Via ThinkProgress:
This unfortunate gun show ad placement isn’t even the first one that has occurred next to a story about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
I think John Cole was right when he said nothing would change until displaying an NRA sticker becomes as toxic as claiming KKK membership. But the NRA, even after Wayne LaPierre’s psychotic presser, has a 54% approval rating in the US. I confess I do not get that. At all.
President Obama seems serious about wanting to address gun violence. But his wording in that interview with Dancing Dave was interesting. He said:
“We’re not going to get this done unless the American people decide it’s important and so this is not going to be a matter of me spending political capital. One of the things that you learn having now been in this office for four years. The old adage of Abraham Lincoln’s, ‘with public opinion there is nothing you can’t do and without public opinion there is very little you can get done in this town.’”
I think most people do want to get military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines off the market. But already, less than a month after 26 people, including 20 first graders, were mowed down at school by a lunatic with a Bushmaster, it seems like the urgency to act is fading.
Maybe placement of gun show ads next to stories about gun atrocities means nothing more than careless editorial oversight. Or maybe guns are so embedded in our national psyche that more than half of us really don’t see much of a difference between a gun and a car, except a need to closely regulate only the one with wheels.
Snarki, child of Loki
Drone strikes on gun shows.
gogol's wife
I’m not going to be fatalistic about this any more. I’m going to keep working, calling, pushing, contributing. I’ve had enough of having MY freedom restricted by gun nuts. I talk about it every chance I get. Everyone should. Let’s build a movement.
The Dangerman
Gun control is effectively DOA; really the best we can hope for is gun safety (trigger locks, gun safes, etc, although it is unclear if the Sandy Hook shooter could have bypassed those safeguards somehow).
Yutsano
This newspaper had this exact same issue before. One would think that they would have initiated the protocol they said they were going to enact in a timely fashion.
gogol's wife
@The Dangerman:
Why is gun control DOA?
El Cid
Start telling people you’re going to start a big program giving assault-style weapons, large magazines, training, and licensing aid to poor and black people to be armed & carrying legally at all times and suddenly things will change.
Face
Yes, they’re called the 18-29 year olds who dont often vote, the 30-39 year olds who sometimes vote but dont call their congresspeople, and many moms in CT, which is a elitist blue state which doesn’t count.
All of those who scream, bitch, and rant in the other direction do so at very high volumes across a wide spectrum of AM amplitudes. Not even close to a fair fight.
Betty Cracker
@gogol’s wife: That’s it exactly.
Culture of Truth
Oooh they should make guns with wheels, like they do for rolling luggage.
Sly
Probably attributable to a disconnect between the average person’s local contact with the NRA and the distance between that perception and the NRA’s national agenda. Locally, the NRA runs training and safety programs. Nationally, they’re a lobbying and marketing division of the firearms industry that engages in activities that a majority of their members often don’t even support.
geg6
There has been a huge brouhaha here in the ‘Burgh over the holidays. Seems that, during the runup to Christmas, the Post-Gazette kept wrapping the comic pages in an ad for Dunham’s Sports guns. Especially after Dick’s showed some sensitivity in this matter, people went apeshit and wrote tons of letters to the editor about how stupid is the P-G advertising department to do this with the only section of the paper they can get their kids to read.
The Dangerman
@gogol’s wife:
Same as it’s ever been; for reasons beyond me, even the Sandy Hook tragedy won’t get any action OTHER than getting folks racing to buy their Bushmasters before they got pulled from the shelves (which isn’t going to happen). Even the assault weapons ban from the 90’s had a sunset clause in order for it to pass. So, same as it’s ever been.
/talking heads
Disco
Oh dear, I’m shocked. I thought for sure Obama would have signed an assault weapon ban by now.
/sarcasm
White Trash Liberal
Class action lawsuits on manufacturers. The families of those who were killed or maimed need to band together and sue the manufacturers themselves for negligence in falling to provide adequate safety measures when designing, distributing and marketing their hazardous products.
The NRA is just a lobbying organization.
Forum Transmitted Disease
I said this on the last thread and it is important enough to restate:
As a gun owner, I have zero problem with posting the names and addresses of people who conceal carry, because those people are a threat to society and every person they come in contact with.
I do not conceal carry. I would never dream of it. My guns at home are unloaded and locked in a fire-rated safe that is bolted to the concrete slab. My ammo is locked in a footlocker in another part of the house. This is for my own safety and the safety of anyone who comes in my house, invited or no. Guns are dangerous as hell. People need to realize that. Carrying them in public, open or concealed (and boy would I prefer open so I know who to stay away from) is not just stupid but crazy behavior that subjects your fellow citizens to very serious risks they never signed on for, and that has no place in a civilized society.
@gogol’s wife: Your freedoms have been curtailed by the gun nuts in so many ways, that we don’t even think about them any more. It needs to end.
gogol's wife
@The Dangerman:
The Newtown massacre happened on Dec. 14. That’s hardly been enough time for anything to actually happen.
If all the wingnuts had thrown up their hands after Roe v. Wade, I guess we’d be in a different place regarding women’s reproductive freedom.
Tolstoy said it best: If vicious people can band together and constitute a force, then honorable people have to do the same. It’s as simple as that.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@White Trash Liberal: Such lawsuits are forbidden by federal law. Firearms are the only consumer products specifically exempted from any and all safety regulation.
There’s a lot more work to be done untangling this than a few lawsuits. The gun industry has seen this coming for a long time and have prepared very well.
Raven
@gogol’s wife: And you can make yourself feel so much better!
gogol's wife
@Raven:
What does that mean?
geg6
@White Trash Liberal:
The law exempts them from liability. Much as I’d love to see lawsuits against the manufacturers and merchants, we have to change federal law first.
Disco
Nothing will happen.
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
But as a gun owner, how do you feel about a newspaper posting YOUR name and address?
The Dangerman
@gogol’s wife:
You’re right, but read the tea leaves; Obama went from “meaningful action” to “whatever the public supports” in less than a month. I don’t see public support enough to pass anything in the Senate and forget about the House. I admire people that will go “Sisyphus” on gun control, but that ball ain’t going up the mountain.
Mike in NC
A local newspaper ran ads for a couple of restaurants and in between was an ad for a cockroach exterminator. It took a whole week for them to change it.
gogol's wife
@The Dangerman:
I’m going Sisyphus, and yes, it does make me feel better (I’m not sure what’s wrong with that). I’ve spent 30 years just sending in a check now and then, and that’s not enough. I’m sick of the fatalism. And I don’t expect Obama to do it for me.
Disco
@The Dangerman:
Those aren’t even tea leaves. Those are capitulation leaves.
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
That seems bass ackwards to me. Isn’t it the ammo rather than the unloaded guns that should be in a fire-rated safe?
I don’t know much about guns, and don’t really want to, but if your house was on fire would a fireman risk getting shot by exploding ammo in your foot locker?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mandalay: If that were a matter of public record, I’d be fine with it.
And needless to say, I’d be getting rid of my guns. I think this would be a superb way (the even better one is to require insurance and make them unaffordable) to disarm America, something that is long overdue.
SpotWeld
It’s like this. Americans have the right to own guns. They can choose not to exercise that right if they want.
However, since the NRA is essnetially a adovcate for gun ownership. Message #1 is “you must have a gun, you are unamerican is you don’t have at least one. You are failing (usually failing at being a man) if you don’t get a gun”
The NRA is defending gun owners “American-ness”.
If you don’t agree with the NRA you are less American.. somehow.
Joel
The war in Iraq was popular once, too.
As far as the NRA is concerned, I used to ignore those stickers that people put on their cars. Now those stickers are anathema. Not my friend until proven otherwise.
tagg
So many people I know said when these twenty innocents were slaughtered that this was going to be the moment when Americans came together to compel and shame their elected officials to take on the powerful gun lobby epitomized by the NRA and made incarnate in the person of Wayne Lapierre. They reasoned that no one could or would defend the indefensible.
Unfortunately, they once again underestimated the truly brilliant strategy of the gun lobby to defer, delay, and deflect. No act of mass murder that has occurred over the last twenty years has been able to break through the insanity and lies that substitute for an open and honest discussion of the place of guns in American society.
Weep for the children. And weep for America.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mandalay: Nope. Bullets gain velocity by being inside a chamber and a long barrel. As the bullet travels down the barrel, with the gunpowder burning at its back, building up pressure, it builds up velocity until it exits at a most dangerous speed.
A bullet that’s not in a gun is a shitty firecracker. That’s all.
What firefighters have to fear – and they’ll ask you and let your house burn down if you answer wrong – is if you have any loaded guns in the house. Since that bullet is in the barrel, if it cooks off it’s just like someone pulled the trigger, and it could go anywhere.
Mandalay
@Mandalay:
To answer my own question,it seems that ammo in a house fire is unlikely to be a serious problem….
…unless the ammo is in a loaded gun…
http://www.defensivecarry.com/forum/general-firearm-discussion/7756-ammo-house-fire.html
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Yep…I just posted the same information.
Hungry Joe
The problem is that people actually believe they need guns to protect themselves from villains coming into their homes to murder them. Listen: Nobody is coming to kill you. Chances are probably close to a million to one against. What puts people in mortal danger is … having a gun, or guns, on the premises.
I know, I know: My gun is secured, I hunt, I’m a woman alone, I live in the country with meth dealers/coyotes/zombies all around. You’re still safer without a gun. For every exception there are X number (with X much >1) of people shot by family rage or kids playing or just plain accident.
(Okay, for zombies you probably need a gun.)
Paul
It is no different than some 40% of union members voting Republican.
It is no different than a majority of white women voting for Romney (I guess white women were against fair pay, for violence against women and very much in favor of intrusive abortion laws).
It is no different than middle class folks (who will never ever become millionaires) being against higher taxes for millionaires.
People in this country have a love affair for voting against their own interests, whether they realize it or not.
Guy
@Mandalay:
This might be surprising but the ammo in a fire would not be much of a hazard. Without the chamber supoporting the case and a barrel to allow time for the pressure to build which is what gives the bulletin its velocity, the cartridge would just pop like a firecracker. This is why the powder is classified by law as a propellant rather than an explosive.
Violet
Dealing with this problem means a bunch of different approaches. In no particular order, they include:
1. Creating an organization like MADD to lobby for better gun laws.
2. Outing the NRA as the lobbying organization for gun manufacturers that it is.
3. Making the NRA toxic so that people don’t want to be associated with it.
4. Creating a better, alternate organization for responsible gun owners.
5. Increasing pressure on elected representatives to do something to create saner gun laws. That means calling everyone from your local city council representative to your state reps to your national reps and getting enough people to do it. Squeaky wheel principle.
There are probably a whole bunch of things that can and should be done, but working on a bunch of fronts will increase the chances that something will work and stick.
dedc79
Didn’t you guys know? It’s not guns that cause gun violence. It’s the media talking about the need for gun control that causes gun violence. Seriously, someone actually wrote this.
Violet
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
A way to tackle it and separate the hunters from the gun nuts would be to require insurance for your guns if you keep them in your home. If you keep them in some secure off-site location, like at a carefully monitored gun club safe or at an equally monitored police location, then you don’t have to pay the insurance premiums. Or at least they’re lower. You can check out your gun for a specified period of time but you have to go do it, you can’t just pick it up from wherever it is in your house in a fit of rage or drunkenness or craziness and go kill people. This sort of thing might have worked in the case of Sandy Hook if the guns were in his mother’s name. The kid couldn’t have checked them out from the gun club.
Beth
The local section of our paper today had the following stories:
Man cleaning rifle kills his 8 year old son, man cleaning gun found dead by roommate, liquor store broken into at night and gun stolen, police called for armed drunk arguing in a bar and man arrested for firing shots in the air on new years eve. All this happened in just a few days. It was disturbing seeing them all on one page of the paper.
Mandalay
@Hungry Joe:
You are kinda correct, in the same way that nobody wins the lottery, and the chances are probably close to a million to one against. But what you get when you pay your dollar for a lottery ticket is the happy fantasy that you will be rich and happy for the rest of your life.
What you get with your gun is the constant nagging reminder that the bogeyman is gonna get you, and the delusion that having a loaded gun under your pillow will save you.
Exactly, and that is where the NRA excels. Planting fear in the empty heads of weak gullible people.
Corner Stone
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Based on?
Violet
@Beth: Local papers might help things change if they did a “Daily gun violence roundup” on the front page of the paper for a week or a month or a running tally (“75 killed from gun violence since January 1st”). Don’t know if that would help or hurt.
How people aren’t prosecuted for dumb shit like killing their 8 year old while cleaning a rifle is beyond me. That’s just as bad as killing their 8 year old by driving drunk.
Corner Stone
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Why wait? Why not be a leader and dispose of your guns now, before any type of legislation is considered?
gbear
I tested the waters locally to see if there was either community or city government interest in banning gun shows at the city auditorium. I got exactly zero positive interest in the idea in a city that votes at least 70% democratic. No interest in protesting at the shows, no interest in making sure that all transactions were legitimate. My trial balloons couldn’t have sunk faster had they been filled with lead. I was genuinely surprised.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman: They couldn’t even bring forward a vote for aid re: Hurricane Sandy.
Not much chance they’re going to threaten their coffers by bringing a gun control bill to vote.
Mandalay
@Violet:
An excellent idea. It seems that home insurance might cover you, but not necessarily, which probably leaves millions of gun owners with no insurance cover.
Not having adequate medical insurance really does result in people losing their homes. I wonder if anyone ever lost their home because they didn’t have insurance following a civil suit arising from a gun accident?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Corner Stone: Accidental discharge if nothing else. They happen all the time, I have personally witnessed three (including one by a cop) and there is no way to prevent them save by not having a gun, period.
If for no other reason than that, a person carrying a weapon is a danger to every person within hundreds of yards of him or her. Gun injuries, if not fatal, are crippling. Even if there were only ten of these per year that resulted in injury or fatality – and there are hundreds more than that by anyone’s estimate – those are needless deaths and injuries that were caused for no good reason at all.
There are other reasons, I’m sure you can think of a few.
eemom
@El Cid:
That’s absolutely true, though not said very often.
AxelFoley
@El Cid:
Bingo. We’d have gun control legislation in no time.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Corner Stone: Sorry, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that the right wing go first, or at the same time. Not until then, my friend.
Corner Stone
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Why is that? Do you think you could use your firearms to defend yourself against some sort of imagined mass rwnj gun uprising?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@El Cid: The NNRA.
National Negro Rifleman’s Association.
You’d have the population standing outside of every statehouse in the land, weeping, pleading for gun confiscation and outright bans.
Ruckus
@AxelFoley:
Worked with raygun in CA. Black Panthers showed up armed, we got your bingo.
Corner Stone
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Specious, to say the minimum.
Ruckus
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Going to be a little more pc here, NBRA, National Black Rifleman’s Association.
JPL
Not sure if this was mentioned but the paper did apologize and said it was insensitive to post next to an article about Sandy Hook. link
Not sure whether or not it’s okay to post next to other murders.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Don’t know you but I certainly felt condescending posting that.
kathy a.
@Mandalay: hear, hear.
i have a realistic fear that guns in my house make it more likely that somebody gets shot. it’s realistic, because it is factual. (in fact, that is the intended purpose of guns in the house.)
here is my security system: we have dogs who bark, and cats who get nervous; we lock doors at night; our house is not flashy, nor are our cars. we try to get along with the neighbors, and like the local cops. that’s about it!
i sleep with a block of blue ice under my pillow, because the thing most likely to strike in the night is a hot flash. in a pinch, i could throw it at somebody. so far, that hasn’t had to happen.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Violet:
I’m afraid Hollywood is part of the problem here. Consider how many people (including at least one Supreme Court Justice) get their ideas about how the world works from TV shows and movies. The portrayal of guns in TV/movie is overwhelmingly positive as both a totum of archetypal maleness and as the only conceivable solution to overwhelming waves of violent crime. When was the last time you saw the risks of gun ownership (such as accidental shootings) portrayed on TV or the silver screen?
We have a huge cultural problem with guns, and until we collectively develop a more healthy set of cultural attitudes that regard guns realistically in terms of both their pros and their cons and the likelihood of each coming into play, it will be extraordinarily difficult getting any sort of govt action on this front.
Violet
@El Cid:
Someone should start this organization. Call it something like the Black Man’s Protection Gang. Actually start running a few clinics in primarily African American neighborhoods. Publicize it. See how that might change a few things.
El Cid
Mexican American Legally Armed Defense Fund, MALADEF. Or La Raza Con Bala (La Raza, with Bullet).
Mandalay
@Beth:
A while ago I started doing a Google News search for “accidental shooting” every few days.
The sheer number of accidental shootings, and the raw stupidity involved, are astounding. All of them were entirely avoidable, and of course they frequently involve family members or friends.
El Cid
@Violet: Flyers for the Million Armed & Carrying Black Men’s March on Washington.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Ruckus: I’m not interested in feelings but results: I think such an organization, regardless of what you call it, would turn this debate around in a hurry, albeit for the very worst of reasons. But sometimes you gotta go with what’s effective.
No harm no foul.
Wayne
I have a nephew who keeps facebook posting “cute” little pics and slogans regarding how stupid ANY gun control is. So I posted back:
It’s starting to look like 20 dead first graders just isn’t enough for some change. How many will it take 25, 30, 35, or when it is a kid you know? I wonder if Vegas has an over/under bet for the number of dead first graders it will take.
El Cid
@Violet: Remember, you don’t have to really do it. You just make the right think that it’s happening.
Tell them that ACORN has been regrouping and has been organizing covertly around this issue and this is how it would re-emerge.
Tell them that the New Black Panther Party is starting its armed wing.
kathy a.
@Forum Transmitted Disease: maybe y’all forgot that black and brown people armed are frequently called “criminal gangs.” try not to be so cute, eh?
Violet
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Someone pointed out that Hollywood was part of changing attitudes toward drunk driving. That sitcoms and movies started using the phrase “designated driver” and doing storylines where someone had to be the dd and suddenly it was just something people were talking about, deciding who would be the dd, etc.
Hollywood could do the same thing with guns, but these days movies are made for international audiences and violent action movies sell. I think it would be harder to do that drunk driving stuff was in the 80’s.
El Cid
@kathy a.: Sure, but the 2nd Amendment applies to them too, right?
Do they deserve any less freedom that white people?
Why, I foresee an appeal to the NRA to come to the aid of these suffering gun-owning and gun-aspiring Americans, for Freedom.
kathy a.
@kathy a.: i am really not kidding about the gang designation. and that has consequences in a huge number of jurisdictions.
Mandalay
@El Cid:
Not sure how firmly your tongue was in your cheek, but you may well be onto something there…
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/?single_page=true
Violet
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I agree. I’m interested in results as well. I wonder if the African American community would buy into it, knowing that it might lead to a better result for the country. Like they’d be in on the joke. Not that it’s a joke, unless you consider it a joke on wingnuts.
Bobby Thomson
@El Cid: This. One way or the other.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Sly: You may be right, but I think it comes down to something deeper. I believe the right wing collectively seeks authoritarian rule. I think the party is based to a large degree on fear and anger, making a big military and a big gun at home (and a big ol’ hairy pick-up truck with a gun rack and a “If it flies, it dies” window sticker) very appealing. They favor the very patriarchal Christian religion — the more fiery and brimstoney, the better. I’ve heard America represents 5% of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate 25% of the world’s prisoners. God forbid you suggest to a rightwinger that we cut the military budget or police/prison budgets. Can’t you hear them say, “And now there’s a scary black man running the country! I won’t my country back!” I think it’s a party based on fear and anger and resentment.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Violet:
Our problem is that guns and the glamorous delivery of violent death to the deserving bad are truly central to Hollywood plotlines and the way they construct “Good Guy” characters in ways that drunk driving (nor any other social pathology for that matter) ever was. The only thing close which we’ve overcome in the past was the glamorization of smoking. The NRA’s ethos that the only problem with guns is not having enough of them is so deeply embedded in our movie culture I’m not sure where to even start digging.
kathy a.
you’re freaking kidding me. you want black people to go get in people’s faces with guns, to accomplish rational gun laws? have any of you been paying attention the past 60 years or so?
El Cid
@Mandalay: Trust me, I’m well aware of the collective conservative pants-shitting in the wake of Black Panthers exercising their hallowed Freedom To Carry (albeit unarmed) in the streets, which then served as political imagery for the increased generalized violence.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Paul: You’re right about people voting against their own interests! Of course, lobbyists and think tanks are fairly clever and know how to market the horseshit they sell. I mean, who could be against “the right to work”? Who wouldn’t stand for a good “defense of marriage”?
Mandalay
@Violet:
Why in primarily African American neighborhoods? I think it would be much better to have the clinics in Chevy Chase and Beverly Hills and the upper East Side.
Maude
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
There has been a trend in quasi crime novels for women characters to have name brand guns. They are usually in law enforcement and it seems to make these women strong brave and “cool” to have these types of guns.
El Cid
@kathy a.:
(a) This blog is not a part of the Democratic party or whatever other large organization strategy planning sessions
(b) Many things said on this blog by its bloggers and commenters have whatever mix of seriousness and ridiculousness seen fit by said bloggers and commenters at any moment
(c) Even my own joke suggested just pretending that black and brown folk were doing such things.
But it is possible that we are at such a point that suggesting that black people own or want to own firearms will get them in danger of being shot by white people.
However, I see no sign that crazy white right wingers need any excuse whatsoever found on some liberalish blog in order to find reasons to shoot the nearest black kid.
Davis X. Machina
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
People don’t vote against their self-interest, so much as define their self-interest in non-economic ways.
None of us are homo oeconomicus, not really.
Violet
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
I completely agree. I think one way of dealing with that is some sort of national image shift based on “America is not a country of fear” and “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” type statements. I don’t really know how this might be done, but Obama’s “Yes We Can” and “Hope and Change” seeped into the national consciousness. Purposefully including phrases like the above ones and then having surrogates repeat them on cable shows and so forth might help shift things.
After 9/11 America as a country acted out of fear. It’s well past time we snapped out of that. Stand up the Party of Fear and they’ll back down.
El Cid
@Davis X. Machina:
Many of the super-rich come close enough. They cause as much damage as if they were.
karen marie
@geg6: Yeah, isn’t that incredible?
Violet
@Mandalay: Good point!
El Cid
@Violet: But learning to live without basing your life on paranoid fear is scary!
TenguPhule
A lobotomizer is safer and more effective.
Take one Shovel. Add Pickaxe attachment.
Instant Zombie decapitations.
El Cid
@Mandalay: The First Annual African American, Latino, And Asian 2nd Amendment Freedom Celebration to be held in Philadelphia, Mississippi!
Free firearms registrations along with voting registration simultaneously! Bring 2 neighbors and get a coupon for 50% off of any purchase of 40 rounds or more!
Violet
@El Cid: It sure is. But if it’s packaged right it sounds brave and strong. It’s all in the marketing.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Violet: Isn’t it funny though, how people like Sarah Palin actually try to tear down the hope and change approach to things. (“How’s that hope-y, change-y thing workin’ out for ya?” she asked with all the verve and wit of a snotty 6th grade mean girl.)
I agree with you; we would do well to try to spread meaningful messages that uplift and enlighten. I sometimes wish the Olympics would occur more frequently; they make me realize how small the world is, how much we all have in common. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the lunar landings, but the first couple missions really made a lot of people believe in science, believe in intrepid exploration. It sure didn’t hurt to have the wonderful Carl Sagan talking about science in a way that was clear and eloquent. Now (to a degree), the face of the space program has become the Virgin shuttle (with it’s gigantic corporate logo on the bottom of the craft where the masses can see it). (I dig what Branson is doing, but I wish it weren’t quite so self-promotional.)
Richard Fox
I will tell you all why we need to do something. Quite stark, and very tragic. I come home today and my roommate informs me a little kid he knew from birth,13 years old, died yesterday from a gunshot wound to the head. Kid’s friend was playing with a loaded gun, it goes off and strikes this adorable little boy. Now he is dead. Kids having access to loaded guns is not normal, but twisted, wrong. Perverse. Disgusting. I see that little boy in my mind’s eye. So smart. We bought him Nat Geo, he loved science. My roommate is devastated. I am so sad, and feel the utter pointlessness of it all. Lord.
karen marie
@Hungry Joe: Yeah, well, then there are the exceptions to the rule.
gogol's wife
@Richard Fox:
I am so sorry. We have to do something. We have to.
scav
@geg6: Wouldn’t want the special magic of actual free market repercussions to harm the bottom line of the firearms companies, now would we?
Mandalay
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
Not to defend Palin too much, but:
– I thought that was a very effective attack the first time I heard it, though it got old and tired pretty quickly.
– She was not attacking hope and change per se; she was attacking Obama, smartly using his own words against him. I doubt that she came up with the idea.
The sneer is usually a very effective form of attack. Read any BJ thread for examples. Cameron’s sneer at Romney (“Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere”) was absolutely brutal.
Violet
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): Ugh. Palin. She’s a classic Mean Girl. Women who were paying attention know her type. Little wonder women didn’t like her.
I think uplifting messages are a good idea, but for it to reach the Fear crowd, they will have to appeal to America’s greatness. “We are not a nation of fear, but a nation of courage!” “America chooses to lead, not follow on [insert issue here”]. Finding a way to equate strength with moving away from fear might help change our conversation. People buy guns in part because they’re afraid–of burglars, living on their own, coyotes, teenagers, whatever. If they aren’t so afraid, they may not feel they need those guns. Might be a small part of dealing with the problem, but a part nonetheless.
LanceThruster
To a certain extent (within limits), I look at it as not much different as a car ad alongside a story about a motor vehicle death or some other crash fatality story linked to a motor sports events ad. The world goes on.
And that is from someone who right after hearing about the mind-numbingly horrible details from Newtown, was rubbed the wrong way (as in it just felt wrong to me, but only on a level of my personal pet peeves) just by the “Giftmas” season proceding as usual.
They (NFL) cancelled a week or so of football after 9/11, but children slaughtered en masse before the Xmas holiday rates this sort of observance –
http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/12/the-nfl-and-newtown-reflections-on-a-violent-world/
I wrote this in the comments there —
I have a hard time attempting any return to “normalcy” after the horror inflicted on those children and residents/workers in Newtown. Much like the backstory of Gremlins where bad memories are associated with the holiday, I was in tears on Monday driving in hearing Burl Ives sing “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” and on the way home in tears again as they were playing a song I’d never heard, “Baby’s First Christmas.” All the commercials extolling the season of Giftmas seem even more hollow than usual and I do not know how people not even directly affected (other dealing with trauma of the horror subjected upon other human beings including innocent young children) can continue to cope and pretend to carry on (let alone those experiencing the tragedy and loss so intimately).
I cannot tell if it is a weakness in myself or a sign of something worth cultivating. I am both numb and angry. Everything not dealing directly with trying to come to grips with this unbearable loss and addressing this issue in a manner to try to prevent any similar future occurences seems nothing short of obscene to me.
—–
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. ~ H. L. Mencken
Paul
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
And as long as people are too dumb too realize this, the concept of democracy has become a joke.
Pococurante
Stop the madness.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Violet: Yes, I agree that a snappy motto isn’t enough to turn America’s course. Not many Churchill’s or Kennedy’s around these days though. Still, once in a while, a pithy phrase does have an impact. I think of (was it David Frum’s?) “a thousand points of light,” which was uttered by G.H.W. Bush. I think Obama can and does write/cowrite some great material, but half the country is so insanely against him, they can’t hear it. But, yes, we need more than merely pretty words. They must have weight and gravity and something like poetry.
Hungry Joe
@karen marie: Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Please bear in mind that they’re exceptions. And they’re rare. Which means that, meantime, a lot more people — not a few of them kids — get killed via accident, rage, etc; see posts above.
But gosh, it sure is fun to read about how some brave citizen defended himself with a gun. Downright thrilling, it is. Let’s all of us go buy some guns. Then we’ll all be safe.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Paul: America: the best democracy money can buy!
Well, it would appear, statistically speaking, that at least 27% of the country IS hopelessly, irretrievably stupid.
LanceThruster
@LanceThruster:
And for the record as an owner of multiple firearms, I find the focus almost exclusively on firearms rather than the difficulties of protecting oneself from a sucker punch from those with unfathomably ‘broken brains’ a bit too simplistic for my tastes.
It’s along the same lines of the drug war based on the actions of a minority of miscreant psychos. If it was body counts alone, you could make an argument for bringing back prohibition and setting up roadside execution stations for drunk driving deaths or injuries.
Gun manufacturers, gun show organizers, and gun owners do not all share the same scarlett letter. Yes, regulate sales as needed, and address what the 2nd Amendment means down to the last detail (and amend if necessary).
Otherwise, too much of the actions seem like pissin’ in the wind or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
—–
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. ~ H. L. Mencken
LanceThruster
@El Cid:
Yup.
Saint Ronaldus Magnus was CA gov at the time he kept NorCal Black Panthers from legally brandishing shotguns openly without invoking the wrath of the NRA.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@LanceThruster:
Otherwise, too much of the actions seem like pissin’ in the wind or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Yeah, but it makes folks feel good You have to remember that, as the most important feature of anti-gun nuttery, because……the gunzzzzzzz.
J
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Well said!
Jax6655
@Violet:
FTFY
Keith G
@gogol’s wife:
First let me enthusiastically support your call to activism on important issues. Significant regulation will not be handed to us. We must earn it. And then let me ask you about the ways in which gun nuts have restricted your freedom.
Betty Cracker
@LanceThruster: Here’s the thing: Military style weapons and high-capacity mags uniquely weaponize the “unfathomably broken brains” of which you speak. We could — and should — address access to mental health care, etc, though there’s no evidence that would have mitigated the most recent horrors visited upon innocents by a heavily armed loon. But you seem to be advocating a version of “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” And that’s bullshit.
trollhattan
@LanceThruster:
Good times. Also, too, the SLA and cyanide-dipped slugs.
Remember when the NRA tried to save the “Saturday night special” manufacturers by claiming ending them would prevent the poor from acquiring adequate self-defense?
Really good times.
Keith G
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
.
Is there empirical data that I can use in my next conversation with my boss that proves this? She’s a stickler, she is. Put forward a premise that can’t be proven and she’ll smash it right back at ya.
TerryC
@Corner Stone: Based on their ownership and carry of machines that can quickly kill people, d’oh.
If I carried a Molotov cocktail in one hand and a lighter in the other, then I would be a dangerous person—just like carrying a weapon.
J R in WV
Betty,
I grew up in the rural atmosphere of southern West Virginia. My Grandma taught me, and all my cousins and my brother, how to shoot a .22 rifle when we got big enough to hold it up to shoot the dreaded tin can down at the ditch. Maybe 11 or 12?
I’ve enjoyed shooting ever since, and have my great uncle’s .22 desk pistol and his .38 glove box pistol, as well as my friend’s father’s .22 auto and .22 revolver, and my own modern pistols.
Yet, I reject the NRA and their toxic positions regarding gun control. I think people with legal or mental health histories should be screened out of buying firearms. I think people should be trained and tested before getting a license to own a gun.
After my Grandma taught me in the back yard, one summer the parents sent me to a YMCA summer camp, where I was the best shot of my group. Then the military did it all over again when I got drafted. I was handed a 1911 .45 pistol on watch many a night.
Then I wanted to get a CCW permit, mostly just to make it legal to transport weapons from place to place without fear of stepping on a local rule, so I had a full day of training from a Law Enforcement Officer, followed up by target shooting observed by him to make sure we were all capable of handling the weapons.
By my count, that’s 4 different sets of safety and marksmanship training from people with years of experience using guns all the time.
I see no reason everyone shouldn’t have a several days long course in order to be licensed to purchase and own guns. They’re at least as dangerous as cars and trucks!
Now we don’t even have a central database of people who are known to be incapable of making adult decisions because of mental illness. We barely have a database of people with domestic violence charges and restraining orders.
And people are allowed to sell their guns privately to anyone, no matter how goofy they are. Being able to trade guns with someone already holding a CCQ license in one thing – selling a semi-automatic rifle to a nutcase is something else.
‘nough said. I’m done.
Yutsano
@Betty Cracker: The Aurora killer was in psychiatric care. That still did nothing to prevent that horiffic murder because the shrink saw no obvious signs. Mental health care is a definite necessity for a lot of good reasons, but it won’t stop all gun violence.
Corner Stone
@TerryC: Are molotov cocktails legal?
Further, where is the data backing up your argument?
TerryC
@Corner Stone: @Corner Stone:
@TerryC: Are molotov cocktails legal?
Does it matter whether it is legal or not for me to be dangerous with one? I don’t think so.
Further, where is the data backing up your argument?
Do you really need data to know whether or not someone carrying a Molotov Cocktail in one hand and a lighter in the other is dangerous?
TerryC
Btw, “arms” means “weaponry,” I think. Who’s got a concealed weapons permit for an 11″ dirk or a ninja throwing star? Anyone?
Why are *just* guns permitted under the Second Amendment?
Whidby
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
Yep.
The recent teeth-gnashing about gun control is primarily about making proponents feel good about themselves.
I mean so called assault weapons kill about as many people per year in this country as are killed by lightning but for some reason irrational gun control proponents seem to think that an assault weapons ban is the most important public health issue in America.
Sad, really.
Corner Stone
@TerryC: No you fucking chump. I’d like to see some data backing up the statement that people participating in legal CCL are a threat to every person in the world.
Is that simple enough for you?
Whidby
/a@TerryC: Glass bottles, gasoline, rags, and lighters are all legal, when is someone going to do something about that? You know, because CHILDREN.
At a minimum, we should have a national registry…
El Cid
I’m tired of people wanting me to register the concealed dynamite I carry for my protection.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: No reason why you should be made to. None at all.
Hope you don’t drop that lunch pail, but either way, Happy New Year’s.
GMC
@The Dangerman: His dead Mother taught him how to shoot. Who’s the kook?
GMC
I wouldn’t be so quick to take away Americans arms.
They are the last bastion of defense against the criminal government this blog is so vocal about.
Just think what your chance of positive changes are if you have only the ability to cry about being screwed every day by a criminal enterprise.
It’s those guns out that that keep these bastards any kind of honest.
TerryC
@Corner Stone: “o you fucking chump. I’d like to see some data backing up the statement that people participating in legal CCL are a threat to every person in the world. Is that simple enough for you?”
Glad to have an intelligent conversation. Can we? We can start by dropping hyperbole like “a threat to every person in the world.”
@Whudby: “Glass bottles, gasoline, rags, and lighters are all legal, when is someone going to do something about that? You know, because CHILDREN.”
I didn’t say “Glass bottles, gasoline, rags, and lighers”—I said “Molotov Cocktails.”
Neither of you has directly addressed what I wrote. Please try again.
TerryC
I guess dishonest argumentation is what I get for not doing my own research.
As far as I can tell after looking at some authoritative (but perhaps not comprehensive) resources, there is no such thing as a concealed carry permit for anything but handguns.
I wonder why the only lethal object that might be otherwise illegal to own or carry in public that you can get a permit for is a handgun? I might like carrying a good blade? Yet, in Michigan I am restricted to 3″ long or less.
Hard to understand why I can’t get a permit to carry a concealed 9″ blade, for example?
Betty Cracker
@Whidby:
That’s a load of horseshit.
Link to your source? (Links to FreeRepublic don’t count.)
More horseshit.
TerryC
@Corner Stone: “@TerryC: No you fucking chump. I’d like to see some data backing up the statement that people participating in legal CCL are a threat to every person in the world. Is that simple enough for you?”
Tsk, tsk. Resorting immediately to ad hominem, name-calling, swearing, and making up stuff I said.
I did not say that “CCL carriers are a threat to every person in the world.” And you don’t need data to know that someone with a handgun is more dangerous than someone without. I mean, that’s kind of the purpose, isn’t it, self defense?
I’ve had handguns pulled on me 3x in my life, and at least another dozen times had coats or jackets pulled back, or a holster revealed to show a weapon in order to intimidate or threaten me. Yeah, I can be kind of lippy and unafraid. In each instance I backed them off, in one instance I soaked the gun threatener with my garden hose.
However, indisputably, in each of those instances the handgun owner was in fact threatening me. So, yeah, a threat to those around them.
And you’ve managed to slide the argument in a different direction. Why can’t I get a concealed weapons permit to carry a 9″ knife or a taser? Why is it that the most dangerous and quickest to kill weapon can be carried around, but lesser ones can’t?
Jason
@Hungry Joe:
I’m all in favor of requiring securing of weapons, requiring insurance for gun owners, strict liability if they’re misused (barring theft, if they’re properly secured), etc.
I have no use for the NRA and their band of paranoid idiots.
But otherwise, why don’t you let me decide what risks are acceptable for me to take with my own safety, and you can decide what’s okay for you, mmkay?
Government’s functions should be as follows:
1) Protect us from other people;
2) Protect us from errant, unreasonable government itself;
Notice how “protect us from ourselves” isn’t on that list?
If I want to keep a gun or guns in the house to hunt, or defend against possible intruders, or zombies, or some remote possibility of oppressive government, that’s really my business. Not yours.
You mention the remote possibility of a scenario where firearms might prove useful – say, home invasion. Consider if you will that random massacre-type murder is FAR less common than even that.
Cassidy
Horseshit. You live in a society. It is in society’s interest to know whether you have a small arsenal in your home. They deserve to know whether or not they live next door to a mentally unstable individual preparing for the zombie apocalypse, or a mentally unstable individual who needs cool kid validation with their guns, or a mentally unstable person who has more guns than common sense, or a mentally unstable person who really thinks that treason and sedition are appropriate actions because such and such elected people didn’t suck your dick and keave a $20 on the dresser.
Jason
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not your interlocutor, of course; however, while he’s engaging in a bit of hyperbole in the particulars, he’s correct in the generalization he makes.
Of all gun deaths in the US, rifles (of which so-called “assault weapons” like demilitarized AR-15 clones and AK variants are a subset) only account for 4-5% of all non-suicide firearms deaths on average.
For 2011, that number was 323. Lightning deaths for 2011 were 26 nationally.
The number of handgun deaths for 2011, however, was far, far higher, at 6,220. Nearly 20 times higher.
My source is the FBI:
Jason
Okay, that’s weird. The FBI link again:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8
Betty Cracker
@Jason: Even if we confine the definition of “assault weapon” to rifles (which I don’t), how is he “correct in the generalization he makes” given the data you cite? I think asserting that 26 is “about as many” as 323 goes beyond hyperbole and into the realm of what I occasionally call “horseshit.”
LanceThruster
@Betty Cracker:
The bullshit from my perspective is the “law of unintended consequences.” I live in CA. Sen. DiFi helped outlaw “mean” looking weapons while letting other equally lethal weapons slide. I heard on the radio last night (if I got the story right) that DiFi proposed a ban on any weapon that *accepts* a high-capacity magazine. What’s next, only allowing certain “safe?”/”less lethal” bullets?
Again, I’m not the enemy and will support measures that actually address the problem rationally…but perfect protection from what is essentially a “sucker punch” is just not possible. I will gladly forfeit some of my Constitutional rights for others to BE safer, but don’t know how much of my rights I’m willing to let others forfeit on my behalf, in order for them to FEEL safer.
I’m pissed off enough as it is about how much our leadership shit on the Constitution already after 9/11.
Here’s a link where I tackle some of the issues in the comments and devil’s advocate q’s.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/newtown-firefighter-aurora-shooters-u?page=1
If this thread stays active, I’ll cut & paste more of my concerns/observations.
Just because I agree that steps need to be taken doesn’t mean that I’d support every wrong-headed idea that comes down the pike.
LanceThruster
@trollhattan:
I remember the SLA but not the cyanide slugs. Re: Saturday Night Specials, I remember hearing an argument (not necessarily from the NRA) that they were cheap and unreliable (prone to jamming or misfires) and therefore a weapon you’d prefer a criminal to have as opposed to a well-manufactered weapon (as if they could not steal those as well).
Paul in KY
@Mandalay: In KY, I don’t see how they would necessarily know that you owned a gun.
Paul in KY
@Mandalay: They could be. You would need to tell the firemen about the ammo.
If you have enough of it stored, you should notify them up front (before any fire occurs).
A friend of mine was finishing up an AF career & was going to open a gun store. He had about 25,000 rounds of ammo stored in the house. He notified the local fire dept. about that.
Paul in KY
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Enough ammo can be a problem if it burns.
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY:
When was he going to start buying supplies for the gun store?
Paul in KY
@Wayne: The wacko in Australia killed about 40 people back in the 90s. Now take the population of Australia back then & extropolate it to our population, etc. & I think the equivilent massacre here would be 140 people or more.
Corner Stone
@TerryC: Someone said this:
“because those people are a threat to society and every person they come in contact with.”
I replied to that comment and then you directly replied to me. I don’t think I’m the one using hyperbole in this situation. I asked for facts to base this conclusion on, which no one has as yet provided.
You tried to make this an argument about molotov cocktails or other illegal accoutrements, which was clearly nothing to do with my questioning the original assertion.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: He also had alot of actual guns stored there too. He’d been buying for probably 10 years.
Later on, I heard it had went out of business.
LanceThruster
I couldn’t find the comment above to reply to (something about what weaponry was available at the time of the founders) but wanted to mention that the people at the time of the Bill of Rights had the most modern and effective (i.e. lethal) small arms available for the period.
Secondly, I remember reading about the legality of owning a cannon (private ship owners could legally outfit their ships with cannons so at least originally, the right to keep and bear arms seemed to provide for sufficient firepower to be effective).
whidby
@Betty Cracker: Because “assault rifles” are a subset of rifles so the number killed by assault rifles will be far less than the number killed by rifles.
And, historically, about 50-70 people a year are killed by lightning. 2011 had an unusually low number of lighting deaths.
Jason
@Betty Cracker:
Why wouldn’t you confine the definition to rifles? You do realize that rifles aren’t just the very long, high-powered guns that, say, deer hunters use, right?
There IS no other accepted definition of “assault weapon.” It is by definition a lighter, shorter-length (aka carbine) rifle that fires an intermediate-power cartridge AND has full-automatic or multi-round burst capability. The military versions of the M-16 and AK-47 are perfect historical examples. Wiki has a very well-written article on the subject, complete with lots of interesting history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle
Assault rifles tend to be light, have a moderate lethal range, and fire a smaller-caliber round. Most rifles carried by militaries today are assault rifles, chambered in .223 (5.56 x 45mm). The military versions of the M-16 and AK-47 are perfect examples.
The AR-15 and semi-auto lookalike versions of the aforementioned rifles aren’t, strictly speaking, assault rifles.
It’s intellectually dishonest to make up your own definitions for things; moreover, it makes having a discussion very difficult.
Please understand I was engaging in a bit of facetious understatement myself regarding his exaggeration/inaccuracy.
However, he was *broadly* correct in the idea he was trying to get across – namely that rifles generally aren’t a major cause of gun deaths.