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When it comes to guns, there are Two Americas

Submitted by Chad on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 2:41pm.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel

To blatantly borrow from John Edwards, when it comes to guns, there are two Americas.

In one America, Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia would feel right at home. Guns are everywhere. Hunting is a nearby experience. I remember living in south central Michigan in the early 1990s in wonder when parents would take their kids out of school for the start of deer hunting season. I also remember the fear of driving the interstate highway at night during deer hunting season. The deer would be flushed out of the woods by the hunters, and the creatures often ended up on or near the highway. I have never seen a deer season where the highways were clear of deer remnants.

This is Ted Nugent's America.

In the other America, Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia would be really scared, especially without the protection they normally receive. In Chicago, we hear stories about kids and adults being killed with guns all the time. I keep hearing about how so many Chicago Public Schools kids were killed this past school year. The news is sadly almost delivered matter of factly, as if it wasn't a big shock.

Those in the first America were thrilled with the 5-4 decision overturning the D.C. handgun ban. Those in the second America were disturbed by the ruling.

We are told in numerous pitches and inflections, especially by the MSM, that we are supposed to understand the rural areas, the working class, the Wal-Mart shopping, recreational hunters.

I confess I do understand them better than most people who live in a big city. I was once assigned to cover a hunting festival. I almost laughed when my boss suggested this. "I don't know anything about hunting," I quipped. "Good," he said. "Then you'll ask good questions."

And he was right. I looked out of place, asked some stupid questions, and was treated really well by the people there. My boss loved the story, said I got some good insight.

So I do understand the first America. But what I really want is for the first America and Antonin Scalia to understand the second America. I want them to comprehend the worst sections of 21st Century Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, and New York. I want them to understand that the rules are different in the big city.

Would Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts accept a rule where if a city has a certain number of people living within it, the city could impose a handgun ban? Probably not, perhaps the first America couldn't accept such a provision.

Us here in the second America, we are Americans, too. And we want the opportunity for reasonable gun laws that apply to our communities, not just yours.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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You DO NOT Understand

Submitted by qdemn7 on Sun, 06/29/2008 - 4:29pm.
Chad, sad to say, you don’t understand the first America. You, like many other advocates of gun control misperceive that the gun ownership is about hunting, it is not. There are 80 million plus gun owners in the US and only 15 million registered hunters. In fact, the number of hunter licenses is dropping yearly. Partially because of loss of habitat, and partially because of the activities of your fellow Progressives animal rights activists. To put it another way, better than 80% of Americans DO NOT HUNT. Hunting is mentioned NOWHERE in the Constitution or BOR. The Second Amendment is not about hunting, or target shooting or gun collecting. It is about having the means to defend oneself, one’s family, one’s home and property, and ultimately the state from crime and violence. This ruling was about permitting people to keep a handgun in the homes in just those worst areas of the country you mention. And increasing the number of handguns in the home will have ZERO impact on crimes committed outside the home unless the person is carrying illegally. It WILL give the option of CHOICE to people, something most Progressives seem to be enamored of unless it comes to guns. Don’t like abortion, don’t have one, don’t like porn, don’t buy / read / watch it, don’t like guns don’t own one. But don’t try to foist your narrow-minded morality down others throats, that’s something Republicans seem to be quite good at... unless you’re a crypto-Conservative. Are you?
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if wepons could be baned

Submitted by reggie whitefish on Sun, 06/29/2008 - 10:09am.
Suppose all guns could be wished away, impossible due to a multitude of skilled metal trade workers, but if it happened would we then be violance free? No, we would revert to our ancestors wepons. And if they could be wished away, then would we be a non violent species? No, all confrontations then would be decided by the strongest fighters. This senerio leaves all women and nearly all men no chance of prevailing in any conflict. This old thinking that might makes right is exactly the reason wepons were invented. God created all men, Samual Colt made them equal.
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"Reasonable guns laws"

Submitted by qdemn7 on Sat, 06/28/2008 - 10:55pm.
Are like reasonable laws on abortion. Or reasonable laws on speech. Or reasonable laws on search. You want to be damn careful on all of them before you find you don't have any rights left at all. To be blunt, gun owners have had to put up with nothing but "reasonable laws" on guns for the last 40 years in urban areas, and those states in the northeast, great lakes and west coast. This is the first time we have been able to assert our rights at the national level, and we are damn well going to ride this horse as far as we can. In other words it's OUR turn, and YOU are going to feel what it's like to have what YOU want dismissed as irrelevant.
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Get over it.

Submitted by bettysdad on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 10:25pm.
I'm probably more left-wing than 99% of the people here. I own guns. And I'm not the only lefty that does. Liberals don't like guns because they don't like the people they believe own them. If you were concerned about people being injured or killed: 100,000 die every year from preventable accidents in hospitals. 100,000 die every year from fatal reactions to prescribed medicines used correctly. 90,000 die every year from medical malpractice. Any particular person has almost zero chance of encountering gun violence. But if you come in contact with the medical industry, there's a reasonable chance you'll have a serious problem. The question lefties have to decide, is what and how much you're willing to give up because of your problem with gun owners? because as long as you keep this an issue, the right will use it as a sledgehammer, and we will never get the real agenda done. Will you give up the environment? Health care? Tax equity? Education? Iraq and Afghanistan? 4th Amendment? 1st Amendment? Choice? The court? I think you get the idea. You can suck it up, and get over it. Or keep shooting yourself in the head every election day. (pun unavoidable) It isn't all that important.
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I was reading the comments...

Submitted by VettaKing on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 9:03pm.
under the Chicago Tribune editorial and it was full of the right wing gun nuts who are completely ignorant of history and language. I'll post what I wrote there as it also applies here. LOL at all the gun nuts and their "understanding" of history and statistics. The 2nd amendment was written to protect individual states from a tyrannical federal government, hence the state militia clause in the sentence. During the days of the founding fathers, the only people who were legally allowed to own guns were land owning white protestant males. I would consider that gun control, wouldn't you? The US murder rate is ridiculously high because the country is awash in guns. Other comparable countries do not have this problem, and you are a lying piece of garbage if you say the US provides more individual freedom than Holland or Scandinavia. I realize guns are helpful for guys with tiny penises. They improve self esteem and make it possible for cowards, who would never be able to do it otherwise, inflict harm on another person. But the guns certainly do not provide any security for a community, but go on and keep saying they do. When the bodies continue to pile up, and the rest of the world continues to become safer, it just makes you look more and more like the idiots that you are.
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What's worse?

Submitted by qdemn7 on Sun, 06/29/2008 - 1:31am.
People who confuse their gun with their sexual organs, or people who want to take other people's sexual organs away?
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cities

Submitted by edpell@bestweb.net on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 8:35pm.
It sounds like the cities need two things, more honest citizens with guns and gun training, preferably open carry and random gun checks. By that I mean you (for example) check everybody waiting on the subway platform for guns and then check if they are legal guns. If not you arrest the criminal. We have random stops at choke points to check car inspection/registration all the time around here (particularly at the bridge). Cities do not need less guns. They need less illegal guns carried by criminals. You just need to enforce the existing laws.
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When, and where, do gun laws work?

Submitted by coyotegrins on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 3:30pm.
Caveat: I'm ALL FOR closing the "gunshow loophole"

But it seems that everywhere, and every time that restrictive or banning gun ownership laws are enacted, there is no drop in crime, or the availability of guns. How can this be construed as "good"?

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