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Trump, Clinton speeches to highlight US divisions on guns

1K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  azguy1911 
#1 ·
Trump, Clinton speeches to highlight US divisions on guns

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will court voters on opposite sides of the gun debate over the next two days in events that will highlight the United States' deep divide on the topic.

Trump and other top Republicans will speak at the National Rifle Association convention Friday in Louisville, where organizers are trying to unite gun-rights voters by painting Clinton as a foe of their causes who must be stopped.

Clinton will appear Saturday in Florida with the mother of Trayvon Martin and other parents who have lost children to gun violence. She's become a forceful advocate for restrictions meant to reduce the nation's 33,000 annual gun deaths.

The dual appearances highlight the opposing positions the candidates have staked out on gun rights and safety, the prominent role the issue might play in the campaign and the national policy implications for the next president.

"If you cherish Second Amendment rights, the stakes have never been higher than they are in this election," NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said.

The NRA - which Clinton listed as an enemy in a debate last year - is warning its 5 million members that Clinton would appoint anti-Second Amendment justices and "implement a radical gun-control agenda," Baker said.

Clinton has said she supports the Second Amendment but that commonsense safety measures are needed to keep firearms out of the wrong hands. She has called for expanding background checks to sales at gun shows and online purchases, and for reinstating a ban on assault weapons.

She has often campaigned with families of gun violence victims and will rejoin many on Saturday as the keynote speaker at an event sponsored by the Trayvon Martin Foundation. The fatal shooting of the unarmed black teenager in 2012 continues to be a flashpoint in the debate. Former neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman recently said he planned to auction off the gun he used in the slaying.

Trump, who often notes that he has a concealed-carry permit, has called for making it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry guns for self-protection, saying they could help prevent terrorist attacks and mass shootings. He argues the existing background check system should be fixed, not expanded, and that assault-weapons bans do not work.

The latter view marks a change from 2000, when Trump wrote in a book that he supported the ban on assault weapons as well as a slightly longer waiting period for gun purchases.

Supporters of gun control have been energized by Clinton's campaign and fear a Trump presidency would maintain a national policy that favors easy access to guns.

Clinton "is in tune with what's happening on the streets," said Tanya Keith, 44, a mother of three in Des Moines, Iowa, who got involved in gun-safety advocacy after attending a Clinton event last summer. "I'm not trying to take away anyone's gun. I'm just trying to make it less likely for my daughter to get shot on her way home from school or my son to get accidentally shot on a play date."

Gun sales have boomed during Barack Obama's presidency despite, and perhaps in part because of, several mass shootings and persistent gun violence in cities. His calls to expand background checks have been stymied by the GOP-controlled Congress. He has taken modest steps through executive orders, and Clinton vows to build on that work.

States are moving in vastly different policy directions: Gun-friendly lawmakers keep making it easier to buy and carry guns.

Gun-control supporters keep adding restrictions.

California, already among the nation's toughest states on guns, will vote in November on a ballot initiative that would require buyers of ammunition to pass background checks and outlaw high-capacity magazines. Meanwhile, other states are moving to allow people to carry concealed weapons in more places, including on college campuses, and to do so without having to obtain a permit.

The divide can be exasperating for those who seek a middle ground that would protect gun rights and improve public safety.

"All the political rhetoric right now, and Twitter and Facebook ... is polarizing us, telling us we're in one camp or another," said Jonathan Metzl, a professor at Vanderbilt University who studies guns and mental health. "Maybe after the election we can come to terms with this."

Nathan Gibson of Johnston, Iowa, has seen the polarization firsthand. For three years, Gibson and his daughters, 12 and 10, have lobbied to repeal an Iowa law that requires handgun users to be at least 14 years old. The law prevents his girls from competing in some shooting sports, requiring them to drive to neighboring states.

The Republican-controlled Iowa House approved a change in February that would allow children to use handguns under parental supervision. Critics called it the "toddler militia" bill, and Clinton accused the NRA of trying to get more guns in the hands of children. Leaders of the Democratic-controlled Senate killed the bill.

Gibson said he saw Clinton's position as hypocritical, noting that she has talked about hunting as a young girl.

"I'm not a very big fan of Donald Trump, but I also think he won't mess with the Second Amendment," Gibson said. "When it comes down to it, I'll vote for Trump to make sure Hillary does not get into office."
 
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#7 · (Edited)
The thing I find SO exasperating -- and I HOPE can make a difference -- is that old 'business/military 'saw:

*90% of solving a problem is ACCURATELY defining the problem!​

The idiot anti-gunners -- and, alas, also our OWN "protectors" -- refuse to speak the truth:
*IF* one lifts out the "gun violence burden" of blacks and hispanics in the U.S.,
"our" gun violence numbers are LOWER than Belgium's!​

You CANNOT fix what you will not recognize!

Guns and race: The different worlds of black and white Americans | Brookings Institution
Gun deaths also vary dramatically by type. The vast majority (77 percent) of white gun deaths are suicides; less than one in five (19 percent) is a homicide. These figures are nearly opposite in the black population, where only 14 percent of gun deaths are suicides but 82 percent are homicides:
(Love this comment there: "The presence and availability of guns is not the issue. If guns were the problem, there would be no difference between races.")
And these two:
"Where do Hispanics fit on the guns and race scale, or are they lumped in with the whites?"
" they are lumped in with whites or else the murder rate with firearms would look more like white 27% hispanic 16% black 55% other 1%. or people would really start to question the fact that 280 million people cause 27% of the gun related murders vs 13 million causing 55%. They would start wonder what is wrong with that 13 million why are they so out of control."

Kaiser Foundation is delighted to tell you about 'gun deaths by race' -- but funny thing, they never mention WHO is doing the shooting!
Number of Deaths Due to Firearms per 100,000 Population by Race/Ethnicity | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Look over the graphic I've attached: (from here: New DOJ Statistics on Race and Violent Crime | American Renaissance)
...
For the first time in figures of this kind, DOJ has treated Hispanics as a separate category rather than lumping them in with whites. These data cover all violent crimes except murder, but the number of murders is tiny compared to other violent crimes.

This table can be used for a number of interesting calculations. First, we find that during the 2012/2013 period, blacks committed an average of 560,600 violent crimes against whites, whereas whites committed only 99,403 such crimes against blacks. This means blacks were the attackers in 84.9 percent of the violent crimes involving blacks and whites. This figure is consistent with reports from 2008, the last year DOJ released similar statistics. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was the year Mr. Obama was elected president.

Interestingly, we find that violent interracial crime involving blacks and Hispanics occurs in almost exactly the same proportions as black/white crime: Blacks are the attackers 82.5 percent of the time, while Hispanics are attackers only 17.5 percent of the time.
...
Using figures for the 2013 racial mix of the population-62.2 percent white, 17.1 percent Hispanic, 13.2 percent black-we can calculate the average likelihood of a person of each race attacking the other. A black is 27 times more likely to attack a white and 8 times more likely to attack a Hispanic than the other way around. A Hispanic is eight times more likely to attack a white than vice versa.

We can also calculate how often criminals of each group choose victims of other races. As indicated below, when whites commit violence they choose fellow whites as victims 82.4 percent of the time, and almost never attack blacks. Blacks attack whites almost as often as they attack blacks, and Hispanics attack whites more often than they attack any other group, including their own.

There is much media agonizing over black-on-black violence, but these figures show that only 40.1 percent of the victims of black violence are black, while people of other races account for nearly 60 percent of the victims of black violence.
...
Well worth reading!

As are the comments there here's an example):
Blacks constitute about 13.1% of America's population.
UNITED STATES QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau

Yet when it comes to crime, the FBI reports that in 2012 blacks committed:
  • 49.4% of all murders
  • 32.5% of all forcible rapes
  • 54.9% of all robberies
  • 34.1% of all aggravated assaults
  • 28.1% of ALL crime
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...he-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

Are whites a major murder threat to blacks? Of course not. 90.8% of all murdered blacks are killed by other blacks. The remaining 9.2% black murder victims were killed by ALL other races, or "unknown" -- which doubtless includes some additional blacks.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6
So long as "we" refuse to ACTUALLY see and address the ACTUAL causes of "American" gun violence, we have no chance IN HELL of changing ANYthing! :mad:
 
#8 · (Edited)
(There is some question about that "Belgium" stat (duh -- find ANY stat for which that uncertainty is not true); however:

The 'whites only' murder rate in the US is still 2.6 per 100,000,
About which, we must ask: is the the "Whites only" number INCLUDING "Hispanic offenders? Up until THIS YEAR, the "fair and balanced" U./S. gov counted Hispanic OFFENDERS as "White" and Hispanic VICTIMS as Hispanic... (Wanna bet THAT increased the "White" offender numbers?!)

and
US 'whites only' murder rate: 2.6
Denamark 1.0
Ireland 1.2
Norway 0.8
Sweden 0.9
Greece 1.4
Italy 1.4
Spain 1.2
Austria 0.8
France 1.7
Germany 1.2
Switzerland 1.0

(The 'red' quote and this quote are from here: http://americablog.com/2013/01/ann-coulter-murder-america-belgium.html)
Still. That (liberal, I'm assuming) writer is also "playing with stats" to make her point...

Commenter at that site debunks:
Unfortunately, you're comparing apples & oranges wrt Belgium vs US white murder rate.

US crime statistics generally include most Hispanics as whites & Hispanic populations seem to have higher murder rates than non Hispanic whites (take New Mexico for instance that is roughly 1/2 Hispanic and is usually among the highest US murder rates, or look at the murder rate for Mexico or even worse, Puerto Rico).

Further how can you say those countries are most like the US? Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama or Florida are like Sweden? Denmark? Norway? Ireland? Probably most like New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine or Vermont. Why don't you compare their murder rates to the small European nations you mention?

I'm sure you know there are lots of guns (capable of full auto fire ie machine guns) in Swiss hands, more than half the number of US per capita firearm ownership but their murder rate is extremely low, likewise some of those countries you mention own guns at a rate ~1/3 of the US but their murder rates are still lower than 1/3 meanwhile an industrial country like Taiwan can have a murder rate several times those countries & have virtually no private firearm ownership. It simply shows it's not guns but culture.
Then, here's another good view (with good and interesting-- and thought-provoking! -- graphs):
https://mises.org/blog/mistake-only-comparing-us-murder-rates-developed-countries
...
Note, however, that these comparisons always employ a carefully selected list of countries, most of which are very unlike the United States. They are countries that were settled long ago by the dominant ethnic group, they are ethnically non-diverse today, they are frequently very small countries (such as Norway, with a population of 5 million) with very locally based democracies (again, unlike the US with an immense population and far fewer representatives in government per voter). Politically, historically, and demographically, the US has little in common with Europe or Japan.

Prejudice about the "Developed World" vs "the Third World"

But these are the only countries the US shall be compared to, we are told, because the US shall only be compared to "developed" countries when analyzing its murder rate and gun ownership.
And yet, no reason for this is ever given. What is the criteria for deciding that the United States shall be compared to Luxembourg but not to Mexico, which has far more in common with the US than Luxembourg in terms of size, history, ethnic diversity, and geography?
...
... In this mode of thinking ["we" vs. "them"] there is a bright shiny line between the "developed" world and everyone else, who might as well be considered as a different species.
...
Once we understand these facts, and do not cling to bizarre xenophobic views about how everyone outside the "developed" world is too dysfunctional and/or subhuman (although few gun control advocates would ever admit to the thought) to bear comparison to the US, we immediately see that the mantra "worst in the developed world" offers an immensely skewed, unrealistic, and even bigoted view of the world and how countries compare to each other.
...
But, we are never allowed to compare the US to middle income countries like Uruguay, Russia, or Mexico because that would show that the US is actually a remarkably safe place in global terms on top of having many more legally owned guns than those countries.
...
...Things get even more interesting if we add American states with low murder rates.

And why not include data from individual states? It has always been extremely imprecise and lazy to talk about the "US murder rate" The US is an immense country with a lot of variety in laws and demographics. (Mexico deserves the same analysis, by the way.) Many states have murder rates that place them on the short list of low-crime places in the world. Why do we conveniently ignore them? The US murder rate is being driven up by a few high-murder states
...
I liked this graph enough to include it:
About which, the author writes:
By comparison, the US look downright pacific. And why should not this comparison be made?
Indeed, it makes more sense to compare the US to other states in the Americas than to Europe or Japan. The US and most Latin American countries were settled in similar time periods. They are frontier countries settled mostly by European immigrants that displaced a native population (to varying degrees), and most of them gained independence from European imperial nations in a similar time period. They tend to have ethnically diverse populations, and many have been impacted by the slave trade that ended in the 19th century.
Lies, damned liars, and statistics! :mad:
 

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#11 ·
If you pass the background check for a CCW (which by the way should include a shooting proficiency test) you should be able to carry in all 50 states and everywhere.

I'm tired of the strictest states having the most gun violence and those states continuing to harp on gun control when in all reality it's people control (...and bad people specifically...) that's needed.
 
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