UPDATED: DL Community – A Gun Violence Call To Action
UPDATE: Congressional Candidate, Bryon Sort has called for Congress to lift the ban on gun violence research, and “to start supporting a data-driven and scientific approach to a solution.”
No word yet from Coons or Carney.
462 innocent people have been killed this year in mass shootings. How many more lives must be cut short before we come together to find real solutions to gun violence in our country?
If you are like me, you wonder what we should be doing about he epidemic of gun violence in this country. Everything seems so pointless and impossible, but I’ve found something that is doable, and might help us (eventually) get something done. First read this, and then see the action item below the fold.
Hours before news broke Wednesday of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., doctors in white coats delivered a petition with the signatures of more than 2,000 physicians to Congress demanding that it lift a ban on federal funding for research into gun violence.
The Dickey amendment, which dates back to 1996, effectively barred researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying gun violence. The doctors who delivered the petition spoke out about the “public health epidemic” of gun violence and were joined by Democratic lawmakers, according to a report from the Washington Post.
So Delaware has a three member Congressional delegation. I’d like the DL community to get all three of those members on the record as to where they stand on the repeal of the Dickey Amendment, and allowing the CDC to study gun violence as a public health issue.
Governor Elect John Carney – DE Phone: (302) 691-7333 DC Phone: 202-225-4165
[ ] supports allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
[ ] does not support allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
Senator for Life Tom Carper – Phone: (302) 573-6291 DC Phone: (202) 224-2441.
[ ] supports allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
[ ] does not support allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
Senator Chris Coons – Phone: (302) 573-6345 DC Phone: 202-224-5042
[ ] supports allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
[ ] does not support allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
After my first round of calls this is what I’ve got.
Carney – He’ll write me a letter which I should get in 3 to 4 weeks
Coons – Someone will be getting back to me via email.
Carper – A young man answering the phone said that Senator Carper supports allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue.
I predict Carney will be the toughest to pin down on this question. Once all of them are on the record (hopefully in the affirmative) we’ll have to start calling to ask what steps they are taking to overturn the Dickey Amendment.
I like it.
Let’s also ask them about mandatory gun liability insurance, too.
Money to support a victim’s fund and related healthcare costs…
Call away. I added the DC office numbers because I think they are more likely to have some on hand willing to try and answer.
It’s so hard to not respond to trolls with JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP JACKASS!!
@Finjistromeau
Thank you, you are absolutely correct. I would bet that you are an experienced researcher.
@AQC
Too bad that you can’t bear to hear the truth.
To everyone else:
I respect your decision to distance yourself from guns. However, please stop trying to impose your illogical & small mined ideas on the rest of us.
@u “However, please stop trying to impose your illogical & small mined ideas on the rest of us.”
How about you first you stop imposing your bullets on good people.
Nah… It’s the gun owners who wet their pants overtime they hear a noise.
@Liberal Elite
There not my bullets.
Why don’t you advocate putting violent criminals away so that they never hurt anyone again. Let’s say 25 years in solitary confinement for armed robbery, life for murder. Oh, sorry that would be cruel, We’ll just let them out so they can do it again.
“There not my bullets.”
Oh but they are. The “good guy with a gun” is nothing more than a silly myth.
But I do really love my gun free zones. They’re called China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada,… and guess what? Gun free zones like that really really do work.
I feel far safer walking around any neighborhood in Seoul or Nagoya or Sydney than I do in any major US city. We’re totally crappy because we don’t have the courage to be better… …god damn gun owning bedwetters.
Might as well be. The average crook there can’t afford a gun.
When was the last time Australia had a mass shooting?
“The “good guy with a gun” is nothing more than a silly myth.”
So over 2 MILLION successful defensive gun uses per year qualifies as a myth?
Please do some research before you open your mouth. Sure, you’ll find an instance here & there when it didn’t work out. Over 95% of the time it does & over 98% of the time no shots are fired.
All of these ammosexuals are pant-pissing cowards. They can not face their daily life of fear without their guns.
Source please urwrong, the NRA is not a valid source.
@Delawarelefty
Start with the CDC:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent
Information with references:
https://www.gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm
There are also numerous studies, usually sponsored by Bloomberg or Brady that try to refute these numbers.
So let’s assume that studies on both sides are biased & summarily dismiss 90% of the 2 million plus estimated defensive gun uses.
That still leaves over 200,000 defensive gun uses per year. Searching for failed defensive gun uses yields only a small number of cases. Let’s say that 10% of the 200K are fails. That still leaves 190K successful defensive gun uses per year.
All of this based on the premise that the critics of defensive gun use are nearly 100% right. If they are wrong (which they are), the numbers climb very quickly.
So let me know, if you do an unbiased study of the literature and of verifiable defensive gun uses (there are thousands available form news sources). How can you possibly conclude that the use of a gun for self defensive is not effective?
@u “How can you possibly conclude that the use of a gun for self defensive is not effective?”
When the gun owner or other family member is 10x more likely to die by the gun than any intruder or villain.
I call that VERY ineffective self defense.
Other countries have figured out how to do effective self defense. We’re just ignorant and clueless.
@ urwrong-
If you’re going to cite the CDC study, cite the STUDY ITSELF, not some RWNJ web site’s article about the CDC study.
Also, please define “defensive gun uses”. What EXACTLY does that term mean?
FWIW, I’m a gun (rifle) owner.
“Searching for failed defensive gun uses yields only a small number of cases.”
Every bastard who shoots down his woman, and/or himself, or lets his kid get hold of it, claims he had the gun for defensive use. That’s a fail.
@L “Also, please define “defensive gun uses”.”
I think it’s when you wave your gun around and people run away (or maybe just cross the street)(or maybe just scowls at the gun owner).
…or maybe it’s when a gun gives its owner enough courage so he doesn’t piss his pants.
Thank you urwrong. Your sources speak for themselves.
I’m glad that this thread didn’t devolve into petty name calling and insults. It’s always good to see that intellectual debate still exists in the world. /s
urwrong can’t cite a CDC study because there isn’t one. CDC has been directed to have its partners collect information regarding the barriers to effective gun violence research. I think the biggest one might be the asinine ban on gun violence research.
I believe legitimate sources of information were asked for? I’m on the site urwrong linked to and it keeps asking me to “Join the Movement to neutralize the liberal media”..
“… over 200,000 defensive gun uses per year. ”
What an idiot.
For members of the DL community still residing on planet Earth – please make 3 calls today and report any updates in the DE delegation’s position on allowing the CDC to study gun violence here.
I’m not sure the young man I spoke to at Carper’s office had the official line so I’m calling back there today. I’ll also be calling Carney again and seeing if I can’t get something sooner than 3 -4 weeks.
Allowing the CDC to study the public health epidemic of gun violence should have no effect on anyone’s ability to buy and use guns if they are as safe as the NRA, and our resident gun nuts say they are.
Just called Carney’s office again, and said in view of recent events, would it be possible to get an answer to this in under 3-4 weeks.
After being put on hold, the current position is that they are researching the topic and will get back to me. …by mail… in 3 to 4 weeks.
I think we are going to need more calls to Carney’s office on this topic.
@jason–Why?
Carney has got to be the only person (Charlie Copeland is right on this) who doesn’t have an official position on this issue one way or another. His current answer should lead to the following questions being asked at his office:
1) If Mr. Carney needs 3-4 weeks to research the issue, why didn’t he start researching it after Sandy Hook?
2) Is this the kind of decision time-frame we can expect on major, time-sensitive issues when he is governor?
3) He’s honestly never thought about gun control issues before? And this, he thinks, commends him to exactly who–liberal or conservative–as a genuine candidate for governor?
Just laughable – Let’s also ask them about mandatory gun liability insurance, too.
Money to support a victim’s fund and related healthcare costs…
I good idea would be just to implement a national violence liability insurance. Covers all violence including knives, hands, etc.
@Bob J: Sorry, that would be unfair. Cars carry their own special insurance demands because they are uncommonly destructive (though most of the damages are to automobiles themselves). It would be unfair to owners of bicycles to demand they pay premiums to cover the costs of damages caused by cars.
I’m confident you can see that guns are more destructive than the other implements you listed (assuming, of course, that guns are the only subject on which your thoughts tend to defy logic).
@Bob J: If I like my violence, can I keep my violence?
As always, a reasoned scientific assessment of a problem is a threat to conservatives and paranoid, selfish, violent gun nuts
Still no word from the offices of Carney or Coons. Just sayin’
Christmas card from Coons tonight. No word on whether or not he supports allowing the CDC to study gun violence.
Maybe Short got some traction by having a call to end the ban on gun violence research, because it is back on his FB today.
If Short could get the Governor Elect on the record, that would be something.
Jason330, I received a similar message from Short’s campaign via email. What do you mean it’s “back” on Facebook?
The Sean Barney campaign also sent the following email:
30 bullets in 30 seconds
We’ve seen the headlines. Heard the calls for prayers. Yet nothing seems to change.
In a period of polarization and division, the American people are speaking in unison on gun violence – 92% support criminal background checks for gun sales, including 85% of gun owners and 73% of NRA members.
But after a year of gun violence spreading from San Bernardino to South Carolina, a year in which Wilmington suffered more violence than 99% of similar sized cities, Congress chose not to act.
When Congress finally voted on gun safety legislation, the NRA and its legion of lobbyists prevailed again: “Senate blocks effort to keep guns from terrorists”.
I won’t take a penny from the NRA lobbyists. I will stand strong in the fight for common sense gun measures. Please contribute now to show your support.
When a majority of elected officials side with the NRA over our national security, we know that it’s time for change. We can’t continue to elect politicians who cower in fear to a special interest group so extreme that it now fails to represent its own members.
My fellow Marines and I lived by a different code – we united around a shared mission and responsibility to each other and our country. I know the carnage some of these weapons are frankly designed to create. Many of the weapons used in the streets of Dover and Wilmington are instruments of war, designed for use in combat. They have no place in our communities and on our streets.
I volunteered to serve in Fallujah. Citizens at home aren’t volunteering to live in a war zone.
Without action on the part of Congress, a criminal can purchase a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol in Virginia, install an extended magazine, and spray 30 rounds in less than 30 seconds in a neighborhood here in Delaware. Cases like that are how one man on North Monroe Street in Wilmington was struck down by more than 20 casings in a murderous rampage, how bystanders are caught in the crossfire, and members of the community are left exposed to stray bullets even in their homes.
You can help counter the power of the gun lobby. Contribute now to support leadership that stands with us.
I’m fighting for gun safety measures because gun violence rips apart families and threatens the economic prospects of our communities. We will be challenged to attract residents and jobs to our communities, so long as government fails in its first obligation – to keep Delawareans safe.
Our state’s future depends on being a safe place for all of us. But when criminals can traffic weapons of war from out of state and make war zones of our neighborhoods, that safety is at risk.
It’s time to act. We can’t wait another year. In Congress, I will work to lead this fight.
All the best,
Sean
I think Townsend posted a statement after the San Bernardino shooting. I haven’t seen anything from the Blunt Rochester campaign.
We really should devote an entire thread to asking Carney where he stands on the issues.
Like, say, the death penalty. What kind of minimum wage he’d support as governor. Legalization of marijuana. Feel free to add your own.
Carney acts like the clock on his thinking process only starts when he gets asked a direct question. And then the process only focuses on that question. Unusual, considering how long he’s been on the public dole.
Never mind. I’ll get that thread ready soon.
Since we’re clearly not able to control the number of guns, I suggest we impose significant sanctions on those that use them. First deal with insane right to open carry. It is legal to stroll down the market street mall carrying a loaded AK47. Next we have to pass laws to harshly penalize illegal carrying of guns. Perhaps minimum mandatory sentences of say a year for illegal possession of a hand gun and2 years for an automatic weapon minimum mandatory double sentences for committing a crime with a gun.
“First deal with insane right to open carry.”
There is no record of anyone legally open carrying in Delaware ever committing a crime nor any record of any accidental shooting that resulted from someone legally open carrying a firearm.
Please explain the premise behind your suggestion to ban open carry.
Also, the illegal possession of a gun, especially by a person prohibited (criminal) IMO merits more like 10 years. 1 or 2 is no more than an inconvenience.
“There is no record of anyone legally open carrying in Delaware ever committing a crime nor any record of any accidental shooting that resulted from someone legally open carrying a firearm.”
Only because so few people do it. This will be true only until it isn’t, and the more open carrying that goes on, the sooner the first accident will happen.
“Please explain the premise behind your suggestion to ban open carry.”
Simple: If you’re that scared, stay inside so the rest of us can stay safe.
Stay in you’re shelter and don’t vote or Obama will know your address and take your guns
“Yes, I’m paranoid — But am I paranoid enough?” –DFW, IJ, Endnote 211, pg 1035
Admit it, you skipped ahead to that. 🙂
Ha! I am very proud to say that I have read every word of that novel (and some of it twice). I’m in a very heavy ‘post-post-modern,’ experimental, meta-ficitiony moment right now. Tons of Pynchon, Barth, Gass, Gaddis, DeLillo, etc. I’m calling it my “Death by Fiction” phase. After IJ I went back to the source material so-to-speak.
On Infinite Jest specifically, I put together a study group to get through it. Seven people met once weekly for two hours discussing 100 pages. (Two dropped and five people finished.) Took us about 2 1/2 months of very dedicated work. If that type of fiction interests you I’d suggest the group approach. I called it the “Infinite Jest Support Group” actually (and without irony!).
Fun DL trivia… one of the contributors here was invited into the group but took a pass. 🙂
My daughter has my copy, which I traded for Murakami’s 1Q84…just as long, a little less obsessive.
I’m only marginally familiar with two of his books… ‘Kafka on the Shore’ and ‘After Dark’. If you were to recommend one work of his, which?
mouse,
This is your best comment of 2015:
“Stay in you’re shelter and don’t vote or Obama will know your address and take your guns”
Nice work.
As with most authors, I like his stories better than the novels. Try “The Elephant Vanishes” and you’ll know within three or four stories whether you feel like entrusting him with however long a novel normally takes you. I’m fond of “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” for idiosyncratic reasons.
His writing is more like South American magical realism than meta-fiction, though of course the cultural reference points are entirely different; to complicate matters, some of his stories have been published in multiple translations.
Robert Coover is my favorite in the meta genre you’re in right now, followed closely by Stanley Elkin. A younger metafictionalist I really like is Kathryn Davis.
Have you read any later David Mitchell? I picked up his first novel, but it seems pretty conventional compared with reviews I’ve read of “Cloud Atlas.”
Thanks for the tip on Kathryn Davis. I’m keen on including some female writers into this work.
Called Carney and Coons this morning. Very pleasant staffers still researching, although Senator Coon’s office believe he’ll probably answer in the affirmative. That it so say – yes. Senator Coons does supports allowing the CDC to research gun violence as public health issue. So I’m just waiting on something a little more official.
Thanks lol