Gun Owners, Even Some NRA Members, Support Some Restrictions

    
     At this point it is becoming so blindly obvious that there is something wrong with this picture where someone like James Holmes can obtain all kinds of assault weapons within a matter of days, while building a 30 bombs in his apartment, that the most unlikely gun control advocates are coming forward.

     No, sensible gun control like registries, cooling off periods and simply not allowing certain kinds of weapons to be available for criminals, psychos, or quiet honestly any private civilians may not cure all mental illness or "evil" but it will at least put some check on their means and opportunity.

     It's hard to see how this cannot be clear to anyone who isn't certifiable themselves. It turns out that most people get it. Most gun owners-who I understand are honest and responsible-understand this. Indeed, now even most NRA members realize this. Yes, you read right:

     "Most gun owners - even current and former members of the National Rifle Association - support some firearms ownership restrictions including criminal background checks for prospective gun buyers, according to a poll commissioned by an anti-gun lobbying group."

      "The survey, conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz for the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, was carried out in May but was released on Tuesday in the aftermath of the Colorado movie theater shooting that killed 12 people last week."

        "The shootings in the Denver suburb of Aurora early on Friday have renewed the debate over gun control in a nation whose Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. Authorities have said the man arrested in the shootings was armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Glock .40-caliber handgun. All of the guns were purchased legally."

         "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire backer of the mayors group, has said the incident should wake up the country to the need for tough restrictions on gun ownership."

          "Luntz said he polled 945 gun owners nationwide - half of whom were gun owners who were current or former members of the NRA, a gun rights group that takes a hard line against most firearms control measures, and half of whom were not affiliated with the NRA."

          "The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The survey did not provide results looking only at the responses by current NRA members."

           "Seventy-four percent of the current and former NRA members and 87 percent of the other gun owners supported criminal background checks of anyone purchasing a gun, according to the poll."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/25/us-usa-shooting-denver-guns-idUSBRE86O02O20120725

     That's pretty impressive-gun owners, NRA members, in a poll conducted by Frank Luntz. Bloomberg has been all over this issue since last week. Mayor Mike Bloomberg for his part has been on fire with this issue:

     "The New York City mayor, who called on Barack Obama and Mitt Romney after Friday's shooting in Colorado to outline specific plans for controlling gun crime, keeps up the message in a New York Daily News op-ed today:

Less than a week after Aurora, the two candidates are back to politics as usual, attacking each other on gaffes and trivialities. If not now, when is the time for them to outline their solutions to gun violence?
After the massing shooting in Tucson last year, we heard: “Now is not the time.” We heard the same refrain after shooting sprees at Virginia Tech and Columbine. It’s as if as a country, we cannot mourn the dead and protect the living at the same time.
I refuse to accept that — and as a country, we have never accepted that when our safety has been at risk. When our country was attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, we did not wait to respond. We took immediate steps to prevent another attack. Here in New York City, we gave our police officers the tools they need to do their jobs — and protect innocent lives.
But when 34 people are murdered with guns every day, Washington just looks the other way — even when massacres occur in a single place. It has been 18 months since the Tucson shooting, and still Washington has not taken the steps necessary to ensure that all people with mental health and drug histories, including the Tucson shooter, are precluded from buying guns.
The reason for the inaction is that — according to conventional wisdom — talking about gun regulations is unpopular with voters. But when you ask the American people — including gun owners — if they favor smarter, tougher measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, they overwhelmingly say they do.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/bloomberg-keeps-up-gun-control-pressure-130017.html

           If NRA members and Frank Luntz aren't impressive enough for gun control advocates, how about Mr. Fox News and Wall Street Journal himself. Rupert Murdoch? That's right he supports gun control too:
          
          "Rupert Murdoch, back on Twitter tonight, posted a thought clearly related to the Aurora shootings:

We have to do something about gun controls. Police license okay for hunting rifle or pistol for anyone without crim or pscho record. No more

         "We'll update if he posts more. Murdoch owns the New York Post (disclosure: my husband works there), whose rival Daily News had a front page editorial today urging President Obama to act on guns."

         "Murdoch is also closely allied with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who talked about gun control, one of his signature issues, hours after the shooting."

         "UPDATE: A bit later, responding to another Twitter user, he wrote, "We don't need AK47s to defend ourselves. Nobody does."

         http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/murdoch-we-have-to-do-something-about-gun-controls-129681.html

        I've never been on the same side as Rupert Murdoch, but I couldn't have said it better myself. I mean how can anyone, certainly any civilian ever for any reason need an assault weapon? None of the NRA apologists ever even give us a single for instance.