New York Times puts gun control editorial on Page 1
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Melissa Smith prays at a makeshift memorial on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, in San Bernardino, Calif. A husband and wife on Wednesday, dressed for battle and carrying assault rifles and handguns, opened fire on a holiday banquet for his co-workers, killing multiple people and seriously wounding others in a precision assault, authorities said. Hours later, the couple died in a shootout with police.
NEW YORK >> The New York Times is using space on its front page to call for greater gun regulation in the wake of recent deadly mass shootings.
Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says the newspaper is running its first Page 1 editorial since 1920 on Saturday to “deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns.”
The Times’ editorial suggests drastically reducing the number of firearms and even “eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.”
The editorial comes after three people were fatally shot at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week and 14 people were killed in a shooting Wednesday at a social services center in San Bernardino, California.
70 responses to “New York Times puts gun control editorial on Page 1”
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You don’t treat the symptom, you treat the disease. The disease is our countries lack of morals and the breakdown of the family unit. This NY Times editorial will do as much good as it did in 1920 which was absolutely nothing; Warren G Harding went on to win the presidency despite having African American blood. So much for liberal journalism!
Your point about underlying causes is well-taken. But do you really think the wide availability and easy access to guns- far more than any industrialized country in the world- has nothing to do with the level of violence?
No I don’t! There were guns in every home in the south in the 1800’s and 1900’s and kids didn’t take them to school to kill people. They did sneak them out to shoot raccoons and squirrels though…..
We have a cultural problem, we have a gang violence problem, we have, now, an Islamic terrorism problem, we have a violence in entertainment problem.
What we don’t have is a president talking about any of these. No. He’s focused like a laser on undoing the second amendment and the true facts of violence in America are, to him, just a nuisance. He and his supporters could truly learn something from the hated NRA– it’s Ready, Aim, Fire—-not Ready, Fire, Aim.
You are right, Marcus. In addition to almost every home having guns, they also had mothers and fathers who disciplined their kids and took them to church every Sunday.
In the 1800s and 1900s you could not go down to a swap meet or gun show or Wal-Mart and easily buy a weapon capable of killing many people in several seconds.
Winston: you can have way too many available guns in a country, and simultaneously have gang and terrorism problems. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, do ya think gang members and terrorists kinda like be able to pick up guns easily?
“…easy access to guns- far more than any industrialized country in the world- has nothing to do with the level of violence…”
You’re correct, in that the number of guns in the US has nothing to do with the level of violence in the US. Look at the data, the numbers, the facts: They reveal that the number of guns has skyrocketed in the last couple of decades, yet gun violence is down 49% since 1993.
What about incidences of mass-murder with firearms? Is that down since 1993?
Well put. In the past we did not have these and similar massacres, and we had virtually no gun control. The first thing to ask is “what has changed?”.
I should have said “well put Marcus”
The hatred against guns misses the point. There are individuals who, for a variety of reasons, want to inflict harm on others. The individuals in San Bernadino had pipe bombs as well. If, and it is a big if, we had laws that limited or eliminated particular guns in America, violence and mass killings would not end, rather other means would be used. You cannot legislate and regulate the evils that are within mankind, but to attack the symptom is just keeping one’s head buried in the sand.
The above comments says it all, you cannot legislate against terrorism or religious fervor resulting into hatred of other religious devout and finally brutally murder non-believers. Like all liberal media there blinded desire to foster their position over-rides pure sanity. The liberal media’s fervor is no different than the terrorist for clouding the cause of the frightening event. This is more frightening as they propose to influence your thoughts like the Nazis did.
Like all phony conservatives, you just don’t respect the law. I understand. I bet you just ignore speed limits as you just cannot legislate against speeding? There will always be speeders so why bother? I bet you follow the philosophy that Its ok if you are republican. Sad and pathetic.
Agree with Paulh808 below in that it has nothing to do with who is a Republican or a Democrat. It is a an ideological left posing as press to foster political issues to emasculate the American society from its founding Fathers who came with arms and ammunition for the protection of their homestead. Today we are engaged by forces that attempt to enslave our minds by posing as a legitimate press. The proof of the pudding is California has the most stringent and restrictive gun laws and it did not deter this terrorist from killing 14 innocent people.
True- there are nuts everywhere, and if determined, they will find some way to hurt others. But the issue is the tools available to them- there are 10,000 items at Home Depot they could use to kill someone yes- but not with the same efficiency as with an AK-47. And why do we even have AK-47s around? Because some people think they are cool and want to have them- is that worth the possibility of them falling into the wrong hands and being used to slaughter people? I don’t hate guns per se, or people who own guns. But all you hear from them is “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, or “if the victims were armed, blah, blah, blah. . ” We need change- responsible owners should step up and play the major role in deciding what that change should look like, not just repeat NRA rhetoric.
Exactly! The question is not our right to bear arms. It is how much should we be armed? You don’t need an AK-47 and thousands of rounds to defend yourself unless you live in Syria. And last I checked, this is not the United States of NRA. Weak arguments by ignorant Republican Congressmen worried about their jobs. If they cannot protect the American people, they should not have that job. FAIL! Like the NY Times editorial link stated, the terrorists are not allowed on planes but they can casually buy assault weapons and kill whomever they please. Pro-gun or not, that is twisted to the max. Furthermore, this is not just about terrorists as these Republican hopefuls try to deceive us as- this is about anybody with the intent to kill. Limit the availability and you hinder the intent.
The notion that if you limit the availability you hinder the intent is a false premise. If you limit the availability, the only one who is hindered is the law-abiding citizen. Criminals and terrorists simply disregard the law and acquire guns by other illegal means thus neither limiting the availability nor the intent.
Want to limit gun ownership? Amend the US Constitution. Trying to take the easy way and circumvent the Constitution isn’t going to make it.
No Ewaduffer, want to limit gun ownership? Be sure to vote democratic. When the far right nut cases on the supreme court are replaced by more moderate judges, their pinko commie ruling that ignored history will soon be overturned and proper regulation will again be legal.
Boots…it’s not always a game of politics. Hmm…maybe that’s the problem here.
California has one of the strictest gun laws of all the 50 States and the “scourge of guns” is to blame? How about the scourge of Islamic terrorism NY Times?
So what do you recommend? Status quo? More innocent people dying? How do you justify not doing anything? I look at how to solve the problem not worsen it. I even wrote to Sen Schatz with a list of ideas on how to help prevent these tragedies while maintaining our right to bear arms. What have you done? Write on SA and criticize people who have real ideas? C’mon man.
HhhDuhh,
What are your ideas?
UhhDuhh describes yourself well……..No not status quo. Bring back gun ownership, stop hindering the law abiding citizen from protecting himself in public. But as I see you are delusional as you appeal to someone of Schatz character I don’t expect rational thinking. Schatz prays daily to the Muslim Obama.
Notice how Muslims don’t have saints. Only demons ?
You think Demons care about you ?
We need to go beyond “strict gun laws”. We need to discuss outlawing certain classes of weapons and ammunition, restricting type and number of firearms someone is allowed to own, and mandatory life sentences for commission of a crime with a firearm.
Yep, Kolohepalu, there are 10,000 items at Home Depot that could be used to kill someone, BUT, those items are designed for other, non-violent purposes: Building/home construction. Guns are designed for one purpose only: To kill. Big difference.
Shame phony conservatives do not realize this simple fact.
there are more than 70 million registered owners of firearms in the united states. if what you state was remotely true there would be more than 70 million deaths by firearms.in contrast, there are more than 55 million innocent babies that were murdered simply to uphold a flimsy “women’s choice” platform.the right to bear arms is guaranteed under the second amendment.
I know a gun owner that uses that same tired canard; if we ban guns, people will just use other means to kill. Last time he said that, I pointed out that he’s very against legalizing drugs, and I said what’s the point in banning drugs? People will get a hold of them anyway. He was stumped and had no answer for me. But if that’s your logic, why have any laws? Why have a speed limit? People will still speed. Why have a law against murder? People will still commit murder.
It’s a fact that places with restrictions on gun ownership have fewer gun deaths. Period. But America doesn’t care about the 92 deaths due to gun violence each day in this country. Think of that; 129 died in the recent Paris shootings, and we have practically a “Paris” every day! It’s a total of around 33,000 a year. That’s 10 times the number of people who died on 9/11. Think of that; 10 9/11’s a year!
In Australia, one politician argued that the country should travel warnings for people thinking of visiting America. The Economist said sections of Baltimore were so dangerous, if it was a foreign country, the US state dept would advise against visiting. I have friends overseas who ask me if it’s safe to visit America. I say Hawaii is okay, we only have 2.5 gun deaths per 100,000 (lowest in the country!). But that other places in America are not safe. I found this stat interesting (from insidegov.com):
“The five states with the most gun deaths per 100,000 people are Alaska (19.6), Louisiana (19.2), Alabama (17.8), Mississippi (17.6) and Wyoming (17.5). Three of those five states – Alaska, Mississippi and Wyoming – are also among the states with the most lax gun laws.
The five states with the fewest number of gun deaths per 100,000 people are Hawaii (2.7), Massachusetts (3.2), New York (4.4), Connecticut (4.5) and Rhode Island (5.3). Of those five states, two are also at the top of the list when it comes to strictness of gun laws: New York and Connecticut.”
I’m not worried about mass shootings. I’m more worried about people like the man who shot and killed the waitress in Mississippi because she asked him not to smoke in the restaurant. Or the man who shot the man who parked in front of his home. Things like that. It does make me afraid to say anything to anybody, when I’m on the mainland; I’d be afraid of asking someone to move their car, for example, in case I got shot.
Gun owners always panic when mass shootings happen, because someone will “take their guns.” That gun owner I mentioned in the first paragraph would complain about “what Obama’s doing to take away our guns” until I asked him to name one gun law Obama had proposed that passed in this country. He couldn’t — because there haven’t been any! So he’s stopped saying that. He also loved to point out that most gun deaths in this country are due to suicide. I said yes, that was true, and didn’t he think that was a problem that should be addressed? What did he think should be done to lower those numbers? I was genuinely curious. But he had no answer.
The gun owners don’t value life; the ability to own a gun means nothing to them. The lives of the innocents lost to gun violence to matter to them.
But don’t worry about losing your guns! After all, this is country where we had the Sandy Hook mass shooting. All those children murdered. And we didn’t do a thing about guns. If that couldn’t make us do something, I don’t believe anything will.
After all, this is country where we have killed over 55 million innocent babies under the guise of “women’s right to choose.” All those children murdered. And we didn’t do a thing about abortion. If that couldn’t make us do something, I don’t believe anything will.
But if we performed abortions using firearms that’d change the debate substantially, no doubt.
It is hard to believe that this slaughter has not changed our culture. I remember a quote from a young naive person to whom abortion was being explained for the first time. He replied, incredulously, “but that would be like murdering a baby, and if you can murder babies you can murder anyone”.
It is not so much that abortion is legal or illegal as the changed attitude towards it, that it is value-free – nothing going on here, move along, move along.
Large segments of our population have become pathologically insensitive to the value of life, and they are feeding the base desires of others that are not so corrupt, perhaps just weaker, telling them there is nothing wrong with this.
Thanks for derailing the conversation. This was about guns — not abortion.
this is about deaths. murders of innocents. clearly, such discussions must include all deaths, all murders, including those of 55 million innocent babies sacrificed at the altar of women’s rights.
Wrong topic. And what you do with your womb is your own business- stay out of other people’s.
It is about the devaluation of human life. Just like the Muslim countries. Wake up. We slip away from strong Christian values and where do we slip to………..it isn’t getting better no matter haw strict the gun laws are, in fact the stricter they get the worse the problem. You wonder why all those Arabs are running away from Syria, etc. BECAUSE ONLY THE BAD GUYS HAVE GUNS.
Simple question. Not looking for a lengthy dissertation. How many of those “92 deaths” per day are done with an AK 47?
The website I quoted from said nothing about the type of guns used, so I have no answer for you.
Then I’ll help you. Very few. Those unfamiliar with guns fail to realize the looks of a weapon isn’t as important as it’s capabilities, and banning the AK would merely usure in an equally effective substitute. Handguns kill far, far more in our country than AK’s, and removing them from society will be far more challenging. Until we collectively accept the reality that the mind that’s willing to murder is our problem, not the tool it uses to carry it out.
Most of your analogies are made up and are loosely linked… What if I told you the sun was shining on 90% of the days that terrorist attacks and school shootings occurred, does that mean the sun has something to do with the killings? The other countries statistics are lower for many other reasons then gun control. Period, end of story.
PoiDoggy – Noticed you failed to clarify the number of gun deaths per state.
In Alaska, suicide was the leading cause of gun deaths, with it being the main factor in more than 80% of all firearm deaths. ( http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/21/ ) Makes a big difference.
Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama – No permit required for a purchase of a firearm.
Real problem is our beltway bandit bureaucrats have prohibited the creation of a computerized system for background checks. Requires paper/microfiche records which take forever to catalog and check. Ridiculous in this age of high speed computers. NRA has these bureaucrats as their lap dogs, do what ever the NRA says.
My comment did state that most gun deaths in the US are due to suicide; see the 7th paragraph.
Are guns the symptom or cause of our woes? Depending on how one answers such a question will result in either a superficial solution or an effective one. My premise is that America is steeped in a culture of violence and gun use to commit crimes are simply a reflection of our culture. Our morals have badly declined during the last few decades with wanton disregard for the inherent value of human life.
In contrast, take a look at Switzerland which has one of the highest rates of gun ownership per capita in the world. Government figures show about 0.5 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. By comparison, the U.S rate in the same year was about 5 firearm killings per 100,000 people, according to a 2011 U.N. report.
I may be wrong but it seems to me that the Swiss have a higher regard for human life and greater sense of gun ownership and responsibility which all points back to moral responsibility. Moral people do not commit immoral acts. Like they say, guns are not the problem – people are.
We have both- we have experienced a cultural decline that has produced a more extreme, impersonal, violent society. And this is a society where it is easy to procure instruments of mass killing.
this is about deaths. murders of innocents. clearly, such discussions must include all deaths, all murders, including those of 55 million innocent babies sacrificed at the altar of women’s rights.
Every woman has a right to do what she wants to and with her own body. And to not subscribe to the same beliefs you do.
Maybe they might not end but why make it easy for such people? Probably not easy to make a pipe bomb and the possibility is there that they will blow themselves up. It is just insanity to allow anyone to just buy a gun. Republicans take the cake when they supported a terrorist’s right to buy a gun. I am so proud of republicans. lol
The fact is, it is very easy to make a pipe bomb and just as easy to acquire the materials to make such a device as they can be easily fashioned using household materials. The fact is, it is more difficult to purchase a gun then to build a pipe bomb. The fact is boots, you have a bad habit of employing straw man fallacies to support your already weak arguments. Can you name one Republican that supports a TERRORIST’S right to buy a gun? lol
How is it more difficult to purchase a gun? You need ID and money. Or, on the street in any large city- money. And repubs support ANYONE’S right to buy a gun- we find out they’re a terrorist after they go shoot people.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
clearly, the second amendment states the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes- a well-regulated militia. I believe we have something called the National Guard, made up of our families and neighbors, who are very well-regulated. No one else needs assault weapons.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
the ninth amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, independent of the mention of a militia in the second amendment.
No. The 9th amendment says that just because some rights are not explicitly laid out in the Constitution, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t rights. It doesn’t have anything to do with manipulating the meaning of previous amendments.
And manipulating the meaning is exactly what you’re trying to do.
SCOTUS has said otherwise.
Good for the NYT for turning up the heat on this serious issue.
Repeating “2nd Amendment, 2nd Amendment, 2nd Amendment” like a mantra contributes nothing to the debate. The burden is increasingly shifting to gun control opponents to acknowledge that something must be done and to accede to rational restrictions.
Otherwise, they’ll start to be held more and more accountable for their intransigence — not legally, perhaps, but certainly in the court of public opinion. How many more tragedies must occur before this happens? Not many, let’s hope.
The problem is lack of morals, breakdown of the family and the loss of religion in our daily lives! Saying gun control, gun control gun control over and over and over again contributes nothing to the underlying cause of our societies breakdown!
lol, please show how this is a lack of morals and loss of religion. Seems like most of these shooters are either fundamentalists muslims or christians. So how would you fix society’s breakdown? Can you be specific?
Hmm…needless to say we’ve witnessed many shooters/jihadists invoke the name of Allah in committing their crimes against humanity. In contrast I haven’t heard any shooters invoke the name of Christ. Have you boots?
Kill a commie for Christ?
Because in the day when families stayed together and went to church on Sunday’s, they had values that kept these sick people at bay including Hitler. Now we have communist, ex-hippies spewing “love the one your with feminist nonsense and the sicko’s are gaining their way into everyday life under the banner of “we are all equal”! Political correctness is also a harbinger of this breakdown. Take your pot smoking clouded righteousness and go live in a commune somewhere else.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
clearly, the second amendment states the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The thing about this is not so much the position that the NY Times takes about gun control, it’s the blatant flaunting of liberal positions that the “newspaper” takes. Unfortunately, the NY Times is nothing more than one large liberal op ed publication.
New York Times puts editorial on front page. This is supposed to be news? Seems like common practice to me.
Do you think there was even one chance in hell that those two terrorist care about gun laws ?
All they knew was that there was so little chance anyone of the intended victims would be armed and shoot back
That they had two massacres planned before cops could chase them down.
Wasn’t talking about terrorists. Wrote to Schatz to lay the responsibility on him. I did not vote for him but I might as well try communicating good sensible ideas. All you are doing is protecting the rights of the killers an terrorists. Terrorists aside, what would you do prevent these massacres Mr know it all? If you don’t have any ideas and you just want to poke holes in other people’s opinions, you are only being a nuisance. At least I make the effort. Something has to be done.
No. All criminals disregard laws. But they would not have killed 16 people if all they could get their hands on were box-cutters or screwdrivers.
The NYT has a long history of printing editorials masked as news. The obvious solution is to restrict first amendment rights because journalists cannot be trusted to report fairly and accurately.
Bravo! Love it.