By Derrick Z. Jackson
Only a decade ago, US gun manufacturers produced 947,000 pistols and revolvers and 3 million guns of all types (most of the rest were rifles and shotguns) for the domestic market, according to the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms. In 2009, that production reached 2.4 million pistols and revolvers and 5.4 million guns overall. The number of federal background checks for guns has zoomed, from 8.5 million in 2002 to 14.4 million last year.
Read more at the Boston Globe
Guns and responsibilityBy Eugene Robinson
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, said in a statement that "if Congress had not allowed the 'Assault Weapons Ban' to expire in 2004, the shooter [Loughner] would only have been able to get off 10 rounds without reloading. Instead, he was able to fire at least 20 rounds from his 30-round clip."
Read more at the Washington Post
Are Wackos With Guns Just a Fact Of Life in America?
by Henry Blodget
Obviously, with 300+ million people in this country, we're not going to stop some people from going nuts. And given the depth of the American commitment to the right to own guns, we're also apparently not going to stop having guns available at Walmart -- or at the neighborhood sports store, which is where Loughner got his Glock.
Read more at the Huffington Post
Armed citizens -- not assault weapons ban -- could have stopped Arizona carnage
by Rodger Jones
Arizona-like tragedies make me think back to one survivor of the 1991 Luby's Cafeteria massacre in Killeen, Suzanna Gratia Hupp. Twenty-one people died in that, including Hupp's mother and father. Hupp went to that restaurant armed, but she left her gun in the car to comply with the law. She came to regret that for obvious reasons.
Read more at the Dallas Morning News
Thought experiment
by Michael Tomasky
But if guns are part of your life, it may be the imagery that comes to mind, and it's far worse than calling someone a dirty name or a war criminal. And sure it's happened among liberals, but it's worse among conservatives.
Read more at the Guardian
by Telegraph View
The American political classes would do better to focus on gun-control laws that allow, in Arizona, a 22-year-old with mental health problems to buy a Glock 19 handgun. But with the President (and indeed Miss Gifford) staunch defenders of the individual's Second Amendment right to bear arms, such a debate is unlikely to get very far.
Read more
Tombstone Politics
by Timothy Egan
In my home state Washington, federal officials recently put away a 64-year-old man who threatened, in the most vile language, to kill Senator Patty Murray because she voted for health care reform. Imagine: kill her because she wanted to give fellow Americans a chance to get well. Why would a public policy change prompt a murder threat?
Read more at the New York Times
Serious Guns and White Terrorism: Two Unasked Question in Tucson Mass Murder
by Bill Quigley
Does the US really need tens of millions of assault weapons and hundreds of millions of other guns? We already put more of our people in prison than any country in the world and we spend more on our military than all the rest of the world together. How fearful must we be?
Read more at the Huffington Post
Shooting in Tucson
by Tom Hayden
Rep. Gifford’s office was vandalized by the right-wing in March 2009 in a protest against national health care bill. She also faced attacks for her opposition to S.B. 1070, Arizona’s tough anti-immigrant law. Judge John Roll, killed in the incident, also was subject to significant threats due to his positions on immigration.
Read more at ZNET
