Obama says fight for gun laws 'ought to obsess us'

Obama says fight for gun laws 'ought to obsess us' | Political Headlines | Comcast:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Sunday memorialized the victims of the Washington Navy Yard shooting by urging Americans not to give up on a transformation in gun laws that he argued are to blame for an epidemic of violence. "There is nothing inevitable about it — it comes about because of decisions we make or fail to make," Obama said. Reprising his role of the nation's consoler in chief after yet another mass shooting, Obama issued a call to action on gun control measures that failed to pass earlier this year [emphasis added] and show no new momentum in the wake of last week's rampage at a military installation just blocks from the Capitol.

"Our tears are not enough," Obama told thousands gathered to mourn at the Marine Barracks. "Our words and our prayers are not enough. If we really want to honor these 12 men and women, if we really want to be a country where we can go to work and go to school and walk our streets free from senseless violence without so many lives being stolen by a bullet from a gun, then we're going to have to change."

Obama said when such senseless deaths strike in America, "it ought to be a shock to all of us, it ought to obsess us [emphasis added]. It ought to lead to some sort of transformation."
But, Obama said, "nothing happens. Alongside the anguish of these American families, alongside the accumulated outrage so many of us feel, sometimes I fear there is a creeping resignation that these tragedies are just somehow the way it is, that this is somehow the new normal. We cannot accept this. As Americans bound in grief and love, we must insist here today there is nothing normal about innocent men and women being gunned down where they work."
He said no other advanced nation endures the kind of gun violence seen in the United States, and blamed mass shootings in America on laws that fail "to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people."
"What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun," he said. He acknowledged "the politics are difficult," a lesson he learned after failing to get expanded background checks for gun buyers through the Democratic-controlled Senate this spring. Obama had proposed the measure after the shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 20 first-graders and six staff.

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Apologies for the extended quote. I kept reading and couldn't find a place to quit quoting the article.

It is just that all, ALL, of this quote completely ignores the fact that mass shootings are not restricted to American shopping malls, as my last article demonstrates.

In America, we are inflicted by the odd single evil idiot (Jerk?  Ass-hat?) who decides that a crowded public "Gun Free Zone" (school, church, shopping mall .. whatever) is the perfect place to "go out in a blaze of glory".

In other places in this sad world, the evil idiot brings his friends along, too.  It's not individual dementia; it's massive political/social/religious dementia which causes the murder of innocents.

Evil is as Evil does.  We will never get rid of Evil.

Politicians may make fart noises noises about The Evil Gun, but deep inside they know that the mere passage of guns will not change societal ills.  Changing Society ... might.  And they have the power to change society, but not the will.

It's easy to pass laws against Evil.  Everybody does it, and too the same lame effect.  Which is to say, passing laws against guns is ineffective at best.  Chicago knows it, but they still try to legislate against guns instead of gangs:

Chicago Police Chief Calls for Nationwide Assault Weapon and High-Capacity Magazine Ban

On Thursday, 13 people were shot and injured in a park in Chicago. The shootings were carried out by an “assault style rifle” with a high-capacity magazine, both of which are already banned in the city of Chicago. Nevertheless, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy has called for a nationwide ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“Illegal guns drive violence. Military-type weapons, like the one we believe to have been used in this shooting, belong on a battlefield, not on a street or in a corner or in a park.”

Chicago was named the murder capital of the United States by the FBI on Thursday, and has had more homicides this month than several states yearly total for 2011.

 Yes, that's the Same Chicago where Raum Emmanuel went to be elected Mayor .. and even he isn't smart enough to fix the problems!


And ..  the Governor of Illinois isn't smart enough to figure it out, either:

 CBS) – Gov. Pat Quinn says he would consider using state resources to help combat Chicago street violence.
Speaking about this week’s mass shooting in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, Quinn says he’s open to talking with Mayor Emanuel or Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy about supplementing Chicago law enforcement with state police or the Illinois National Guard.
He said he’s had no specific conversations but noted state police are helping patrol in East St. Louis, another city that has its challenges with violent crime

SO:
The MAYOR of Chicago, the CHIEF OF POLICE of Chicago, and the GOVERNOR of Illinois ... have no idea why innocents in Chicago keep getting shot, and they're really nervous because it makes them look bad.

Let's look at this in just a slightly different way:  Chicago has perhaps the most repressive anti-gun laws in the greatest/most free country in the world, and they don't know why their citizens keep getting shot!  Why do they have one of the highest murder rates in the country?

Hmmm .. guns are illegal.  Gangs are illegal.  Gangs have guns.  Honest citizens don't have guns.

Nope. I give up, too.  I can't see any logical connection.

After all, it's illegal to have guns because "y'all might hurt yourself".  The only  people with guns are cops and crooks.   Why are 3-year old children being murdered in Chicago?

Makes no sense to me.

Obama says that the fight for gun laws "ought to obsess us"?

Seems like it does.
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There are a few people who are looking closer at "people control" than at "Gun Control", however:

"Get Homicidal Maniacs Off The Streets"

The nation's mental health system is "in complete breakdown," resulting in not enough of the mentally ill being committed to psychiatric hospitals, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told NBC's "Meet the Press."

"If we leave these homicidal maniacs on the street ... they're going to kill," he said. "They need to be committed is what they need to be. If they are committed, they're not at the Naval Yard."

The question is too complicated for a mere few to force changes in society ... which is much more difficult than passing new Gun Control laws: ....  Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the co-author of a bill to expand background checks to more gun purchasers, acknowledged the bill remains stalled in the Senate. He told CBS he has no intention of renewing his effort to pass the measure in light of the Navy Yard shootings unless he seems movement on the part of the opponents of the bill.

"I'm not going to go out there and just beat the drum for the sake of beating the drum," he said. "There has to be people willing to move off the position they've taken, and they've got to come to that conclusion themselves."

Makes no sense to me.