The modern era of mass-casualty public shootings was inaugurated when James Huberty decided to go “hunting for humans” with an UZI Carbine at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California on July 18, 1984....
And since that horrific attack at McDonald’s in 1984 that left 21 dead, including numerous children, and 19 wounded, the list of towns and institutions that will forever be associated with mass shootings continues to grow: Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California; Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; a hunting camp in Birchwood, Wisconsin; a mall in Omaha, Nebraska; an IHOP in Carson City, Nevada; a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; Sandy Hook Elementary School; a military installation in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Planned Parenthood; and now San Bernardino.
American activist
Josh Sugarmann is an American activist for gun control in the United States. He is the executive director and founder in 1988 of the Violence Policy Center, a non-profit advocacy and educational organization, and the author of two books on gun control.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.
Yesterday Connecticut gunmaker Sturm, Ruger & Co. announced an “Inaugural Special“ for high-capacity ammunition magazines for its Mini-14 rifles, a weapon nicknamed the “poor man’s assault rifle.” According to Ruger:
From November 4, 2008 to January 20, 2009, fans of the Ruger Mini-14 Target Rifles and Mini-14 Ranch Rifles, both chambered for .223 Remington, can purchase Ruger manufactured 20-round magazines (regularly priced at $39.95) for only $29.95. This special offer is only available through the Ruger On-line Store. Please note that these magazines are not available where state or local regulations limit magazine capacity to less than 20 rounds.
Guns are now the only consumer product manufactured in America not regulated by a federal agency for health and safety...
When presented with guns’ unique niche in the pantheon of consumer products, the industry and its cheerleaders like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) go into a well-practiced spiel of how in fact they’re actually the most regulated industry in America — citing dealer and manufacturer licensing, the minimal paperwork necessary to buy a gun under federal law, the Brady background check all buyers must go through to purchase a weapon from a licensed dealer, and the fact that ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] is allowed to check a dealer’s sales records once a year (a privilege the agency has the manpower to employ on a far less frequent basis). Yet these are sales standards, not product safety standards. ATF lacks any of the health and safety authority that is routinely granted — and usually expected by the American public — for other consumer products...
And as the gun industry continues to exploit its unique status with increasingly lethal military style weapons for the civilian market, this disparity can only become more evident.
A gun-control movement worthy of the name would insist that President Clinton move beyond his proposals for controls -- such as expanding background checks at gun shows and stopping the import of high-capacity magazines -- and immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act introduced by Senator Robert Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Patrick Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island. Their measure would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.
Real gun control will take courage. In the long run, half-measures and compromises only sacrifice lives.
In a terrifying example of progress outpacing common sense, the handgun industry is poised on the brink of the first major change in concealable firearms in this century--plastic handguns.
Incorporating resilient, lightweight, corrosion-proof polymers into their design, plastic handguns will render metal detectors ineffective. When broken down into their component pieces, they will easily deceive X-ray machines.
This new generation of handgun will appeal to numerous gun aficionados for a variety of reasons, but will be best suited for one in particular: terrorists. Unfortunately, we already have a glimpse of the future. Austrian plastics manufacturer Gaston-Glock has developed the Glock 17, the first handgun in the world to employ plastic in its structural design. This "handgun of the future" is almost half plastic. Only three of its major components are metal: the barrel, slide and spring. Including its clip, the 33-piece gun weighs only 23 ounces and can be field-stripped and reassembled without tools.
In the long-term trends, gun ownership in the United States has been declining steadily since the 1970s. The traditional gun-buying public, basically white males, has been aging and dying off, and there aren't enough replacement shooters to take their place. That's why you're seeing a shift in the industry away from traditional hunting rifles and shotguns evolve to focus on firepower and capacity.
One of the greatest talents of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry has been their ability exploit high-profile events to pump up gun sales: Bill Clinton, the Brady Bill, the federal assault weapons “ban,” Y2K, September 11th, and now, of course, Barack Obama. Regardless of the event, the solution remains the same: buy a gun. And if industry and gun fan mags are any indication, it should be an AR-15 assault rifle.
It’s an unbelievably sad commentary that high-profile shootings occur frequently enough that we know the National Rifle Association’s rote four-step crisis management response.
One. Don’t talk to the press. You don’t want the NRA’s name associated in the public’s mind with mass shootings and the inevitable carnage that results from our nation’s lax gun policies. You want to make sure that the last thing anyone associates with a gun massacre is firearms and those who promote them. To argue to the American public that 32 dead college students and teachers is, as the NRA says, “the price of freedom” is far more difficult when the cost is seen with graphic horror, the faces and stories of the lives lost confronting us. The NRA depends on gun violence being an abstract concept to most Americans. Mass shootings make it all too real.
Two. If the press coverage is broad enough, issue a statement expressing sympathy for the victims. If not, ignore them.
Three. When the shooting no longer dominates the news cycle, abandon the bunker and rebuke any and all who have dared to call for gun control. Be sure to indignantly argue that anyone calling for measures to control guns is exploiting tragedy for “political gain.” And be sure to attack the news media for actually covering the story.
Four. Work to stop measures to address America’s growing gun problem that may be proposed in the wake of the shooting.
Repeat as necessary.
While the National Rifle Association promotes Mr. Heston as a kinder, gentler face to soften its hard-core image, he is as extreme as the rest of the group's leadership. A Heston speech last December before the ultraconservative Free Congress Foundation in Washington was so hateful that David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, praised it and circulated it on his Web site.
In his remarks, Mr. Heston repeatedly invoked "cultural 'warfare, spoke warmly of "white pride" and attacked "blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other." He also compared criticism of gun owners and the N.R.A. to the Nazi oppression of European Jews.
Whether Mr. Heston does the talking or not, the National Rifle Association remains the same extremist organization that blocks sensible gun laws and markets guns to children.
The Glock pistol reportedly used by alleged South Carolina mass killer Dylann Roof stands as a stark example of the gun industry’s marketing of increased lethality. Since the mid-1980s, increased firepower and capacity have defined the products of the gun industry — of both U.S. and foreign manufacture.
Glock pistols have been part of the arsenals of some of the most infamous mass shooters in the United States, including the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, which left 33 dead and 17 wounded, as well as the January 2011 attack at a Tucson, Arizona Safeway parking lot by Jared Loughner which left six dead and 13 wounded — including then-U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Examples of additional mass shootings involving Glock pistols include:
* The 2012 attack at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin that left seven dead (including the shooter).
* The 2012 mass shooting at the Century Aurora 16 movie theater that left 12 dead.
* A 1999 shooting at a Xerox Office Building in Honolulu, Hawaii, that left seven dead.
* A 1999 shooting in Springfield, Oregon, where the 15-year-old shooter killed his parents, and then went to school where he killed two of his classmates.
* A 1998 workplace shooting at the Connecticut State Lottery Headquarters where the shooter killed four before taking his own life.
* The 1991 shooting at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas that left 24 dead (including the shooter).
Across America, the firepower in the hands of gun owners of varying stripes is increasing dramatically. The reason: assault weapons. Drug traffickers are finding that assault weapons—in addition to 'standard issue' handguns—provide the extra firepower necessary to fight police and competing dealers. Right-wing paramilitary extremists, in their ongoing battle against the "Zionist Occupational Government," have made these easily purchased firearms their gun of choice. And rank and file gun aficionados—jaded with handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles—are moving up to the television glamour and movie sex appeal of assault weapons. The growing market for these weapons—coupled with a general rising interest in the non-sporting use of firearms—has generated an industry of publications, catalogs, accessories, training camps, and combat schools dedicated to meeting its needs.