Tully: Bury the Confederate flag, but what about guns?
A fellow by the name of Matthew Tully writes for the IndyStar and he complains therein that, even though hes fairly jubilant that the Confederate flag has received the attention that it has in recent days, but he’s rightfully more worried about guns. Probably because that ritarded fellow in South Carolina didn’t kill anyone with a flag.
What was largely missing from the session, of course, was a serious debate about the violence that has hurt so many communities and neighborhoods across Indiana. It’s a debate that even many politicians who support gun control seem to avoid out of resignation, or out of fear about the consequences of even daring to raise the topic.
Here’s another admission: I honestly don’t know what laws or policies would truly make cities like Indianapolis less prone to gun violence. I understand the arguments made by gun supporters — that cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., have been rocked for years by gun violence despite local laws aimed at controlling guns. It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the culture of gun violence that is so prevalent in so many places changes significantly because of a law or two.
I get it. There’s not an easy solution. And, yes, the right to bear arms is here to stay, and public support for that makes finding workable solution difficult. This is tough.
But can’t we at least talk about it?
Yes, please, let us have a discussion about gun control much like the discussion of the Confederate flag in recent days. The “discussion” that Tully and the folks on the left wants to have is nothing more than them telling the rest of us how we should feel about guns and if we don’t then we’re developmentally disabled, or racist or sexist or homophobic or some other manufactured slur that would make them feel bad about themselves if the term was used to describe them.
Tully admits that he has no idea what new regulations would have prevented the shooting in Charleston, but he thinks that we should do something. Something rational, like taking down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds.
Tully blames the NRA for the lack of discussion on gun control – the NRA represents millions of gun owners. Mostly, our only voice. But, as far as a discussion that Tully wants, that is not forthcoming from the Left – they want to dictate to gun owners what we should do to surrender our rights to their feelings. I’ve been here for years hoping to have a discussion about guns – something that would actually reduce gun violence, but the only thing I get are stank-ass hippies who try to gun-shame me and my readers.
Yeah. Let’s have a discussion about gun control, how to actually reduce needless gun violence in the country. Someone tell me what new regulations would do that – something that wouldn’t only affect legal gun owners. Something that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. But if it turns into a discussion similar to the discussion about the Confederate flag, forget it.
Category: Guns
Jonn – you hit the nail on the head in regards to “the discussion” that the Left wants. They won’t be happy until all guns are banned – and we’ve seen how well it “works” in places like Chicago and D.C.
Tully and his ilk don’t want a “discussion”. A “discussion” implies they’re willing to listen.
Instead, what they want is a dictat regarding the matter – one they issue, and one that bans private ownership of firearms, 2nd Amendment be damned.
Bingo. This has become the tiresome new cliché in pop culture.
“We need to have a conversation…” “There needs to be a discussion…” “we need an honest conversation…” are all simply Orwellian Newspeak for “YOU need to shut up and let me harangue you, and then I expect you to nod meekly and agree!”
WORD.
WORD WORD.
Well, considering that a city with the some of the strictest gun laws imaginable – Chicago – can’t get rid of gun violence, and violent crime, period, my response is that Mr. Tully needs to extricate his head from his own posterior orifice and spend some time in the real world.
If a neighborhood like Engledwood, the most violent neighborhood in Chicago, can have a 4th of July weekend without one shot being fired because people were out of their houses patrolling the neighborhood, what does that say?
Yeah, it says that putting a stop to the violent behavior is up to US, not politicians and NOT more laws which are completely ignored by criminals.
No, no, no. You just don’t get it. There are 3 Preachers and 2 “moms” who are suing several neighboring suburbs of Chicago, because they say those municipalities aren’t as restrictive on gun shops as Chicago is, so it’s their fault!
I am not kidding?
http://news.yahoo.com/groups-sue-chicago-suburbs-more-gun-control-223712328.html
Even Father Dumbass is getting into the fray:
http://abc7chicago.com/news/father-pfleger-to-sue-3-chicago-suburbs-over-gun-sales-/832369/
Hopefully these idiots get the same result that the “Brady bunch” did when they tried the same thing recently in their “Lucky Gunner” frivolous lawsuit.
Perhaps they should have gun laws like Germany’s… where today near Ansbach a drive-by shooter killed two. (sarcasm – but the story is true)
Wow, really? Ansbach? I was stationed there from 87-89 with 1AD HQ. Seemed like a quiet little Bavarian city to me, hard to imagine a shooting there.
Yes, Ansbach.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-shooting-live-several-dead-and-suspect-on-the-run-after-driveby-shooting-in-ansbach-10380133.html
But you see, passing more laws and jumping up and down and yelling make them feel good (whatever that means) and takes the responsibility for watching their own neighborhoods and stopping bad things OFF OF THEM.
I have a perfectly reasonable solution to gun violence, but our current political and social climate is not able to accept it. It goes like this: if someone commits a crime with a gun, ANY CRIME, they get a fair trial. If they are convicted, they get one appeal. If they lose on appeal, the day of the denial, they are executed. And the whole process should be confined to a period of not more than one year. THEY. ARE. DONE. Next case. The fact that they brought deadly force to a crime makes them eligible for the death penalty. Make it EXTREMELY PAINFUL to commit gun crime. It won’t fix it entirely, but it will definitely help.
I think the proposal might need a bit of work, PN.
Violating a town’s noise ordinances because of target shooting at a safe range during prohibited hours (hypothetically speaking, say between the hours of 10PM and 6AM) would technically qualify as “committing a crime with a gun”. But I hardly think it merits capital punishment. Ditto hunting out of season.
Make it “kills, injures, or threatens someone with a firearm during the commission of a crime” and I might agree. I’d have to think it through some before giving you a final answer, though.
I notice that you decided I was wrong before you asked me why I suggested what I did, so I will leave the ‘discussion’ where it sits — but think on it a little. The idea might grow on you.
Think Hondo nailed it… I’m pretty sure jaywalking or disposing of a spray can in a manner not specifically prescribed by the EPA are not normally capital offenses. Under your suggestion they could be.
I think PN was referring to crimes where use of a firearm was an integral part of the crime, David. So jaywalking while carrying would presumably not be covered – though perhaps target shooting using spray cans as targets in contravention of local laws requiring them to be disposed in a different manner would be. But I’ll let her explain that to us if she cares to do so.
I have no problem with adding additional penalties where a deadly weapon of any type is involved in attempt to threaten, hurt, or kill someone – and that includes knives, steel pipes, etc . . . , as well as guns. But going so far as to make poaching game or wildcat target shooting (or an unlawful but accidental/negligent discharge that doesn’t result in injury or death and which was truly not intentional) seems to me to be throwing common sense out the window.
And even without going that far, I’d have to think that one through in detail before signing up to a blanket “use a gun in a crime and you die” law. On the surface, that seems OK. But I can’t escape the nagging feeling that there’s something I’m missing that makes it not such a good idea.
Actually I was more concerned with the law of unintended consequences… in this case that a simple error in phrasing could potentially lead to fatal consequences due to that poor phrasing. I know what she means to say, but cited literally what was written – and laws are written all the time with poor phrasing. Note the recent NY SAFE act, in which the lawmakers literally made almost all police handgun magazines illegal and had to amend the law. “That’s not what we meant to do” is not an uncommon phrase among legislatures.
Please enlighten me. I’d love to hear someone give me a rationale for making hunting out of season a capital crime. Or unlawful target shooting that is unlawful merely because it violates a noise ordinance, not because it threatens anyone’s life or health.
Hunting out of season is called “poaching.” Poachers are dangerous to humans as well as animals. My own father was threatened when he exposed local poachers. Some people, particularly park rangers, don’t get off as lightly.
http://www.iucn.org/?17196/Rising-murder-toll-of-park-rangers-calls-for-tougher-laws
‘Unlawful shooting’? Those two words together immediately indicate criminal activity. There is a reason there are prohibited hours on ranges, and I’m not sure what you meant by a ‘safe’ range, but very few civilian ranges are set up with the proper equipment and lanes to allow for ‘safe’ night-time shooting. And if someone is on a range to work with night vision gear, they’re either there legitimately — and have made arrangements to use the range for that training — or they are doing something they KNOW they’re not supposed to BE doing, and there is danger in a situation like that from the start.
And one other thing, to do with your comment on the noise ordinance. Give me one example of an area where you can SHOOT legally, but you’d break a noise ordinance law by doing so.
In many communities, most discharges of a firearm for purposes other than legitimate self-defense or while at a shooting range constitutes “unlawful discharge of a firearm”. Dropping a loaded pistol or rifle may be stupid, and shouldn’t happen – but IMO it shouldn’t be a capital crime unless it kills someone (and even then, most jurisdictions don’t apply capital punishment for negligent homicide). Your proposal would make it exactly that, regardless of whether anyone was hurt. Time-of-day noise restrictions exist; San Diego has one for at least construction noise, and has general sound restriction ordinances as well. I believe some other locations may have time-of-day restrictions for general noise levels also. Shooting would violate such an ordinance when time-of-day noise restrictions were in effect even if shooting was otherwise lawful during other time frames. So a person living on the edge of town whose watch happened to be 5 min slow and who took his last otherwise-lawful shot at a target 1 min after the “witching hour” had occurred would under your proposal technically have committed a capital crime. Ignorance of the law is in general not an excuse; neither is violating it unknowingly. Indoor ranges are perfectly capable of being operated 24/7 safely. However, if a locale has a strict enough time-of-day noise ordnances, it may be unlawful to operate them after a given time at night. While doing so can be made illegal, it’s IMO ludicrous to make doing so a capital crime. Also, see the immediately preceding comment about erroneous clocks. Let’s say we have a a 13 y/o kid who finds dad’s locked shotgun (trigger lock) and knows where his dad keeps his spare keys, gets the gun and a single shell, and shoots the gun into the ground in his back yard goofing around to impress some buddies. In many places, that kid has just committed crime (unlawful discharge of firearm and/or violation of local noise ordinances). Do you really want that to be a capital crime? And before you say the parent is at fault – how many kids know where their parents keep… Read more »
So far the reaction from the general public is to purchase guns at record levels.
http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/886825-nics-indicates-record-gun-sales-for-june-2015/#axzz3fVPsjJfh
I am not an advocate of Constitutional Carry Laws. Crimes committed with guns by people who have a Permit to carry one are even less frequent than crimes committed by LEO’s. Giving the general population a nod to carry a weapon in public will only result in more crime. The number of first time felons with a gun will surge.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned comment, having a population that is capable of defending itself with deadly force is an effective deterrent to violent crime. IF, that population is adequately trained in the use and responsible ownership of firearms.
Keeping a gun in the drawer next to your bed all the time only puts you at risk of being shot with it by an intruder who is in the home when you get there. Or, they simply take it with them during the robbery. Too many guns find their way into the hands of violent criminals because they are taken from so called ‘responsible gun owners’.
Leaving a weapon unsecured in your home or vehicle should have consequences if it is taken and used in a crime.
While I agree with parts of your analysis, Dave, I wonder if you could clarify something for me: Where are the statistics to back up the tired old excuse of “being shot by an intruder who takes your gun away”. I have yet to find anyone, that uses that excuse, with any data to back it up. I believe it is more hyperbole, and less data backed fact, used to scare people that don’t know better.
This sounds like a variation of the she-asked-for-it-by-wearing-that-sexy-dress theme. Making victims bear responsibility for their victimization is quite trendy. If I leave my house unlocked and it is burglarized, it’s my fault. If I leave gas in the shed and it’s used to burn my house down, it’s my fault. If I leave my car unlocked, it’s my fault when it’s stolen. And if someone steals a firearm of mine, by robbery or burglary, it’s my fault if it’s used to commit a crime. All bullshit. There is behavior that comports with and violates commonsense and there is behavior that comports with and violates statute. Know what happens when commonsense is legislated?
How many layers of protection are you seeking? You forget – to get to those guns, the burglars are already breaking into a locked residence, right? With the value of most guns, they are already committing a felony – how much of THEIR crimes do you intend to hold everyone else responsible for? Sorry, my friend, you need to do better than that. When your house is locked, you have a reasonable expectation that no one should enter without your permission – in any country in the world.
You also have a reasonable expectation that if someone does break into your house the will take your weapons and use them to commit other crimes.
Gun owners that are responsible should not need to be required to secure their weapons. Problem is most dont.
There are many sources, I was tempted to use one from PBS just for effect.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fshbopc0510pr.cfm
I think we all agree that we shouldn’t have to lock our house. We dont live in La La land. If we want to talk about what can be done to reduce gun violence then we need to discuss how to reduce the number of guns available to violent criminals.
They get a lot of them from law abiding citizens that have them. The proliferation of handguns in high crime, low income, areas comes from stolen guns.
Yes, I think that if you own weapons and make no effort of due diligence to secure them you should be held accountable.
If I possess dangerous chemicals I am required to secure them from theft. Simply locking the gate is not adequate.
The term “Responsible Gun Owners” gets thrown around a bit much. There is nothing responsible about a gun owner that takes no extra measure to secure their weapons.
Have you NEVER heard of neighborhood watches?
If it’s all about guns stolen from their rightful owners, then how come the majority of guns recovered from crime scenes are actually traced to and coming from Sinaloa and other drug cartels?
And if it’s all about the guns, stolen or otherwise, then tell me how come one of Chicago’s most notoriously violent south side neighborhoods – ENGLEWOOD – had a completely peaceful July 4th WEEKEND with not one shot being fired. How come? And meanwhile, why were there 22 violent crimes, mostly gun-related, in other neighborhoods that same weekend? How come, Hardin?
I’ll ask you again, Hardin, because you have limited perception; HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH?
That’s why Englewood WAS peaceful on a holiday weekend and other south
side neighborhoods were NOT.
You really do NOT know what you’re talking about.
“Let’s have a discussion about gun control, how to actually reduce needless gun violence in the country. Someone tell me what new regulations would do that – something that wouldn’t only affect legal gun owners. Something that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
Your answer to that discussion is having a neighborhood watch. Ok, I have nothing against neighborhood watches. Do we require every neighborhood to have one? How do we encourage communities without one to start one?
If any discussion about reducing gun violence can not include measures concerning those with guns it becomes somewhat one sided.
I can not believe you are suggesting that the 232,400 firearms stolen each year should not be part of that discussion. Remember, those are only the ones reported stolen.
If we as gun owners can not take a searching and fearless inventory of our own responsibilities in the matter what hope is there to expect the same from the anti-gun crowd?
Neighborhood watches probably do reduce crime. So will being a responsible gun owner. I believe the two topics are mutually exclusive. Neither replaces the other. They could however augment one another.
Maybe its the GED or my 2 digit ASVAB but I am not sure what it is that I do not know. If I know nothing of something how could I talk about that which I do not know exists. Its all so confusing. Unless, I am talking without my own knowledge in which case I am not responsible for anything the unconscious part of me is talking about.
Stop trying to seduce me with your aggression, a good sandwich will do the trick.
Sammich? You can’t handle a real sammich!
Whereas I would say by locking your house up when you are not there you have taken the same precautions as reasonable people take to secure their high value electronics, pets, jewelry, etc. You cannot and legally are not accountable for what someone else does illegally. I do happen to own a safe, but the idea that I need to unload and secure every weapon every time I leave the house in case someone who is already committing a felony may find it strikes me as the same sort of gun-control ‘only blame the law-abiding gun-owner’ gibberish the Brady campaign spews. At least PintoNag is only attempting to target the criminals, not the law-abiding.
Dave Hardin…..keeping a weapon even in a drawer beside the bed at night would require more time and effort to solve the problemn of an unwanted intruder. On top of the night stand, sitting immediately next to the alarm clock, the only possible ending to such an event would (and WILL if ever happens) be DRT for the late night visitor. No time for any delays, be it only one second to open a drawer and reach in. Maybe I’m lazy or paranoid, but at least my wife and I are alive today and pretty much guaranteed to remain alive tomorrow….as opposed to being assaulted tonight while sleeping.
I agree, mine in loaded and ready for use……when I am in the house. I own more than one weapon. There is always more than one loaded and ready in the house……when I am there.
If the gun is still loaded and laying next to the bed when you are not there, well that is where I take issue.
Ok, I get what you were talking about in your original post. I misinterpreted it to mean that people that are armed are likely to get their gun taken away from them by the bad guy and used against them, as the anti-gunners like to claim.
My bad. Carry on.
I agree with your position.
Me, personally; I follow the same practice that you do.
Sorry, I missed your post. I got distracted by some EX-PH who keeps flirting with me.
I see what you mean about my post. I could have made that point better.
Got to go, evidently I have to make my own sandwich.
Do I look like Betty Crocker to you? Make your own damn sammich!
Why bother with the nighstand drawer? Sleep with your gun under your pillow!
“Leaving a weapon unsecured in your home or vehicle should have consequences if it is taken and used in a crime.”
If my doors are locked my possessions are not unsecured. Anyone breaking in is committing a crime. If my gun has to be left in my car, then the doors are locked and breaking into my car is a crime. But let’s take it one step further. If my gun is in my car it’s because I was not allowed to carry it onto the premises by a business or government agency. So should those who disallow my right to carry have to face the consequences also? After all, they are at least partly responsible.
I live in Indy, and one of the main reasons I quit subscribing to the Indy Star was this butt nugget. He is a total dipshit, and hopefully one of the “misunderstood” folks that he is always talking about will carjack his ass and beat him with no mercy
Look up the story in the WaPo about the man who was recently murdered on the Metro here.
He had spoken out about the need to address “gun violence” and “racism” in America.
He was stabbed 30~40 times by a black man.
I can’t add anything better than what Jonn wrote. Thank you Sir.
“If we want to talk about what can be done to reduce gun violence then we need to discuss how to reduce the number of guns available to violent criminals.”
Yes, that’s what I keep hearing, but maybe that’s the wrong approach. Although it is true that there is a first time for the bad guy to commit a violent crime, there are myriad instances in which criminals who receive favorable plea bargains and wrist-slap sentences or are paroles because they did what they were supposed to do in the joint, are enabled to pursue violent crime again and again and again. Guns, to state the obvious, are inanimate objects. It is the people wielding the gun that we need to target. PN, in her comment above, took it to the extreme but there are many steps that can be taken to ensure that opportunities to re-offend with guns are minimized. The problem is that this doesn’t advance what I perceive to be the true, and largely unstated, goal of the gun grabbers: to rid us of private possession of firearms.
Criminal behavior, and violent crimes, too, do not require the use of a gun as was pointed out in Poetrooper’s article about illegals – dammit, WETBACKS – committing violent crimes with vehicles.
It is NOT the instrument that commits the crime. It is the user. When dumbfucking shits like this Tully and those moronic quasimodos from LalaLand get attacked by someone, it won’t be with a gun. It will be with rotten tomatoes.
Neighborhood tomato watch? Stop making fun of people with humps. If it weren’t for the wetbacks we wouldn’t have any tomato’s planted to watch.
Miss you too sweetheart.
Thanks. I needed that.
Well, Ex-PH2, the problem is the leftist/commie/anti-gun types never look past their nose, which is prominently sticking up in the air. If they would look at the yearly statistics, they would find that bats (not of the football variety, those are special), hammers, and knives outpace guns in deaths by at least 2:1, yet it is only guns that they want severely restricted or outright banned. When it has minimal effect, then they will want to do as Great Britain does and start restricting knives. As with the recent feeding frenzy on the left, with other things they find offensive, it will never be enough and it will never stop.
See, the whole problem is ol’ Pluto in Capricorn.
Pluto keeps all the nasty secret crap we didn’t know about, which is now coming into the open with these idiots, so that we can see what they’re REALLY like, what they’ve REALLY been hiding. Put Pluto in Capricorn and you have a whole period of time in which the rights of other people (us) are not recognized or respected by people in authority. It’s all about THEM, not US, the People of the USA.
My view of what idiots like Tully are doing now is that the REAL nastiness has been hidden for so long that it had plenty of time to fester until, like a boil that needed lancing, it finally surfaces and is beginning to leak.
And none of you want that on you, do you? No, I didn’t think so.
They howl, weep, stamp their little feet on camera, shake their fists, and shout ‘make another law’, ‘tear down that flag’, when there are plenty of effective laws already in place, and a whole lot of stuff that needs to be revoked because it is twaddle, and none of them object to burning the American flag.
At some point, this pus-laden bunch of skanks will reach a breaking point and explode.
I think that point is approaching. Wait and see. Just make sure you have a good distance between them and you.
To paraphrase Princess Leia Hairbuns: the more they tighten their grip, the more people dislike them and slip through their fingers.
Make sure you stock up on popcorn, pizza, ham sammiches and liquid refreshments.
I hope you’re right Ex-PH2, but will there be a backlash against those thin-skinned wet-noodle-spined lunatics, something that will drive them back into their Mommas’ basements for good?
OK, look at the protests by pro-USA peeps last summer over the wetbacks and look at the reactions to the recent abrasive but very effective stuff (the truth) that The Donald is saying. It really started early in the spring of 2013, when The Sequestration resulted in Defiance in so many places.
The libertards are so desperate for votes that they will do and say whatever it takes to get them, including lie their asses off and pander to the lowest common denominator. That kind of festering sore has been growing since Slick Willie’s admin. It is finally coming to a head, and the real ugliness of the libertards is about to pop open.
I’m just hoping that shrillary’s F/U over Benghazi is brought up in a debate and she can’t find a way to wiggle out of it. That would be a classic. She can’t be trusted and I am as tired of the blatant lying and deception as you and everyone else are.
You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg on this clown. I’ve seen him rant many times before about guns