Cory Booker versus Nooners on gun violence and Newtown:
The look Cory Booker gave Peggy Noonan when she blamed gun violence on video games. via @vote4will twitter.com/Jane_Roh/statu…
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) December 23, 2012
I may frame this. Oh, and Booker (who might actually know something about a city facing gun violence as Mayor of Newark) went on to snatch Nooners’ wig on live teevee.
“I don’t know if anybody here has seen somebody shot. I have,” Booker said during a round-table discussion on the show, hosted by George Stephanopoulos. “I don’t know if anybody here has had to put their hand in somebody’s chest and try to stop the bleeding so somebody doesn’t die. I have. And the what frustrates me about this debate is it’s a false debate. It’s a false debate.
“This is a convenient trick to try to divide our country more. Most of us in America, including gun owners, agree on things that would stop the kind of carnage that’s going on in cities all over America.”
“I’m tired of the political debates,” he added. “They’re not necessary. I’m tired of the ideological positions. We don’t even need to visit them. Let’s stick to the pragmatic center where all Americans believe the same thing and let’s pass legislation that would make America safer.”
That of course will never happen as long as Republicans have any sort of power in Congress.
Southern Beale
Look what the memory hole dug up:
The son of NRA head David Keene fired a handgun at another motorist in a road rage incident back in 2002. Served jail time for misuse of a handgun.
Karmus
Thank you, Mr. Booker.
Jay
A Lautenberg staffer (or Lautenberg himself, but I doubt it) ripped Booker on Twitter for “validating” something Wayne LaPierre said when he – Booker – agreed with LaPierre, although not by name, on the need for tougher mental health screening.
We might just have a Senate primary, folks, and it might just be something.
gbear
Did he give Nooners a sad or did she continue on cluelessly?
Jim
@Jay:
Yeah, tougher mental health screening for potential gun purchasers.
Schlemizel
@Southern Beale:
Its also been noted that at least four NRA board members have been involved in accidental discharge accidents. Thats just the ones we know of
jon
Everyone I kill in video games is alive when and if I play the game again. I’ve yet to kill anyone in real life, but I’ve never lost track of the fact that the rules are different in video games.
Anyone who is so stupid they can’t follow that logic can have access to all the video games they like without harming anyone, but shouldn’t have a gun, a microphone, or an elected office.
Hal
Someone on Facebook posted a ridiculous photo of Pres Obama and Michelle during the inauguration walk in 2008 with little captions pointing to all the Secret Service agents with guns, and a caption that said “Thinks less guns makes us safer.”
I was going to reply “somewhere in an alternate universe, Adam Lanza’s mother is totally liking this post” but was overtaken by the holiday spirit and decided to let it go.
Anyhow, that kind of ingrained stupidity just boggles my mind and people like Peggy Noonan will never offer up any significant contribution to the issue of gun control. They are just going to blame movies and and music like they always do and call it a day.
Comrade Jake
The media establishment that seeks Noonan’s opinion on something like this in the first place is part of the problem.
Southern Beale
@Schlemizel:
I had NO idea.
Maybe one of them will shoot their eye out.
Of course, we have Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face.
Cacti
The sad thing about our elected officials is, they’re more likely to try and restrict your ability to fire animated bullets than real ones.
Comrade Jake
Anyone else click on the photo and read the comments? There’s always at least one gun nut in these things blaming liberals. Twitter really should be used to tag and flag all of the Nutjobs.
Cacti
@Southern Beale:
64-year old adolescent Ted Nugent, who once told the President to “suck on my machine gun” is a member of their board of directors.
And yet they’re taken seriously.
Mark S.
You’d think Peggy might be a little more sympathetic to this issue, since her surrogate father was almost killed by a fucking nutjob with a gun. I don’t think John Hinckley’s problem was fucking video games.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Hal: I thought these people were worried about the government having more firepower than them.
I don’t mind trained law enforcement people having guns so that I don’t have to carry one.
The Dangerman
So, some whack puts up an anti-Islam video that causes Cairo to explode and the Right screams “First Amendment protection”…
…but violent video games? No First Amendment protection.
I’m confused.
NonyNony
@Jay:
You know, if we got nothing more out of this than an agreement that every time someone purchased a gun they needed to undergo a qualified mental health screening to make sure they were mentally stable enough to own a gun, I’d count it as a major win even without an assault weapons ban.
Somehow I don’t think that’s what Wayne LaPierre meant though.
aangus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqrKejQTynk
;)
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Shooting animated human beings in a video game = sign of a depraved and desensitized culture.
Going to a range and pumping bullets through a paper silhouette of human being = wholesome family fun.
This message has been brought to you by
Nuts Ruining Americathe National Rifle Association.Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mark S.: Well, we all know how dangerous Pong was.
mainmati
I think the point is that the GOP establishment types, represented by Noonan, not only do not have practical solutions they aren’t even interested in solutions sice they believe themselves beyond the daily reality of America. Consider it the POV of the gated communities.
Cassidy
That these shitbags can say this demented shit in public and not be ostracized, kills me.
Gus diZerega
That was so right on so many levels.
Wow.
aangus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4wG2O7YZ9k
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
Well yeah, but that’s not really fair. The friend apologized, after all, for getting his face in the way of Dick’s gun.
Rosie Outlook
There was a guy with a brain on one of those Sunday-morning 1% circle jerks? How’d he get on? Were the usual suspects all booked already?
Yes, I am in a cranky contest with John. I get this way during The Holidays. Sorry.
If I out-grump John, do I win a Tunch?
Forum Transmitted Disease
How uncivil. If Booker truly cared about saving lives, he’d take Noonan’s flask of vodka out of her purse and smash it over her head.
SiubhanDuinne
@Zandar
Excellent photo. Tell me, is that a swizzle stick in Nooners’ coffee mug?
Cassidy
Oh Cory, you running for Senate triangulator you,
Um, no Mr. Booker. I disagree here. We’re all familiar with crime and criminals. What we have a problem with is law abiding citizens legally obtaining weapons of mass destruction and then completely losing their shit and taking 10 or 20 of us with them. Or law abiding citizens legally purchasing guns and then killing the women in their lives because she had the gall to decide to have a different significant other or the presumptuousness to not want to get her ass kicked anymore.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
/rhetorical question begging for a SATSQ response
Watership
So, in the NRA’s perfect world, the other driver – clearly the “good guy” by any calculation – should have been armed so he could have returned fire and shot the NRA President’s son dead in the street. Is that the price of unfettered gun ownership? A dead son here and there?
No surprise, Dancin’ Dave didn’t go there with Lapierre on MTP today.
ETA: Woopsie … Wrong thread
BruinKid
So one of my Ron Paul friends was asked about what rights we have under the Second Amendment in regards to weapons like Uzis and grenades. His response was… troubling.
See? It’s “beautiful freedom” for every American to own an arsenal of grenades and machine guns… if they want to. FREEDOM!!!
(Actually, why do I have this image of him yelling “WOLVERINES!!!” after saying that?)
Jay
@Jim, @NonyNony-On second read, Booker was more general than LaPierre. LaPierre wants the – in my opinion – Orwelllian “National Mental Health Database” (A big bank of the mentally ill! What could go wrong?). Booker said something like, basically, “I don’t like the NRA, but I want better screening on those mentally unfit for gun ownership.”
Lautenberg then pounced. It probably won’t turn into much, and if Booker’s statement is some kind of move by him, I don’t know who he thinks he’s winning over with it.
Southern Beale
US Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) arrested for DUI. And he’s a Mormon, too.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m trying to think of something nice to say about Peggy Noonan vs. Cory Booker (yes, I’m prepared to go into moderation for typing the actual fucking name of the fucking mayor of a fucking American city fuck you very much indeed Word Press).
:: thinks ::
:: thinks some more ::
:: thinks really hard ::
Peggy has better hair.
Southern Beale
@Jay:
Meanwhile,
Apparently we have a database and it’s not even functioning. FAIL.
Corner Stone
@Rosie Outlook:
Do you have access to a forklift?
redshirt
@BruinKid: Wow. That’s soe grade A class gun nut right there, yes sir.
Perfect Tommy
Meanwhile on MTP David Gregory never challenged Wayne LaPierre’s plan to militarize our schools with the fact that recent mass shootings have also been perpetrated in malls, mall parking lots, workplaces, college campuses, movie theaters and hospitals. Shall we station SWAT teams strategically around the town?
Violet
Wow, that is some look. Excellent photo.
...now I try to be amused
You know the gory car crash film they showed in driver’s ed? There should be a suitably gory film for compulsory shooter’s ed, supposing that ever happens.
JohnK
@NonyNony: @NonyNony: I’d like to know more about the qualified mental health screening. Is the screener approved by the NRA? What if the screener is anti-gun or otherwise messed up? If a purchaser fails a screening, do they get registered in the National database? What sorts of mental conditions cause a rejection. What about mental conditions that come and go like bipolar and the person passes the screening and still turns out to be dangerous? Wasn’t the major that shot a bunch of soldiers in Texas a psychiatrist? What happens to people who are mis-screened, can they ever clear their names or are they stigmatized forever? If purchasing a gun is a problem, why wouldn’t they just poison or burglarize a gun owner or a Walmart?
Steeplejack
@Southern Beale:
Not a very good Mormon, apparently.
Rosie Outlook
@Corner Stone: You made me laugh. This close to The Holidays, that’s an impressive feat. Give that man a Tunch! (And a forklift.)
TS
Booker could have done much better – he’s having an each way bet. It is WAY past time for anyone who cares about their children to simply say “GUNS KILL”.
Vince
@Perfect Tommy: @Perfect Tommy: The interview really wasn’t that bad. Every time LaPierre brought up armed guards Gregory talked about Columbine and VA Tech having armed guards and not being able to help. As bad as he usually is, he was actually pretty good there.
Taylormattd
That man is so goddamn good looking.
TS
@Cassidy:
Funny how running for political office makes them forget the truth as to what happened. None of the recent massacres (and probably the earlier ones) involved criminals.
Roy G.
Both sides are equally valid. The mayor of friggin’ Newark NJ, and the coprophilic Reagan fellatrix.
catclub
Did Wayne LaPierre propose a substantial tax on guns and ammo to pay for all his guards at schools? Or is it just his unfunded mandate solution?
aimai
This is absolutely ridiculous. Law abiding citizens with guns kill people all the fucking time–they are “law abiding” up until the moment that they kill someone with their gun, or allow a toddler to get their hands on the gun-and after that we make excuses for them because they feel really bad, or they were all excited, or the toddler should have known better or whatever. The reason guns are different from video games is that one mistake with a gun results in a death while one mistake with a video game results in what now?
Nancy Lanza was a “law abiding gun owner” who was law abiding right up until her son killed her. That football player who killed his girlfriend in front of their baby was law abiding right up until he shot her and she was a law abiding gun owner too–didn’t prevent her from losing to the guy with the worse temper. Hell, even Adam Lanza was law abiding until he decided not to be. Other than because these assholes are armed and dangerous there is no reason to stroke their egos. The gun nuts of America are a crime and a murder waiting to happen either because the owners themselves are not rational and will eventually accidentally or on purpose shoot someone or because a not insignificant proportion of them will lose control of their weapons, as Nancy Lanza did, and someone will steal the guns and use them on others.
aimai
burnspbesq
@BruinKid:
One possible response to clowns like that is to invite them to emigrate to the country that most closely resembles their libertarian paradise, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We have a social compact in this country. If these fucks want to opt out, we should make them opt the entire fucking way out.
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Jake:
I agree, but the reason for it is the GOP is the party of the the parasitical vermin that run the corporations that broadcast these programs.
So, naturally, the crazy continues, because it’s in the financial interest of the parasitical vermin.
Sly
@gbear:
Noonan went on to say that we clearly need magic angel dolphins with guns in every school, because they even protect Commie kids.
JohnK
The Google, tells me that 1 in 4 adults has one or more mental disorders and there are 1.6 million more people with bipolar disorder than there are members in the NRA. I’m no Nate Silver but there are likely to be many assault weapon owners with mental disorders. Will mental screenings be required for all gun or assault weapon owners or just prospective purchasers?
Anya
OT – Isn’t Ted Kennedy Jr. a resident of Connecticut? According to his brother he’s considering running for Senate in Massachusetts if Sen. Kerry is confirmed as the next Secretary of State.
Nunca el Jefe
@BruinKid: ask him how he feels about Iran having nuclear weapons.
gwangung
THEY would be safer with fewer guns; why did that idiot think there are so many Secret Service agents in the first place???
Tripod
I’M GONNA WRECK IT!
Tripod
I’M GONNA WRECK IT!
Joey Maloney
@Schlemizel: four NRA board members have been involved in accidental discharge accidents
There’s medication for that.
NonyNony
@JohnK:
Dunno. LaPierre brought up the mental health angle, I’m just willing to go with it. I’d be a hell of a lot more restrictive than LaPierre ever would I can tell you that.
Personally I’d prefer a world where we could just, you know, restrict guns being sold to single shot weapons (and double-barreled shotguns), limit gun households to a “reasonable number” of weapons (I’d say “two” is reasonable given the hunters I’ve known over the years and the hunting knowledge I picked up living in the rural midwest without being a hunter, but I’m willing to be a bit flexible on this point), and put a tax on ammo that goes into a fund to pay restitution to victims of gun violence.
I’d do other things too, but those first bits would be a good start.
Lojasmo
Yo wait. Zandar’s black and Booker’s black, so REVERSE RACISM. Amirite?
Joey Maloney
@…now I try to be amused: You know the gory car crash film they showed in driver’s ed? There should be a suitably gory film for compulsory shooter’s ed, supposing that ever happens.
It’d never work. They’d exhaust the budget replacing the seat cushions after all the gun nuts spooged while watching.
PeakVT
@Anya: Yes, but the residency requirements may not be very strict – and they were basically waved for Romney when he ran for governor.
Gex
@Nunca el Jefe: Nice one!
Mnemosyne
My (wingnutty) mom brought Connecticut up tonight while we were talking about other stuff and she buys the NRA line that we need security guards in schools. But she was also asking how the hell it is that someone can buy 25,000 rounds of ammunition online and raise no red flags whatsoever.
Gun nuts? A little help here?
JoyfulA
@Perfect Tommy: What about militarizing our churches, too? This week in Pennsylvania, the rural four-dead shooting spree we had started with the gunman killing a woman decorating a church hall for a children’s Christmas party.
Earlier this year in this state, a man shot dead his ex-wife as she played the organ during church services.
And there are various more famous church shootings.
NonyNony
@Mnemosyne:
Why would it raise a flag? Who does your mom think would be tracking ammo purchases? Or does she think that the ammo vendor should have just thought “my goodness, here’s a customer who is buying a lot of ammo for an assault rifle! Perhaps this large sale that I’m making is for something bad and I should alert the authorities!” Yeah. If there’s one group of people who have the good of the community at heart, it’s weapons dealers.
handy
@gwangung:
Right? Talk about scoring on your own goal. Don’t tell these morons the president has the launch codes either, they might go full apoplectic hearing that news.
Lojasmo
@Mnemosyne:
when has a security guard aborted (stopped) a mass shooting? One demonstable case?
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne: Easy. No one tracks ammo sales. Also, gun shows are notorious for large lots of ammo.
Mnemosyne
@NonyNony:
Weirdly, I think it goes along with the gun paranoia — because of course the government is secretly monitoring every move of gun owners, they have the power to know who’s buying large amounts of ammo, so the government screwed up by not stopping this guy or the guy in Colorado.
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
If the government wants to know who owns assault rifles, all they have to do is review footage of the Tea Party anti-health care reform rallies. That’d be a good start.
BruinKid
@Nunca el Jefe: Ah, he’s actually Iranian-American, so he’s perfectly fine with it, even if he hates Ahmedinejad.
BruinKid
@burnspbesq: A while back, he shared a picture of Lysander Spooner with the caption:
So that’s how he feels about the social compact, even as he still gets all the benefits from living in one. He merely laughed it off when I suggested he move to Somalia, as it seems it was something he had heard many times before.
seaboogie
Didn’t realize how awfully terrible Nooners is until I saw this link. Just a dinosaur in a St. John suit. Would love to see her v. Katrina VanDenHeuvel (in this fantasy, Katrina is wearing leather), in a Sunday morning meet…and Katrina and her formidable logic will just smack down Nooners in her nouveau-tweeds and pin her to the logic mat. Might even win over the cons who think with their little heads. And then the world would be a little bit better.
gwangung
@BruinKid: So he mooches off the social contract the rest of us engage in….
Frankensteinbeck
Look, the GOP doesn’t believe this shit. Their leaders don’t, their media spokespeople don’t, and the vast majority of their crazy asshole voters don’t. They don’t think video games cause gun violence. They don’t think more armed guards will prevent gun violence. They DON’T CARE, much like they don’t care if abstinence-only sex education increases or decreases accidental pregnancies. Hell, here they know the truth and care even less. Their ideological position has been publicly revealed as a lie. They’re flinging bullshit until they stop feeling embarrassed, which is all they actually care about. Nobody has believed video games cause violence for twenty years. It’s just a piece of bullshit they had on hand to throw.
Djur
This has got to be catnip to DougJ.
Cassidy
@Frankensteinbeck: I disagree. They really do believe they believe this shit. They have to. The alternative is that they are wrong.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cassidy:
We may be talking past each other. They say whatever’s convenient and tell themselves they believe it, but it has nothing to do with their decision-making process. They wouldn’t have said they believed it before they had to defend their position, and they may not believe it ten minutes from now then they find a better piece of bullshit to fling. It’s not calculated, it’s rationalization. Their feelings make the decision, then they put a cover story on top – and they’re not aware it’s not a rational process.
Chris
I tend to think of all “pragmatic center” discussions as completely fatuous in the present context. The entire GOP is thoroughly radicalized – not just politicians or media or financiers but the entire voter base, too – and while the era of their dominance may finally be passing, it’s not like 47% of the public didn’t still vote for Romney.
“The pragmatic center where all Americans believe the same thing?” Where’s that? They’ve gotten so tribal they’ll vote against their own beliefs just to spite “These People” however they define them (see also the people saying “oh yeah, I totally think we should have Social Security and Medicare, but Paul Ryan wasn’t REALLY going to destroy it, or if he would someone would’ve stopped it). How are we supposed to pass agreements with people whose only defining principle in politics is that they want to fight us?
Maude
The Mayor of Newark just made his city look like the Wild West. That will help turn things around there.
He is a drama queen. I’m tired of him.
I will look up to see if he really did do the hand to chest bit.
Senator Lautenberg probably will retire. I am glad he went after the Mayor.
I wouldn’t put that much power into the hands of psychiatrists. They aren’t exactly the picture of mental health themselves. They also have an authoritarian streak that Stalin would admire.
If a shrink doesn’t like a patient, he/she can write down anything and get away with it.
The shrinks make their money by writing scripts, not talking to patients. That was verified by the APA.
Follow the money trail to the sales of weapons and ammunition.
balconesfault
@Chris: I’m not sure exactly WHAT is is that all Americans believe in.
Seriously. If Booker is looking for unanimous consensus on anything, he’s delusional. I’m having a hard time imagining what I could say politically that I could be guaranteed that >80% of Americans would agree with.
balconesfault
@NonyNony: I’m even ok with revolvers. But I do want the gunman to have to actually stop for at least 15 seconds or so to reload so that the 5 year olds can rush him and take him down.
geg6
@Maude:
Wow. Psychologists and psychiatrists are villians here now? WTF?
FTR, I have a mentally ill brother (bipolar) and have had counseling myself during an especially bad time in my life. None of the pros I consulted suggested any sort of meds for me, just talk therapy. As for my brother, I thank the FSM that there are meds that he can take. The problem is getting him to take them.
Your blanket condemnation of mental health professionals is simply unhinged. Perhaps my former therapist could help you with that.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
FTFY.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
This.
@balconesfault:
Same here. And I think the number of things 80% of Americans would agree with has been shrinking for years due to their rightward drift. Until a few years ago, I would’ve thought that 80% of Americans at least believed that all citizens should have the right to vote. Since the teabagger “revolution” and the 47% trope that went with it, I’d estimate that a majority of conservatives no longer believes that. If you can’t agree on something that basic, it’s hard to imagine what you’ll agree on.
elmo
@Lojasmo:
A volunteer security guard at a Colorado megachurch, using her own handgun, stopped a mass shooter a couple of years ago.
I’ve been on the other side in most of these discussions, because I remember the AWB and how toothless it was, and because I am not sure that semiautos are all that much deadlier than revolvers. also because I have actually used a gun in self-defense, and living openly as a gay woman in rural America is scary enough without the means to defend myself.
But let’s try it. We have to do something. People smarter than I am believe that banning semiautos will reduce the carnage; I’m not optimistic, but let’s try it. And yes, I have one. I’ll be first in line to give mine up, if that will really help.
henqiguai
@elmo (#90): Dead thread, this morning, but what the heck…
It had potential teeth, until you got to the part where it grandfathered all the existing ordnance as exempt. All those devilish lil’ details, how they *do* work.
burnspbesq
@Anya:
He owns a house in the family compound in Hyannis. Pretty easy switch.
burnspbesq
@Maude:
Fine, but who else do the Dems have that’s capable of winning a statewide office?
chuckieboy
Booker should have said he believes there should mental screening for people that buy cheap gin
Uncle Ebeneezer
@aimai: Great comment Amai! It baffles me that people on our side of the discussion so rarely make this obvious point. No matter how responsible a gun owner may be (and I have a couple friends that are competitive shooters and vintage collectors who take safety VERY seriously) there is still the problem of that gun getting into the hands of someone who is not. To riff on LaPierre’s good guy/bad guy quote: what happens when a bad guy gets his hands on a good guy’s gun? Or as you say, when a good guy suddenly turns bad? We have all kinds of restrictions on dangerous things in place using the logic that good people can often be put into situations where they choose a bad course of action and hurt themselves or others. The only effective prevention being to try to limit access to the dangerous thing. Why we can use this approach with regards to vehicles, heavy machinery, drugs, chemicals, etc., but not violent weapons is astounding.