Despite the fact that Wednesday night's presidential debate in Denver took place about 10 miles away from the site of the July mass shooting in Aurora, Colo. and six miles from the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, gun violence never came up.It is a bit odd, don't you think, that there's been complete silence from both candidates? What do you think could account for that?
Stephen Barton, a survivor of the Aurora shooting, was disappointed by moderator Jim Lehrer and the candidates. "They acted as if they had moved on completely," he told The Huffington Post in an interview. He said that given the mass shootings that occurred over the summer and gun violence in the city of Chicago, the issue merited attention.
"It really does blow my mind that it doesn't receive some attention," Barton said. "It's easy to think for some people that it will never affect them personally."
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Odd? Sadly, no. Wrong? Absolutely. Our elected leaders are gutless on the issue of gun violence.
ReplyDeleteIt is time they answered the question, "With 100K shootings a year, what do you intend to do to reduce gun violence?"
My blog post on this: http://newtrajectory.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-wasnt-asked-in-first-presidential.html
"With 100K shootings a year..."
DeleteActually it's about 64,816* criminal uses of guns that lead to injury and death, but keep padding those numbers.
*(53,738 non fatal assaults and 11,078 homicides)
I wish there was a presidential debate about guns, too. Romney will say "I support the 2A and the right of the people to protect themselves"
Obama will say "I support an 'assault weapons' ban"
Who do you think will lose votes?
Bill, you fail to add in suicides and accidents. But go ahead and keep deflating those numbers...
DeleteAccidents are less than a thousand a year, and suicide is a choice.
DeleteAs I've pointed out here, there is no correlation between gun availability and suicides. The US has 3 times more gun owners than Canada, but CA has nearly the same suicide rate. If guns were a factor, the US would have a suicide rate three times that of CA.
DeleteAlso, I don't see how accidents or suicides can be addressed legislatively, and that's what you're asking the president to address.
That might be true if guns were the ONLY factor. No one said they were.
Deletemikeb, thank you for your detailed and informative response. Now I think I understand the correlation between gun ownership and suicide, or not.
DeleteMikeb, you've been shown that guns or no guns doesn't change the suicide rate. Why do you keep harping on guns?
DeleteI haven't been shown anything convincing. I repeat my response to Bill.
Delete"That might be true if guns were the ONLY factor. No one said they were."
There's nothing odd about it. Mikeb, we've explained this to you before. Americans by large margins don't want more gun control. When you accept that, things won't mystify you any more.
ReplyDeleteGreg, the only way that's true is by tricking them into answering a loaded question. In a fair survey, most people, even most gun owners do want more gun control.
DeleteSure, you love the surveys that the Brady Bunch talks about, but the only ones that matter are elections. Consistently and across most of the country, politicians support gun rights. If the people wanted anything different, they'd elect candidates who are on your side. They don't, and regardless of how much you spin things, that's because they don't want more gun control.
Delete