Monday, April 28, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
BOTH SIDES of the gun wars
Wisconsin Gun Dealer Who Sold To Virginia Tech and NIU Shooters Shows Why Gun Dealers Should Be More Regulated
A gun dealer in Green Bay Wisconsin who became infamous for selling items to both the Virginia Tech and NIU shooters is currently engaged in a reprehensible publicity stunt. For two weeks, he announced to the media, he will sell guns at “cost” to arm more people “to protect” themselves.
You can watch Eric Thompson engage in this “arm them all” promotion by clicking here. Also interviewed for Green Bay's FOX Ch. 11 story is Freedom States Alliance affiliate, Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, and it's Executive Director Jeri Bonavia.
We can’t read into Thompson’s mind, but we do know a little about public relations, and Thompson is broadcasting his “offer” to the media, which, of course, drives people to his gun websites. This is what is called free media as compared to paying for advertising.
So the gun dealer who sold shooting items to two mass murderers on campuses is now offering to arm people to “protect” themselves from the type of people he profited from in the first place from his gun business.
As the head of security of the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay Campus, notes, Thompson is a “businessman.”
That he is indeed. He is in the business of selling guns to both sides of our nation’s gun wars.
There’s always a profit in that.
And publicity helps increase profit -- even if it's a deadly proposition.
Monday, April 21, 2008
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd as President Bush applauds, ...
Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd as President Bush applauds, Wednesday, April 16, 2008, during a South Lawn arrival ceremony at the White House in Washington.
(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Anniversary of Virginia Tech Shooting
On Anniversary of Virginia Tech Shooting, Freedom States Alliance and GunFreeKids Urge Keeping Guns Off College Campuses
On the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, Americans need to take stock of what can be done to prevent such horrific acts of violence from happening again.
Despite the fact that 32 innocent students and professors lost their lives at the hands of gunman Seung Hui-Cho on April 16, 2007, little has been done in response to stem the tide of violence at America's schools and colleges.
In February, during one week alone, deadly and near deadly shootings occurred at four different schools in the U.S. leaving 9 innocent people dead and 17 wounded.
Instead of proposing tighter gun laws whenever terrible shootings like these occur, Andy Pelosi of GunFreeKids notes that "there is a deafening silence from our political leaders, and a loud call to arms from the gun lobby who would like Americans to believe that arming students and faculty is the most effective way to prevent tragedies from happening on our campuses."
Freedom States Alliance (FSA) and GunFreeKids (GFK) are joining together to oppose the sentiments of the gun lobby and those politicians that seek to solve a problem with more violence. In fact, we know that more guns only mean more death and injury -- plain and simple.
To get this message across, FSA and GFK are urging students from across the country to help spread the word about the real dangers of guns on campus.
Go to the FSA April 16 news release to find out more about what you can do. You can also visit the home site of Freedom States Alliance.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Gunning For the Right To Bear Arms
Sometimes takes a view from overseas to get a little perspective on our love affair with guns.
From the UK “Scotsman,” which in an April 7th article explained the Washington D.C. gun case currently before the Supreme Court.
America is a nation that pays a heavy price for permitting its citizens to be armed. On average 11,000 people are shot dead each year. In Britain, despite fears of rising gun crime, 50 people were shot dead in England and Wales in 2006. In 1996, as a result of the Dunblane massacre, handguns were banned entirely with more than 160,000 handed in to the police for destruction.
However, an entirely different mindset operates in America, where, in light of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and teachers were shot dead by Ch Seung Hui, a number of commentators argued that the problem was not that there are too many guns in American society, but too few. What, they argued, might have happened if the students and teachers were armed that fateful day?
The difference between Britain and America's attitude to guns is that, while we view them, broadly, as the necessary tools of the state, possessed by the military for the defence of the nation or by special units within the police, Americans, particularly those in the southern and western states, view guns as a source of recreation and a necessity for defence. There are historical and mythological reasons for this passion. While the American West was tamed by ranchers and farmers, miners and homesteaders who may never have fired a gun in their lives, the popular image is that the West was won by the cowboy toting his revolver.
We are still paying the price for our ill-conceived myths about guns among primarily white males. Europeans don’t generally associate gun ownership with emotionally charged claims of liberty. Freedom isn’t guaranteed by a gun in one’s dresser or a collection of 50 firearms. Freedom comes from a love of liberty and democracy, and it is not balanced on the barrel of a Beretta.
We thank the “Scotsman” for reminding us of that.
