American Bar Assoc Ups Ante on “Preventing Gun Violence”
Their definition of “preventing gun violence” sounds an awful lot like, “getting guns out of the home.”
At this year’s American Bar Association annual meeting in Boston, ABA President James R. Silkenat took the opportunity to tout the ABA’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence. The Standing Committee is one of the ABA’s advocacy wings, and is affiliated closely with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
“Part of our mission as an association is to defend liberty and deliver justice,” Silkenat said at the program, “Combatting Gun Violence: A Role for Lawyers and the Bar.” Someone “who cannot go to the laundromat, the movie theater or school, without fear for their safety, is not truly free—even if he or she can vote or have the right to legal counsel,” he said.
Other gun control advocates went on to trot out the recent death of James Brady as a boon to their argument for stricter background checks and waiting periods:
Opponents of gun regulations cite the inconvenience to potential gun buyers of waiting periods associated with background checks, said Jonathan Lowy, director of the legal advocacy project of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He noted that James Brady once said, from his wheelchair, “I guess I’m paying for their convenience.”
Lowy cited a well-known argument from the head of the National Rifle Association, that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” He noted that victims of the assassination attempt were protected with the guns of the Secret Service.
James Brady was the victim of a terrible act of political violence. He spent over three decades in a wheelchair because of his injuries, and lawyers and policymakers owe it to people like Brady to take care in their examination of the law.
There is a difference, however, between advocating for strong, constitutionally-sound policy, and using worst case scenarios to swindle the public into believing that the mere presence of a gun bodes ill for the safety of the American people:
Thomas Tape of the American College of Physicians discussed the public-health perspective of gun violence. He cited statistics that having a gun in the home substantially increases the risk of suicide and homicide in the home, discrediting the argument that a firearm can protect individuals and families from violence.
The gun control advocates who presented at the ABA’s meeting are perfectly aware that what they’re doing has nothing to do with the Constitution. They’re playing a very tricky—and shameless—political game with our Constitutional rights, and are depending upon the knee jerk reactions of politicians and the media to give their arguments credibility.
[Harvard Law professor Laurence] Tribe noted that even though “the Constitution is not a suicide pact,” the court decisions do allow for certain gun regulations and that the real challenge for proponents of gun regulations is a political one—to get laws enacted.
“It’s not the Second Amendment that stands in the way” of reform,” said David Clark, chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Gun Violence.
People like Tribe and Clark understand that the real end game for progressives isn’t necessarily less guns—it’s the ability to control with absolute certainty the culture surrounding personal responsibility, self-defense, and dependence on government. If “gun control” were really about guns, we wouldn’t see news stories about children being suspended for possession of a plastic Nerf gun; students wouldn’t end up suspended over the threat posed by a chewed-up Pop Tart; and we certainly wouldn’t see lawmakers encouraging young women to rely on delusive “safe zones” to avoid becoming victims of violent crime.
The ability of gun control advocates to push the envelope with regards to regulation has been well-matched by freedom-minded advocacy groups and lobbyists who understand that more gun control does not necessarily lead to less violent crime; but conservatives need to recognize that the ABA is helping the Brady Campaign and other organizations build a brain trust that they plan on using to change the game and dismantle not only the practical arguments for gun ownership, but the philosophical arguments against excessive government regulation.
Never underestimate the power of enthusiastic lawyers in large groups. They may just be our undoing.
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Comments
The ABA is one of the most slavish Collectivist collections you’ll find anywhere, and they have been as long as I’ve known anything about them.
For a bunch of ostensibly smart people, they are remarkably orthodox statists.
Happily, Americans seem to be voting with their dollars…and their votes…for greater self-reliance and their civil rights.
One wonders at loud by the ABA is doing this. After all they know full well that the appalling number of people who are killed each year by gun violence would drop to next to nothing if everyone had a gun.
It could be that if everyone had a gun some people will get shot by accident. But those numbers pale compared to the deliberate shootings against us citizens by criminals who would think twice if they risked getting shot themselves.
Maybe their thinking is that using guns causes global warming. I actually never thought of that.
As Pop used to say, “Follow the money!”
Fewer guns equates to more crime. More crime equates to more victims, more lawsuits, more criminal defense, more prosecutors, more judges, more probate, more appeals, more paperwork, more motions, more continuances, more partners… mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!
True. I also attribute some of it to the fact that the “ruling class” of government elites are mostly attorneys now.
Talk about letting the fox guard the hen-house.
Sometimes I’m convinced we as a society are doomed.
I can “go to the laundromat, the movie theater or school, without fear for [my] safety.” Well, I don’t really use a laundromat, but I suppose you get my point.
Now, it’s true that sometimes, in certain areas of the city I feel a bit scared.
But it’s not because of people who legally bought their guns !!!
Exactly!
The people who bought their guns legally, follow all the laws, learn to use their guns, etc., are NOT the people they policymakers need to worry about.
They ARE, however, the people who will be most affected by new policies – on account they’ll be the only people following them – and are therefore safe, easy targets.
It’s an interesting historical anecdote: all the “gun policies” proposed by the “gun violence prevention” (a.k.a. “gun control”) groups only affect law-abiding citizens. The “gun policies” that only affect criminals (e.g. “Three Strikes” and “Hard Time for Armed Crime”) were all proposed by gun rights groups. What does that track record say?
“James Brady was the victim of a terrible act of political violence.”
Uhhh, no.
He was the victim of a nut-ball that thought assassinating the president would impress the actress he was stalking — Jody Foster. Not much “political” going on there. (By the way, it didn’t.)
” Their definition of “preventing gun violence” sounds an awful lot like, “getting guns out of the home.” ”
But will they also prevent the villains from getting guns into the home?
Lawrence Tribe? The idea that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” goes back at least to Lincoln, arguably to Jefferson. The literal expression “suicide pact” was used by Justice Jackson in 1949 in Terminiello v. Chicago, and by Justice Goldberg in 1963 in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez.
Ah, “argument” by anecdote and a laundry list of straw men.
Pres. ScamWOW gave ANOTHER speech…???
No, Clownselor. Citing anecdotes posted on Clown Hall as “refutation” of gun violence statistics.
a/k/a the Wingnut Circle Jerk.
You most of all, are very familiar with this.
“is not truly free—even if he or she can vote or have the right to legal counsel”
And where are those rights enumerated in our founding documents, relative to other rights such as life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, freedom of speech and the right to bear arms?
Here are some facts to educate you.
1) OVER 60% of the so-called incidents of ‘gun violence’ are suicides. Funny how liberals never bring that up.
2) More people are killed each year with BARE HANDS than with shotguns and so-called ‘assault weapons’ liberals are terrified of COMBINED.
3) Criminal prosecution of people that failed current background check (over half of whom were convicted felons, for whom it is ILLEGAL to even attempt to purchase a firearm) is a rate less than 1%.
But OMG GUNS SO SCARY.
1) OVER 60% of the so-called incidents of ‘gun violence’ are suicides. Funny how liberals never bring that up.
A large percentage of the remainder are violent criminals killed by their rivals; those deaths are a good thing, and it would be against the public interest to prevent them. (The death of innocent bystanders caught in the cross-fire is of course a bad thing, and they should properly be counted in these statistics, but the criminals themselves should not be counted, if the numbers are supposed to sadden or shock us.)
Here’s a fun fact, GuZ…
A child under 10 is 100 times at greater risk of death from a residential pool than a gun.
And you WILL find the civil right of self defense in the Bill of Rights…
but no right to a residential pool…
even if you could read. You poor, hate-twisted moron.
Hey, short bus Gus….
Check out this amazing website, citations and all!!
http://www.gunfacts.info/
For the rest of yaz, save it to your desk top!!
lol, I favored Gus In Boots till I saw Short Bus Gus. Heh.. Short Bus Gus In Boots. A box of hammers just said of Gus, “what a dumbass.”
That’s because the only statistic the tapeworm cited was bogus. It is simply not true that ” having a gun in the home substantially increases the risk of suicide and homicide in the home”. There is no evidence for that assertion.
“is not truly free—even if he or she can vote or have the right to legal counsel,” he said
Odd that his go-to example of Libery is the right to legal counsel. Is he in an echo chamber? Couldn’t come up with a better example?
“He spent over three decades in a wheelchair because of his injuries, and lawyers and policymakers owe it to people like Brady to take care in their examination of the law.”
Well, the Left is going to use his corpse as a prop to promote their politics, all the while insisting that I show respect for the dead. Bullocks.
Link to the Standing committee goes to the Brady Campaign. Intentional?
Yes, because the committee works closely with the campaign. I got it right from the ABA website.
Don’t be fooled by any of this, it has nothing to do with protecting us from each other. But more importantly, our ability to defend ourselves from them!
I think history has spoken very loudly to what happens when a civilian population is completely disarmed!
The founding fathers knew with certainty that later generations would try and take our ability to defend our selves away from us so they made gun ownership a right guaranteed to us. As can be seen in Ferguson, MO, the need for self defense can come up quickly and when seconds count, the police are minutes away. This was made very clear when our neighbor was attacked in a break in. Their gun stopped the break in and the police arrived, lights flashing and siren blaring, eleven minutes later.
” … so they made gun ownership a right guaranteed to us.”
No, they did not make this a right; it was in their view a God given human right that already existed. They simply amended the Constitution in an attempt to ensure that no future government could pass a law taking away this basic human right.
“James Brady once said, from his wheelchair, “I guess I’m paying for their convenience.”
Being a victim of a crime doesn’t give you the right to demand that citizens be treated as subjects, their every action and thought controlled by government.
Ok. If I can be permitted to be vulgar ( sorry Robin, loved you, hope you are in a better place now):
The Robin Williams household probably does not contain a gun yet today the suicide rate there seems high.
Looking to get more cases to litigate?
I heard that’s why some unscrupulous factions of the legal community are so happy about LGBTQ equality so they can process more divorces and get rich.
@Amy Miller
If you are going to play this game then you better have your sheet together. At some point you are going to need to debate in a hostile environment, and your links had better support your point. That said.
Totally discredited.
Does NOT totally discredit the quote that it was meant to discredit.
This is better
Or maybe this
Lazy sloppy fact checking will get you a job at CNN. If you want to work there then you are on your way. If you want to really seriously make a difference then make sure you are sourcing to support your arguments.
The ABA is lefty and lefties don’t like independent citizens in general. This is a piece of that pie – they don’t like individuals to be able to defend themselves without government funded law enforcement, which costs money, ya know, better raise taxes.
Damn, I wish I was a member of the ABA so that I could resign in protest. But I could never bring myself to join in the first place.
The ABA is one of those organizations like AARP who claim to represent an entire group. But, the ABA does not speak for all attorneys, many attorneys detest the ABA’s political stances and would not be caught dead joining it. Unfortunately the trial lawyers with their leftist orientation and TV ambulance chasing advertising give other lawyers a bad name.
What is it, like 98% give the other 2% a bad name?
[runs away ducking and weaving]
Stand firm and shame on you, troop, for running in fear of attorney attacks. Ever seen a lawyer in a fist fight? Ever seen two Brownies tug-of-war over a piece of licorice?