Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 12:57PM :
In Reply to: Re: Right to posted by Ugg at IL on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 9:23AM :
I've seen the stats and the murder rates in Boston and Chicago are higher than in cities with more reasonable gun laws. In Seattle, they keep pushing for tighter gun laws, especially after every time somebody gets shot, but nobody mentions that the gun crime rate in Boston where you cannot own a handgun unless you prove that you need it for your job is twice what it is in Seattle. They also never mention that the number one murder weapon is body parts (punching, kicking, strangling, etc), the number two murder weapon is solid objects (knives, axes, tire irons, etc), and guns come in number three on the list of popular ways to murder someone.
Every time they try to pass a CCW law somewhere, the anti-gun people (which as often as not includes the police chiefs and sheriffs) come up with a bunch of stories of how we're going to have wild-west shootouts in the streets, but none of what they predict ever comes to pass.
One more thing before I get off my soapbox. The NRA better start supporting some pro-gun Democrats. They provided huge support for Bush and how did he say thank you? He said he hoped to sign a bill making the AWB permanent! There are pro-gun Democrats out there, and there'd probably be more if they thought they could get some money and votes out of it. As long as the Republicans know they can take the RKBA vote for granted, and the Dems have given up on everyone who doesn't live in a city of at least a million people, the Dems can keep pushing for more gun control (and keeping their urban liberal constituents) and the Repubs can keep whittling away at the RKBA, knowing that we'll still keep electing them because the Dems are worse. Once upon the rural vote belonged to the Democrats. The Dems were the party of the working man, the union man, the farmer, the logger, and the miner. The Repubs were the party of the bankers and railroads and oil companies, none of whom was very popular with people who had to work for a living. That was my grandfather's day, so I don't know how things went wrong, but now the Dems have given on trying to be the party of anyone except urban liberals and the poor, with their platform dictated by northeasterners. I'd sure like to see at least some local Democrats stand up and say, "I will support your RKBA 100%, and I don't care what Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton says." Of course then they'd probably get blackballed by the DNC, and we'd end up with a Republican who supports "sportsmen", but is okay with more background checks, more waiting limits, more complicated rules about how many scary-looking parts a gun can have attached to it, etc. Okay, end of political rant.
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