If you really want to look into the mind of the semi-literate gun nut, I would completely recommend this thread.
My favorite part is the anonymous commenters daring me to call them a pussy or gun nut to their face. Think about it for a second and then giggle.
*** Update ***
I didn’t realize we were dealing with these cretin. I had no idea that we were dealing with the Uncle Jimbo and Black Five morons.
redshirt
I do not like green guns and ham.
SatanicPanic
John Cole is not a pussy.
Warren Terra
(deleted because of Moderation cue)
Anthony
Typical gun nut, his first objection is the whole clip-magazine pedantry.
Platonicspoof
Listening to the President speak.
Love the idea of your kids being your heart walking around outside of you.
SatanicPanic
What? FYWP. John Cole is not a coward, that’s all I wanted to say.
mandarama
Is this where all the seagull commenters on that thread below came from? Because I normally don’t post much, but they were so obnoxious. They seemed really young and really defensive. I am troubled by young military guys speaking so dismissively of older vets whose experiences they know nothing about. They seemed a lot more upset at the idea anyone might think they were a pussy (conveniently ignoring the various sallies about how that metaphor is invalid) and had not one useful thing to say about the gun discussion. I see they don’t have much to offer on their home territory, either, except collective reassurance to each other about their…equipment.
Libby's Person
I’m a little jumpy. I was out walking my dog about an hour ago in my very safe neighborhood, and heard two loud bangs no more than two blocks away. Bangs, like distant gunshots during hunting season, make my dog nervous – when she heard these, she refused to keep walking, and I decided not to insist and took her back home. Because of the news this week, I really wanted to know what had caused the noise, so I checked my neighborhood list serve to see if anyone had posted any news. Two different neighbors had called 911 and reported hearing gunshots. I’m still hoping it turns out to be something else, like firecrackers, but it’s hard not to be rattled this week!
JPL
A child told a teacher “I know Karate and I can lead the way out”.
That says it all.
Warren Terra
Is the joke here that these brave people are hiding behind anonymity? Or is the joke that these insecure, belligerent morons are the same ones loudly proclaiming that they must be trusted with their killing-machines?
@redshirt:
Would you like them with a Wingnut Welfare gig?
PS: Dammit John Cole, if your Moderation Filter is going to flip out at the un-Bowdlerized version of “Pnssy”, don’t put the offending word in your post.
JPL
omg.. he’s giving a gun control speech.. I love this guy..
mandarama
Hey, I got moderated. Did I have a fun word in there?
Litlebritdifrnt
POTUS is going there and it is brilliant. You have to listen to this speech.
mai naem
I went to the WSJ piece on Newtown. The comments start out with a few second amendmenters but then it’s followed by a lot of snarky comments. I was impressed being that it’s the WSJ.
Uncle Ebeneezer
You have a stronger stomach than most John, for even daring to go over to that cesspool of troglodytes.
Scotty
Don’t let them drive you crazy John. You’d experience more reasonable responses and rational discussion if you explained this issue to Tunch compared to the whack jobs on that blog.
Raven
You know I emailed you but go over and read Lang. Then delete him.
JPL
@Litlebritdifrnt: He’s so right and now reading the names.
Litlebritdifrnt
He is reading the names of the children.
PLH ~ NYC
I went and read the comments at the wingnut site and what strikes me most is how threatened they are. They are nothing without their guns. I don’t own guns and was never in the military. I live in an extremely urban place where the violent crime rate has plummeted over the last 20 years as it has in most of the country. What are these people scared of that they need weapons that in other countries are only possessed by the military? And why is this country so stupid as to allow its citizens to be armed like a soldier?
Dr. Squid
Or what? He gonna shoot me in the face, prove me right, then get a needle in his arm courtesy of the state for his trouble?
That is pretty funny. How manly of them.
RSA
@Anthony:
Funny stuff. Also this:
That is, generalizing to other rightwing topics, this has never posed a problem for them pushing their views on evolution, climate change, abortion, gay marriage…
Robert
I like the part where the gun nuts know more about your service than you do because they looked up information on Wikipedia.
Scotty
I think the most ridiculous comment in the history of blog comments was the douche who explained how dental floss, rocks, flour, etc. could be considered an assault weapon. Eff off… how many 1st graders have been mass murdered by those items you asshole.
jhtrotter
Maybe if you had said this here in your previous post, instead of that ‘I walked a combat zone fence line armed with a roll of tape so I know all about your lunatic gun fetish’ crapola, the law abiding citizens who you demonize for exercising their 2nd amendment rights would have responded better.
Or not, I dunno. How ’bout them Cowboys?
General Stuck
Those assholes got nuthin’ after what happened Friday. Every word they say with attitude concerning guns, now has a special ring of the sociopath. Even if they are right about some things concerning the USA gun culture.
They used to give us untaped clips with 4 rounds, when guarding the ammo dump at Ft Lee, that just happened to be next door to a federal prison. One night, I got bored and broke down my M 16 they gave us, and it had no firing pin. But that was typical in the broken Army of 1973, where even stateside bases were a semi war zone.
qwerty42
Jeeze, John … they don’t seem to think too much of you. For those who didn’t see it, here is our host a few years ago:
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/01/14/never-a-dull-moment/
I had a friend in Vietnam who said they had similar restrictions on weapons at his fire base. They had been relaxed following an all-out attack on the base, but then someone discharged his M-16, almost shooting someone and that was changed. I guess for these guys, the danger is always present. always. must be tough always living in the cross-hairs.
Marc
@jhtrotter:
It’s not possible to use small enough words if the “law abiding citizens” are so bloody simple-minded that they treat any limitation on guns as equal to a ban.
The gun nuts insist that there is absolutely no relationship between guns and the killing they’re designed to do; that there is no middle ground between unlimited guns and banned guns. Enough. Gun ownership is a rapidly shrinking minority in this country, and if gun owners can’t grasp the concept that limits are important they’re going to wake up in a country that isn’t listening to them anymore.
Enough.
wrb
Holy shit
We haz a President
Just Some Fuckhead
They imagine themselves as the heroes in a fantasy shooting. It’s amazing how many of them described themselves or someone like them coming in with a gun to save the day.
In fact, the Connecticut shooter appears to have been the same sort of hero, brought up on the gun range, mom was a doomsday prepper, son was taught how to shoot and be deadly accurate.
And he was a potential hero until he wasn’t.
cathyx
That is not my idea of pleasurable reading.
Elizabelle
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I typed up some of the President’s remarks as he spoke:
Excellent speech.
pseudonymous in nc
For some reason, the “we’re responsible gun owners and we’ll shoot up your ass” position is not held up with the ridicule it should.
Pococurante
My family is wrapping up a Sunday evening. Several of us stayed home and smoked meats, stuffed pastries and vegetables, did BBQ, watched TV and argued over TV politics and who was right or wrong too many decades ago that we can barely count.
The BJ community needs to find the rape dolly and get over it.
There are more healthy and well-balanced people out here then many of you seem to realize.
Back off the keyboard and try harder to build something strong with you people. And not that half-ass passive aggressive crap.
Life sucks. Make it less so without being some kind of fascist.
Take away guns. What a stupid mindless Fox News way to see the world.
eric
eastwood gets it so right at the end of Unforgiven…all those guys missing at point blank range because their hearts nd minds are going too fast while the man without a heart and no mind about dying (ie sociopathic) can kill at ease…..it is one of the great post-scripts to a career that includes the very movies that the gun nuts fetishize.
Just Some Fuckhead
Looks like a lot of PTSD going on over there. We should probably be more sympathetic and less vitriolic.
gf120581
@PLH ~ NYC: Gee, you might think they’re compensating for something.
Marc
@Pococurante:
And, on the other side, freedom absolutely requires unlimited ammo clips and semi-automatic weapons. Because freedom. Presumably speed limits and DUI laws are also unbearable limitations and the front wedge of tyranny.
4tehlulz
YEAH GET OVER THE DEAD KIDS MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANN
John Cole
My personal favorite aspect of it all is that behind all the machismo posturing, all that is really left is fear. They need a gun to go the grocery store. They need a gun in Church. They need a gun when they drive down the road.
It’s really fucking sad.
SatanicPanic
@Pococurante: weak
Narcissus
Every gun nut I’ve ever met is terrified of something. Guns make them feel better. That’s really all they care about.
gf120581
@eric: Unforgiven has perhaps my favorite comment ever about the nature of killing a person.
“It’s a hell of a thing killing a man. You take away everything he ever was and everything he’s ever going to be.”
“Well I guess he had it coming.”
“We all have it coming, kid. All of us.”
RedKitten
I just can’t even with these people. I can’t.
I have yet to see any of them address accidental gun deaths in any meaningful way. They MIGHT concede that it’s due to owner negligence, but give no real suggestions as to how to prevent and/or punish this negligence so that it doesn’t happen again. They’re not interested in that subject, because the answer isn’t “more guns”.
Of course, you hear the usual yadda-yadda about how teachers should be armed. So does that also mean that if my kid is 10 and walks to school, I need to send a highly trained armed guard with him? That THIS is a reasonable thing to do to protect my kid?
If these people showed even HALF as much passion about those poor dead kids, or about keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and little kids, then I might be able to take their argument seriously. But they’ve shown only too clearly that this is not where their inclination lies. They’re too busy with their John McLane fantasies of armed citizens saving the day by gunning down the bad guys.
It’s gotten to the point where I’m honestly starting to think that I’m talking to a completely different species of human…one who is evolving along a separate path, and whose mind just does not work in the same way as the rest of us.
Jewish Steel
What a fucking fever swamp.
I’m feeling a new-found tolerance for our own local trolls.
But I’m sure it will pass.
pseudonymous in nc
Strangely, I don’t feel either the inclination or need to immerse myself in the terminology and nuance of child snuff porn before suggesting that there should be less of it. Likewise, with gun fappers.
Midnight Marauder
@PLH ~ NYC:
Yup.
This one is my favorite.
Definitely a lot of gentlemen with small penises posting ’round those parts.
gf120581
@John Cole: Indeed, Cole. For a lot of these guys, guns are like the security blanket of Linus Van Pelt. They need them just to get through the day. It’s like their entire being depends on their guns. No wonder many of them give their guns names.
eric
@gf120581: Great lines….Also: “I was building a house. I dont deserve this.” “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
Anthony
@Scotty: I really love the image of a guy trying to garotte someone with a piece of dental floss.
mandarama
Nothing like moral scolding about being rude from someone who has shown demonstrable rudeness, or being accused of hyperbole by someone who uses the word “demonize.” I believe John Cole _insulted_ gun fetishists, rather than demonizing anyone. And lo and behold, several new commenters showed up to…do what? Try to invalidate the military service of anyone who wants to argue that weapons fetishes are bad for our culture? Prove that their own service is more valid (though none cited the wheres and whens) and therefore their gun interest is too?
Ah, irony, we meet again.
Central Planning
I find it funny they think that they will be able to stop tyranny with their guns.
Really, if the government is going to come and take them/their family/house/money/food/whatever, how long could could they hold them off? Or, is the fact that they have a machine gun supposed to scare off the police/government/military?
trollhattan
@Pococurante:
Those last two sentences are what one would call, “a tell.” Have a swell day.
Elizabelle
MSNBC going overboard in talking about “controversial”, “divisive” and “polarizing” in talking about the President’s possible approaches. They’re salivating.
Bring out that dead horse to race.
Mnemosyne
@Pococurante:
Go take a look at the graves prepared for 20 kindergarteners and tell us again to “get over it,” you heartless fuck.
Dissatisfied Customer
They’re to be pitied more than censured, John. Nice little shithole ya got here, brw.
Warren Terra
One thing I haven’t seen enough of this last few days is a revisiting of Molly Ivins’s candidate for The Best Op-Ed Column Ever Written, The Seventy-Third Session. I say this, because it’s a two-fer; it has the following passage, which I’ve quoted often before:
But immediately after that comes this passage:
I misremembered, though, and it’s in a different column entirely that Ivins said:
PS it you’ve never read Ivins, you ought to. These are from her second essay collection, available for about $3.50
RedKitten
@John Cole: No kidding. I honestly don’t know what their lives are like, that their world is such a fearful, hostile place that they envision assailants behind every bush, in every corner and lurking in every shadow. That they need a gun to feel safe in their car, their home, the street, the crapper.
FFS, I’m a WOMAN. Statistically, I’m a hell of a lot more likely to be attacked than any of those guys. And that doesn’t mean I’m not cautious. I don’t walk alone at night. I lock my doors. I remain aware of my surroundings, and I do know a few basic self-defense moves. But I have never, ever, ever felt the need to carry a gun on my person or keep one in my car or my nightstand. I don’t live in a goddamn war zone. And neither do they.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Central Planning:
That’s pretty much clear evidence they aren’t operating in a sane universe. They imagine their handful of weapons will be able to take on the greatest military machine in the history of mankind. Ya know, the one that gave them their training.
Well, look you can give ’em props for chutzpah.
Scotty
@Anthony:
Really, every dentists office is a ticking time bomb according to that line of thinking.
RedKitten
This, from people who support a party whose representatives are only too happy to try to legislate women’s reproductive systems, when they don’t have the first goddamn idea how babies are made.
Just Some Fuckhead
@RedKitten:
lolz
kc
What, are they gonna shoot you for calling them pussies? Pussies.
SatanicPanic
@RedKitten: WRT accidental shootings- gun owners are between a rock and hard place there, because you absolutely have to punish people whose guns go off by accident and injure people, otherwise you have created a massive loophole in the law. I feel for the guy who accidentally killed his kid the other day, I really do, but someone on another thread was saying “that’s punishment enough.” It’s not. Because it’s not just about that one guy.
nancydarling
I missed President Obama’s speech at Newtown. Where can I find it replayed?
Dr. Squid
@Just Some Fuckhead: PTSD? From what? A Cheeto going up their anus from flopping too hard in their Barcalounger?
jhtrotter
@mandarama:
Rude is the essence of Balloon Juice. I wasn’t scolding him for being rude. I was merely criticizing him for being wrong.
JPL
@nancydarling: nbc.com then click to msnbc on the top.. that will bring up video’s ..
This might not have been his best speech but it certainly is the most important one.
Rosie Outlook
Well, you tried, John. And Tunch and Lily and the lady friend still love you. And Rosie still thinks you dish out pretty good grub.
Not sure why they are so worked up about the proper use of “clip” and “magazine .”. My father taught thousands of men to shoot during his Army career, and in casual conversation he uses the words more or less interchangeably.
Comrade Jake
If only the first victim from Friday’s massacre, the shooter’s mother, had been a gun owner — she could have stopped this thing before it got worse.
JBerardi
@Central Planning:
Honestly. The government has tanks, jet fighters, unmanned drones, massive warships, cruise missels, satellite surveillance, fucking tactical nuclear weapons… so really, what chance do you have? Then again, I’m told that all of that stuff is to defend our freedom, but I guess we have to defend our freedom from the people defending our freedom, even though that isn’t really possible, and, umm…
It’s all very confusing.
RedKitten
@SatanicPanic: That’s exactly it. If we could honestly say that every person whoses gun was used in an accidental killing learned a hard lesson and was stringent about gun safety from that point on, then that’d be one thing. But I’m not that optimistic. Besides, if MY kid was killed at a friend’s house because the friend’s parent was careless with their gun, I would not say that their guilty feelings were enough punishment. I’d want them to lose all of their guns for the rest of their life, spend plenty of time in jail, and be made to tour around talking about gun safety for years after parole.
I OWN guns, and we’re hyper-vigilant about gun safety. But if (heaven forbid) anybody was ever accidentally shot with one of my guns, even if they were not killed, the guns would be gone out of my home for good, never to return. And I would not expect to escape lawful repercussions any more than I would if I drove carelessly and ran somebody over.
JBerardi
@Rosie Outlook:
Semantics are the last refuge of people who know they have no argument.
Emma
@Pococurante: Spoke by a man whose child, if he has one, is most likely still alive. Spoken like someone whose persona is tied up to being able to kill someone without society being able to stop him.
Nemo_N
I salute your fortitude of stomach to go and read this kind of creeps.
Howard Beale IV
Your response to those sub-humans was all that was needed to continue in tipping my hat to you and your duty here-AAMOF it isn’t the first time I saw some USN flag officer go directly against you for your change in beliefs.
Actually, its time that we ferret those kind of whackjobs out, and keep their insanity out so when the feces hits the rotating blades we can leave them to wallow in their own fecal matters.
mandarama
Oh, sorry. It sounded like you were saying that if he’d only had a nicer approach in addressing those poor oppressed people who need those very powerful guns, they wouldn’t have come along and accused him of his military service either being falsified or not meaning shit.
Raven
@Rosie Outlook: Because military people don’t call them clips or guns. John explained that he used the term here so people would know what he was talking about. These dudes will use anything they can. Everyone that disagrees with them was a REMF or a FOBBIE because no red blooded grunt would ever be anything other than a conservative.
Edo
@Rosie Outlook: It’s one of those little technical errors that’s more grating for being so small. Or it’s a way to delegitimize John Cole as having no idea what he’s talking about. Either way.
Anthony
@JBerardi: The taliban don’t have any of that and they’re putting up a pretty good fight though.
trollhattan
@RedKitten:
This dude, for example.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/09/joseph_loughrey_shoots_kills_son_outside_gun_store.html
I don’t believe “tut-tut”ing is enough.
JPL
@RedKitten: Twenty six years ago when I moved to GA, I realized that neighbors had guns. When the sons were of babysitting age, there was absolutely no way to know if they were going to sit in a house with unsecured guns.
Mark S.
@Central Planning:
WOLVERINES!
mandarama
@RedKitten: If you’re going to talk the language of vagina control, learn the language of vaginas first.
CaptainFwiffo
Gun nuts really do take it personally when you refer to magazines as clips. I’ve had more than one bring up the subject, completely unprompted. I guess it’s a pet peeve, like using “your” when you mean “you’re”.
Of course, that just makes it more fun.
mainmati
Wow, I went to that site. This is the very definition of obsessive perversion, in this case, a very deadly perversion. We’re going to soon see slaughters once a week unless the grown-ups start acting responsibly. As I have said elsewhere ban or control the bullets – those are what matter.
And spend the necessary resources on crushing the resulting black market by making severe sentences mandatory. The lunatic gun nuts have no right to destroy this country.
RedKitten
@JPL: And THAT would freak me out a hell of a lot more than the thought of some random bad guy breaking into our house and trying to kill us. I live in the sticks and most everybody has a gun or two (primarily hunting rifles), and I have to confess that I’m nervous as hell about him going to a friend’s house after school, not knowing that family’s philosophy on gun safety. Personally, when he starts bringing friends here, I plan on fully disclosing to their parents that yes, we have guns, yes, they are locked up with the ammo stored separately, and yes, the key is hidden. And yes, SamKitten will learn VERY early on about gun safety and about never, ever, ever, ever touching a gun if he is not with us or his grandfather. He has a Nerf gun right now, and he’s not even allowed to point THAT at people — that’s how seriously we take things.
JPL
TPM has the speech…
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-i-will-use-whatever-power-this-office
RedKitten
@mandarama:
Kind of funny, in a sick way. Goodness knows my vagina does not have the potential to be used to massacre scores of innocents. And yet, conservatives are a LOT more interested in regulating it and controlling it than they are in regulating and controlling guns.
SatanicPanic
@RedKitten: That’s reason #1 that I don’t own a gun, I can’t handle the responsibility.
JPL
@RedKitten: So TRUE. I wish I were sleeping with all the people that repubs want to regulate in my bedroom. Clooney would be nice btw.
Rob in DC
The Balloon-Juice commenteriat has not covered itself in glory with the CT tragedy. I’ve seen calls for all out genocide on gun owners from some of the more rabid. Gun control is not only impracticable, but also impossible in nation with 300 million guns. Furthermore someone interested in committing a murder suicide will succeed 100% of the time, with or without a gun.
The main focus of our time and energy should be a campaign to reassess how we handle mental illness as a society. This failure ties in to our private provider healthcare system which prices out too many people. NAMI is one of the best organizations addressing this issue, if you really want to help prevent an event like this from happening don’t waste your money on the Brady Campaign, give it to NAMI.
The numerous calls for gun control from this blog from the front pagers has really made me lose a lot of respect for this place, I am hoping these are emotional overreactions, from a lot of people, because if some people here truly want to make war on gun owners in the U.S. then we are way further into America’s Nazification then I thought.
Just Some Fuckhead
@RedKitten:
The highschooler in me wants to make a “killer pussy” joke.
Raven
@Rob in DC: So go the fuck away.
Just Some Fuckhead
Unmoderate me, you fascist gun grabbers!
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Elizabelle: Why didn’t Obama read the names of all the responsible gun owners of America? You know, the real victimz? Huh?? Wolverines!!1!
carolus
Michael Yon on Lilyea and friends
SatanicPanic
@Rob in DC: Give me a break, gun owners are a minority, you can talk about 300 million guns but those are not at all evenly distributed. And the point would be to make illegal ones so expensive that they wouldn’t fall into the hands of crazy people. You could do a lot of good by making them scarcer.
And seriously, what makes you think that a country that was decades behind every other developed nation in creating a national healthcare system is going to deal with mental illness anytime soon?
JWR
@Comrade Jake:
This is why I find these notions of armed teachers and school bus drivers so incredibly noxious and naive. If this guys own mother trained him so well, he obviously would’ve taken steps to negate such an obstacle, whether from an armed person at home, or a teacher at the school.
quietstorm
So much disingenuous bullshit. And I get the feeling anybody who frequented that site who might want to have a substantive discussion about the issues has already been turned off by the vitriol or doesn’t see a point in being flamed for disagreeing with the echo chamber.
My question is, why do the gun advocates own guns? Nobody needs an assault rifle for self-defense. Or bringing down game. There’s only one reason to have a weapon that can fire five rounds a second and that’s to harm or kill as many people as possible in a short space of time. Outside of a war zone those weapons are vanity and paranoia in tangible form.
And comparisons to knives, cars etc are intellectually dishonest. Guns are solely designed to hurt/kill. The faster and more powerful they are, the more effectively and efficiently they kill. Why does anybody need that in a subrban neighbourhood?
4tehlulz
Remember America when the assault weapons ban was in effect? It was practically like living in occupied Poland.
quietstorm
JWR: She WAS a gun owner – the news has been reporting that at least one of the weapons the shooter used was registered to her, and she had a bunch of them in the household.
Just Some Fuckhead
Unhand my comment, you commenist bastards!
SatanicPanic
@JWR: Arming teachers is a great plan, if you think that no dipshit teacher will accidentally leave on in an unlocked drawer.
Elizabelle
@Rob in DC:
That you, Doug J?
ShadeTail
@jhtrotter: Except that he’s not wrong. He has had real gun training. And you guys really are a bunch of pussies projecting your fantasies of being manly onto the real world, and with tragic results. Those are facts, and there are 20 dead kindergarteners in Connecticut who could attest to it if they were still alive. Their blood may not be on your hands, but the man who does have their blood on his hands was enabled by you and yours.
And like the pussy you are, you whine and cry about “rudeness” when people rub your nose in this reality. Because you don’t want the reality of who and what you are to intrude into your manhood fantasy. That’s another fact.
JPL
A handgun would not have saved the children in the elementary school. The school should have stockpiled assault rifles. Nice country we have. btw don’t allow your children to watch or play video games.
Ruckus
@RedKitten:
It’s gotten to the point where I’m honestly starting to think that I’m talking to a completely different species of human…one who is evolving along a separate path, and whose mind just does not work in the same way as the rest of us.
Go with that feeling. With one change. Evolving for them is spelled… Devolving.
PLH ~ NYC
@gf120581: I understand having collections of stuff (I am, among other things, a guitar player) but this stuff baffles me.
Maude
@Ruckus:
Going down the drain. Hi to you.
Narcissus
@JPL: Not to mention comic books
JPL
@quietstorm: The mother brought her children to gun ranges to target shoot when Adam was nine.
I have no idea whether or not he showed signs of mental illness at that age. When Adam was nine there was a father in the household but that’s not mentioned. I read that the dad also had multiple weapons registered but that seems to be overlooked in media reports. Now why she didn’t get rid of the guns when her younger son exhibited signs of mental illness, I don’t know. Why didn’t the dad take the son? I don’t know.
Librarian
“My, my, my, such a lot of guns around town and so few brains.”-Philip Marlowe, The Big Sleep
Warren Terra
@Rob in DC:
I haven’t read most of the threads,but if you’re going to nutpick, name names. And keep in mind that outbursts from people in the first throes of trauma from the murder of twenty children may be intemperate, and also that you may be misreading them to boot.
Obviously, the answer is to never do anything, then. Or maybe, just maybe, we could start some policies that affect every existing gun – like requiring safety training and licensing exams; like requiring locked gun safes; like requiring insurance; like punishing accidental discharges severely, and punishing criminal gun use in a downright draconian manner; like requiring people to register their firearms. On top of that, we could implement policies affecting the new guns that are sold every day, further adding to the problem whose size you perceive as a reason to give up and do nothing
Well, no, they aren’t. We’ve done the fncking experiment: Attack a primary school with machete, and likely no-one dies. Attack a primary school with a kitchen knife, and likely no-one dies. Attack a primary school with two of the finest pieces of equipment our society has produced, resulting from hundreds of years of dedicated effort and design optimization, all with the sole purpose of making a more effective and efficient machine for the killing of humans: twenty dead kids, and six adults dead trying to save them. Yes, a car is a powerful thing. Yes, explosives are possible. But – with a mere three day waiting period – I can get a machine perfectly designed to kill a dozen people, a machine whose use requires almost no effort on my part, for about the same price as a good bicycle – and it would take me longer to learn to ride the bicycle poorly than it would take me to learn to kill with a handgun efficiently.
Obviously, mental health is an issue. Dangerously insane people without adequate treatment and supervision is a real problem. You know what else is a problem? Dangerously insane people with guns. Not that you apparently give a sh!t.
Speaking as someone who lost a lot of relatives to the Nazis, and suspecting you didn’t, may I invite you to go fnck yourself? Yes: the Nazis had strict gun controls. They also built highways, invented the Olympic torch relay, and were strangely enthusiastic about mountain climbing. None of these automatically connect to world conquest and genocide.
It’s clear that you dislike Gun Control – no, let’s speak plainly, you hate advocates of Gun Control, in a highly personal manner – rather than (as you briefly concern-troll above) believing it is an effort that merely can’t succeed. So: you’re a fan of the current system, and think that the price we pay for your preferences – a price of a couple dozen murdered kids whenever some sick fnck feels like it – is totally cool. Odds are, they won’t be your kids, after all. But when it’s you that suggest that the blood of Others is a small price to pay for your comfort, it’s going a bit far for you to call other people Nazis.
JWR
@quietstorm: I know she was armed, and the weapons used belonged to her. My point was that no matter who owned the guns, this guy didn’t just wake and start shooting. It was planned. And whether confronted by his mother or a teacher at the school, he’d probably made note of that in advance.
Warren Terra
@JPL:
I’m thinking hand grenades.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Warren Terra:
lolz
Seriously? I have a completely different thought. Who fucking cares what Rob in DC thinks about anonymous commenters on a B-list blog? He can suck my typographical dick.
quietstorm
I really am out of practice at the BJ comments threads.
Going to take my Snark-O-Meter back to the shop.
kay
@SatanicPanic:
The mental health argument is looping back around.
One of the warning signs we’re supposed to watch for is an intense interest in weaponry, because of course not all people with mental illness are murderers.
If we notice that, we can’t do anything
about it though, in terms of immediate safety, because that would be gun control.
Maude
@Warren Terra:
He is obviously ignorant about the Third Reich.
I’m glad you answered him.
Rob in DC
@Warren Terra:
Or this happens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster.
I don’t hate gun control advocates. I’m fine with tighter gun regulations, but they are not going to effectively prevent things like Sandy Hook from happening. We are not starting with a clean slate here, and while those 300 million guns may not be evenly distributed, as someone pointed out, anyone who is determined to get a gun in the U.S. is going to be able to get one, no matter how tightly you regulate the influx of new guns. That is the reality of 300 million guns in this country.
But yes I find problematic the total disarmament of the U.S. population. That is indeed the first step on the road to totalitarianism and tyranny. I think its a legitimate concern after watching the Fourth Amendment get shredded to a protection that isn’t even worth 10% of what it was in 1972. I have watched our liberties disappear slowly but surely, decade after decade, under sustained relentless assault from both major parties in this country.
Now we have outright government dragnets, unmoderated by any judicial intervention whatsoever, secret kill lists, and indefinite detention.
An armed populace prevents an all-in ante by the Federal government. That too is worth balancing when we consider this situation.
Oh and I answered you politely, but don’t fucking talk to me about what I lost to the Nazi’s asshole.
JWR
@quietstorm:
I’m fairly new around here, and I’ve been caught with my Snark-O-Meter down more than once. But I’ve found the regulars around here to be fairly relaxed, even if they are fascist gun grabbers. ;-)
JBerardi
@Anthony:
Yeah, you know, I’m clearly underestimating how much the geopolitical situation in America resembles that of Afghanistan. Really, dude?
Gopher2b
Like I said earlier, this fight is going to be epic. Whenever it get hard or depressing, think about how much fun it’s going to be to take the guns from these mouth-breathers
4tehlulz
So, who are you going to shoot to prevent it from getting worse? And when do we start shooting?
Jeff Spender
@Rob in DC:
Hey, you self-righteous piece of shit:
My great-grandmother survived the Bath School bombing. Her name was Ottellia Nichols. My great-aunt, Emma Nichols, died. That took place on May 18, 1927.
Do you even know the circumstances about that bombing? I do. I’ve spent years studying it. I have original pictures of the damage.
Guess what: it took long, careful planning by Andrew Kehoe, an expert in handling dynamite. He had an ample supply that he used for farming. And do you know why he was able to plant it throughout the school? He was the school’s handyman. He spent long hours planting the dynamite throughout the school over the course of days. It wasn’t something that just happened.
If half of that dynamite hadn’t failed to detonate, I wouldn’t be here right now. I suppose what I’m saying is, in effect, that this situation was different than your run-of-the-mill whackjob with a gun shooting a bunch of kids.
You’re an ass, and you’re making a false comparison.
SatanicPanic
@kay: Well and people keep pointing out- we can’t have rules against guns in the homes of people who are mentally ill, because that would stigmatize the mentally ill. Or because they would refuse to see help. I get the impression these people like the status quo.
JBerardi
@Rob in DC:
I notice all those guns didn’t do much to stop the 4th amendment from getting shredded.
I mean, it also prevents a takeover of the USA an underground race of mole-men, but that doesn’t make that scenario any less fucking delusional.
I would think that this goes without saying, but at the point where we need to take up arms against the Federal Government, the country is over anyway. It’s not a contingency that I’m willing to prepare fore.
pseudonymous in nc
@Rob in DC:
What’s your proposal, then, other than flapping your arms and trying to turn this into a conversation about mental health? Because you’ll find that conversations with actual mental health professionals will not provide the support you believe exists, and until you come up with something better, it’s hardly unfair to treat you as part of the problem.
Gopher2b
@Rob in DC:
I think criminals will be able to get guns if they want them (as they do now). I don’t agree it’s a foregone conclusion that some 20 year old kid with severe social anxieties is going to stumble into the black market.
First, make possession of an assault rifle a felony. Second, let all the pot possessors put of jail. Third, start filling them back up with everyone from #1.
J.W. Hamner
I couldn’t get all the way through… made me kind of sad really. I feel like I’m not even speaking the same language as the people in that thread. It’s easy enough to write them off as gun nuts or whatever, but I suspect that their views aren’t especially rare… doesn’t make me optimistic.
Ruckus
I am no longer going to use the words gun control.
I am switching to Killing Control.
That is what the gun fetishers are talking about, the ability to kill. Killing humans. That is their goal.
Responsible gun owners who feel they need a gun for protection don’t have as their first goal to kill humans. They keep a gun to hopefully keep themselves alive when there is no other choice. It probably won’t work a lot of the time but their goal is not unreasonable. Or they have a gun to hunt for food. A not unreasonable idea at all either. And if their goals are not unreasonable they should be able to have the means to realize them if necessary. And maybe they just like shooting them. I used to hold all three of these reasons for owning guns. I can’t say I outgrew them, but I do see a few points. Having a sidearm makes it statistically much more likely that I will die from a gunshot. I get my food at a supermarket. I live in a house that has not had the doors locked in about 20 yrs. And finally I just don’t want to be responsible for someone taking my gun, no matter how they got it and shooting someone, anyone.
MMM
I had to refrain myself from posting on their website. You know my thoughts Mr. Cole.
To paraphrase the one character from Bob Roberts: I must now excuse myself so I can pray to God that he will provide us with more guns before any leftist pinko policy leads us into hell.
? Martin
@Rob in DC:
How?
The federal government isn’t a monarchy. You think Congress will sit idly by? You think the US military would support that? Ever? You don’t think the state National Guards wouldn’t be the first to step up to balance that?
There is no risk of dictatorship in this country. None. The founders didn’t solve that problem by writing the 2nd amendment, they solved that problem by creating a system of government that didn’t concentrate power. Knock of the paranoid fantasyland shit.
kay
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, you could actually make the exact same argument outraged gun owners are making against gun safety people and apply it to outraged gun owners pointing to the mentally ill. That they’re punishing law-abiding mentally ill, etc., and round and round we go…
I have no idea why an advocate for the mentally ill would point to a mass murderer, anyway. It’s terrible advocacy, and certainly not a good way to remove stigma.
? Martin
@Rob in DC:
We’ve done it successfully with 250 million cars. Wasn’t that hard, actually.
Marc
We’ve seen a lot of repressive regimes overthrown in the last 30 years or so, and bloody few cases where this was from armed insurrection.
In fact, armed resistance almost always backfires and creates a call for law and order. Peaceful protest, you know, actually works in countries shy of harsh dictatorships. And if you think that we’re going to be taken over by a North Korea style government then you’re flatly deluded in thinking that private arms will be able to stop it.
Gopher2b
Rob in DC
“An armed populace prevents an all-in ante by the Federal government. That too is worth balancing when we consider this situation.”
Your state National Guard is going to stop that. You are going to get run over by a tank as the Feds race to start the fight with the National Guard.
Warren Terra
@Rob in DC:
Somehow I knew you would cite that one. It’s the gun-worshipper’s favorite go-to atrocity this weekend (I suppose the Alfred P Murrah building doesn’t cut it, because McVeigh and his co-ideologists were such gun enthusiasts, and were so terribly afraid of moderate gun control laws). You may have noted, however, that the atrocity you cite was eighty-five years ago, and that it used equipment that is far more carefully regulated than are firearms. It also required careful planning, the construction of timing devices, and significant resources. Meanwhile, Adam Lanza woke up one morning, picked up in each hand a device that, fully loaded, weighs about the same as an iPad, a device that any law-abiding citizen can pick up for the price of an iPad and almost as conveniently, a device is the process of many more generations of design optimization than is the iPad, and was immediately ready to use that poorly regulated device as it was designed to do, to kill dozens of people. Months of planning to make or acquire highly regulated explosives and to deploy them, it wasn’t.
And fnck you, and your “total disarmament of the American public”, and your “totalitarianism and tyranny”. There are lots of proposals that are completely different from even partial disarmament, let alone total, and for that matter there are plenty of societies that have total disarmament without having totalitarianism or tyranny. And I’m not aware of guns being successfully used to prevent government tyranny any time in our country’s history, not even when as in the Jim Crow South we absolutely had government tyranny.
And as to the Nazis: I can’t change what you wrote. You’re the one who invoked the Nazis, which I find personally offensive, both because it trivializes their actual victims and because the clear implication is that supporters of Gun Control are at the very least rooting for the Nazis, and likely are themselves Nazis. You’re the one I’m still betting lost precisely no relatives to the camps, given that you’re so cavalier about comparisons to the Nazis and given that your handle is the safely Anglo-Saxon “Rob”. And then there’s your avowed sympathy with the Nazis: you’re the one who wants innocent victims to continue getting murdered so that your vision of society can be maintained. Basically, sh!thead: you decided to go Godwin, you can live with the consequences.
Mike Jones
The people at that site are not talking about a “thing”. To most of us, a gun is a “thing”. To them, it’s a part of what they are. They feel like less without it. I don’t know if it’s PTSD or what, but they really would benefit from mental health care.
Jeff Spender
@Warren Terra:
Yes, this, exactly. I’ve said previously that my great-grandmother survived the Bath School Bombing, and I’ve spent years studying it. You’ve summed it up pretty well. It took almost a year for the plan to really come together, and required the construction of timing devices and careful placing of the explosives. He actually already had possession of explosives as they were commonly used in farming at the time.
It’s an entirely different situation because he planned and executed his mass murder over the course of a year. He didn’t just wake up one morning with a semi-auto gun and start shooting people.
If you want to read further into it, I suggest the book “Mayday” by Grant Parker. It really delves into the history of the events leading up to the bombing, and the aftermath.
Rosie Outlook
@Raven: My father is as military (and as conservative) as they come, and still casually interchanges “clip” and “magazine ,” as do many people at the range. It’s just not that big a deal to normal people, I don’t think.
Given my father’s service record–teaching wasn’t the only thing he did–I think it likely he could shoot rings around those braggarts. Literally. At the age of eighty-five. Unlike them, he ain’t got nothin’ to prove.
(After the September 11 terrorist attacks, when people were rushing to enlist, he wondered if he should volunteer as a trainer, freeing up younger men to fight. We pointed out that he wouldn’t be able to take his trainees out on 10-mile runs, and he said, “no, but when they got back I could teach ’em to shoot.”. Hee.)
Ruckus
@RedKitten:
It might have that power if abortions are not outlawed. I mean you could have several a year if you aren’t stopped. Think of all that killing
/snark, not funny nor medically/personally/humanly realistic but still.
/wingnut asshole(but I repeat myself)
Didn’t think I’d have to put that in but you never know.
SatanicPanic
@kay: And it would seem to me that dealing with people engaged in voluntary behavior would be easier than people who are stuck with something they didn’t choose, but that’s just me.
Liberty60
Yeah I noticed that the one thing the gun nuts zeroed in on wasn’t the big picture of gun safety, but chose to get pendantic about clip nomenclature, rules for carry, etc.
The surest tell of a gun nut is their Ralphie-like fetish for gun paraphilia and their determination to strike a pose as the steely eyed Men who stand between a cowering populace and the Savage Threat.
So they constant whip up the wildest fantaises of fear and violence, assuring us that violent thugs are lurking outside our bedroom windows, and only the Men With Guns can keep us safe.
Men who are presmumably armed with a RedRyder200-Shot CarbineActionBBGun.
Yeah. They’re pussies, every damn one.
Gopher2b
@Mike Jones:
I keep coming back to that. The number of those guys who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD and a gun fetish is fucking scary.
I have six people in my family and immediate circle of friends who went over. Everyone of them has PTSD, two of them are armed, impulsive, and very angry (at what, who knows).
Very scary stuff.
Kristin
@SatanicPanic:
I was one who mentioned stigmatization, but I don’t believe the status quo is good enough for one second. When I made the comment, I was thinking about the government intrusion into the mental illness of someone who didn’t even want a gun and just happened to live with someone who did. I probably didn’t think it out well enough. But, certainly, anyone who wants to purchase a gun should, IMO, be subject to a psych eval.
I am all for regulation, and, in fact, I’d be happy with a weapons ban, period. I don’t expect that, but I’d personally feel safer if the only people with guns were those who needed them for their jobs (cops, military, security).
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
“Murder Control” has a nice ring to it.
YellowJournalism
@RedKitten: That answer is why I love you guys here.
Kristin
@kay:
Charles Johnson had a short piece up today at LGF about how the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators. It’s not that we should ignore it (and we certainly have a less than stellar history of caring for the mentally ill), but it really obfuscates a bigger problem — the sane people who commit violent crime.
Bnad
The more weaponry is in the hands of private citizens, the more damage gets done by the occasional crazy one among them. So ironically the libertarian every man for himself worldview, where every man has his own arsenal, produces just the opposite, a real infringement on their neighbors’ right to life & peace.
If their guns (in the inevitable crazy one’s hands) kill us, we have the right to ask for them to fund prevention. I agree with others who’ve said tax the hell out of ammo and use all that money to fund mental health.
trollhattan
@Rob in DC:
Because that’s TOTALLY happening, come Tuesday.
You’ve been warned.
SatanicPanic
@Kristin: That’s been mentioned by several people most of whom I think are just trying to throw the mentally ill under the bus in order to preserve the status quo. I would think that not wanting the mentally ill to have access to arms would be something that would be good for the mentally ill. But I’m not an expert by any means.
? Martin
@4tehlulz:
Yeah, 200 million guns in this country and yet not one of these events was prevented. In the one instance that someone came close (Giffords shooting) the guy carrying nearly shot the guy who disarmed Loughner as he was now the one holding the gun.
If 200 million guns aren’t enough to stop even one of these events, how many do we need? A billion?
The problem every gun defender fails to overlook is that the attacker will always a tactical advantage over the rest of us. They’ve always thought out where they’re going and how they’re going to act, and what the likely threats to their plan are. The Ft Hood shooter deliberately chose a time when he knew guns were least likely to be present. If the principal of a school had access to a gun in her office, there’s no reason to believe the attacker wouldn’t just choose a time when the principal was out of his/her office.
For all of the fantasy planning by the gun defenders, they seem completely incapable of recognizing that the person they’re facing will ALWAYS have done more.
ALWAYS, because the attacker has the initiative.
ALWAYS, because the attacker know their targets to avoid (usually none), where the defender is trying to avoid all but one target.
ALWAYS, because the attackers almost always are suicidal, so you cannot stand them down.
Adding more guns doesn’t change any of that. It might change how they plan, but it won’t change the outcome. Ever. It never has, and it’s never going to.
Shalimar
@Rob in DC: Blah blah blah. The biggest problem in this whole debate is the one you commit, acting like “gun control” is synonymous with “gun elimination”. You are a part of why the discussion is so fucked up.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
That’s good and may even be a better sound bite but I’d like to stay more encompassing of the concept.
Kristin
@SatanicPanic: I think I might have misunderstood your original comment.
Shalimar
@Rob in DC:
Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you were a total nut. If you really think your AK is going to prevent a descent into tyranny, you’re delusionally narcissistically fucking crazy.
If you really want to stop that descent into totalitarianism, don’t vote for Republicans. Because, let’s face it, Democrats can’t even agree on the best way to tie your shoes, let alone how to run a good tyranny.
SatanicPanic
@Kristin: I’m sloppy sometimes, I wasn’t trying to call you out :)
kay
@Kristin:
Well, too, there are huge issues with the mentally ill and “voluntary” and “consent”. We don’t have a great track record there, either. It’s not simply a matter of “identifying problems”. Adults have choices regarding whether or not they want treatment, or A treatment or intervention, certainly.
I would think gun people, with their great concern for civil liberties and intrusive government would be more sensitive to the fact that these are really tricky balances we make, to come up with “a threat to himself or others”
amk
@Rob in DC: Other than the usual nra bs, what else you got?
JWR
@Liberty60:
Like the two posters ripping on a reporter who didn’t know that a certain type of chambering caused a bullet to not simply spin, but to spin end-over-end. I mean, OMG! I thought we all knew that’s what left such giant holes in all the bodies!, which, given their mad technical skilz, are what seems to get left behind.
gogol's wife
@amk:
Based on all the trolls who have shown up here since Friday, I gather that the instructions sent out by the NRA include: (1) pretend to be reasonable (2) mention how impossible it is to do anything, anything at all, about guns (3) shift the discussion to the mentally ill (4) take offense at “rudeness”
JCT
@? Martin: But they’re superheroes, remember? The protectors of our LIBERTY. My personal favorite are the guys arguing about the best type of carry holster for their SECOND concealed weapon.
These nutjobs live in a hermetically sealed cocoon of paranoia and grandiosity. Any level of reality need not apply.
Matt B
@jhtrotter: Apparently, exercising 2nd amendment rights = stockpiling assault weapons.
You seem to think we should trust the lives of our children to random apocalypse fetishists who can’t wait for civilization to collapse so they can “exercise their rights” on the people who make them feel inadequate.
Who takes responsibility when a whacked out prepper mom can’t keep her toys secure from her mentally ill family members?
I hope she’s burning in hell, and that all of the “law-abiding” apologists for her cause join her there.
You are all enablers of the murder of children.
Platonicspoof
While looking for transcripts of the memorial service tonight for the innocent ones, not uncustomarily scheduled for a Sunday,
I fell into this.
The struggle for better mental health treatment and gun control, surprise, includes fighting those with mental health problems.
brewmn
@jhtrotter: Explain to me, you stupid f*ck, how your service makes you an expert on the 2nd Amendment? The 2A is about domestic gun policy. No one has talked about limiting the gun rights of soldiers on active duty, you moron.
kay
@Kristin:
This one story is already so complicated. Did the boy even have untreated mental illness? Did the mother? When is weird or eccentric behavior a warning sign? Is stockpiling weapons weird, or is she a “collector”? Are we willing to make errors when looking for “warning signs” because there WILL be errors.
It just seems a hell of a lot easier to start with weapons regulation. The worse thing that happens there is you’re denied your assault rifle.
trollhattan
@gogol’s wife:
Is there space for 5) “UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!”?
A brother’s gotta work.
TS
I cannot read that sh_t – 20 children are dead and they cling to their guns like there is no tomorrow – well for the children there is no tomorrow.
trollhattan
@kay:
This will get increasing weird as the story dribbles out, I suspect. IIUC Mom was evidently living a dual life of maintaining her public image while dealing with a troubled son and whatever demons she herself had, herself. She had an unusual gun hobby and it would seem, didn’t bother to secure them from her son and anybody else.
Keep those fucking things in a safe and perhaps this doesn’t happen.
Paula
@? Martin:
Why are ppl so offended by the comparison to cars? It’s two tons moving at ridiculous speeds – of course we have to regulate how it’s used. Why is regulating the use of an actual weapon so controversial?
Why do pro-gun ppl have the same predictable arguments? Gun control immediately equals banning all guns, focus on mental health but never on actual gun safety policy. Bad things happen all the time, and it’s never because of the widespread availability of guns that these incidents – whether one on one or mass killings – occur. Blah blah blah.
As for worrying about the amount of guns that are already out there, it’s entirely possible for your so called responsible gun owners to realize that they don’t need one more gun in their neighborhood and can willingly give them up. The LAPD has sponsored gun buy backs in neighborhoods where they have been dealing with gun violence for decades, from their own kids and from the police, and they have been somewhat successful.
JCT
@kay:
It appears from reading some of those sites that these losers consider this to be a fate worse than death. ARs are a powerful fetish.
chopper
wow, that’s a shitty game. how about this: a gun nut is at the school when the shooter arrives. the gun nut, just like everyone else, doesn’t know what the shit is going on and pisses his pants in fear, seizing up completely. eventually the gun nut figures it out, pulls out his sidearm and points it at the shooter, only to realize he still has the safety on. shaking like a dog shitting razor blades, he manages to squeeze off a few shots, missing wildly and by the grace of god not hitting any innocent people. the sociopathic asshole shooter notices and executes the gun nut on the spot.
as the gun nut lays dying, his last thought is ‘why didn’t my fantasy play out? I thought buying a gun made me batman, goddammit.’
sounds a lot more fuckin realistic to me.
news flash: owning a gun does not make you a ninja. countless hours playing video games and shooting at tin cans does not make you a member of the swat team. I can’t believe I have to tell people this, but apparently in america half the people are fucking retarded.
Redleg
John,
Those motherfuggers disagree with your position on assault weapons so they have decided to attach your bona fides as a grunt. That kind of shit makes me madder than hell.
I met my share of wingnut douchebags during my time in the Army (late 80s-early 90s) and couldn’t stand the thought that fellow officers could have such extreme political beliefs and such a closed-minded and unrealistic worldview.
Their stupidity and the actions of clowns like Oliver North and the rest of the Iran-Contra fugnuts made me begin to sincerely question my own conservative political views, which I ultimately rejected in favor of enlightened progressivism. I still own guns and enjoy firing them at the range but at home they’re locked away, separate from the ammunition. I don’t need my young children to get a hold of one.
The comments on that site prove to me that you can’t even begin to talk with those assholes about sensible gun regulation. For them the 2nd amendment is absolute. Fug ’em. They don’t have the right to question your military service or your views on guns.
Redleg
@JWR:
And the bullets don’t go “end over end.” The ballistics would be terrible.
Bubblegum Tate
Just because they’re pussies–and they are pitiful, mewling pussies–doesn’t mean they won’t get mad if you point out that they’re pussies.
Ferd of the Nort
Scary black guns are a sign of mental issues if owned for self defence against people (usually scary black guns for scary black people).
I own a scary black gun. It is designed to kill people. Remington 870 express 12 gauge. Why do I own it? I have just moved from polar bear country. I still have a cabin on the shores of Hudson’s Bay. The reason that I bought the gun I own is that it is the best option for dealing with polar bears.
The barrel is too short to hunt with. It holds 6 rounds in the tube magazine. I had bear bangers in a sock thingy on the side. It was loaded but nothing was in the chamber when I was at the cabin. I did not carry it with me, but it was in a known routine place we all knew about.
I am still in bear country, but black bear with a few grizzlies. I may take my gun with me camping. I also have 3 dogs, axes and knives. I understand the protection dynamic.
I do not have a gun to protect me from people. Guns never make it better with people. Ravening rapists on the prowl? More likely to have a rape done within the family and friends. If you need guns to protect yourself from your friends and family – MOVE AWAY. Simpler and no guns.
Assault? Usually drunks are involved. Stay away from drunks. They typically do not bother you if you make it clear they are not welcome while drunk. Adding guns resolves nothing for the better.
Guns plus depression is an ugly mix. Mental issues with guns will always go bad.
I am taking each of the above from personal experience.
Raped by her brother, sister suicided probably due to history of brother’s rapes. 13 year old girl on that one. She and another girl found the sister hanging. That was the impetus for C to go to the cops and report her brother. She had access to guns.
The assault came from a likely wrongful accusation of rape (she had agenda and dropped case at last minute. She told her cousins who took 2×4 to this guys arms. Smashed arm. He was drunk and does not believe he raped her. She had agenda to get him out of the apartment she was trying to move into with his room-mate. No witnesses, no evidence since she went to the cops after her cousins were arrested, well after the possible assault. Ugly soap opera situation with booze. How could guns improve that.
The wife and I were the only ones available and willing to clean-up the shotgun suicide. brains and bits in 3 rooms. Depression.
Guns are a projector of violence. They send out violence. Broadcasting violence is usually bad. That is very simple statistics. I am not an expert on guns. I know violence a I am a professional in safety. I understand the effect of force, and how to reduce it. Broadcasting more force has never been the right answer.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t get how some people think there’s a way to anticipate surprise. That’s kind of the nature of “surprise.” You can probably walk up behind a champion boxer while he’s walking down the street and punch him, too, insofar as he wouldn’t know that someone was there, regardless of his expertise with his combat style.
amk
The shooter’s mom and her family seem to be ‘we’re all doomed’ kinda CT nuts.
Allan
I tried to rustle up some web stats on This Ain’t Hell, but I don’t own an electron microscope.
Feel free to ignore that site and both of its fans.
Brachiator
Not much to add to the thoughtful comments here. Kudos to John for taking time to respond to the gun nuts. Typical that these fools wrap themselves up in gun fact trivia and minutiae and a desperate need to prove how tough they are.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
My guess is that the thinking is, “Aha! The bad guy will try to surprise me, but instead I’ll surprise him by having my own gun!”
It’s a completely irrational way of thinking that’s fed by waaaay too many bad movies, but that’s what it is — they assume that they somehow will not be taken by surprise like everyone else and will be able to “get the drop” on the bad guy like they’re John Wayne.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I guess they expect to hear ominous music right before the bad guy appears.
Warren Terra
@Mnemosyne:
I recently re-saw the Clint Eastwood Dirty / Harry shootout scene from Sudden Impact, which I think was a sequel, when Keith Humphreys linked to it. I mention it because of its iconic status, and because I figure it’s exactly the sort of scene these chairborne warriors fantasize about. It’s interesting to consider it: first of all, there’s the racism of the writers (a bunch of black thugs sexually assaulting a pretty white girl they’re robbing), and then there’s Eastwood’s character, who walks into the scene with his (enormous) gun still holstered, three robbers have their guns trained on him, and he slowly, almost casually draws out his gun and dispatches them one after another, while he and the innocent bystanders are completely unharmed. It is of course completely absurd, in every way – but it’s what they tell themselves they’ll do one day, that glorious day when they save the day and see off the marauding hordes.
Laertes
Holy shit those guys are funny. It’s adorable, they way they pwn themselves like that.
CarolDuhart2
@Central Planning: And for the gun fetishists, they are so wrapped up in their paranoia and racism and apparently haven’t noticed, but there’s been a revolution in military technology in the past 20 years or so. A stockpile of Bushmasters and 300 rounds of ammo are no match for an armed drone, and that’s just the stuff that’s been deployed and we know about. The Taliban don’t need the more advanced stuff that’s in the arsenal, so we can only guess what’s in the back vaults.
Also, every successful revolution in the last 50 years in the developing or developed world has taken place because the military has changed sides or stayed out of the fray. Gorbechev withdraw the Russian troops from the East-and they were there still because Iron Curtain troops couldn’t really be trusted to stand with the Soviets in the case of an uprising.
The Army switched sides in Iran. There was a military standdown in Egypt. Isolated preppers living in a fortified suburban house aren’t going to be able to do any persuading of a largely minority and moderate troop to do either if it comes down to it.
Raven
All you had to do to figure out who they were was go to the “About Us” tab on their blog. It was the first thing I did. Check out Zero Ponsdorf , blue water Navy dude and they want to rail about Fobbits and REMFS. Xin Loi mofo’s.
Robert
Here’s all I need to know about that site.
I posted a well-reasoned, even keeled, non-aggressive comment on why we need to have a discussion about gun safety regulations, not a fight where both sides lie about the other’s argument.
One person responded to me. The rest continued to fling feces at each other like monkeys at the zoo and refuse to acknowledge that a self-proclaimed liberal knows about guns and doesn’t want to take all their weapons away. I didn’t fit their narrative, so I was ignored. They don’t want a discussion; they want more assault rifles to go squirrel hunting with.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
exactly. everybody wants to be a superhero, and apparently buying a gun is the best shortcut to that status.
it’s like how joining the republican party instantly gives you a phD in macroeconomics.
ruviana
@Platonicspoof: Sylvia Plath had a line in one of her poems “…as if my heart put on a face and walked out into the world…” Part of why I never had kids. I didn’t think I could bear the pain if something happened.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Wow, talk about low self esteem. Their whole identity revolves around shooting military weapons in their youth.
Gex
@Warren Terra: Very late, but the joke here is that these guys are itching for a confrontation, too chicken-shit to initiate it themselves, so they invite Cole to start it so they can act all tough and fulfill their self-defense fantasies.
The itching for the confrontation is the key. They WANT any excuse to get violent with those guns. They WANT a reason to go Rambo. Eventually, if they are crazy enough gun nuts, they do. The somewhat sane ones simply try to wriggle their way into a situation.
karen marie
@SatanicPanic: And to be useful in the event of an armed gunman bursting into a classroom, it would have to be in an unlocked drawer or, better, sitting out on the desk or in a holster on the teacher.
Yeah, that will totally work.
karen marie
@Rob in DC: You’re fine then with the body count?
KiTA
@Comrade Jake:
They got worked up over that particular distinction because they wanted to discredit John Cole. It’s a very classic “debate” strategy and logical fallacy. If you don’t like what someone’s saying, attack the someone.