From Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney:
Ann and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the victims of today’s shooting in Wisconsin. This was a senseless act of violence and a tragedy that should never befall any house of worship
Praying ain’t gettin’ the job done.
WOW Ed what an asshole comment, I am sure this will get me deleted or banned but really you make a tragedy that has only happen 7 hours ago a political statement? Again I repeat what an asshole statement.
“Praying ain’t gettin it done.”
Congratulations. You just made the deranged killer’s point.
What makes you so sure the killer is deranged? Know something we don’t (at this juncture)?
Ed, while I certainly think there’s lots of room to have a discussion about guns/gun control, this doesn’t strike me as the time to make political statements.
And that is what we say everytime we have one of these tragedies. When do we stop the hand wringing and get something done?
Vacuous statements offering prayer to the victims is all too common in these tragic incidents. We will hear “prayers” over and over again from all who comment. Unfortunately prayers are meaningless– nothing fails like prayer. Perhaps because words are so inadequate in expressing our thoughts in a tragedy, people with religion fall back on this pap. If you believe in the power of prayer– pray for God to return the victims to life. Better yet, devote some energy to avert repetition of these horrors.
I can’t help but think (though I await further official examination of the shooter’s background) that less even than gun availability, responsibility for this despicable act, lies squarely with three principle southern WI area right-wing talk radio hate mongering, intolerance preaching bigots, likely prompting seriously deranged people into horrendous personal action, such as this.
They are getting salaries, while using the public airwaves. Who are their sponsors, how are these stations continuing to be able to be licensed broadcasters?
Watch for a doubling down of the hate mongering and then seeing them claim that they are the real victims being persecuted for exercising their right to free hate speech.
Ed H is absolutely correct.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2012 Candidate for President, was arrested for holding a sit-in at the local Fannie Mae office located in Philadelphia, protesting the housing foreclosures occurring throughout our country. She was formally charged with “defiant trespassing”. So do we now have tyranny in our country when individuals peacefully exercise free speech? Is your presidential candidate doing anything to help correct the root of the causes to so much misery in our country? Won’t happen with a D or an R.
Yeah, I won’t hold my breath waiting for President Obama to take a principled stand on anything if it doesn’t benefit him politically.
Just 2 days ago, Romney refused to condemn Michelle Bachmann for her anti-Muslim smears, saying ““I’m not going to tell other people what things to talk about.”
What Mittens said today was fine, Obama’s comment was equally lame and PC. But what Romney DIDN’T say 2 days ago screams volumes, and his campaign continues to sound the dog whistles that I have little doubt helped to take this shooter in Oak Creek over the edge. To politicans like Romney, all’s fair if it gets them a few more votes, and the hell with the consequences.
Dear Mr. President:
Standing My Ground.
Conscience allows no other recourse than desperate pleading for you to stand your ground. Insist the Democratic Party platform include a ban on the sale of all firearms in the United States; all contributions to Democratic candidates and elected Democrats from all gun or gun-affiliated lobbies be returned; and a repeal of the Second Amendment be drafted. Until such time as these requests are granted I will withhold my vote for any and all candidates who run on the Democratic Party ticket.
Written into the Constitution of the United States were limits. One of those limits was the narrowly defined context of the Second Amendment, applicable only within the limits of a citizen militia. The United States hasn’t a militia any longer. We have more than a militia, we have more than a standing army, we have more than colonial watchmen. We have The Army, The Air Force, The Navy, The Marines, The National Guard, A Permanent Police Force, The FBI, The CIA, and Homeland Security. We don’t need vigilante weapons; we don’t want vigilante weapons; we do not need citizens armed with the potential to commit intentional homicide, and we can spare not one more living soul defending a subverted right that threatens public safety.
Nowhere is there any historical evidence to suggest that the Framers of the Constitution intended the right to bear arms to pertain to hunting or individual self-defense. These were provisions included with specificity in the Vermont and Pennsylvania Declarations of Rights, but these justifications are found nowhere in the nation’s Constitution. Decontextualized from the sphere of a militia, the right to bear arms is inapplicable to any context. The Second Amendment was included to ensure the federal government had no authority to disarm any state’s citizen militia. Gun ownership in the 21st century does not apply to any citizen militia.
The Supreme Court’s 2008 decision to sever gun ownership from its rightful and intended context allows no option for the citizenry of the United States of America other than repeal of the Second Amendment. I hope you will examine, if you have not done so already, the dissenting opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens in District of Columbia vs. Heller. In it he renders the rightful interpretation of the amendment for nowhere in the final text of the Constitution, in the drafts, nor in the arguments put forth by its proponents is there any indication nor even suggestion of reasoning by common-rights law to bear arms.
The Second Amendment, therefore, must be repealed. I can no longer stand silent as this nation weeps and grieves every day of every year because every day our lives are being taken by guns. You and the Democratic Party may choose gun lobby monies or you may choose my vote. I’m standing my ground.
Correction. This was intended for the Open Comment to President Obama.
PJ if there is a ban on sales of guns in the United States is it your belief that gun violence will end in this country?
JWayne,
I don’t believe gun violence would end entirely, no. Those who are determined to purchase guns will always find a way. I do believe it would make a sizable dent in our current level of gun related deaths – which include accidental death and suicide. The bottom line, to me, is the primary cause for gun ownership included in the Constitution was to ensure national security, and the nature of that debate was contextually situated between the wisdom of a standing army versus state militias. That debate is no longer relevant. We do have a standing army and then some.
And that’s obviously the fear that keeps you going, eh? Allow me to provide my own anecdotal evidence. I have never carried a gun on my person anywhere. I have walked the streets of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, and countless others without ever once been the victim of a random act of violence to my person.
That was an anecdote. Of course there is violence on our streets. But plain clear statistics will support my anecdote when they say that the chances of being “easy pickings” are quite remote. Several fractions of one percent remote. Just like voter fraud, come to think of it.
But when did a little something like the facts ever keep the NRA from pounding the drums relentlessly to drive mortal terror into their acolytes that nothing short of the Browning M2 .50 cal machine gun is adequate protection from the great unwashed beating down our doors and stealing our babies? Hey, anything that’s good for business, right?
I posit the following hypothetical question: How many innocent people would die from crime if there were no guns compared to now?
Yet you seem to be a big supporter of the candlelight vigils?
How does that get any more or less accomplished than prayers? I’d suspect there’s a whole lot of praying going on at those as well.
For some people, such things help. Certainly not for everyone.
I tend to be an anti-kneejerker as well. Sometimes I think I’d like to see a waiting period on any legislation that is a reaction to major events. If waiting until tempers or emotions cool would risk passage of legislation, then it probably shouldn’t be passed in the first place.
A big supporter? I’ve gone to exactly one in my life. And yes they pray there.
But I agree that knee jerk reactions aren’t appropriate, but I never advocated that either. I was suggesting that there needs to be some action instead of lip service…we all know this will be forgotten in a month or until another similar tragedy occurs. And we all know that there is be no discussion about any kind of ‘arms’ control until after November at minimum or after January if there is a regime change in Washington.