Tag Archives: NRA

medical news, national news, political news

Senate approves surgeon general … finally!

For the first time in I don’t know how long, the United States has a top doctor.

He is Vivek Murthy, who today was approved by the U.S. Senate to become the nation’s next surgeon general.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-approves-obama-pick-for-surgeon-general/ar-BBgQAMd

Despite his sparkling medical credentials and the work he has done to combat HIV/AIDS, senators had held up his nomination because he has spoken out against gun violence, calling it a public health issue.

Imagine that. A physician wanting to control gun violence because bullets injure and kill people.

His confirmation vote today was 51-43, with Republicans overwhelmingly opposing him because he is no friend of gun-rights advocates. Some Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in opposing Dr. Murthy.

One of them was Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who issued a statement opposing the doctor because, according to Manchin, his political views muddled his medical policy. I understand why Manchin joined other senators in opposing Murthy. It’s because he’s scared of gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association and the potent political power they possess.

That doesn’t make it right.

Vivek Murthy is perfectly qualified to serve as surgeon general. His views on gun control are well-known, but they do not infringe on his ability to help set medical policy or recommend measures to promote good health on behalf of the Obama administration.

Indeed, had their been a surgeon general on board during the recent Ebola mini-scare, there might not have been a need for the president to appoint an “Ebola czar” to coordinate the administration’s response to the disease’s arrival in the United States.

OK, so that task is done. We have a surgeon general. It’s good to know that at least 51 senators had the guts to vote in favor of hiring a chief medical officer to advise the nation on how to take better care of its health.

 

national news

Keep 'em out in the open

Larry Pratt runs an organization called Gun Owners of America.

His policy on guns makes the National Rifle Association seem almost mainstream and reasonable.

Media Matters, a left-wing media watchdog organization, now wonders why the media keep giving this guy air time and space in mainstream newspapers to spew what it calls “extremist views.”

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/14/heres-how-gun-extremist-larry-pratt-gets-on-tv/201556

I think I can answer that one. It’s called freedom of speech.

Let me stipulate that I oppose Pratt’s views with every fiber of my being. Media Matters takes its opposition a step further, accusing him of making anti-Semitic statements and espousing “insurrection” against the government.

Well, we have laws against “insurrection” talk. They call such rhetoric “sedition,” and it’s dangerous, indeed, to hear such language coming from supposedly responsible American citizens.

I generally tune this guy out. He’s one of those Second Amendment purists who believes any effort to regulate firearms is tantamount to tearing up the U.S. Constitution and throwing it in the trash. It is utter hogwash to believe such a thing.

I met Pratt once, in Beaumont, where he came to talk to my editor and me about gun-owner rights. My editor, who’s since retired, happens to be a gun enthusiast himself and is — or at least was — an NRA member. We differed from time to time on gun policy issues, but since I worked for him, I relented in my view about these matters.

My strong belief in freedom of speech in the First Amendment, though, requires that we give this individual the opportunity to speak his mind.

Besides, a friend once offered this piece of wisdom regarding those with ideas that some may consider to be those of crackpots: It’s better to keep them out in the open — in plain sight — than to let them scurry around in the darkness.

Let the bozos speak.

 

national news, political news

Yes, guns do kill people

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A 9-year-old Arizona girl has become the poster child for gun-safety reform.

This isn’t a pretty story and it speaks to adult stupidity and carelessness as much as it does to anything else.

The girl was firing an Uzi automatic assault rifle on a firing range when it the instructor told her to pull the trigger  to fire a several-round burst. The recoil of the Uzi pulled the weapon upward and the instructor was shot in the head. He later died.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/27/opinion/robbins-why-was-child-firing-uzi/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

And so here we are debating whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is so damn sacred that it prevents government from enacting laws that keep these weapons out of the hands of little children.

What on God’s planet Earth have we come to?

The debate is going rage on. Should we make such laws? Absolutely, we should.

Mel Robbins, a firearms expert, writes for CNN.com about the tragedy. She notes that the incident isn’t really the little girl’s fault. The instructor was standing in the wrong place. What’s more, the instructor told the girl to put the weapon in fully automatic mode.

What happened to the man is tragic beyond measure.

But what in the world are we doing allowing little children to handle these kinds of deadly weapons in the first place, even in what’s supposed to be a “controlled environment”?

As Robbins notes in her CNN.com essay: “Kids can’t drive until they’re 16, vote, chew tobacco or smoke until they’re 18, or drink until they’re 21. No child should have access to firing a fully automatic weapon until the age of 18. And gun ranges should know better than to hand one to a novice shooter passing through on vacation, let alone one as young as 9.”

The National Rifle Association so far has been quiet on this incident. Don’t expect the nation’s premier gun-owner rights group to remain silent. The NRA brass can be expected to come up with some kind of rationale for preventing the enactment of laws that keep guns out of little children’s hands.

In the process, the NRA very well could demonstrate — yet again — how out of touch with American public opinion it has become.

 

 

Uncategorized

Sandy Hook didn't stop anything

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Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t that mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., supposed to be the Mother of All Wakeup Calls to end gun violence in America?

Weren’t we supposed to have been shaken to our core, energized in an unprecedented way to seek an end to this madness?

I thought so, too.

Silly me.

Check out the map here and ask yourself: Why has this violence continued?

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/10/5797306/map-school-shooting-sandy-hook

Seventy-four.

That’s the number of school shootings that have occurred since Sandy Hook, where 20 first-graders and six teachers were killed by that single madman, who then shot himself to death.

The latest incident occurred near my hometown of Portland, Ore., where a 15-year-old Reynolds High School student walked into a locker room and killed a 14-year-old freshman instantly with a single bullet. The shooter then took his own life.

We’re outraged yet again. President Obama said after the Portland tragedy that “we’re the only industrialized nation” where this kind of violence occurs with such regularity.

I don’t have the answer. Nor do I know where to find it.

The Second Amendment says we have the right to keep and bear arms. I don’t believe it says everyone in America — regardless of their mental condition — has the same rights to a firearm as most of the rest of us.

There must be a way to prevent them from putting their hands on deadly weapons — and putting our children at such horrifying risk.

Uncategorized

Gun violence erupts yet again

The nation mourns another tragic loss of life because of gun violence.

This incident hits me hard. I grieve for the family and friends of Emilio Hoffman, the freshman student at Reynolds High School in suburban Portland, Ore.

As of this moment, I am grieving for the community that I know quite well.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/emilio-hoffman-14-identified-victim-oregon-school-shooting-n127861

I grew up just a few miles west of where the shooting occurred. I attended Parkrose High School, which essentially is the next school district over from the Reynolds district. This one scares the daylights out of me.

Enough of that, however.

The more important issue is going to center on the gun culture and whether that culture is overwhelming the majority opinion of Americans who insist that government do more to require stricter background checks on those who seek to possess guns.

That gun culture also is arguing that the way to curb gun violence is to put more guns in the hands of, say, public school educators. National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre said (in)famously that the best defense against “bad guys with guns is to put more guns in the hands of good guys.”

Emilio is dead, as is the shooter, who hasn’t yet been identified.

The gun culture is going to dig in, of course, against those who want stricter controls. Those who adhere to that culture will assert that current laws are strict enough, that the Constitution forbids any control over firearm possession and that the best way to fight this epidemic of school shootings is to put more guns in the hands of “good guys.”

The latest shooting suggests that laws aren’t strict enough. I suggest also that the Constitution does allow for reasonable restrictions on gun ownership.

To the argument that we put more guns out there in good guys’ hands? No … thank … you.

First things first. Let’s learn about this latest bad guy and how — in all that is holy — he was able to get his hands on a deadly weapon.

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Time for some more apologies?

The columnist Larry Elder has posed a fascinating — and quite appropriate — notion about political apologies.

He notes that Second Amendment firebrand Ted Nugent, the rocker who sort of apologized for calling President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” — was correct in offering up at least that tepid statement of regret. Although the one-time rock star didn’t actually apologize, he’s gotten his share of deserved media criticism over his many remarks about the president of the United States.

Elder then wonders whether it’s now time others on the left to say they’re sorry for the things they’ve said over the years.

He mentions film director Spike Lee — who, like Elder, is an African-American.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/02/27/ted_nugent_apologized_–_when_will_spike_lee_121737.html

Elder ticks off a list of some of Lee’s outrageous statements.

* Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, was right to suggest that the George W. Bush administration deliberately blew up the levees and caused New Orleans to flood in 2005, affecting tens of thousands of African-American residents of that city.

* Someone should shoot National Rifle Association chairman Charlton Heston.

* Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is a “card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan” because he said some kind things about one-time segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond.

You know, Elder is spot on with his analysis of the political climate these days. In fact, I think a whole round of apologies would be in order in an effort to clear the air, let bygones be bygones and perhaps enable all sides to get back to discussing intelligently the pertinent issues of the day.

The tone of these comments — and I’ll include Nugent’s among them — disgrace the right of free speech. Yes, the Constitution gives citizens the right to speak their minds.

With that right, though, ought to come some sense that citizens are contributing constructively to whatever debate we’re having.

Well, Mr. Lee, how about an apology? It’ll be good for your soul. Besides, it might start a cleansing process.

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Stockman’s killin’ me with these fake endorsements

Steve Stockman’s campaign for the U.S. Senate is barely off the ground and already he’s cracking me up.

The latest is that the freshman congressman from the Texas Gulf Coast is touting endorsements that do not exist. He’s never had them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/05/steve-stockman-endorsements_n_4545219.html?ref=topbar

My favorite “endorsement” that Stockman claims comes from the National Rifle Association, which in fact has endorsed incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Stockman’s opponent in this March’s Republican primary.

This clown is amazing.

Another good one is Stockman’s claim that conservative activist — the late Howard Phillips — has backed his candidacy. One problem: Phillip died seven months before Stockman declared his intention to challenge Cornyn.

This is precisely the kind of thing that should sink a goofball such as Stockman.

However …

In this zany political climate, I’m not going to take all of this to the bank just yet. Strange things can and do happen within the Republican Party.

I’ll be holding my breath until we get all the ballots counted on March 4.

When I do draw a breath, I’ll likely be laughing at Steve Stockman’s idiotic pronouncements.