Courtesy of HuffPo:
Guns don't kill people. Gun laws kill people, argued Larry Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America, on Fox News Sunday.
Host Chris Wallace asked Pratt if the complete inability of Congress to pass any gun safety legislation in the year since the Newtown massacre counted as a victory for the gun lobby.
"We're not really going to be able to talk about a victory until we get rid of the laws that prohibit people from having guns to protect themselves in schools and in other places," Pratt said. "Every one of our mass murders in our country has occurred in places where guns were prohibited."
Wallace seemed a bit surprised at the answer, which was delivered after he aired an emotional interview with Carlee Soto, whose older sister Vicki was murdered while shielding her students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, ultimately saving 11 of their lives. Wallace asked Pratt if he was saying that the gun lobby planned to go on offense and press for repeal of laws currently in place.
"That is correct, Chris. The legislation that is on the books is lethal. It is killing people. All of these gun free zones are murder magnets. We've simply got to get rid of them. It's an illusion that somehow we're going to be safer in a particular area because you can't have a gun, because the bad guy is going to have a gun," he said.
If that does not make you sick to your stomach you may not be human.
The canard that if you make owning guns illegal only criminals will have guns is complete and utter bullshit. The fact is that illegal guns are often stolen from gun owners who purchased them legally and then used on innocent people.
Simple math tells you that more guns equals more gun violence, and the idea that increasing the number of guns and making access to them easier, as a deterrent against gun violence is the thinking of a madman.
If the gun owners are basing their fantasies on the wide open spaces, back in the days of the frontier when every man and woman was armed-- they didn't carry those guns into a bar-- and I'm sure that they didn't bring guns into churches. Let's start there, and schools should be next.
ReplyDelete""The second amendment ain't about duck hunting," Larry Pratt began. The crowd of 150 neo-Nazis and self-described Christian patriots laughed. Looking like a slightly rumpled accountant, Pratt, the executive director of the Washington, D.C., organization Gun Owners of America was explaining why everyone should be able to own the military assault weapon of his choice - and form a militia to back up his rights. It was October 1992 [...] Although many of the participants had met before, this gathering was different. This meeting marked the birth of the modern militia movement, a movement that would tie well-armed radicals to gun advocates in a right-wing national network."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.leonardzeskind.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=26
Shame on Chris Wallace and Fox News for inviting Larry Pratt for the Sunday interview to discuss the Newtown slaughter anniversary and gun laws.
"Among the more farfetched theories documented by Right Wing Watch, Pratt has endorsed the idea of a coming race war between whites and African Americans, suggested the Obama administration would use the Affordable Care Act to put gun owners in concentration camps, and that President Obama was stockpiling ammunition to outfit a private army."
ReplyDeletehttp://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/14/fox-news-sunday-to-host-fringe-gun-activist-for/197272
Oh, if only any of that were true....
DeleteLarry Pratt is as insane as Wayne LaPierre.
ReplyDeletehttp://llwproductions.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/le-pierre-mentally-ill.jpg
So many of us live outside of the gun culture that it's very hard to understand where these people are coming from. Guns are simply not a part of many of our lives. Having a gun in my home is as foreign as having a bible.
ReplyDeleteYou know what the NRA will never talk about, is how many gun laws were on the books before President Obama took office, and they never made a stink about those laws
ReplyDeleteExamples:
Since the 1930's, you can't own a fully automatic firing weapon of any kind without a Federal firearms license. Typically, on dealers have that kind of license
Shotguns with short barrels are illegal
You can't own artillery that works and is able to be fired, outside of small cannons.
In most states , you have to have a license to carry a concealed weapon.
You can't own rocket propelled grenades, or any of the hundreds of heavy weapons the military use
When Bush 43 was President there was no huge uproar about gun rights, and sales of firearms and ammo was just moderate.
Now, these racist and ultra right rabidly fanatic types are outraged over any gun laws once a black moderate Democrat gets elected
See any pattern here?
Meanwhile, the NRA and their corporate gun manufacturer masters are taking advantage of the hysteria about a black President to rake in the cash.
DeleteFunny too, some of the same proposed gun restrictions that are making the right wet their pants were supported by the NRA in the not-too-distant past. Of course, that was before the gun manufacturers owned the NRA and they put a lunatic in charge.
Larry Pratt & Fox News, a perfect couple - garbage, seeking its own level.
ReplyDeleteI know this type of gun assclown isn't dealing with facts, and I know for every Pratt out there, there are thousands who think the same way. What I don't understand is why did Wallace give this guy a podium on the anniversary of the mass killings and right after a clip with one of the lives directly and forever effected by gun killings? (FWIW I do know the gun Adam Lanza used (in a no gun zone) was purchased legally, so is Adam's right to bear arms more important than the victim's rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness?
ReplyDeleteThe children and staff at Sandy Hook, Columbine, and Centennial, and all the other lives taken or forever changed by gun violence, are just collateral damage and perfectly acceptable losses according to people like Pratt and LaPierre.
DeleteI don't know how they sleep at night.
Someone needs to ask this idiot to explain Australia's success against mass shootings with increased gun laws and why countries with far stricter gun laws than we have, experience far, far less gun violence. There are no facts on this planet that validate his ignorant point of view.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about "freedom", it's about fear and money.
I'm sorry that you are so misinformed about Austrailia. Multiple reliable sources report that every country saw an increase in gun violence, after removing guns from the citizenry.
DeleteThe FBI reports over 2 Million people effectively stopped a criminal because they had a gun to defend themselves...a YEAR!!! Many were from known rapist, murders, and petty criminals.
It is tragic when kids bring guns to school, in an effort to cause mayhem and worse. Noone argues that point. But MANY more lives are SAVED because of guns. Get the stats from the FBI. I did.
Pratt said. "Every one of our mass murders in our country has occurred in places where guns were prohibited."
ReplyDeleteSorry Mr. Pratt but that statement is incorrect. The Tucson murders took place in a parking lot on a busy corner. Arizona is an open carry state and there are no laws preventing anyone from carrying a firearm in a parking lot. In fact, that day there were several people carrying who deliberately chose not to open fire on the assailant for the obvious reason that there would have likely been further civilian fatalities.
The idea that an armed society is a polite society is pure BS. The fact is that more guns equal more gun violence....period!
Sheesh
Your math is wrong Gryphen. There are more guns than ever in the US and yet gun deaths keep going down. What has gone up is the endless reporting on each gun death, the sensationalizing of them.
ReplyDeleteGuns don't kill people - people kill people
ReplyDeletewith guns
from clear across the room
or even clear across the street
sometimes they don't even MEAN to
but
there was a gun there
so now someone's dead.
The only answer is to make sure everyone has a gun.
Let's start with the legislature.
Let's make sure everyone that enters the House of Representatives and Senate
has a loaded firearm.
That way our Senators and Representatives can feel safe enough to think about how these laws affect real people.
KILL....KILL....KILL....KILL....KILL....KILL....KILL....KILL......
ReplyDeleteTHAT's all these troglodytes dream about... Especially black men that live in their White House... Racists and bigots extraordinaire ......