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Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013 | 2 a.m.
Let’s not get emotional about our guns. After all, they are just a bunch of shiny objects that shoot bullets and other projectiles with only one ultimate purpose — killing. Instead, let’s get emotional about our children. They also have a purpose: to grow up and have happy, productive lives. To do that, they have to live. There is a reason so many Americans have jumped across the line that has been drawn against reasonable restrictions advanced by those who believe the Second Amendment is just one part of our Constitution. And that reason has a name: Sandy Hook Elementary ...
Brian Greenspun is publisher and editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
Thank you Mr. Greenspun - it is easy to understand why the Las Vegas Sun won the Pulitizer Prize.
Very well put, Mr. Greenspun!
This is an emotional issue because emotions are very closely linked to the senseless gun deaths of so many people. There are emotions on each side that are inevitable on both sides; love, sorrow, rage, fear, and the list goes on. We have to recognize and deal with the emotional aspects related to gun violence.
Mr. Greenspun:
Good article and I agree and support most of what you say. BUT, guns are not snakes that bite people. Demonizing and impugning law-abiding Americans who are pro-guns, as this President did, is not the way to reduce gun violence.
CarmineD
As our country crosses yet another crossroad, will lawmakers have the courage and the commonsense needed to make the decisions that Mr. Greenspun suggests?
As a citizen, mother, teacher, and gun owner, I have had to deal with mental health crisises on many levels, both in family and within my profession, that over nearly a half century, I have witnessed the deterioration of our country's mental health system and support of it, that I tend to side on gun ownership because of what I see, my right to protect myself, especially when our infrastructure fails. We all know it does at times.
We all like balance. Most prepared folks want to be just as ready and armed as those "out there".
Clearly, the tragedies our country has seen, has been committed by mentally crazed, disillusioned opportunitists in vulnerable public spaces.
First action should be to deal with mental health. Second action is to deal with securing both public and private spaces. Third, after the above two have been demonstrated effective, is to tweak gun laws. Afterall, the underlying problem is: mental health!!!
Lawmakers also need to get their acts together and insure that they no longer ply any increases in the national debt, which is likened to throwing dirt on our nation and its children, burying us all. Lawmakers need to do their job representing the People.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Mr. Greenspun, what you should have written is "Bullet-riddled bodies of 6-year-old children -- our 6-year-old children who resided in 'suburbia America' -- have a way of moving even the most hard-hearted, callous and uncaring among us."
Where have you and the rest of the commuter belt been all these decades as our children have continuously lost their innocent lives due to gun violence?
I learned in the early 1960's, to yield to the power nucleus of suburbia America. In my opinion they determine who "OUR" real children are that matter.
No one really cared back in the 1960's that a young Afro-American acquaintance of mine who lived in the inner-city was killed by unknown gunfire as he was walking home from a scheduled after-school activity. Not the cops. No real investigation. Not the media. Nothing reported on the local television news or the newspapers. This good-hearted young kid was given a paupers funeral. This was the actual norm for many who lived outside the "sphere of influence" for the coming decades; that is until the Sandy Hook tragedy.
The nerve center of suburbia America was catastrophically hit hard. And now, finally, gun control and the safety of our children are at a national issue. Welcome to the forum, even though in my eyes, all of you in suburbia America are a half-century late. I can't honestly say this in a rewarding way, "better late than never".
I would like someone in authority, like Brian Greenspun, to explain to me, in this public forum, why it has taken so long for mainstream America and our journalists to write the original and variations of, "Our Children Shouldn't Have to Live in a Savage World".
Our children have to live in THIS world, not the world you'd like this to be. Parents need to protect THEIR babes during their formative childhood but also need to gradually include hard reality starting with measured doses but realizing that parents cannot control things forever.
WE must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the law breaker. It's time to restore the precept that each individual is accountable for his actions....
Interesting talking points. To be a card carrying liberal elite requires one to stop thinking and let the White House think for you.
Mr Greenspun yearns for the killing of the children to stop. Yes, always gut the Constitution in order to protect the children. Freedom is not worth the effort.
What about the children lost to Mr Greenspuns favorite program: Social Welfare?? He supports the death of 1000's of children trap in the endless cycle of welfare and food stamps.
The more people on welfare, the fewer people allowed to have a free thought. Therefore, endanger the system that protects his wealth from others who could otherwise have an opportunity at building there own.
That kind of slow, painful death is OK in Mr greenspun's world.
"It is your choice what you choose to read: the Bible or the Constitution."
Shalom Mr Greenspun,
Jesus tells us in Luke 22:36
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
Therefore it is important that we have a gun for protection.My Bible also say's Exodus 21:22-23
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life
Jeremiah 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
So I must ask how we can be so upset with the deaths of 20 young children when we have Murdered 50 million children since 1973 Roe vs Wade, and Mr Obama supports putting a live child in a back room to die that has survived a botched abortion.
I also find it strange that in 1993 Janet Reno is direct violation of Posse Comitatus Act murdered 20 children in Waco TX. where was the outrage then for these 20 innocent children?
As far as the Constitution what part of "shall not be infringed." is not clear. God Bless
"I do not believe in taking away the Right of a citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home".
Ronald Reagan, Feb 6, 1989
"True" on Snopes.
Summary: On 17 January 1989, 24-year-old Patrick Purdy returned to the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, set his car afire with a gasoline-filled beer bottle, then walked to the school playground with a (legally bought) version of an AK-47 assault rifle sprayed the area with an estimated 106 rounds in the span of three minutes, killing five children and wounding thirty others before fatally shooting himself in the head with a pistol.
On 6 February 1989, former president Ronald Reagan attended a 78th birthday celebration at the University of Southern California, where he delivered a 22-minute address that touched on many topics including the recent Cleveland School massacre.
An Associated Press account reported that:
Reagan received extended applause when answering a question about over-the-counter military weapons, such as the AK-47 assault rifle used to gun down five Stockton schoolchildren last month.
"I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense," he said. "But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home."
Imagine: "Reagan received extended applause when answering a question about over-the-counter military weapons..."
Reagan could not become a GOP Presidential candidate today because his liberal views are considered "Unconstitutional" by the majority of conservatives. Even worse, the factual and empathetic memory of the general public seems to be about 9 months in duration while the term "BC" can safely be interpreted to mean "Before Carter".
Just try to find some of today's serious problems untraceable to government actions and inactions inspired by significant political campaign contributors, well meaning or not!
History proves that corruption left unchecked permeates societies like a plague. The corruption created by our disgraceful campaign funding method has been left unchecked too long due to loss of our nation's conscience, reminder of past mistakes and early warning system, fair media.
Never before have so few controlled so much news media nor has their control posed such flagrant conflict of interest. Our citizens today are like other world citizens who must turn to the internet to force change. Some of our Legislators last year made repeated appearances on MSNBC last year urging us to do just that and the networks small audience appeared to overwhelmingly endorse such but the other 99% of media never gave citizens opportunity to hear the words of those Legislators.