Michael D. Barnes Quotes

We have had over 400,000 Americans killed in our country by guns since JFK and Martin Luther King were. That is more Americans dead than were killed in WWII.

For years, Lebanese have known that Palestinian camps like Nahr al-Barid and Ain al-Helwe - hopeless slums crowded with generations of disenfranchised Palestinian refugees who can't go home because of Israel, and can't work because of Lebanese laws - are awash with gunmen, criminals and, since the war in Iraq, al-Qaida inspired jihadists.

The war in Iraq has been extremely divisive here at home, and has also divided the world community.

The war in Iraq will end, our troops will come home, Bush will be impeached and he will be brought to justice.

Our pre-9/11 gun laws allow our enemies in the War on Terror to arm themselves right here in our own country.

On the issues that I care deeply about - the environment, Roe vs. Wade, the war in Iraq, with no weapons of mass destruction, the tax cuts that are now leading to deficits, I've got some deep issues with the president.

Nine out of 10 war victims die from a gun.

I thought Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time and have been fighting to get the Administration to stop its failed policy and bring our troops home.

America seems to have a love affair with violence. America is the most violent nation on earth.

The number of people in America killed by firearms is extraordinary compared to other nations, and I don't think we're a bloodthirsty country. We need to look at everything we can do to safeguard our people.

There is considerable merit to the notion of treating gun violence as a public health matter.

Fort Hood, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino are not 'terrorist incidents.' They are attacks. Get that straight.

We cannot allow those with mental illness or record of hate or violence access guns and terrorize this country.

There's been an enormous awakening, and I think recognition that the mass shootings we saw in Sandy Hook and other places are very related to the shootings we see every day in our cities.

Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980.

You can have all the muskets you want! You can even have assault muskets!...Their (the NRA's) paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can't even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually, in reality, happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of an imaginary Hitler.

When I think about what we need to do, we have 33,000 people a year who die from guns. I think we need comprehensive background checks, need to close the online loophole, close the gun show loophole. There's other matters that I think are sensible that are the kind of reforms that would make a difference that are not in any way conflicting with the Second Amendment.

We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools, now we're having weekly shootings practically.

It is true that the vast majority of gun deaths in America are not the consequence of the use of an 'assault weapon.' But that begs the question of whether assault weapons have any real utility either in terms of any sporting or self protection needs.

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. But that's unacceptable. As others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn't 'too soon.' It's much too late.

Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day. I have seen the courage of parents, students, pastors, and police officers all over this country who say 'we are not afraid,' and I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook.

The number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands. And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing.

My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage. We're the only developed country on Earth where this happens. ... And it happens once a week. And it's a one-day story. ... The country has to do some soul-searching on this.

We've had mass shootings in the United States in the part of violent antiabortion protesters, in the part of violent pro-ISIS militants. The trick and the trap and the horror is not faith, Scott. I don't think the trap and the horror is fanaticism.

We do a lot of "capital I" important stories, but one I'd highlight is the work we've done on guns, not only for the acclaim it's gotten but also because it showcases all the different kinds formats we use. So we compiled a database of all the variables of all the mass shootings in America - work the government doesn't do, thanks to the NRA - which allowed us to surface patterns and make data visualizations of it.