The statistics are fascinating.
According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year. That’s 5.5 million requests altogether over that period.
One concern is that the same talk on the part of the conserviative pundits which inspires these unprecedented gun purchases, might inspire the Timothy McVeigh types to take drastic action. This we've discussed before during the time of the Tenessee shooting. Jim Adkisson's chilling manifesto provided concrete evidence of what the conservative rhetoric can lead to.
The following video which was linked in the NYT article brings up some interesting points.
Do you think it's inciteful and irresponsible for Glenn Beck to discuss things like FEMA consentration camps? What do you think about Bill Maher's point that we live in a free-speech country where people can say what they like, but this is still irresponsible talk?
Do you think FOX News runs these programs as a smokescreen to deflect attention from the real issues? What about the idea that many of these conservatives, starting with Rupert Murdock himself, are just in it for the money, that they'd change sides to make more? Is that a fair description of the right?
What are your thoughts?
MikeB,
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it beg the question concerning people buying arms?
Is this the stimulus or the response?
Obama had on his campaign and Whitehouse web sites gun control language. His Attorney General has called for a renewed Assault Weapon Ban, his Secretary of State has called for a new AWB, Pelosi and Reid have called for gun control in the past.
Obama has lead the largest effort to nationalize and socialize our private industries in the history of America.
Frankly, I didn't enlist and take an oath to support socialism. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, from enemies foreign and domestic.
So, is it stimulus -- people buying weapons to start something?
Or is it response -- people buying weapons in recognition that our rights are being eroded, our way of life threatened?
The old phrase is ballot box, soap box and ammo box.
We lost an election but that doesn't give Obama the ability to subvert the constitution, to confiscate wealth because Congress put language protecting bonuses then when caught try to take them away.
This is the time for the ballot box - we need to win the local election, state elections and make sure that our rights are protected.
This is where we are focused; note how many states have resolutions asserting their rights and the limitations of the federal government.
This is the time for the soap box - we need people like the ones mentioned to let everyone know there is a limit. That we aren't going to take the erosion of our rights easily. If needed we will not go silently in the night.....now is the time for talk
Not yet is it time for the ammo box....but people aren't dumb MikeB. They know if they wait until the ballot box and the soap box aren't working anymore, it is too late to prepare.
People are looking at history; L.A. riots, Katrina, etc. People are realizing that the government has limitations and not all problems can be solved by the government. People are looking at history and saying NOT AGAIN.
Do you know anything about the FEMA concentration camps?
Maybe you should be looking into them instead of just condemning people talking about them.
When a liberal blogger claims that spree killings are "happening now faster than I can write about them."
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that would be a damn rotten time to buy defensive guns, as they'll just "Flow" to the spree killers who will kill more people.
....or I could be logical....
A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.
ReplyDeleteI never heard the phrase ballot box, soap box, ammo box.
I have the feeling however that when push comes to shove in the states, the Feds will out firepower the gun owners. The State will always be able to justify its actions, even if they sometimes are fascist, anti democratic, and unconstitutional.
Do some gun owners believe in the end times prophecy that many Christian supporters of the End Times publications believe in?
Why did not gun owners object to the attack on the Constitution by the Bush administration and legislation which permitted the feds to spy on Americans?
And just today as if on cue, in Pittsburgh a man dies in a shootout with police because he flips out because he believed that Obama was going to start seixing guns next month based on what he had heard from conservative talk radio and Fox news.
ReplyDeleteYou will hear more about this tomaorrow, I'm sure.
FEMA Concentration Camps?
Now I know exactly what kind of pathetic loons I am dealing with!
You actually believe that the government is going to round up conservatives and put them in FEMA Consentrations Camps?
You know, violence increases as people become more economically troubled. As I recall from the article from the AP, the man had recently lost his job.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we so concerned about guns when we have an 8.5% unemployment rate? Mortgage foreclosures at "record highs". Oil prices on the rise, the price of living on the rise, wages down, and people struggling to find any type of employment.
I'm sorry I just see more important things to deal with than a few mentally unstable people going on a rampage. Of course, had the people who knew them best had maybe paid attention, these tragedies would not have happened. Then again, maybe if we actually cared for our fellow man, this would not have happened.
Of course still no mention of horrendous crimes committed with knives or other weapons. I mean there was a mother who stabbed her child over 100 times, the other day.
There is just one other question. For an ex-pat, who lives in Italy, you seem to take a great deal of time to cover something that does not concern you.
I don't know about FEMA camps but I do know that while the rest of the media was parroting that 90% drug lord guns and grenades to Mexico crap, Fox news didn't mind doing just a little bit of cursory research and telling the truth.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I noticed that tied most of the shootings together was the criminal suffered from depression.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should ban depression instead of firearms.
People died because of the tragic actions of others yesterday and this week. Again, I ask is that sufficient to ban an item?
People died in automobile collisions this week because someone decided to drink and drive, is that sufficient to ban cars?
People lost money, their businesses, their retirement funds, their savings because someone misused their right to free speech, are you going to ban free speech because of the actions of a criminal?
(And yes, it is likely that someone died as a result of fraud, either through suicide or being unable to provide food/medicine - so don't tell me it isn't the same)
We are talking rights here, where we have rights we have people misusing them. It is sad, it is tragic but what price are you willing to pay for security?
That is what often gets glossed over by the anti-freedom crowd; it is why people like MikeB and Brady Campaign try to focus on "firearms" and "assault weapons" instead of addressing it as it should be.
How far do you think they would get in their campaign if they came out and admitted"
"We don't like the right to keep and bear arms, we want to take away most people's rights to protect themselves so we can prevent less then 35,000 deaths a year"?
Over at OneUtah, one of the authors said we should consider making it easier for the police to do their job when write legislation.
Again, let's focus on the rights here.
We could make it easier for the police to do their job if they didn't have to worry about those pesky warrants to enter your home.
We could make it easier for the police if we didn't have the right to remain silent.
We could make it easier for the police if we didn't have the right to counsel.
We could make it easier for the police if the free speech was limited to only what the government approved.
Are willing to make it easier for the police to do their jobs?
All you have to do is give up your rights.
No, when we are talking about the escalation of rhetoric of the right wing conservative gas bags on the air today, we are seeing az quest for ratings based on a sensationalistic contest to out do each other.
ReplyDeleteOne thing seems to be a common thread in the simplistic solutions they hint at...but rarely ever voiced, the concept of eliminationalism.
You can't run from it, the asides of Coulter taling about the assasination of Supreme Court Justices, Limbaugh and the nuking of Chicago, destroying ten "useless" stories of the UN...when confronted with the responsiblity of their words, invariably we hear that this is just "joking". Liberals just don't have a sense of humor...
Uhh, mommy is it okay to say anal poisoning now? Rush said it on the radio!
Michelle Bachman and her talk of an "orderly" Revolution and the distortion of economic concepts to become her hysterical claimes of a conspiracy for a "world currency"
The refusal of conservatives and republicans to accept the outcome of democratic elections. Even now, because of hijinks under an incompetent republican controlled justice system, Ted Stevens conviction was overturned.
The courts have agreed that he has ssuffered enough and are not going to open the case..Does this mean that he was not guilty? Of course not, that's not what the cause was of the overturning tof the conviction.. The real evidence still shows that he was guilty and if he was retried, he would be convicted.
But nooo....He lost an election and maybe he's too old and feeble to be retried, he's not too old and feeble for his party to try to call for a for a new election to try to reclaim his seat.
The same with the Coleman/Fraken ase in Minnesota. Coleman lost and he just lost a courtcase, but will thiss keep the republicans from allowing Senator Fraken to be seated as long as their is a chance to manipulate the courts system in a portracted appeals process, which Coleman will lose again...
But by using the courts to subvert the domcratic process, they will have kept Minnesota from having its fair share of representation.
The same thing is happening in New York State...with the special election to fill the seat of the representativce who took Hillary Clintons senate seat.
The Democrat won by a small margin in a Republican district and they are going to fight it in the courst as long as they can to keep the democrat from being seated.
Revolution? I say Bullshit! Just a bunch of losers who can't change, won't change and are on a speeding train over the edge of a cliff and are going to try to take the country with them if they don't get their way!
P.S. to try to portray the Obama governments actions as Socialist shows that you do not know what socialism really is and you are ideologically null.
ReplyDelete"We lost an election but that doesn't give Obama the ability to subvert the constitution, to confiscate wealth because Congress put language protecting bonuses then when caught try to take them away."
ReplyDeleteHow exactly is taxing the AIG bonuses "subverting the Constitution?" What provision of the Constitution prevents this?
"This is the time for the soap box - we need people like the ones mentioned to let everyone know there is a limit. That we aren't going to take the erosion of our rights easily. If needed we will not go silently in the night..."
Where were these people when President Bush announced that he could detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without access to lawyers or judicial process, wiretap U.S. citizens without obtaining a FISA warrant, and freely disregard U.S. treaty obligations and laws duly enacted by Congress?
Where were these mighty Constitution-defenders then?
"One thing I noticed that tied most of the shootings together was the criminal suffered from depression. Maybe we should ban depression instead of firearms."
Bob, I realize your intent here is sarcasm, but there is a seed of a good idea here. Many of these spree shootings are the result of untreated mental illness. Helping the mentally ill would be a much more direct and effective way of preventing these tragedies.
Malakh said, "There is just one other question. For an ex-pat, who lives in Italy, you seem to take a great deal of time to cover something that does not concern you."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'd like to point out that that's not a question. Perhaps you noticed all the silly comments Weer'd was making to this effect, implying I suppose that I'm one of those internet nuts so divorced from reality that I've actually invented an entire fake life and portray myself as someone completely different from who I really am.
I have no idea what your point is here, but giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'll explain sincerely. As I mentioned many months ago when this came up, I feel much more American than I do Italian, even though I have both citizenships and live here in Italy for 20 years, since August 1989 actually. I never got interested much in Italian politics, which is extremely complicated and changeable and would take serious attention to follow - much more than I'm willing to give. Even American politics did not interest me until Obama came along. I turned my back on the whole thing, mentally, during the Viet Nam fiasco and never looked back. About a year and a half ago that began to change. That's the story.
I purposely refer to the States as "here." That may confuse the casual reader of these posts, but I do it like that for the same reason I run this blog, because I enjoy it.
As far as the political events in the U.S. not being my concern, you are not the judge of that, I'm afraid. I say they are. My entire family lives there other than the small nuclear family unit I keep here in Rome which consists of a wife and three kids. I or we, some or all of us may one day live in the States again. So, yes, what goes on there very much is my concern, not to mention the fact that what happens there has a tremendous impact on Europe and the rest of the world, which alone would warrant my attention.
I really hope this explanation suffices for you. I came to think of Weer'd's comments about my inventing a fictitious life as a personal attack, one that he knew was untrue, but was using repeatedly here on his own blog and Mike W.'s in an attempt to discredit me. I hope you're not going that route.
Bizarrely enough, I have had the same experience of having a blogger who disagreed with me on many issues try to discredit me and my life experience.
ReplyDeleteThe person said that no one could have done most the things I claimed to have done. Frankly, I haven't done much in my life compared to many people.
But, I credit it to a lack of imagination and experience in their own life!
I am sorry about that, I have been extremely sick over the past week, so my mind is not quite right.
ReplyDeleteThat was not meant as an attack on you as a person. Personally if I cannot argue with you without insults or attacks on your person, then the argument is lost. Having an opinion is one thing, but as someone who resides in another country, pushing for a policy change is not something you have the right to. Duel citizenship has no matter. I have residences in two states with my family living in the other state, yet I do not concern myself with what said state is doing. That is my opinion.
Malakh said, "If I cannot argue with you without insults or attacks on your person, then the argument is lost."
ReplyDeleteI feel exactly the same way. Thanks for saying it. As far as your opinion of whether an expat has the right to "push for a policy change" in his former country, obviously I don't agree with you. But, I admit it's a fair point you raise and in fact one that's been raised before. You may know Tom who has the Boomers and Bullshit blog now. Once he told me this kind of thing would get my ass kicked where he comes from.
I respect everyone's right to their own opinion, even when it differs from mine.