This is the result of several years of increased gun sales coupled with lax or non-existent gun laws. On a good night there are so many shootings the cops can't even keep up.A flurry of back-to-back shooting reports kept police busy early Monday morning, just as the city's entertainment district was shutting down for the night
The fact that Massachusetts has fair gun control laws obviously is not enough. They need to be stricter and they need to be applied to all the other states.
That's the only way to diminish the flow of guns into the criminal world. As it stands now, it would seem in Springfield MA, and in every other big city in The Bay State, there are as many guns available as anyone could want.
The real mystery in all this is why would truly legitimate and law-abiding gun owners not want to do everything possible to stop it? I can see only two possible reasons.
1. the slippery slope - they are so paranoid they really believe all the NRA nonsense about "registration leads to confiscation."
2. selfishness - they are so self-centered their only concern is to not be inconvenienced themselves.
What's your opinion? Is there another explanation for the inexplicable resistance on the part of folks who call themselves law-abiding gun owners?
Please leave a comment.
Hey, Springfield's almost an hour's drive from VT which will fine a firearms dealer $100 for not properly recording a gun sale.
ReplyDeleteTime and again we see massive fail in the states with heavy gun restrictions. So what is the solution? A call to pass their solutions elsewhere. The typical liberal response to failure--blame someone else.
ReplyDeleteNew York, the bastion of Mayor "You gotta do it like we do" Bloomberg gun laws just saw 31 murders in a 48 hour period. His response: it is the rest of the nation's fault. If only the rest of the country would adopt his failed, draconian bullshit, everything would be chocolate daffodils and unicorn farts.
FWM, we see massive FAIL in the states with slack, ill enforced gun laws. That would include states like Arizona where there is such poor compliance with providing data to the NCIS, and where you may recall examples of that fail, like the January shootings of Gabby Giffords and the others.
ReplyDeleteWe have a problem with no effective gun regulation, all kinds of them. We also have some occasional problems in places with them, but it is still far superior to none.
Sometimes the problems are not that the state has good gun control, but that the states nearby do not, or that at least states that don't even when they are further away are then the source of the troubles.
Perhaps what we need is a stricter policy nationwide, so that the non-regulated states stop being such a source of death and destruction for everyone else, along with well-funded enforcement.
A really good beginning would be to make compliance with the NCIS mandatory, so that it stops being a joke of protection in what.......some 30+ states that don't comply worth spit? And by spit I really mean a word that rhymes with spit.
"Perhaps what we need is a stricter policy nationwide, so that the non-regulated states stop being such a source of death and destruction for everyone else, along with well-funded enforcement."
ReplyDeleteAnd then when that doesn't work, we will need more gun control. Then when that doesn't work, we will need even more.
So gun control gems like New York and Massachusetts fail, we need more gun laws in places that didn't have 31 murders in a 48 hour period. No thanks.
With no gun control, FWM, it is clear that we have escalating amounts of firearm caused death and injury.
ReplyDeleteOr would you care to explain how it is that all those countries with good, effective gun control have such very much lower amounts of those?
You might like to explain away that study of Swiss firearms suicides for starters.
Except that you can't.
You just keep repeating the little bumper sticker thoughts that are superficial and inaccurate, because you seem unable to think for yourself, or do any independent research.
What would you do without the right wing predigesting your every thought as if they were chewing your mental food, FWM?
If gun availability caused gun violence, why do places like Chicago, Boston and New York have far greater gun violence than gun friendly states? If it is the fault of these gun friendly states that cause gun control to fail in areas with gun control, why are not these states awash in gun violence?
ReplyDeleteIf New York with its Bloomie nonsense has 31 murders in 48 hours, why did Ohio or Pennsylvania or Virginia or Arizona or almost any other whole state not have far more?
Since as a nation we have far more gun control than we did 50 years ago and gun violence is far greater than it was then, it is obvious that gun control has no real affect on limiting gun violence. I'll stop short from making the opposite claim that gun control breeds gun violence because I do not believe that gun availability has any viable impact on gun violence.
First off, I wouldn't go saying that Pennsylvania has a low rate of gun violence:
ReplyDeletePhiladelphia currently has the highest number of gun homicides of any city in the US.
There were approximately 2,500 non-fatal crimes involving handguns in PA last year.
Let's not forget Ohio, The Columbus Dispatch analyzed state records and data from 2009, which offer the most recent statewide statistics available. The newspaper found guns were present in more than 12,500 incidents investigated by authorities, and four-fifths of those happened in seven of Ohio's largest cities.
According to the FBI, Ohio had 502 reported slayings in 2009 and 62 percent involved guns. Firearms also were used in 41 percent of robberies and 24 percent of aggravated assaults.
Anyway, ten states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia) supplied almost half the interstate-trafficked guns recovered at crime scenes. With the exeption of California, 90% of those states have lax gun laws.
You see the stricter a state’s gun laws are, the less likely that state is to export trafficked guns recovered at crime scenes. Although it seems that one can buy a gun in PA and use it
So, you're getting it backwards, the way most "pro-gun" arguments do. The guns flow from jurisdictions with lax gun laws, not appear miraculously on the streets in places with gun control.
Let's not forget that it seems that the more guns out there, the more crime there is.
Now, don't go quoting John Lott on us!
"Time and again we see massive fail in the states with heavy gun restrictions."
ReplyDeleteEspecially when they're parked next to states like VT & NH which make purchasing weapons fairly easy.
I don't think you want to compare and contrast states like PA or OH with MA and definitley not LA, AZ or TN.
"If gun availability caused gun violence, why do places like Chicago, Boston and New York have far greater gun violence than gun friendly states?"
Umm, maybe because the gun friendly states somehow manage to move weapons from legal owners in legal environments to, y'know, skells in other places--the "Invisible Hand" is palming a Glock?
why do places like Chicago, Boston and New York have far greater gun violence than gun friendly states?"
ReplyDeleteAccording to this chart, that statement is not borne out by facts.
Massachusettes had 1.56 out of every 100,000 people were killed by firearms. Illinois had 2.99. In New York and New Jersey it was 5.0 and 5.2 out of every 100,000 people were killed by firearms respectively.
Of course, it wouldn't look too good if the amount of people dying from gun violence has gone up in Chicago and DC post-Heller-McDonald.
Although, According to DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier, in the two years since the 2008 Heller decision overturning DC's handgun ban, only 900 firearms have been registered in the District that otherwise could not have been registered before the ruling. The citizens of DC have thus far rejected the wrong-headed notion that more guns make us safer.
Go easy on FWM, I think his memory is going. I mentioned to him a time or two before that NYC and Chicago and D.C. do not have walls around them preventing free access. There's no passport or visa requirement and no one is frisked upon entering.
ReplyDeleteThe sad part is even if they had all those things in place, guns would still get in, but not nearly as many.