Senator Blunt may I be blunt about gun control?
Senator Blunt from Missouri put out a statement today regarding his support of the 2nd amendment saying he would not support any legislation that would limit Americans access to guns.
I didn’t believe it so I called his Kansas City office. Turns out, it was true. Sad, but true. Stupid and insensitive, but true.
I looked up blunt in the dictionary.
blunt: abrupt in address or manner
Excuse me Senator Blunt, allow me to be blunt. Are you kidding me? When I called the office I asked if that also included assault weapons. Yep, it includes assault weapons. For a moment I sat silent on the phone. The entire nation is grieving during this national tragedy and I think you and the Westboro Baptist Church may have tied for the most inappropriate statements to date.
The next definition of “blunt” in the dictionary listed this:
Blunt: slow in perception or understanding; obtuse: His isolation has made him blunt about the feelings of others.
The best thing I can say right now is that you are living up to your name.
Senator Blunt, there is this thing called Facebook. I would ask one of your Gen Y staffers to pull that up on that thing called a computer on your desk. Read some of the posts right now. Maybe that will give you a better understanding of how the nation feels right now. Put your NRA friends on hold and tell them you will call them back later. Better yet, just meet them for a steak and a whiskey later and you guys can laugh about this at the bar. Right now just pull up Facebook. There you will see thousands of tributes to the kids who just died. You will see parents posting about how hard it is to leave our kids at school. There are post after post asking for more gun control. Maybe your Gen Y staff will get crazy and introduce you to Twitter.
I know, I may be asking just a little too much. If anything Senator Blunt, just step outside of your wood-paneled office and speak to people right now. I bet you would surprised to find that even your gun friendly, conservative loyalists agree that nobody needs an automatic weapon to hunt a deer. Compromise and healing is what this nation needs right now.
Ah well, who am I to say? You are the big time Senator and I’m just a parent reading Facebook posts and tweeting. Now excuse me for being so blunt.
Yours in frankness,
Aimee
Greg McFarland
5 months agoHe is correct. There is little to no evidence that gun control reduces crime. In fact many peer reviewed studies have shown otherwise. How about for starters http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30No2KatesMauseronline.pdf
or
http://www.largo.org/Lott.html
or
http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2003_spr/cook.htm
Not to mention that it is being reported that a CCW holder confronted the gunman at Clackamas which resulted in the gunman committing suicide.
Not to mention that something like 55% of gun deaths are suicides (when guns are removed, the method changes but not the number of deaths). The real number of shooting deaths is around 8000 but most of those are criminals shooting other criminals.
If you want to talk, lets talk facts rather than your uninformed, emotional opinions.
If you want to talk real solutions, how about making the gun buyer hotline (NICS) that licensed dealers must use, open to the public so we can (if we want) call to check on the guy who is buying our private sale gun (all that one can do now is ask for a CCW if your lucky to give you peace of mind). How about longer prison sentences for criminals. Most killers are repeat offenders.
Jake White
5 months agoGreg, next time you want to “talk facts”, how about bringing some better sources to the table?
While your first post is from Harvard Law, which will intimidate some, it is from the farther right law review in the country. Few would expect a fair assessment of gun control laws from a distinctly Libertarian perspective, would they? Regardless of the efficacy of gun control laws, I have a hard time believing it possible to fit gun control into an openly Libertarian agenda.
Your second post was a report from a scholar best known for making an outlandish claim about gun control, then claiming his hard disk crashed when people asked him for his evidence (facts). Half of his wikipedia page consists of his various controversies.
Your third post comes from someone who wants gun control reform, but I doubt you would agree with his suggestions.
As a matter of tact, I would avoid criticizing a mother for being emotional in response to the awful tragedy in Newtown. I think her entire critique of Roy Blunt was his inability to show humanity in the face of this horrific incident of violence against children.
I’m afraid you’ve replicated the senator’s error, and don’t have much to show for it.
Greg McFarland
5 months agoI will give you the point about Lott. Its about as convienent as Hillary’s concusion.
How about a few more. Admitted many are from announced pro gun sources but most are peer reviewed.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/05/gun-control-homicide-rates-not-linked-study/
or
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz1.htm
I have more to show than your response. You did not bring any information to support gun control. Nor has did you post anything that would help reduce crime effectively.
Here is a study again about something that works-Cops.
http://publichealthlawresearch.org/keywords/gun-control
George Hunsucker
Northland
5 months agoA much more reasoned viewpoint vs. disarming America….
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/12/17/god-help-us
Mark Robertson
5 months agoThere is a difference between a nation feeling and a nation thinking. We saw a nation feeling on Nov. 6th when it reelected the most incompetent, destructive, disastrous president in U.S. history, and one of the most destructive leaders in the history of western civilization. Yes, but he can read a teleprompter, and he has a better personality than Romney.(Doesn’t he?) So what if Romney could turn this country and economy around in 6 months, he isn’t “cool.”
What does this have to do with guns? Why does the left run right to gun control in lockstep fashion when a tragedy in which a gun was used occurs? It has to be emotion and a hatered for guns, because facts show that more gun control is not what stops such tragedies. In fact, it may be a factor in not stopping such tragedies, at least while they are in progress. Liberal “solutions” have a history of disaster and failure, including the “war on poverty,” government health care, government education, Social Security(It’s broke and traps people in poverty.)and so much other government failure. I must admit, I don’t totally grasp the liberal mind. Why do they all dash in lockstep to more gun control after a tragedy, when it can be proven with facts that it isn’t the answer? Could it be that it is not about solving or dealing with a problem, but about advancing an agenda. “Don’t let a crisis go to waste.” Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
Mark Hastert
5 months ago“I don’t totally grasp the liberal mind. Why do they all dash in lockstep to more gun control after a tragedy, when it can be proven with facts that it isn’t the answer?”
So let me ask you. Where would you draw the line? Fully automatic? 50 Cal? Minigun? Is there any fire arm you would place any limit on?
Speaking of lockstep. The false and outrageous claims you’re all parroting from the NRA are to the point of becoming ridiculous. They are nothing but shills for gun manufacturers.
If you’d ever bother to consult that constitution you claim to love you’d see that we have a long legal tradition of restricting gun rights. It is not and never has been unfettered. So get on board or get out of the way because high capacity military style weapons and armor piercing ammo are on their way out. We should tax the hell out of guns & ammo the way we do any other vices and use the money for mental health care. There are a lot of gun nuts who could benefit.
Mark Robertson
5 months agoSo now guns are now a vice? That says a lot about the liberal mind. It would be hard for me to parrot what the NRA is saying about the CT. tragedy because I haven’t heard what they have said. Libs often accuse conservatives of being greedy, but it is the libs who seem to be obsessed with money, as when you claim that the NRA is nothing but a shill for gun manufacturers. Is it possible that you don’t grasp that there are people who have and act on actual beliefs and principles. And I admit that I am still learning about the great U.S. Constitution, but where does it talk about guns except the Second Amendment.(Suggested reading: The Constitution Made Easy, by Michael Holler) The last I checked, the U.S. already has myriad gun regulations at the state and federal level. CT. heavily regulates guns. The places with the strictest gun laws in the U.S. have the highest gun crime rates.(See Chicago and Washington D.C.) The last I checked, most killers don’t obey laws anyway. Keeping guns out of the hands of law abiding cirtizens only harms those citizens. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
Phil Cardarella
5 months ago14 years ago, Australia’s CONSERVATIVE government banned these weapons after a series of mass murders, result: ZERO mass murders. With hunters, sportsmen and those determined to defend their homes against the random kangaroo quite able to do so. Just not a t 80 rounds per minute.
Aussies are about as close as anyone can get to Americans in this little experiment, folks. They love their guns, too. They love the thrill of the BANG,BANG,BANG! They just love their children a bit more.
By the way, Sen. Blunt is not a disinterested party. Back when he was Congressman Blunt, he helped kill the ban on these kinds of weapons. That allowed Mrs. Lanza to buy the gun her son used to quickly and efficiently murder 20 first-graders and six teachers.
Sen. Blunt is sort of Adam Lanza’s accessory-before-the-fact.
Mark Hastert
5 months ago“The last I checked, the U.S. already has myriad gun regulations at the state and federal level”
…exactly and they’re constitutional too! So when high capacity weapons and armor piercing ammo are banned as they are going to be, you can rest assured that it will be in compliance with our “great US Constitution”. After your finished with that book try reading the Heller decision. Specifically Alito’s comments.
“Keeping guns out of the hands of law abiding cirtizens only harms those citizens.”
You see Mr Robinson, up until the day he slaughtered all those children Adam Lanza was a law abiding citizen.
Some of those little boys and girls were shot as many as seven times, only made possible by a high capacity weapon. You and the other NRA shills are on the wrong side this time.
Mark Robertson
5 months agoThe guns did not belong to Adam Lanza, they belonged to his mother. Speaking of Australia, it had a major gun buyback program, spending a half billion dollars to buy back 640,000 guns. It had virtually no effect on gun crime.(British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 47, Issue 3, pp.455-469. Oct. 18, 2006, Jeannie Baker, Samara McPhedran) Thank you. Mark Roberrtson Independence.
Christine Lund
4 months, 2 weeks agoNo one is suggesting that personal handguns or hunting rifles be made illegal. The assault weapons never should have legal in the hands of citizens. Nor the large ammo clips or hollow point bullets. Who legalized this stuff? Where’s the FBI when you need them. It’s disgusting the way the gun manufacturers have manipulated the media, along with certain members of Congress to scare the scared in the country. People who are secure in themselves don’t feel the need for assault weapons. Only felons and scared people feel the need for such superior gunpower. The very people who shouldn’t have guns.