Father of Victim At Sandyhook Massacre Heckled By Pro-Gun Activists and Jon Stewart Gun Control Should Be A No-Brainer and Mathew Chapman " Guns,Guys & Gelding "

The grand purpose of the Constitution is stated in the first sentence. "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States." The Declaration of Independence declares immediately that we should all have the unalienable right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Where is the Justice in twenty children getting shot dead by a mentally ill boy with such easy access to such powerful weapons? How can Liberty thrive when fear is so pervasive? Where is the inalienable right to Happiness for the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of those killed, who will mourn for the rest of their lives? Violence and fear of violence makes Tranquility impossible, perhaps most of all for people so anxious about guns they feel the need to buy guns to protect themselves from guns.


"The next step toward civilization in America should be regarding a peaceful and safe society as a human right, and seeing preventable gun violence as a contravention of that right." Quote from: "Guns, Guys, and Gelding -- How to Stop Men and Boys Shooting People in America" Mathew Chapman at Huffington Post, Jan.30, 2013

Gabrielle Giffords Speaks at Senate Judiciary Hearing on Gun Control

Published on 30 Jan 2013

Former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark E. Kelly, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Today's Topics

* Jon Stewart on Gun control
* Father who's son was murdered at Sandyhook heckled at hearing
* Mathews Chapman guns guys and gelding -pro-gun crazies castration fears and paranoia

Jon Stewart on gun control
Jon Stewart argues that the 2nd amendment was not about individual rights but rather that a state could have a well armed and trained militia and secondly that at that time the guns they were talking about were muskets which are not at all equivalent to an automatic assault weapon.

Stewart also argues that both sides on the issue surely can agree first of all that they are all against mass murders and massacres and so should pass more laws to restrict gun sales and ownership to prevent such instances or at least reduce the carnage.

Stewart also argues that the public allows government to regulate certain consumer products to protect the health and safety of consumers from automobiles to meat processing to passenger airplane maintenance etc.



Wayne La Pierre states unequivocally that the right to bear arms is an inalienable God given right  and so has no real motivation for backing stricter gun laws or enforcing those laws already on the books regarding gun sales and ownership . Those laws contrary to what he and Sheriff Joe Arpaio think are not applied because of the obstructionism of the gun lobby .

But wasn't it the belief of many Americans before the American Civil War that it was a God given right to own slaves and that women were the property of their father and once married were the property of their husband . Do they want to return to in their view simpler and more barbaric times when only a small percentage of Americans had equal civil and human rights.

Well actually many of these people do want to push the clocks back though they often in public especially claim otherwise .

It is because of their actions that few if any back ground checks are made and they are the ones who lobbied for and got gun shows  made exempt from any gun control laws and as for the government or the CDC even doing studies on the matter of  gun related injuries or deaths the gun lobby has made it against the law for the CDC or any other government agency from doing such studies. So when the gun lobby spokespersons claim the ban on assault weapons in the USA had no effect we don't know if that is true though they cite private studies done by those friendly with the gun lobby or even paid by the gun lobby to do studies.  They have made it impossible for the US federal government and appropriate agencies such as ATF to enforce any regulations in a timely manner and with due diligence as we have discussed in previous post  and has been deconstructed and analyzed by Jon Stewart. The ATF has had no real increases in its budget or in its personnel for the last 20 years or so.

Wayne LaPierre Gun Owners Will Not Accept Blame For Acts Of Criminals Senate Gun

Published on 30 Jan 2013

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre Speaks at Senate Gun Hearing -wayne lapierre nra Jan. 30, 2013 video senate hearing wayne lapierre Gun Owners Will Not Accept Blame For Acts Of Criminals'

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And here's another instance of the cold hearted insensitivity of the pro-gun activists as they heckle Neil Heslin who's 6 year old son was murdered in the Sandy Hook Massacre while Heslin was giving testimony to Gun Violence Prevention hearings.

So even as Neil Heslin speaks and is obviously upset and tearing up talking about his deceased son whom he loved these a holes can only think about their own agenda which comes before all else.
And what for us is sadder is that his courage to stand up in public and speak about gun control given Obama's record will be a pointless endeavor . Obama has already conceded too much ground to the pro-gun lobby by stating that he believes in the 2nd amendment as giving individuals the absolute right to own guns. And yet other constitutional lawyers would beg to differ and that the Amendment only applies to a well regulated militia and/or that the terminology is a bit befuddling and does not point to some absolute God given right to own firearms ( as Wayne LaPierre said in video above ) without any substantive regulations  .

" Neil Heslin, Father Of Newtown Victim, Heckled By Pro-Gun Activists " Christina Wilkie at Huffington Post, Jan. 30, 2013

Neil Heslin, the father of a 6-year-old boy who was slain in the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, stoically faced down pro-gun activists last night.

More than 1,000 people attended a hearing before the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Monday to share their views on gun control, USA Today reported. Among them was Heslin, who held a large framed picture of himself and his son Jesse as he urged officials to consider strengthening gun laws in Connecticut.

But as he gave his emotional testimony, pleading with lawmakers to improve mental health options and to ban assault weapons like the one Adam Lanza used to murder his child and 25 other people, his speech was interrupted by dozens of audience members, The Connecticut Post reported.

“I still can't see why any civilian, anybody in this room in fact, needs weapons of that sort. You're not going to use them for hunting, even for home protection," Heslin said.

Pro-gun activists responded by calling out: "Second Amendment!"




In an article at Huffington Post Mathew Chapman argues that those against gun control are suffering from a psychological disorder that is they see being forced to give up their guns as an attack on their masculinity that is fear of castration and paranoia in this case a fear of government and so are unable to be rational in their discussions on gun control. They see any and all gun control laws as a form of government tyranny . Their claims that the more guns the safer society will be is disproved by countries which in fact enforce strict gun control laws. The pro-gun advocates are overwhelmingly men who believe in the use of force and violence.

The pro-gun lobby Chapman says reverts to an infantile mind set by seeing the world in terms of "Good Guys" vs the "Bad Guys" as if we always know with certainty which is which but the distinction is never that clear except after the fact. Of course we can add that George W. Bush and America's compliant media went along with Bush's narrative of Good Guys vs The Bad guys and the Axis of Evil for his narrative framing the Global War on Terror. This narrative of good vs evil in the end led America down a dark path in which it was okay to use whatever means necessary to track down the bad guys from secret renditions to indefinite detention to torture all of which has just made matters worse as America's enemies have grown in number.

While these men claim they want more guns to protect their wives and children the fact is that these guns are quite often used by these men against their wives or children rather than against a burglar or murderer entering their home.

The anti-gun lobby treats the 2nd amendment as if it were sacrosanct and as we have argued before they treat the 2nd amendment as if it were the eleventh commandment handed down by God to Moses and the Israelites. As Chapman argues the US constitution and its amendments must be seen in their historical context . If the Constitution is in fact an unchangeable sacred document equal to a literal inerrant view of the Bible then one could argue that slavery should not have been abolished since slavery was protected by the Constitution and other founding documents and women and blacks and other minorities and people without property would not have been given the right to vote or run for public office.

And as Chapman and others have argued if laws were to be based upon the bible as some religious conservatives argue then all sorts of barbaric laws could be introduced such as capital punishment for adultery, blaspheming, homosexuality , witchcraft, masturbation , stealing and capital punishment for children who disobey their parents. These punishments would have to be carried out according to Old Testament scriptures so no electric chair or gas chamber or lethal injection but rather stoning , whipping, hanging, beheading, maiming ,castrations etc.

Guns, Guys, and Gelding -- How to Stop Men and Boys Shooting People in America Mathew Chapman at Huffington Post , jan. 30, 2013

...most women seem to be either silent, reasonable, or in favor of more gun control. Perhaps they know that a gun in the house raises the likelihood of their getting shot and killed by a factor of 3.4, and that ninety percent of the time their killer will not be a stranger breaking into their house in the dead of night but someone they know. (To be shot by the man of the house holding the gun that was bought to defend the woman of the house from the stranger breaking into the house... talk about irony.)

...The infantile nature of male-gun attachment is confirmed by the language used. The Good Guys should have guns but the Bad Guys should not. "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys"?! Are you kidding me? Why not regress even further and frame it as a battle between Cowboys and Indians. (There's a wonderful argument for the gun -- if you're not Native American.)

...I watch Wayne LaPierre and his ilk, who certainly think of themselves as Good Guys, and with all due respect, I do not see "Good Guys," I see "Unstable Guys." Wayne LaPierre's terror terrifies me. Among the fear-based justifications from people like him... is that the government will get taken over by tyrants and citizens will need guns to remove them. Castration anxiety and clinical paranoia... what a burden it must be.

... I can't imagine an America with no handguns, but I can easily imagine an America with very few, and since when was the possibility of only partial success an excuse for not trying at all? In what other context do you hear people say with a straight face, "Criminals don't obey laws, therefore there's no point in making laws"? Why even bother to go down a path of evidence or comparison or common sense? Point out that strict gun laws demonstrably mean less gun violence when applied across an entire country -- look at England, Japan, Australia -- and, no matter how strong your proof, it's all for nothing because out comes the ultimate trump card: the Second Amendment, holier than the Second Coming even if it kills us.

How ironic that a constitution explicitly designed to be changed is constantly brandished as an argument against change.

...Sandy Hook has made some people wonder, myself included, if gun proliferation and gun violence is perhaps a civil rights issue, its impact so arbitrary and brutal, and so symbolic of everything that is wrong with America, that it challenges any single element of the constitution. As with denying freedom to slaves or the vote to women, modern gun violence is in conflict with the essential spirit of the constitution.

The grand purpose of the Constitution is stated in the first sentence. "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States." The Declaration of Independence declares immediately that we should all have the unalienable right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Where is the Justice in twenty children getting shot dead by a mentally ill boy with such easy access to such powerful weapons? How can Liberty thrive when fear is so pervasive? Where is the inalienable right to Happiness for the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of those killed, who will mourn for the rest of their lives? Violence and fear of violence makes Tranquility impossible, perhaps most of all for people so anxious about guns they feel the need to buy guns to protect themselves from guns.

...The first step in preventing gun violence is to understand it. That the NRA managed to stop government financed scientific study into the roots of gun violence proves their absolute addiction to ignorance as their best defense. (And proves politicians' absolute addiction to campaign contributions no matter what the consequences.) Nothing should be protected from inquiry.

...The next step toward civilization in America should be regarding a peaceful and safe society as a human right, and seeing preventable gun violence as a contravention of that right.

and so it goes,
GORD.