Let me be clear. Freedom is not a handgun on the hip of every teacher, and security should not mean a guard posted outside every classroom. That is not who we are in Connecticut, and it is not who we will allow ourselves to become.
~ Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut
I know that the issue of gun control is hard. I know it's political. I know it's controversial. ... I say to you: Forget the extremists. It's simple, no one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer and too many innocent people have died already. End the madness, now!
~ NY Governor Andrew Cuomo in his State of the State Address
(The NRA) lost seven out of eight Senate races where they put more than $100,000 dollars in. They got clobbered in the Presidential race. Their campaign slogan was "All In." They were going "All In" because they were telling people that President Obama literally was going to destroy all freedom in America. Well, no one responded to that message. No one cared. So if on one hand they want to claim that they single-handedly supposedly won the 1994 and 2000 election, well, you gotta own up to getting shellacked in this one.
~ Ladd Everitt, Director of Communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show
I think they're being disingenuous. I think that they see this as an opportunity to go after the Second Amendment, which they've wanted to do for years, if not decades, and I think they're going to do everything they can to strip Americans of their right to keep and bear arms.
~ NRA President David Keene, the day before a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden
There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed
. . . If you were attempting to write an offensive script to a new ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie, I couldn’t come up with a dumber and [more] unbelievable insanity than our government and our media is perpetrating on the American public,
~ Rocker Gun Nut Ted Nugent on World Net Daily
Gun Groups Meet With Joe Biden
There’s a real, very tight window to do this. I committed to him I’d have these recommendations to (Obama) by Tuesday, and it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the discussion, but the public wants us to act.~ Vice President Joe Biden at Meeting with Gun Groups on January 10, 2013
. . . There is nothing that has pricked the consciousness of the American people, there is nothing that has gone to the heart of the matter more than the visual image people have of little 6-year-old kids riddled — not shot with a stray bullet — riddled, riddled with bullet holes in their classroom. And the public demands we speak to it.
Breaking News: School Shooting in Taft, California During NRA Meeting:
Sheriff: Teacher, supervisor convinced school shooter to drop gun nbcnews.to/10jGSji @nbcla
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 11, 2013
A student has been taken into custody after shooting fellow classmate with a shotgun at#Taft, California school. slnm.us/5Cm8y9r
— Catherine Crier (@CatherineCrier) January 10, 2013
Taft Union High School in Taft, Calif., normally has an armed guard on campus to help officials with problems that go "beyond the scope" of the administration.
But on Thursday morning, as a student showed up with a shotgun and fired two to four shots at a teacher and a classmate, the officer was nowhere to be found.
"He couldn't get there because he was snowed in," Sheriff Donny Youngblood of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department said in a press conference Thursday afternoon.
~ Sam Stein reporting for Huffington Post
The difference between this shooting and the shooting at Newtown and the shooting at the theater in Aurora and many of the other mass shootings is the difference between a shotgun and an assault weapon.
~ comment by Martha R. on Huff Post
After the Meeting, the NRA Released this statement:
Fairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.
We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment. While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,” this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners - honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans. It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works - and what does not.
NRA vows to fight everything on Biden's gun agenda
. . . The NRA says it knows after the Newtown shooting, they're facing a gun control debate unlike any in its history. They may be more politically isolated than they were in 1994 when the assault weapons ban was first pushed tenaciously through Congress by then-Sen. Joe Biden.
~ CBS News
Keep in mind that the #NRA is a lobbying group for the GUN INDUSTRY. Their ONLY motive is to increase profits of gun manufacturers/stores.
— Spry Guy (@SpryGuy) January 5, 2013
The Gun Lobby, the NRA, at least, in some ways is a victim of their own success. Their MO is to prevent anyone from even bringing up gun control legislation, to make it seem politically impossible to even broach the subject. And so they're not used to having to debate their side of the argument with powerful, motivated, organized proponents of the opposite view. In other words, they have been so successful in shutting down any possible debate over gun control in this country that they now seem legitimately surprised that there might be a debate in this country over gun control.
Their reaction today to their meeting with Vice President Joe Biden in Washington was that they said they were 'disappointed.' That was their word 'disappointed' that one of the subjects being discussed was reforming gun laws. Yeah, what did you think you were there to talk about?
~ Rachel Maddow on MSNBC
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