The National Rifle Association (NRA), which gets about three-quarters of its funding from gun manufacturers, opposes all gun laws. They believe any American should be able to own any kind of firearm they want without restrictions. They have even gone so far as to oppose closing the background check loopholes which allow terrorists, criminals, and other dangerous people from buying guns.
The NRA also supports the right of any American to own military-style assault weapons. These assault weapons are the weapon of choice for terrorists (both christian and muslim). The NRA was successful in getting the national ban on those weapons overturned a few years ago -- and now it is easy for any terrorist, criminal, or psychologically-dangerous person to get one.
Some states and communities think this is absurd, since these weapons have no legitimate purpose except to kill human beings -- so they have passed bans on assault weapons themselves. This has infuriated the leaders of the NRA (since it hurts the sales of their major funders), so they picked a case from a Chicago suburb and took it to court -- hoping to get the ban overturned. If successful, they would then use that case to overturn other assault weapon bans.
The NRA failed. They took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court -- and lost. The ban had been upheld by a lower court, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case (leaving the ban intact). This is in line with a previous Supreme Court decision saying the government could constitutionally ban the sale or possession of assault weapons.
This is a good thing, and it is in line with the views of a majority of Americans. A new poll shows that 52% of Americans approve of banning semi-automatic weapons, while only 33% oppose banning them (see chart below). It is time to re-instate a national ban of the sale or possession of military-style assault weapons.
This information is from a new YouGov Poll -- done between December 4th and 9th of a random national sample of 2,000 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.
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Here are some other interesting results on guns from that same poll:
But this ridiculous notion that we must be allowed guns to protect ourselves against the government is still a totally accepted idea. And if you accept it, then guns only for the purpose of killing human beings are perfectly okay. I think we need to start aiming at the ideas that support this absolutist notions of gun rights.
ReplyDeleteBTW: these people who think they are going to defend themselves with guns are nuts. They imagine themselves on Ruby Ridge. If the government wanted, it would just call in an air strike. The "tyranny" folks are delusional.
I find it interesting that the 65 and over crowd leads the way in this area while the 18-45 demographic is where Bernie's strength lies.
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