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Accomplices to Murder
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Can public shock over the latest round of mass killings overcome the hypocrisy and cowardice of our lawmakers—the ones who let the killers get their guns?
Whose finger on the trigger?
Richard Poplawski in a bullet-proof vest guns down three policemen in Pittsburgh. Jiverly Wong shoots 14 to death in Binghamton, New York. Robert Stewart kills eight at a nursing home in North Carolina. Devan Kalathat, five in Santa Clara, California. Cop-killer Lovelle Mixon, four in Oakland. Michael McLendon, ten across two rural counties in Alabama.
All these gun killings—43 in total—occurred over the last 26 days. All harvest profuse expressions of sympathy and prayers for the families and the communities. The detestation for the killers is universal. How could it not be? These are crazed and evil people. They merit our detestation.
In the balance between the right to bear arms and the right to survive, the National Rifle Association has a problem for every solution, an ingenious explanation for every bit of evidence that gun laws save lives.
But they are not alone in their guilt. The people who put guns into the hands have a share of that ignominy. Who are they?
The guilty are the gun dealers at flea markets and state shows who will sell any number of weapons to anyone—juveniles, criminals, nuts—without any background check or records.
The guilty are those lawmakers and officials in states and cities who obstruct reasonable gun control laws. Take Virginia as a classic case. The mentally disturbed Seung-Hui Cho was the trigger man in the massacre at Virginia Tech; he gunned down 32 and wounded 17. But last fall, the legislators of the Commonwealth of Virginia voted against—repeat, against—making it impossible for the mentally disturbed to get a gun. Virginia still allows unregulated gun-show sales, still remains among the laxest states in the nation, and is still a principal source of the lethal pipeline of guns to New York and other cities for criminals. The Mexican drug cartels get their guns through us: After a shootout among factions of the Tijuana cartel, 60 seized guns were traced to purchases in Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia and Denver.
The guilty are the congressmen and senators who are scared of the National Rifle Association, arguably the most powerful lobby in the United States. They shed public tears when cops are killed in the line of duty, but ignore the appeals by more than 100 city mayors and organizations of police and troopers to stop the murderous trade.
The guilty are the congressmen who even now are planning to stop a renewal of the federal ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines capable of semi-automatic fire (one trigger pull per shot but with magazines enabling the user to fire hundreds of rounds in a minute).
The ten-year ban on assault weapons was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 but was allowed to lapse in the Bush presidency, despite a 2004 U.S. Department of Justice study finding that the share of gun crimes involving semi-automatic weapons dropped by 17%, to 72%. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have pledged to reinstate the ban, but on March 16, some 65 House Democrats sent him warning: “We would actively oppose any effort to reinstate the 1994 ban or to pass any similar laws.” (Click here for their names and states)*
The guilty are the 75 NRA directors, long led by its hard-line executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre. In 2008, it gave $1,165,062 to political action committees ($236,580 to Democrats, $928,482 to Republicans), but a bigger influence are the millions of dollars it will be prepared to spend in campaigns to unseat reformers. The ostensible cause, the preservation of the Second Amendment, is not threatened by reasonable laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and madmen. Instead, the NRA demands completely unregulated gun sales, always ignoring that the Founding Fathers prefaced that right by referring to a “well-regulated” militia.
In the balance between the right to bear arms and the right to survive, the NRA has a problem for every solution, an ingenious explanation for every bit of evidence that gun laws save lives. Its theme: “Guns don’t kill people. It’s bad people who kill people.” But it is easy access to guns that, shockingly, gives America far and away the highest murder rate among civilized nations.
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boredwell
While I agree with your exposition that the NRA's pulling the wool over legitimate gun owners crosshairs, the illegal possession of guns remains staggering. There is a plethora of guns for sale on the street; people who can't them legally will rob or kill to possess one. There is also easily obtainable contraband flowing back and forth across our porous borders. When there is a will is there is a will. Congress won't act unless the public outcry for more stringent gun control legislation threatens to unseat them in an election. I mean, we've had more than our fair share of momentous, indeed historic, killing sprees to galvanize public attention. Each time the media, the victims' families and law enforcement say the same old thing. Each time nothing's done to amend the legislation. The loopholes remain. These tragedies have become a continuum. And so has our collective impotence to demand change.
QueenCeleste
Brilliantly said! I have been very shaken by these murders; indeed, one occurred in my county, the other in a couple counties away. These murders happen over and over and nothing is ever done. Will things change under Obama? Sadly, I doubt it.
treysp
Here, here! These tragedies will continue until we ALL take responsibility for putting weapons in the hands of those who shouldn't have them. The ban on assault weapons has to be reinstated or we have to just accept these mass murders as commonplace... sadly, given the regularity with which they are occurring, we already do.
marinepro2
The guilty--Are those who continue to spread propaganda about "lax" gun laws and the easy availability of firearms to criminals and the mentally deficient. Those are lies..Additional laws or firearms restrictions would not have prevented any of those incidents.
The guilty--are those who have such a need to spread their agenda; that they will force the disarming and loss of protection of those most in need of it--law abiding citizens.
The guilty..are the those who prefer to spread fear and panic to get their citizen disarmanent agenda across.
The guilty.. are those who believe the propaganderists and allow themselves to be victimized..
The guilty..is the media who publicize the propaganderists but not the numerous occurences when legally armed citizens have prevented violence and loss of life...
The guilty...are those who believe their agenda is working...It isn't, simply because most Americans aren't as gullible as they would wish.
drj332
Mr Evans.
To find a solution to a problem you have to find the route cause. You can't treat symptoms or mere contributing factors alone.
GUILTY: A society who has lost its respect for the value of life. A nation where we are told it's a woman's choice whether or not a defenseless baby lives or dies, a nation where a suicide is seen as mercy killing for the sick; and a nation who defines suicide bombers as freedom fighters is a nation with no real sense of value of human life.
martis
marinepro - you really are a joke. it's all a big conspiracy eh? do you deny the unregulated sale of firearms at "gun shows" occuring in state like VA?
Mykpfsu
Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar showed you don't need guns to kill people. Lovelle Mixon Illegally had his guns as did Poplawski. So where there were gun laws, the people in question simply went around them. Perhaps Mr. Evans you should bother to research your points before pathetically trying to make them. The fact you shose to post a picture of people handling the XM-8, a gun that is not in production as it was vying to replace the M-16 in US military use shows you quite removed from the topic.
jaguarxjs
The Guilty: Mr. Evans who uses a straw man argument to try and curtail the constitutional rights of American citizens.
A vast majority of gun crimes are committed by people who can't or don't legally own guns, they are already breaking the law making guns even more illegal won't persuade them to not shoot someone.
All we need to do is look at the UK. Guns are illegal there, yet there has been little to no decrease in gun related crimes and violent crimes. The solution, now they want to ban knives. People are going to commit crimes with whatever weapon they can get.
Making guns illegal only insures that when a burglar breaks into your home he is going to be the one with the gun, not you.
thebluesite
I totally agree. These criminals would have never been able to get guns had we had tougher gun laws. Just as a drug abuser can't get cocaine and meth and such because those things are legal...wait a minute. You mean bad people will always find a way to get the tools they need to act out their nefarious plots?
If the NRA was to blame and gun laws were to blame- we'd have a killing every second of every day with these guns. However, these killings tend to be rare, and no amount of propaganda on how NRA members are somehow accomplices to murder will change that.
The author here is an accomplice in the plot to turn "journalism" into garbage like this.
wbb999
I am most interested in the source of Mr. Evansinside information into the investigations of all of these incidents. He apparently knows which weapons were used and has already tranced their origins. As he can claim that "flea market and state sales" are some how "guilty". I have not seen any reports as to the Pittsburgh or Binghamton shooting as to the source of the guns used.
Like wise maybe Mr. Evans you could explain to me how reauthorization of the Assault Weapons ban would have, prevented any of these tragedies. Or how the drop in the use of "automatic weapons" bears any relevance to these shootings. "... despite a 2004 U.S. Department of Justice study finding that the share of gun crimes involving automatic weapons dropped by 17%, to 72%. "
Either you are writing on a topic you are extremely ignorant about or you are purposely attempting to mislead your readers in an attempt to support a flawed argument. The terms "automatic" and "semi automatic" are not interchangeable. The assault weapons law signed by President Clinton in 1994 did nothing to address "automatic" weapons as they had been ban many years before and are still prohibited today. Additionally in none of the reports that I have read have I seen mention of the use of automatic weapons.
I don't know what is more upsetting about this article Mr. Evans use of these tragedies to advance is agenda or dishonesty in making the argument.
xbainx
One of the greatest quotes bout this issue is actually from one of the writers of the web comic "Penny Arcade". He said the media not discussing the guns or gun control after every one of these incidents was the equivalent of a rash of people suddenly taking up farming, while nobody talked about the pitchforks and hoes they were using to do it.
The real truth is the Republicans encourage it. They encourage the militias, the gun nuts, and the conspiracy theorists. Anything to disrupt a Democratic administration. I can find ten speeches by McCain and various others threatening the end of gun rights if Obama was elected. Why is that?
xbainx
The comment about guns being illegal in other countries is of course false. There are less fatal crimes and gun crimes in the U.K.
There are then more stabbing crimes, but fewer of those are fatal. I am fine with guns. But why is easier to get and assault rifle than a bank loan? Hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols, these are fine. What type of deer are you taking down with an AK47?
DaProf
Wow,
Blame honest people for the actions of others? I see.
The GUILTY are those that perpetrate the attacks, no one else. The last time I checked, we didn't have psychic abilities to peer into the hearts of men.
It isn't the guy at the gun show who sells or buys a gun that's the problem. It isn't a background check that makes the difference.
There are plenty of laws that state rules for buying or selling firearms. It isn't the people who abide by those rules that cause the problem.
It is the person who sells it to known criminals. It is the felon who is prohibited from owning a weapon that gets one. It is the felons who bring them from across the border and sell them to felons.
So quit blaming honest citizens and merchants. Quit trying to make the honest suffer because of a few sensational bad guys. And quit trying to excuse the behavior of the bad guys.
Instead, work to change the culture that is immune to violence and its causes. The culture, when it sees someone beheaded in a movie, reaches for more popcorn instead of barfing in disgust. The culture that elevates and venerates violence instead of peace.
DaProf
I don't plan to hunt with an AK-47. I enjoy shooting it at the range. It is my hobby.
The 2nd Amendment isn't about hunting. It is about the right to own "arms."
And yeah, I could hunt with an AK-47. Or a rock. They are inexpensive (oh my!), easy to use and maintain and relatively cheap to shoot.
You can't own a firearm without going through a lot of hoops in Mexico. But everyone there does. Including fully auto, not just semi-auto, weapons. All that has happened is that a bunch of honest Mexican citizens are now considered "criminals" by their government.
Fix the culture, fix the problem.Instead of trying to apply first aid by bandaid laws, work for a cure to the culture that lauds violence.
pga301
In reference to the Virginia Tech student. I like how gun dealers are supposed to do mental health checks on potential gun buyers. Great news folks! Your medical records are open to the public because this author wants them to be. BTW nobody more familiar with this person's mental behavior did a thing to take him off the street but the gun dealer is suppose to police him? What exact set of laws would we even be talking about that makes this possible for gun dealers to do what you are suggesting?
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