NewsTrust - Gun Control - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

George Zimmerman Had More Legal Authority To Shoot And Kill Than Our Troops Do At War

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Think Progress - By Jon Soltz - Apr. 11 (Opinion) - One fact stands out in my mind: The “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida, which may let George Zimmerman off the hook for the killing of Martin, gives more leeway to shooters than our own military gives to soldiers in war.

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Why Isn't the Gun Nut Lobby Saying Trayvon Martin Should Have Been Armed?

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Markos Moulitsas - Mar. 24 (Opinion) - Think about it. Every other situation in which an innocent person gets gunned down there is a cacophony of gun nuts screeching that if only this person had been armed he could have defended himself. It's been the basis of every concealed and open carry argument for the last couple of decades.

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Illegal to Kill Dogs But Not Black Kids in Florida

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

care2.com - By Paul Canning - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - The growing outrage over the killing of Trayvon Martin has not stopped the National Rifle Association (NRA) from pushing for more states to pass so-called 'Stand Your Ground' laws.

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Rep. Grimm and the FBI

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Evan Ratliff - May. 01 (Comment) - 'Williams recalls that Grimm then told him that the husband 'don't know who he's fu***** with ... I'll fu****' make him disappear where nobody will find him.' (Grimm has denied saying this.)' Evan Ratliff, The New Yorker

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From Tuscon to Virginia Tech: Shooting Survivor Calls for Gun Control

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Colin Goddard, Amy Goodman, Rocky Anderson - Jan. 27 (Opinion) - We speak with Colin Goddard, a survivor of the Virginia Tech shooting massacre who, after recovering and finishing his degree, decided to work with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the nation’s largest gun control organization. His story is told in Living for 32, a new documentary that just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. We also hear from former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson about a bill passed Wednesday by the Utah House of Representatives to make the Browning M1911 pistol the official state gun.

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What the "right to bear arms" really means

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Saul Cornell - Jan. 16 (Opinion) - After an immediate cathartic and emotional response, the two sides in the gun debate fall into their familiar postures. Proposals for new gun regulation are made, prompting push-back from gun rights advocates, who circle their wagons, issue warnings about the threats to our Second Amendment rights, and -- in a more recent twist -- begin calling for a relaxation of existing gun regulation so that citizens can more easily defend themselves.

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Philanthropy Must Challenge the Idea That Gun Violence Can’t Be Stopped

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Chronicle of Philanthropy - By Ellen S. Alberding - Jan. 14 (Opinion) - We see this latest tragedy and ask, How could this happen? How could it not happen, when we systematically make it easier for angry and troubled people to get ever-more-powerful guns, and harder for the police and public-health people to stop the mayhem? Those words appeared in The Chronicle of Philanthropy 2007, in the days after the Virginia Tech massacre.

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Jared Loughner, Mental Illness and How Budget Cuts Have Slashed Behavioral Health Services in Arizona

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, H. Clarke Romans - Jan. 11 (Interview) - While federal investigators and the news media try to uncover the motivation behind Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson, the picture emerging of the accused gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, is of a severely disturbed 22-year-old. Loughner’s apparent mental health problems have shone a spotlight on issues surrounding mental health treatment in Arizona, which made drastic budget cuts to behavioral health services in 2010. We speak with H. Clarke Romans of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Southern Arizona.

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My day in the courtroom of Judge John Roll, who lived and died in Arizona’s climate of hate

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Max Blumenthal - By Max Blumenthal - Jan. 08 (Opinion) - John Roll, the Chief Justice for the US District Court in Arizona, was among those killed this afternoon at a town hall with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. In February 2009, I testified as a prosecution witness in Roll’s courtroom in Tucson in a politically charged civil trial known as Vicente v. Barnett. I did not know at the time that Roll was living under a 24/7 protective detail because of hundreds of threats against him and his family as well as inflammatory rhetoric directed against him by right-wing elements.

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Time for Dems to slam the GOP hypocrites

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Gene Lyons - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - Obama's GOP antagonists offer empty rhetoric even they don't believe. But does he have the heart to call them out?

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Republicans Hot, Cold On Constitution

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Aug. 23 (Editorial) - WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia won his seat in Congress campaigning as a strict defender of the Constitution. He carries a copy in his pocket and is particularly fond of invoking the Second Amendment right to bear arms. But it turns

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Days of Rage -- The Noxious Transformation of the Conservative Movement into a Rabid Fringe

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Max Blumenthal - Aug. 10 (Opinion) - I am not sure when I first detected the noxious fumes that would envelop the conservative movement in the Obama era. It might have been early on, in April 2009, when I visited a series of gun shows in rural California and Nevada. Perusing tables piled high with high-caliber semi-automatic weapons and chatting with anyone in my vicinity, I heard urgent warnings of mass roundups, concentration camps, and a socialist government in Washington. "These people that are purchasing these guns are people that are worried about what's going on in this country," a gun dealer told me outside a show in Reno. "Good luck Obama," a young gun enthusiast remarked to me. "We outnumber him 100 to 1." At this time, the Tea Party movement had not even registered on the national media's radar.

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McDonald v. City of Chicago : Much ado about not much?

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

SCOTUSblog - By Jon Lowry - Jun. 29 (Opinion) - The Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago to incorporate the Second Amendment may be a headline-grabber, but it is hardly surprising. Virtually every commentator predicted that the same five Justices of the Supreme Court who ruled two years ago that the District of Columbia’s handgun ban was unconstitutional would hold that similar bans are not permitted when enacted by Chicago, or any other state or city. Now all Americans can – as National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre put it – “experience” the Second Amendment.

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The Essence of Anarchy

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:09:40 -0700

New Republic - Mar. 30 - Historical amnesia is as dangerously disorienting for a nation as for an individual. So it is with the current wave of enthusiasm for “states’ rights,” “interposition,” and “nullification”—the claim that state legislatures or special state conventions

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The Politics of the Jackboot

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthDig - By E.J. Dionne - Aug. 20 (Opinion) - Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?

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Why libertarians—and everyone who believes in limited government—should worry about Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reason Magazine - By Damon W. Root - May. 28 (Opinion) - President Barack Obama's announcement that he wants federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter comes as something less than a shock.

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The Gun Lobby Asks You to Please Lay Off the Mass Killings While It's Trying to Influence Legislation

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Martha Rosenberg - Mar. 27 (Opinion) - "The NRA is asking gunmen to refrain from mass shootings while key gun bills are before legislators," says a newscaster in a recent editorial cartoon.

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Guns and Gas

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Steve Rosenbaum - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - Guns and gas = fear and greed. So, what do these two seemingly unrelated subjects have to do with each other? They are both aimed to drive fear. People who are comfortable, safe, well-fed, and economically stable are difficult to govern. But fearful citizens spend every waking hour thinking about how to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads.

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Some preliminary reflections on Heller

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Balkinization - By Sandy Levinson - Jun. 27 (Opinion) - I begin with some "external" considerations. My own hope, spelled out in some prior Balkinization posts, was that the Supreme Court would unanimously accept the very well-written and -argued brief by the Solicitor General, in behalf of the Bush Administration, which argued both that the Second Amendment indeed protected an individual right to "keep and bear arms" and disagreed with the particularly rigorous test that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had applied to the D.C. ordinance. Thus, according to the Solicitor General, the Court should remand the case back to the court below for reconsideration under a proper, somewhat looser, standard that would still have easily supported invalidating the ordinance.

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Pearls of Thunder

Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Carolina Nickel - May. 17 (Opinion) - A truth about these latter days we are living in, which could make a difference towards real change.

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Was Hillary Betrayed?

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Confederate Yankee - May. 05 (Opinion) - Over the weekend, The Clinton campaign came under fire for a mailing that attacked Barack Obama's horrific record on guns. The ad was inaccurate--it didn't go nearly far enough in describing the number and kind of firearms Obama would like to see banned--but as Hillary's record is every bit as suspect regarding the ubiquitous and yet poorly misunderstood semi-automatic action, I can understand why should wouldn't want to undercut her own less-than-credible position.

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Obama Shooting Himself in the Foot with Anti-Gun Stance

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Pajamas Media - By Bob Owens - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - The weakness? Barack Obama's utter disdain of firearms (especially handguns) and a refusal to recognize the rights of law-abiding Americans to own the most common and relied-upon types of firearms.

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The Tragedy at Virginia Tech, Viewed From Abroad

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:21:11 -0700

Harper's - By Scott Horton - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - In the American media, the tragic events at Virginia Tech have unleashed another debate about gun control. Outside of the United States, however, the assessment is uniform.

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The Tragedy at Virginia Tech, Viewed From Abroad

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:21:11 -0700

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A Proposal for Collegiate Concealed Carry

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:58:22 -0700

Confederate Yankee - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - What is reasonable, however, is giving students, faculty, and staff who meet certain rigorous standards the ability to bring handguns on campus for the defense of themselves and others in extraordinary life-threatening circumstances. Here is my proposal. The minimum age to purchase a handgun is 21 years old in most states. By definition, this would limit concealed carry to mostly juniors, seniors and graduate students, non-traditional (older) underclassmen, faculty, and staff.

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