U.S. Senator Chris Murphy kicked out a statement today as the uphill battle looms to ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance also announced today that all victims of the Sandy Hook shootings were shot with an assault rifle, quieting “conspiracy theorists that are trying to mucky up the waters.” See story here followed by Murphy statement.
When I emailed you 13 days ago, I said that there had been 130 school shootings since assault weapons were used to murder 13 people at Columbine High School in 1999. With the tragic gun violence just two days ago at Lone Star College in Texas, that number is now sadly 131. It’s been 41 days since an assault weapon was used to take 26 innocent lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. When will we finally say that enough is enough?
Assault weapons are designed to kill people–period. They don’t belong on our streets. They don’t belong at our malls or our churches, on our college campuses, or in the halls of our elementary schools.
Maybe now is finally the time.
There are voices rising up in Newtown and in cities and towns across America, coming together to demand immediate action to ban assault weapons. We can’t wait–we can’t stand idly by while one more innocent life is lost.
That’s why today, I joined my colleagues, Senators Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and Richard Blumenthal, and Representatives Carolyn McCarthy, Ed Perlmutter, and Elizabeth Esty to introduce a new ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Now, make no mistake. The opponents of sensible gun control are gearing up for a nationwide fight, and they’ll stop at nothing to flood our communities with even more guns.
Add your name to our petition at www.NoMoreAssaultWeapons.com to join voices all across the country in our call for the House and Senate to pass the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 immediately.
The proposed assault weapons ban is facing an uphill battle in Washington. The NRA is mobilizing to lobby against it. Even some moderate Democrats in the House and Senate are voicing objections. But after the shootings in Aurora Colorado, Newtown Connecticut, the New Mexico teenager who slaughtered his family and planned to shoot up the local Walmart, the five people injured in shootings at gun shows last weekend, I think it’s safe to say the American people have had enough. At the very least background checks should be in place for ALL firearms purchases, closing the gun-show loophole. All states should prohibit sales to out-of-state residents (this would staunch the flow of guns into cities like Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, urban areas with high rates of gun violence). The American people are generally favorable to President Obama’s gun control proposals; if more of us mobilized and mounted a grass-roots effort to pressure both chambers of Congress to act accordingly the proposed measures will have a better chance of passing and being signed into law.
This is not a political issue. Public safety must come before any other consideration.
What planet is Murphy representing? Of course Assault Weapons Don’t Belong At Malls, Churches, College Campuses And Schools.
Does Murphy realize illegal weapons in the possession of those who represent illicit purposes don’t belong at Malls, Churches, College Campuses And Schools either? Therein lies the real problem.
More children are killed in the United States by ILLEGAL weapons in big cities that have strict gun controls than by all those killed by the recent shootings in Colorado, Tennessee, Connecticut, and anywhere else there has been a mass shooting.
And all these politicians can do is regulate those weapons that are already regulated.
“… ILLEGAL weapons in big cities that have strict gun controls …”
And therein lies the rub. Big money is made by buying weapons where they are easy to get and importing them to places where they are just another expensive illegal commodity. There is not a problem with the intelligent, law-abiding gun owner. However there is a problem when an idiot has a gun, which is one big thing the NRA has overlooked in its sales pitch for a fully armed America. But nervous gun owners on the Right don’t have to worry: a glance at the map (scroll down in page below) will show the majority of the country is in their camp … and can provide plenty of guns to needy states that haven’t joined the gun culture:
smartgunlaws.org/gun-laws-matter-2012-understanding-the-link-between-weak-laws-and-gun-violence/
“Assault Weapons Don’t Belong At Malls, Churches, College Campuses And Schools.”
All the above places are soft targets and the types where large numbers of people gather. Would Chris Murphy feel better and refuse to support anti-gun laws if grenades, 9mms or shotguns are used in assaults of these types of places? Acts of violence regardless of the instruments used don’t belong anywhere. Is this the best explanation or reason Murphy can come up with to justify his position and vote?
I have a question for anyone who’d like to jump in on this. Especially those who support legislation that doesn’t quite work or make sense when scrutinized. Let’s suppose you are put against a wall with no chance of escaping by a person who ‘snapped.’ You are going to be killed on that spot, but your killer is unkind enough to give you the opportunity to pick the weapon to be shot with: 1) AR 15 (2) 12 gauge shotgun with 6 rounds (3) 38 caliber with 5 shots. Which one would you pick and why? I’ll give my response this weekend, so come back! It doesn’t really matter as the chance of survival is slim to none.
I’m not against all bans or limits being proposed as far as guns are concerned. I’m against anything that is poorly thought out and considered, at least in my opinion. What specific law (limit) would this country be debating IF Senator Chris Murphy were in my shoes? I would propose gun ownership be limited to a maximum of two guns or firearms regardless of what type–rifle or hand gun–the Second amendment reads the right to bear arms (plural). Two firearms is plural enough as far as firearms and the Second Amendment goes. The two hands (God designed us that way), two guns rule would be the law I’d push for. I would never wait for a mass shooting somewhere to push for such limit.
www .nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bronx_detectives_snare_in_gun_sales_Q1SFCucATlQyPPApBHZQ3H
These freakin’ conspiracy theorists who have come out of the woodwork (especially those who took it upon themselves to harass the guy who lived next door to the school and took in several fleeing children) are the icing on the NRA/Right Wing cake–“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
“Assault weapons are designed to kill people–period” is correct, and the euphemisms and semantics the NRA uses to get around this fact are lunatic. “Modern sporting rifles,” really no different from a Ruger 10/22 my ass–is your sport “wannabe SWAT Team,” “pretend revolutionary patriotic militiaman” or “make believe Blackwater/XE/Academi military contractor?” The big losers wouldn’t be sportsmen, the losers would be the companies who saw a marketing opportunity in the gun trade and filled it. Tough …
But it probably will not pass Congress … too much big money and too many political careers at stake.