“Not since that national tragedy nearly half a century ago has the country been as shocked by domestic gun violence as it was in the gunning down of 20 school children in Newtown. But LBJ did not ask Congress after that earlier calamity merely to agree to cast a vote. He demanded that it clearly act in the cause of social justice that JFK championed. President Obama should do no less now in the fight against gun violence, regardless of Harry Reid’s grim reading of the prospects of restoring the assault weapons ban in the Senate.” – Jules Witcover in Obama’s limited war on guns [via chicagotribune.com]
It’s sad to see that in half a century, this idiot still hasn’t learned a damn thing.
Somehow he thinks someone who escalated our involvement in (Vietnam) and covertly bombs another nation (Cambodia) holds some sort of high ground? Lyndon Johnson may have played a great society social coin but it was mere Jekyll when you consider his raging Hyde. Witcover exhibits the sanctimony of a pederast priest.
He is in Chicago, how about looking in your backyard. I bet you can find a few things there to talk about.
Yup. It aint a gun problem, but a gang problem.
Stupid, evil libtards.
What, praytell, is social justice? Those commie buzz words keep rearing their ugly heads…
At the time, it meant removing armed thugs from the vicinity of polling stations across the South so that non-whites could actually vote.
Now? I’m not sure.
Maybe “social justice” would be calling up the militia in Chicago instead of trying to disarm it…?
Now it appears to at least partly mean allowing armed thugs in the vicinity of polling stations so that non-minorities would be intimidated into not voting or voting for the candidate the armed individuals favored.
It has no meaning. It’s merely intended to evoke a sentiment.
And I’m pretty certain JFK would not have brooked austere gun control laws.
But it occurred to me that if you put wire frame glasses on him and handed him a pitchfork, he’s that guy in the Norman Rockwell painting.
Grant Wood, not Norman Rockwell.
It’s sad that these people are targeting gun violence instead of widespread violence. Violence is the root cause of these problems. We need to be looking into the causes of widespread violence. Then we will be able to begin formulating a plan to resolve these kinds of problems. It doesn’t start with guns. Guns are merely one of many tools that violent criminals will use.
Guns are intimidating because, at least in mass murder scenarios, they make it easy.
An arrow is as deadly, but requires long-developed skill and is slower. So is karate, but again there’s an investment of time and it requires proximity. An axe? It’s not a range weapon unless you tie a string to it, and is hardly rapid-fire.
No, guns are unique in their effectiveness and in that the training and skill can lie mostly with the maker if one is satisfied with point-blank slaughter rather than punishing the ten ring at half a furlong.
However, an armed populace is the only right answer, at least in the absence of a Djin clapping their hands and every weapon on the planet vanishing with a poof.
We can make it harder for spree killers to get weapons, but however high we raise the bar many will still clear it.
No, we need an armed populace. I wish it could be a trained populace, because there are a heap of stupid and unskilled people out there, but they’d almost never have to draw due to nearly complete deterrence.
Why can we not make this argument in terms the “other side” can understand? We’re not stupid, we speak the same language – more or less – and we also think in terms of the greatest good.
Damn.
Again, still, the “other side” isn’t interested in arguing our collective way to the truth. They have a mental image of gun owners and they hate those kind of people. Just like Germans had a mental image of Jews and hated them, southern whites had a mental image of blacks and hated them, pretty much everyone two decades ago had a mental image of gays and hated them, etc.
It’s not a public policy debate, it’s a struggle against prejudice, and the way to win it is to be “out and proud” gun owners, so that in time the apolitical public sees that their friends and neighbors own guns and are nice people, and are then turned off by the mouth-foaming crazies who can’t open their mouths without going on a weird rant against a perfectly normal segment of society.
+1
^^^^^^^This!
I was too young to vote in 1994, and I was more worried about chasing girls. What the Democrats have managed to do this time, is to turn me into a single voter issue for the rest of my adult life. And when not carrying, I proudly wear the loudest and wittiest 2nd amendment t-shirts I can find.
Hmmm… Maybe a Gun Pride Parade…
The other side refuses to understand. So called “intellectuals” value their vision of the way things should be over the way things actually are. Evidence and facts are of no interest if they conflict with the vision.
Let’s not forget that none of the four most deadly mass murders in US history were committed with firearms.
Bath school massacre of 1927 – dynamite. 48 killed including 38 kids.
Happyland Social Club – arson. 87 killed.
Oklahoma City – explosives. 168 killed.
9/11 box cutters, modeling clay and airplanes. 3000 killed.
Murderers find a way.
Your points on an armed populace are spot on. It really is the only way to be safe.
There’s no such thing as “gun violence”. There’s just person violence.
+1
Whenever I respond to posters ranting about “GUN violence”, I bring them back to reality by emulating Gertrude Stein — “Dead is dead is dead”.
Usually, that approach isn’t going to work.
You just can’t convince people that they need to fear the mundane and everyday threat far more than the rare and exotic; People simply couldn’t exist, most of the time, if they had to confront all of the mortal risks they face just to get through the day–electrical shock, drowning, falling down, travelling by automobile, walking across a busy street, choking on food, heart attack and stroke–things that happen FAR more often than plane crashes, train wrecks, being eaten by lions or sharks, or attacks by crazed people with guns.
‘Reality’ is just exactly where people cannot afford to live on a daily basis–it’s just too scary. It’s far better to worry about the exotic rarity than to worry about the commonplace–it’s the way people’s minds work. Therefore, since they can’t cope with thinking about the typical causes of sordid, common death and still feel ‘safe,’ they want to control the things that they DO think about that scare them: Guns.
They don’t give TWO SH*TS about addressing violence; this is about getting us totally disarmed so they can usher in full-tilt despotism.
JFK and Obama have a lot more in common than most people think; look up Presidential actions by both to get the real picture.
The name of the article is sickening. Obama’s limited war on guns. So now its ok to wage war on a constitutionally protected right? How about we wage a limited war on this guys first amendment rights? I am sure he would just go along with it silently. /sarc
A society does not become “great” because a small group of we-know-better-than-you asshats make mountains of byzantine laws. A great society is built when each member of that society believes and practices in hard work, personal responsibility, liberty, a sense of community, and respect for others. If they can find a way to make laws that encourage those things, I’ll be sure to send them a small campaign donation. I’m not holding my breath…
+1
You lost me at “hard”.
Another quote:
«”For the privilege of having… specific types of guns, you now have the additional responsibility for opening up your privacy,” [Westchester County’s Board of Legislators chairman, Ken Jenkins] says.»
Privilege? That doesn’t sound right.
I have a Westchester county pistol permit. Acquiring it was an 18 month, $400 nightmare. You have to sign a waiver allowing the county to access all your criminal, financial, legal and medical records. You have to buy your gun before you get a permit, even though you’re not allowed to touch (literally. Not even touch.) A handgun before you get the permit. So you buy the gun having no experience with it. (Thank God for out of state ranges!) You have to take a training class (at which you can’t even touch, much less fire a handgun. Instead you fire a .22lr rifle.) get four residents to answer long questionnaires on your behalf, then submit it all to a county detective who fingerprints you five times. Then there’s a 5 month wait while a judge issues approvals or denials.
The process isn’t designed to make anyone safer. If it was, a central component would be live-fire training with a certified instructor. The process is designed to discourage people. Its the “side-channel” attack referenced in an earlier TTAG piece. So if anyone from an area like Westchester is listening, go get your permit. It’s worth it.
This is a disgusting infringement on your rights. If someone wanted to harm you or your family, you are toast. What sucks is how hard it is to get rid of laws and regulations like this.
That’s the modern leftist for you: social justice by means of stamping out civil rights and constitutional liberty. These sub-humans are domestic enemies and should be treated as such.
I agree, the leftist/progressive tactics are repugnant–they’re like conservationists who want to give all the trees equal access to sunlight by clear-cutting the forest.
But it’s a little bit disturbing how often you call other people “sub-humans.” They are egregiously, dangerously wrong…but still human.
Jules Witcover is a principled and intelligent man. Disagree with him if you want, but he deserves your respect.
OK, that’s fair. The first 8 comments to his Tribune article are all pro-2A. Out of…wait for it…8 comments total (as of 11AM). So it appears that plenty of people disagree with him.
Jules Witcover is a principled and intelligent man. Disagree with him if you want, but he deserves your respect.
If his “principles” involve infringing my rights, he deserves no respect whatsoever.
Yup. +1
Being principled and intelligent does not give one a pass.
Lenin was a highly principled and intelligent man. Eichmann and Heydrich, Danon and Robespierre, Jefferson Davis and Orval Faubus–all principled and intelligent men.
Clinton and Obama. . . principled and intelligent.
That word, ‘principled’–I do not think it means what you think it means.
Oops. Danon is a yogurt, and much more principled and intelligent than Mr. Witcover ; DANTON was a principled and intelligent man if you like the principles of political murder on a vast scale.
Clinton principled? That’s not the Bill Clinton I know. And Lenin was an idiot savant. Trotsky was the brains of the operation. Stalin, the supposed dullard was far more intelligent than Lenin.
If he has any hand in removing our freedom (guns) then he deserves to have a chunk of flesh bitten out of his facial cheeks.
Not if he is working to take away our liberty (guns).
That picture is worth a thousand words, my friends. Have you ever looked someone in the eyes and all you see is a brain-dead person inside? That is Jules Witcover, respect is earned.
On top of being a self admitted moron, you’re pretty much a one trick pony aren’t you? I’ll bet you really don’t even have any nice guns, do you?
I think he should put that on a sign & charge right into Chicago’s south side. Nothing impresses gangbangers like an old senile white guy holding a sign, Randy