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.
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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 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 1887.
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 1887.
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 increasing 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.
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.
Society will never keep semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of an individual determined to kill.
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You’ve never going to be able to predict crime.
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Gun control measures are a deadly piss poor substitute for a full ban on semi-automatic weapons.
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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.
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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.
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Does that make you feel safer?
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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 raw or refined 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.
POLITICS. THE POLITICS OF BANNING SEMI-AUTOMATIC HAND GUNS.
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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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WHICH GUNS ARE AMERICANS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ACCESS TO?
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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:
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1) a hunting rifle: a single shot, hand reloadable hunting rifle for the purpose of killing animals.
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2) a shotgun: or in Washington’s day, a single shot, hand reloadable musket.
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3) a six-shooter hand gun: hand reloadable and six shots only.
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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 a bunch of 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:
“Feb. 22, 2022, marked George Washington’s 290th birthday, and nearly three centuries on, there are still many surviving artifacts that give us some insight into his life and character.
He accumulated many personal arms, from sporting rifles to hunting fowlers to finely finished flintlock pistols.
At the time of his death, Washington had approximately 19 pistols, three rifles, four muskets and nine fowling pieces, according to Milton F. Perry, the former curator of the West Point Museum.
Of these guns, few survive into the present day as known, documented arms with a chain of custody stretching back to the great man.
Of those existing examples, one pair of pistols is highlighted in the February 2022 issue of American Rifleman in the story by Mark Sage titled “Washington’s Pistols At West Point” starting on p. 50.
Another striking pair of flintlock saddle pistols known to have been in Washington’s possession is the one shown here.
The “Washington-Lafayette Pistols” are so-called because they were a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette to Washington during the American Revolution.
These guns, which were profiled by Mark Sage in a previous article can be seen at the Fort Ligonier Museum in Ligonier, Pa.”
General Washington knows it takes him about 30 seconds to reload just a single shot; what would he say about a hand gun that shoots a bullet as fast as you can pull the trigger?
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Would he reserve such an incredibly fast, deadly weapon for the military and militias? or would he want gunmakers to sell and pass out these incredible weapons like hotcakes?
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Surely Washington would distinguish between semi-automatic weapons and single shot, hand reloadable weapons.
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Logic dictates that General Washington would be very worried that a group of derelicts or even the enemy would gain possession of these incredible new weapons and launch a deadly attack on U.S. forces.
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Surely Gen. Washington would not want these semi-automatic weapons for sale and available on the open market for anyone to purchase.
