Gun Violence/Crime | The Diversity Party

Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms

The Diversity Party recognizes a Person's Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms, but believes that right does not include a right to own weapons of war.

TDP recognizes semi-automatic weapons - whether hand guns or rifles, as weapons of war.

TDP recognizes non-repeating arms, such as a bolt action hunting rifle or a shotgun as the traditional non-repeating arms the Second Amendment refers to.

The Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court proudly and routinely refer to themselves as a "Textualist" or an "Originalist" justice; meaning those justices fervently believe that the U.S. Constitution only applies to persons and things that existed when the Constitution was ratified in 1788.

Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas refused to recognize transgenders as a "person" under the U.S. constitution because as Alito claimed, transgenders did not exist in 1788 when the U.S. Const. was ratified.

By their own logic and definition the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not apply to semi-automatic hand guns and rifles, precisely because semi-automatic hand guns and rifles did not exist when the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788.

It is essential for the future safety and security of America, that Americans live in a society free of mass shootings, free of school shootings, free of the increasing threat and reality of nationwide gun violence.

TDP has a dream of an America where you can leave your house and go to school, go to the mall, go to your workplace and not worry about being shot to death with a semi-automatic hand gun or rifle.

TDP supports a FULL BAN on all semi-automatic hand guns and assault rifles.

TDP supports a massive federal gun buyback program.

TDP recognizes that FBI murder statistics prove that the great majority of nationwide gun violence is done with a semi-automatic hand gun.

FBI murder statistics prove that semi-automatic assault rifles are used in about (3%) three per cent of all nationwide gun violence - whereas semi-automatic hand guns are used in nearly two-thirds of all nationwide gun murders.

TDP recognizes that gun control measures such as red flag laws, safe storage boxes, age restrictions do absolutely nothing to stop U.S. gun manufacturers from flooding our streets with over four million guns each and every year - mass produced and marketed by U.S. gun manufacturers.

TDP recognizes that only a FULL BAN on all semi-automatic hand guns and assault rifles can end mass shootings, school shootings and nationwide gun violence, accidents and murders.

Gun Violence

https://abcnews.go.com/US/type-gun-us-homicides-ar-15/story?id=78689504

While semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 are a major flashpoint in the gun control debate and are often the focus of attention following mass shootings, there are only about 20 million assault rifles in the United States, a fraction of the estimated 400 million guns in the country.

Instead, according to ABC News contributor and former FBI agent Brad Garrett, handguns account for the most gun murders in the U.S.

The type of gun used in most US homicides is not an AR-15

Handguns are used in nearly two-thirds of the nation’s gun murders.

Solving the problem of gun violence across America requires understanding:

*what kind of gun is being used in the majority of gun murders each and every year;

*gun restrictions won't solve the problem of widespread availibility of semi-automatic guns due to U.S. gun makers flooding our streets with 4 million guns annually

FBI gun murder statistics prove that nearly two-thirds, 64% of all gun murders were done with a semi-automatic hand gun, whereas semi-automatic rifles cause only about 3% of all annual gun murders.

Even if all popular gun restrictions were passed, that would do absolutely nothing at all about U.S. gun makers FLOODING AMERICA'S STREETS WITH FOUR MILLION SEMI-AUTOMATIC HAND GUNS AND RIFLES EACH AND EVERY 12 MONTHS.

Voters need to realize that the widespread availibility of semi-automatic weapons, particularly semi-automatic hand guns, such as the Tech 9 and Glock gun increase every year as U.S. gun manufacturers produce, market and sell more than four million semi-automatic guns annually.

Voters need to realize that gun restrictions, such as background checks, red flags laws and gun storage laws do not predict who or when will decide to grab a gun and shoot people with it.

For example, the majority of shooters lawfully obtained their semi-automatic weapon, had no history of mental illness or law enforcement record, and acted in the heat of the moment or a crime of passion.

Further, the average age and profile of an American mass shooter is a 32-year old white male sporting societal grievances.

Finally, if you want to live in a country where you and your kids can walk out your door, go to school, work or the mall and not worry about getting shot to death with a semi-automatic handgun or rifle, then do as other industrialized nations have done: OUTLAW SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS, PERIOD.

The media, pro-gun and anti-gun advocates all beat around the bush when it comes to ENDING THE NUMBER ONE KILLER OF YOUNG PEOPLE, citing every excuse and half-assed solution under the sun - everything but what will get us a gun violence-free America: a TOTAL SEMI-AUTOMATIC GUN BAN.

Semi-Automatic Hand Gun

Society will never keep semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of an individual determined to kill.

You’ve never going to be able to predict crime.

Gun control measures are a deadly piss poor substitute for a full ban on semi-automatic weapons.

Background checks, red flag laws, age limits….none of these things stop a determined person from grabbing a semi-automatic weapon and using it, thanks to the great widespread availability of semi-automatic weapons.

U.S. gun manufacturers produce and sell over four million guns annually; that means we will have at least 40 million more guns ten years from now.

Does that make you feel safer?

It’s not a theory: full bans reduce gun deaths to near zero deaths in other civilized nations who enjoy the safety of a national gun ban.

Any assessment of FBI gun and murder statistics conclusively indicate shooters using semi-automatic hand guns kill far more people than shooters using semi-automatic assault rifles.

So why is it that you don’t even hear of a politician talking about banning hand guns, especially considering the great threat and danger that hand guns pose to each and every living American?

For the average person leaving their house every day, you are much more likely to be shot with a hand gun than an assault rifle.

There are far more hand guns in circulation than assault rifles.

You can easily hide a hand gun so well that someone could be standing next to you in a grocery store with a hand gun and you’d never know it until it was too late.

Conversely, if some idiot is walking around open carrying an assault rifle, pretty much everyone is going to know it.

If anyone ever shoots you, it is far more likely they will pull a hand gun out and quickly shoot you before you knew what happened or had time to react.

It takes less than one second for a shooter to pull out a hand gun and shoot you dead – all within one second.

One teenage shooter shot about 30 people in 30 seconds with a semi-automatic hand gun; shooting one person per second; will fire a round as fast as one can pull the trigger.

This is the nationwide hand gun threat 350 million Americans live under in their lives.

When it comes to gaining sufficient support for a full ban on semi-automatic hand guns, the number one objection by many people is, “If you outlaw hand guns, only outlaws will have hand guns.”

This is the top-selling NRA talking point when it comes to keeping semi-automatic weapons for sale on the market and perpetuates U.S. gun manufacturer production of over four million guns annually.

The ONLY WAY to stop U.S. gunmakers from continuing to flood the open market and countryside with semi-automatic hand guns is by imposing a FULL BAN on all semi-automatic hand guns.

Imposing gun background checks, red flag laws, gun storage laws, age restrictions and mental health screenings WILL NOT STOP U.S. gunmakers from producing, marketing and selling over four million guns annually.

There are so many millions of semi-automatic hand guns in circulation right now that any determined, aggrieved individual can literally manage to grab a gun and start shooting people with it without warning or process.

The idea that we shouldn’t outlaw hand guns because if we do, then only outlaws will have hand guns is a faulty, defective, fatalistic bad idea that surely leads to more guns, more deaths, more homicides, more mass murders.

Yes we should and must outlaw all semi-automatic hand guns and assault rifles and institute government-funded gun buyback programs, which have a history of being very successful in helping getting guns off the streets.

I project that within one year we could get most semi-automatic hand guns off the streets and continue to confiscate semi-automatic hand guns as police and courts encounter them.

Consider the alternative: if we don’t impose a FULL BAN on semi-automatic hand guns, then gunmakers will continue to produce, market and sell over four million guns annually and thereby increase the widespread availibility of semi-automatic hand guns.

POLITICS. THE POLITICS OF BANNING SEMI-AUTOMATIC HAND GUNS.

WHICH GUNS ARE AMERICANS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ACCESS TO?

I believe the Second Amendment authorizes possession of a narrow group of firearms – the same narrow group of firearms American households have enjoyed since 1776:

1) a hunting rifle: a single shot, hand reloadable hunting rifle for the purpose of killing animals.

2) a shotgun: or in Washington’s day, a single shot, hand reloadable musket.

3) a six-shooter hand gun: hand reloadable and six shots only.

The Wild, Wild West was won with these basic firearms and are the basic firearms I believe the Second Amendment was referring to.

By no stretch of our Founding Fathers’ imagination would they believe a citizen has a Second Amendment right to possess a gun that could kill one person per second, as fast as one could pull the trigger.

If you and I travelled back in time with semi-automatic hand guns and assault rifles, common sense tells you that General George Washington would be supremely impressed with such efficient firepower and would certainly reserve and limit such incredible firepower to the military and state militias.

I cannot imagine George Washington authorizing citizen possession of these incredible new weapons Washington just found out about. Certainly not.

Take a look at George Washington’s actual 18th century guns:

There have been 630 mass shootings in the U.S. since the start of 2023.

ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTE: FULL BAN ON ALL SEMI-AUTOMATIC HAND GUNS AND ASSAULT RIFLES

NO SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT TO SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS

ONLY A SINGLE-SHOT HUNTING RIFLE, SHOTGUN (traditional non-repeating arms)

So far in 2023, there have been 38 mass killings with guns in the United States, a number that exceeds the total amount seen in any other year in modern times.

The number is based on a measurement compiled by The Washington Post, which defines a mass killing with a gun as any incident in which four or more individuals are killed by gun violence. The Post has tracked such events since 2006.

The previous record, which was established last year, saw 36 mass killings with guns.

As of Friday, 2023 had been tied with that number, but after two mass shootings over the weekend — one in Texas, where a 21-year-old man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and three of her family members, and another in Washington, where a man killed his family and himself in a murder-suicide — the record was broken.

There are still 26 days remaining in December, which means the number could rise even higher.
One hundred and ninety-seven people were killed in the 38 instances of mass killings, according to The Post’s count.

Gun Death Rate Among Children in US Grew 87 Percent Over Past Decade — Study
Since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death in children.
By Chris Walker , TRUTHOUT October 5, 2023

The Post’s measurement doesn’t take into account the number of mass shootings that happened this past year, as the publication believes that term is ill-defined.

Other measures of mass shootings, however, provide a definition of the term, with the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), for example, explaining that such events are where “a minimum of four victims [are] shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”

As of December 5, the GVA has counted 630 mass shootings in 2023. The GVA’s count also measures the number of “mass murders” from gun violence, which is on par with the 38 that The Post has counted.

If the current pace of mass shootings continues, it’s possible that the number could exceed a total of 675 people by the end of the year.

That number would be the second-highest ever recorded by the GVA, surpassed only by 2021’s numbers, when 689 mass shootings were counted.

The largest mass shooting this year took place in October in Lewiston, Maine, where a shooter killed 18 people and injured 13 others.

Although the shooting renewed calls for legislation to address mass shootings in Congress, then-newly minted Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused to consider any meaningful bills, instead only offering prayer as a solution, echoing statements frequently made by Republican lawmakers after such shootings occur.

A majority of U.S. voters want lawmakers to pass legislation to make gun laws stricter. According to a recent Gallup poll, 56 percent of Americans want new gun laws to make gun sale laws stricter, while 31 percent want current laws unchanged, and 12 percent want them less strict.

Crime - Gun Control

The Diversity Party understands that most crime is usually a result of either economic necessity, or drug-related and/or mental health issues.

TDP supports massive funding increases for mental health programs and constructing much needed mental health facilities and services.

TDP supports significant funding for nationwide Psilocybin Services.

The future of alcohol, tobacco and drug treatment can be found in expanding the clinical use of psilocybins.

TDP supports a BASIC INCOME.