It’s hard to think of a position that’s more mainstream than Hoover’s. Universal background checks are supported by 91 percent of Americans and 92 percent of Republicans. One of the only groups that publicly opposes universal background checks are the NRA’s lobbyists.
If Congress succeeds in passing universal background checks and other commonsense gun laws, it will be because it’s not a polarizing issue, but one that’s nearly universally supported.
Transcript below the fold:
HOOVER: We’ve had so many issues over the years, so many killings, and for us just to say we’re not going to do anything is unacceptable, because we’ve been doing nothing up to this point. We’ve been given the right to own and bear arms, but we also need to show that we are responsible in how we deal with the gun issue. We need a framework to say that we need background checks on every individual that buys a gun. If you are a reasonable and responsible gun owner—as I am, and I’ve grown up hunting, shooting, my daughter, I take her out shooting—she’s been taught that with the right comes responsibility. Nobody wants somebody to purchase a firearm that shouldn’t have a firearm. And that includes sales that happen currently on the Internet, and private sales. It’s just responsible. This is not something about [Republican and Democrat], this is about doing what’s responsible and right for our communities and our country. If anybody can be prevented from getting that phone call that I got at 2:37am from my sister, it’s worth it. You gotta stop this.
As the late Molly Ivins said of her native Texas, "… unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don’t." [ht @edbott]
“It’s more than a fart. It’s a cry for help.” [zing] I’ve never seen the word fart used in an editorial — more than once. peace, mjh
Editorial: Pity Rick Perry; his big state has big needs – Editorials – The Sacramento Bee
Check out a state [Texas] that ranks dead last in the percent of its population with high school diplomas. Come check out a state that is last in mental health expenditures and workers’ compensation coverage. Come check out a state that ranks first in the number of executions, first in the number of uninsured, first in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted and first in the amount of toxic chemicals released into water. …
Gov. Jerry Brown, visiting a UPS distribution center Tuesday to celebrate a new fleet of all-electric vehicles, suggested that media hounds find something else to cover than the Perry ads. "It’s not a serious story, guys," the governor told reporters. "It’s not a burp. It’s barely a fart."
Actually, we think it’s more than a fart. It’s a cry for help. Perry can’t create jobs, he can only steal them from other states. …
As the late Molly Ivins said of her native Texas, "It’s a low-tax, low-service state – so shoot us. The only depressing part is that, unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don’t."
Editorial: Pity Rick Perry; his big state has big needs – Editorials – The Sacramento Bee
Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com
Oh, but we don’t know how many thousands of crimes were stopped by people armed with automatic weapons in just the past two months. And England hasn’t dared invade! peace, mjh
Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com
This “serious conversation,” remember, got started on December 14, with a massacre in a quiet little New England town. Since that day, the shooting has not stopped, nor even slowed.
In Miami Gardens on Jan. 17, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed.
In Albuquerque on Jan. 19, a 15-year-old boy allegedly shot his parents and three of his siblings to death.
In Houston on Jan. 22, three people were shot on a community college campus.
In Chicago on Jan. 29, a 15-year-old girl who’d performed at President Obama’s inauguration was shot to death.
And in that same city, six days later, Shirley Chambers buried her last child. Ronnie Chambers, like all three of his siblings before him, was killed by gunfire. How must it feel to have lost all your children to guns? That is not hypothetical. It is one woman’s tragic reality.
Too many deranged or criminal people have access to too much firepower and we are paying the price in carnage and blood. This is the ordinary everyday of American life — and death. That’s what we should be talking about. Not LaPierre’s doomsday scenarios or Trotter’s old movie plots.
They ask us to consider what could happen. Better we consider what does.
Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com
“non-celiac gluten sensitivity” — aka “normal.” Go wheat-free!
Maybe the recent introduction of wheat (in the evolution of humans) and the abrupt modifications to modern wheat in our lifetimes aren’t good for us. Surely the Food Industry and Big Pharma (sometimes the same companies) would tell us. Surely!
“If a person has a choice between eating wheat or not eating wheat,” he said, “then for most people, avoiding wheat would be ideal.” Read the whole article, which largely supports the conclusions of Dr Davis in Wheat Belly without ever mentioning him or his book. Nothing says paradigm-shift like “experts are skeptical.” peace, mjh
Gluten-Free for the Gluten Sensitive – NYTimes.com By KENNETH CHANG
Now medical experts largely agree that there is a condition related to gluten other than celiac. In 2011 a panel of celiac experts convened in Oslo and settled on a medical term for this malady: non-celiac gluten sensitivity. …
What worries doctors is that the problem seems to be growing. After testing blood samples from a century ago, researchers discovered that the rate of celiac appears to be increasing. Why is another mystery. Some blame the wheat ….
There are also people who are allergic to wheat (not necessarily gluten), but until recently, most experts had thought that celiac and wheat allergy were the only problems caused by eating the grain.
For 99 out of 100 people who don’t have celiac — and those who don’t have a wheat allergy — the undigested gliadin fragments usually pass harmlessly through the gut, and the possible benefits of a gluten-free diet are nebulous, perhaps nonexistent for most. But not all.
Anecdotally, people like Ms. Golden Testa say that gluten-free diets have improved their health. Some people with diseases like irritable bowel syndrome and arthritis also report alleviation of their symptoms, and others are grasping at gluten as a source of a host of other conditions, though there is no scientific evidence to back most of the claims. Experts have been skeptical. It does not make obvious sense, for example, that someone would lose weight on a gluten-free diet. In fact, the opposite often happens for celiac patients as their malfunctioning intestines recover. …
I don’t hate responsible gun owners. I hate the Gun Industry.
I’ve never watched the Super Bowl. I loathe corporate sports. But, if you like it, I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you for driving a car, but I think Big Oil will destroy the earth for a profit. I don’t hate you for the products you consume and enjoy, but I’m certain the manufacturers would gladly poison you for more money.
I don’t hate responsible gun owners. Several of my friends have guns. I have fired a rifle more than once and wasn’t bad at target shooting, though I much prefer archery or throwing rocks.
I believe corporations exist for one reason above all others: to make a few people rich. They make the top executives rich while screwing labor. They make the board rich, while bribing the watchdogs. Corporations pretend to serve their customers, but they actually serve a few people at the top.
To my mind, the NRA is a corporation. Its board is the Gun Industry, which only profits by selling weapons of destruction — the more, the better. The NRA funnels vast amounts of money into a few hands. In the process, the NRA claims to represent the interests of all of its members, in theory, the interests of every single gun owner. The NRA does NOT represent the interests of reasonable people.
If you own a gun, if you like guns, if you love guns, peace unto you. If you are a member of the NRA, kick some sense into its leadership.
I have a rhetorical style that is less moderate than I am, taken in my entirety. I don’t apologize for my passion, but I do regret that my anger puts some people off. Sometimes, I agree that “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” People are dying. Other people are growing rich off of that death — why would they try to reduce it or tolerate anyone who did try?
The NRA: armed and paranoid
Remember that the NRA was for expanded background checks before they were against them. Flip-floppers that turn whichever way the money flows. Cheap thugs who deserve lots of enemies.
The Strangest NRA Story Yet – The Daily Beast by Michael Tomasky
It virtually goes without saying that the keepers of such lists are always the bullies who survive by fomenting hatred and making sure that their constituents stay in a state of constant agitation. And so it was no surprise to learn over the weekend, via Josh Marshall, that the National Rifle Association has a little list of 497 people and organizations who are in some way, shape, or form anti-gun. It makes for hilarious reading, although it’s sort of frightening to think about the demented minds of the people who assembled it. …
It’s funny, isn’t it, how it’s always people on the right who keep these lists. … [T]he swamps in which these fevers have arisen in our history have been almost entirely right wing. …
The good news is that paranoid psychotics usually do themselves in. McCarthy and Nixon certainly did. I know everyone keeps talking about how powerful the NRA is, and that’s true. But the more they’re in the spotlight, the worse they look. …
If Clinton was the first black president, Obama may be the first gay president.
Changes.