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Is it the Gun or the Person that Causes Violence?
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Rob Morse
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Recently we’ve heard a lot of claims and counter-claims about modern rifles. About one-out-of-eight gun owners have a modern rifle. As we’d expect, rifles are used in armed defense about an eighth of the time.
Here are two recent news stories that involve a modern rifle. Are these firearms exotic or are they mundane? |
Does “Pro-Life” mean “Anti-Gun”?
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Mark A. Taff
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“Let’s be clear,” tweeted Senator Tammy Duckworth days after the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, “you are not ‘pro-life’ if you choose to do absolutely nothing to save children from gun violence.” Governor Gavin Newsom struck from the other direction: “The Republican Party is obsessed with forcing women to give birth but doesn’t care if our children are gunned down in school.”
If we put the rhetoric and cheap political shots aside, can we analyze this question soberly: Does being “pro-life” require a person to be “anti-gun”? |
White House confirms Biden is looking at ‘executive actions’ after Trudeau strips citizens of gun rights
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Mark A. Taff
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A day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced sweeping actions that threaten the self-defense capabilities of his citizenry, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn’t rule out President Joe Biden taking a similar course.
Fundamentally, the United States is unlike any other nation in the world. An American’s rights are meant to be protected through the Constitution, and yet, the people elected into office who swore to uphold it continue to behave as though the rights enshrined therein do not exist. |
Beyond NRA: Other gun rights groups spend millions in Washington to influence laws
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Mark A. Taff
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A handful of other gun rights groups also hold sway in the nation’s capital, where they fork over millions to lobbyists each year to try to persuade legislators and policymakers to take their side on issues they care about.
Gun rights advocacy organizations spent a record $15.8 million on lobbying last year, according to an analysis by Open Secrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks lobbying and campaign contributions. Since 1998, the industry has spent nearly $200 million on federal lobbying. |
Justice Scalia’s words on Second Amendment absolutism are true, prophetic
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Mark A. Taff
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All of us in this country have let the National Rifle Association and similar groups make us afraid and we as voters have allowed them to hold our political processes hostage. When party primaries are made litmus tests on who can genuflect most to the gun lobby, responsible government and sensible public policy are not the results.
Having safer schools may hit us all in the wallet through higher taxes to pay for the security we say we want. More stringent background checks may slow gun transactions. The current distinctions between handguns, long guns, and assault weapons need to be reconsidered. But our current laws and the enforcement of them — or lack thereof — aren’t working. |
OH: Ohio lawmakers propose new 'self-defense' high school graduation requirement
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Mark A. Taff
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New legislation from Ohio state Reps. Tom Young, R-Washington Township, and Andrea White, R-Kettering, would require next year’s class of high school freshmen to take a course on recognizing and responding to threatening situations in order to graduate. The idea for the so-called “Student Protection Act” came from a number of recent high school graduates as part of an extracurricular project.
Abby Purdy described how the proposal came from conversations she had with fellow Olentangy High School students Sydney Schultz and Vaidehi Patel about walking to their cars after work in the dark.
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NY: Why Supreme Court speculation about ‘ordinary’ folks endangers us all
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Mark A. Taff
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If the case poised to overturn Roe v. Wade is the court’s expected summer blockbuster, its sleeper hit is expected to increase access to guns at perhaps the worst time: when active shooter incidents are up dramatically; school shootings have reached an all-time high; and recent polling shows “huge support” for a variety of gun restrictions. Specifically, before June’s end (and potentially the same week that it topples Roe), the court could invalidate a New York law restricting the concealed carrying of handguns on the ground that it violates the Second Amendment. |
Selling weapons of war to public not a good idea
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Mark A. Taff
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No one is coming for your hunting rifles, shotguns, or pistols kept for self-defense. You may look a little less impressive parading through town with your racist militia while carrying a civilian firearm, but so be it.
According to David Hemenway, who led a Harvard study of self-defense gun use, “The average person has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense.”
Ninety percent of Americans support background checks for gun purchases; and moderate, common-sense regulations do not threaten anyone’s freedom to own a firearm. |
NY: Supreme Court may expand gun rights in ruling over New York concealed carry law
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Mark A. Taff
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The Supreme Court will soon issue an opinion in a major Second Amendment case over whether New Yorkers have the right to carry concealed handguns in public for self-defense, which many legal experts say could lead to the expansion of gun rights.
Justices on the high court, which has a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority, are expected to issue an opinion no later than late June or early July in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The case involves two men who were denied a special need or "proper cause" license to carry a concealed pistol or revolver that is required under a New York law that has been in place since 1913. |
NY: As Biden and Lawmakers Debate, U.S. Supreme Court Poised to Expand Gun Rights
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Mark A. Taff
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As President Joe Biden and Congress ponder how to respond to the latest U.S. mass shootings, the Supreme Court is due to decide a major case that could undermine new efforts to enact gun control measures while making existing ones vulnerable to legal attack.
The justices are expected to rule by the end of this month in a challenge by two firearms owners and the New York affiliate of the National Rifle Association, an influential gun rights group closely aligned with Republicans, to that state's restrictions on carrying concealed handguns in public. |
CA: Security guard fatally shoots man in Mission District
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Mark A. Taff
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An armed security guard fatally shot a man in the Mission District early Wednesday morning. Witnesses say the shooting was an act of self defense.
In a statement released Wednesday, police said they responded to the area of Utah and 16th streets at about 4:07 a.m. after receiving reports of shots fired. They located the security guard, the wounded man and witnesses upon arrival.
Despite medics at the site and life-saving efforts, the adult male subject was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said witnesses told officers the shooting occurred after the man confronted the patrolling security guard and charged at him with a knife. |
DE: Lawmakers Plotting Gun Ban
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Mark A. Taff
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With less than two weeks left in the session, lawmakers in Dover are working on pushing additional infringements to Second Amendment rights when they return from recess next week. They are in the process of drafting a so-called “assault weapons” ban bill, to ban many commonly-owned rifles, shotguns, and handguns that law-abiding citizens use for self-defense and sport. Please contact your lawmakers and ask them to OPPOSE any gun bans. |
Is an AR-15 an assault rifle? What you need to know about America's most popular rifle
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Mark A. Taff
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An AR-15 is a semi-automatic, or self-loading rifle that has been called "America's rifle" by the NRA with well over 15 million sold by 2019. "Semi-automatic," as opposed to "automatic," means that the weapon's operator must pull the trigger to fire each shot. The rifle then automatically reloads. An automatic weapon continues to fire as long as you hold down the trigger, and is (mostly) banned in the U.S.
"AR-15s are the most commonly used rifles in marksmanship competitions, training, and home defense," according to the NRA. |
FL: The history of the individual right to keep and bear arms
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Mark A. Taff
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With all the debate going on about guns and gun control in America, here’s a little history. The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Those favoring gun control stress the “militia” part, saying the “right of the people” part is subordinate to it. But the late Charlie Reese, for 30 years a journalist with the Orlando Sentinel, once parsed the 18th-century language.
He wrote: “Notice that it does not state that the right of the states to have militias shall not be infringed. This amendment consists of a nominative absolute and a subject and verb. |
Stop Lying about the Historical Understanding of Gun Rights
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Mark A. Taff
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It has never been ‘mainstream’ to interpret the Second Amendment as guaranteeing anything other than an individual right to bear arms.
If it will please the court, I will happily fall onto both my knees, throw my arms up into the air, shake my head plaintively, and plead with America’s journalists, in the name of all that is good and right, to stop doing this: |
FL: Rick Scott defends post-Parkland decision to block gun sales to ‘irresponsible’ 18-year-olds
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Mark A. Taff
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“I put the proposal out there,” Scott continued. “And I tried to do everything I could to continue to work with, because I’ll work with anybody to make sure no one’s gun rights are taken away.”
Toward the end of the interview, Scott doubled back to affirm his belief that while gun sales to those under 21 should be banned, he has no issue with that younger cohort owning firearms.
“You can own it, so your parents can go with you and go buy it,” Scott said. “You could own it but you cannot purchase it by yourself.” |
Pelosi Says House to Consider Assault Weapons Ban Soon
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Mark A. Taff
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a crowd Wednesday in her hometown of San Francisco that the lower chamber will propose legislation banning so-called assault weapons in the coming weeks, The Hill reported.
Speaking at an event regarding gun violence prevention, Pelosi, D-Calif., said a bill tackling certain types of rifles would come after the House considers red flag laws — measures designed to keep weapons from potentially violent people.
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee is also preparing to field a slate of anti-gun bills. Among them are proposals to prohibit high-capacity magazines and raise the minimum purchasing age for certain rifles. |
President Biden's wayward remarks a cause for concern, clarification
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Mark A. Taff
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...a trauma doctor had supposedly told him once that a .22-caliber bullet might, say, lodge in the lung and be removable, whereas a 9 mm “blows the lung out of the body.” It should be stipulated, first of all, that all bullets are dangerous. Still, this was a ridiculous explanation of the relative dangers of the two calibers and gave the impression that Biden was moving on from seeking to ban so-called assault rifles to wanting to prohibit 9 mm pistols, too.
The gaffe joined other notable Biden miscues on guns, including his bizarre advice several years ago to shoot a shotgun in the air as a means of self-defense and his erroneous insistence that there was a prohibition on the ownership of cannons during the Revolutionary War. |
Gun safety middle ground means changes
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Mark A. Taff
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University of Virginia law professor Richard Bonnie is part of a group that looks for the reasonable compromise in the gun safety debate.
“What keeps you going is the hope that you can find a middle ground to make some steps forward,” Bonnie told The Daily Progress a few days after an 18-year-old used an AR-15 assault rifle to slaughter 19 fourth graders and two adults in a Texas elementary school. “Risk-based firearms policy aims to find the proper balance between rights and risks, just as we do with regulation of all other dangerous consumer products or the environment.” |
ND: Here's the NRA's grade for every North Dakota lawmaker
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Mark A. Taff
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North Dakota has some of the nation’s least stringent gun laws, and legislators have recently trended toward loosening restrictions on buying, carrying and using guns.
Last year, the Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov. Doug Burgum approved bills that lowered the legal bar for using deadly force in self-defense , expanded concealed carry of guns and blocked state and local governments from closing or limiting the hours of gun ranges and stores.
National Rifle Association lobbyist Brian Gosch sat at a table with Burgum and a handful of lawmakers as the governor signed pro-gun rights legislation into law in April 2021. |
Poll: Majority of Americans in Favor of Teachers Being Armed
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Mark A. Taff
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In the wake of the deadly Uvalde elementary school shooting, the heated topic of gun laws is once again a major forefront of people’s minds. Though a majority of Americans believe arming teaching will make schools more safe.
A recent poll conducted by The Trafalgar Group, surveyed 1,091 general election voters and found that 57.5 percent of voters believe schools are somewhat or much more dangerous without teachers who carry a legal firearm and are properly trained Ito use it. This leaves just over a mere 30 percent who oppose it.
While 67.5 percent of these voters are Republicans, almost half at 48.2 percent, are Democrats in favor of arming teachers. |
NPR's Insane Claim About What an AR-15 Does to the Human Body
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Mark A. Taff
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National Public Radio reporting on AR-15s and the ammunition used to fire one turned some heads after the outlet claimed the sporting rifle is "designed" to "blow targets apart" and "its bullets travel with such velocity that they can decapitate an adult."
NPR then switched gears to report about the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers last week. |
Second Amendment Quotes: Pro-Gun Quotes on Individual Freedom and the Right to Bear Arms
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Mark A. Taff
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“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
– Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
“The Second Amendment wasn’t written so you can go hunting, it was to create a force to balance a tyrannical force here.”
– Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, 2013 |
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