"I will not ban your booze."

[Tim01]

" I will not take your wine, beer, or lager. I am only making one small change. I am not going to take your liquor, I am just ending new production of liquor."

Would anybody NOT see that as a form of prohibition? Alcohol isn't even protected by the constitution.

That is the same thinking President Obama says he intends to apply to guns.

[Adsos Letter]

1. What about ammunition...would production of that end also?

[Tim01]

5. He filled out a questionaire a while back

http://www.sportsmenforobama.org/content/view/14/27/

2003 Independent Voters of Illinois – Independent Precinct Organization Questionnaire.

c. ammunition for handguns and assault weapons?


I would support banning the sale of ammunition for assault weapons and limiting the sale of ammunition for handguns.

[stillcool]

8. Recycling from the primaries?

that's a dead horse. Not only was that survey filled out by someone who worked in his office...this is 2009!

[safeinOhio]

14. That was then, this is now

THE TRUTH:
Barack Obama has stated unequivocally that law-abiding Americans have the right to purchase, own, transport, and use guns responsibly, including for the purpose of protecting their families. So this line of attack is particularly scurrilous, as it uses terrifying imagery and outright lies to attack Obama.

The TV ad dubiously cites a vote Obama took in the Illinois State Senate in 2004, in which he voted against a measure that created a loophole for people caught in violation of local gun registration laws—a bill that had nothing to do with whether or not a person was legally justified in using a firearm to protect their home or family. Obama voted to maintain a small provision of state law that ensured that those who fail to properly register dangerous weapons face the usual legal penalty. It is a piece of state legislative minutia that is almost too obscure and inconsequential to mention, let alone distort.

But the truth is rarely a hindrance to desperate groups dealing in smears and scare tactics.
The NRA’s lies are transparent, so much so that North Carolina’s Citizen-Times gave the ads an “F” for twisting Obama’s position “almost out of whole cloth,” and many other news outlets have wholeheartedly condemned the ad campaign as well.

Please help make sure that everyone you know understands the truth about Barack Obama’s positions, and the lies they’re being sold by the NRA.

Credits:
FactCheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/nra_targets_oba...

[aikoaiko]

30. Fact check was as biased as the NRA on this issue. the truth was in the middle.

[MrModerate]

2. Excuse me, but is it your opinion that we don't have enough guns . . .

to last us for the next 500 years?

[imdjh]

15. No, it's my opinion that it's a constitutional right. n/t

[tularetom]

3. Well you saw how well that worked for prohibition

Obama is smart enough to know he can't prohibit the production of firearms. Only some dipshit authoritarian like boosh would imagine he could do that. And if he did there would immediately arise a black market in guns and ammunition that nobody could ever control.

So, no. Enjoy your guns and quit being so terrified that somebody will try to take them from you. Because if they ever decide they want them they'll get 'em. Even if they have to pry them from your cold dead hand. See they have more guns than you.

I've been hearing for years how the government was going to seize my guns and guess what. I have more guns now than I did then. Obama doesn't give a rats ass about my guns. Or yours.

[rwheeler31]

4. The arms dealers will simply take

your money to enhance fear, you won't get booze or guns.

[sandnsea]

6. Ending production of moonshine

and alcohol production methods that have a higher tendency to kill people.

We did that. And made it illegal for minors to possess, and made it illegal to use in certain situations and quantities. Some counties made it illegal altogether, some states still have very tightly controlled sales mechanisms.

We regulate all of our civil rights. There's no reason there can't be restrictions on gun sales and ownership.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

9. We've done all those things with guns.

[villager]

7. "13 Killed in Mass Beer-ing at Workplace"

n/t

[X_Digger]

10. 1400 killed last month in DUIs n/t

[Tim01]

11. Twice as many killed by alcohol every year.

And alcohol isn't good for anything but getting drunk. It is a legal drug the government collects taxes on. Nothing more. A dangerous drug at that.
You should be twice as outraged about alcohol.

[villager]

12. 2006 alcohol related car crash deaths: 13,000 Gun related deaths: 30,000

Oops! You've done it again!

[Tim01]

16. Not just cars. 100,000 alcohol related

alcohol deaths per year

drinking and driving causes over 25,ooo deaths a year. overall 100,000 deaths occur each year due to the effects of alcohol.Correction: According to the NHTSA web site (nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/RNotes/2006/810686.pdf), there were 43,443 alcohol related traffic fatalities in 2005 in the USA. As a comparison, AIDS claimed 18,000 lives in 2003.

How can alcohol be blamed for 100,000 deaths each year?

* 5% of all deaths from diseases of the circulatory system are attributed to alcohol.
* 15% of all deaths from diseases of the respiratory system are attributed to alcohol.
* 30% of all deaths from accidents caused by fire and flames are attributed to alcohol.
* 30% of all accidental drownings are attributed to alcohol.
* 30% of all suicides are attributed to alcohol.
* 40% of all deaths due to accidental falls are attributed to alcohol.
* 45% of all deaths in automobile accidents are attributed to alcohol.
* 60% of all homicides are attributed to alcohol.
*

(Sources: NIDA Report, the Scientific American and Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario.) Also see Alcohol Consumption and Mortality, Alcohol poisoning deaths, CDC report,

100,000 deaths. That's more than a statistic. That is 100,000 individuals with faces. 100,000 individuals with lives not fully lived. 100,000 individuals grieved by mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and children. Every year.

[villager]

29. The DUIs are more directly comparable to "violence broadcast by troubled souls on other people"

... and hence the analogy with gun deaths.

You choose to put liquor in your gullet. Or I put it in mine.

If you walk into the shopping mall I'm at, and start firing away, and I'm hit, well -- that's not my choice, is it?

And if you want to look at lives altered, well sure -- we can add the 65,000 gun injuries, too, and come up with about 100,000 lives changed on each side of the equation.

But since alcohol obviously has the potential to be abused, we try to limit that abuse in reasonable, collective ways -- for example, booze over certain proofs can't be sold on the market.

The question might be why you think weapons and ammunition should be less regulated, and more easily available, than alcohol?

[dashrif]

18. Wow

You have suicides in with that to be fair most of the time if you look the drunk is the only one who lives in the crash one can argue it is suicide to drive drunk

[FudaFuda]

25. Handgun homicide rate in 1993 almost double that of 2004.

And handguns account for 75% of all firearm homicides.


Oh and by the way, in 2005 there were 10,100 homicides by firearm in the USA. The 30,000 you cite is a gun control lobby statistic. You're including suicide, accident, and everything else. Accidents do happen, but they are negligible in number per capita compared to 100 years ago. On the other hand, suicide by firearm is very popular here, and in Switzerland too, because guns provide a fairly certain method of offing oneself. Way over 15,000 of your 30,000 is suicide. I have no problem with that, in fact I think its a rather good thing for people to have a definite means of suicide. If I were 88 years old and had terminal anal cancer, I'd be pretty grateful to Smith&Wesson for their product.


Anyway, point is, the spree killing shit over the last month was bad. Really bad. But in the big picture, compared to the late 80's and early 90's, homicide is WAAAAAAY down in this country.

Look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States



Also, your number of alcohol related auto deaths for 2006 may be correct, but in 2005 the death toll was 16,885. It's usually up there around 17,000 most years.

[spag68]

13. bans

Bans of any form rarely work, in fact, none that I can think of. I pay some attention to what politicians say, and I never heard anything like that from Obama. My question is why are you and many others interested in posting or believing this crap. I myself grew up in Western Pa. with guns for everyone. My family shot animals for food, that included our pigs as well as 6 or 7 deer a year. In fact we planted a special little patch of corn with a salt like 100 yards from the back porch, to make it easier and less messy. This gun crap is only a distraction to divide regular people and keep them from uniting to oppose the real criminals, who have lately got more exposure then ever before. All you gun nuts out there, and I mean that in the same way that I am a gear head nut, should study some labor history sometime. These tactics to keep us fighting each other have been going on for a long time, it's nothing new. Please try to understand that if the so called jack booted thugs come for you, your guns will do you no good. They have bigger guns and better ways to get any one of us. I have to believe some of the gun people have not thought this thing through, or you would realize that discourser like on a site like this is just what they want. I've found this place to be on of the few that tolerates many different opinions While keeping within the parameters of Democratic progressive thought. Still if you must have guns, at least explain to me the value of using an AK 47 or any automatic, weapon. Most of my friends that hunt mostly use bow and arrow, to give the critters a small chance. How can it be a sport with the scopes today that allow you to site from 1/4 mile away in the dead of night? I admit I'm older and don't hunt myself, but no one has been able to explain to me the value of killing machines available without much trouble. Why are you afraid to at least allow back round checks, so lunatics at least have to scramble to illegally obtain these weapons. As I've stated before, if a real shooting revolution comes, your puny weapons will just get you killed faster. Lastly don't give that only the criminals will have the guns crap. It's getting old and so useless as a logical way of debating that it needs some updating. Try to find a new straw man, this on is on fire and soon to go out. Keep your guns and have all the fun with them you want, I could care less, but don't insult my intelligence with arguments that belong on freeper pages, not here. PS I don't drink and consider alcohol a greater evil then any other drug, and still wouldn't want to ban it.

[safeinOhio]

17. Obama sounds like a Federalist to me.

Posted November 25, 2007 9:43 AM
by John McCormick

HARLAN, Iowa -- From his days of campaigning in Downstate Illinois, Sen. Barack Obama has been asked plenty of times about his views on gun ownership.

But the Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate added a new wrinkle Saturday night while campaigning in conservative-leaning western Iowa, when he said his Chicago-native wife, Michelle, recently commented that she could see why rural folks might want to own guns.

Here was Obama's discussion of gun ownership and his wife's thoughts during a campaign stop at a middle school:

"We should be able to combine respect for those traditions with our concern for kids who are being shot down. This is a classic example of us just applying some common sense, just being reasonable, right? And reasonable would say that lawful gun owners – I respect the Second Amendment. I think lawful gun owners should be able to hunt, be sportsmen, protect their families.

"And by the way, Michelle, my wife, she was traveling up, I think, in eastern Iowa, she was driving through this nice, beautiful area, going through all this farmland and hills and rivers and she said 'Boy, it's really pretty up here,' but she said, 'But you know, I can see why if I was living out here, I'd want a gun. Because, you know, 911 is going to take some time before somebody responds. You know what I mean? You know, it's like five miles between every house.'

"So the point is, though, we should be able to do that, and we should be able to enforce laws that keep guns off the streets in inner cities because some unscrupulous gun dealer is, you know, letting somebody load up a van with a bunch of cheap handguns or sawed-off shotguns and dumping them and selling them for a profit in the streets."

[Hello_Kitty]

21. Makes sense.

A blanket rule on firearms across the whole country is ridiculously impractical.

[SteveM]

34. Michelle O is really a charm, I like her. But her gun rustics are a little off...

While I could certainly see her logic about the slowness of 9ll responses in rural areas, and agree with her view, her outlook in the big city is mistaken. 911 may be able to respond faster, but rarely are LEOs able to react fast enough to stop a break-in, home invasion, street mugging, etc. In cities, the law-abiding citizen would be advised to own a firearm for self-protection in the home (and for the qualified, on the person) because of the great number of people (and concomitant number of criminals) and the greater chance of crime.

She is correct in wishing to enforce laws that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

[Tim01]

19. What is the acceptable number of dead people?

I always hear the reason to ban guns is to save people. Guns are useful tools and they are protected by the constitution.

Alcohol is good for nothing but getting drunk, and it is not protected by the constitution. It is a government taxed drug.

What is the number of people that is acceptable so that other people can get drunk?

[Hello_Kitty]

20. Uh, you are aware that liquor laws vary greatly across the country?

There are some counties where you can only buy beer and wine, and some where you can't buy alcohol at all. Some counties forbid the sale of alcohol on Sundays or after 12pm. In most places in this country there is some limit on the purchase of alcohol, and this is statutorial and not a decision by business owners. For the most part, you cannot buy alcohol in the U.S. under the age of 21. Obviously, most of the examples I cited are local, since alcohol is not protected by the Constitution and subject to regulation by the states. For that reason, it's actually not a very good comparison.

[safeinOhio]

23. Use to be all the wing nuts were Federalist

Now Obama is one of those, you know-Commie, socialist, nazi, Federalist. It is all enough to make the Clear Channel talking heads spin.

[rwheeler31]

22. I would hope the gun advocates would be big picture guys.

It is the sleazy arms dealers that are killing us.

[Caliman73]

24. No, it isn't. That is a "small picture" statement

It is our inability to control our rage, our impulses, our sense of detachment from other human beings, and our desire to control every single aspect of life that are the motivators for violent acting out. Greed, desperation, and fear are also factors in violence. Guns are an easy tool to use to hurt others. If they are ever taken away, something else will replace them unless we address the motivators for violence. THAT is the BIG picture.

[Skittles]

26. gawd, another gun nut

[rl6214]

27. Gawd, another antigun lunatic

[Skittles]

28. WRONG

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG - I am ex-military and a skeet shooter - I simply someone who is REASONABLE

[Tim01]

31. One of our town cops is xe-military and a shooter.

He stood right in the gun store and said he is ready to go door to door confiscating guns when he is given the word, people don't need all those guns.

Go ahead and make your case for "reasonable" gun laws. What new restrictions are you in favor of?

[Skittles]

32. you're fucking paranoid

how are you different than these stupid assholes?

http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/04/far_right_goes_off_the_deep_en.php

[Tim01]

33. I'm not just going to exchange insults with you. Say something rational.

[SteveM]

35. Don't wait up for that eventuality (nt)