Posted on 04/12/2009 9:04:02 PM PDT by neverdem
While President Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and Attorney General Eric Holder share an anti-gun ideology, they might not be the greatest threat to the Second Amendment among the current administration. Their gun control efforts could be vastly outdone by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s habit of equating gun bans with curing a “public health epidemic.”
Prior to becoming secretary of education, Duncan was CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) from 2001 to 2008. During that time, student performance in CPS remained static or fell even further behind the national average. For example, in October 2008 the Chicago Tribune reported: “The percentage of Chicago public high school students who met or exceeded state standards on a test tied to the ACT college-entrance exam dropped for the third consecutive year.”
According to the Progressive Review, fourth-grade tests improved by “less than three tenths of a percent” between 2003 and 2007 and eighth-grade math tests remained two points behind the national average for that same time period. Yet Duncan was lauded by his fellow leftists for his concern for the children, especially when he showed that concern through rallies against gun ownership, his heavy involvement with the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, and speech upon speech containing lines like: “I wish that our society valued children more than it values…traditions that might have been at home in a frontier society two centuries ago but make absolutely no sense today.”
For any of you who are new to Democrat double-speak, the “traditions” he criticizes are those tied to our nation’s heritage of keeping arms and bearing them.
In another Chicago Tribune story which ran in October 2008, Duncan said: “[Gun violence] is a public health epidemic. We are struggling to find the cure for AIDS, we are struggling to find the cure for cancer; [yet] we know the cure for this public health epidemic -- getting rid of guns.”
Ironically, Duncan spewed a similar rant on April 1, 2008, at “a gun control rally sponsored by Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina's Catholic Church.” (Yes, you read that right: the same race-baiting Michael Pfleger who preached to Obama when the regular race-baiter, Jeremiah Wright, was on hiatus.)
According to the Illinois State Rifle Association, at the very time Duncan was fighting against gun rights with Pfleger, the Chicago Police Department was releasing studies which indicated that the vast majority of “children” dying in Chicago shootings were not average kids: “88% of murders [were] committed by people with previous criminal records" and “about 76% of murder victims had records as well.”
Isn’t it a little duplicitous to include the deaths of habitual criminals with those of innocent children shot on the playground? Doing so makes it look like someone is trying to inflate casualty figures in order to better the chance of securing a gun ban.
Men like Duncan and the anti-gun movements of which he was a part deserve more than a little scrutiny concerning the current crime spree in Chicago. It is, after all, on the homepage of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence that one finds the boast, “Keeping Illinois one of only two states that does not allow the carrying of loaded, concealed handguns in public places.”
The fact that such laws make Illinois one of only two states that keep law-abiding citizens unarmed in public places, where most mass shootings of unarmed law-abiding civilians occur, makes no difference to Duncan. He is convinced that Illinois current ban against concealed weapons doesn’t go far enough. Instead, he wants a completely gun-free society and promises to “keep fighting the NRA, the gun makers, the gun dealers, the gang bangers and everyone else who refuses to accept the undeniable fact that guns and kids don’t mix.” He even promises to reach “in the home” in his fight against gun ownership.
Perhaps it seems I’ve exaggerated Duncan’s threat to our freedom. Especially in light of the fact that states and schools, rather than the secretary of education, traditionally control book buys and curricula. But the key word with this administration is “change,” folks, and Duncan has promised to change the way the secretary of education oversees education.
To achieve this change, “[Duncan’s] discretionary money…is $5 billion, [which is] more than the entire budget of the Department of Education 35 years ago.” And in a recent interview conducted by John Merrow, Duncan not only made it clear that he will pursue “national standards” in curriculum but also that the funds in his budget will not make it to states that don’t educate his way: “States have to behave in…different ways [than they have]. … The idea of 50 states doing things, you know, their own way doesn't quite make sense.”
Merrow asked Duncan if he meant to imply that money would only go to states that “do [what] Duncan wants.” And Duncan replied, “If you play by these rules, absolutely right.”
So there you have it. One of the most anti-gun ideologues in Washington not only plans to take it upon himself to set state curriculum via national standards but also to withhold money from states that don’t go his way. And if we sit idly by, it won’t be long till our children are taught that “we live in a society that values the right to bear arms over the lives of our children.”
We’ll have to counter this by reminding our children that “we the people,” not the government, are the defenders of our freedom, possessions and selves. And contrary to Duncan’s opinion, that defense is best done with a gun.
Just exactly what the Founding Fathers warned us against. They work For us not Over us. What few rights not spelled out in the Constitution for the feds are reserved for the states.
Okay, so we’re supposed to make a link between gun violence and public health in general.
I would be very happy if the youth gangs plaguing Chicago and other cities didn’t have these weapons. I would be even happier if they didn’t live in a culture in which all perceived slights, no matter how small, are settled with a gun. I would be happy if they didn’t shoot others over drug deals gone bad, and other such crap that has nothing to do with public health.
How many gun laws did the Columbine guys violate?
How many gun laws did the Virginia Tech guy violate, even before he began his shooting spree? And didn’t he also violate a feel-good campus policy that Virginia Tech was a gun free zone??????
We can have the whole gun control debate, but, do they really think this will make an impression on people by tying the gun issue to public health?
Arne..."take the **** out of your mouth"
This guy & his ideas scare me.
Not surprising, considering that Obama was a Director of The Joyce Foundation, an anti-2nd Amendment funder.
http://www.joycefdn.org/programs/GunViolence/
To be more accurate, if we;re going to make public health analogies,
CRIMINALS are CANCER. You have cancer, the doctor wants to WIPE IT OUT.
Armed LAW ABIDING CITIZENS are white blood cells. They do not kill the body. They repel foreign invaders and diseases like CANCER.
Guns make them SUPER T KILLER white blood cells.
Friggin liberal putz’s. Just see how the gun bans in other countries have allowed crime and victimization of citizens soar because they cannot be their own first responders. We all have the right to defend our lives, loved ones and property with deadly force if necessary. Government cannot be allowed to take that away from anyone.
place holder for tomorrow
Hmmmmmmm.
What about, “Leave our guns alone! For Your health!”
I have learned from Glenn Beck exactly what "Progressive" means.
He told us the history of the Progressive movement and it's goals. One of the great heroes of the Progressive movement was Benito Mussolini. Now, whenever I see the word Progressive, Benito Mussolini bells ring in my head. Hillary claims to be progressive. Hillary Clinton<=> Benito Mussolini
Criminal gun violence is a crime. So treat it as such. End of story.
When a liberal doesn't like something, they try to make it into some fantasy 'violation of rights'. Like second hand smoke which isn't harmful or "smoking makes other people pay more for insurance so that's a form of theft or extortion". Yet if you smoke you must report that to the insurer. But if you have AIDS then your medical records are 'protected'. What this guy actually means isn't that gun violence is a public health hazard, but simply owning a gun is.
"Progressive" was appropriated by the Stalinist-front organizations that mounted a rump convention of the lefty-trendy wing of the Democratic Party in 1948 to nominate Henry Wallace for President. George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic Party nominee, was a delegate to that "Progressive" convention in 1948.
The "Progressives" took over the Democratic Party in the 1970's and locked out the traditional Democrats from the decision-making processes. They have been identified with the "liberal wing" of the Dems ever since, although the word "liberal" is a misnomer when applied to "Progressives", who would better be called simply Communists. A few remaining liberals understand this distinction, but the voice of "liberalism" has long since been taken over by the "Progressives".
Locally, we solve the misconceptions about firearms by taking kids to the range. Some proper firearms training and an afternoon shooting targets generally eclipses all the BS spewed by the union-owned socialist teachers.
Fifty States doing things, you know, their own way, Arne, is called federalism, and it's the essence of the Constitution and the American Experiment.
There it is, for all to see: The guy is literally a totalitarian.
My old man took us kids out to a waterfront facility one day and we spent an hour or two shooting at some soft yellow-pine boards backed by an enormous, 100-foot-high, 100-yard-long pile of clamshells dredged up for use as road metal (standard roadbuilding material in south Louisiana 50 years ago, still is).
He made sure we understood what the effects we were seeing on those 2x6" pine boards would equate to, if a person were ever struck by one of those little 40-grain soft-lead bullets fired by his old .22-cal. autopistol.
I took 15 young men from church to the range. They fired the Ruger MKII (.22LR), S&W 686+ (127 gr 38SPL), Magnum Research BFR revolver (45-70 405 gr "cowboy" loads) and Ruger SuperRedhawk .454 Casull 7.5" bbl (200 gr FMJ @2000 fps). The kids had a blast (literally). All of them had prior experience shooting rifles. Few of them had any handgun experience. That was the objective of the trip. It was a long night cleaning :-)
That's like curing AIDS by getting rid of T-cells. IIRC, your body needs T-cells to survive yet it's T-cells that are abused by HIV to cause AIDS.
"SUPRISE!"
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