So here is The Plan from the Obama White house to attempt to implement some modicum of gun control in the US with the vague hope it may save some needless death and slaughter of American citizens.
Major elements of The Plan involve:
- Closing loopholes to keep firearms out of dangerous hands ie: improving background checks re: criminals, felons and the mentally ill.
- Reimplement a ban on military style assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and take other common sense steps to reduce gun violence such as removing the sale of armour piecing bullets.
- Make schools safer by providing more ‘school resource officers’, counsellors, providing trained and armed police officers if required, encouraging schools to have comprehensive emergency management plans.
- Increase access to mental health services and remind health care providers that they are able to tell law enforcement agencies if they believe a patient is a threat to themselves or others. Allow health care providers to talk to their patients about gun safety (!?!?).
It also has provisions to remove the (Congress imposed) ban on research into gun violence in the US; hold Federal agencies accountable for information sharing to enable background check information to be more comprehensive; give law enforcement agencies greater assistance in prosecuting gun related crimes; appoint a Director of the ATF (he Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency has been effectively leaderless for six years), encourage gun owners to store their guns safely – not to make safes mandatory, just a suggestion, people. There are also a host of other sensible but essentially toothless provisions included in President Obama’s NOW IS THE TIME plan.
The response from the gun loby:
And you gotta love this video put out by the NRA (make sure you watch it, it’s kinda hilarious) where they makes themselves out to be second class citizens… let’s just ignore their huge amount of resources their decades of lobbying power and their stranglehold over the Republican Congress…. I do like the montage where they happily put together all La Pierre’s detractors for us though. Stephen Cobert, succinct as always, leaves us with the most memorable quote: “You sir, are fucked in the head”
From the political sphere, a diatribe against evil madmen and monsters:
“There are monsters out there every day, and we need to do something to stop them.”
– Wayne La Pierre, CEO National Rifle Assoc. (source)
“Guns require a finger to pull the trigger. There is evil prowling in the world… let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help.”
– Rick Perry, Republic Governor, Texas (source)
“There aren’t two sides in this issue, I don’t think any one who knows what we do, believe we are against such incomprehensible evil.”
– Steve Sanetti, National Shooting Sports Foundation (source)
“You are using innocent children killed by a mad man for own political agenda, you are actually making people less safe.”
– James Tedisco, Republican Assemblyman (source)
“Guns are not the problem; criminals with evil in their hearts and mentally ill people prone to violence are.”
– Marco Rubio, Republican Senator (source)
“Make no mistake about it, you aren’t under siege…. you are under attack.”
– Hayley Barbour, former Mississippi Governor and Republican Party head (source)
Evil, evil, evil. And we will goddamn well try anything to combat it – except gun control.
We could go on all day with quotes from people who think their way of life is coming to an end because the US President wants to reduce the thousands of gun related crimes and gun related fatalities each year. But most of them have a few common themes… there is EVIL in the world, so you better pray your way out of it. There are MADMEN in the world and making guns less accessible won’t fix that, and my favourite, we are under attack from our own government so it’s time for all you food hoarding, bunker building, gun toting red neck militia nuts to rise up against the government… and what? Wave your AR15s as the jets and self guided missiles fly overhead?
Why does it sound like all this talk of evil in the world and monsters and crazy men sound like they’re waiting for a superhero to come along and solve their inordinately disproportionate gun crime rates? America.. fuck yeah. 🙁
