Is there a right answer on gun rights?

Is there a right answer on gun rights?
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
January 12, 2013

If they don't find the real reason there is so much gun violence in this country, there won't be a right answer.

A Dad so worried about security at his child's school, he now faces charges for pretending to be a "shooter" with a gun.

Dad poses as gunman to test school security, gets arrested
By Vignesh Ramachandran
Staff Writer
NBC News

A Texas man is facing third-degree felony charges of making a terroristic threat after he allegedly told elementary school staffers he brought a gun to the building, NBCDFW.com reported.

Officials say Ronald Miller was unarmed Wednesday when he told a school greeter outside Celina Elementary School that he had a gun, according to NBCDFW.com. The town of Celina is just north of Dallas.

The greeter froze in panic when Miller said he was a gunman and his target was inside, Celina Independent School District Superintendent Donny O'Dell told NBCDFW.com. Miller was then able to walk into the school and entered the office.

"He told them that he is a shooter and 'you're dead, and you're dead,'" O'Dell told NBCDFW.com. Never showing a weapon, Miller then reportedly revealed his stunt was a test of school safety and he wanted to talk to the principal.

School staffers knew Miller, who was a father of a student, and police were not called until he left the school, The Dallas Morning News reported. He was arrested Wednesday evening and is being held in lieu of $75,000 bail, the newspaper added.
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A pro-gun group has members believing they will lose their rights to own guns even though the Constitution protects that right.

Gun-rights groups: Our 'backs are against the wall'
By Matthew DeLuca
Staff Writer
NBC News

As lawmakers from Connecticut to California rush to propose new restrictions on firearms and ammunition, state-level gun-rights activists are playing defense for the first time in years, with some saying they face fights they may not win.

“Our backs are against the wall,” said Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun rights group. “We are in for the fight of our lives. I have never seen anything like it.”

In a blog post after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., the CCDL admitted to its members that efforts to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines could succeed, despite their strident opposition.

The CCDL message said that "we simply do not know" whether they would be "successful in our efforts to protect us from bans on certain firearms or magazines."

In New Jersey, 18 new bills have been submitted to the state legislature, including one that would require gun buyers to submit to a psychological evaluation, according to the Star-Ledger.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on legislators to pass the nation’s toughest ban on assault weapons and restrictions on high-capacity magazines.

In California, which already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat, said he intends to introduce a bill requiring gun owners to register annually, and another requiring all guns to be kept in lock boxes when not in use.

In Connecticut, Democratic Sen. Beth Bye wants to limit access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and require that firearms be registered by model and serial number, Reuters reported. Bye also wants to impose a 50 percent sales tax on ammunition and magazines.

In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, received a standing ovation from some state legislators Thursday when he suggested requiring universal background checks on all gun sales.

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As we talk about the reasons behind all the violence, people seem too ready to point to what happened at Fort Hood without ever mentioning the fact that the soldiers on Fort Hood do not walk around with their weapons. That is their home. That is their community. That is where their families live, go to school, shop and where they are supposed to be safe. Had soldiers been armed, many say it wouldn't have happened, but many more think it would have happened because the failure began with a deranged gunman the chain of command did nothing about ahead of time.

The biggest murderers have been linked to mental illness, so we know the mental health professionals have failed along with too many years of mental health cuts in almost every state.

Do the sane gun owners have to be maligned by the press because mentally ill people get their hands on assault weapons? What about mentally ill people who are not a danger to themselves or others?

Congress passed a bill to try to stop veterans from committing suicide when the numbers were going up and the means were guns.

They tried that with the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Bill and we still saw suicides go up with the means of choice being guns. This ended up causing veterans to fear if they were diagnosed with PTSD they would lose their guns.

"Medal of Honor Dakota Meyer wrestled with whether to disclose the suicide attempt, he said, but decided to do so because it shows the realities of war. The close call occurred in September 2010, just days after the first anniversary of the battle in Ganjgal, a small village in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, Meyer said. He had been drinking at a friend’s house in Kentucky, he said, and on the way home pulled his pickup truck over and took from the glove compartment what he thought was a loaded Glock pistol.

“I just remember pulling over, and it was at my buddy’s shop. He had a shop that his dad and him work out of, and I just pulled in the driveway and was like, ‘I just can’t do it anymore,’ you know?” Meyer said. “I said, ‘I’m done. I just can’t take it anymore. That’s it.’”

Meyer pulled the trigger and was shocked when it didn’t go off, he wrote in the book. He suspects someone else unloaded the pistol, but declined to disclose who it was. He subsequently sought treatment for post-traumatic stress and is doing better now, he said."

We know there are many gun owners using guns for protection and as happened in Georgia when a Mom faced off with a home invader she had to act before police arrived. She not only had a gun, she knew how to use it. She hit the criminal 5 times!

What would have happened between the time police were called and arrived to protect her family? It probably wouldn't have ended well.

This is why even non-gun owners understand gun owners. There are many parts of this nation with too much territory for law enforcement to patrol. Even in cities, again, with cutbacks there are fewer police officers to respond to more violence. Some are calling for armed guards in schools but that does not address who will pay for them. They say arm teachers but can a teacher face off with a handgun against a psycho with an assault weapon? What about people in shopping malls and movies? Who protects them?

If congress takes away the right to buy an assault weapon, what about the ones already owned?

Who protects non-gun owners? What is the right answer as VP Joe Biden puts together what he heard from many groups? Members of congress have said that there will not be an assault weapons ban again because it didn't work the first time. Experts have been divided on violent computer games when some point out that these games are played all over the world and other nations have less gun violence, while others say their findings show a connection. Some say it is violence in movies but again experts are divided on that. Why aren't they also divided on mental health? There are mentally ill people all over the world and again, less gun violence even in nations where they have more guns.

Update: This is from The Guardian on world wide gun figures.

The key facts are:
• The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership - and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people
• But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the US is number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people
• Puerto Rico tops the world's table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides - 94.8%. It's followed by Sierra Leone in Africa and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean

There hasn't been anyone proving what the answer is because they don't know what the reason is. If it is a combination of everything, then with other nations experiencing the same issues, why are their figures lower? What is the one thing that makes America different?

Even gun owners can't agree
James Yeager, CEO Who Threatened To 'Start Killing People' Over Gun Control, Backpedals... Sort Of
Posted: 01/11/2013

Coincidentally, Yeager's handgun carry permit was suspended by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security on Friday.

Just one of the many video responses on YouTube