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Sen. Rand Paul’s gun control bill filibuster threat failed in the Senate. The U.S. Senate voted 68-31 to begin gun control bill debate. GOP ayes include Ayotte, McCain, Alexander, Corker, Chambliss, Toomey, Flake, Isaakson, Graham, Kirk, Wicker, Coburn and Collins.
The procedural vote followed a breakthrough by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, on broadening background checks to include private purchases at gun shows and on the Internet.
Right wing freak-out over Jim Carrey’s ‘Cold Dead Hand’ tweets about assault rifle owners who are ‘unwilling’ to bend for the safety of our kids. He also added, if “sorry if you are offended by the word safety.” Robert Zimmerman Jr. sends racist tweet comparing Trayvon Martin to alleged baby killer DeMarquise Elkins and Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy is silent.
‘Cold Dead Hand’ is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids.Sorry if you’re offended… say.ly/jtu5rar
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 24, 2013
Some ppl hate when i talk about guns so I decided to sing about it! Check out COLD DEAD HAND 12:01 AM Monday on Funn… say.ly/aox5qrc
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 22, 2013
Hunters hang animals up on their walls.I kill mosquitos bt their little heads r hard to mount! ‘COLD DEAD HAND’ Funn… say.ly/pFl5r6y
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 24, 2013
More married Southern men own guns than any other demographic
A recent Gallup poll has found that more males than females own guns and there are more gun owners in the South, with the lowest number in the East. Here’s the breakdown from Gallup:
Across those six data sets, an average of 30% of Americans said they personally own a gun. Another 14% did not personally own a gun but live in a household with someone who does. The results presented here focus mainly on personal gun ownership, though the demographic patterns are similar among the larger group of Americans living in gun households.
In addition to gender, Southern residence, and marital status, personal gun ownership also varies significantly by age, race, and political ideology.
- Non-Hispanic whites (33%) are significantly more likely than nonwhites (22%) to own guns. Hispanics (18%) in particular show below-average gun ownership. Twenty-one percent of blacks own a gun.
- Younger Americans (20%) are much less likely to own guns than older Americans. There are only minor differences among adults 30 and older by age group (ranging between 31% and 34%).
- Gun ownership is much higher among those who are politically conservative (39%) than among those who are politically liberal (17%).
Nearly Two-Thirds of Married Southern Men Own Guns, Lowest Gun Ownership in the East (Chart credit: Gallup)
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s Lies: Obama Wants to Take Away Rifles, Shotguns and Handguns from Law-Abiding Citizens (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, continues his smear campaign, during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” he told a blatant lie that President Obama wants to take the rifles, shotguns and handguns away from law-abiding citizens. Wow, that’s a bare-faced lie. Funny he should engage is such extreme paranoia on Fox News. It’s sad that people actually believe the garbage being spewed by Wayne LaPierre.
“During the campaign, when [Obama] said to people, ‘I will not take away your rifle, shotgun, handgun,’” LaPierre said. “They leafleted the country with flyers like this, ‘Obama’s not gonna take your gun,’ ‘Obama will protect gun rights.’ And now he’s trying to take away all three.”
LaPierre cited Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposed assault weapons ban as evidence for his accusation.
“I think what they’ll do is they’ll turn this universal check on the law-abiding into a universal registry of law-abiding people,” he said. “And law-abiding people don’t want that.”
He also claims automatic weaponry is about “survival.” Um, really?
“If you limit the American public’s access to semi-automatic technology, you limit their ability to survive,” LaPierre said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” He was responding to a question about the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling that the Second Amendment is limited.
“The most basic right is to protect yourself,” LaPierre said. “Semi-automatic technology’s been around for 100 years. If you limit the American public’s access to semi-automatic technology, you limit their ability to survive. If someone’s invading your house, I mean, you should say you can have only five or six shots. You ought to have what you need to protect yourself, a woman should. Not what some politician thinks is reasonable.”
Chris Wallace also called out Wayne LaPierre on another ridiculous assertion that President Obama’s children live under the same threats to their security as all other school children. Wallace said, ”You really think that the president’s children are the same kind of target as every other school child in America? That’s ridiculous and you know it, sir.” Typical NRA fearmongering….
Watch the video:
NJ Gov. Chris Christie: NRA Ad Attacking Obama’s Daughters “Reprehensible” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NJ Gov. Chris Christie has President Obama’s back once again. He said the National Rifle Association ad attacking President Obama’s daughters was “reprehensible.” The bromance continues. Gov. Christie, who has four children, said the children of public figures should be off-limits to political attacks. He refused to take a position on the president’s call for a federal assault weapons ban, but said he supports New Jersey’s current gun laws, which include an assault weapons ban in place for 21 years.
President Obama signs executive orders to curb gun violence
Once again, the name-calling and minimization of President Obama continues from the right. Right wing site Infowars compared President Obama to a “tyrant” who joins the ranks of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, China’s Mao Zedong and Korea’s Kim Il-sung, of using kids as props. This latest round of vitriol comes as polls find that most Americans favor universal background checks on all gun purchases.
Let me be clear, very clear — I don’t like the idea of any president using children as props. Their kids are off-limits, so too should be the rest of our kids, but it’s ridiculous to compare President Obama to the likes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and other dictators. The right wing propaganda machine is out in force and appealing to the fringe-elements only too happy to engage in will only foment someone like a Jared Loughner or an Adam Lanza or even another James Holmes into action. Until you and I can walk in the shoes of a parent who has lost a child to gun violence, we shouldn’t sit here with a smug expression on our faces content on calling the shots.
The Hartford Courant ran a column from President Obama reiterating that he isn’t trying to take away the rights of Americans to bear arms, but rather to curb gun violence. Now is the time to act to get guns out of the hands of domestic terrorists.
In case Alex Jones, Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity and others haven’t noticed, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are still around. When George W. Bush surrounded himself with kids, that was A-okay. The rightwing disrespect of President Obama continues. The White House sent this tweet from an eight year old child about gun control:
This is one of the letters I received after Newtown. When it comes to protecting our kids, #nowisthetime to act. -bo twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…
— The White House (@whitehouse) January 16, 2013
Here are the photographs from Infowars that Matt Drudge is running with today. I added the two of former President George W. Bush:
Infowars compares Obama to ‘tyrant’ Joseph Stalin
China’s Mao Zedong with kids
Adolf Hitler poses with a child
Fidel Castrol posing with kids
George W. Bush with kids promoting safe families, taken January 17, 2002
George W. Bush with kids around announcing stem cell legislation vetoed taken Aug. 2006
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S GUN CONTROL PROPOSAL: President Obama calls for $500 million program of executive actions, legislative proposals to curb gun violence: @AP
President Obama said, ”Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes obligation to allow others to do the same.”
He called for an assault weapons ban, says ‘weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater.’
“The only way we can change is if the American people demand it.” —President Obama
@WHLive: President Obama: “Let me be absolutely clear: like most Americans, I believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms.”
Here is the list of President Obama’s executive actions on gun control:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director (Todd Jones).
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
What part of this proposal is so repugnant to the NRA? In other words, they don’t really care about the lives of anyone taken senselessly through gun violence. The president isn’t taking away anyone’s right to bear arms. Why do you need an assault rifle? To hunt?
Here’s an interesting take from the New York Times:
Wednesday’s announcement reflected a decision by the White House to seize on public outrage to challenge the political power of the National Rifle Association and other forces that have successfully fought new gun laws for decades.
In an emotionally charged event, Mr. Obama stood on a stage with four young children who he said had written to him asking for stronger gun laws. Invoking the memory of a young girl named Grace McDonnell who was killed in the Newtown shootings, the president vowed not to let the momentum for new, tougher gun laws fade.
NRA Says Ad Calling Obama ‘Elitist Hypocrite’ Over Kids’ Secret Service Protection, Not About His Daughters, Really? (Photo Credit: NRA)
The National Rifle Association issued a statement saying that their ad calling President Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for sending his daughters to school with Secret Service protection and being skeptical of putting armed guards in schools across the U.S. isn’t about his daughters. Um, really?
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said in a statement to NBC News:
“Whoever thinks the ad is about President Obama’s daughters are missing the point completely or they’re trying to change the subject,” Arulanandam said in a statement Wednesday. “This ad is about keeping our children safe. And the President said he was skeptical about the NRA proposal to put policemen in all schools in this country. Yet he and his family are beneficiaries of multiple law enforcement officers surrounding them 24 hours a day.”"That’s the real issue,” he continued. “Anything else is an attempted calculated distraction.”
TrackingPoint Releases New ‘Smart-Gun’ Capable of Turning Anyone in Master Marksman
Just when the gun control debate intensifies, a highly sophisticated weapon, the Tracking Point rifle, hits the market January 14, 2013, with a price tag of $17,000. This new ‘smart-gun’ is equipped with a computerized scope, which will enable anyone to become a master marksman.
Boasting three on-board processors and a precision guided firing system, the TrackingPoint rifle evaluates environmental factors such as wind speed and calculates the positions of moving targets with a claimed accuracy of almost a mile for novices.
Compensating for human error, looking through the futuristic laser rangefinder sight resembles the view a pilot has in a jet fighter cockpit and turns conventional bolt action rifles into deadly snipers – albeit at a cost of $17,000.
[..]
On their website TrackingPoint say they build ‘Precision Guided Firearms, or ‘PGFs, ‘which are a series of three heavily customized hunting rifles, ranging from a .300 Winchester Magnum with a 22-inch barrel up to a .338 Lapua Magnum with 27-inch barrel, all fitted with advanced computerized scopes. Source: Daily Mail
Do civilians really need a wi-fi enabled rifle? In light of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead, is this the best we can come up with? More sophisticated rifles?
Watch TrackingPoint demonstration of ‘smart-gun:’
Rocker Ted Nugent Calls Gun Owners the New “Rosa Parks” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
SMH: Ted Nugent went on another rant, calling gun owners the next “Rosa Parks” over possible gun control legislation.
During an interview with WorldNetDaily, Nugent said, “There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.”
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