How SCOTUS Handcuffed the Gun Rights Debate

Tuesday: Guns for everyone (and bullets for every gun) edition
As realists we know that here in the United States we aren’t ever going to outlaw private ownership of guns. But, you might (realistically) think that this Tuesday Morning — nearly 3 days after the terrible shooting in Tucson — there would be a steady stream of articles calling for more serious Regulation of the guns in this country. There isn’t. Apparently Gun Control is off the table. With my background in programming and maintaining databases I should have known bett...

No Signs Obama Will Shift On Gun Control After Giffords Shooting
Virtually since the Obama Administration took office, the White House has avoided touching the third-rail issue of Gun Control with a 10-foot pole. So will the mass shooting in Arizona that gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others (including a Federal Judge) change their approach? Gun control advocates hope so. Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said in an interview that banning the high-capacity clips (the type use...

Apparently, The Real Culprit In The Giffords Shooting Was…..Guns!
Now that we are a few days from the shooting of Representative Giffords, and the cold blooded Murder of many others, including a judge and a 9 year old, the media and Democrats are slowly ratcheting up the meme that guns are to blame. They haven't dropped their fixation on "vitriolic Speech".......you know, all the blamestorming coming from the mostly liberal media, elected Democrats, and liberal talking heads could be considered "vitriolic speech." You also have Joe Scarborough, RINO, complaini...

Apparently, The Real Culprit In The Giffords Shooting Was..Guns!
Now that we are a few days from the shooting of Representative Giffords, and the cold blooded Murder of many others, including a judge and a 9 year old, the media and Democrats are slowly ratcheting up the meme that guns are to blame. They haven’t dropped their fixation on “vitriolic Speech”…….you know, all the blamestorming coming from the mostly liberal media, elected Democrats, and liberal talking heads could be considered “vitriolic speech.” You also...

An historical perspective on gun control in Arizona
Katherine Benton-Cohen, an Arizona native and History Professor at Georgetown University, provides important historical perspective on the old, Wild West Arizona, and 19th century Tombstone's embrace of Gun Control. For all the talk of the “Wild West,” the policymakers of 1880 Tombstone—and many other Western towns—were ardent supporters of Gun Control. When people now compare things to the “shootout at the OK Corral,” they mean vigilante violence by gunfire....

Wild West mythology feeds Arizonas weapon culture
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik addressed the cameras. The news was grim. Here was a lawman, telling his country, and the world, that the America he knew was falling to pieces. Six lay dead in Tucson. Another 13 were wounded. A Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was fighting for her life. And the sheriff let fly with both barrels, blasting the ugly tone of political Rhetoric in the United States and bemoaning Arizona Gun Control laws that put a semi-automatic pistol in the hands of an appare...

CNN Goes After Arizona's Gun Laws as Major Factor in Shooting
On Monday's Newsroom, CNN treated Arizona's Gun Laws as a significant contributor to the shootings in Tucson. Correspondent Jessica Yellin prompted the local prosecutor to spout her pro-gun control views. Anchor Brooke Baldwin highlighted a local Republican's gun-toting ad and the infamous clip of an anti-Obama Protester carrying a semi-automatic rifle outside a 2009 presidential event in Arizona. Yellin interviewed Pima County, Arizona Attorney Barbara LaWall, a Democrat (though Yel...

Arizona Proves That the Politics of Guns Leave Us Defenseless
It seems as though it never ends. Mass Shootings. Blood baths. Angry, disturbed killers. Innocent Victims mowed down. We go through it on a regular basis. And nothing seems to put it to a stop. The attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, by Jared Lee Loughner in which six others were killed and 14 wounded, has focused the nation’s attention on the widespread use of guns and the great obstacles we face in trying to limit gun violence. The Arizona congresswoman said in March o...

Dems ready gun control legislation regulating ammunition clips
Stumble This! Democrats in the House and Senate are preparing to introduce Legislation that would limit purchases high-capacity gun ammunition clips like the one used Saturday in the tragic shootings of 20 people in Arizona. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), two of the most outspoken Gun Control advocates in Congress, are sponsoring the Legislation in their respective chambers. "The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a Handgun is to kill a lot of people very q...

Gun Crazy
We may not be sure that the bloodbath in Tucson had anything to do with politics, but we know it had everything to do with our nation’s insane refusal to impose reasonable controls on guns. Specifically, the rampage had everything to do with a 9mm semiautomatic Glock pistol—a sleek, efficient killing machine that our lax Gun Laws allowed an unstable young man to purchase, carry anywhere he wanted and ultimately use to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head. The weapon also was use...

Hardball: Tea Party Under Fire Over Arizona Tragedy (Huffington Post)
Read Chris Matthews's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com Below is the video and transcript of my interview with Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. "If people on the right and Sarah Palin and so forth are responsible for all of this and this vitriolic Rhetoric is so pitched, how come this isn't happening every day? Why is it the vast exception to the rule? There's no logic in any of the assertions they're making. None." Chris Matthews: That was Rush Limbau...

Lawmakers push to exempt Kentucky-made guns from federal regulations
FRANKFORT — Lawmakers are pushing three identical bills to exempt Kentucky-made guns and ammunition from federal Background Checks, dealer licenses and other national regulations if the items remain in the state. The effort comes as a recent report shows Kentucky is one of the nation’s biggest exporters of guns that cross state lines — legally or illegally — and end up at crime scenes in other states, often in cities with tight Gun Ownership restrictions. At the same time...

Ready to reload?
Since Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, America's Cable News channels have been flooded with analysts speculating about why. They have bemoaned the state of America's political discourse, called for leadership in toning down heated Rhetoric, speculated over whether this is a turning point for Barack Obama or Sarah Palin and puzzled over the shooter's mental state. But one thing that has scarcely been raised is Gun Control. In Australia, a 1996 gun massacre in Tasmania...

Happy Meal Conservatism
This is an appropriate time to turn back, once again, to one of my favorite John Derbyshire pieces published waybackwhen in The American Conservative: How Radio Wrecks the Right. A long excerpt: Taking the conservative project as a whole—Limited Government, fiscal prudence, equality under law, personal liberty, Patriotism, realism abroad—has Talk Radio helped or hurt? All those good things are plainly off the table for the next four years at least, a prospect that Conservatives can o...

Shooting tests US West love affair with guns
A billboard in Tucson, Arizona, invites residents to a gun show. Arizona ha... Months before she was shot in the head, US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords won a tight re-election battle vowing to be "moderate" -- including by staunchly backing the right to own guns. As she lies in critical condition, some are publicly questioning the gun-slinging culture of the American West where weapons at restaurants do not cause a second glance and opposition to guns is considered political Suicide. Jared ...

Absolutely Too Effin Soon
Dave Weigel at Slate reports that “Arizona Citizens Defense League Wants Firearms Training for Members of Congress, Staff“: Charles Heller, one of the co-founders of the pro gun-rights Arizona Citizens Defense League, tells me that the group has put together model Legislation that would require the state to help train members of Congress and their staff in the use of firearms. “Our model Legislation is called the Giffords-Zimmerman Act ,” said Heller. (Giffords Staffer ...

Your Opinions
On Saturday, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was targeted and shot in the head during a mass meeting with voters. During the contentious Elections last fall, her opponent, Jesse Kelly, held fund-raisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle (Page 1A, Jan. 9). Hate Speech proclaimed by politicians and political pundits riles up the violent to violence. Those politicians and pundits can't escape charges of complicity. Ther...

Daly: Bam's mum as Bloomy leads fight vs. guns
Our mayor was at his undeniable worst during the blizzard, but he has always been at his indisputable best when it comes to bullets. And the horror in Arizona proves once again how right he is to campaign so tirelessly against gun violence. When even our President has been cowed by the supporters of "Gun Rights," Mayor Bloomberg has done everything in his power to stem the unending carnage. He has been that rare political leader who acts because he believes it is the right thing to do. He cert...

Horrific event
The terrible, senseless tragedy that occurred Saturday morning outside a Tucson, Ariz., Supermarket has sparked a debate about the tone of political Rhetoric in America. The attempted Assassination of a member of Congress, Rep. Gabrielle D. Giffords, who remains in critical condition with a head wound, may have been motivated on some level by the shooter's political views. But ultimately the attack, which killed a Federal Judge and five other people, and wounded 13, stems more from the men...

Nation gets first look at suspect, Tucson grieves
A woman prays at the memorial located in front of the University Medical Center, Monday, Jan. 10, 2011, in Tucson, Ariz. The memorial has been set up for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who is in critical condition at the Hospital, and other Victims who were shot on Saturday, leaving six dead and more injured. When Jared Loughner walked into the courtroom, everything fell silent. Law clerks, courtroom artists and reporters alike turned from the wooden benches to look at the vacant-e...

M.S. Bellows, Jr.: After Arizona, Reconsidering the Second Amendment
The Arizona shootings are a good opportunity to reconsider the current Supreme Court's oversimplistic analysis of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court's conservative majority declared in 2008 that the Constitution gives people a personal right to possess Firearms, ignoring the 2nd Amendment's limiting clause, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." There's no serious movement today to take away people's hunting firearms; politically, the fight is ove...

Local Gun Rights Group Hosts John R. Lott
Honolulu, Hawaii - John R. Lott, Jr., author, Activist, speaker and Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, will be in town speaking on the topics of Gun Control, Public Policy and other points of interest at a dinner hosted at The Plaza Club Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 starting at from 6:30 p.m. John is an American senior research scientist  at University of Maryland, College Park. He has previously held positions at other prestigious institutions such as, University ...

Lautenberg addresses gun control in wake of Arizona shootings
As more fallout continues after the shooting in Arizona, one senator raised the red flag on Gun Control. On Monday, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) announced his plan to introduce Legislation banning high-capacity ammunition clips similar to the one used by Jared Lee Loughner this past Saturday when he killed six innocent bystanders and seriously wounded Arizona Represenative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8). Senator Lautenberg is looking to bring forth a prohibition that was established in 1994 ...

The latest updates on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting incident in Tucson
The shooting of United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others is still the dominant story in news and is expected to remain so for the coming days.  Six people have died from the shootings, which took place while the Congresswoman was hosting a public event in Tucson, Arizona.  Fourteen people were injured, including the Congresswoman who was shot in the head.  Below readers can see the latest updates on the story. -  The parents of the shooting suspect, Jared ...

Gabrielle Giffords recovery continues in aftermath of Tucson shooting
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords continued her recovery in a Tucson Hospital after Saturday's shooting: The 40-year-old lawmaker was shot through the head Saturday, allegedly targeted by a deranged constituent. Doctors said Sunday that the passage of the bullet through only one side of her brain and her initial responsiveness give hope she could survive and even possibly recover. "We are more and more encouraged," physician Michael Lemole, who is treating Giffords, said on ABC's "Good ...