Posted on 12/17/2012 8:03:44 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., today called for new federal gun control laws in the wake of Friday’s shooting spree in Newtown, Conn. that killed 27, including 20 young children.
Grijalva called for some new actions on who can obtain guns in the wake of the Connecticut killings. He also referenced the 2011 shooting spree in Tucson that killed six, including U.S. District Court Judge John Roll, and severely wounded former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
“The scandalous availability of highly lethal weapons to even the least qualified, least competent and most dangerous among us has gone on long enough,” said Grijalva, whose district includes Tucson, Yuma and Nogales and some parts of the West Valley. “If pro-gun activists will not negotiate in good faith, it is time for the country to move on without them.”
Grijalva’s comments were the strongest on either side of Arizona’s political aisle in the wake of Friday’s horrific events.
Other Arizona elected officials -- ranging from U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat -- issued statements of condolences and prayers for the victims’ families and loved ones.
The children killed Friday in Connecticut were 6 and 7 years old.
Here is the full text of Grijalva’s statement:
When a man kills 20 children and seven others for no reason other than his own demons, the immediate human response is the same anywhere: deep pain, grief, anger and frustration. In the United States, unfortunately, such a tragedy carries an added weight because it is not unique.
Last Friday will live in our collective memory, just as Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Tucson and the numerous other mass killings we have endured will live in our memory. We have become a nation overly acquainted with shock and grief.
That grief cannot be the end of our response. With millions of other Americans, I say today that we should stop making emotional room in our hearts for each year’s new round of public shootings and killing sprees. We should resolve to end them rather than accommodate them.
At some point, which I believe we long ago passed, the time comes to stop calling for “a national dialogue” when one side is clearly uninterested in talking. Absolutism in defense of gun violence is no virtue, and we have been cowed by absolutists for too long. When we accept eight or nine thousand gun murders a year as the price of what some people think of as freedom, we have gone too far.
It takes necessary courage in these moments to admit that our laws are part of the problem, and that no amount of emotional healing is going to prevent the next tragedy. The scandalous availability of highly lethal weapons to even the least qualified, least competent and most dangerous among us has gone on long enough. If pro-gun activists will not negotiate in good faith, it is time for the country to move on without them. Sitting on our hands and hoping for the best is no longer an option.
There are plenty of people who believe otherwise. I wonder how they would feel if it had been them at 5 years old.
Hey, Raul, what will you be screaming when whackos start using cars to run over folks because they couldn’t get one of them ugly guns?
Yeah. I am waiting for the boy on house arrest in my neighborhood to return to jail. He took a loaded gun on a school bus within the last six weeks. I am guessing that the judge who let the boy go home is a crony of Grijalva. This is in Tucson.
I am waiting for Sheriff Dupnik to find and arrest the armed robber who walked into the Wal Mart grocery here. The number of armed robberies that remain unsolved in Grijalva’s district is growing. My question is whether the armed robbers are or were illegals.
We should award him something.
Wow...the House member who is Mestizo Ku Klux Klan/La Raza/MEChA wants to take away guns from WHITE people (which is really what he is saying). He sure does not want to take them from Illegals, MEChA, Mexican Drug Cartels. Grijalva is one hatemonger racist
I’m not going to negotiate at all, Raul.
Get the **** out of my country if you don’t like it.
Stop right there, pal. Even with out firearms, the man's demons will drive him to other utensils of slaughter, and just as deadly if not more. Did Timothy McVeigh or the Unibomer need guns?
This nation is too afraid to address issues of mental health Ban guns or whatever, but those demons will go on driving.
“If pro-gun activists will not negotiate in good faith, it is time for the country to move on without them.”
Um...we’re the ones with the guns. Ya might just want to talk to us first. We take this “...shall not be infringed” bit rather seriously.
It takes necessary courage in these moments to admit that our laws emotions are part of the problem, and that no amount of emotional healing new anti-gun laws is going to prevent the next tragedy.
And your Keystone Cops were hopped up on something, one tripped over another, and there was a full scale slaughter of an innocent Marine. It’s only by some complete miracle that the little boy and wife were unharmed (physically).
And you couldn’t be bothered to send protection for Comrade Gabby that day — although you and she’d been whining like good little Bolsheviks for ever about safety.
Clean up your own house, you maggot-filled waste of space.
Obtuse jacks.
Doctors kill more people each year that guns and cars combined.
Outlaw them first and then get back to me with your absolutist demands
If this La Raza moron wants to impress me, he’s going to have to show a little “outrage” over Fast and Furious. Or doesn’t he care about Mexicans being killed? Hypocrite!!!!!!
Shove it Raul!
In 2012 there are about 312 million people in the USA, 7 of which went mental and committed mass murder. What law could we enact to pinpoint and stop the next 7 evil lunatics out of 300+ million other people?
“Clean up your own house, you maggot-filled waste of space.”
We had a former Japanese exchange student who went on to get a masters at AU in Tucson. He said that some nights the gunfire kept him awake. In Tucson, it’s not “Holder’s People,” it’s “Raul’s People.”
He is still a worthless POS.
What's Vice-President Biden got to do with this?
Dear Raul,
You seen to be under the impression that the 2nd amendment
no longer applies. There is no reason for “dialog” or
“negociations” the wording is plain.
Now if you want to ammend the constitution feel free to
try. But try and go around it and you will find out
that others take it seriously just as our founders did.
Enough to throw off the yoke of tyranny, then or NOW.
Thank you for your time.
T68.
If the illegal aliens weren’t allowed to vote, this lowlife would be mopping floors at Taco Bell.
So, we are expected to give up our liberty because someone had personal demons and should have been in an asylum before this happened!
Remember, THIS IS JUST A GUN GRAB! He could just as easily done the job with a tube fed .22 rimfire and a baseball bat.
Dude needs to move to Santa Ana, CA
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