The Star-Telegram published a wonderful opinion piece by the mayor of Hurst Texas, Richard Ward, who happens to be a gun owner, a supporter of 2nd Amendment rights and a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
I fully support the rights of law-abiding citizens under the Second Amendment. What I don’t support is criminals getting their hands on guns. The coalition is for enforcing existing gun laws, increasing penalties for gun criminals and closing gaps in the gun background check system.
We are for providing police officers with access to the data they need to prevent the flow of illegal guns into our communities. None of these efforts have posed any threat to the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
There is nothing "anti-gun" about this agenda. The only people who should be worried about the coalition are the criminals.
Mayor Ward mentioned that he doesn't like the bullying tactics of the NRA. Who would? Like Mayor Chris Louras of Rutland Vermont, Richard Ward finds no inconsistency with being a gun owner who favors common-sense laws which seek to keep guns in the right hands.
I’ve talked with many gun owners who agree that supporting gun rights and fighting gun crime are consistent goals. The NRA ought to listen to them. The NRA ought to be applauding mayors for trying to build consensus on the gun issue — and the NRA should join us in our efforts.
Why does the NRA, and many gun owners for that matter, not see the logic in this approach? Wouldn't a combined effort be more efficacious? If the "NRA should join us in our efforts," as Mayor Ward says wouldn't that serve another purpose, wouldn't it smoke out the anti-gun folks who really want to ban and confiscate guns? Sure it would. The common middle ground would become so big and powerful that a major reduction in crime would result. On both ends of the spectrum you'd have only the most fanatical, pro-gun folks who want no restrictions whatever and anti-gun folks who want all guns to disappear.
What's your opinion? Is Mayor Ward's call for the NRA to move into the middle ground a good one, or one that is totally unrealistic?
What do you think? Please leave a comment.
Why are the gun controllers moving to the middle ground?
ReplyDeleteFor decades, more and more gun control laws have been passed with very few pro-gun laws being passed.
Yet, you and the other gun control advocates keep calling for us to pass more and more.
Ever think that the very laws you advocate are causing the increase in crime?
As fewer and fewer people can own firearms because of the cost and hassle, they criminals have fewer and fewer deterrents.
Which do you think the criminals fear; an additional 5 or 10 years in jail for a straw purchase or an armed citizen?
I as a gun owner and a gun rights activist am ready to compromise. MikeB is right. We need to meet in the middle more. We need to harmonize gun laws. Since I believe that there should be no gun control yet we have almost 20,000 gun control laws on the books today, which 10,000 should we start by repealing? We must meet in the middle after all.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem is a consensus on what 'common sense' is for a gun law. There are plenty of gun laws already in existence which address all possible illegal activity. And hundreds of random, inconsistent other laws that do not.
ReplyDeleteIf someone were legally carrying a pistol, complete with permit after having had a federal background check, and they enter a restaurant in New Mexico, for example, IF that restaurant happens to serve alcohol (a fact that they don't need to disclose, and may not be obvious unless you happen to know to ask for a wine list), guess what? You're now a criminal! A mile away across the state border, it's perfectly legal. How 'common sense' is that?
The NRA is fighting for enforcement of laws already in place, and removal of these nonsensical laws which make law-abiding citizens into accidental criminals...all while leaving REAL criminals untouched. They do and have supported appropriate laws which actually CAN help to fight illegal firearms activities. Yes, they are heavy handed, but have you seen the statements from anti-gunners as well? Sadly, they've stooped to the same levels of skewing statistics and twisting facts to sensationalize their position.
Unfortunately, the 'Mayors against illegal guns' are NOT against illegal guns...their actions have shown them to be against ALL guns.
So while pointing a finger at the NRA's 'bullying', how about taking an equal look at the 'Mayors against illegal guns' illegal tactics, including their self-appointed sting operations, or pursuit of owners of perfectly legal firearms? Or the various anti-gun coalitions' artificial statistics (where 'children' are defined as anyone up to 21 years old in order to make their numbers 'better')?
The door swings both ways, Mike, and if you can't see or admit it, you're only fooling yourself. And probably a number of people blindly on one side of the issue.
Bob asked:
ReplyDelete"Which do you think the criminals fear; an additional 5 or 10 years in jail for a straw purchase or an armed citizen?"
With all due respect, Bob, that's an assinine question and a false-choice argument as well as non-relevant to the point posed by Mike.
Perhaps you ought to reread the statements by the two law enforcement officers, then offer another question for us to ponder.
Mud,
ReplyDeleteI'm a little confused, what statements by the two law enforcement officers?
It isn't a false choice argument.
MikeB and the Mayors against guns are attempting to implement laws that make it harder for the average citizen to own and bear firearms. Not one of their proposals counters that statement.
MikeB has actually made statements saying that if gun owners are a little inconvenienced, we shouldn't mind.
That inconvenience translates into additional costs, additional paperwork, additional time spent NOT at work, additional requirements that make them a criminal if they don't report a crime soon enough.
All the laws are making it harder for the average person instead of the criminal.
Who do you think has a harder time finding illegal substances (guns, drugs, etc); criminals or the average law abiding citizen?
All the laws MikeB and the others propose don't stop the crime, just increase the punishment IF (and that is a HUGE IF) the criminal is caught.
On the other hand, having an armed citizen does stop crime. Right?
"a supporter of 2nd Amendment rights and a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns."
ReplyDeleteYou can only be one or the other. You can't be both.
Like they say, you know a person by the company they keep. Anyone who keeps company with the likes of Michael Bloomberg isn't a supporter of the 2nd Amendment.
Aztec Red is exactly correct--one cannot be both an Illegal Mayor Against Guns and a "supporter of 2nd Amendment rights." Any gun rights advocate with more political awareness than a slice of toast realizes that claiming to "support the 2nd Amendment" means nothing--John Kerry's shotgun photo-op comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteI'll give Ward a bit of credit, though. He does not appear to have been caught--yet--doing anything to count him among the 10% of MAIG members whose corruption/irresponsibility/criminality make them unfit for office.
Way to cover those tracks, Mayor!
The fear that gun owners have about gov't registration and background checks is the fear of a corrupt administration --like Hitler's --like Communistic gov'ts. How could such uncivilized horror have happened in an enlightened European nation like Germany within the last century? IF we are to learn anything from history, it is that a despot can rise to power and mis-use the military and police to subjugate the people to an evil agenda. A gun behind every door is a deterrent to despotism.
ReplyDeleteOn the organizational level, the MAIG have been known to have claimed people who asked for more information about the group as members.
ReplyDeleteAnd, they (to my eyes) suffer from illiteracy (or its legal-language equivalent) due to their position on the Tiahrt Amendment.
They claim that a law which provides that information can only be released in the investigation of crimes somehow keeps police from properly investigating crimes.
Despite evidence from the ATF's general gun-trace report that indicate the average gun sourced was purchased more than 9 years before being traced by police in an investigation, the MAIG seem to think that better access to purchase records and trace data might help them investigate shops selling guns to criminals.
With such multiple sources of mendacity and incompetence in its methods and claims, I don't trust the MAIG to be honest about its goals, methods, or proposed solutions.
By the way, about this:
ReplyDeleteIs Mayor Ward's call for the NRA to move into the middle ground a good one, or one that is totally unrealistic?
The NRA is the middle ground--they're pretty much smack-dab in between the Brady Bunch and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
If Mayor Ward thinks he's ready to have his delicate little anti-gun heart skip a few beats, he ought to check out JPFO's website.
beowulf, Thanks for that link. Those Jews are hardcore, I'll say that. But, I also think they're a bit paranoid like some non-Jewish gun owners I know.
ReplyDeleteI think you guys have got the MAIG wrong, just like you've got the Brady Campaign wrong.
Maybe I'm naive and silly and you guys are all sharp as tacks, but I don't think so.
"Maybe I'm naive and silly and you guys are all sharp as tacks, but I don't think so."
ReplyDeleteJust look at the data presented, Mike.
Of course you don't, otherwise you WOULD think so.
Hence why you can't defend any piece of legislation, nor can you actually show support for your backwards views
Something to consider MikeB...
ReplyDeleteWe are sharp as tacks when it comes to what the gun laws are because we must abide by them if we wish to continue exercising our 2A Rights.
You don't own guns, hate guns and therefore you needn't learn even the most basic of gun laws.
That's why you get your info from the Brady Campaign. They tell you what you already want to hear, not the truth.
MikeB,
ReplyDeleteWe may or may not be sharp as tacks but we are learned about firearm laws and statistics.
Weer'd, I and many others have all told you that we researched the information before we made a decision.
It sounds like you've made a decision and have researched very little to support your position.
Take, just for example, more gun = more deaths.
Linoge has posted his excellent graphic (using nationally accepted statistics - even the Brady Campaign uses them) how that isn't true.
Reputo has half a dozen or more posts proving that and other canards wrong.
This is learned information...anyone can learn it, even you if you make the choice to do so.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSays Mikeb:
ReplyDeleteThose Jews are hardcore, I'll say that. But, I also think they're a bit paranoid like some non-Jewish gun owners I know.
Yeah--funny how millennia of brutal persecution at the hands of governments can induce people to be "a bit paranoid." Funny how people, educated by millennia of their own cultural history, can become kinda sensitive.
Is it "a bit paranoid" to sternly resolve to never let it happen again--to resolve to fight to the last cartridge, and when that's gone, to continue to fight with the bayonet, or by using the gun as a club, until dying in battle--rather than to allow oneself to be herded into a "shower" of Zyclon-B?
Is it "a bit paranoid" to realize that with enough Mausers in Jewish hands, Kristallnacht would have had a different name--not "Night of Broken Glass," but "Night of a Little Broken Glass, and a Lot of Dead Brownshirts"?
Some of the members of JPFO survived the camps, Mikeb--as the only members of their families to do so. I'd say that those folks have at least 6 million reasons to be "a bit paranoid"--what do you think, Mikeb?
Some might argue that "it can never happen here." I disagree, and I would find that to be an especially bizarre argument coming from someone who seems to believe that racism is rampant in America.
Which is it, Mikeb?
Yeah, it wasn't that long ago that 6 million or so Jews were disarmed, herded into cattle cars and systematically exterminated.
ReplyDeleteTotally paranoid for them to preserve their right to a means of fighting back so that it won't happen again.....
And similar acts are happening RIGHT now in places like Burma and Sudan.
ReplyDeletecoincidentally both nations have MikeB-Approved firearms laws....
beowulf said, "Some might argue that "it can never happen here." I disagree, and I would find that to be an especially bizarre argument coming from someone who seems to believe that racism is rampant in America."
ReplyDeleteI do think racism is rampant in America, but that's a far cry from thinking a 21st century holocaust could happen in the USA. To me, the first is common sense and the second is paranoia, pure and simple.
Thinking that a holocaust could happen in 21st century U.S.A. is not paranoia, although I acknowledge that several difficult steps would have to be taken first.
ReplyDeleteThe most important, and most difficult, of those steps would be taking away the hundreds of millions of guns that would make such a holocaust impossible.
Never again, Mikeb.
Mike how would you know about Racism in America if you haven't lived here for over 20 years?
ReplyDeleteYeah I thought so!
ReplyDeleteAnd the world loses one more hero who knew the value of being what Mikeb calls "a bit paranoid."
ReplyDeleteWhen you cannot defend freedom through peaceful means, you have to use arms to fight Nazism, dictatorship, chauvinism . . .
The world is a poorer place for his departure.
If history has shown us one thing it's that the mantra of "that can't happen here" is false.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes America so superior that we think a Holocaust or similar genocide could simply not happen to us?
You mean like the one we perpetrated against the Native Americans?
DeleteSee my blog "The Gun Grabbing Mayor of Hurst, Texas" at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hurstconservatives.com