for national leaders who have the political courage to at least implement universal background checks and limit semi-automatic rifle magazine capacity to 10 rounds or less before one has to stop and reload or switch weapons.
Having to stop and reload or switch weapons will cause a slight pause in the shooting where lives can be saved and someone nearby will have a fighting chance to confront, tackle, engage or incapacitate the killer.
Tim Gobble
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Mr. Gobble,
How, exactly, do you propose to eliminate these so called “weapons of war” from the public?
The same goes for eliminating the untold millions of standard capacity magazines which are currently possessed legally by American citizens? Citizens who, by the way, have a constitutionally protected right to possess both the rifles and their standard capacity magazines.
Every firearm ever created, from the matchlock musket to the modern sporting rifles of today, has been a “weapon of war” or has been derived from such.
So where does it end, Mr. Gobble. How much personal liberty are we to surrender in order to stop “mass shootings” or make people feel “safe?”
Will it stop with semiautomatic rifles, which by the way and I know you are aware of this, are NOT “weapons of war,” as no military on the face of this earth equips combat soldiers with them?
A Brown Bess musket is, for sure, a “weapon of war,” so are we banning those?
How about a Trapdoor Springfield or a Model 1903 Springfield rifle?
An M-1 Garand or a K-98 Mauser?
These weapons have been used in combat, unlike the AR-15 and AKM rifles you want to ban.
The rifles previously mentioned are also chambered for cartridges which are much more powerful than the cartridges used in the rifles you want banned.
Are they to be banned as well?
What about ammunition? How much is too much for the unwashed masses to own?
Who gets to decide for me - what I can possess and for what reason?
Who are my betters, Mr. Gobble?
You and others who think like you?
My final question to you is this - once you’ve banned these “weapons of war,” who are you going to get to come confiscate them?
Are you?
I don’t think so.
John T. Sanders
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Mr. Gobble,
You say you support universal background checks? What does this mean to you? To me it sounds like if you want to pass a gun or guns to a son or daughter, if your grandfather wants to give you his gun(s) that a background check will be required. And, as you know there will also be a cost associated with the background check. Is this what you’re advocating? Count me as a no.
You say you’re an advocate of the Second Amendment and that you’re okay with owning handguns. In the United States murders by handguns is nine times that of rifles, and that’s all rifles, not just those “weapons of war” as you describe them. Handguns are used eight times that of all rifles in non-fatal shootings. Mass shootings get a lot of attention and as terrible as they are, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the murdering by guns happening in this country. The kind of weapons used is not an issue.
An evil person driving a truck can drive over dozens of innocent people at a school, on a downtown street, or at a venue at the Roundhouse. My point, evil will find a way to be evil.
Your advocating banning a certain type of weapon and so-called universal background checks just piles more laws on law abiding citizens and will not address the real issue which is evil, mentally ill, individuals.
By the way, under President Trump there have been six mass shootings. Under the Obama administration there was 24 mass shootings. I don’t remember the media and liberals blaming President Obama?
C.L. Leigh
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Here we go again... and this time from an individual that was in law enforcement and should know better. Mr. Gobble, I ask you this, I have two high capacity magazines at 25 rounds each, 50 total.
I have five 10 round limited capacity magazines. What's the difference? The overall capacity is still there. Other than the magazine change, as you stated, a well-trained shooter can reload in less than a couple of seconds.
Limiting magazine capacity is not and will not change anything....period.
If we had rash killings with baseball bats, our government wouldn't push to ban, cut down, or stop making them. It'll always be the human mind that kills...that's the deadliest weapon known to mankind. High capacity magazines are never gonna hurt or kill anyone...until the human hand touches them in the wrong mindset.
Troy Brown
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The vast majority of gun owners are responsible about it. The thing about responsible gun owners is that they're invisible. Okay, not really invisible, but most people don't notice them. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a million Tennesseans have concealed carry permits. I guarantee not a day goes by that you aren't within 10 feet of at least one person who's carrying a gun, and you never realize it.
Every time there is a mass shooting, there are renewed cries for background checks. Don't get me wrong, background checks are great. I have been making a living doing background checks, to one degree or another, for 22 years. I think that makes me an expert on the subject, by anyone's standards, so let me make a few points about background checks--things most people don't think about or realize:
A background check only uncovers what a person has been caught doing. It doesn't show what a person has gotten away with doing. It doesn't show what a person is thinking about doing. It doesn't show what a person is capable of doing. The background check to buy a gun doesn't include a check of the person's social media. It doesn't show what "everyone knew" but no one reported. In some cases, the result depends on what the person self-reports--or doesn't report--on the background check form.
A background check doesn't show if a teen has been bullied to the breaking point, and the school wouldn't do anything about it. It doesn't show that a person has played violent video games while listening to violent music, or is obsessed with "snuff films". It doesn't show that he's tortured small animals while his parents aren't paying attention.
A background check doesn't show that a man regularly abuses his wife and kids, but they are too afraid of him to report it, and the neighbors don't think it's any of their business. It doesn't show that a wife is sick and tired of the abuse, and won't take it any more. It doesn't show that a person's boss has been making life a living heck for months and just fired him/her. It doesn't show undiagnosed mental illness. Sometimes, it doesn't even show a diagnosed one; being "adjudicated mentally ill" is the standard to deny a firearms purchase. There are a lot fewer "adjudicated mentally ill" than you would think.
Private transfers are not subject to background checks. Any gun owner can legally sell, give, or will a personally-owned firearm to another individual without a background check--or a paper trail of any kind. I've seen guns sold at yard sales, without so much as a bill of sale, and it makes me shudder, but it's not illegal.
Once someone legally obtains a gun, most of the time there's no way to take it away. How are the authorities to know what firearms a person owns? If they're convicted of a felony, they're supposed to dispose of any firearms they own, because they can't legally own them. "Supposed to" is the key phrase here; if they did what they were "supposed to do", they wouldn't be a convicted felon, would they? Are we willing to suspend the Fourth Amendment and search the homes of everyone who's convicted of a crime?
If you've watched Garcia on Criminal Minds, when she pulls up every old police report and newspaper article from 30 years ago--I wish it worked that way. (I do genealogy; I have to go to the library and look at microfilm for obituaries as recent as the 2000s when they aren't on Chattanoogan.com!) Many police departments across the country, particularly smaller ones, still don't have computerized records. Some records have fallen victim to natural disasters and just aren't available. Not every court submits final disposition data to the FBI; without that, arrest data is useless--in America, people are innocent until proven guilty.
"Innocent until proven guilty" means that if a person has been arrested 10 times for domestic assault, but the charges have been dropped every single time, that person can legally buy a gun. I don't necessarily think that person should be able to have weapons, but I'm also not willing to change a fundamental cornerstone of the Constitution. As others have said, where do you draw the line? Who gets to decide? Judge Webb astutely pointed out, many people face no consequences, time after time, crime after crime.
There are tens of thousands of stolen guns in the National Crime Information Center. For every one in there, there's at least one that isn't because the owner didn't have the serial number.
There are a lot of areas that need reform; what we don't need is a knee-jerk response, which creates more bad laws (with big loopholes) because the language is too vague. Just the phrase "universal background check" is vague. What does that mean?
We need to do more to end the cycles of domestic violence, gang violence, child abuse and neglect, bullying, and drug/alcohol abuse. We need to end the stigma surrounding, and get real help for, those with mental illness.
We need to close some of the existing loopholes, but we also need to understand that these reforms aren't going to be free. If Congress passes federal legislation that effects real change, Congress will not be the one funding all of it. The FBI will probably bear some of the load, but a huge burden will fall on your state law enforcement agencies, local sheriffs, and police departments--agencies that are already stretched thin and underfunded. Think long and hard about what type of reforms you want and how much you're willing to see your sales and property taxes rise, or other services cut, because that's how it'll be funded.
These are tough questions, and finding the answers--answers we can all say are reasonable and fair--won't be easy.
Kim Kinsey