Albert Einstein once said that that doing the same thing, over and over again while expecting different results was the definition of insanity. Apparently, insanity is running rampant in Chicago. Chicago City Councilman Robert Fioretti voted to expand Chicago’s existing ban on modern firearms but, also said, “No legislation, no matter how strict, will keep weapons out of the wrong hands. We all know that…” If you know it doesn’t work…What is the point?”
Predictably, the anti-gunners are screaming there will be blood in the streets as Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn decides whether or not to sign the bill that ends the last concealed carry ban in the country. News flash folks, you already have blood in the streets! Chicago is among the most violent cities in the country and has been since the Prohibition Era. Like Washington D.C. before them, Chicago and most of its surrounding communities enacted bans on handguns and most modern long arms beginning in 1982. It is well known that you must have a valid Firearm Owner IDentification (FOID) card just to buy ammunition in the state of Illinois. One must pass a background check to get said FOID card. So even with all of these measures in place, it would seem that denying law abiding citizens the right to own guns has done little to help.
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, offers up advice to a reader who had an in-law dig up old bones and has turned it into a bit of a family joke. Unfortunately, the sharing of this information has lead to other issues with his family.
“Q. A History of Violence:” Some three decades ago, I killed a man. He had broken into my home, armed; we struggled, he died. It was clearly self-defense and, frankly, I have no regrets or remorse…
“A. Apparently these friends and family would prefer that you had been killed by the intruder, so they could then honor your memory as a tragic victim…
Personally, I think she knocked it out of the park. Your thoughts?
The headline almost says it all. Unfortunately; the author, Kelly Dwyer, couldn’t leave it at that and exemplifies everything that is wrong with the mainstream media and a clear push to drive an agenda other than simply relaying the facts. Dwyer opens his article with the following statement, “Greedy shoe companies making select sneakers needlessly exclusive paired together with consumer exuberance, desperation, and American gun culture on Saturday long enough to cost one would-be alleged robber his life.”
According to witnesses, the decedent was more than just a pick-pocket. He was actually trying to rob several store patrons as they waited in line. It is not mentioned in any of the articles I’ve found relating to this story but, it appears the shooter in this case was among those the decedent tried to rob. The shooter in turn, shot the decedent. How that turns into an indictment of guns and corporate greed as the primary factors leading to the decedent being shot is beyond me and should be beyond the realm of logic of any reasonable person…Unless you’re Kelly Dwyer or some other “journalist” with a bone to pick against any company earning an honest profit on the goods they sell or of course, the current great evil of the world, guns.
I just watch the following piece from KTRK’s Ted Oberg and I honestly want to vomit. I have to give Governor Perry credit for taking the interview and handling it like a champ. That said, struggled to hold my tongue as I listened to Oberg spew lie, after lie, after lie.
Oberg claimes a “majority” of American want to ban modern rifles. But, it is been repeatedly demonstrated that this is not true and is based on flawed studies in which participants think they are being asked about fully-automatic firearms. And even then, few of those people realize that legal access to and ownership of those items has been tightly controlled since the National Firearms Act of 1934. Even fewer know that after McClure-Volkmer (1986), the supply of fully-automatic firearms available to civilians has been largely fixed and that fewer than a dozen NFA registered firearms have EVER been used in a crime.
Oberg goes on to claim that there are 30,000 annual “gun deaths.” We kill more people in automotive accidents, criminal recklessness, and drunk-driving annually yet, no one is talking about banning cars. But something I find more bothersome about this number people like Oberg like to throw around is the fact that in any given year, according to both the CDC and the FBI, more than half of all deaths attributed to firearms are suicides. There is no scientific evidence to prove that banning guns will prevent suicide. In fact, the idea of banning guns to prevent suicide fails miserably if yo look at a country such as Japan where there is virtually no access to firearms and yet, the country has had a suicide rate that had been almost double that of the US since the at least the 1960s. To be fair, that still means we have a little less than 15,000 deaths annually that are attributable to violent criminal acts.
When it comes to violent criminal action in this country, there is no bigger motivator than conflict over the illicit drug trade. The biggest gangs in this country are organized for the purpose of, and funded by, the manufacture, distribution, and sale of illicit drugs. While hundreds of millions of dollars are spent enforcing laws and incarcerating people who use, distribute, or sell drugs, almost no money is collected through taxation of the people who benefit from it. How it is that we have not applied the lessons of Prohibition to things like marijuana is beyond me but, I for one, am tired of the resulting gang wars being used, in part, as justification for limiting the rights of law abiding people.
