Let’s start here, with an opinion piece by former Tennessee governors Bill Haslem (R) and Phil Bredesen (D)
We’re a Democrat and a Republican. Here’s how both parties can start on gun reform – together.
We’re two former Tennessee governors, we both served eight years, one of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican. We have different views on various issues, and we’re friends (snip)
We’ve both come to deeply respect the wisdom and common sense that Senator Baker embodied. One thing he often told people was that whenever you have two sides that are hopelessly divided, the trick is to find something, even a little thing, that you can agree on, and then build from there.
We could start with “red flag” laws — a way to identify people with potentially dangerous mental health issues and a legal process to remove their access to firearms. That might have been effective in the shooting we just had; the shooter was under treatment for mental health issues and yet still obtained and possessed multiple guns.
Another small step might be making gun owners take more legal responsibility for securing their weapons. Anyone, conservative or liberal, who believes in the value of personal responsibility should be able to agree that it is irresponsible to possess a dangerous weapon and not reasonably secure it from misuse by others.
Here’s are the problems: Democrats want red flag laws to be super intrusive and used to deny people their gun rights for the most minor of things. They want to heavily penalize people if their guns are stolen and not completely secured (and aren’t particularly concerned with the thieves). Even penalize if it’s not secured to the point where it makes a firearm worthless for protection. Oh, and what the Democrats really want is mass bans. They would take those “small steps” agreements and blow by them. Here’s the editorial board of the Sharon, Pa The Herald
EDITORIAL: Semiautomatic rifles belong in a special category
….
“Any rifle, whether it’s a hunting rifle or a military-style rifle, ups the anxiety, ups the danger because of its penetrative capability,” said Jewell. “A rifle bullet travels further, faster and harder than a handgun round.”
Jewell declined to differentiate semiautomatics from other types of rifles — including single-shot, bolt action, lever action and pump action.
But there is an important difference.
Other types of rifles available to the general public, a qualifier that excludes fully automatic weapons, requires shooters to take some sort of action after firing before they can shoot again. Whether that’s reloading in the case of a single-shot weapon or pulling back a bolt or lever or pump, there is a delay between shooting one round and the next.
With a semiautomatic rifle, the shooter fires a round with each trigger pull. No additional steps required.
If semiautomatic rifles compel multiple police officers to stand down rather than engage a single shooter armed with one, then we have to conclude that they are too dangerous for the general public to own and use.
We don’t allow for private ownership of bazookas, machine guns or flamethrowers. Semiautomatic firearms belong in the same category. It’s time to reinstate the ban that existed in this country from 1994 to 2004, when Congress allowed it to expire.
They are not differentiating between the scary looking “assault rifles” and other semi-auto rifles. They want them all banned. They flip here and there and mention AR-15s, but, they really do want a blanket ban. And more
Semiautomatic rifles wouldn’t disappear instantly if they became illegal. But owners who comply with a law would surrender theirs.
The rest would be swept up, by ones and twos and threes, and their owners punished with federal prison sentences. With no new ones entering the market, they would eventually become rare, then non-existent.
That’s right, it would be illegal to own any, no grandfathering, which is a Constitutional violation. The “let’s work together” Republicans just do not get it. Even though Democrats tell them explicitly.
They want total disarmament for everyone except politically connected people, their guards, police and military. They won’t be satisfied with just semi-automatics. They will go after bolt action rifles (those WW1 “weapons of war”) and revolvers (Saturday Night specials). At the same time, they will go after other potentially lethal weapons. Knives, crossbows, and any kind of chemicals that can be used to make propellants. Potato cannons will still be OK, if they have a permit and only use compressed air.
Commenter: They want total disarmament for everyone except politically connected people, their guards, police and military.
That’s the excuse used by gun extremists – the result is dead children.
The is no evidence to support that hysterical ploy.
During the last AR-15 ban, did “THEY” come after other semi-autos, shotguns and pistols? Not that I recall. I would not support any politician that would cancel or gut the 2nd Amendment. Plus, our SCOTUS has ruled that the gov’t can’t take all your guns. It’s in the Constitution.
Man up, lads. Stop being hysterical.
AR-15s (and the .223 round) were designed and built to kill people.
Dear Elwood:
Try reading before typing.
“Commenter: They want total disarmament for everyone except politically connected people, their guards, police and military.
That’s the excuse used by gun extremists – the result is dead children.
The is no evidence to support that hysterical ploy.”
The Guvs aren’t talking about JUST AR-15s.
What the Guvs said: “Semiautomatic rifles wouldn’t disappear instantly if they became illegal. But owners who comply with a law would surrender theirs.
The rest would be swept up, by ones and twos “threes, and their owners punished with federal prison sentences. With no new ones entering the market, they would eventually become rare, then non-existent
Hi James!
Try thinking before you type! Then try understanding.
The commenter claimed the objective is to ban all firearms.
Banning semi-auto rifles does not ban all firearms. It bans semi-auto rifles.
We get it. Conservative men fear the ‘pussification’ of America, and what is more manly than a pretend Army man with an Army gun! Bang! Bang!
When we were kids we had toy M1s and .45s and played Combat! waiting for the krauts to come over the ridge! We had Littlejohn and Caje and Sargeant Saunders.
Now, ‘grown’ men are parading with an AR-15, a scruffy beard and Realtree camo like a peacock displaying his feather! Who knows, you may attract a ‘wo-man’ like Marjorie Taylor Green* (that jawline is from androgens!).
______________________________________________
*Did you see that lying bee-otch on 60 Minutes last night? She denied every ugly comment she had tweeted or commented, blaming them on ‘her staff’. “I didn’t say Parkland was a ‘false flag'”. Yes, you did, Marge Strong-Jaw. Like all MAGAts she also claimed all Democrats are pedophiles.
Well now, we all remember when YOU so manly claimed to have joined the Army “back in ’71 during the Vietnam war, ya’ know.”
Remember that, chubby?
#PedosPervs&Rimjob
Bwaha! Lolgfy
You’re lying, of course.
I volunteered for a war I didn’t believe in.
What did you do during all the wars you supported?
You have no excuses after 2011 when ‘anyone’ was accepted.
Volunteered but didn’t quite serve, hey chubby?
Yeah, we can really believe that.
At the time you were first asked about it you denied that you ever said you um, uh… “volunteered”.
Signing up for the draft was mandated by law but apparently it was a heroic sacrifice in your case.
Still changing your story when you know all of your early responses (as jeffery) are still available here at the Cove.
All one has to do is recheck the comments from you (as jeffery) from Oct. 2015 thru Feb. 2016 to find the proof that you lied then as you’re lying now.
#PedosLiars&Rimjob
#StolenValor
Bwaha! Lolgfy
Obsess much, Rodney?
By all means dredge up the oldies!
Actually it was your comments as jeffery from Oct. 2016 thru Jan. 2017 when you were first caught lying.
#PedosLiars&Jeffery
#StolenValor
Bwaha! Lolgfy
Why would I care what you ‘believe’, Tubby BearCub? LOL.
You believe global warming is a hoax.
You believe Trump won the 2020 election.
You believe all Dems are pedophiles.
You believe blacks, women, LGBTQs, Muslims, Mexicans, etc etc are inferior to white men.
You believe is sending others to fight wars that you support.
You believe in all sorts of things that are untrue.
By all means bring back the oldies, ya big pussy!
Funny when Rimjob gets caught in a lie.
Nobody made him do it.
He just thought he’d get away with it.
Touch a nerve there, chubby?
#PervsPedos&Rimjob
#StolenValor
Bwaha! Lolgf
Add an optional “preferred pronoun” field (call it 6a.) to the current ATF Form 4473. Red flag anyone that uses it as a possible psychotic.
Our esteemed host noted:
The most recent mass shooter could have been reported under a red flag law, if Tennessee had one, for the simple fact that she was crazy: she thought she was a guy. Oh, but wait, the left would never accept the red flag laws being used to take firearms away from people for being transgender, would they?
Nikolas Cruz could have been disallowed from buying and owning weapons, if the Broward County Sheriff’s office had done their f(ornicating) jobs and arrested him during the several times people called the cops on him, or if the Broward County Schol Board wasn’t so concerned about the so-called ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline and turned him over to law enforcement after an in-school assault.
It seems that every time we read about a mass shooter, we read about all of the signs that they were mentally unstable, or criminals previously treated leniently, but nothing was done.
The timorous Tennesseans wrote:
Bovine feces; that’s just plain cowardice! The Uvalde cops stood down for an hour while kids were being slaughtered, but the Nashville cops charged in, at almost full speed, and killed the shooter within 14 minutes of getting the call.
That’s what first responders are supposed to do, run toward the fire, not cower away from it. They all know that could wind up being something that they have to do when they sign up.
There is the interesting side to the liberals, who are so very, very concerned about semi-automatic weapons when several white kids get gunned down in a school shooting, but do not give a f(ornicate) when black kids are getting killed in our major cities every day, because they’re getting killed primarily by other black kids, using handguns, and it is way, way, way politically incorrect to say anything about black people doing anything wrong.
Why do you insist of blatantly lying about what drowningpuppies or any of us believe? This psychotic act seems to be your standard operating procedure. You start with your rambling about knowing what he/we believe and none of it is true. Are you trying to convince us or yourself?
Elwood P. Dowd says:
April 3, 2023 at 5:57 pm
Why would I care what you ‘believe’, Tubby BearCub? LOL.
No we don’t and we’ve explained that a thousand times. Are you just stupid? We believe Man Made Global Warming doled out to scare the shit out of the mindless lefties and little children is a hoax. We are well aware global warming AND global cooling exist in nature.
No we do not. We believe the election was probably stolen because of all the evidence we’ve shown you over the last two years including eyewitness testimony, video tapes and sworn testimony. Plus the very fact you guys refuse to audit and investigate the irregularities. That’s a tacit admission of fraud.
No we don’t. We believe SOME dems are as well as others. We do know that dems support, encourage and celebrate sexual perversion even selling it to five year old children. Oddly, for some reason you deny you support grooming even to the point of denying its very existence.
We are the party that freed the slaves held by democrats. We were the supporters of Lincoln and fought against Jim Crow, the democrat KKK, the doctrine of separate but equal and I could go on and on. But you know all this shit yet insist upon lying and calling us racists, misogynists etc. We believe we are equal under the law . We do not lie and say we are all equal people because people are obviously and provably not equal.
We believe if our nation goes to war we all go. We all do our part. It wasn’t republicans and conservatives who dodged the Vietnam draft or ran to Canada to hide like girls. It was democrats and it was Democrats who started that fucking war! When was the last time you cowards on the left fought and bled for America? Other than when you fought in your civil war insurrection?
So we who approach problems with logic and calm versus you who approach with emotion and whims but we believe all sorts of untruths? But you believe men can become women, have babies, just worship the perve Dillion Mulvaney, believe every BS edict by Fauci the liar and you stand for Truth? LOL, LOL.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?