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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > People and Politics > After Colorado: The speech on guns neither Obama nor Romney will ever give - Not facing down the gun lobby is the real cowardice for politicians

People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

After Colorado: The speech on guns neither Obama nor Romney will ever give - Not facing down the gun lobby is the real cowardice for politicians

Posted on Saturday, July 21, 2012 at 08:17 AM

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President Obama and Mitt Romney

The speech on guns neither Obama nor Romney will ever give - Not facing down the gun lobby is the real cowardice for politicians

My fellow Americans. Something has gone badly wrong in our country. We are seeing more and more senseless killings, more mass murders happening when deeply unstable people open fire on innocent Americans.

Colorado is just the latest example of this madness where a deeply disturbed man had access to major weapons and used them to fire on innocent people, men women and children. He killed 12, injured 58 more including a 4 month old girl. Enough is enough.

I’ve had enough of the Gabbi Giffords, of the dead children, of the grieving parents. It is time to call a halt to this madness.

The reality is that guns are far too freely available in our society. In Europe and other places where guns are not so freely available no such violence occurs.

Guns in our country killed 8,875 people in 2010, latest year I have figures for, with weapons.

The number of homicides in Britain in the same year was 600.

The difference is clearly that the British public does not have the unfettered access to weapons that we have here.

I will dispense with the weasel words and the lack of real action on the issue. We need far stricter gun laws to ensure that innocent people are kept safe.

I have nothing against those who wish to hunt or carry a weapon for personal protection but everyone must undergo strict background checks, have no more than one weapon and let us ban these ridiculous semi-automatic rifles that can kill dozens in seconds like what happened in Colorado.

This clearly mentally ill man bought 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet--legally. How insane is that?

The gun lobby has a responsibility not just to the gun manufacturers but to the citizenry too to ensure that all sane and reasonable precautions be taken to ensure that lunatics don’t have guns.

My fellow Americans, let this Colorado gun massacre of innocents be the last time we will come together and grieve in such a fashion.

By direct and immediate action we can look into our children’s eyes and tell them that we are doing all we can to keep them safe.

As New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg stated “Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it,” “because this is obviously a problem across the country.”

Indeed it is and I accept that. Be safe my fellow Americans, that will be a major priority of my term as president.

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Belphagor | Jul 22, 2012, 03:26 PM EDT

If life was so bad that you have to carry a gun to get a jug of milk from the fridge, surely society hs failed. Guns kill, they aren't used for anything else only killing. Even when a Policeman uses his gun in service he risks the possibility of being jailed for not following protocol or even killed by the shooter. A complete ban on all guns is what is needed. I have been able to protect my family for many years without needing a gun.

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GordonHide | Jul 22, 2012, 03:21 PM EDT

Many posters assume that changing the law will have the dramatic effect of lowering the murder rate to something like the European average. I fear that the situation will be rather like prohibition. Prohibition created organised crime in the US just as the second amendment has created very widespread gun ownership and a very high murder rate. Repealing prohibition never reduced organised crime and I don't suppose repealing the second amendment will reduce the murder rate. It will just render those without guns, (the law abiding), much more vulnerable. A pistol is not called an equaliser for nothing.

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lokionline | Jul 22, 2012, 02:22 PM EDT

Tell me again why it is important for citizens to be armed with fully automatic assault weapons with large magazines?

I just can't see how any society other than a failed state would be willing to countenance this.

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peterson | Jul 22, 2012, 01:59 PM EDT

If they outlaw guns, outlaws will still have guns !!!

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danders1 | Jul 22, 2012, 01:44 PM EDT

Britains Pop. is about 1/7 of the US so that comparrison of numbers is no good.

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kevinhayes | Jul 22, 2012, 12:56 PM EDT

@ shop tom - ah, the sad old "leave it or love it", mainly right wing and intellectually bankrupt, defense. Me, I prefer to "form a more perfect union". Look it up, dude, it's in the Preamble to the Constitution. Repeal the Second Amendment!

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hermitTalker | Jul 22, 2012, 11:20 AM EDT

I have never understood why the Second Amendment has been raised to a sacred cow status- it was designed to counter the Brits. refusal to allow guns in the Colonies out of fear or rebellion- today it has become an excuse for the irrational NRA to allow police-protective clothing to be penetrated by certain ammo. and to allow Elephant guns in urban areas

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pickateer | Jul 22, 2012, 11:06 AM EDT

It's not a matter of facing down the gun lobby. Its enforcing the existing laws that are a problem. Criminals don't apply for permits, Chicago, Detroit, New York, LA are perfect examples of what is happening with criminals and guns. Further, to take away the right to own a gun, and carry it as a concealed weapon from law abiding citizens would find the US becoming as bad a Mexico where the cartels murder at will using guns Eric Holder's DOJ allowed to walk into Mexico in an effort to disparage our 2nd Amendment rights.

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cookecountytex | Jul 22, 2012, 10:04 AM EDT

One other thing, I have a ar15 , a shotgun and a40 cal. all go with me on my job , I work in the oil and gas industry, I have been in areas of Texas along the border where we have alot of trouble with drug-mules and those who bring people from other countries so I take care of myself , some counties may be bigger than some states in the east , but full of honest people who scrape out a living. Others are not good and there to make a buck selling the drugs or women that they mule to people here who are in that kind of thing. yep its a bad place and cities like,LA NYC,Shii-cago purchase the goods that fuel this and our fed does not have the man power or want to to fix it. Guns protect and kill, true its the person the gun that makes the difference. I was checked out by the DPS-local and state to carry a weapon in Texas and never had to draw leather yet, but can.

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cookecountytex | Jul 22, 2012, 09:46 AM EDT

Mr Roberts , is from one of those places where gun control is to keep the people from carrying a weapon, He is one of those who choose not to protect his family or himself, He trusts the people who he elected to protect him, So in Colorado who had a gun, the murder had the gun, was the only one and it cost alot of lives and hurt many more. I carry even to get a jug of milk. Its for everyones protection , as I am a honest man who would put on the line for right.In my humble opinion we should have hung the guy who did this from the nearest tree and been done with him,the hurt would be there but butthead would not be able to play this out in a court room and get his jollies off again and again. In colorado 100 years ago he would be swinging right now. Its not about guns with this guy its the mother may i deal , where mommy said its ok,bum berg in a city where he has crime out his ass , the only thing he can stop is the big gulp , sad man who should just open a building sometime but has not a clue of what the people in his city bear with the crime that goes on in a city the size of my dfw airport. I plan to drink a 64oz soda today and later think about NYc as my thoughts leave me. I think if I was a New Yorker I would vote for someone else in the future. son of a gun

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borefield | Jul 22, 2012, 08:30 AM EDT

How typical of the left wing liberals to turn this tragedy into a political control issue. Will Patrick and Bloomberg be able to control teargas, liquids concoctions that disturbed individuals spend months perfecting and I guess they think they can control what goes on in disturbed minds. Bloomberg and liberals may work on banning salt, calories, sugar and Happy Hour! They lack common sense with these ridiculous ideas. Guns don't kill on their own, disturbed and evil people kill, sometimes with guns, sometimes with knives and a multitude of other ways.

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Baggie68 | Jul 22, 2012, 06:21 AM EDT

None of these spree killers use an un-licensed gun(s). They are all legally held firearms. Do the math!

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Kevin Longan | Jul 22, 2012, 12:57 AM EDT

Hey, we Americans need guns in order to curb population growth, protect ourselves from psychos and kill animals at will! Seriously, this problem will be an incessant one; ban guns and the black market will take over regardless. I'm not sure what will solve this problem but I'm tired of these tragedies and am wondering "Where next?".

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seanomelb | Jul 22, 2012, 12:09 AM EDT

That's right mike7571!! let's have a shoot out in the theatre and more innocent loss of life.Your concept of freedom is a siege mentality where everyone is a Wyatt Earp and the gun is God. why does the US have the highest civilian gun deaths per annum in the world and the highest incarceration rates in the world. If thats your take on freedom God help you and God help America.

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gregwb57 | Jul 21, 2012, 10:16 PM EDT

Ok, Ill give up my guns on one condition, anybody that commits a crime with a gun, no matter how petty it is gets the death penality, no appeals, no nothing!

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