Tag: guns

Effect of our Right to Own a Gun

There are two issues that are upper most in my mind right now and will motivate my choice of president in November. Guns and abortion rights. This abridged article I have taken from the Associated Press today highlights America’s out of control right to own a gun.

BY  JOHN SEEWER AND SHARON JOHNSON Updated 9:18 AM PDT, June 24, 2024

The first weekend of summer brought a tragic yet familiar pattern for American cities wracked by gun violence as mass shootings left dozens dead or wounded at a party in Alabama, an entertainment district in Ohio and a grocery in Arkansas.

It was the second straight weekend that saw an outbreak of mass shootings across the U.S., prompting mayors in places marred by the violence to plead for help.

In Michigan, a deputy was fatally shot while pursuing a suspected stolen vehicle in what the county sheriff described as an ambush. A Philadelphia police officer was critically wounded Saturday after pulling over a car with four people.

Police in Montgomery, Alabama, said hundreds of rounds were fired at a crowded party early Sunday, leaving nine people wounded. Interim Police Chief John Hall said investigators recovered more than 350 different spent shell casings.

Gunfire also broke out early Sunday on the main street of a popular restaurant and entertainment district near downtown Columbus, Ohio.

One person was killed and seven were injured in Dayton, Ohio, after a shooting early Monday in a neighborhood where a large crowd had gathered, police said. Six people were wounded early Sunday at a park in Rochester, New York, after police said at least one person started shooting into a crowd.

A Gun Happy Nation

Alison Parker and Adam Ward It’s all baloney. CNN headline is “Our Hearts are Broken” as they display photos of Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Horror and dismay along with weeks of coverage after the massacres at a Colorado movie theater by James Holmes and Sandy Hook elementary school and the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. But we just can’t give up our guns.

After each event there are flowers laid at a critical location and a call for a gathering to remember those who have been killed. They call it a “vigil.” Then we all go on with life knowing that there will be another horrifying killing within the next few days.

The Los Angeles Times had an article about this very topic in the morning’s edition before the latest killing in Virginia. The article says that the United States is the leader in the most mass killing of any country in the world.

Where is our congress? On vacation forever on this issue.

So despite the killing of nine in a Black church in South Carolina and the killing in Tucson, Arizona that left Gabrielle Giffords maimed for life; Our love for guns trumps all other events. Our preference to own a gun has no limits. There is no price too high to pay that will change our love of guns.

When our leaders say we are the exceptional country is gun ownership part of that? The answer must be yes. Is there another reason we allow everyone to own a gun?

Is it Safe to Live in the United States?

The Los Angeles Times print and internet editions provided news of San Diego State University hosting school shooting survival training.

San Diego State simulate a police team searching for a gunman

San Diego State simulate a police team searching for a gunman

Los Angeles schools will have police visiting all schools in the city district daily to assure parents that their children are safe. The program is the result of the Newtown, Conn. Shooting.

What madness is this? Like a “Twilight Zone” story we fear a handful of people who threaten our children and families with death just because of the second amendment to the constitution. Even the conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia has said that reasonable gun regulations are legal. The death rate from homicides in the United States is over 3 people per 100,000 residents. That same number is .5 in Canada and England had 35 homicides in 2011. Neither of those countries has seen dictators take control of their governments. Our obsession with fire arms is horrifying.

Is it safe to reside in this country when you fear going to church, to school, or the shopping mall? Is my only course being armed wherever I go?