{"id":72792,"date":"2017-06-15T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T17:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=72792"},"modified":"2017-06-15T13:29:33","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T17:29:33","slug":"the-gun-control-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=72792","title":{"rendered":"The gun control discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some folks are saying that after the attack yesterday in Alexandria by James T. Hodgkinson on some Congressmen who were practicing for a baseball game, we’re due to start the discussion on gun control once again. The Washington Post had some stats on standby in the event that they could use them to declare “How common are shootings that leave five people wounded? Today\u2019s is the 53rd in 18 months.<\/a>” you know, before the brass was even cooled yesterday. <\/p>\n

Gabby Giffords puts pen to paper for the Washington Post<\/a> today;<\/p>\n

We know, as always, that no one law could prevent a shooting like this….We will all need courage to speak to one another and actually listen; to put aside partisan political differences and talk with one another, not yell or call names. We can stand shoulder to shoulder and say differences will not prevent us from working toward solutions. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two veterans that we know on the Left spoke up;<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Post<\/a> reminds us that it’s about a baseball game;<\/p>\n

Democrats won the annual Congressional Baseball Game for seven straight years, but they lost last year because their players were tired. They were tired because they pulled an all-nighter on the eve of the game to occupy the House floor. After an Afghan American, influenced by ISIS propaganda, killed 49 people and injured 58 others at an Orlando nightclub, they were demanding an up-or-down vote on a bill to block people who are on the federal terrorism watch list from being able to buy guns. Their protest failed. Nothing changed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Giffords points out, no one law will prevent these crimes. Everyone is seeking solutions and legislators want to legislate. <\/p>\n

Let’s look at James T. Hodgkinson for a moment. In 2006, he was arrested for committing violent acts on neighbors and a girl who may or may not have been his daughter. He discharged a shotgun at an unarmed person. In Illinois – arguably the toughest gun laws in the country. He got off on the charges against him because the witnesses didn’t show up in court. So he was able to get an Illinois Firearms ID. <\/p>\n

In March of this year, a neighbor witnessed Hodgkinson discharging his rifle in the direction of some neighbors’ homes and called the police. The police arrived and simply told him to knock it off. In Illinois – arguably the toughest gun laws in the country. <\/p>\n

A few weeks later, he headed for Alexandria, Virginia. A number of people witnessed him living a homeless life in his van, but you know, in this day and age, the homeless are a protected class and they shan’t be disturbed, even, or rather especially, if they seem a bit “off”. How many chances were there for law enforcement to intervene?<\/p>\n

In Giffords’ case, Jared Loughner, her assailant, had several contacts with the local PD who felt sorry for him and let him off a warning so he was able to legally purchase a firearm.<\/p>\n

Obviously, laws were in place to prevent these people from having firearms, but law enforcement didn’t bother to apply those laws. I’m not blaming the police completely – they are subjected to the whims of their local prosecutors. If they know what the prosecutor will do in a particular instance, they know whether or not it’s worth their time to arrest someone.<\/p>\n

The discussion isn’t about the number of regulations – it should be about prosecutors’ discretion. It’s a discussion that should take place in the halls of every town across the country. Not in the halls of Congress or state legislators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some folks are saying that after the attack yesterday in Alexandria by James T. Hodgkinson on … The gun control discussion<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gun-grabbing-fascists","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}