Tuesday, December 18, 2012

SAF & CCRKBA Propose National Commission On Causes Of Violence


The Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has proposed a national commission to study the causes of violence. Rather than focus solely on the tools, i.e., guns, they are proposing to find the root cause of why you have people go so far off the rails as in Aurora or Newtown. I think this is a much more valuable approach to the tragedy in Newtown than passing more laws that will never stop a madman but might prevent the good people from defending themselves.

BELLEVUE, WA – Two leading national gun rights organizations are calling for the creation of a national commission to study the causes of violence in America, and offer possible preventive measures.

The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said that a national dialogue on violence has already begun in the wake of the Sandy Hook school tragedy, but that a national commission would be more able to address the complexity of this dilemma.


“If we don’t identify and get at the root causes of violence,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb of Bellevue, Washington, “it won’t matter how many guns you ban, you will still have violence. There were no guns around when Cain slew Abel, and throughout recorded history, mankind has engaged in considerable violence. Only in the past two centuries have firearms played a historic significance.”


“Connecticut already has laws regulating firearms and even modern semi-automatic rifles,” noted SAF President Joseph Tartaro of Buffalo, New York. “They did not prevent what happened in Newtown, any more than Norway’s laws, or Germany’s or Russia’s prevented some of the recent mass murders in those countries.


“If the public policy debate which is sure to follow,” Tartaro continued, “focuses solely on gun law solutions and ignores all the other key questions, we will have done a disservice to the memories of all the victims of such madness in Connecticut, in Colorado, in Oregon, or anywhere else.”


Both gun rights leaders noted that violence is a problem in the United States, and “we need to solve it.”


“Gun owners are like anyone else,” Gottlieb observed. “We have families, we have children and grandchildren. We want to keep them safe. We walk the same streets as any other citizen, and many gun owners have decided to protect themselves and their families. Our rights as gun owners should not be sacrificed in the interest of providing the illusion that ‘something’ is being done.


“Any meaningful discussion on violence,” Gottlieb added, “would need to include mental health, violent video games, television shows and films, media malpractice that sensationalizes violence and the dangerously false sense of security created by so-called ‘gun-free zones’.”


“If we have a debate,” Tartaro concluded, “let’s make it a broad and meaningful one.”

3 comments:

  1. At the risk of being called unfeeling or heartless, let me see if I can put some facts on the table for your consideration. Federal Uniform Crime Reporting indicates violent crime is down again as is the murder rate. Yep, violent crime and murder are bad. Are we having a crisis on a national scale? Nope. Rather, we are seeing the lowest rates in 40 years.

    Is what happened at Newtown bad? Yep. Does it justify passing any new laws? Not in my opinion. Not a single one. Delay, deter, detect, deny and defend. That's what we need to do. Harden otherwise soft targets so that we protect ourselves. The good guys cannot depend 100% on their outsourced security forces (aka our employees, the police) so we need to defend ourselves. We already have the tools (shall issue CCW), and maybe now we can find the will to do what really will improve our odds.

    If this administration actually wanted to do something about murder and or violent crime, the first thing to do would be to identify where said murders are happening. Only it wouldn't be politically correct as it's poor black men killing other poor black men in our inner cities. Let's take our President's former home city of Chicago - where more than one person a day is murdered. That's a Newtown a month, folks.

    http://blogs.justice.gov/main/archives/1765

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  2. Well there is another study by the DOJ/BJS and their Oct report says violent crime is up 17% http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/press/cv11pr.cfm

    It is not as rosy as the FBI reports, and some experts believe that the only thing holding things in check is the armed citizen

    No gun zones allow this people a killing ground, and there are no simple fixes, other than armed citizens being able to respond. We as a country have lost a lot of our values, and this will not be something we can fix in a year or two, it will take a generation or two.

    Mental illness, drugs, broken families (No values, respect, or discipline), violent video imagery. there is not one single thing causing the violence, but a lot of factors weigh in.

    In the short term the fix is to allow armed citizens be in these No Gun zones so when the killers come they can be stopped quickly.

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  3. @RKV and The Duck: I don't disagree with either of you. I think the thing that SAF/CCRKBA and all gun rights groups are working for right now is time and distance. The longer out we can force the issue, the better our chances of getting through it without new draconian laws that won't stop the next mass murderer.

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