Turn 'Em All In!

[bucfan64 307]

Feinstein at it again

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/24/How-Did-Shotguns-And-Handguns-Become-Assault-Rifles

[Lance 228]

Feinstein at it again

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/24/How-Did-Shotguns-And-Handguns-Become-Assault-Rifles

 

i can't stand her or Pelosi...they annoy me just looking at them.

 

As for the bill, not a chance in hell...a waste of time and paper.

[HurricaneWarning 212]

Ignorance at its best!

[parsons 178]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

A Guide to Mass Shootings in America

There have been at least 62 in the last 30 years—and most of the killers got their guns legally.

—By Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan

It is perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a movie theater in Colorado last July, another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August, another at a manufacturer in Minneapolis in September—and then the unthinkable nightmare at a Connecticut elementary school in December—are the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass shootings* across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Twenty-five of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006, and seven of them took place in 2012.

Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza wielded a .223 Bushmaster semiautomatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.

The killers: More than half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings (12 and 20, respectively); the other 30 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, and religious and government buildings. Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) The average age of the killers was 35, though the youngest among them was a mere 11 years old. (See Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998.) A majority were mentally ill—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill. Explore the map for further details—we do not consider it to be all-inclusive, but based on the criteria we used we believe that we've produced the most comprehensive rundown available on this particular type of violence. (Mass shootings represent only a sliver of America's overall gun

We used the following criteria to identify mass shootings:

 The shooter took the lives of at least four people. An FBI crime classification report identifies an individual as a mass murderer—versus a spree killer or a serial killer—if he kills four or more people in a single incident (not including himself), typically in a single location.

 The killings were carried out by a lone shooter. (Except in the case of the Columbine massacre and the Westside Middle School killings, both of which involved two shooters.)

 The shootings occured in a public place. (Except in the case of a party in Crandon, Wisconsin, and another in Seattle.) Crimes primarily related to gang activity or armed robbery are not included.

 If the shooter died or was hurt from injuries sustained during the incident, he is included in the total victim count. (But we have excluded many cases in which there were three fatalities and the shooter also died, per the above FBI criterion.)

 We included six so-called "spree killings"—high-profile cases that fit closely with our above criteria for mass murder, but in which the killings occurred in more than one location over a short period of time.

First published: Fri Jul. 20, 2012 7:32 PM PDT.

[Hacker 82]

The Mother Jones piece does a great job of providing information on the sheer breadth of these killings. I am afraid if they had factored in gang and drug related mass shootings we would all be mortified.

 

I don't know the solution, but anyone can tell there is a problem that our society must face. It also troubles me that so many of these happen in smaller communities. You would think those of us who live in smaller communities would recognize when someone is near the point of doing something horrific and would step in to find them help.

[ThomasDenton 79]

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/19/17373761-assault-weapons-ban-dropped-from-senate-bill?lite

 

Just saw this after reading the article in the OP. Looks like the assault weapons ban has been taken out of the newest senate gun bill.

[parsons 178]

http://news.yahoo.com/constitution-check-no-exceptions-second-amendment-gun-rights-100210053.html

Constitution Check: Can there be no exceptions to Second Amendment gun rights?

By Lyle Denniston | National Constitution Center – 5 hrs ago

Lyle Denniston examines claims that the Second Amendment protects gun ownership rights extensively and how that jibes with a 2008 Supreme Court decision.

The statements at issue:

Senator Ted Cruz “began by reviewing the historic origins of the Bill of Rights and then asked whether the proposed firearms restrictions might be compared to placing limits on the First Amendment right to free speech or the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures. Speaking directly to [senator Dianne] Feinstein, Cruz asked: ‘Would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing to the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment?’ ”

– News story in The Washington Post on March 15, describing comments made the previous day by Texas Republican Ted Cruz as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared to vote on new federal gun control bills drafted by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

“Harvard Law grad Ted Cruz is willfully deceiving the public into thinking the Second Amendment is more absolute than the Supreme Court says it is.”

– Comment on March 15 under the byline “Allahpundit” on the Hot Air website.

We checked the Constitution, and The Bill of Rights does not speak in terms of absolutes–that is, rights without any exceptions. And the Supreme Court, in interpreting constitutional guarantees of rights, has said exactly that, repeatedly and even predictably. It may be that some defenders of Second Amendment gun rights would not accept as legitimate what the Supreme Court has said, but there is no denying where the court has stood, even on the Second Amendment.

The history of judicial interpretations of the First Amendment has been somewhat different from that for the Fourth Amendment–the two parts of the Bill of Rights discussed by Senator Cruz.

The court has allowed only a very few exceptions to rights of free speech and free press, and has required that they be supported by the strongest policy needs. In fact, in recent years, the current court has been even more adamant than some of its predecessors about not creating any new exceptions, as when it refused to create a First Amendment loophole to permit banning violent video games. The list of exceptions, indeed, is very short–but there are exceptions, such as obscenity and “fighting words.”

The Fourth Amendment, one might say, is littered with exceptions, and the Supreme Court throughout history has added to the list. That is because that amendment uses the word “unreasonable” to say what kinds of searches and seizures it does not allow, and the court has been quite free in finding that various police practices are “reasonable.” As one obvious example, the court has often allowed police to make searches when they do not have a court-approved warrant, if the public need is seen as strong enough.

In reflecting on Senator Cruz’s remarks at the Judiciary Committee meeting, it is important to recall that there are actually two histories on the scope of the Second Amendment–one very long history, and one very short.

About Constitution Check

• In a continuing series of posts, Lyle Denniston provides responses based on the Constitution and its history to public statements about its meaning and what duties it imposes or rights it protects.

From the time the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” was added to the Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791, until 2008–that is, a span of 217 years–that provision had never been formally declared to be a personal right. The almost universal understanding (until several modern scholars began questioning it) was that the right only applied to state militia organizations, like the modern National Guard.

It was only in 2008, in the decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Supreme Court ruled that the right was a personal right, conferred by the amendment to help assure a right of self-defense.

But the Heller decision was far from a declaration that there can be no exceptions to that personal right to have a gun. Indeed, the majority opinion in that case said explicitly: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

The opinion went on to cite a “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons,” and it added that nothing in this decision cast doubt on that, or on the power of legislatures to adopt “reasonable” restrictions on the Second Amendment right.

As the history of interpretation of the word “unreasonable” in the Fourth Amendment makes clear, allowing the government to limit rights in a “reasonable” way can result in quite far-reaching limitations.

Moreover, if one takes the Heller decision at face value, the Supreme Court so far has found just one kind of gun control that it has declared to be unreasonable and therefore a violation of the Second Amendment: a total ban on having a handgun, in any place and for any purpose whatsoever. But even as the court struck down such a ban, it said it was doing so only to protect the right to have a gun for self-defense in one’s own home.

It has become abundantly clear that, since that ruling five years ago, supporters of gun rights have sought to defend the Second Amendment as if it were considerably more sweeping than what the court said it was. And despite repeated efforts to get the court to take on new cases that have the potential to expand the personal right to have a gun outside the home, the justices so far have not agreed to review any one of those pleas.

That is not to say that the right to have a gun only at one’s home is going to be the court’s last word on the reach of the Second Amendment. And with increased activity by gun control advocates, in Congress and in some state legislatures, there almost certainly will be a number of new lawsuits testing the issue, and some of them very likely will reach the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, however, the Second Amendment does have its limitations, whether or not those get recognized in political or legislative debates.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.