Polls suggest gun control unlikely to be a campaign issue

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...

Waning Support For More Gun Control
It is possible that the latest violence will spark a resurgence in interest in stricter Gun Control measures. But the long range trends, despite the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, is hard to mistake. The simple fact is that less and less Americans have been calling for more gun control, with little variation, since the early 1990s. Here are the numbers from Gallup: I wonder if this isn't partly because we have more Gun Control now than we used to? The convergence is among those who wa...

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...

Arizona Shootings and the Gun Debate: How Will The Public Respond?
Tragic and shocking events like the shooting rampage in Arizona inevitably revive the debate over Gun Control laws and no doubt will do so again in the aftermath of the spree in which suspect Jared Lee Loughner used a legally-purchased semi-automatic woman to put a bullet in the brain of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and kill or injure 19 others. But over the last decade, major shooting incidents across the country has not led to a surge in public support for tougher Gun Control laws. There ha...

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...

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...

You're Damn Right that America's Macho Gun Culture Played a Role in Arizona Shootings
It's not about Gun Control; it's about the devastating impact of our gun culture. As an advocate of gun control, I believe in the strong Regulation of lethal weapons. It's just common sense. But until we start changing the gun worship of far too many American males, we are going to have a difficult time stopping the ravaging of our society by bullets. More than 10,000 Americans die in gun homicides each year, a figure that far surpasses any Western nation. In Arizona, obtaining a gun is about as...

Top Republican Rep. Pete King to Introduce Gun-Control Legislation
ABC News’ John R. Parkinson reports:  The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Peter King, R-New York, announced today that he will introduce a bill that would ban knowingly carrying a firearm within 1,000 feet of certain high-profile government officials.  [Mayor Michael Bloomberg] and I have discussed that we are introducing in the next several weeks Legislation which would make it a federal crime to carry a weapon within 1,000 feet of any event which is attend...

N.C. gun laws might prevent a shooting like that in Tucson, group says
Gun control advocates say North Carolina’s limits on gun purchases reduce the likelihood of the type of rampage that erupted Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., but they are concerned that those laws may be eased by the new Republican-led General Assembly. “We have a lot of fears that in the next two years there will be attempts to weaken these Gun Laws,” Roxane Kolar, Executive Director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said Tuesday. In North Carolina, anyone seeking to purcha...

King, Bloomberg Team Up to Call for New Gun Control Law
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rep. Pete King, one of the few pro-gun control Republicans in the House of Representatives, today introduced new Legislation that would make it illegal to bring a gun within 1,000 feet of a government official. Bloomberg, a staunch Gun Control advocate, and Rep. King appeared together at a Press Conference in New York City just days after a gunman killed six people and wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during a political event in Tuscon. More than a dozen people...

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...

Arizona's Fixation On Immigration And Guns: A Recent History
The Mass Shootings in Arizona over the weekend that killed six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) in critical condition after being shot in the head hardly marks the first time the state has been under scrutiny for its tense political atmosphere and somewhat off-the-rails policies. In April, TPM took a microscope to the state in the wake of its incredibly Controversial Immigration policy. So it's time to ask again, what's the matter with Arizona? As TPM reported back in April: What happene...

Lost in a dark wood
In Foreign Policy this past Sunday, David Rothkopf asked, "How can a gun-crazed society lead the world?" The answer, of course, is that it can't. And anyone who doesn't realize that just hasn't been paying attention since 9/11. Bin Laden's still out there. We haven't laid a glove on him. But he's enlisted us in his war to destroy America's basic liberties--and we're doing him one better as we prepare to take a meat-ax to the social Welfare State that for seven decades created the greatest mass...

Kings Gun Ban Plan Wont Make You Safer
The Daily Caller is reporting that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) “will introduce Legislation to ban the carrying of any firearm within 1,000 feet of what he described as ‘high-profile government officials.’” Of course, such Legislation will do absolutely nothing to stop criminals and deranged psychotics, such as Murder suspect Jared Loughner, from getting and carrying guns to commit murder. Criminals and deranged psychotics, after all, by definition break the law. And they ob...

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...

Americans Favor Automatic Weapons Ban, Wary Of 'Gun Control'
WASHINGTON -- Will the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 20 others in Arizona turn Public Opinion in favor of tougher Gun Control measures? The evidence is mixed at best. While Public Opinion has generally turned against stricter gun-control measures over the last twenty years, majorities continue to support greater restrictions on the sort of automatic weapon used in the Tucson shootings. For the last 20 years, the Gallup organization has tracked whether Americans "feel that t...

A Disturbing Motif: Online Manifesto, Mass Shooting
  As the authorities sort out motives from emotions in the Arizona shooting rampage, one aspect of the multiple-tragedies event is clear: Jared Loughner, the alleged gunman, had an active Internet presence. Like many people nowadays, Loughner, 22, has lived a public life. He reportedly had a MySpace page — which has been removed since the Jan. 8 shootings — and a YouTube Channel, under the user name Classitup10. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can see remnants of...

John Feffer: Gun Crazy: NRA and Pentagon
The Pentagon and the National Rifle Association have a lot in common these days. They're in love with guns. They maintain powerful lobbies. They refuse to acknowledge the dangerous consequences of their policies. And they're both on the defensive. After yet another gun massacre over the weekend in Tucson, the NRA in particular has a lot to answer for. The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and the killing of six others, has again focused attention on how easy it is to buy guns and us...

Media Pivots to Blame Gun Laws
Yesterday evening I was on AC360 to discuss the Arizona Tragedy with David Gergen and Roland Martin. While I personally like Gergen, his knowledge of Arizona’s Gun Laws and invalid premises on conceal carry were a disservice to our discussion. He presupposes that Jared Lee Loughner was a CCW permit holder, and thus, right to carry failed, which, to all knowledge Loughner did not possess a permit, a violation of AZ law. You must login to comment. The Fox Nation is for those opposed to intol...

Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings
Source: Bloomberg After a Glock-wielding gunman killed six people at a Tucson shopping center on Jan. 8, Greg Wolff, the owner of two Arizona gun shops, told his manager to get ready for a stampede of new customers. Wolff was right. Instead of hurting sales, the massacre had the $499 semi-automatic pistols -- popular with police, sport shooters and gangsters -- flying out the doors of his Glockmeister stores in Mesa and Phoenix. “We’re at double our volume over what we usually do,” Wolff sai

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) calls for gun-control legislation aimed at protecting lawmakers
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) calls for gun-control Legislation aimed at protecting lawmakers Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) plans to introduce Legislation making it illegal to carry a firearm within 1,000 feet of lawmakers and some other government officials. "It is imperative that we do all that we can to give Law Enforcement the tools they need to ensure the safety of New Yorkers and prevent an attack before it happens," King said at a news conference with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "That i...

Mayor Mike Bloomberg Asks What Could Have Prevented Arizona Shooting, Talks Gun Control
New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg called lawmakers on the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition together for a City Hall meeting to discuss the Arizona shooting that left six dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords recovering from a bullet to the head. Among the issues discussed was Gun Control, a topic which inspired an impassioned Speech from the Mayor on what, exactly, we should be taking away from the weekend’s events: The more we learn the more it becomes clear that this case is fu...

Fast Fix: Tougher Gun Laws? (VIDEO)
The best of the best of state-based political blogs -- as of April 2009. Fast Fix: Tougher Gun Laws? (VIDEO) Members of Congress are falling all over themselves to propose changes to the nation's gun laws in the wake of the Arizona Assassination attempt of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) on Saturday morning. But, a look at polling and the recent history of high profile tragedies involving guns suggests that significant Gun Control measures are unlikely to win support....

A trip down memory lane with Newt Gingrich
A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH Newt Gingrich.... As tempting as it is to simply ignore the odd tirades of the disgraced former House Speaker, this latest gem from Newt Gingrich strikes me as special. The former speaker of the House and possible 2012 presidential hopeful said Monday that some people on the left jumped too quickly to conclusions about accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner. "[P]eople who would immediately scream about ethnic profiling, people who on the left have every possible incent...

In Wake of Tucson Tragedy, What's Sarah Palin's Next Move?
Sarah Palin and her campaign website targeting Congressional Democrats. (Credit: CBS/AP) In the wake of Saturday's tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona - in which six were killed and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 13 others were injured - Sarah Palin has maintained a relatively low profile. After expressing her "sincere condolences" to the shooting's Victims and their families via Facebook on Saturday, Palin has made only one other statement to the press: an e-mail to Glenn Beck, which ...