Shots Fired: Gun Control and Headaches

From around the web and around the neighborhood, here are some recent comments on guns, gun control, and related topics.

First up: Former President Bill Clinton, who spoke to a group of Dems about the dangers of 'misunderestimating' the pro-gun folks (and yes, a shout out to Dubya for that turn of phrase).

Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them.  A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things (gun controls). I know, because I come from this world.

 He also told them about the kind of pressure the NRA can bring to bear on an elected official, and pointed out that the 'different world' pro-gun folks live has multiple causes:

A lot of these people...all they've got is their hunting and their fishing. Or they're living in a place where they don't have much police presence. Or they've been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all.

Does that sound familiar?  I was more than a little bit reminded of then-candidate Obama's comments about angry Rust Belt voters, back in 2008:

They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Locally, The Post-Standard, my hometown newspaper, hosted an on-line chat with Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick, who happens to be a hunting Republican. I'm not generally a huge fan of our DA, but he does have a quick and sometimes sarcastic wit that I appreciate. 

When asked a question about "hammers, clubs and other blunt objects" that kill more people than rifles do, here's how he responded:

Pharmacies kill 10,000 people a year, but we shouldn't ban therapeutic drugs.  Assault weapons account for a very small percentage of homicides in New York state but they appear to be the gun of choice for lunatics attacking our schoolchildren.  I'd like to give Bambi and third-graders at least a fighting chance.

Fitz had another good answer to a question from someone who wondered how people were supposed to defend themselves "when a team of burglars comes after them" if we were to limit the number of rounds of ammunition:

I would expect you to use  every lawful means at your disposal to protect yourself, including dialing 911. I suspect that the burglars may flee after you fire your first shot. Wouldn't you hate to unload an AK-47 on some people at your doorstep and find out later they were Jehovah's Witnesses?

Then there's this, from Veronique Pozner, the mom of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner, on the culpability of Adam Lanza's mother:

I think he had a mother who at best was blind; at worst aided and abetted him. Maybe she wanted to compensate for his feeling of inadequacy by letting him handle weapons of mass carnage and taking him to shooting ranges. I think there was gross irresponsibility, and I'd like to think that maybe she was just as unwell as he was, to have allowed someone as obviously compromised as he was to have access.

I'm surprised that more people haven't expressed that sentiment out loud.

And last, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at a conference at Johns Hopkins on gun control plans being put forth by a bipartisan group of mayors. Regarding limited funding available for scientific study on gun violence data, Bloomberg offered this:

Today, because of congressional restrictions, CDC funding for firearms injury research totals $100,000 out of an annual budget of nearly $6 billion.  The National Institutes of Health is estimated to spend less than $1 million on firearms injury research - out of an annual budget of $31 billion.  To put that in perspective, NIH spends $21 million annually researching headaches.  But it spends less than $1 million on all the gun deaths that happen every year.  If that doesn't give you a headache, it should.

Yes - it should give us a headache, indeed.