Category Archives: Gun control

Gun control, National Rifle Association, noNRAmoney.ORG

Robert Reich: 5 POINTS TO COUNTER THE NRA

Repost from robertreich.org

5 REASONS THE NRA IS WRONG

5 REASONS THE NRA IS WRONG

The next time you hear someone repeating pro-gun NRA propaganda, respond with these five points:

1. Gun laws save lives. Consider the federal assault weapons ban. After it became law in 1994, gun massacres – defined as instances of gun violence in which six or more people were shot and killed – fell by 37 percent. The number of people dying from mass shootings fell by 43 percent. But when Republicans in Congress let the ban lapse in 2004, gun massacres more than doubled.

2. The Second Amendment was never intended to permit mass slaughter. When the Constitution was written more than 200 years ago, the framers’ goal was permit a “well-regulated militia,” not to enable Americans to terrorize their communities.

3. More guns have not, and will not, make us safer.More than 30 studies show that guns are linked to an increased risk for violence and homicide. In 1996, Australia initiated a mandatory buyback program to reduce `the number of guns in private ownership. Their firearm homicide rate fell 42 percent in the seven years that followed.

4. The vast majority of Americans want stronger gun safety laws. According to Gallup, 96 percent of Americans support universal background checks, 75 percent support a 30-day waiting period for all gun sales, and 70 percent favor requiring all privately owned guns to be registered with the police. Even the vast majority of gun owners are in favor of common-sense gun safety laws.

5. The National Rifle Association is a special interest group with a stranglehold on the Republican Party. In 2016, the group spent a record $55 million on elections. Their real goal is to protect a few big gun manufacturers who want to enlarge their profits.

America is better than the NRA. America is the young people from Parkland, Florida, who are telling legislators to act like adults. It’s time all of us listen.

Assault weapons, Gun control, Military firearms, U.S. Constitution

Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban; doesn’t violate 2nd Amendment

Repost from The Washington Post

Judge: Assault weapons ban doesn’t violate 2nd Amendment

By Alanna Durkin Richer | AP April 6 at 4:05 PM
FILE – In this April 10, 2013 file photo, craftsman Veetek Witkowski holds a newly assembled AR-15 rifle at the Stag Arms company in New Britain, Conn. A ruling released Friday, April 6, 2018, by a federal judge in Boston, dismissed a lawsuit challenging Massachusetts’ ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, stating that assault weapons are beyond the scope of the Second Amendment right to “bear arms.” (Charles Krupa, File/Associated Press)

BOSTON — Assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment, a federal judge said in a ruling Friday upholding Massachusetts’ ban on the weapons.

U.S. District Judge William Young dismissed a lawsuit challenging the 20-year-old ban, saying assault weapons are military firearms that fall beyond the reach of the constitutional right to “bear arms.”

Regulation of the weapons is a matter of policy, not for the courts, he said.

“Other states are equally free to leave them unregulated and available to their law-abiding citizens,” Young said. “These policy matters are simply not of constitutional moment. Americans are not afraid of bumptious, raucous and robust debate about these matters. We call it democracy.”

State Attorney General Maura Healey said the ruling “vindicates the right of the people of Massachusetts to protect themselves from these weapons of war.”

“Strong gun laws save lives, and we will not be intimidated by the gun lobby in our efforts to end the sale of assault weapons and protect our communities and schools,” Healey, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Families across the country should take heart in this victory.”

Continue reading Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban; doesn’t violate 2nd Amendment →

#NEVERAGAIN, Benicia CA, Gun control, March For Our Lives, Mass shootings, Schools

Benicia High School VIDEO: March For Our Lives

Benicia High School videographers Iris Sampayo and Chris Weldon put together this moving and powerful 2-minute documentation of the Benicia March For Our Lives.  I’m so glad they captured the song, “Shine,” originally created by the Parkland High School Drama Club, and sung here by Dahlia Elgonemy, Ameera Elgonemy, LaPaula Parker, and Gabby Campitelli on guitar.

#NEVERAGAIN, Benicia CA, Gun control, March For Our Lives, Schools

Benicia Poet Laureate Johanna Ely: “I am Tired of Waking Up to the Faces of Dead Children”

Johanna Ely, Benicia Poet Laureate
[Editor: I have heard many expressions of profound appreciation following Benicia Poet Laureate Johanna Ely’s reading of “I am Tired of Waking Up to the Faces of Dead Children.”  Here it is.  Get a box of tissues, and live through the detailed reality of automated assault on children in our communities.  Text is below, and here is Johanna reading the poem on a Benicia Herald Youtube video.  – RS]

I am Tired of Waking Up to the Faces of Dead Children

By Johanna Ely, Benicia Poet Laureate, March 16, 2018

I am tired of waking up
to the faces of dead children
who smile at me
from the T.V. or computer screen.
I want to tell them they are not dead.
I want to reach down
into the earth
into the ashes
and resurrect them—
pull them up by their bones
and hug them to my chest.
I want to wake them up
and reassure them that
they are only having a nightmare,
that the goul with the gun isn’t real.
I want to check their homework
and make them breakfast,
send them off into sunlight—
tell them I will see them
when they return home.
I want their backpacks flung on the couch
and the kitchen table—
their lives beginning again
with every breath.
I am tired of waiting for gun laws to change.
I am tired of imagining blood on my hands,
these children dying in my arms.
I am tired of hearing their awful silence
explode in my ears.
I am tired of trying to remember
how many there are now—
how every morning
they look at me
and just keep smiling.