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Joe Biden Discusses Gun Violence: Updated with Video

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Cross-Posted from Daily Kos…

Gun violence has not stopped, neither has the conversation on how to reduce it. Today Joe Biden continues the discussion at WhiteHouse.gov.

Watch Joe Biden at 1:45 PM ET

Before Vice President Joe Biden introduced a set of ideas to help reduce gun violence, he kicked off a national conversation. He wanted to make sure that he heard from people from every perspective about the steps we need to take to protect kids and make our communities safer.

And that dialogue isn’t over.

Today, in a hangout hosted by Google and moderated by Hari Sreenivasan from PBS NewsHour, Vice President Biden will speak with a group of Google+ users about the White House policy recommendations and answer their questions. And we want you to join us.

What: Google+ Hangout with Vice President Joe Biden

When: Thursday, January 24 at 1:45 PM ET

Where: Live on WhiteHouse.gov

Other ways to get involved…

Join Organizing For Action.

Writing a letter to your Representative? Everyday diarist Tom Begnal chronicles the carnage of guns, copy and paste the list into your letter.

Join and follow the Daily Kos groups “Shutdown the NRA” and/or “Repeal or Amend the Second Amendment.”

I will try to embed the video when it goes live.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 36 Comments

36 comments

  3. JanF

    Now renamed to:

    Organizing for Action

    He has a great email list and committed volunteers who, like him, don’t see the election as the end of something but the start of something.

    One way to avoid a repeat of the 2010 debacle in 2014 is to keep people engaged for every election not just the presidential elections. And to use their energy to push at the congresscritters and write LTEs and do lots of other things that ordinary citizens can do to effect change.

  4. wordsinthewind

    some serious restrictions on military weaponry for civilians. As a gun owner I’ve never owned a high capacity magazine or any type of military rifle. In fact I don’t associate with people who go for such things as I believe errors in judgment are never limited to just one area. I don’t understand the knee-jerk opposition to these restrictions either as they change nothing for the vast majority of law abiding gun owners in this country. But that I’ve sure seen, people frothing at the mouth at me (a gun owner!) because I’m laughing at their intense need for such things. I’d not like to see a repeal of the second amendment but if some reasonable discussion isn’t had that’s where we’re heading. We clearly can not accept such carnage as an inevitable part of exercising Constitutional rights.

  6. meagert

     Nice to see a Diary about firearms not go downhill fast.

    As some of you know, I am probably the opposite of most of you on this issue. I could argue each and every point, including the few that have been made here. But….I wont do any arguing here. There’s no point. I have found that there are no meeting grounds on this issue. Time will tell,in the end, whether this whole kerfluffle changes anything, or if the 2014 Election will have been affected by it.

    I will make this sort of statement though:

     IMHO, there will not be an AWB passed in Congress. Some aspects of the President’s recommendations will make it through, none of which will be vehemently opposed to by the firearms community.The ones that pass will have no effect on the mass shooting incidents.Most new laws will have to do with the bureaucracy of things.The others will make legal owners slightly inconvenienced, but do nothing to stop criminal activity. I do believe this current discussion has already cost us in the ’14 Election. Not that we will lose seats, so much, but rather we will not gain in ones that we might have.

     If anyone wants to argue, I’m not going to. If you want my opinion, I’ll give it.

     That’s all for now, I’ll have to go and see what the Vice President had to say, after I finish today’s work on the bench.

     

  7. princesspat

    I appreciate your willingness to write about this difficult topic, and I really appreciate the opportunity for a reasoned civil discussion.  

  8. LabWitch

    he’s so deceptively politically astute.  

    i’m going to disclose something here, about myself, i do own guns.  one handgun left over from the days when MEs here in tx had to carry as they were considered (for a short time) LEOs.  it’s locked up and taken out on occasion for target practice (at a LEO indoor range).  i also have a CC permit.  it does me little good since the sig stays locked up unless my husband and i are travelling a long distance by car or i may be out alone at night, something which almost never happens anymore.

    i also have long guns.  hunting rifles specifically.  well, one isn’t a hunting rifle, it was issued by the military during the spanish-american war and carried by the rough riders and their comrades in arms.  my father in law’s father carried it in that war.  later it was “sporterized” for use in hunting deer.  it’s an antique, still operates smoothly, and is the heaviest darn piece of ordinance i’ve ever hefted.  i can’t use it, i’ll shoot my foot clean off.  we keep it for the memories.  it too is locked up.  then there are skeet and bird shooting shotguns, a plinking .22 long rifle and another 30-30 for deer hunting.  all were owned by either my grandfather or my husband’s father.  just to be clear, they are all semi-automatics.  and to be clear a semi-automatic means that they fire (when loaded) as often as you pull the trigger.  they are not, and cannot be converted to automatics and none of them hold much ammunition.  obviously the shotguns, all double barreled, each hold only two rounds at a time.  the .22, i forget how many rounds it holds, but it isn’t more than about 6.  

    now, the reason i’m disclosing this is that, while i have these guns i see no reason to have any sort of military type weapon that is fully automatic.  also, these guns are taken out once a year, taken to the range, fired, looked over by a professional gunsmith to be certain they are in good working order and then cleaned and put back in the safe.  (it’s a bank safe and i bought from a pawn shop that used it for many years,  thing looks like houdini couldn’t get out of it, but of course, getting out is easy, it’s getting in that’s hard).

    if regulation comes down after all these tragedies, i doubt they will affect these antiques.  as for the handgun, if i’m directed to turn it in, i have no problem with that although it carries memories for me of the days when i was highly productive in helping the police solve some pretty heinous crimes.  i never had to use it and i doubt i could have actually shot anyone.

    if regulations come down that does affect these guns, i’ll be unhappy because of the loss of the guns that represent men i admired and loved, but, i would have no problem giving the guns up.  it’s the people that used them that matter, not the thing.

    i hope i expressed myself in a manner that fosters understanding of my gun ownership.  my husband was a green beret and he taught our son and his boy scout troop the military safety manner of handling guns.  i learned from my grandad, and then picked up the military safety of my husband.

    i see no reason to own anything with a huge magazine in it, decimating forest creatures is not only ridiculous it’s mean.  none of the weapons used at newtown were made for anything other than killing people.  i’ve had enough of the sight of gunshot victims to last me several lifetimes.  

    anyway, sorry i’m ranting, i just wanted to let you all know that while i do own guns, i’m no gun nut.  i haven’t purchased any since i purchased that sig for to carry on the job (years ago) and i see no reason to purchase any more.  they’re memories now.  although i must say, sometimes going to the range and blowing targets up, is something of a relaxation type thing.  you know, picture someone like cheney on that target and “BOOM”.  fantasy stuff.  i couldn’t shoot much more than a clay pigeon … i’ve seen too much human destruction from guns and i just couldn’t add to it.

    so now you know my shameful secret.  judge as you will. may we all have understand and a peaceful society where these items are never needed.

    sorry, i didn’t mean for this post to be sooooo long.  

  9. LabWitch

    firstly on the ranch where all my extended lived, worked and played, we were often all alone mending fences, looking for lost cattle, etc.  really working.  you may have had a ranch vehicle (more often you had a horse) and occasionally a dog would accompany you if it felt like it.  no cell phones then, and even had there been radio reception there was spotty at best so cell phones probably wouldn’t have been very useful. you carried a gun in case a rabid coyote, or other rabid animal appeared, javalina, or wild hogs were always lurking about and they had no fear of humans.  ergo, you had to protect yourself.  

    fortunately, other than using my gun to kill a dangerous animal threatening me and/or my horse and a couple of times to put a severely injured animal down (it was impractical to try to get a vet out there) i never used it for anything else.

    later, in my job, for a while it was felt that ME’s should be part of law enforcement so we were required to carry.  most of us protested and finally, the law was left to languish and may have been repealed for all i know.  heck, the victims were dead and there were numerous LEOs around, what did we need a service weapon for?  

    no, it’s time, time to get some sanity into the country regarding firearms.  training, registration, classes BEFORE being allowed to purchase, classes AFTER purchase, and insurance.  all of those i agree with, and of course, NO military type large magazine guns.  it’s just common sense!

  10. LabWitch

    to see a gunless world.  unfortunately … btw, i like our mutual acquaintance, but he really needs to tone it down and become a more realistic with his rhetoric on this subject.  i consider him a net friend but on this issue, while we are not arguing or anything like that, we do not agree in the slightest.

  11. Avila

    thank you, Glen.  this may well be the only civil discussion i’ve read online on gun violence.  thank you for keeping this important issue front and center. :7

  12. Avila

    ha . . . that was my PBO imitation. 😉

    there are obviously layers here that we haven’t had a place to discuss without incurring some un-chivalrous comments by very pro-gun rights folks.  

    the easy access to weapons and ammunition is a big priority.

    registration;

    background checks;

    types of weapons;

    i’m confused about what exactly is an assault rifle.  (i thought i knew, but was informed elsewhere (in some detail) i don’t.) if a weapon fires clips or magazines, rather than a single bullet, isn’t it an assault weapon?

    how many weapons are necessary to protect one’s castle? 😉

    this is just off the top of my head, but i think about the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook school shootings more than i want to.  i’m wondering if he was as confined to the home as i’ve read, and when someone is isolated, and over 18 (i imagine him playing Call of Duty or similar video games), is there any possible way to identify risk factors?

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