Thursday, January 24, California Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013. Before 10 assault weapons, the Senator delineated some 150 firearms to be prohibited from sale, transfer, import and manufacture for their, ‘dangerous, military-style’ nature. The ban does provide exemptions for thousands of hunting and sporting rifles as well as guns operated manually by bolt, pump, lever and slide-action.

It also provides exemption for weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement.

Senator Feinstein defended her assault on automatic and semi-automatic weapons by invoking the December 14 Elementary School massacre at Sandy Hook. “The future of the nation is at stake,” stated the Senator, magnifying the bill as a package to stop mass-murders by stemming the deadly tide of their weapons of choice.

The same day of Senator Feinstein’s presentation, the conservative Breitbart News reported at least two stories where the assault rifle AR-15 Bushmaster deterred home invasions by its supremacy over concealed arms used by would-be robbers.

The AR-15 was the weapon used by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook to senselessly massacre small school children.

To Senator Feinstein’s credit, her bill does not seem to discriminate between concealed weapons and rifles, targeting at least 30 automatic pistols. Indeed, Senator Feinstein’s 2013 Assault Weapons Ban prohibits magazines carrying more than 10 bullets, hoping to belittle the god-complex of dangerous sociopaths that enjoy dealing death at random.

However, what will an assault weapons ban really accomplish? Besides further stigmatizing guns and those that use them, it reframes usage as a criminal activity rather than an American right.

Chicago, for example, boasts some of the strictest gun laws and saw record gun-related homicides this year upwards of 500.

Famously, Major Rudy Giuliani combated the New York crime wave by placing more guns on the street by prioritizing policing and the NYPD. He went on to be voted the second most popular Major in the history of New York.

Senator Feinstein’s home state of California faces precinct closures and record gun sales as citizens seek to comfort their nerves by replacing an active police force with a paranoid home defense. Interestingly enough, cash strapped California continues to pay top dollar to psychiatrists, hoping that preventative medicine might cope with the scourge of criminalism.

But tax funded million dollar salaries to penitentiary psychiatrists and preventative gun bans cannot hope to replace the heart and soul of a humble and dedicated armed police force facing a large armed citizenry sending gun sales nation-wide to record heights.

Gun sales rose in 48 out of 50 states in 2012, and the December statistics for background checks rose in every single state of the Union. Last December, sales numbers tell the story of a scared constituency; the top 5 states recorded 60% growth in the wake of Sandy Hook.

As the country mourned, Massachusetts alone saw a 36% rise in gun permits. Shop keepers noted that women increasingly purchase guns, accounting for a third of customers now where once they were seldom seen.

The FBI also noted the rising popularity of guns post Sandy Hook by reporting 39% rise in background checks to set a new monthly record.

Directly following the Sandy Hood tragedy, the Pew Research Center for People and Press conducted a poll where still only half the polled believed the gun control superseded the American right to bear arms.

Pew did note the 65% of respondents believed that assault weapon ownership made the nation more dangerous – not safer. The typical concealed pistol, however, now, by and large, classifies as assault due to its automatic capabilities.

So while the liberal media played shock journalism and pointed fingers at conservatives during the Presidential decree to join the residents and victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in grief, the nation continued to arm itself.

David Gregory, in a December 23 broadcast of ‘Meet the Press,’ illegally brandished an automatic magazine banned from the District of Columbia to shock his viewership into appeasing liberals who wish to criminalize guns and their culture.

Ironically, as police investigated his brazen behavior, the President of the United States paid a surprise visit to boost ratings of the flagging show and talk about his take of the Fiscal Cliff talks.

Perhaps there is a cognitive dissonance in the media.

President Obama himself, in a pre-taped discussion with Barbara Walters on ‘Nightline’, December 26, joked that he ran for President so that his daughters could hang out with ‘men with guns.’ Both the President and Chicago Major Rahm Emanuel send their children to schools with an armed guard.

And yet the liberal media cries foul when the NRA concluded its Sandy Hook silence to propose a Federal mandate to arm all schools such that the misbegotten can not so hideously waltz into institutions of learning and commit murder.

So Thurday, January 3, the Sandy Hook Elementary School reopened under armed guard. A concerned police presence identified grown-ups and insured the students that they went to the most secure school in America.

Marlboro, New Jersey followed similar protocols, posting an armed and uniformed officer at each of the eight elementary schools and middle schools.

Since 2007, the Harrods, Texas school board has allowed for teachers to carry concealed weapons to ensure a minimal level of protection in the face of a stringent budget that does not provide for an armed guard.

Spokespeople for Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnestota, South Dakota and Oregon have all stated that they will consider similar methods.

Indeed, the Fontana, California school district just bought 14 AR-15s to police itself.

President Clinton, in 2000, on the one year anniversary of the ignominious Columbine School shooting, announced $120 million in federal grants to promote his ‘COPS in Schools,’ program.

Certainly it is too soon for the rabid liberal media to admit that good-guys with guns stop bad-guys with guns.

Perhaps we will have to witness the Democratic machine stall in a contested political atmosphere before the sober minded remind the nation of the now bi-partisan wish to dedicate as much fire-power in the protection of our school children as we do to foreign wars.

Image Courtesy :  paljoakim

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Firearms have always been a part of this country’s existence. Without them, the United States of America might not exist at all. They are a tool that has been used throughout history in order for people to protect themselves and the things that they own. But there are days like this past Friday, when 26 people, 20 of which were children, were killed in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which shine light on a gun control debate that has been going on in the United States almost as long as firearms have been in existence.

Sadly, incidents such as the one that happened in Connecticut are far too common in our country. From the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007 to the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, we have seen plenty of incidents when the wrong people get their hands on firearms and use them to commit terrible crimes. But should we be worried about our state laws that allow these types of weapons to be purchased with ease? Or should we be working on a way to get those who are mentally unstable the help that they need in order to live a happy life?

Rules and regulations on how to obtain a firearm vary from state to state. In the state of New York, a handgun can be purchased by someone who is 21 years of age or older and has a valid registration and license. However, you can be 18 years old and purchase a shotgun or rifle; and neither firearm requires registration or a license in order to be purchased. A background check is performed at the time of purchase in order to make sure there are no outstanding warrants or past crimes which can prevent the person from owning a firearm. New York has the most strict gun control policies in the country.

In states like Alaska and Connecticut, neither shotguns nor rifles require a permit in order to be purchased. Handguns are the only firearm in Connecticut that requires a state permit. Alaska even allows anyone to openly carry a firearm without any form of documentation.

But what about the people that commit these crimes? Of course, background checks are performed, but many of the people that would perform such a terrible act on innocent people were never diagnosed with any mental illnesses. After the deinstitutionalization of mental institutions in the 20th century, many people are not being diagnosed for their problems, and are not receiving the help that they need in order to live a normal life. The transition from government-run mental hospitals to community-based alternatives are also preventing many people from receiving the amount of medical attention that they need.

President Obama has been trying to renew a ban on assault weapons in the United States. And after the massacre in Connecticut, it seems as though we will succeed in removing unnecessary firepower from free distribution. In the end, we need to take a step back and look at our country’s firearm laws to make sure they are as strong as possible for preventing weapons from getting in the hands of the wrong people. We also need to look at those who would do such a terrible thing, and make sure that they are receiving the help they deserve.

Hopefully, in our lifetime, we come to a conclusion that takes unnecessary weaponry off the streets, and also helps those who are in need of proper treatment.

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Valentine’s Day 2012, the National Gun Victims Action Council (NGAC) is launching Brew Not Bullets: Say No To Starbucks…Until Starbucks Says No To Guns, a national boycott of Starbucks and its related products.

NGAC announced today’s calls for the Starbucks boycott on Jan. 23 only after exhaustive efforts to avoid a boycott were rejected All efforts to avoid this boycott  “The boycott will end only when Starbucks rejects the NRA’s Pro-Gun agenda by 1) banning all guns from their stores and 2) committing to be an Aggressive Corporate Advocate for sane gun laws,” says Elliot Fineman, CEO of the National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC).

Starbucks rationale is contained in their official Starbucks response —”In the end, we determined that following local laws is the best approach for us.  Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry, we would be forced to require our partners to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores.”

“As local laws also allow them to ban guns, they expose their real position which has nothing to do with local laws; the fact is that Starbucks supports the NRA’s lethal Pro-Gun Agenda,” says Fineman.

What Does Supporting The NRA’S Lethal Pro-Gun Agenda mean?  It means supporting the man-made epidemic of gun violence we have in the US.  If we had England’s gun laws, which are based on public safety, adjusting for population, we would expect 5 times their 75 gun homicides per year, or 375.

But because U.S. gun laws are based on maximizing sales for the gun industry (not public safety), we have 12,000 gun homicides per year, 17,000 gun suicides and 1,000 accidental gun deaths.  And this is what Starbucks chooses to support. Guns go off accidentally, as one did in Starbucks in January.  The bullet missed a customer’s head by 12 inches with not a word from Starbucks about this; this is acceptable Pro-Gun Agenda risk.

Why doesn’t Starbucks admit they support the NRA’S lethal pro-gun agenda? “While Starbucks has the legal right to allow guns (or not) in their stores (openly carried in 43 states, concealed and carried in 49 states), why do they try to ‘tap dance” asks Fineman,  “Why not be direct and say “As per local laws, we can ban guns or allow them and we have chosen to allow them?”

Because by doing so they betray their claim to be a socially responsible company.  No socially responsible company would ever allow guns like these —one that shoots 13 bullets per second—to be brought into their stores: Types of Guns

“They surely know the threat to safety people carrying guns pose,” says Reverend Jackie Lynn, Executive Director of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.  “Why else would Starbucks ban guns from its corporate headquarters, Starbucks shareholder meetings and have a company policy forbidding employees (partners) from bringing guns to work?”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/souwar/

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