Like most, I’ve been stunned and shocked over the last few days.
The pattern is tragically clear. In the wake of the latest mass shooting, we have a conversation about mental illness (mostly, in ways to avoid talking about guns). Yes, there are always some who dare to suggest that it might be time to talk about new gun laws, but that conversation is quickly shut down out of political fear of the gun lobby–especially fear of the NRA.
What we do not do–ever–is talk about all the political organizations on the Right–like the NRA–that fuel paranoid delusion and the manufactured outrage 24/7 as their core reason for existence. And yes, I said “Right” as I can not think of a single organization of the “Left” that uses delusion, lies and endless attacks on reality as their prime organizing tool and I can hardly think of an organization on the “Right” that doesn’t. This isn’t a both-side-do-it moment. Conservative thought in America is broken. They sell crazy talk, anger and fear. They have created a space where every paranoid sense of persecution is justified–and even honorable. They sell the idea that any extreme action taken in response to these political delusions is a virtue.
The relentless wingnut attack on reality–where every conspiracy theory is valid and all anger about your pet delusion is justified–is not harmless. Lives are damaged, blood is drawn and people die. It is a feature, not a bug of a War on Reality. From the NRA to Americans for Tax Reform to the Koch Brothers to the Heritage Foundation to Fox News to the Birthers to well, any of them, the modern conservative movement has mainstreamed paranoid fantasies and the manufactured anger required to support them. I am not at all surprised that media and cultural acceptance that the endless stream of political-based paranoid delusions should be treated as justifiable reason for rage and extreme actions would inspires some random nut case to act on his private iteration of rage and crazy.
Since Friday, the NRA has not posted anything on Twitter and their Facebook page has been taken down. They are re-grouping to figure out the best way to repackage their money-making paranoid conspiracy theories about the Second Amendment in light of this latest spasm of mass murder by a gun nut. Just before they went dark, the NRA celebrated that they had 1.7 million followers on Twitter. Overall, the NRA has about 4.3 million members. This is where their power comes from. Most of those members are simply folks who own guns as tools for sport or hunting and care about gun safety. OTOH, some–including all the NRA Leadership–are conservative wingnuts who worry about Black Helicopters and an endless stream of paranoid fantasies. Those sane members of the NRA need to take control away from the crazy wingnuts or split to form a new group focused on gun safety and sensible gun laws.
And there needs to be a counterweight to the NRA if this Nation is ever going to be able to talk about guns, gun violence and the paranoid delusions that fuel mass murder. The closest thing we have now is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. I think if their membership and donation base can grow, it will put real preassure on the NRA. It will put real preasure on our political leaders to deal with gun violence.
You can take action to support the Brady Campaign here.
You can make a donation to the Brady Campaign here. That is what I did this morning. In fact, I decided to make my support monthly. You can too. And you can support them on Twitter and on Facebook.
The best action that you can take if you’re disgusted by the endless waves of gun violence is to organize. The Brady Campaign has been fighting this fight for decades. With resources and support they will be able to do more. When politicians fear the Brady Campaign more than they fear the NRA then our gun laws will change. And when the paranoid wingnuts running the NRA are driven out, Reality will win another victory over the so-call Conservative movement.
If we organize, we will win. As The Doors said:
The old get old, and the young get stronger.
May take a week, and it may take longer.
They got the guns, but we got the numbers.
Gonna win yeah, we’re taking over.
Come on!Yeah!
Cheers
Zam
So today I saw a long post on how this is actually the fault of the moochers, and if only we respected the producers and stopped being such victims this would never happen. To this person we are a morally bankrupt society because we have things like a social safety net and we blame the collapse of the economy not on the people running the economy but a mythical force of lazy moochers.
redshirt
We’re in a war for reality. For health and well being. For our future, and our children’s future. With these wingnuts. They are evil, and have a great hold on us.
What do you want to bet gun sales will be at an all time high this week? That alone should tell you all you need to know about the people we are dealing with. The people who will burn this country down so long as they can make some money off it.
Fuck them all.
gogol's wife
I appreciate this post, but people in the thread below are saying that the Brady Campaign is ineffectual because it doesn’t support or oppose actual candidates, and that we need something more exactly parallel to the NRA. I’ve been contributing to the Brady Campaign for years, and I’m going to call them tomorrow to see what local action I can take, but I wish there were a real alternative to the NRA.
Sarah in Brooklyn
What about the Coalition to End Gun Violence? Are they worth supporting?
Poopyman
I want to see everyone get one of these:
krahbedad
I don’t disagree at all about gun control it needs to be enacted NOW. But I do think that our mental health system or more specifically our total lack of a Mental Health SYSTEM needs to get co billing. Right now our mental health provision for those who contemplate violence against themselves or others is basically prison with very limited treatment options. Hopeful ‘Obamacare’ will help to change that somewhat but I have yet to hear very much discussion of the provisions.
Yutsano
@redshirt:
After every single mass shooting like this, EVERY SINGLE ONE, gun sales go up. Why? Because the NRA and the gun nuts convince everyone that the ebil gubmint is coming for every single one of their penile replacements and ZOMG TYRANNY!! It’s almost more accurate than a fucking atomic clock. And the cycle goes on.
whidgy
I disagree.
There are about 50 or 60 million households that have guns in this country. Most of THEM own guns as tools for sport or hunting and care about gun safety.
The NRA membership is largely made up of conservative wingnuts, many of whom worry about black helicopters. Yes, most NRA members care about gun safety, too, but there is a lot of distilled crazy in the rank and file NRA membership – its not the exception.
kyle
After the Giffords shooting, people here were talking about how the paranoid deluded wingnuts were behind the attack. Then it turned out the shooter was so crazy his views couldn’t be tied down to either left or right.
If the Newtown shooter was a right-wing nut, his views will become part of the debate. Otherwise, no.
Violet
So I looked out the window and and saw four older teenage boys standing in front of the house with what looked like rifles. Then they hid behind trees/mailboxes/shrubbery and started shooting at each other while yelling.
I almost called the police until I recognized one of the boys and realized they were pellet guns because I remember his mom talking about them.
How is that kind of thing legal?
Gary K
I know you don’t have much control over this (and in fact it’s probably “triggered” in reaction to a key word), but one of the rotating ads that appears next to your post is for Zazzle. You can “Make Holiday Magic” by purchasing there a WWII vintage weapon, or just a “This Is My Gun Permit” t-shirt.
redshirt
@Yutsano: Indeed. It’s so predictable that I don’t doubt some guy in Finance for the NRA or the manufacturers has a formula that can predict increased gun sales as a percentage after events like this.
Indeed! It’s so entirely predictable I wouldn’t be surprised if they ultimately welcomed events like this, because of $. Heck, maybe they should “false flag!” some mass shootings if the market’s in a lull.
Fuckers, all of them.
whidgy
@Violet: Those are probably “airsoft” guns. They shoot plastic or biodegradable round balls that can’t cause much damage. Pellet rifles, on the other hand, can be powerful enough to kill small game.
If you live in a city, there are probably ordinances against discharging pellet guns inside of city limits.
Antonius
Please sign if you agree:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/limit-ammunition-availability/lkDTtqhG?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Just Some Fuckhead
@redshirt: Doctor Science said “Perhaps that is their fiduciary duty.” I thought that was chilling.
MikeJ
PETA, but they’re the exception that proves the rule.
I am not a kook
I signed up for $50 to the Brady Campaign monthly today. If there are better organizations out there, I may switch.
redshirt
@MikeJ: PETA is extreme, no doubt, in that they push boundaries. But do they deal in lies and fantasies? Please point out if so, because I know of none.
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: But it’s true, isn’t it? Just like selling cigarettes – you know they’re going to kill people, horribly. But your job is to increase sales, so… After all, you’re just doing your job. Following orders, as it were.
WereBear
This a million times.
ABL posted about a man in Indiana who has $100,000 worth of ammo. That’s the result of relentless Faux News hysteria.
Violet
@whidgy:
How about if you get one in your eye? The kids were in front of my house, down the street and across the road, aiming all over the place. Children and young families pushing babies in strollers were walking to and from the park. People were on bikes. Others were walking dogs. They looked like rifles and the teenagers were crouching and hiding and aiming at each other and shooting. How the hell is that legal? A couple of the neighbors were scared to death.
Ron Thompson
As a practical matter, the firs thing that would have to be done to change the gun laws would be to consolidate the Democratic Party behind it. The elections have already pushed in that direction, virtually eliminating the Blue Dog Democrats and removing other rural Democrats who are not Blue Dogs but could not withstand the beating they would take from Big Gun money in their next election. For decades, the gun control issue has been a net plus for the Republicans. I don’t want to bet the ranch that that has been overcome.
Obviously, nothing is going to happen while Republicans control the House, so we have the option of postponing discussion until the 2014 campaign. We are at the beginning of a second term for a Democratic President, something that has happened only one other time since 1937. Is this the issue we want to be the chief topic of national discussion this winter? Maybe it is–I don’t know. But it bears thinking about it strategically and tactically. We are in a multi-front battle with the rightwing, and we should use our intelligence in determining our course of action, and not let events dictate it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@redshirt: She made the valid point that firearms are durable goods like no other (I personally own firearms from the first half of the 20th century.) and the market for firearms is limited (does not include people who would never have guns in the house, etc.), shrinking (she had a graph) and yet guns sales continue to go up because the same people who already own too many buy more every time there is a tragedy or some other nominal event like a Democrat being elected President.
So we’re essentially rearming the paranoid among us over and over. Nothing could go wrong here.
? Martin
Here’s the problem most specifically with the NRA. When making policy around a recognized problem with your position, you almost always have to offer to take a step back in a less critical area to take pressure off of the thing you’re most eager to protect.
The NRA refuses to do that in any capacity. They offer nothing toward this problem – they’ll talk about how existing laws should be enforced, without providing any support toward that end. This is why they have the reputation that they do – they simply absolve themselves of any responsibility (big surprise) on the very issue that they advocate for.
Those 31 senators only further illustrate this. Gohmert, to his great credit, is at least willing to go all-in on being an asshole. His remedies might the dumbest fucking ideas ever, but credit for at least participating and being willing to be labeled as a sociopathic asshole.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Violet:
This is called natural selection.
Corner Stone
@WereBear:
Actually, investing in ammunition is a viable strategy for ROI.
DougJ
Test
beltane
The interesting thing is that during the 1980s, when the crime rate was sky high, there wasn’t the type of obsession with guns that you see now. Anyone want to bet that this phenomenon is directly correlated with the rise of Fox News and other assorted wingnut media?
? Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Any predictions on what percentage of the population this represents?
I’ll put out the first guess: 27%.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So we’re essentially rearming the paranoid……
Gun nutz gonna be gun nutz. The good news is they can only fire two at once.
Ask yourself why 4 children die every hour in the US from gunshot wounds without the rails coming off.
Ask yourself why the same outrage over 20 children dying in Gaza doesn’t have a similar and equal reaction.
Ask yourself why there are so many tragic events leading us down the path of banning the gun, as if THAT’s the problema?
Panic and Hysteria…..Cui Bono?
whidgy
@Violet:
Look, if someone is running through your neighborhood with a realistic looking gun, you should probably call the police instead of posting about it here.
Hell, if there were kids in front of my house shooting each other with pellet rifles, I’d call the police because that is dangerous, too.
But if those are just airsoft guns, the rounds are very light and don’t don’t travel over 50 yards or so. Lots of kids shoot airsoft rounds at one another. The smarter ones wear eye protection. Yes, if you are close and you shoot someone in the eye, it will cause damage.
So if you have any doubt and are actually scared, call 911.
Gindy51
@Violet: It’s very sad it has come to this. When we were kids in the late 60’s, we used to play war in our neighborhood. We used fake, plastic guns (no pellet rifles) that fired nothing. It was a lot of fun, more so planning the strategy than anything else. Scary too, once you were shot you were out.
It was more real than any video game and no one thought twice about us roaming all over the place except the one old bat who would turn on her sprinkles if we walked on her dychondra lawn.
In the instance of the teens with the pellet guns, i wold have called the cops and gotten their parents in trouble. Hell I’ve done that here and I live in a very rural area of SE IN.
Holden Pattern
@? Martin:
Actually the NRA and their pet legislators try to block any enforcement of existing law as it relates to the regulation of guns; they defund and cripple the agencies charged with enforcement. I think by “existing laws” they only mean things like the stand-your-ground laws and maybe murder laws,
Just Some Fuckhead
@? Martin:
Agreed, and I’ve been making this point over and over to those people in my life. I tell them I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to do everything they can to reduce the number of these high profile massacres if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest.
Not asking them to feign sympathy for the victims, not asking them to give up their gun fetish. Just asking them to help us protect our citizens and our rights at the same time.
mouse tolliver
@whidgy:
Or even a small child. A kid in my Cub Scout troop accidentally killed himself with a pellet gun. He shot himself in the chest, and it penetrated his heart.
Poopyman
Hey Dennis, howzabout freeing up Comment #5?
@Violet: And since I’m here,and it’s That Time of Year:
Kid, you’ll put your eye out.
Lojasmo
@Violet:
It isn’t
ETA: it might be. “soft” pellet guns can be legally fired at another person. Old school pellet guns cannot be.
Mike in NC
I’d bet $10,000 Romneybucks that Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Eric Cantor and virtually every other shitbird GOP politician are Life Members of the fucking NRA, whether or not they actually own a gun.
NotMax
@Violet
All Airsoft rifles (and other brands) have bright electric orange markings on the ends of the barrels (mandated by federal law – that is how it is legal), specifically to enable them to be distinguished as replica, not actual, weapons.
Whether or not the area the kids were playing in was an appropriate one is a different question, separate from the legality.
redshirt
@beltane: Absolutely. Well noted. And it should also noted that as a whole, our nation gets safer every year. Murders and other violent crimes are decreasing everywhere, at a pretty steady rate. We should all remember that lest we too give into the fear and anger events like in CT cause us to feel.
That doesn’t mean though we shouldn’t channel these feelings into productive causes with tangible results: Making our country (and the world) an even safer, healthier place in which to raise the future of humanity, our children.
whidgy
@mouse tolliver: Agreed, those things are not toys.
.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Ask yourself why gun legislation to lessen gun violence in this country automatically equals “banning the gun”.
Go think about it somewhere private because I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say on the subject.
Holden Pattern
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Gun sales go UP when this stuff happens and their major funding is from firearms companies; it’s not in their interest to prevent these things from happening.
Also, they’re behaving like the movement conservatives on race (well, the NRA basically IS a movement conservative political group) — they can’t back down from this stuff because their insane angry white base will abandon them[*], so they try to entrench their positions in order to insulate against the backlash.
[*] Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if GOA is primarily intended to be a stalking horse to keep the NRA glued to the wingtard right by threatening to drain their membership if they stray.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You need to get better acquainted with your fellow posters.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Holden Pattern:
Well, yeah, I get that. I think I even said that. I was referring to my gun loving friends who just want to roll around naked in their gun nursery.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): You need to stand down.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I see what you mean. Let’s wait until you get your emotions under control.
Montysano
@kyle:
Bullshit. Rightwing/leftwing has nothing to do with it. Dennis’s point is well taken: feed a steady diet of paranoid conspiracy craziness to a mentally ill person and Friday is what sometimes happens.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
@MikeJ: Remember when anti-fur activists murdered a room full of children? Me neither. Try again.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Here, go tell these folks that we’re being too emotional and picking on the poor gun, you disgusting broken fuck.
eric
Allow me to get in the time machine and go forward one week and anticipate “your uncle’s e-mail chain:”
Dear Patriot:
This recent tragedy is the result of Obama’s DOJ and FBI ignoring warnings that this monster was going to go on a rampage. Why would Obama do this? Simple, to get your guns. Obama knows that for him to break the will of mainstream America it would take a tragedy of epic proportions and now he has it. We tried asking for documents of White House meetings about this, but they are claiming executive privilege. Not shocking to you dear patriot because you have known this was coming for four years. Just wait until the Pelosi and her union tugs start talking about martial law and an Obama third term to wipe out gun violence. Only you can stoop this and protect our constitution and god fearing people….etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It’s self-evident, isn’t it?
smith
@eric:
This is exactly word-for-word what an Infowars/wingnut would (and will) say.
Suzanne
@NotMax:
I cannot imagine allowing my kids to play with a gun of any kind, Airsoft or no. Hell, I won’t even let my kids have Nerf guns or water pistols if they look too real. Gun culture starts early, and there’s no time spent with a toy gun that couldn’t be better spent with something else.
Violet
@whidgy: I don’t know if they were airsoft rifles or pellet guns. There were four males, ages approx 16-20, dressed in black/camo, NOT wearing eye protection and shooting rifles. I know one of the kids and that’s when I remembered his mom talking about “pellet guns”. No idea if they’re airsoft pellet guns or something else.
One of the four kids is developmentally disabled.
@NotMax:
Did not see orange, but then I didn’t know about this so I wouldn’t have been looking for it. I don’t think it should be incumbent upon the non-gun-owner to know that there are special markings for certain types of guns that mean they are not real guns but are Airsoft or equivalent. Hell, make them bright pink or yellow to make it obvious they’re not “real guns.”
I know what’s right and what’s legal do not always intersect. I think we ought to be striving for them to intersect, however.
redshirt
@eric: Nice. 8.2 out of 10.
It’s funny, and sad – like so much these days – how easy it is to parrot their ignorant outlook on life, filled with bizarre paranoid fantasies and desperate cries for help.
FSM, I’ve spent too much time on Free Republic. Fighting monsters, abysses, all that.
Dennis G.
@kyle: It is more than that.
In the culture created by wingnut paranoia, every conspiracy theory and delusion is valid and any act of extremism in support of your irrational beliefs is OK.
It is not surprising that seriously crazy people latch onto that cultural approval of crazy behavior as justification for their own extreme acts based on their own sense of fear, paranoia and victimization. It does not matter if they read wingnut propaganda or not. What matters is that they believe the wingnut meme that everybody is out to get them and that extreme action in the face of that is justified.
The Right is at war with reality. It is not a surprise that some of their fellow travelers in this effort are seriously crazy and violent. In fact, it should be expected.
Poopyman
@eric: A week? Get real. I’ve been getting these Tea Party emails for three days:
It goes on, of course. They’re all similarly … obscene.
And of course it’s mainly asking for money.
Matt Love
@MikeJ: Do you know what “the exception that proves the rule” means?
eric
@Poopyman: the week in mine is for the executive privilege claim which will be the later basis for impeachment and to perpetuate the conspiracy with no prove of a negative. the rest is boilerplate…
Gary K
@Gary K: As a follow-up to my prior post, there’s an especially charming infant’s wear item at Zazzle, depicting six-shooters aimed straight at the viewer.
Matt Love
I’m interested in learning what motivated the shooter. Perhaps he saw the adulation that Obama has received for killing children with drones in various countries, and he thought he’d be hailed as a hero, too, if he went out and killed some children in the name of protecting the homeland and defending our way of life.
The small time sociopath is treated as a pariah, a sicko, a mad dog. The big time sociopaths get airports and highways named after them, and speak at $1000 a plate dinners.
whidgy
@Violet: Like I said, if you are actually scared and there are people running around your neighborhood shooting each other with guns or even just “pellet guns”, CALL THE POLICE.
That’s what I would do.
Raven
@Dennis G.: John should think about removing Pat Lang’s blog from the Blogroll.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Antonius: Hi,
Wouldn’t your proposed rules drive the paranoids to hide their ammo and rush to buy more before the rules change?
I’m sympathetic, but one needs to build trust and appeal to the people’s self interest, I think.
By all means, work to change the rules, but we need to do more.
My WH petition is here: http://wh.gov/RFTH
I welcome your thoughts.
Cheers,
Scott.
sherparick
Joining Brady and other groups is a start. Politicians are incentive driven, so primarying Republican NRAbots would be a good start. There is a problem with just throwing all this on President Obama, since contrary to Mayor Bloomberg’s Green Lantern theory of Presidential leadership, just screaming loud at Congress will not get you 218 votes in the House or 61 votes in the Senate. http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/bloomberg-gun-control-should-be-obamas-no-1?ref=fpa
And its time to use Justice Scalia’s doctrine of “Original Intent” to bear on the 2d Amendment. Each of our Congress critters (Eric Cantor I am thinking of you), and tell them that when the 2d Amendment was enacted, all firearms were muzzleloaders. Therefore, everyone has a right to bear a muzzleloading musket/rifle, but that’s it. Prohibition of everything else.
gogol's wife
@sherparick:
Bloomberg is seriously getting on my nerves.
Southern Beale
Chief among them being Fox News. So when Rupert Murdoch tweeted last night, “Nice words from POTUS on shooting tragedy, but how about some bold leadership action?” I kinda want to scream.
redshirt
@Matt Love: That’s some Grade A pure Firebagger shit there man, thanks.
Haydnseek
@redshirt: They maintain that using animals for medical research is of no value, when in fact it has saved/extended millions of lives. To deny this demonstrable, provable fact is a blatant lie. You’re welcome.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Sarah in Brooklyn: Hi Sarah,
I sent the CSGV some money yesterday. I don’t know how they compare to Brady, but I liked what their web page had to say.
http://www.csgv.org/
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Violet
@whidgy: It’s not quite as simple as just calling the police. There’s the awkward neighborhood situation when you know the parents. These parents have guns. Do you want to call the police and get the kid in trouble with the cops and then the parents–who have guns and one of them is not stable–put you on their shit list? Is that the smart thing to do?
If they are Airsoft and are legal (again, I don’t know), then the kid has done nothing wrong and now the cops are mad at you and maybe won’t show up next time. I am skeptical about the police here, since they took a long, long time to show up when I needed them and also refused to do anything to help a neighbor after an incident that had THREE witnesses. Do I want to risk them to put me on some “take your time showing up” list because I called them out on some false alarm?
Yes, I was scared. So were some other neighbors. I could have called the cops. I thought about it. Then when I recognized the one kid whose mom I know, I decided against it. He’s a good kid and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be actually shooting people with a real rifle. No idea about the other three, though.
Paul
@Matt Love:
I doubt it. He was white, which means he had mental issues. If he had been a muslim, he would have been labeled a terrorist.
redshirt
@Haydnseek: If that is a PETA position you are correct. I’ll admit I know nothing about PETA at all, and don’t really care to, other than I know they’re advancing an agenda from the Left, and I support that, no matter the means, no matter the messaging. At this point in our fucked up society, I welcome any group radical enough to counter corporate power structures.
Mnemosyne
@Matt Love:
Wow. I didn’t think anyone would show up who was more ghoulish than our regulars, but you proved me wrong.
Yes, please enjoy gloating over the bodies of 20 kindergarteners as you tell yourself their deaths prove your moral superiority.
whidgy
@Violet:
Okay, then don’t call the police.
gbear
I wonder how difficult it would be to organize protests at gun shows/trades/sales the way that abortion protesters show up at clinics? We could even bring giant pictures of bloody children. I looked up ‘gun shows in MN’ on google, and got thousands of hits, including one coming up in early January in a north Minneapolis suburb plagued by gun violence.
I wonder how dangerous staging a peaceful protest at a gun show would be? Would the media cover it? Would police protect the right to peaceful protest or make everyone get out of there before something awful happened?
I’m serious. Would it be possible to get hundreds of people to participate in peaceful, maybe even silent, gun show protests? A lot of these gun shows result in weapons being sold without background checks. They’re ripe for protesting.
redshirt
@gbear: Awesome idea. Brave idea. Surely the police would send an officer at least. And I doubt anyone other than a stone cold idiot would shoot a protestor. But there is that chance.
Love the idea though, seriously. We should push this idea – shame these people.
oldswede
Seeing that verse from Jim Morrison reminds me of something that I wonder about. How did Jim get along with his dad, Admiral George S. Morrison? The admiral was the commander of the carrier group at Tonkin Bay during the incident that was used to justify the escalation of the Vietnam War.
oldswede
RyMaN600
@kyle:
We don’t know about the shooter’s political views, but apparently the mother, whose firearms were used in the massacre, bought them in preparation for a pending economic collapse. Apparently, she was a prepper. This “prepper” paranoia is yet another result of constant right-wing fear-mongering, and in this case it ultimately led to her death, the death of her son, and the deaths of 20 innocent 1st graders and six faculty members.
Pinkamena Panic
@Matt Love: Fall in a freezing river, you ghoul.
Violet
@whidgy: I didn’t this time. Next time I might.
In either case, I don’t think they should be legal to use outside of your own property.
gogol's wife
@Pinkamena Panic:
Well put.
Raven
@oldswede: Apparently you have not listened to “The End”?
Pinkamena Panic
@redshirt: So you support equating animal ownership to slavery?
You support equating chicken farming to the Holocaust?
You support money being given to openly-operating terrorists like the ALF and Rodney Coronado?
You support the sexist use of women as sex objects for their sick attention-whoring?
And all to support “the left”, despite the fact that much of what PETA does is antithetical to the goal of actual liberals.
You’re either a right-wing troll or a shameless scumbag, and I don’t care which. You are not one of us, and you’ll go now or be made to go.
Get out.
redshirt
@Pinkamena Panic: Woah. That’s some righteous PETA hating. They’re that bad? As I said, I don’t really pay attention to them.
Haydnseek
@redshirt: It’s not only a PETA position, it’s PETA action. They broke into the lab of a professor at UCLA who was involved in animal research, trashed the lab, and then went to his home and harassed him and his family for days. I apologize for being abrupt in my response to your post, but this issue is very important not just to me, but to millions of others. Did you know that the hearts of pigs are very similar to the hearts of humans? I didn’t, until my fathers heart valve surgery that added an extra 13 years to his life.
gbear
@redshirt:
Thanks. But scary and maybe risky idea too. There’s an anti-war group that holds vigils every wednesday in Minneapolis. I’ll try to contact that group and find out if this is something that they might want to get engaged in.
One thing I did yesterday was order a batch of buttons that say ‘I am NOT carrying a gun’. A lot of my friends are looking forward to wearing them. It’s incredibly passive, but it’s also something that I can wear everywhere I go and a lot of people could do.
smith
@redshirt:
There are some awesome groups out there that support animals, PETA is not one of them. They’re attention whores who have done serious damage to medical labs and hospitals – all in the name of “saving” animals. They also kill animals at their shelters despite publicly saying they don’t.
Paul
@RyMaN600:
This is why it seems so incredibly stupid when people buy guns for protection. More often than not, it ends up killing someone either in your own family or yourself rather than the bad guy. Why not just get a dog or a burglar alarm?
gbear
@RyMaN600:
It worked! She’s totally escaped the consequences of an economic collapse.
Ted & Hellen
This is a center-right blog, and Obama is a center-right president, so rather than pointing and laughing at wingnuts who after all are just doing what they always do, why aren’t you pressuring PBO to push draconian gun restrictions, as he ought to have been doing the last four years but has not?
Pinkamena Panic
@Paul: Because dogs and burglar alarms require a level of work and can’t be used as cock substitutes.
Liberty60
@Dennis G.:
On of the more common paranoid theories put forward is the simple “We need guns to protect against armed intruders/ muggers/ home invasions”.
They peddle this vision of the world as if we lived in Somalia in order to justify being armed to the teeth.
Rarely do we see any serious pushback against this;
for instance, how many people here have personally been in a situation where you needed gun violence? Do you personally know anyone who has?
Home invasions and armed intruders are about as likely as killer bees; yet our entire national culture is warped on the predication that it might, just might someday be necessary.
Paul
@Ted & Hellen:
I know you hate Obama. But fine. We can certainly pressure Obama. Then what? Do you really think for a second that the current Congress would lift a finger to help Obama with gun control? This is the same Congress (Bernie Sanders included) who voted to reject Obama’s proposal to close Gitmo.
No, the real way to accomplish change is to primary any congressperson who is against tougher gun control measures. and to primary them, you need funding to help their opponent. Bloomberg could use our help.
redshirt
@smith: Fair enough. Thanks for the information.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Pussy Riot gone Galt.
NotMax
@VioletThus the question becomes not how is it legal (we know that), but why (or if) it should be legal.
@Suzanne
I’m with you. Never liked playing with guns even when I was a rugrat.
Should such a stance/belief system be enforced? How could it be enforced? Wouldn’t kids, whose imagination is inventive, just substitute some other item and call it a gun?
ruemara
@Matt Love: Wow. Double fuck you with a rusty chainsaw.
@Paul: It is pointless to even recognize someone who thinks a President creates legislation. No matter how often s/he is patiently brought up to speed on the role of Congress.
Violet
@NotMax: My initial “How is this legal?” was a cry of shock and outrage. The follow up is more “How can this be changed?”
WereBear
Not for the first time, may I mention that there is no real Hierarchy of Outrages, okay?
Every time an issue comes up, it seems there is some bloated sack of protoplasm whining about “Oh, my pet cause is so much worse! No one can feed a hungry person or treat an injury until this matter is taken care of to my satisfaction!”
Hey, we’re liberals. That means we can care about the hungry, the lame, the halt, and the neglected, and rescue some kitties and puppies while we are at it.
We do not rank misery, capische? We don’t drop all our charities into a pit and let them fight it out.
karen marie
@Mike in NC: We know Ryan is, and Santorum bought his daughter Belle — you know, the one with the terminal condition — a “lifetime” membership back during the primary.
Chris
@kyle:
What I wrote at the time on another website –
“This kid’s politics appeared to have been an incoherent, incomprehensible clusterfuck. That’s not the GOP’s fault. But he lives in an environment (especially in as red a state as Arizona) where Democratic politicians are targeted with violent rhetoric as enemies of the people on a daily basis, and that is the GOP’s fault, from Sharron Angle cheerfully discussing Second Amendment solutions to the people comparing Obama to Allende and calling for a coup after HCR passed, to this charming list of prominent people that I linked to yesterday but is worth linking to twice, to the regular goose-stepping imbeciles waving “TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY” signs outside of town hall meetings while carrying assault rifles.”
Chris
@Suzanne:
Heck, I always preferred unrealistic looking water pistols as a kid. Then you could tell yourself they were laser guns for the war against the Empire, as opposed to primitive Earthling projectile weapons.
Ruckus
@Ron Thompson:
So when is the right time?
Saying this is not the right time reminds me of two things, a politician who does noting because he has to win re-election and people who say we can’t end a war, think of all those who have already died. So we keep killing and getting killed because someone else already died? We keep electing politicians who do nothing but are good at it?
How many studies do we have to do? And btw the CDC can’t do them so who is going to?
How many more deaths, how much more evil and stupidity do we have to endure? When it’s someone you know? When it’s your child?
The time is not now, the time is long ago. But we can’t start then so now is the time.
ZB IV
1) You are never going to stop guns from being legal in this country. We should argue that magazines and handguns should be restricted, but these things will not solve the handgun problem we have.
2) Stopping loophole and illegal guns would help a little. We should push for laws that can keep guns out of the hands of those who haven’t got their shit together.
3) We need to shut down the fear and loathing complex of Fox/Rush that says we are totally screwed. We only are totally screwed if we listen to these hosers.
4) We have to stop this self esteem building nonsense that kids live on today. The sooner these kids realize that they’re screwed, and they are just as lame as all the generations previous to them, the better off we all are. You aren’t special, and the quicker you realize this, the less BS from your generation that we all will have to put up with.
ZB IV
@Rukus:
I’m all for some gun control, but what gun control stops what we just witnessed? We can’t solve some DB going into an elementary school with a gun with base level gun control laws. Let’s see something that might help. Not something that gets more Republicans elected….
Fair Economist
@Violet:
A friend of my neighbor has a son who liked airsoft guns. One day he was at a birthday party and they had an airsoft war. Afterwards inside he snuck up on the birthday boy and surprised him from behind with an airsoft attack.
The birthday boy had taken off his eye protection.
The shot hit him in the eye. Point-blank.
He lost sight in the eye. This caused him to no longer be able to play his favorite sports – he was going to be on a college team for one (volleyball, I think).
The shooter was so distraught he later attempted suicide (unsuccessfully, fortunately).
So yeah, they can be a bad thing.
Calouste
@Raven: IIRC, Jim Morrison and his dad had a somewhat standoffish relationship, until Pa Morrison actually heard The End. After that they had no relationship.
Calouste
@ZB IV: It’s a lot, lot harder to kill 26 people if the only gun you have is a double barreled shot gun that you have to reload after every two shots. It’s going to be a long process, but making sure that the casualties of a mass shooting stay in single digits is a first step to aim for.
RaflW
Just donated to the Brady Center. I will look into them some more and most likely go monthly, as you suggest.
I hope we can do more. An Act Blue compilation of politicians who refuse to take NRA or gun manufacturer’s money would be a plus, too.
Dan
Holy cow, have you seen some of the anti vaccinators that are leftish? or some of the stuff coming out from the anti war people? Groups on the left lie and use fear of “Mansanto” and the fact that a former “monsanto” executive is in the administration get in the way of scaring the crap out of people about GMO. “Don’t believe the CDC” when it comes out about vaccinations.