Calls for gun control stir little support | General Headlines | Comcast:
WASHINGTON — Gun control advocates sputter at their own impotence. The National Rifle Association is politically ascendant. And Barack Obama's White House pledges to safeguard the Second Amendment in its first official response to the deaths of at least 12 people in a mass shooting at a new Batman movie screening in suburban Denver.
Once, every highly publicized outbreak of gun violence produced strong calls from Democrats and a few Republicans for tougher controls on firearms.
Now those pleas are muted, a political paradox that's grown more pronounced in an era scarred by Columbine, Virginia Tech, the wounding of a congresswoman and now the shootings in a suburban movie theater where carnage is expected on-screen only.
"We don't want sympathy. We want action," Dan Gross, president of the Brady campaign said Friday as President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney mourned the dead.
There's a lot of sympathy for the victims, both those who were shot ... ... and those who were witnesses.
But there are voices being raised saying that the shootings in Aurora are less an argument for gun CONTROL than for gun OWNERSHIP ... and Concealed Carry.
For example:
On April 22, 2012, convicted felon Kiarron Parker, just released from jail, entered the parking lot of an Aurora, Colorado church and shot and killed one of the members of the congregation before being killed himself by a member carrying concealed. Parker had been convicted for assaulting two police officers, breaking and entering and drug abuse.Many of us have been saying for years that most mass shootings occur in locations where firearms are not allowed .... starting with the 1991 massacre at the Luby Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas.
However, it is the Aurora shooting no one heard about, because there was a different outcome.
In the past 20+ years, American states have dramatically liberated their citizens to defend themselves .... by permitting concealed carry. But the killings go on, in theaters, in schools, in churches, in shopping malls. "Gun Control Advocates" (a polite term for "Gun Grabbers") continue searching for a :"dialogue" (a polite term for "we want YOU to concede your rights, unilaterally, so we can feel good about ourselves) and the center of their argument continues to be:
Why would you want to carry a gun in a:
- theater
- school
- church
- shopping mall
Apparently, "those people" aren't reading the same news reports.
Oh, yeah. But Kevin Baker reads them. Especially those about Gun Control & Fearless Frank.
