Posted on 12/21/2012 9:40:04 AM PST by pabianice
A Message from President Obama about Your Petition on Reducing Gun Violence
In the days since the tragedy in Newtown, Americans from all over the country have called for action to deter mass shootings and reduce gun violence. Hundreds of thousands of you have signed petitions on We the People.
I'm writing you today to thank you for speaking up, to update you on an important development, and to encourage you to continue engaging with the White House on this critical issue.
First, you should know that President Obama is paying close to attention to the public response to this tragedy. In fact, he sat down to record a message specifically for those of you who have joined the conversation using We the People. Watch it now:
On Wednesday, the President outlined a series of first steps we can take to begin the work of ending this cycle of violence. This is what he said:
"We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides. And as I said on Sunday night, there's no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun. We're going to need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence. And any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our hearts.
But the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing. The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence, and prevent the very worst violence."
Vice President Biden has been asked to work with members of the Administration, Congress, and the general public to come up with a set of concrete policy proposals by next month -- proposals the President intends to push swiftly. The President asked the Vice President to lead this effort in part because he wrote and passed the 1994 Crime Bill that helped law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in America. That bill included the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.
As the Vice President's Chief of Staff, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure we run a process that includes perspectives from all sides of the issue, which is why I wanted to respond to your petition myself. Two decades ago, as domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, I first worked with Joe Biden as he fought to enact the Crime Bill, the assault weapons ban, and the Brady Bill. I will never forget what a key role the voices of concerned citizens like you played in that vital process.
The President called on Congress to pass important legislation "banning the sale of military-style assault weapons," "banning the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips," and "requiring background checks before all gun purchases, so that criminals can’t take advantage of legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won’t take the responsibility of doing a background check at all."
An issue this serious and complex isn't going to be resolved with a single legislative proposal or policy prescription. And let's be clear, any action we take will respect the Second Amendment. As the President said:
"Look, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. This country has a strong tradition of gun ownership that's been handed down from generation to generation. Obviously across the country there are regional differences. There are differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural areas. And the fact is the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible -- they buy their guns legally and they use them safely, whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection or protection.
But you know what, I am also betting that the majority -- the vast majority -- of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war. I'm willing to bet that they don't think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas -- that an unbalanced man shouldn't be able to get his hands on a military-style assault rifle so easily; that in this age of technology, we should be able to check someone's criminal records before he or she can check out at a gun show; that if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the one in Newtown -- or any of the lesser-known tragedies that visit small towns and big cities all across America every day."
The President said it best: "Ultimately if this effort is to succeed it's going to require the help of the American people -- it's going to require all of you. If we're going to change things, it's going to take a wave of Americans -- mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, pastors, law enforcement, mental health professionals -- and, yes, gun owners -- standing up and saying 'enough' on behalf of our kids."
So let's continue this conversation and get something meaningful done. If you have additional ideas and are interested in further engagement with the White House on this issue, please let us know and share your thoughts here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/share-your-thoughts-reducing-gun-violence
Thank you for speaking out and staying involved. Stay Connected
Tell us what you think about this response and We the People.
Stay connected to the White House by signing up for periodic email updates from President Obama and other senior administration officials.
Nah, No Obama.
FUBO!
Get Rahm to fix Chicago using the Theories of Zer0 and then get back to us.
To Obama, The Democrats, the useful idiots who did not study history.
Our rights are not yours to take.
1. We will see things like prior prescriptions of Ritalin, void one's rights to own a weapon. Same thing for NSAID prescriptions, etc.
2. I'm sure we'll see people like that nutball Quentin Tarantino thrown in jail for incitement to violence with his movies. Nor will we see the computer geeks who write and sell violent video games be sanctioned.
3. Scariest of all. You'd think on the surface he's talking about attitudes. Far from it. It means they will try at some point to go through each recalcitrant's homes searching for violent weapons.
Of course he means government doing nothing. But what if the problem is too complex for government (i.e. moral problem)? Or what if the proposed government action (gun bans) increase the problem? What if less government would actually improve the situation (i.e. eliminate gun-free zones)?
Democrats want to empower government and to take away our individual rights and freedom.
Democrats including the media, democrat politicians, and the Obama piece of crap want to make us slaves of the government. They are enraged that we can even own any thing like land or guns or have any rights at all. They want to control everything and that’s why they want the government to own everything so then the government has absolute power.
The individual is small and powerless. The government is huge with trillions of $ at its disposal. The government has guns, armies etc. But a democrat thinks the government is not powerful enough and a democrat always wants to give more power to government and to take away power and rights from the individual. Doesn’t a stupid liberal realize that it too is an individual and are fostering their own enslavement and dis-empowerment, giving up its own rights?
liberals/democrats trust government bureaucrats ,politicians and government with their lives. Government is their God and so they are socialists/statists.
government spent trillions funding decades of fake research for the global warming hoax . this shows government/socialism never works. also around only 7% of 8th graders CAn read , 93% can't read( again proves government schools don't work so gov doesn't work).Yet even here many are calling for arming the school idiots instead of abolishing the government schools completely. How about we educuate and protect our children in our homes or a private school instead of in government schools?
NO
Let’s ban guns in Chicago and see how that works.
Maybe someone needs to send him a copy of “Unintended Consequences”.
First ban giving them away to drug cartels and then call me back a$$hole!
These people are idiots. The cretin in CT (I will not acknowledge his name)DID NOT BUY the firearms he used. HE STOLE THEM.
There are already laws on the books against this and they didn’t stop him, what makes these idiots think more laws will?
This is a situation where you $hit in one hand and wish in the other to see which one fills the fastest.
Yes, yes, yes.
I've started to post similar several times.
Mostly boys, drugged out in school. An entire class of 'not eligible to own a firearm' men. I'll bet that's exactly what is in the works.
Just listened to LaPierre on Rush. Awesome, spot on and damning to the loony left and their enablers. They created the culture of Kill...and more and more you have to wonder if its deliberate, focused just to disarm the people.
You mean like urban culture, like one would find all over Chicago? When Rahm and Obama find a way to clean up their town, then they can start urging the rest of us t copy their success.
So, Mr President, go after Chicago urban culture that glorifies violence (rap music, BET, gangs, etc), and then let us know about the results.
The news media make mass shooters world famous. The media makes mass shooters household names.
so of course these idiot shooters do it to become world famous, the next star.
No one ever paid any attention to these loner mass shooters. Women especially ignored them so what they want most of all is attention, fame , to become someone important.
It is not necessary to name the idiot and especially not show ever detail of its life to report this but the media know they are egging on the next shooter, creating copy cats, and daring one to top the previous shooter to become even more famous.
Well....sort of...but...in the vernacular, if the rap, game or culture happens to say something like “hittin’ it from the back” or “bustacapinhimass,” then it’s completely acceptable to Obama.
Here’s an idea...
Mr. President, you don’t have the legit power to do so. Neither does Congress.
So, no. No gun bans for you.
We’ll say it louder if we have to.
When it comes to altering or removing any of my Bill of Rights be advised that I am a majority of one and notwithstanding my lack of public response, I did not nor will I authorize any individual, agency, political body, or government official to speak or act in my stead concerning any infringements on my rights.
Be not deceived. It would be a serious mistake for anyone to assume otherwise or to not believe that governments are created by me and We the People to protect and preserve those rights -- not to alter, change or destroy them.
As usual, the left is going after the WRONG issue. It's not about guns, it's about CONTROLLING CHILDREN THROUGH DISCIPLINE, and it MUST start at a young age or it's counterproductive.
So let me get this straight, he says he believes the 2nd Amendment protects the individual the right to keep and bear arms but that because so many of the criminals on the streets (who the left put on the streets) are continuing to break the law and steal legally owned firearms, the answer is to ban the firearms.
So it’s better to keep violent criminals on the streets than to keep them in jail?
So if we take away the firearms from the law-abiding citizens, that will keep these criminals that the left turns loose upon the citizenry will simply stop their violent crimes?
The stupidity of these liberals just makes the head spin trying to figure out where to begin proving their stupidity.
Whether by Law, executive order or UN treaty, they are going to disarm us. :)
Yes, but you missed a key point.
It was these statists via the ACLU that made it extremely difficult to commit the violently insane (you can apply whatever PC label you want) and to get them off the streets.
It was the ACLU, suing Byberry, that put hundreds if not thousands of “homeless” on the streets in Philadelphia, people that soon started jumping in the Delaware because they had no better sense.
Is that humane? The leftists treat abandoned cats and animals with more humanity.
And now, as a result of these ‘homeless,’ the leftists in Seattle have “tent cities” set up in the back homes of any of their targeted neighborhoods. They shove these criminals in the faces of the home-owner and then demand more funds to help them.
Build an institution and commit them. There were atrocities in the state-run facilities (why we should never trust the state to run our healthcare), but we can fix that a lot easier than we can fix the insane and the criminals wandering our streets.
If there is any truth to this, if Obama’s intention is to spark a civil war, I know of no better way.
Thanks. Good informational post. If we read and consider all of the content (or lack of) and really think about it, that response to anti-Second-Amendment petitions is making the radical anti-Second-Amendment lefties really mad. There’s nothing in it that agrees with what they want.
Even most working class Democrats agree with at least some freedoms and that firearms are very much in style. The “upscale” (flush with cash flow from government debt), anti-Second-Amendment left, along with only a small portion of Republicans (also debt-supported), are certainly overwhelmed by the vast majority of the pro-Second-Amendment, voting population.
Oh I know this...have known for some time. Their position on actually violating the rights of an effing crazy person just shows us that their end goal is confiscate all guns because they certainly about to violate the nutballs’ rights.
You know, once they get rid of the second ammendment, they’ll be coming in full force for the first.....
Hey Odumbo, go orally stimulate a goat.
Any gun control measures will stop at the House of Representatives for sure and probably in the Senate. In Calirado, gun control will stop at a large and convincing enough call (and determination) for voting out certain incumbents.
Now that it appears that the Mayan calender thing didn’t work out...HELP OBAMA! SAVE US FROM OURSELVES! WE HAVE TOO MUCH FREEDOM! CHAIN US UP AND PROTECT US FROM EACH OTHER!
Questions that I wonder about
Are Americans too lazy and fat to have another civil war?
What exactly would it take for citizens to stand up and say no?
I what point have enough civil rights be removed for the majority of people to notice?
Are Americans too stupid to even understand what is happening?
PERSONALLY I think that Americans are too lazy and too far gone to do anything about this or any other subject. I think a lot of Americans would enjoy socialism.
Some say there could never be another civil war in America. I wonder.
There are some threads on Free Republic that say it can never happen again.
To quote Winston Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Is there really anyone stupid enough to believe it will end with a ban on “assault” weapons?
“[Assault weapons’] menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi- automatic assault weapons —anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun— can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.” Josh Sugarmann, executive director of New Right Watch, spokesman for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, “Assault Weapons and Accessories in America,” policy report of New Right Watch and the Education Fund to End Handgun Violence, September 1988
“Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It does not matter if you have to distort facts or even lie.”
-Sarah Brady, Handgun Control, Inc., The National Educator, January, 1994
“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an out right ban, picking up every one of them... ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,’ I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here.”-Dianne Feinstein, Senator, CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes,” February 5, 1995
“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” - Hubert Humphrey(bitter clinger), 1960
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”- William Pitt, 1783
“Gun bans don’t disarm criminals, gun bans attract them.”- Walter Mondale, U.S. Ambassador to Japan(bitter clinger), April 20, 1994
And so it begins...
“Maybe someone needs to send him a copy of “Unintended Consequences”.”
Somebody ought to get that book back into print, QUICKLY.
Even used copies run about $150 at used book outlets...
It can be found on the net in pdf format, if you dig for it...
Refuse. Resist.
The rats an media need to be reminded that they had the house, the senate and the president from 08 to 10. They could have passed this back then .... Ban, confiscation etc ... Was theirs for the taking.
They played politics to win a second term.... Allegedly per their own descriptive agenda ....the reason these kids were murdered....
They had the capabilities, resources and votes to play this the way they want now ..... Then
Posers....
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