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July 28th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda So important is the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it is enshrined in the US Constitution as the Second Amendment, adopted in 1791, and reaffirmed as the right of the individual in two Supreme Court cases within the last four years – one overturning a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, the other limiting state and local government infringement on that right.
But surely the founders did not foresee the savagery of the madman with an apparently legally acquired semi-automatic assault rifle, equipped with a 100-round magazine, who let loose in Aurora at the midnight premiere of the Batman movie Dark Knight Rises.
My friends in the UK, who live under some of the strictest gun control laws, must be perplexed that there has not been swift action to strengthen gun restrictions here in the US. And they’d have a valid point, particularly when it comes to questioning the need for assault weapons with high-capacity magazines for sport, or even for personal defence in country not at war.
I own guns. And, if the bear in the woods behind my cabin a few weeks ago was a deadly threat, or if an intruder at the front door should ever put my family’s lives at risk, I would be prepared to use a gun in defence. However, I do think there is room for a rational discussion of whether and how we could have saved lives before the midnight showing in Aurora.
A 10-year federal ban on the manufacture of assault weapons for civilian use was passed by Congress in 1994 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. But repeated attempts to renew it failed even to get as far as a vote, despite the support of then-President George W Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney.
(“Assault weapons” under the 1994 law included semi-automatic firearms – rifles, pistols or shotguns that load themselves ready for the next shot, but require a fresh pull of the trigger to fire it.)
It takes unusual courage to lead where the people do not want to go.
Along with barbed wire and the railroads, guns helped settle the western frontier. They are symbols of the independence and self-reliance that made America, America.
And it’s not just small-town, rural Americans who cling to their guns, as Obama famously remarked at a 2008 campaign event in the rather liberal and elite confines of San Francisco. Nearly half of American adults report keeping a gun in their homes or on their properties, and that number is rising.
Federal laws already ban or heavily restrict the sale of some weapons, require automatic background checks for all gun purchases from licensed dealers, and prohibit sales to felons and the mentally ill.
Other gun laws vary by state. Some ban assault weapons, others impose waiting periods for any purchase and require reporting of mental health issues. Yet others allow open or concealed carrying of firearms in public, with or without a permit. Person-to-person sales, and gun show and online purchases, may offer loopholes to intended protections.
But when polled even after the Aurora shooting – which took place just half an hour’s drive from the site of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre where 13 were killed – just 41 per cent of adults said we need stricter gun control laws in the US, up only three per cent from January. And only 34 per cent believed stricter gun control laws would reduce violent crime.
Gun store owners, in fact, reported a surge in sales last week.
Sadly, an overwhelming majority of Americans doubt that public places can ever be made completely safe from such violence.
And it’s not surprising, when according to one poll nearly half of all Americans consider the federal government “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens”, that folks are suspicious of any law encroaching on their constitutional right to bear arms.
As seen in both Aurora and Columbine, gun-free zones (schools and theatres) are not crime-free zones. And a ban on assault weapons or 100-round magazines won’t end all evil. But it could save a life or two – even 12 or 13.
Politicians often lack will. Sometimes it takes the act of a madman to focus our sights. It would be a shame if this recent tragedy didn’t spur some modest action to curb and enforce reasonable limits on guns in America.
Mark McKinnon, a former Republican strategist who worked on the campaigns of George W Bush and John McCain, is Global Vice Chair of Hill+Knowlton Strategies
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