Gun Control Debate Gets Traction as Candidates Aim for Votes
Are we even surprised?
The debate over gun rights has also seeped into the re-election campaign of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a former congresswoman from the Albany region who once aligned herself with supporters of Second Amendment protections for gun ownership.
While campaigning recently in Troy, Gillibrand lamented that “Congress has done nothing” to respond to gun violence and has balked at requiring universal background checks for gun purchases and at imposing a ban on bump stocks, despite a wave of mass shootings, including the one that led to four deaths in Jacksonville, Fla, last weekend.
Gillibrand’s opponent, Chele Farley, a New York City businesswoman, has criticized GIllibrand for having flip-flopped on gun rights since becoming New York’s junior senator.
Blaming an inanimate object rather than the person wielding it…
Feeling angrier, she said, than she had ever been in her life, she walked up to one of the TV reporters there and said she had something to say. A woman dismissed her, saying she wasn’t on the air at the time. Alhadeff said she “went down the line” until a CNN reporter gave her a microphone. Alhadeff said she “had no agenda, no idea what I was going to say. It just came out.”
It was a moment of raw outrage that went viral.
“A gunman, a crazy person just walks right into the school, knocks down the window of my child’s door and starts shooting — shooting her and killing her!” Alhadeff shouts in the video. “President Trump, you say, what can you do? You can stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands. You can put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. … President Trump, please do something! Action! We need it now!”
Editorial: Schools are No Place for Guns
Same song, different day…
The National Education Association is opposed to arming teachers. Legislators are opposed to it. Even the $50 million STOP School Violence Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in March, explicitly forbids the money from being used to buy firearms.
So why is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos even entertaining the question? Because Texas officials asked if the money could be used to pay for a firearms program there. But she must answer with a resounding “No.”
At issue is a program known as the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, which — unlike other federal education grants — do not clearly forbid weapons purchases. Texas asked the U.S. Department of Education for clarification on what those grants can be used for, and it’s a fair question. And DeVos should not be castigated for simply considering a legitimate question from a grant recipient.
These 5 Guns Are the Most Deadly On the Planet
Words mean things, people…
One of the best handguns in the world wasn’t even available to recreational shooters for much of the Cold War. The CZ 75 handgun , introduced in 1975, borrowed a great deal from John Moses Browning’s late model pistol, the Browning Hi-Power, both externally and internally, but is not a copy, and features significant differences . The nine-millimeter pistol could carry up to sixteen rounds, making it one of the largest-capacity handguns of its day.
The bustling global arms trade has resulted in many excellent handguns in the last hundred years. Some of the best handguns are more than a hundred years old, while others have been in production for less than a decade. All are excellent weapons for defense, and in some cases offense; they are equally at home in a homeowner’s gun safe or carried as an officer’s sidearm. Here are five of the best handguns currently in service worldwide.
(This first appeared several months ago.)
Marie Harf: Military veterans enlist in the battle to fight gun violence in America – Let’s hear them out
“The weapons culture out of control” . . .
The new ad features retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who experienced war firsthand during his over 37 years in Army.
In the first scene, Hertling opens a box on his desk containing 253 cards with the names and photos of soldiers under his command who were killed in combat. He ties the pain he felt on their deaths to the pain parents must feel losing a child to gun violence.
It is immediately clear then that this is a new kind of gun safety advocate.
This ad is one in a series of five narrated by retired military leaders. The Giffords group is planning veterans’ events around the country to foster discussion on the gun issue.
Paranormal intruder: Connecticut man faces charges after shooting at ‘ghost’
Do paranormal investigators really think that bullets will stop a poltergeist? . . .
Christain Devaux of Tolland is due in court on Sept. 11 on charges including the illegal discharge of a firearm, making a false statement to police, second-degree reckless endangerment, misusing an emergency call, and disorderly conduct.
Police say Devaux put two bullet holes in his wall on July 26, initially reporting the incident as an attempted break in.
He later told police that he is a paranormal investigator and that he believes the intruder was actually a spirit.