President Barack Obama unveiled an ambitious, $500 million proposal to curb access to guns and improve mental health services Wednesday, putting the hot-button issue of gun control at the top of the public agenda a month after the horrific mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
The Huffington Post reports that the plan calls for:
"requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; restoring a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines; eliminating armor-piercing bullets; providing mental health services in schools; allocating funds to hire more police officers; and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, among other policies. The cost of the package, senior officials estimated, would be roughly $500 million, some of which could come from already budgeted funds."
In metro Atlanta, as in other parts of the country, many gun owners have worried about changes that could make it harder to buy guns. Business has been booming at the Sandy Springs Gun Club & Range. "Everyone is buying everything," the manager reports. "We are running out of ammunition and guns; people are coming into shoot, it has been non-stop."
On the day that Obama's proposals were announced, a customer at Tucker Guns said assault rifles should not be banned because high-capacity handguns can be just as deadly.
Henry Louis Adams, who has written blog posts about the dangers of celebratory gunfire, told Patch: "I think that every responsible law abiding American should be able to own a gun.
"However, I also believe that there needs to be a strong system in place to ensure that guns do not get into the hands of the mentally unstable or criminals. Tougher punishment should be issued to those that handle their firearms irresponsibly in which causes harm to themselves, their families and others."
In the General Assembly, a state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow school principals to carry firearms, but some Buckhead parents don't like the idea.
Cynthia Briscoe Brown, co-president of the NAPPS and mother of a current North Atlanta High junior and a NAHS alumna, said, "I think it's a bad idea. Firearms and children in close proximity is never a good idea."
In Stone Mountain, William Dawson, whose son was shot in the arm during a robbery at their family restaurant, had his own perspective. "Education is the best thing" on guns and the responsibilities of gun ownership, he said, "as well as harsher consequences for those who commit crimes using firearms."
Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s, reflected on the issue as her father's birthday -- a national holiday -- approaches. She lost her father to an assasin's bullet, and says she is "embarrassed" that in America young children can be shot and killed at a school. While King doesn't take a specific position on gun control, she says the nation needs to change its psyche toward guns and violence, and stop their glorification in our culture.
Meanwhile, Atlanta Public Schools officials are considering moving toward 100 percent APS law enforcement services, which would replace a mix of part-time and full-time Atlanta police officers currently working in the schools. That discussion was already under way before the Newtown school shooting.
Patch wants to know how you feel about gun control legislation? Should assault weapons be banned? Or large capcity magazines? Do you support stricter background checks? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.
See also:
Obama Gun Control Proposals Unveiled, Marking Biggest Legislative Effort in a Generation
Local Gun Owner Reacts to Obama Proposals
Weapons Debate Draws Gun Enthusiasts and Buyers to Local Range
Local Shooting Victim's Father on Gun Control: 'Education is the Best Thing'
School Principals Carrying Guns? Buckhead Parents Say It's a Bad Idea
Elder Bernice King Addresses Guns in Schools and Gun Laws Ahead of MLK Day
The Intrusive Nature of Celebratory Gunfire
Also, please explain why these sensational mass shootings have ALL occurred in so called "gun free zones". That pretty much tells the story. if I were to choose to buy one or a hundred AR's and thousands of rounds of ammo, nobody has anything to fear from me. That's because I'm not a criminal. Nor am I crazy.
I have had attempts on my life and used a firearm to protect myself without firing a shot. Would they have stopped if I had not brandished a weapon capable of terminating their life? I don't know. I don't want to know. Be responsable and keep our rights sacred.
And just what insurance company would make and issue such insurance policies? Or would this have to become part of Obamacare?
You should know.
For a very long time you have been playing it close to the vest by pretending open-mindedness. Even declaring that you had been undecided in the imposition of this City of Brookhaven. For example: on the National Voter Rights Act not being invulnerable to abuse by officials and employees of a foreign government, having somehow been allowed dual-citizenship, using it and the NVRA to impose themselves and government on even the registration of voters for our own elections and referendums. For quite sometime, like a sleeper agent, you fell short of acutally stating that you would throw out the baby with the bath water: throw out the US Constitution and its not empowering any foreign government including Mexico's to, by flagrant default, empower the MxGov to involve itself in our elections and referendums. With the actual establishing of the Cityof Brookhaven however, you went hog wild demanding subordination to it and even now relentless press this tired script to assure continuned empowerment of Mexico's governance in the US. Even to the displacemnet of our own laws, governance and very sovereignty. You strive not to protect the US and our government from being "overthrown" (your term not mine) but, instead, to protect the MxGov in its sly overthow of the US. Constitution and, thus, the US itself.
Interestingly enough also: the MxGov and its proxies (willing or not) stateside also.
"Calling names."
On this matter, as I do see it and have experienced it, you are obviously not alone though others (of C4ND & B'Yes) being far more transparent in bludgeoning all discourse to assure no rationale conclustions and, instead, smother any to impose, for only one example, the 'corporatist' governance---a la Mexico's---that this City of Brookhaven is. Using tactics and scripts, again, originating and honed over many years on the usenet. Especially, but not only, at alt.politics.immigration. In this case, again as I do see it and have experienced it, by two perceptible censors for the MxGov. One mostly responsible for having developed and stockpiled the scripts and the other, along with even 'capture-stages', their continued implementation to, one way or the other, eliminate all oppostion.
Just prior and during the same week of the Newtown shootings, local evening news was reporting the bust of "three slot machines" by a SWAT team in a town near to Brookhaven. The cameramen had already been alerted to the bust and were in situ with required equipment to record the following as it did enfold scence-by-scene: 1) The arrival of the SWAT team in convoy with the most extraoridinary vehicles. 2) Their armed and armored approach to a storefront ("Mi Casa") appearing every bit like a raid on a terrroist hold-out in Kabul. 3) Without knocking or presenting of any warrant, the, instead, immediate smithereening of the storefront's glass front door with a battering ram. 4) A, then, extreme close-up of the alleged "three slot machines" with--as the purported evidence---their mechanical cards spinning. 5) A, then, shot of the alleged culprit walking away from the store---unescorted---to, presumibly a waiting paddy wagon off-camera. Leaving the question begging: Just how much of this was staged? Only that much or all?
So incredible in Mexico that Mexico can rightly be deemed a failed state. Yet, even more incredible, that government, nonetheless, so succeeding in the USA to subordinate our own. From the very top level of our governance to the most local. Even to invent new local governance to suboridinate areas not having been sufficiently subordinated.
As in Todd G's "When this country was founded it was a lawless society with no police force."? Never in world history had 'lawfulness' 'rights' and 'criminal justice' been delved in than when "this country was founded." "In fact" resulting in the first written Constution in world history. And never in US history has our laws, criminal justice system, very 'rule of law' and even Constitution been undermined as it has in the years beginning with the MxGov imposing itself, agenda and proxies on our own governance. Never in US history have our laws been systematically undermined and displaced to, "in fact," serve a foreign power. Including "gun control." Wake up.
Tell us. Do you support women "having the chance" (as the news is putting it) to fight in combat? How deliberately PC of the long-coopted media to frame the issue as only an equal opportunity one. When, if anything, there are already too many people---male and female---fighting in combat.
Apparently you missed or ignored the questions: "According to who"? "A government that [illegally] sent thousands of guns to Mexcio's gangsters"? A country where its nationals haven't even the right to protect themselves? To bear arms? How "sane" is that? Tell us. Which is the less"mentally ill": Believing, not even a few, but literally ***thousands*** of guns were required to, somehow, trace the guns to Mexico's gangsters? Or, the majority of Americans having been dumbed down enough to believe it?
That made the statement that I "backed down" from "millions" to "thousands upon thousands" of firearms used per year for self defense. Your inability to think critically on this topic (as reference by you stating that life experience and opinion combine to make a "fact"; it does not) shows that you're not intellectually prepared to have this discussion. Critical thinking, non-emotionalism required. I said that AR15's are used "thousands upon thousands" of times per year for self defense; and that guns over all are used millions of times per year in self defense. You invalidate your own "points" with the inability to think rationally on this topic. You're the one thinking "wildly" and irrationally, all the while failing to articulate one "fact" that would make a reasonable case for why millions of people a year should lose the ability to defend themselves; simply because of your irrational fear of firearms. You have no case.
You also assume that firearms "define" me; and like the rest of your assertions, you're wrong. I don't even carry. I own firearms, I practice for proficiency, but also because I like the sport. I'm an Infantry vet with over 30 years experience, a firearm is a martial tool to me. Just like my hands, elbows, knee's and shins. A gun defines me no more than any of those weapons. The failing is that you cannot fathom how people can view this issue differently than you, hence your assertion that your opinion = a fact. Nor can you fathom the original intent of the 2nd amendment. Interestingly enough, law enforcement in this country disagrees with even your opinion.
"I certainly am happy that you are arguing your point so incoherently and wildly maniacal for the opposition.. I am a 25 year veteran. I have long served my country...You can continue to spout your 'hell in a hand basket' mantra..."---Cory And I am a "25 year veteran" of being an "undocumented NorthAmerican" in Mexico. A "25 year veteran" of being the victim of a government (a condition worse than slavery) and its "paracaidista" with offices of the MxGov long here also. Being provided still untold numbers of even our voter registration forms because of "veterans" defending their fellow Americans and country" like you. I am also the victim still---and brutally so---for having blown the whistle with a valid election complaint made to both the SOS of Ga and USDOJ. The very right of redress of grievance has become a malicious farce. Because of even "verterans" like you. Note even now just who is the very speech writer, the MxGov, for "verteran" John McCain (worried about "election races") himself? On MxCty's deliberate colonization of the USA as so-called "immigration." But what should an American know? When the MxGov and its stooges is telling you what to know?
It's amazing that the same people who insist prohibitions on alcholhol, drugs, etc. breed even more crime refuse their own argument when it comes to firearms.
Moreover, the term "PTSD" is getting broadly applied. The guy that did this was an armorer, he was not a combat arms troop. I'm a former Infantry guy, I know what kind of stresses come with that job; and an armorer doesn't have them. That term is getting generically applied much like "ADHD". Some cases are serious, some are not; but definitely over used.
Just the "media"? You didn't see the Super Bowl yesterday? When, beginning with Obama butting in at the beginning with his putting women in combat and gays and lesbians before children (Boy Scouts) for, as he did state, "expose the children to opportunities," the NFL, to thwart yet another looming crusade (in this against concusssions in football), allowed everywhere the administration's propaganda to deny the public the right to protect itself with the sole exception of it's half-time show which denied Beyonce and her dancers nothing less than acutal poles. It was an absolute celebration of the lewd. So much so, for its light show to blow-out the lights in NOLA. Plus, yet another serious game-changing bum call videoed, but ignored, to instruct once again that winning is, as Obama has it always, more important than honesty.