The latest news on the shooting in nearby Webster, NY is that the Bushmaster assault rifle he used to kill and wound firemen was purchased by his 24 year-old former neighbor at a Gander Mountain store. This fact, and the fact that Spengler, as a convicted felon, lost his right to own a gun legally, have both received comments in some conservative blogs to the effect of “there’s no point in regulating guns because Spengler was already subject to gun control”.
People who believe that other unsafe things in our society–like cars–can be made safer stop believing in anything when guns are mentioned. When someone is killed in a car equipped with airbags, or seat belts, the response isn’t “regulation is pointless, just give up, waaah”. Instead, we’ve built better cars, better highways and we’ve added more regulation to cover drivers. Our drunk driving laws are constantly getting stricter, but funerals of kids killed by drunk drivers aren’t accompanied by Jack Daniels’ prime lobbying group questioning the point of drunk driving regulation. But if someone is killed by a gun that shouldn’t have been owned under our weak gun laws, all we hear is how a single failure justifies giving up on any kind of regulation whatsoever.
TooManyJens
I wonder why more people aren’t talking about secure storage requirements. If we had licensing, registration of all guns, a requirement to report thefts to law enforcement immediately, and strong requirements to secure one’s guns so that nobody unlicensed had access, it seems like that would go a long way toward keeping guns from being so freely available to criminals. That and closing the gun show loophole, of course.
Chris T.
What’s that? You have a curable disease? People die of that disease all the time, so there’s no point curing you…
Villago Delenda Est
Yup, all true.
The fact of the matter is, the NRA is lobbying and marketing arm of firearms and ammunition manufacturers. It’s about moving product, the product is lethal and designed to be lethal when used, and damn the consequences.
Cassidy
@TooManyJens: That’s one of the things they fight ferociously as it affects the “self-defense” posture at home. We’ll have an easier time regulating what gets sold.
Villago Delenda Est
@TooManyJens:
Unsurprisingly, this is how the US Army treats firearms.
The gun show loophole must be closed, preferably around the neck of every member of the NRA board of directors, and the vile insane shitstain LaPierre.
Ben Lehman
I imagine that there’s considerably overlap between the people who are anti any gun safety law and the people who were anti any car safety law (and there were a ton of those.)
Basically, people who don’t understand statistics as it applies to them.
yrs–
–Ben
Flying Squirrel Girl
I live in TX where for at *least* 10 years we have had to show ID and sign a form to buy Sudafed. Sudafed doesn’t kill people, people who make meth using Sudafed kills people.
After the Oklahoma City bombing, sales of ammonium nitrate were restricted. Ammonium nitrate doesn’t kill people, people who use it to make bombs kill people.
After one failed attempt at a shoe bomb, we have all taken our shoes off at the airports for years.
cathyx
Good points.
cathyx
@Flying Squirrel Girl: We can only buy Sudafed with a prescription here.
gogol's wife
Fighting the NRA in all the possible ways I can find is going to be my new hobby for 2013.
“I only wanted to say that all the ideas that have great consequences are always simple. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united together and constitute a force, then honorable people have to do the same. It’s as simple as that.” (Lev Tolstoy, War and Peace)
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
After one failed attempt at a shoe bomb, we have all taken our shoes off at the airports for years.
I wear flip-flops, and it’s a small price to pay for our security as a freedom loving People.
Davis X. Machina
They would be, if you could count on clubbing Them(1) to death with a whiskey bottle WTSHTF.
1. Good for all values of Them.
MattF
And, to the point, there’s a general understanding that the confidence you feel in your driving abilities when you’re under the influence is an illusion. And that confidence you feel when you’re packing a concealed weapon? Well, as everybody knows, that’s the glow of FREEEEEEDOM.
Paul
@gogol’s wife:
Does anyone have any opinion on the Gallup poll that came out during the week that claimed that most Americans still view the NRA favorably? Gallup’s reputation took a big hit since they did such a poor job in predicting the election. Could it be the same case here that they simply don’t know how to poll this accurately, ie polling too many old white folks again? Or are people really this stupid? I guess folks won’t change their minds until they themselves (or somebody they know) get shot by some idiot with a gun.
So I guess these same folks don’t lock their doors to their homes. Using their logic, burglary is already illegal and burglars will find a way to get in anyway.
Punchy
Some cocksucker lawyer is trying to file a $100 mill suit against CT cuz of the shootings (cant link). Client is a 6 yr old survivor, but someone who hear gunfire and is now “traumatized”.
Fucking POS ambulence chasing dirtbags are why their profession is so universally loathed…
Higgs Boson's Mate
If I was an inquiring reporter, I’d make it my business to identify all of the sources funding the NRA. The arms trade is international and I’d bet that thrice-washed money from some really nasty sources finds its way into the NRA’s coffers.
Just a thought.
Handy
Just like repeat drunk drivers – even some who have had their driving privileges suspended or revoked can still borrow a car and kill someone means we should do away with drunk driving laws altogether. (it makes no sense)
Tom
Have you thought about the possibility that the NRA paid for this poll?
Cassidy
@Punchy: He should have sued Bushmaster and the NRA.
eldorado
guns kill people
Yutsano
@Cassidy: Bushmaster has tort liability immunity. And the NRA will just disavow all responsibility and get off on a technicality.
gene108
Why we cannot treat firearms in public as a public safety matter:
(A) Jesus divinely inspired the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (there are paintings to prove it!); and
(B) Cars are not mentioned in the Constitution nor is any other mode of transportation; and
(C) Therefore the Constitution and Bill of Rights that came out of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, in 1789, are super-awesome-perfect-just-the-way-they-were; and
(D) The other 17 Amendments to the Constitution – you know, those pesky voting rights ones – do not have the weight of Jesus behind them; and
(E) Therefore regulating guns in any manor will violate the will of Jesus, as He told the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789.
Paul
@Tom:
I have no evidence of that so I’m not even going to go there. I don’t want to be like the people on the far right who refused to trust respected polls and instead created their own “unskewed polls”.
But I do know that Gallup was such an outlier in the ’12 election and maybe that’s what’s going on here again.
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
Just remember; sleazy lawyers don’t sue people, sleazy clients sue people.
Anya
That is a really week argument. Countries that don’t allow guns have little gun related violence. Few people succeed in protecting themselves with guns.
RSA
Even though 70 to 80% of drivers rate themselves as being better than average, few people complain about new regulations by saying, “But I’m a good driver!” Oddly, that argument does seem to be common for people who drive under the influence. I’ll let others draw implications for the gun debate.
gnomedad
This is exactly what the “drown it in a bathtub” crowd says, isn’t it?
gene108
@Handy:
I’ve discussed on the intertubes with some libertarian types about drunk driving laws.
They oppose them.
In the absence of drunk driving laws, if you will, a person who is drunk and driving is not inherently violating any traffic laws. You can drive drunk and not kill anybody, not run any red lights, and not swerve in and/or out of your lane.
In short, being drunk does not automatically make you a traffic violation waiting to happen. Instead of penalizing behavior, such as binge drinking, the law should stick to enforcing traffic laws that are on the books and violating those laws – running red lights, swerving out of your lane, etc. – is what causes dangerous traffic situations.
As a public safety matter, I believe traffic fatalities have been declining, so from a public safety point of view whatever laws have been enacted – seat belt laws, mandatory air bags, drunk driving laws, etc. – have been successful.
From a purely abstract point of view right-wingers take, if reduced traffic fatalities was meant to happen, they’d happen on their own, without these coercive laws.
Since they’ve lost the traffic debate and many other public safety issues, they’re really digging in on guns and/or working to undermine institutions that “drive” public safety, like the CDC and NIH.
jon
Why do felons lose their 2nd Amendment rights but keep the 4th Amendment right to hide their ill-gotten weapons?
Roger Moore
@gnomedad:
Not quite. The “drown government in a bathtub” crowd purports to believe that regulation is fundamentally wrong even if it’s effective, because freedom! They actually believe government should go away except for the parts that benefit them personally because they hate paying taxes.
SatanicPanic
@gene108: Libertarians are the pointy-headed intellectuals of the right- sure, their philosophy is internally consistent, but that’s about all that’s right about it.
Double nickel
What does the Constitution say about the right to own ammunition? Just asking.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
So, a libertarian is driving down a highway, and he hits glare ice. Traction is lost, and the proper libertarian response to this is to take your hands off the wheel and let the “market” decide where your car goes.
I think we see the slight drawback to this asinine approach to society.
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: The driver has learned his lesson about driving on that road. Eventually, people will only drive on safe roads.
gnomedad
@gene108:
Because our Galtian betters can still drive with great skill after they’ve had the drinks they’ve earned, goddammit! And if a drunken peasant strays into their lane, they’ll just blast it with their rocket launchers (guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment) and plow through the debris with their armored Hummers.
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: Ah, but the roads are all owned by private companies, so if a road is poorly maintained, the company that owns it will go bankrupt. Which is by far the worst thing that can happen to anyone– much worse, e.g., than dying on a road that hasn’t been treated because it wouldn’t be profitable.
gnomedad
The only thing wrong with Somalia is that the Good Guys don’t have enough guns.
Denali
In response to those that wail- what about the gun collectors- when banning guns is suggested, I say, why do the gun collectors collect ammunition as well as guns? I would even give the collector the right to own 1 bullet per gun – why does that not satisfy them?
Davis X. Machina
@MattF: It’s all epicycles. Libertarians are fighting for the Ptolemaic theory of society.
The Dangerman
Oregon, Connecticut, and New York; all stolen guns. What should this tell us? NRA? Bueller?
gelfling545
@Paul: Re the NRA poll, I think that a lot of people know folks who are casual members of the NRA and are occasional hunters or whatever & not gun nuts. They don’t really understand that the NRA stopped being about the activities of these people a long time ago and became the gun manufacturers’ lobby.
Ash Can
The flip side of this coin is all the naysayers and Tokyo Roses who insist that the current (lack of) gun regulations will never change because every politician is in the NRA’s pocket and the NRA is too powerful a force to overcome. Yes, the NRA lobbies and donates to our pols. Isn’t it about fucking time we started applying some pressure on saId pols from the opposite direction?
Robert
I have family members who collect guns. The do not collect bullets to go with those guns. They have the guns locked in either gigantic display cases or bolted down safes and the keys/combinations hidden somewhere else entirely.
I have family members who hunt or shoot targets as a hobby. None of them have semi-automatic weapons or extended clips. Most just have handguns (that they bought when they were police officers) or shotguns (for hunting). These are all kept locked up in bolted down safes. The larger guns mostly have locks on them because they realize kids are stupid and don’t realize that “we were just playing” is not an excuse to put other people at risk.
Is it that hard to have a discussion about gun safety in this country? I remember when Cole linked to the gun nuts’ who said he wasn’t REALLY in the military because that damn Obama is taking away their guns. One person in over 1000 comments responded to my question asking what they thought about gun locks and safe storage laws. That one person agreed this is where the debate needs to start for shared ground. Everyone else ignored me because that damn Obama is trying to take away their guns again.
Close the gun show loophole. Prove the world doesn’t end. Push for standardized legislation regarding the storage and safety of guns in the home. Prove the world doesn’t end. Restore the assault weapons ban in the United States. Prove the world doesn’t end. Break the goals down one by one to win over anyone with enough brain cells to spark up a thought and continue from there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert:
In addition to storage and safety, back it up by the assumption of liability when you take ownership of a gun. Rights have responsibilities associated with them, and the NRA and the gun loons don’t want to be held responsible for the rights they demand.
Too fucking bad.
Origuy
My cousin’s daughter, whom I know only through Facebook, posted this bogus quote from George Washington:
A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
The actual quote:
A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.
—George Washington’s First Annual Message to Congress (January 8, 1790)
I found a lot of these bogus quotes, and the responses, here. From the context in the actual speech, he was talking about preparing for war and defending against Indians.
Michael Carpet
The NRA has four million members. Perhaps gun control advocates should consider joining and taking it over. I mean seriously, it would not take very many to do so. Or is the governing structure of the NRA such that only the gun merchants and makers have effective control? Anyone know? I heard that a high percentage of NRA members join simply to use shooting ranges, who make membership a requirement. Is this true? If so, maybe we all shouldmjoin and vote the current leadership oit.
BobS
I own several guns. I’d have no objections to registering each of them annually as I do my vehicles. Similarly, I’d be willing to renew a user’s permit every few years like I do my driver’s license. There is after all mention of being “well regulated” in the Second Amendment.
Paul
@Origuy: @:
I don’t understand the logic. Are they insinuating that every US citizen buy a nuclear bomb and store in their backyard in case the federal government does something they don’t like? Are they really dumb enough to think guns in today’s world would be able to defeat the US military?
Hell, if anything, this is an argument that maybe an amendment written some 250 years ago might not be all that relevant in a world that is completely different than when it was originally written.
By the way, WE are the federal government. By voting, we the people, determine what the federal government does or does not do. Or are these folks opposed to democracy as well?
Suzanne
@Michael Carpet: I know a number of gun owners and sportsmen who have left the NRA because of their complete lack-of-safety stance, and I like your idea, but I can’t imagine giving those douchebags even a dime of my money,
Frankensteinbeck
Alcohol regulation, driving regulation, and drunk driving laws are not seen as liberal causes. Gun regulation is.
That’s it, that’s why no gun control regulation is going to happen in response to these shooting. Everything else is a way of not saying ‘We know we’re not in charge anymore if a black man can be reelected as president, and if we can’t have the US no one can.’
Davis X. Machina
@Paul:
Not the US military, perhaps, but the golden horde.
Roger Moore
@Paul:
No, they’re making an argument from authority. They want to have guns, so they’re looking for a quote from somebody we’re supposed to trust that suggests that it’s OK for them to have guns. They found a quote from Washington that sounds kind of like that, so they “improved” it a little bit and shared it. Now if you want to argue that they shouldn’t have whatever gun they want, you have to argue against George Washington instead of them.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Anyone morbidly amused that this guy’s last name was Spengler?
Fascists whining about the supremacy of their “rights” over others will be the death of this country.
Raven
@Roger Moore: They don’t WANT to have guns, they have guns.
JPL
@Roger Moore: Parents are authority figures.. just sayin.
f space that
Repeal the manufacturer tort immunity. Also, did the neighbor violate any laws by buying the gun for a felon?
JPL
@f space that: Since she is under arrest, I assume so.
David Koch
This could have been totally averted if the firemean were carrying AK-47s.
Also too, prayer in school would have solved this issue.
Paul
@Roger Moore:
Sure. Disinformation from these folks isn’t exactly something new. But none of their logic makes any sense if one just bothers to think for a second. The “improved” Washington quote, the silly “criminals will have guns anyway” argument, the “this isn’t the right to time to talk about gun control” etc etc.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Also, Facebook observation: Since when did guns become an Evangelical issue? It’s become their new shibboleth.
(Almost as surprising as when they adopted offshore oil drilling as a ‘Christian’ issue).
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Also, Facebook observation: Since when did guns become an Evangelical issue? It’s become their new shibboleth.
(Almost as surprising as when they adopted offshore oil drilling as a ‘Christian’ issue).
f space that
@JPL: Sorry missed that.
Raven
@JPL: Vietnamese huh?
Roger Moore
@Raven:
And they want to make sure they can keep the guns they have, even ones that no civilian has a reasonable need for, and that they can buy more guns of whatever kind they please whenever they want. It’s all about their desires rather than any reasonable need.
f space that
@JPL: Sorry, didn’t read linked article. She should go to jail for the max time.
Roger Moore
@Raven:
And they want to make sure they can keep the guns they have, even ones that no civilian has a reasonable need for, and that they can buy more guns of whatever kind they please whenever they want. It’s all about their desires rather than any reasonable need.
dr. luba
@David Koch: It’s obvious that what we really need is prayer in the firehouses. Where’s Mike Huckabee to say so? I mean it’s just the logical conclusion to his argument.
Roger Moore
@Raven:
And they want to make sure they can keep the guns they have, even ones that no civilian has a reasonable need for, and that they can buy more guns of whatever kind they please whenever they want. It’s all about their desires rather than any reasonable need.
Paul
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
Beats me. It is specifically because I am a Christian that I don’t own a gun. Thou shalt not kill, love thy neighbor…If something happens, I trust God will take care of things.
Raven
OT, so last night was the “worst bowl game ever”. The sorry eers and the cuze comin right up in Yankee Stadium. WVU is second to last in the nation in defense. The suck is on.
Raven
@Roger Moore: Well, no matter what anyone says, the notion that somehow the existing guns are going to be surrendered is pretty remote.
opie_jeanne
@TooManyJens: My neighbor’s grandson killed himself last summer, at age 12 with an unsecured gun.
Grandma’s comment just floored me: “I guess my son has the right to raise his kids as he sees fit.”
This was after remarking that SHE had bought him a gun safe but he didn’t use it.
I am still stunned by that.
piratedan
@Robert: @BobS: ty guys, i don’t hate gun owners, just the folks that perpetuate the fallacy that the govmn’t wants to take all guns away from all owners and that there is plenty of room for discussion and reasonable gun owners who want to have that discussion
Roger Moore
@Paul:
Sure. That’s because they’re not using logic. Their real argument is that they want what they want, and anyone who gets in their way is wrong and evil. But that argument doesn’t work very well on anyone who’s made it through kindergarten, so they feel a need to come up with more sophisticated arguments that have some hope of holding up in public. They can’t come up with any genuinely good ones, but at least they can come up with ones that take more consideration to overcome than “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie! You’re a poopyhead for not letting me have what I want!”
ETA: Also, too, FYWP.
Frankensteinbeck
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: and @Paul:
Evangelicalism has been slowly dying for decades, and they know it. They’ve always been on the forefront of the ‘our culture is under attack!’ attitude. Now several other conservative groups realize they’re a shrinking minority, and they’ve all managed to convince themselves that they’re brothers with the same issues fighting against the Other.
EDIT – @opie_jeanne:
That gets into the ‘children are property’ attitude of the US, and don’t even get me started on that one.
opie_jeanne
@Paul: No, The Gallup Poll’s question was unnecessarily wordy compared with the one done by PPP, which found exactly the opposite with its more simply-worded poll on whether assault weapons should be banned. Gallup called them assault rifles, among other nonsense, making it sound like the question was “should rifles be banned”.
Ruckus
@Paul:
Or are these folks opposed to democracy as well?
Yes, yes they are.
Maybe not so much for them but for everyone else they don’t like. So the answer still stands, Yes, yes they are.
opie_jeanne
@gene108: That makes me ill.
I am an Angels fan and in 2009 I lived one mile from this:
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/news/story?id=5622226
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Cause and effect. They used to get their way most of the time, so they tended to be quiet and content. When they stopped getting their way, it took them a while to figure out that they were losing control, and then they went nuts trying to get back what they had lost. They’ve been in a desperate fight to get back some of what they’ve lost (school prayer, abortion, contraception) and to keep from completely losing control (gay rights, election of non-Christians).
Maude
@opie_jeanne:
Thank you. My first thought about the Gallop poll was what question was asked. Makes all the difference.
Yahoo news has an article that people are buying all the guns they can. Calling Idaho gun shops etc. That is scary.
Maude
@Roger Moore:
I’d add that the president is black also figures into the mix.
Ronnie Reagan gave the Religious Right a lot of power.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
And then a black man was elected president. Even for the ones who weren’t themselves racist (much), it was unthinkable, something that could not possibly happen if their culture was in charge. They lost their shit further, and were joined by all the other nasty little conservative groups. They all shared that worldview for one reason or another. They were absolutely desperate to deny Obama reelection and prove that it was a fluke, that they still had enough power to defend such a core element of their worldview.
Now he’s won reelection. They know they’re not just losing, but they’ve lost. Quite how that will play out, I don’t know, since the five stages of grief take a long time to play out.
opie_jeanne
@Frankensteinbeck: I pointed out to Grandma that no, he in fact did not have the right to raise his kids any way he saw fit, especially with regard to gun safety.
The cops had pity on the family and declared it an accidental shooting even though his closest two friends told them that the kid had said he was going to kill himself. He had just finished the sixth grade and was terrified of Middle School, so he was going to kill himself. Too bad that even if they had told someone no one would have listened to them because they are little kids.
opie_jeanne
@Maude: I live just east of Seattle, right next to Redmond. As blue a state as this is, the other side of the Cascades is very red and those folks don’t stay put inside their red zones.
There was a murder in Seattle in 2001, Thomas C. Wales, a Federal prosecutor and gun control advocate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Wales
zoot
rational arguments with gun nuts are completely useless – you’re not dealing with rational people. At their core a gun owner – ANY G-D gun owner is a fetishist who fantasizes about killing, be it human or animal. And those that insist on guns under the rubric of self-defense in addition are paranoid antisocial psychotics. So what’s to discuss with these people or humph and guffaw over their insanity? There is nothing to discuss with them. Its forcing more gun control down their throats or all of society living in ever greater fear of falling victim to their violent fantasies.
Sly
@Origuy:
Context my ass. Next thing you’ll tell us is that George Washington’s exhortation against alliances in his Farewell Address was not a general call to isolationism, but was merely a reflection on his administration’s beleaguered attempts at keeping the U.S. out of the French Revolutionary Wars.
opie_jeanne
@zoot: Er, I am a gun owner. I do not fantasize about killing anyone, not even burglars. They are my great grandfather’s guns, I inherited them, and I am not sure they’ve been used for anything other than plinking crows.
My great grandfather on my mother’s side used to fire a shotgun at Santa Claus every Christmas Eve, which explained why the kids never got very much for Christmas.
I do wish that someone would take away the neighbor’s Howitzer, though. Wakes us up every year on the 4th with that thing.
Maude
@opie_jeanne:
84. I read the wiki. How tragic. It sounds like a well planned hit.
In NJ, people could well be stocking up. If there is going to be snow, they rush to the store. This may be like that.
e.a.f.
Your point regarding cars & improvements is well taken. In the past 40 yrs car safety has become of a greater issue. In B.C., Canada, our driving laws, for new drivers, were totally over hauled over 10 yrs ago. We now have a graduated system for kids. The result, fewer accidents & kids getting killed in car accidents.
Over the past 40 yrs we have also implemented tougher drinking & driving laws. The result, fewer drinking & driving deaths.
When the Americans lowered their max. speed limit during the 70s, due to gas prices, the number of deaths from speed were reduced.
if we started now, in 40 yrs I would expect we might have fewer deaths by gun & far fewer guns in circulation. There are more guns in the U.S.A. than people! If the federal government restricted ownership of specific types of guns, eliminated the ownership of AK-47s & such, the U.S.A. would be on its way to far fewer deaths. A city such as Chicago having 500 deaths per yr. is outrageous. That someone could break into a school building with high powered guns, they didn’t acutally own, but stole, & kill 26 people is beyond imagining but I saw it all on the news. If Americans don’t get it, then I can only imagine what that country will look like in another 40 yrs. Most likely some third world country like Somalia.
Americans may complain about Canadian & Mexican drugs going into their country, Americans need to realize most murders are committed in Canada & Mexico by American guns. If Americans stopped exporting their guns, either legally or illegally to Canada & Mexico they may find there are fewer drugs is in their country. You see drug cartels exchange drugs for guns.
FlipYrWhig
@Robert:
Yes, it is, because a lot of the people who have guns and are at heart reasonable people who might go along with a tighter gun safety system…
can be easily spooked into thinking that any attempt to tighten those controls is just the first step towards outright bans and confiscation, which is what the meddling liberal do-gooders who look down their noses at regular folks _really_ want. Oh, sure, they’ll _tell you_ that’s not what they want, but they’re naive and don’t know what things are really like out there, and then, one day in the not too distant future, some stranger breaks down your door and there you are, gun-less and helpless to protect everyone you love and everything you worked for.
That’s why we can’t have gun locks or registration. It’s a steep slippery slope to Hell.
Wolfdaughter
Mastermix:
I haven’t read the comments yet, so someone else has undoubtedly made this point before me, but here goes:
What you said isn’t quite true. Seat belts were fought. Airbags were fought. Safer cars were fought. All by the auto industry and conservatives whining that prices would go up and that it wasn’t really possible to make cars safer anyway, and that more laws governing driving wouldn’t do any good, so let’s all just give up, etc. etc. Same thing re engineering cars better so that they didn’t spew out as many pollutants. Same thing re raising minimum wage, civil rights, you name it. Always the same mantras. Sigh.
Their mantras will never cease, but they ceased having any credibility with me years ago after I heard them over and over again, and the conservatives were proven wrong over and over again.
FlipYrWhig
@e.a.f.: IIRC the easy availability of guns in America has been often cited BY AL QAEDA as something militants and terrorists should take advantage of. (Here’s one story about it.) And if that couldn’t change the way guns are handled in this country, I’m not sure anything can.
zoot
@opie_jeanne: would you keep your great grandfather’s dirty underwear as well if you inherited them? If you’re not a gun owner by design, you should get rid of them – how about give them to a museum. And since you have no desire to shoot anything, surely you’ll not have a problem supporting an assault weapons ban (including semi-automatic weapons), a large clip/magazine ban, eliminating gun sales at gun shows and requiring every gun owner to have periodic background checks, have gun safety training, and demonstrate on a periodic basis that their guns are secured.
spacewalrus
@jon: Felons, even those who convicted violent crimes, can get their gun rights back, though it depends on the state:
redshirt
Everyone needs their own personal armed drone. I know I don’t feel safe without one.
Rosie Outlook
@Denali: That statute would be called Barney’s Law.
Joel
The gun nuts need to be reduced and marginalized. They need to be reviled and disdained. The movement starts with social change.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Freedom to bear arms trumps every other freedom. If freedom to assemble is threatened because some nut with a gun starts shooting up a crowd outside of a courthouse, or in a theater, well, then must give up the freedom to assemble. If freedom of religion is threatened because someone starts shooting up churches or mosques or synagogues, well, then we must give up freedom to worship. Et cetera, ad nauseum.
The Economist put it rather bluntly; we need to impose severe restrictions on gun ownership and distribution. If those restrictions come in conflict with the Constitution, then we need to amend the Constitution.
Gun nuts view the Second Amendment the way many evangelicals view the New Testament; inerrant, but only in the way they interpret it (well-regulated militia? What well-regulated militia?).
The Constitution is a living document, subject to change as needs change (as evidenced by the very existence of the Second Amendment). And we obviously need to change it again. The wording of the Second Amendment is anachronistic, reflecting an 18th-century reality. That reality no longer exists. We have a professional, standing army. We have well-armed (too well-armed, if you ask me) police and sheriff’s departments. We no longer need the general citizenry to be armed to the teeth.
You can have hunting rifles. You can have revolvers or small-magazine handguns for target shooting and hunting small game. And you can only get them after clearing some substantial hurdles, and you can’t carry them anywhere you want.
That’s it.
PurpleGirl
@Double nickel: I doesn’t say anything about ammunition, i.e., bullets. At the time, muskets fired iron balls propelled by black powder. So, to be true to the 2nd Amendment, people should have to own black powder rifles and only black powder rifles.
John
@Paul:
The problem with Gallup was its likely voter screen. Since this is presumably a poll of “American adults,” the likely voter screen isn’t an issue.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@PurpleGirl:
So, to be true to the 2nd Amendment, people should have to own black powder rifles and only black powder rifles.
And, we should be green enough to make do with kerosene lanterns, for maximum greenness.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
You can have hunting rifles. You can have revolvers or small-magazine handguns for target shooting and hunting small game. And you can only get them after clearing some substantial hurdles, and you can’t carry them anywhere you want
And, you can haz solar powered laptops and carry them into Starbucks with free WiFi, but you can’t haz free WiFi without solar-powered laptops.
It just wouldn’t be right.
redshirt
There was an Iraq/Afghan vet who walked around Portland ME with a loaded AR-15 on Christmas Eve. Over 60 calls to 911. Cops talked to him but let him go, since it’s legal. He later talked with the newspaper, and it’s just odd. He’s kind of thoughtful and not obviously Wingnutty. More like in the RONPAUL mode, I reckon.
Great opinion piece here: PPH
PurpleGirl
@dr. luba: And in police precincts so that a cop won’t have his gun taken from him and used to kill a few cops right there in the police station.
opie_jeanne
@FlipYrWhig: Pretty sure California has a trigger locks/gun safe law.
PurpleGirl
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Then we’d have to go to sleep at dusk or shortly thereafter because it’s hard to work by lamp light for a long time. I can see positives in that situation.
opie_jeanne
@zoot:
Oh fuck you, idiot.
Of course I support the assault weapons ban 100% without reservation as well as stricter gun control and everything else you mentioned. In fact, I am about to turn in to the police a pile of handguns that I also inherited from my dad in September, in order to keep them out of the hands of a relative who is unstable. I have no problem doing this instead of selling them even though I know it will infuriate my sibling who intends to give one to her unstable child. I plan to tell her that I want to take the guns to have them evaluated for value, and instead just go to the local police station and hand them over.
Great Grandpa’s guns aren’t loaded, I have no ammunition for them, and they are locked up. They are more a curiosity than anything, a very low registration number Remington, and over-and-under shotgun, and while I don’t have any of his dirty underwear (talk about a fetish) I do have quite a few things that he owned such as furniture, photographs, paintings, and some cuff links. One set of 100-year-old cuff links he owned has a swastika design on them, so I’m sure I should get rid of them because Hitler!
opie_jeanne
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I like your last paragraph. I have had enough with the “open carry” idiots. I don’t much like the concealed carry laws either. I’d rather people didn’t walk around anywhere with guns.
themann1086
@gene108: Hey, why you gotta bring my fine city into this?
FlipYrWhig
@opie_jeanne: Cool, glad to hear it. How’d they get it on the books?
catclub
@FlipYrWhig: I continue to be amazed that al Qaeda did not learn something from John Malvo and Lee Muhammed. They had entire states shutting down outside play for kids.
Two relatively poor guys, one rifle, one beatup car.
Pandemonium – priceless.
My guess is that the guy in the Huffpo article is talking seriously to exactly no one in the United States.
General Stuck
@zoot:
You should turn yourself in. For being a human scatter shot
AnnaN
Well then, obviously we need a law which states that anyone who buys a gun for use by another person, illegally, shall be subject to the same penalties that the gun user will be for any crimes committed with the use of that gun.
This would effectively keep The Average Joe out of the gun procurement business and leave it in the hands of those entities which ca be more easily regulated.
These gun freaks are assholes. The 2nd amendment does not give carte blanche gun ownership to every/anyone.
zoot
@opie_jeanne: no doubt you think you are as safe with your guns as Adam Lanza’s mom thought she was with hers. But of course we were all stupid not to verify how safe Lanza’s guns were just as we would be with you and great grandpops firearms.
You undergo a background check, safety training, and have your security measures reviewed EVERY few years by appropriate authorities and we’ll think about maybe trusting with your guns.
BruinKid
@Paul: David Nir at Daily Kos Elections explains the sharp differences between Gallup and PPP’s polling on an assault weapons ban. Basically, Gallup used lousy wording to confuse the issue.
don pratt
Noteworthy thinking, thanks, don pratt
don pratt
Noteworthy thinking, thanks, don pratt
Ehud Morerock
@Cassidy: Gun makers are immune from any responsibility for the tens of thousands of murders committed with their products.