U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and 23 other senators recently urged President Obama to consider all possible options under his executive authority to target gun violence in the U.S. In a letter to the president, the senators asked him to get rid of a loophole that lets individuals with no federal license sell large volumes of guns at gun shows, over the Internet and through other methods without conducting background checks.
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How else can we explain the lack of a broad-based outcry to Do Something when it comes to men with guns killing their fellow citizens? (I don’t hunt or shoot, but – like most people in the South – I have numerous guns that have been handed down through our family, and I wouldn’t dream of getting rid of them.) We don’t like gun buyback programs and we certainly don’t endorse confiscation of civilians’ guns.
And then, inevitably, the Great Debate begins: What should we do about the abundance of guns in our society?
Especially as it occurred while a staff Christmas party was taking place. It remains the worst.
This was the narrative quickly pushed in the aftermath of the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting.
There are a lot of people who should not be able to have guns, that Republicans could be doing something about.
“Covering all of those shootings brings to mind a bitingly accurate headline from the satirical news site The Onion: “‘No Way To Prevent This, ‘ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”. “I don’t know, but that’s where my regret is”, he said. “But those same people who we don’t allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them”.
He said Obama’s disconnect with the facts was also on full display in Paris this week.
Darling added that there’s “no way any of the Republicans running for president will think it a good idea to run out to the left with Hillary Clinton on restricting gun rights so close to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary”. 33 thousand Americans a year die. In reality, we’re the only country in the world that allows people, whether they have a mental illness or not, to have easy access to guns. “What we’re talking about is really very modest and very basic”. He’s also the author of five books on gun policy, including Guns Across America. As a society, however, we’ve accepted that some guns will kill innocents.
The American Public Health Associationclassifies gun violence in the U.S. as “a major public health problem and a leading cause of premature death”. “My belief in the power of prayer is nearly as strong as my belief that unrestricted political donations from the NRA have absolutely no effect on my unqualified support for whatever positions they request of us”.
Rivara and his team discovered that having a gun in the home is associated with a threefold increase in the risk of a homicide – they released this information in a series of peer-reviewed articles that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Centuries from now, if humans still exist, and if they have evolved as we expect they would, I have complete confidence they will look back on this time period in America as one where insanity prevailed.
And it’s a cost we are clearly willing to pay. It’s the price we pay to ensure no one will ever take this country by force.
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Hughes is a Denver-based reporter for USA TODAY.
