'Your Voice, Your Vote:' Two sides of the gun rights issue
PORTLAND, Ore. - Each side of the contentious gun rights debate presented at least one major argument during Sunday's "Your Voice, Your Vote" to support its position.
Oregon Firearms Federation executive director Kevin Starrett, said that guns by themselves are not the problem; instead, there are people out there who do terrible things.
"Guns are inanimate objects, which are incapable of doing anything on their own, and for us to continue to act like people have no part of this process of committing crimes is ridiculous," he said.
He added that if the government can tell people what they can and cannot own, then "we're Orwellian, it's 1984, we're living in the Soviet Union, we're no longer Americans."
Penny Okamoto, the executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, an organization that wants an expired ban on semiautomatic weapons and large ammunition magazines reinstated, argued the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago that people do not "necessarily have a constitutional right to have a concealed weapon. (They) don't have a constitutional right to carry a weapon that's going to shoot 'X' number of bullets whether that’s 30 or 50 or 100 or 10."
She added that her organization is not for banning handguns or rifles and that background checks should be required when weapons are sold during private sales.
The debate followed the recent mass shooting in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater where 12 people were killed and 58 were injured.
A SurveyUSA/KATU News poll questioned 500 adults in the state of Oregon on a number of issues relating to gun rights.
On the question of what is the best way to reduce gun violence, 65 percent said stricter enforcement of existing laws while 28 percent said passing stricter laws would help.
About 49 percent said they would support a ban on semiautomatic weapons while 43 percent said they would oppose such a ban.
Read the full SurveyUSA results.
Politicians, even after the mass shooting in Colorado, are reluctant to press for tighter gun laws right now. According to the White House, President Barack Obama will not seek stricter gun laws this year but still wants Congress to reinstate the ban that expired in 2004. Obama, however, has not pushed it to do so.
Both he and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney say they want better enforcement of gun laws already on the books.
To watch the entire show, please click on the “Play Video” button above.
Come to think of it, Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, I bet you blame the spoon for Rosie O'Donnel being fat, and digital cameras for child porn. With your reasoning, I bet you support DAMM - "Drunks Against Mad Mothers."Â Gosh, Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, did you not know that it is illegal for felons to possess guns? I think you should be ashamed for spreading dis-information, showing your ignorance and RESIGN IMMEDIATELY SINCE YOUR BRAIN HAS CEASED FIRING. I AM EMBARASSED FOR YOU.
Has anyone entertained the possibility that this Colorado theater murderer was an operative for some radical left wing group wanting to push the disarming of america just a little further? How high up that could go is anyone's imagination, but I heard that the FBI arrive before the local police. I also hear the guy simply went outside and sat down and waited to be arrested. I invite corrections on what I "heard".  Also, supposedly he was a college kid? Did he have rich parents or something? Where did he get over 50K to spend on weapons and ammo?
It is obvious to me this was all about generating more irrational fear and to plug that stupid broads website.
@Vanight Who is this? Kevin Starrett?
Wow. Â Poor guy isn't able to part with his gun for the 30 minutes it takes for an interview? Â I feel sorry for someone so paranoid of his fellow man. Â Living in fear is no way to live.
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So Starrett doesn't carry his gun to potentially kill someone in self defense? Â Does he live under the impression that he'll just shoot to wound if attacked? Or is the gun just there to feel macho? Â "No such thing as assault weapons"? Â He feels there isn't a reasonable upper limit to the amount of firepower a person should have? Â This guy lives in an alternate reality!
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But what else should we expect from the guy who is pushing for guns in grade schools, who has pushed to allow guns for people with drug convictions, and who has introduced legislation to arm ex-felons?
 @BaldrOdinson1 I think you are missing the point comrade. His point is that like MOST arguments from the left, her entire ignorant opinion is idiotic and designed to to nothing but created unfounded fear and a sense of lack of safety for the WRONG PEOPLE. Do you really think making an assault weapons ban, or say even JUST a magazine of 10+ ban will prevent a criminal from buying a pre-ban large capacity magazine? I think this moronic women is absolutely ignorant, and proves again to me exactly how unintelligent and frazzled freak out false fear mongering emotionally based  the left functions as. As far as Bill Oreilly, obviously based on his statements, he is an idiot and has no idea what he is talking about. Let be clear. The 2nd Amendment was put in place as a last line of defense against a tyrannical government, or for the individual be able to protect themselves. The people are 100% ANTI GUN completely, they just know there is not way in hell a flat disarming of America would take place by force, without civil war.
Properly trained gun owners are taught shoot to stop the threat. Not shoot to wound or shoot to kill.Â
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Assault weapons are full auto/select fire weapons. But these days any weapon that has a certain look to them are considered assault weapons
@BaldrOdinson1 Look in the mirror; you are the one living in an alternate reality! Guns in schools held by licensed people have saved lives ...TRUTH! Tell me what is an assault weapon? The gun is there to protect and defend his life. He has a right to carry it! If someone would have been carrying in the theater instead of being required to be defenseless, we might have had several less casualties!
@rem417 This is extremely disturbing. Do you have kids in Oregon schools? If so, I doubt you'd say this.
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 @rem417  @BaldrOdinson1 BaldrOdinson...or Jason Kilgore (since you are too afraid to be yourself) has no concept of logical, rational thought. He truly believes that criminals will suddenly become law abiding citizens, simply by outlawing firearms. He is an arrogant buffoon.
@BaldrOdinson1 It is very clear that you have ABSOLUTLEY NO understanding of the Bill of Rights! Do you know why the second amendment was placed there???
 @rem417  @BaldrOdinson1 I do have an understanding. There's nothing in there (according to the Supreme Court) which says anything about conceal carry, assault weapons, or reasonable amount of firepower.  So it seems you are the one lacking in understanding.
People like you have been trying to push this view for a long, long time. And every few decades the supreme court has to re-educate you people. 1. Concerning open carry, why dont you do a little research on what the term "to bear" means. If anything your interpretation is actually backwards. 2. Did you miss the latest supreme court ruling on this issue? 3. Your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is missing quite a bit of context, considering the nature of militias during that time. 4. As far as it not helping? Are you actually so naive to think that 100% of military and law enforcement are pot smoking antigun hippies? You think if Czar Obama could magically put an order for law enforcement and military to revolt against its citizenry and start rounding up firearms door to door, they simple would go, uuuuhhhh der, ok sir!!! What does that leave? Using UN troops to do it. And what do you think would happen then? No one truly knows, but I would bet money a VERY large percentage of our military and law enforcement would side with US citizens against an invading UN faction. So dont be sure sure the 2nd Amendment wouldnt do exactly what the founders intended it for.
 @BaldrOdinson1 Not only is your interpretation of the Second Amendment historically grossly inaccurate but was explicitly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller case. The "well-regulated militia" clause of the Second Amendment is explanatory, not limiting. Nice try at misleading people, however. You keep trying, now!
 @rem417  @BaldrOdinson1 No, the 2A was written to allow states to have standing armies of volunteers (state militias) who were armed with their own weapons.  It was not written so that anyone could overthrow the government if they disagree with it.  That is revisionist history at its worst and a sad lie spread by the gun lobby.  It would be stupid to write a constitution with such a clause.  In fact, there were armed rebellions (like the Whiskey Rebellion) which were put down soon afterward.  The 2A didn't protect them anymore than it would protect you, nor does it allow for open carry of weapons.
@BaldrOdinson1 Please go back and start with the Federalist Papers ..........Fine, if you don't like guns thats on you. But if you are going to stand up for the First Amendment as you have just been doing then you stand for ALL OF THEM..............you can't just pick and choose!
@BaldrOdinson1 OMG - the reason for the Second Amendment was to make sure the government could not overthrough the people! AGAIN! Your right! There is nothing in the Second Amendment about concealed carry or assault weapons because thats something that anti gun advocates came up with! We should have open carry and if you want to carry a tooth pick "ASSAULT WEAPON" to use for defense fine your words not mine!!!
The only difference between the Middle East and the US is they are using bombs we just have not graduated to that level yet since guns are so readily available. When you have a country that has been in war for the last 10 years a declining infrastructure a true unemployment rate at about 19% you are going to have people acting out and doing stupid stuff to deal with frustration and stress. It is a proven fact that most teenagers in America do not feel they are going to make it past 30 that is why suicide is one of the leading causes of death for teenagers in America. America only graduated 60% of it high school seniors each year that in itself is âDâ grade. Every election the same selected people run for office put there by a check book that the common person does not have full of money. We need to base elections on the popular vote even though I feel they are rigged. We are investing alarming massive amounts of money in the Middle East trying to fix their problems and we cannot even fix our own. We spend tens of millions of dollars on a correctional system that corrects nothing. So where am  I going with all this and what does it have to do with gunâs you ask? Well if we would fix our social problems stop starting wars with other countries quit telling everyone the sky is falling and stop talking about terrorism and stop letting all these middle Easton American hating people into this country and start taking care of number one we would not have all this aggression problems and crime and lawlessness. We need to restore hope and fix our failing education system give a stimulus to all the people who are trying to make college loan payments working at $15 hour jobs, create an environment that is conducive to promoting less stress.
 @White Trash Hater Good points WTH, even if it was from a super big picture POV. LOL. I agree, we need to severely limit our current immigration, and take a hard look at the skill sets we NEED, in order to put America on top and to stay there. You 100% right about having open arms for people who have no other motivation than to destroy "The little Satan" or are we "The great Satan", I cant remember which. That brings to mind another point. What about the enemies within? The ones who were born here, and are just at Anti-American, Anti-Individual liberty as a Wahabiast Middle Eastern Muslim. I personally think they are a bigger threat to this country than a actual real terrorist.
@White Trash Hater Other differences between us and the Middle East is that women can be raped without being stoned to death for adultery, they can drive vehicles, we don't torture people for being a different sect of the same religion, we don't allow the churches to dictate law, it's illegal to buy RPGs on the open market or fire AK-47s in the air to celebrate a wedding. We don't cut the hands off of criminals or behead women. One thing we have in common is some number of knuckle-dragging anti-American idiots.
 @Dienekes4160  @White I would argue the point with the firing AKs at weddings.... I do it on the 4th of July, so cant imagine it would be illegal at wedding. Assuming its on private property.
@erudite "If you canât buy ammo or the material to make ammo none of the civilian guns out there have use" That was exactly my statement a week ago. Everyone is so concerned about the gov. banning certain guns, and in the meantime, I feel it's not guns that will be banned, but the ammo for the guns will be gone, making the guns useless. It's being done under our noses.
 @jonsiesd2  @erudite You are absolutely 100% correct!!! Although, I think our opponents are always making a multi-faceted attack, the elephant in the room no one is talking about is the ammo shortages. I am sure if you did, there is some anti-gun politician behind that too! All I can say is save your brass, lead, and buy powder any time you can. Buy as much ammo as you can. One thing though, dont think for one minute these ammo dealers are cashing in and working if not exacerbating the ammo problem to make more money.
@jonsiesd2 That is why people are buying it up at alarming rates
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Does anyone remember a person named Timothy McVeigh? On April, 19, 1995, he parked a truck loaded with FERTILIZER (not an assult weapon) next to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. The truck laden with fertilizer exploded and killed 168 people and injured over 800. How would gun control be beneficial in a situation like this? Murder is murder, no matter how is is carried out.
 @John83864 He was a CIA plant dude! Everyone knows that. Project Ultra something....proof about the aliens and stuff, remember?
I think it is time to define assault weapon. Â Anything used to assault someone would be considered an assault weapon from hands to knives, silverware to mase, vehicles to guns. Â You can not consider only a gun to be an assault weapon. Â Assault means a sudden attack. Â Legally assault is defined as attacking another person. Â The weapons used in the Columbine shootings were handguns and shotguns, in the Aurora Colorado movie theatre shooting a 12 guage shotgun was used and then the other most recent shocking massacre was the Virginia Tech shooting which is considered to be the biggest in our Countries history, once again a handgun(s) was used. Â So I ask, why is it you are wanting to ban guns that can hold over 10 rounds? Â My point is, almost any object can be used as an assault weapon. Â People kill, with many different objects, guns don't kill. Â Ceasefire.org wants to take away our right to safety. Â My Husband and I are armed 90% of the time, we carry conceal permits and obtained the training necessary to carry concealed. Â If we were in a situation where someone walked into a room and began shooting, at least we would have the means to try and take that person down and save as many lives as possible. Â Without this, you are completely defenseless. Â I would rather go down fighting than to have some criminal take full control of me. Â Make guns illegal and we will be in the same situation as our drug crisis, as guns will never go away, they will most likely just all wind up in the hands of criminals.
@Rockgirl08 I think you'd appreciate the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn.
 @Rockgirl08 I am trying to get my wife to get with the program. Any tips?
I am weary of attacks on our constitution. Why do people not support the 2A like they support the 1st? Why is our constitution so under attack more now than ever? We need to get back to the basics. The purity of our nations founding principles have been dragged and trampled in the mud for far too long.
If you notice all of these high profile shootings occur in liberal states. Could it be because criminals know there's not much chance that someone will shoot back. If this theater shooting had occurred in Texas someone would've had a gun and shortened the shooters shooting spree.Â
 When the shooting occurs don't liberals call the police because they have guns?
 We've had a couple of knife attacks in the news lately but nobody is trying to outlaw the knives, why is that.
 Seems to me it all comes down to the chicken Little's of the world think that a law will solve everything when in fact a law never stopped anybody from doing something wrong.
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The best defense from somebody shooting at you is to shoot back.
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Recently in the news some gang member was shooting at another gang member in a park when the gang member in the park shot back the first people took off. Now if they had only been better shots they could have improved society.
You can have my guns, one round at a time!
For myself I do not understand why so many people like to have such large magazines for their rifles. However I was at a shooting range and had the chance to shoot an AR15 with a 30 round mag. It was a lot of fun shooting so many times until I realized the first thing I shot up was my wallet after I found out what the bullets cost. But hey if people wish to spend their money that way, who am i to say no to them. I will stick to my 22 caliper rifles and handguns and shoot all day long for a faction of the cost.
 @onceagain AR's are tons of fun for target shooting.  And if you load your own ammo it is much less expensive.
@onceagain Caliber :)
 @Mr. Limpet  @onceagain sorry
I'm not sure you completely know what your talking about. A .223 rifle round cost about the same as a .40 caliber hand gun round. If you buy in bulk quantities it's even cheaper thus the reason people by thousands of rounds at a time.
 @mike I didn't say .223 caliper , I said my .22 caliper about 15.00 a 525 round box at Bi-Mart
Once again both of these people need to take a few lessons on how to be on TV and debate an issue. After watching the show neither side gave straight answers to any questions and then made themselves look foolish by making up lies and half truths. I wish Kevin had done a little more research and had his notes in order before he opened his mouth so much.
@onceagain I also wish he hadn't been so defensive and bombastic. He's rude and aggressive. The way he called Penny Okimoto "Okimoto" and the way he said "there is no such thing as an assault weapon." .... He's a discredit to any argument regarding gun control. He's a sad and disturbed man.
@onceagain I also wish he hadn't been so defensive and bombastic. He's rude and aggressive. The way he called Penny Okimoto "Okimoto" and the way he said "there is no such thing as an assault weapon." .... He's a discredit to any argument regarding gun control. He's a sad and disturbed man.
@onceagain Kevin has done his research.........This man has dedicated more of his life than anyone I know of to protect your rights here in Oregon...........Give him some credit!
@rem417 He's seriously disturbed. He can't even keep his cool when talking to a KATU emcee.
 @rem417  @onceagainMaybe I should have said he needs to work on his presentation style instead.
 @Dienekes4160  @onceagain  @rem417 So, you are happy and what color?
@onceagain @rem417 Similary, talk radio types would get much better traction outside of the angry-white-guy demographic, who already agree them anyway. The rest of us just turn the channel.
Good luck taking my guns!!! Not gonna happen!!
What I think anti gunners fail to realize is that they seem to think that if no guns were available that mass murder would have never happened. The colorado shooter rigged his apartment to blow, do you really think that if he didnt have a gun he wouldnt have made bombs or poison gas? When you legislate things the only people that lose are the responsible law abiding gun owners of the USA. This is a very unique country where our firearm ownership is guaranteed by our constitutional amendments and you just want to give that up all to sleep sounder? Timothy Mcvey didnt fire a single shot, but he killed alot of people. This is the USA, you can choose to not own a gun and dislike them, but you dont have to right to limit them from law abiding citizens.
I'm thinking we need to ban u-haul and ryder trucks. They can be used to kill people so we need to be protected from people who might decide to use one for harm.
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Oh and while we are at it drunk drivers also kill people. We need to ban all forms of automobiles and alcohol.
 @mike I think we need to ban bicycles and bike accessories on the road. 1. They cause dangerous traffic situations. 2. Those guys who wear those stupid fakkoty ass banana hats and girly tights literally make my eyes burn and tear up from the pain. Cant see to drive. :-)