Bullets for Gun Control

[Roscoe]

Just got this as a LinkedIn update and thought I would share.... Prepare for extreme left wing thinking...

Bullets for Gun Control
David L. Katz, MD, MPH January 08, 2013


If a nation of reasonable citizens- of loving parents and grandparents- can get organized, we really should have a shot at overcoming the NRA/gun seller alliance and achieving a semblance of sane gun control in this country. We really should have a shot!

We certainly have the bullets…

• What “well regulated Militia”?
• What “Arms”?
• If not all “arms”- not nuclear, not chemical, not biological- then why semi-automatic with high-capacity magazines?
• Semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines are not for hunting anything but people. They make a helluva mess out of a duck or a deer.
• Semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines are weapons of choice in the massacre of assembled innocents.
• Semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines almost never figure in effective self-defense.
• Even trained professionals caught up in a massacre have difficulty using a gun to put an end to it.
• More guns = more dead people. Period.
• Fewer guns = fewer dead people. Period.
• More good guys with guns = more dead people, including good guys.
• More bad guys with guns = more dead people, including good guys.
• More good guys with guns = more bad guys with guns.
• Gun sellers prefer to blame violent media, while using violent media to help sell guns. Hypocrisy, anyone?
• If violent media encourage use of guns, and guns are used to kill- doesn’t it make sense to address the flow of both?
• We can improve mental health care in this country and control gun sales. Our cars do not come with a choice between brakes or steering.
• The notion that weapons like the ever-popular Bushmaster model used in the Sandy Hook massacre have any legitimate use in civilian hands is the effective marketing of a money-making fantasy, just like the sale of Hummers to people who never drive off suburban streets, and the sale of sports drinks to those whose greatest athletic feat is walking from the couch to the fridge to get one.
• We risk the lives of our soldiers around the world looking for weapons of mass destruction, while risking the lives of our children by putting weapons of mass destruction into circulation in our own neighborhoods.
• Which matters more to us: the money to be made selling guns, or the lives of our children? How much money has to be made to justify the death of a single child?

This is just a sampling; there are plenty more bullets where these come from. We have the bullets; we really ought to have a shot.

-fin

Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com

https://www.turnthetidefoundation.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-David-L-Katz/114690721876253

http://twitter.com/DrDavidKatz

[Nash B.]

Of course. You must think about the children, or do you have no heart?

[Roscoe]

Here are the comments.... rather golden, I think.

Steve H. If you believe banning certain types of guns will prevent evil people from killing others, then you must also believe that banning certain types of pens and pencils will prevent misspelled words.
56m

Tony C. There is a big difference between a gun owner and a gun possessor. Explaining a high-capacity clip to a low-capacity brain is a waste of time anyway. Wish I could hit "like" on several of these comments (and delete a few others), but I will say I agree 100% with Sean H. and Jeffrey D. - this is NOT the place for this and it should be removed by Linkedin. There are many other forums for that.
1h

Jeffrey D. I would agree hence my first statement I thought LinkedIn was a tool used for professional employment networking
1h

Sean H. I do not believe that this is an appropriate article to be posted in Linkedin.
2h

Jeremy M. This is ridiculous. It's our right to own firearms. It's a guarantee that if good people had to turn in their arms that break-in's and robberies would increase. Bad people never follow laws, thus their nature. If I want to use a high-capacity magazine for home defense, that's my right and it's not impracticle. You may not want to try to reload a ten-round magazine if you happen to be in a stand-off down a hall of your home on a dark night with one or more attackers trying to get at you. None this gun control is going to stop bad people. They will always have access to their own supply of arms and high-capacity magazines no matter what the laws are. If they can't get their hands on a firearm they can certainly resort to knives, baseball bats, homemade explosives, chainsaws or brute force to accomplish whatever they are planning. This is America, we have the right to bear arms and protect ourselves. The choice to arm and protect yourself is yours, not by others, as stated in the 2nd amendment. Ice Cream kills too, time to ban spoons too?
3h

Richard N. I suggest you hit the books and do some more reading.... Your research (if any) is way off.
4h

Pablo C. fool.
4h

John H. With such a "Thinker Pose" head shot, one would assume you might think through the issue with more depth, fitting of such a prestigious title and level in society. Perhaps you might include the percentage of gun violence that is committed by registered handgun owners and by stolen registered guns. In many states like California, I believe there is already a law against ammunition clips that hold more than nine bullets. We also have a law against "cop killer" bullets. Criminals will always buy illegal guns and nobody else will have them, not even convenience store owners in vulnerable areas. Ask the Korean shop owners in LA during the Rodney King riots how they defended their lives and their businesses; they were armed. A registered handgun for self-defense is rarely every used, yet a Saturday night special is often used. Maybe we should focus on the inner city and gangs where most of the gun violence occurs. In Japan and the UK, mass murderers kill people with poison gas. All said and done, we need a public policy that first takes guns out of the hands of criminals. The recent mass murder at the school is atypical; the daily gun violence in our inner cities is the bigger problem.
4h

Kevin D. I love that he ended his article with "-fin". It shows he's smart.
4h

Ron S. In the words of Cal Thomas, "We don't have a gun problem; we have a people problem". And I'll add to that, we have a media and politician problem who contribute to the misinformation floating around on this issue.
4h

Robert W. B. This is just another Hyperbole opinion thrown together with a one sided point of view and it is very slanted.
4h

Erik S. Instead of trying to pick out the true intentions of what was written in the late 18th century why not just do what we do with automobiles and demand that owners have liability insurance on them.
4h

Valerie M. Hammers killed more people in 2011 than guns. If I get a 100% guarentee that all the U.S. drug cartels will turn in 100% of their weapons, yup I will turn mine in. But I want to be the LAST one to turn theirs in.
4h

Mike H. You just don't get it!!!!
4h

Michael W. Where to begin, I wonder...? It's interesting how most gun-control advocates generally just assume that all criminal will surrender their guns the minute a law is signed. You know...like they did with drugs, right? It's as if the criminal element is sitting in their living rooms thinking, "Man, I sure hope they don't outlaw guns because I'll just have to give them up. There's no way I could honorably rob someone if I knew they were unarmed.". Right...because a criminal follows the law. Unfortunately, violent crime is going to happen; guns or not. Law abiding citizens should not be penalized for the actions of a few deranged lunatics that would've found a way to perpetrate their evil one way or another. There are various other points the author alluded to that are half-baked or outright false. then again, we've come to expect it in this debate, I guess.
4h

Mark (Andy) P. If you're going to publicly post an agenda like this and attach your professional credibility to it along with the reputation of Yale University, shouldn't all of the agenda points at least have a modicum of truth or merit to them? This is the caliber of integrity and professionalism taught at Yale University these days, and this passes for a leadership post on LinkedIN?
4h

Chase T. There has yet to be a valid solution presented to the problem of gun ownership in the US. We already have the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world. Simply outlawing ownership of guns or even specific types of gun won't eliminate the fact that those guns are already here. Those who care about the law may turn in their guns but I am assuming the law will have as much of an effect as laws on marijuana and laws on alcohol during prohibition. So what is the solution? Don't outlaw anything. Require certification to own certain classes. If you want to own a pistol for self defense take a 1 day class that explains safeties, clips, etc. If you want to own an assault rifle with high capacity clips take a month long (or any length, this is an example) training course that goes over the uses, maintenance, and everything else that this "collector's item" entails. The point is this is not a black and white situation of banning guns or not banning guns or "we need to do something to help the mentally ill because that is the main problem." This problem needs a well thought out solution rather than conjecture.
5h

Jerard S. You will never stop the bad guys from owning a gun...never. So that said, you're going to want the good guys to have guns...period. It should be our right and choice to own a pistol, shotgun or rifle but when it comes to guns like the AR-15 then I do think we need to amend some laws.
5h

Gary F. The Bushmaster rifle was not used as I understand it, he only used his pistols, but I could be wrong. It really does not matter what he used, if he had it in his mind he would have found a way. A home made bomb perhaps. Then what would have happened, more deaths and destruction. We need to find and stop the ones with mental disorders from playing violent video games
6h

Gary F. Have you ever given any thought about the video games some play that desensitizes people with vulnerable minds to kill in the first place. Let's out law violent video games, maybe this is the answer.

[Sean88gt]

If every single weapon, in every corner of the world was collected and banned - we would still have to deal with assholes picking up rocks.

[71chevellejohn]

If every single weapon, in every corner of the world was collected and banned - we would still have to deal with assholes picking up rocks.

That's why in my first term in office I will be banning the possession and transfer of heavy rocks.

[Mysticcobrakilla]

That's why in my first term in office I will be banning the possession and transfer of heavy rocks.

Yeah but what about those light rocks that you could throw really hard and keep a large capacity of them in your pockets?

[71chevellejohn]

Yeah but what about those light rocks that you could throw really hard and keep a large capacity of them in your pockets?

I gotta save something for my re-election campaign... I will exploit the last pebbling incident for votes.

[Jimbo]

Its difficult to believe that any mature professional could willingly believe and spread misinformation like that. I guess the world is full of those people, though.

[Broncojohnny]

I love how every one of these cute little diatribes centers around the misinformation that the 2nd amendment is about hunting. It isn't.

Fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court has already determined that it is your right to own a "commonly available" firearm for self defense and no other reason. That is before we start talking about hunting. Or defense against tyranny.

[71chevellejohn]

I love how every one of these cute little diatribes centers around the misinformation that the 2nd amendment is about hunting. It isn't.

Fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court has already determined that it is your right to own a "commonly available" firearm for self defense and no other reason. That is before we start talking about hunting. Or defense against tyranny.

<-- Waits for Ruffdaddy to let you know what you "need" in a gun.

[Nash B.]

<-- Waits for Ruffdaddy to let you know what you "need" in a gun.

What you need in a gun? Ammunition, of course!

[Broncojohnny]

<-- Waits for Ruffdaddy to let you know what you "need" in a gun.

Ruffdaddy should go and work on his pecs and let the adults talk.

[Sgt Beavis]

All this proposed legislation is going to be moot in maybe 5 to 10 years. Desktop manufacturing (3d printing) is going to make it possible for us to make our own firearms. People are already making AR lowers... NASA recently perfected a 3d printer for high end metal parts.

Screw going to the gun show and dealing with the crowds or jacked up prices. We'll all just start making our own firearms at home. I guarantee you that it will be that damn easy within our lifetimes...

[GhostTX]

For a Dr., those are some dumb arguments.

[Forever_frost]

I wonder if he's read that medical malpractice kills 600 times more Americans each year than a rifle