“We’ve come to the point where a mentally unstable person is strafing the White House with a semiautomatic assault weapon. That should startle every citizen. None of us is safe in a nation where assault weapons are readily available.” – Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun Times, Lessons of White House strafing: Limit guns now
Anyone surprised, given this is coming from Chicago, the country’s primary festering sore of corruption and 2A oppression? How’s that gun control been working out for you guys over there anyway?
I think he’s looking at the wrong end of the barrel; none of us is safe so long as the White House the gunman was aiming at is readily occupied by this administration.
But, but, but…DC doesn’t allow civilians to carry guns! Shouldn’t that have stopped this crazy person?
But once it is ever more illegaler then they’ll stop…or we’ll make it even more illegaler
i think this is a last ditch effort by the chicago newspaper before the people begin to speak (vote)
They talk about .50 caliber rifles that can shoot down airplanes and semi automatic assault rifles. What nonsense
how about we ban illegal immigrants and start locking up loons like this guy first?
Lock him up for what? (before the shooting that is)
He had priors.
Thank you. Someone else that knows the entire story.
How the hell did this guy get a gun anyway. I’m counting three 4473 violations. Please tell me it was stolen (or better yet was a Fast and Furious Gun – oh please – oh please – oh please).
New York Times indicates it was a private party transfer from a friend.
It would not suprise me at all if this guy was a plant. He uses the dreaded “semi auto assault rifle”, shoots at a window that anybody with any sense knows is bulletproof, and a peer-peer transfer is involved. This sounds just so perfect for the anti’s.
The really scary thing about this article isn’t the author’s complete ignorance on guns, statistics, or the world in general; its the fact that he openly admits that more and more Americans are choosing to buy firearms and do not support an AWB and yet he still believe that he should be able to dictate to us, the people what is good for us. He chooses to go entirely against the will of the people. This is an apalling example of what the “educated” think they’re entitled to. Sentiments like these are what leads to oppressive nanny-states that are so prevalent today.
Take it easy on the “educated” line. I’m a college English instructor with a concealed carry license and my own armory. We’re not all anti-gun.
The editorial author is Jesse Jackson. ‘Nuff said.
+1
Surprise, Surprise.
+2. Stupid is as stupid does.
Exactly. This man makes his money off exploiting poor blacks – he’s scum to the extreme.
This may sound harsh, but I would support a law that mandated the death sentence without appeal for murderers if the perpetrator was caught at the scene of the crime and there was no chance that the police accused the wrong person. The United States is a country of freedom. If we want to stop crime, we have to punish the criminals, not law abiding citizens. Anyone have other ideas to stop crime while maximizing freedom?
“We’ve come to the point where a mentally unstable person is strafing the White House with a semiautomatic assault weapon. That should startle every citizen. None of us is safe in a nation where assault weapons are readily available.” …FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE.
If he had just added those four words, I would strongly agree with him.
When is the gun-rights community going to start complaining about the real cause of the problem. The current system is not stopping violent criminals and the mentally unstable from ‘legally’ buying guns.
There is no law that forces the police, mental health officials, etc. to submit information into the database that is used to check whether you are legally prohibited from purchasing a firearm. So an FFL submits a background check, it comes back “OK”, and he sells the firearm, even though the local hospital and the local police know the purchaser is a total wacko.
It happened in the Gabriel Giffords massacre. It happened in the Fort Hood massacre. And it has happened (and will happen) dozens more times.
Stop blaming the gun. Stop blaming decent people like us. Start blaming the people who caused the problem – the people who allowed a criminally insane person to have a gun.
I agree with the need to improve background checks. I would hate to give up my right to privacy, but I would notice it less than a loss of my gun rights.
Yeah, I have known some nut cases or mentally imbalnced people to get firearms and kill or intimidate people. I do not know how they ever passed the background checks. I know one guy that had a criminal record and shot up a truck ( with the driver in it) with an Uzi. His mom was a politico and no charges were brought against him. Where did he get the Uzi? Hell, I heard the cops gave the Uzi back to him!
Does anyone know what kind of “assault weapon” was used? Most people probably couldn’t hit squat at 700+ yards with a standard military service rifle, no matter how tricked-out the scope.
Ah, there’s the rub. Even with all our lengthy trials and appeals, we know we occasionally put innocent people in jail, or even on death row. So what procedure do we put in place to determine when “there’s no chance” we’ve accused the wrong person?
No chance as in the perp was caught red handed, like in a public mass shooting. Our society would never forgive itself for executing a possibly innocent man (like the recently terminated Troy Davis), so what I proposed would have to be extremely narrow in its application. Example: If Anders Brevik were in the United States, I would try and execute him within a month. He was caught in the middle of shooting children with multiple guns on his person. I’m pretty biased towards the harsh punishment method of deterring crime after seeing work almost perfectly in Singapore, but the larger scale of the United States might reveal issues with the system.
Except heres the problem, the circumstances you site, such as mass shootings and serial killers and that kind of thing, the people doing them don’t give a damn about jail time or the death penalty.
Mass shooters go into the event expecting to die, they often end themselves at the first sign of resistance or police. Serial killers think they are brilliant, they do not expect to get caught, therefore the penalty makes no difference.
Also, any kind of multiple killing, serial or mass, usually ends with the death penalty anyway.
“I would not be surprised if this guy was a plant” Nail on the head. The way this administration has been loving up on illegals none of them would have a reason for this. In addition, even a non gun person would know not to use an AK at that distance.
Sounds great – now let’s imagine this scenario: You’re present in a public place when some nutjob starts shooting. You’re carrying at the time and return fire, but let’s say neither of you are wounded and the perp runs off. Now the police find you there at the scene of the crime with a warm gun.
We can hope that there are other eyewitnesses who can ID you as the guy who shot back and not the guy who shot first… but we happen to know that eyewitnesses are terribly unreliable and that memory is malleable. We can hope that the ballistics lab does its job promptly and properly. We can hope that you don’t trip up and say something the police can twist to incriminate you… but we know that in 25% of DNA exonerations the defendant gave incriminating statements, confessed, or outright pled guilty despite being innocent.
We can hope for all these things, but if one or more falls through how can it be redressed without a right of appeal?
True, I guess I overlooked those facts. So do we think that the system we have now is the best possible option?
Well, I don’t know if I would go that far, but I certainly am not in favour of throwing out any checks and balances knowing how poorly the system works as-is. At least not without replacing them with other safeguards, such as double-blind eyewitness ID procedures, or mandatory recording of interrogations.
Troy was witnessed by 35 people, is that enough?
Supposedly, it was an AK-47.
A lecture from that self-aggrandizing racial arsonist Jesse Jackson? May I say to him, with all due respect, “go f^ck yourself.”
Thanks. I feel better now.
I wonder if we’ll have to suffer Jesse Jackson the third in politics as well. This is the same genius that wants to put everyone on the government payroll at 40K a year. To do that first you have to disarm the productive who will be fleeced to pay for it.
Moral of the story. Sometimes a bolt action rifle is a better option than an ak