President Obama announced Wednesday he will ask Congress to pass legislation requiring universal background checks for anyone attempting to buy a gun, restore a ban on military-style assault weapons, and limit magazines to seven bullets.
What do you think of the president's proposals? Tell us in the comments section below.
Obama also said he will sign 23 executive orders to enhance background checks, give mental health professionals more options for reporting threats of violence, and providing additional funds to schools to hire 1,000 school resource officers.
He also called for training to help teachers identify the signs of mental illness, and research into any links between violent images in video games and media and in real life.
Repeatedly mentioning mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Clackamas, OR; and Aurora, CO, Obama said significant enhancements in gun control will come only if people from all parts of the country—including current gun owners—support the changes.
"We have to examine ourselves and our hearts, and ask ourselves, what is important?" he said. "This will not happen unless the American people demand it.”
More details on Obama's proposals can be found in the attached PDF or on a new White House website dedicated to the topic.
it's a miracle. oh thank heaven!
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. -President Ronald Reagan
- George Washington "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." - Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." - Thomas Jefferson "On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778 "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense." - John Adams "To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason "I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few politicians." - George Mason (father of the Bill of Rights and The Virginia Declaration of Rights) "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe." - Noah Webster
- Noah Webster "A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace." - James Madison "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms." - James Madison
- James Madison "The ultimate authority resides in the people alone." - James Madison "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." - Richard Henry Lee
- Richard Henry Lee "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - Patrick Henry "This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - St. George Tucker "...
- Thomas Paine "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story "What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." - Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts " ... for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." - Alexander Hamilton
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/02/foghorn/list-of-proposed-california-gun-control-measures-500-round-max-no-grandfathering-no-detachable-mags-mandatory-license/
― Benjamin Franklin
Yes, lets ban bicycles. Lets see, GUNS are designed to KILL, bicycles are designed to... You know, you could use this line of reasoning with anything. I'm sure sesame seeds kill a certain number of people by choking every year too. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want my ability to buy a weapon taken away, its just I don't think civilians should have the "right" to buy weapons that are, or are modeled after, military weapons. If you want to use these types of weapons, join the military. The right to bear arms.... Well, an Apache helicopter has a gun on it, so I should be able to buy one of those too, right?