So I just finished watching the debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama. The following transcription took place which I accessed from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82484_Page7.html#ixzz29WVCMOcS:
QUESTION: President Obama, during the Democratic National Convention in 2008, you stated you wanted to keep AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. What has your administration done or planned to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?
OBAMA: We’re a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the Second Amendment. We’ve got a long tradition of hunting and sportsmen and people who want to make sure they can protect themselves.
But there have been too many instances during the course of my presidency, where I’ve had to comfort families who have lost somebody. Most recently out in Aurora. You know, just a couple of weeks ago, actually, probably about a month, I saw a mother, who I had met at the bedside of her son, who had been shot in that theater.
And her son had been shot through the head. And we spent some time, and we said a prayer and, remarkably, about two months later, this young man and his mom showed up, and he looked unbelievable, good as new.
But there were a lot of families who didn’t have that good fortune and whose sons or daughters or husbands didn’t survive.
So my belief is that, (A), we have to enforce the laws we’ve already got, make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill. We’ve done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we’ve got more to do when it comes to enforcement.
But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets. And so what I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns.
And so what can we do to intervene, to make sure that young people have opportunity; that our schools are working; that if there’s violence on the streets, that working with faith groups and law enforcement, we can catch it before it gets out of control.
And so what I want is a — is a comprehensive strategy. Part of it is seeing if we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. But part of it is also going deeper and seeing if we can get into these communities and making sure we catch violent impulses before they occur.
CROWLEY: Governor Romney, the question is about assault weapons, AK-47s.
ROMNEY: Yeah, I’m not in favor of new pieces of legislation on — on guns and taking guns away or making certain guns illegal. We, of course, don’t want to have automatic weapons, and that’s already illegal in this country to have automatic weapons. What I believe is we have to do, as the president mentioned towards the end of his remarks there, which is to make enormous efforts to enforce the gun laws that we have, and to change the culture of violence that we have.
And you ask how — how are we going to do that? And there are a number of things. He mentioned good schools. I totally agree. We were able to drive our schools to be number one in the nation in my state. And I believe if we do a better job in education, we’ll — we’ll give people the — the hope and opportunity they deserve and perhaps less violence from that. But let me mention another thing. And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the — the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that’s not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that’s a great idea.
Because if there’s a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will — will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity, and bring them in the American system. The — the greatest failure we’ve had with regards to — to gun violence in some respects is what — what is known as Fast and Furious. Which was a program under this administration, and how it worked exactly I think we don’t know precisely, where thousands of automatic, and AK-47 type weapons were — were given to people that ultimately gave them to — to drug lords.
They used those weapons against — against their own citizens and killed Americans with them. And this was a — this was a program of the government. For what purpose it was put in place, I can’t imagine. But it’s one of the great tragedies related to violence in our society which has occurred during this administration. Which I think the American people would like to understand fully, it’s been investigated to a degree, but — but the administration has carried out executive privilege to prevent all of the information from coming out.
I’d like to understand who it was that did this, what the idea was behind it, why it led to the violence, thousands of guns going to Mexican drug lords.
I want to specifically point out this statement given by Mitt Romney:
And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the — the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that’s not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that’s a great idea.
Because if there’s a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will — will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity, and bring them in the American system.
I’m completely APPALLED by this comment for I’m a single parent. A person can’t say that single parents are the cause of the violence in our country for they have no statistical proof. Last time I checked nobody can stereotype situations without the facts.. and there aren’t any facts showing that Single Parents = Increase in America!
I have two young girls and they presently don’t have a violent demeanor about them, instead they have a loving and caring attitude. I come from a divorced household and I don’t have a violent demeanor, and last time I checked I’m currently working on my PhD in education not a PhD in shooting people!
I’m just urked that someone would be that audacious to make a statement against single parent household. I hate making an assumption but was this a racially guided comment? Was Governor Romney trying to bring a negative view towards African American single parents since the media highlights all the crime in the urban area? Does Governor Romney not realize how many single parent households exist in our nation?
Doing a quick google check on single parent households led me to some statistics based for 2011 which you can find here. But basically it says that 35% of households are single parent households.
So Governor Romney if these were the numbers in 2011 do you think our amounts have increased in the span of 5 years? I say yes which means you just verbally assaulted a whole bunch of single parents and be that women!
As well I’d like Governor Romney to provide me the data that shows that children of single parent households are violent. I personally don’t think that your family structure determines your violence. Heck let’s talk about the Menedez brothers, they killed their parents.. they came from a two-parent home. Better yet let’s talk about the mess that took place in Denver, that killer comes from a two-parent home. Yes there are some major crimes committed by UNSTABLE family structures but you can’t put them all in one category. You have to base this statement on FACTS.. so provide me a literature review to support your statement.
On another level let’s think about those people that come from single parent households (no matter how it takes place) that have had a major influence on our society. We’ve had FIVE presidents that come from single parent households which does include our founding president George Washington. Governor Romney does that mean we should reconsider their success? Michael Phelps, all-time Olympic Medals, comes from a single parent household, I don’t see him out there being violent. Ben Carson, first surgeon to separate conjoined twins, comes from a single parent household, I don’t perceive him being violent.
What it all boils down to is that the statement was WRONG! You can’t pigeonhole people by their family structure. You have to know a person for who they are.. get all the facts not JUDGE. All family structures have issues.. you can be in a two-parent household and be violent AND you can be in a single-parent household and be violent. At the end of the day we have to ensure that violence doesn’t take place, we have to prevent the ease in accessing a weapon, we have to encourage people to not act out their sick and twisted thoughts.
While doing my research here is another article talking about how single mothers should stand proud.. I think a great way to end this rant of my frustration.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/13/opinion/weldon-single-mothers/index.html
I look forward to your comments and I’m sure I’ll write more on this later.. for it has gotten under my skin in a BAD way!
Maranda's World 