The Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution—are perhaps the most important guarantee every American citizen has against a centralized federal government. All elected state officials, while being sworn in, are required to take an oath to defend and protect both the U.S. Constitution and the Missouri Constitution.
When the U.S. Constitution was adopted it provided for an increased federal authority; however, the Bill of Rights insured the protection of the basic rights of the citizens. Our founding fathers were very skeptical and even hostile to the over-reaching powers of a federal government. They understood it all too well, having fought a war of independence to free the new nation from the oppression and tyranny of a government that neither understood nor respected the people it was supposed to represent. Today, this concept sounds all too familiar.
Within the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment is the guarantee that all law-abiding American citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. In the past several years, this right has seen increasingly aggressive attacks against it. From the current President of the U.S. to members of Congress and the judiciary, some have worked to make firearms and ammunition more difficult to obtain and have deliberately portrayed law-abiding gun owners as a threat to our country and its safety. They have led state and national efforts to roll back our Second Amendment laws, while seeking to enact new, across-the-board aggressive gun-control laws. The President has sought to use unconstitutional executive order, while some Congressional leaders have pushed for more restrictive gun-control laws and others are spending millions of dollars attacking the peoples’ duly-given constitutional rights. Every time there is a tragic shooting event there is another push to limit or do away with the constitutional rights of all gun owners, not just those of the guilty individuals.
Well over one-third of American citizens are gun owners, and they are fed up with today’s liberal rhetoric. They have been lied to, lied about, and falsely portrayed for the last seven years. Gun owners have been blamed when mad men murder others, they have been blamed for inner-city gang violence, and they have been portrayed as simple-minded and dangerous human beings. Today’s media and gun-banning politicians continue their attack on all law-abiding gun owners on nearly a daily basic. These same politicians have left our southern border wide open for criminal Mexican drug gangs to come in and terrorize our cities and addict and kill our children. They then blame gun owners for the violent acts of others. They claim to be tough on crime but release violent felons at an alarming rate.
Between 2013 and 2015 the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) released into our country nearly 90,000 illegal aliens considered to be criminal threats. A national news report verified that 124 illegal immigrant criminals released from jails since 2010 have been charged with 135 new murders. The same people who are attempting to ban guns have continually lumped suicides in with homicides to create a number substantially higher than actual gun murders. According to data from the Pew Research Center, gun murders have fallen in recent years, but suicides by gun have risen. It seems the desire is to create more sensationalism and urgency within the media to attack law-abiding gun owners. While a suicide is a tragedy that never should be minimized or belittled, it is hardly the fault of any law-abiding gun owner.
This past session the Missouri General Assembly passed and sent to the Governor SB 656, a bill with broad and far-reaching acknowledgement of our rights under the Second Amendment. First of all, if it is signed by the Governor it will put into Missouri law what is known as “Constitutional Carry.” This allows law-abiding Missourians who already have the right to open carry the freedom to conceal carry without having to obtain an additional permit. Constitutional carry gets the government out of the firearms regulation business. Criminals and anyone who is mentally incompetent will still be prohibited from owning and carrying a firearm.
Secondly, SB 656 includes the provision stand your ground. This will change state law to allow individuals to protect themselves and their families when publicly threatened. If a Missourian is under attack or threatened, “it should not be necessary for them to take extraordinary measures to avoid the conflict that they did not initiate.” The stand your ground provision “upholds the principle that our laws protect the innocent over the criminal and the law-abiding over the law-breaker.”
SB 656 is currently awaiting the Governor’s action of either signing it into law, allowing it to become law without his signature, or vetoing it. Many believe he will veto this legislation. If so, most feel the veto can be overridden in September.
11 comments:
Military weaponry has no place on the streets of America. Funny thing, fewer than one person in four can meet the mental or physical requirements to serve in the military and yet, those who fail can still outfit themselves with military grade equipment. I guess it really does take a thirty round weapon to kill a rabbit.
I was not allowed to serve in the military because I was too near sighted to see really distant things, like at the horizon, but that hardly prevents me from adequately defending myself in the range of modern rifles (call that out to 1,000 yards at the most).
And it's for defending ourselves from other people that we believe we need "military grade equipment". But don't worry, the most popular .22LR rifles that are used for rabbit hunting also come under many "assault weapon" laws, seeing as how they're semi-automatics like the Ruger 10/22, and have magazine capacities of 10 or more rounds.
That rifles of all types are only used in 2% of US homicides suggests we don't have a serious problem with them per se. Terrorists, who we'll never keep from procuring weapons of one sort or another, very hard to detect explosives if nothing else, but also rifles and grenades as demonstrated in strictly regulated Belgium and France recently (where they used all three). Heck, the Obama administration was all but giving "military grade equipment" to Mexican cartels, and actually has been giving such to jihadists in Syria who turned out to be the worst of the worst.
I really am at a loss as to which people you all feel the need to defend yourselves from. I suppose there are roving gangs of machete wielding criminals in our neighborhoods that law enforcement cannot or will not shield us from. Or maybe the rabbits will someday fight back.
@ 708
Apparently you've never been chased by the heebie jeebies!
Your lack of imagination is not my problem. If you haven't been reading the various accounts of multiple person home invasions in the 4 states area, some with lethal results, well, that's also not my problem.
Long guns are inherently easier to shoot accurately, and for an Evil Black Rifle you're not as likely to run out of ammo or even require a magazine change before the encounter is over.
As for our local law enforcement, they're the first to tell us that we're almost certainly on our own for the start of such combat, and they really don't like being a clean up crew for slaughtered innocents, they much prefer we handle the situation until they can arrive.
Reiboldt's discussion of gun control is an example of using the Straw Man device in persuasive writing: "The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position."
In framing the efforts to protect us all from an epidemic of gun violence, and from future slaughter by terrorists or the simply deranged, as an attack on "responsible gun owners," he conveniently avoids having to deal with real issues. "Responsible gun owners" are not the targets of gun control advocates. Irresponsible gun owners, however, do deserve attention, especially those who don't secure their weapons. Check out the number of children accidentally shot to death in Missouri and in the nation in the last 18 months.
He also doesn't acknowledge this fact: Nobody has a Constitutional right to own semi-automatic assault rifles, the kind that have brought us Newtown and Orlando and other mass murders. There is no Constitutional right to own them, just as there is no Constitutional right to own machine guns, which are illegal. In a moment of sanity, Congress banned military-grade assault rifles for ten years, and the Constitution didn't crumble. Not renewing the ban was a tragic mistake, which is now obvious.
An overwhelming majority of Americans do recognize the difference between getting these weapons off the streets vs. doing away with the Second Amendment, and they want these guns to go. Reiboldt and politicians like him refuse to acknowledge the difference, choosing instead to pander to the NRA and to those who, for one reason or another, can't see or don't care that these weapons endanger us all, every day.
Here's another fact Reiboldt fails to acknowledge or address: A semi-automatic assault rifle is the terrorist's best friend, and right now there's precious little, if anything, to prevent him from buying one. The head of the NRA said in an interview this weekend that the terrorists "are coming" for us. That is reason enough to get the these weapons, their weapons of choice, off the shelves. Reiboldt needs to stop constructing straw man arguments and start thinking about national security and the ever-increasing body count of dead Americans.
"Responsible gun owners" are not the targets of gun control advocates.
Strange, Hillary wants to shut down the US gun industry by repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and let the lawyers do the dirty work of suing manufacturers, distributors, dealers, ranges, trainers, etc. into financial oblivion. This was a big deal in her campaign against Sanders, who voted for it and supports it.
And look at all the calls to ban all guns, e.g. no further than the journal of American progressivism, the New Republic, in "It’s Time to Ban Guns. Yes, All of Them." Note how the New York Times supports the city law which allows less than 60,000 each of handguns and long guns owner licenses in that city of 8 million. Of course, their owners infamously somehow managed to get these licenses.
Irresponsible gun owners, however, do deserve attention, especially those who don't secure their weapons. Check out the number of children accidentally shot to death in Missouri and in the nation in the last 18 months.
Through age 18, it's around 200 per year, and as the case of the murder ruled a "tragic accident" here in Joplin when a teenaged girl's "friend" picked up a, I grant you, irresponsibly unsecured gun, pointed it at her head, and pulled the trigger, many of these accidents are nothing of the sort.
It's a problem, one we responsible gun owners work hard at with more than a little success, as the number of guns, guns owners, and the total population of the US have roughly increased by 50% since ~1980, while the total number of fatal accidents have decreased by 25%, and per capita a lot more.
I don't know why you bring this up, for a long while 5 gallon buckets were killing more children, except I'll note it's used by gun control activists to force us to "lock up our safety", preventing us from keeping our weapons available when our homes are invaded, something directly addressed in *Heller*, but nullified by the current Supreme Court while Scalia was still alive. And more than a few people have died because of these vile laws, and many more would be if people like you got your way.
Nobody has a Constitutional right to own semi-automatic assault rifles, the kind that have brought us Newtown and Orlando and other mass murders. There is no Constitutional right to own them
The 2nd Amendment doesn't mean much if we aren't allowed to own (versions of) the standard issue rifle our troops are issued. Then again the Supreme Court only holds it to allow us to own guns in our homes in safes, but not to bear them outside. Fortunately the Constitution is the ultimate law of the land, not what 9 robed elders who all went to Harvard or Yale law school say it currently means. (If you disagree, explain the end of last sentence of the 2nd paragraph of Article III, Section 2.)
just as there is no Constitutional right to own machine guns, which are illegal.
200,000 machine guns are legally in US civilian hands, and for a local example, Kathleen Sebelius, then the Democratic Governor of Kansas, signed a bill in 2008 allowing Kansas citizens to own them along with other NFA weapons. I grant you that machine guns manufactured after 1986 cannot be legally sold to US civilians.
If you're wrong about this much stuff, why should we pay attention to anything you say?
Meanwhile, our general reply to people who insist we give up our guns of any sort, including our Evil Black Rifles, is a simple "No." If you don't like that, you're welcome to personally volunteer to confiscate them.
A semi-automatic assault rifle is the terrorist's best friend, and right now there's precious little, if anything, to prevent him from buying one. The head of the NRA said in an interview this weekend that the terrorists "are coming" for us. That is reason enough to get the these weapons, their weapons of choice, off the shelves. Reiboldt needs to stop constructing straw man arguments and start thinking about national security and the ever-increasing body count of dead Americans.
No, around the world explosives are, they result in much higher body counts. Rifles are used here simply because they're so available, as you note, but we would not be happier if serious explosives were substituted. Look how much carnage the Tsarnaev brothers caused with two little pressure cooker pipe bombs.
Meanwhile, 10s of millions of these guns are already in civilian hands, right now, thousands more every day. What do you propose to do about those?
And why do you propose to prevent those who have not already had the foresight and/or means to buy one to be better able to defend themselves, especially from this current threat? There's no way 10 terrorists would be able to hold a US city hostage like they did in Mumbai in 2008, because the citizens, and police who are drawn from their ranks, own way too many effective rifles (NYC is a unique special case as previously noted, but the NYPD has taken notice and outfitted themselves with plenty of AR-15 pattern rifles, and trained their people with them. D.C. too, but it's even more of a special case.)
Meanwhile, here in the US, more than enough voters, who form the true strength of the NRA, will continue to keep politicians like Reiboldt in our legislatures, and there's nothing you can do about that, except move to a state like California where there are strict gun laws limiting these rifles. Except, oops....
It is time to take all the guns save shotguns limited to three shots, hunting rifles and six shot revolvers. All the rest need to be melted down and turned into beer cans.
A few words about the title of Mr. Reiboldt's press release: "Gun owners are not simple-minded and dangerous." To say gun owners ARE simple-minded and dangerous wouldn't be true at all because it would condemn an entire group of people, but to say gun owners ARE NOT simple-minded and dangerous isn't true either, because some of them are. We read about them all the time when their lack of intelligence and lack of judgment make the news.
When it comes to simple-minded and dangerous, I think of the goofballs, on separate occasions, who pulled out their guns on public parking lots and fired off rounds at people they thought were running away after shoplifting. Now THAT is simple-minded AND dangerous, regardless of whether they were shooting at actual shoplifters or not. They seemed to think it was open season on shoplifters at big box stores. Fortunately they didn't hit anybody or anything. Or the guy last week who accidentally discharged his handgun in a firearms safety class (irony), sending a round through the wall, killing an instructor sitting in the next room (tragedy). Or the person "carrying" (Hate the term--I carry a lot of stuff, and nobody created a word just for me.) who dropped a loaded gun in a waiting room (pretty sure it was a doctor's office--irony) and shot someone sitting nearby (horrible, but at least the victim lived). Examples of the worst kind of simple-minded and dangerous are gun owners who accidentally shoot their kids (tragedy), manage to have their kids accidentally shoot each other (tragedy) or manage to have their kids accidentally shoot them (irony).
What worries me the most, though, are the gun owners who absorb conspiracy theories like sponges, can't distinguish facts from propaganda, and can't see any connection between cause and effect. Say anything at all even mildly related to "gun control" and they immediately go somewhere in their minds where ideas go to die, buried under a mountain of talking points. They are dangerous too, just in a different way. They derail serious conversations and reasonable compromise in dealing with what we're dealing with today in regard to guns.
I think it's fair and accurate to say that the vast majority of gun owners are NOT simple-minded and dangerous. I know a lot of them, and they're all smart and responsible people. More proof that the vast majority of gun owners are not simple-minded and dangerous is the fact that most of us, at least, are still alive.
Those of you who advocate taking away my "right" to have a weapon are telling me that you view me as mere chattel to be disposed of as you think fit once you get the chance to do so without being done to as you would do unto me.
So I'll act accordingly. If you have any weapons to protect yourselves and your families when Civil War II cums, then as a liar, a hypocrite, and a traitor you are to be skinned out and your bloodline ended permanently.
Let's not yap about the CONstipation and Bill of Goods protecting anything given that we can't get along. Break up this Mighty Evil Empire cum the end of the 2016 [S]elections, and we will sort it out according to preferences.
You don't want to protect yourself against the coming dark ages, fine. What do you think is going to happen when the corrupt System goes down and over 90 percent of the 7 billion in the world and 200 million out of 320 million are without food or potable water? Maybe those of you who yap "victim disarmament" will be wishing you had one or two of them AR-15s and at least a thousand rounds during the Great Die-Off.
I doubt that Bill Riebolt wrote the above press release, probably a NRA lobbyist. But what of it? How are any of you lying liberal idiots going to take 300 million guns from 100 million white people when you can't even disarm Chicago, where gun laws are strict and carnage runs rampant?
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