Gun control...politics awry...but little truth spoken in the debate

Obama quotes: "And it's not surprising then that they[People frustrated with economic conditions] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," April 2008  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html On March 30, 2012 the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial “large magazines.” Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said. “I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/over-a-barrel-meet-white-house-gun-policy-adviser-steve-croley/2011/04/04/AFt9EKND_story_2.html President Barack Obama erroneously claiming during a speech that the second amendment is about hunting and target practice. “We recognise the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage,” said Obama during remarks made at a National Urban League Conference in New Orleans. July 25, 2012 “I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities,” said Obama. “I’m going to continue to work with members of both parties and with religious groups and with civic organisations to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction,” he added. My input:  :o) So we read the progressive's version of the second amendment, which is the version they need it to be if they want to continue their march toward a country that has a "living constitution" rather than a straight jacket constitution, which the founders intended it to be, so that it would protect the people from tyranny.  In this article below we read quotes from the founders and constitutionalists (Ron Paul) that clearly demonstrate hunting and generational target practice was not the focus of the second amendment authors. "In reality, the founders put the second amendment in the bill of rights not to ensure Americans could enjoy hunting or target practice, but as a protection against government tyranny. As Howard University School of Law’s Thomas M. Moncure, Jr. explains, the right to bear arms was derived from English common law and was clearly focused around having an armed citizen militia to protect against abuses by the state. As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, the right to bear arms was seen as a means of protecting liberties against government intrusion. Madison noted that in “several kingdoms of Europe … governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” Patrick Henry also made it clear that firearms were for self-defense and not duck hunting when he stated, “Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?” “Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence,” said George Washington, adding that “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference.” Congressman Ron Paul has also outlined how the assault rifle ban is merely an end run around the second amendment. “The second amendment is not about hunting deer or keeping a pistol in your nightstand. It is not about protecting oneself against common criminals. It is about preventing tyranny. The Founders knew that unarmed citizens would never be able to overthrow a tyrannical government as they did. They envisioned government as a servant, not a master, of the American people. The muskets they used against the British Army were the assault rifles of the time,” said Paul. Thomas Jefferson also succinctly outlined why gun control only serves to disarm the public while emboldening criminals. “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man,” he stated." http://www.infowars.com/obama-claims-second-amendment-about-hunting-in-gun-control-stunt/ More input from me: Interestly, I am writing this in a hotel lobby in Peru, where outside in the square I just witnessed police in full riot gear, using billyclubs and tear gas against protesters, regular unarmed citizens-except for some food and rocks. Americans, the issue of gun control for you is not ultimately about decreasing violence or not, for the data is out there to give a valid arguement that tight gun control decreases the incidence of random violence, and maybe even massacres like last week in Colorado.  Though their is ample evidence that it doesn't have a significant effect either, for... In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control—no friend of the gun lobby—evaluated fifty-one studies on everything from the effectiveness of gun bans to laws requiring gun locks, and found no discernible effect on public safety by any of the measures we commonly think of as “gun control.” Two years later, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine did a similar survey and came to much the same conclusion.  Critiques of this statement argue that the CDC study concludes, “The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes. (Note that insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness should not be interpreted as evidence of ineffectiveness)."  If that doesn't sound like progressive agenda copout  BS, I don't know what does...  I hear that language all the time in medical journals that can't prove effectiveness of their pharmacopeia...it's  not that it sucks it's just that we can't find a way to show it works yet...  :o) Excerpt from: The Price of Gun Control by Dan Baum Harpers' Magazine July 20, 2012 It’s true that America’s rate of violent crime remains higher than that in most European countries. But to focus on guns is to dodge a painful truth. America is more violent than other countries because Americans are more violent than other people. Our abundant guns surely make assaults more deadly. But by obsessing over inanimate pieces of metal, we avoid looking at what brings us more often than others to commit violent acts. Many liberal critics understand this when it comes to drug policy. The modern, sophisticated position is that demonizing chemicals is a reductive and ineffective way to address complicated social pathologies. When it comes to gun violence, though, the conversation often stops at the tool, because it is more comfortable to blame it than to examine ourselves My input again: Dan Baum's point is valid, America is more violent.  The tough debate that politicians and citizens alike want to avoid is the why.  If it is simply because we have a tool that can strike lethally, then gun control is the progressive way to control violence.  If it is because we are a post modern society that declares Darwinian philosophy as sanctum, that all view points have relevance, that truth is different for everyone, and that life is only as important as one humanist can convince the other it is..then guess what we get random acts of violence/massacres, and daily acts of senseless violence in our youth, gangs, and drug lords. So back to the second amendment, it is not about the right to own a tool for sport and generational traditions, it is really about whether we as American's place our liberty so highly that we desire to be armed against any potential form of future tyranny from our own government/state.  Radical?!  Absolutely, but that is exactly what our founders were, when they wrote a straight jacket constitution designed to protect your declared (American) right to property, and the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness! Peace out...and just for the record I don't have any plans of building up my own arsenal.  :o) Ultimately, love wins out.   Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Matthew 28:20 KJv

Jefferson knew much

"Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper, as we were formerly by the old Continental paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs." Thomas Jefferson

Peruvian news story

This link is in Spanish as it is Peruvian television. It has nice coverage of our mobile hospital here in Huancavelica, Peru. I am in it for a second at 1:02. http://www.americatv.com.pe/portal/noticias/nacional/huancavelica-y-estados-unidos-inauguraron-hospital-m-vil