There’s obviously been far too much reliance on “it’s a secret” to hide government screw-ups post-9/11, but you know what should be a big fucking secret? The security arrangements for the Obama girls and their schoolmates. Goddam the NRA for bringing that up, and I don’t think Glenn Kessler did the world any favors by reporting that Sidwell Friends doesn’t have armed guards. Those Sidwell kids did not pick the epidural-deadened vagina they were dragged out of by the best OB/GYN in the finest birthing center. Nor did they choose to go to a school that’s a big fat target for crazy fucks with guns. Those Bushmaster man-card carriers don’t give a shit how many goddam stupid Pinnochios Kessler gives the NRA, but their years of playing Call of Duty and masturbating to old war movies makes them think “soft target” when they hear “Quaker school with unarmed guards”. (And why Sidwell couldn’t have just stuck to “no comment” on security is also a good question.)
I’m obviously over-reacting, and the NRA’s ad has been covered here already, but the NRA wrote themselves out of the script when they chose to start talking about the President’s kids. It was a despicable move, and I don’t see how any self-respecting human, gun owner or not, would want to be associated with an organization that would stoop so low.
Update: As Hawes pointed out, their doulas wouldn’t recommend an epidural, so I’m taking out that part.
Hawes
That’s ridiculous. Sidwell kids all were natural birthed, because that’s what the doula said to do.
J
Agreed, though I’m still trying to figure out what the sentence about the birth of Sidwell children is doing in this post.
Hal
The NRA has been a fucking joke in the publicity department, staring with that shit show new conference in which we learned the last time Wayne Lapierre went to the movies was apparently in the early 90’s.
So far we’ve had the guns are black, and black people are black, so discriminating against guns is like discriminating against black people. And hey, how bout them slaves? If only they had been armed they could have killed all white people in the south in order to be free. I’m still shocked about that argument, considering how conservative most members of the NRA are.
Do they have a publicity department? If so, they should be fired and replaced.
The Dangerman
I could see a “no comment” (which translates to “you bet we’re armed) making some of their clientele nervous. Also, I’m assuming they have a very secure set of entrances and exits.
MattF
I was taken aback by the NRA’s attack– and these days it takes quite a lot to take my aback. That said, the locations of the campuses and the policies of the school are no secret– so, yes, Kessler is a fool, but the responsibility here lies with the NRA. Period.
Mandalay
Agreed. Somewhat related, the dumbass newspaper that thought it was a good idea to publish the names and addresses of local gun owners has backed down.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20130118/NEWS02/301180125/A-letter-from-Journal-News-publisher-Janet-Hasson?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Cimg%7CFrontpage%20&nclick_check=1
Fuck the NRA, and fuck that paper too.
If you need to publicize the the private lives of people who have done nothing wrong to advance your cause then you are using the wrong approach.
Raven
It’s a feature, not a bug. Ask Pat Lang.
“The two sides in the “gun war” are just about equally childish and inept. The propaganda use of children by “Abe” Obama is matched by the foolishness of the TV ad that featured the Obama girls’ Secret Service protection.”
SP
My wife has a cousin in Malia’s class, so fuck this whole line of argument from the NRA. They’re a bunch of toddlers seeing how much they can kick and scream to get attention.
Chet
No favors? How so? Everybody knows that saying that a place is a “gun-free zone” means its safer, right?
Linda Featheringill
I’m not a security expert but it looks like Sidwell has just been targeted and something in the way of added protection might be warranted.
But you’re right. I don’t have to know the details and neither does the rest of the public.
Mandalay
Hardly.
If you asked a Catholic school whether they provided condoms in the toilets would you expect them to say “no comment”?
If you ask a Jewish school whether ham sandwiches are on the lunch menu would you expect them to say “no comment”?
If you asked a Quaker school whether they provided armed security would you expect them to say “no comment”?
Sidwell Friends School is a Quaker school. What the heck would you expect them to say?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m guessing that while the school may have no guards, there are some significant security measures in place, as in a slow moving car or someone carrying a suspicious object is going to draw some quick attention and company they don’t see coming.
But Kessler is a major douche.
Amir Khalid
To my knowledge, it’s fairly well known that Sidwell Friends is a Quaker school, so one could make an educated guess that the school’s security officers are not armed. At any rate the school doesn’t seem to keep it a secret that it doesn’t allow guns on campus. As more than President has sent his children there in recent decades, I’m guessing the Secret Service has worked out a satisfactory protocol for protecting them without bringing firearms on campus. So it might not be that big a deal that people know the school has a no guns on campus policy even for that agency.
the Conster
@Chet:
Because everybody knows a neo-nazi skinhead went and killed a bunch of sikhs at worship because the temple was a gun-free zone, and that a mentally disturbed young man went to where a Congresswoman was in a supermarket parking lot and shot a bunch of people, only because the supermarket was a gun free zone.
Napoleon
The Obama kids aside that NRA ad is still the incoherent rant of your typical Fox watcher. What does Obama raising taxes on the rich have to do with guns?
ericblair
Guess this is what epistemic closure looks like. These loons have lived in their own magical fantasy world long enough that they don’t know how nuts they look to the normals.
The best argument for gun control is having another spittle-flecked red-faced anger management class dropout on the teevee babble on about how we all need moar gunz to protect us from the gubmint, and how they’ll shoot anybody who looks at them funny.
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
Since when is packing a gun in public a private matter?
Tomolitics
@Amir Khalid: This. The Secret Service may not be carrying guns on the inside but they must control the access points, surveil the perimeter and have armed agents and a fireteam at the ready. I would think this would be the only logical workaround for what appears at first blush to be a very soft target vis a vis the president’s (any president’s) family attending the school. At least I sure as hell hope that’s the case.
gogol's wife
@the Conster:
Chet is an NRA troll. In a minute he’ll tell you he doesn’t own any guns. But for some reason it’s the only topic he appears on this blog to discuss, and he’ll do it for hours on end.
Mandalay
@Amir Khalid:
Exactly, and it is to be expected that the school would affirm that it is not violating its core beliefs by employing armed guards.
It’s interesting to see that mistermix is actually buying in to the paranoia.
the Conster
@gogol’s wife:
Another tiny dicked loser, then. Gotcha.
HRA
As a parent for some unknown reason other than mothering, I would have to qualm my fear every time my children went to school. I am sure there are parents out there who have the same experience especially now after the Sandy Hook massacre. This NRA BS and Kessler surely ratcheted the fear to the nth degree.
The idiocy of it all blankets our lives and I am sorely tired of its existence.
Three-nineteen
Your point is completely obscured to me because I can’t get past the fact you think epidurals are 1) bad and 2) a luxury item used by the rich.
bleh
Well now, wait a minute.
Nobody said the Secret Service detail doesn’t carry guns.
And Sidwell said their security officers don’t carry guns, but they certainly didn’t say they don’t have ready access to them.
I’m quite certain they’ve thought about these things. I actually would guess their biggest worries would be the children of foreign diplomats and expats, some of whom come from countries where kidnapping for political reasons is less uncommon than in the US.
All that said, the NRA really did cross a line here. The Teatard Frankenstein is finally beginning to eat itself.
sb
@Three-nineteen: That had me scratching my head as well.
different-church-lady
Good rant, I give it three and a half Pierces.
TooManyJens
@Three-nineteen: Yeah, what the fuck was that about? It’s like some kind of “Eve ate the apple, so all women must suffer the pain of childbirth” moralizing.
“Epidural-deadened vagina?” Jesus, mistermix. Get over whatever issue with women made you write that.
kc
Huh?
Mark S.
I don’t understand how the NRA has so much power. Even my dad, an avid hunter and right wing loon, thinks the NRA is crazy.
kc
Huh?
Mandalay
@Roger Moore:
I don’t understand the relevance of the point you are making.
azrev
@Three-nineteen: Amen.
The Other Chuck
@bleh: They’re Quakers, I think it’s safe to say they don’t go in for armed guards in any fashion. That said, the Secret Service doesn’t work for them, and they’re probably bristling with armament just outside the gates.
Oh and that epidural thing is not just a little bit creepy, it’s not even good sentence construction. The OB/GYN picked it did they?
rammalamadingdong
@Linda Featheringill: This. The NRA blew the dog whistle that Obama’s kids are targets now. Not sure why everyone keeps debating the “finer point” of gun ownership.
RepubAnon
@the Conster: Using the security arrangements at the school that the President’s children in an attack ad would seem to be something that might incite some John Hinckley wanna-be crazy dude to target the President’s children. If you have no morals, decency, or honor – and thus no limits on your actions – consider this: how would you react if the New York Times had reported on the security arrangements at the schools that George Bush’s daughters attended?
Davis X. Machina
@rammalamadingdong: Extremism in the defense of extremism is no vice.
aimai
@Roger Moore:
I agree with this. Would the newspapers have gotten into trouble for publishing the names of property owners? That’s public information too and its frequently published. Tax payers? Public. Political affiliation? Public. Charitable and political donations? Frequently public. Gun owners were upset because they have discovered that being asshole gun owners isn’t popular and that other gun owners (criminals, burglars) want what they have.
Joey Maloney
@Amir Khalid: I’m guessing the Secret Service has worked out a satisfactory protocol for protecting them without bringing firearms on campus.
Yeah, I’m guessing it involves the Secret Service bringing firearms on campus.
Mandalay
@Raven:
Yes, Obama using kids as props is obnoxious and unnecessary, but is hardly as bad as the NRA ad.
TooManyJens
@The Other Chuck:
It’s not even good anatomy. An epidural doesn’t “deaden the vagina,” WTF.
Chet
@the Conster: Well, yeah. It was precisely because those places where gun-free zones. Jared Loughner had been gunning for Rep. Giffords for months; you think it’s a coincidence that when he decided to strike, it was in a gun-free zone? You think it’s a coincidence that every mass-casualty shooting since 1950 has happened in one?
aimai
But I’d also like to point out that there’s safety in numbers which is afforded gun owners not afforded the President’s daughters. If the NRA had stuck to “All the Millionaires in the country have armed security–why can’t you” I think that would actually have been both a fair cop and not at all problematic from the point of view of any individual millionaire/politician. It would not increase their danger at all–its hardly news that the children of millionaires and politicians might be desirable targets, at least its not news to organized terrorists. The problem arose in targeting specific people (the girls) and broadcasting resentment and paranoia to an unknown number of paranoid and hostile crazy people (the NRA’s membership and people susceptible to such appeals). How fast we forget that Sarah Palin “targeted” Gifford and mysteriously an unaffiliated nutcase also became fixated on her. The NRA is swimming in a sea of lunatics any one of which may have a psychotic break or just get pissed off enough to kill someone. But neither the NRA nor its membership will ever accept responsibility for creating a climate of mass hysteria and anger that results in intentional and unintentional deaths.
Emma
@rammalamadingdong: Not to mention why so many people in this thread “can’t get past the epidural thing” to understand that the NRA has painted a target on a private school because the President’s daughters go there.
the Conster
@RepubAnon:
The NRA would never ever ever have made an ad about Bush’s daughters to make them a target, so whatever the NYT reported about them, which I remember stories about them partying everywhere from east coast to west, didn’t make any difference.
The problem isn’t the reporting about the security, it’s the NRA and its refusal to accept any responsibility for its role in making sure its members are all riled up 24/7, have unlimited access to arsenals and providing a focus for all of their rage, fear and resentment.
the Conster
@Chet:
So, what about Fort Hood?
aimai
@Chet:
It wasn’t a gun free zone. In fact there were people there with guns.
hoodie
@The Other Chuck:I would imagine there’s a shitload of video surveillance and an armed team immediately outside the school grounds ready to respond if anything looks weird. I hope that, after reading the Kessler piece, some nut doesn’t take it upon himself to provide the missing armed security like the bozos “testing” school security, or will show up outside the grounds with his AR-15 “exercising his rights,” like those nutjobs in Portland. That’s probably illegal in DC, but some of these guys are so whacked they’ll do it anyway and argue that the gun laws in DC are a violation of the 2nd amendment. On balance, although I don’t have much use for Kessler, this debunking of the NRA ad may be worth it in showing just how pathological the NRA has become. I can’t imagine that the Villagers are too keen about them dragging their kids into this freak show.
TooManyJens
@Emma: I’m not going to apologize for being bothered by the misogyny of that line. If mistermix wanted to focus on the NRA’s irresponsibility (which I think we all agree about), he could have left Sidwell Friends kids’ mothers and their bodies out of it.
sb
@Chet: Like Ft. Hood?
sb
@Emma: There are others who understand the NRA has put a target on the private school and also can’t understand what the hell is mix is talking about with the epidural thing.
LosGatosCA
@Davis X. Machina:
ExtremismFull on hate and total crazy in the defense of extremism is novicebug, it’s a feature.FTFY
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
My mistake. I misremembered exactly what the newspaper had done and thought they were releasing less information (i.e. only people who had concealed carry permits) than they actually had (i.e. all gun permit holders).
matt
@TooManyJens:
plus, the modern epidural (free in Canada) numbs the cervix (or maybe the uterus?), not the vagina.
JCT
@Chet: That Safeway parking lot is not a gun-free zone. In fact there was a guy there who was carrying and decided not to shoot because it was unclear as to who the shooter was.
Lynn Dee
“Epidural deadened vagina” they were “dragged out of”?
Could’ve done without that. I feel like I’m being “dragged” toward an opinion with that particular choice of words — I’m just not sure what one.
cmorenc
@Mark S.:
1) The financial resources the NRA has at its political disposal are disproportionate to the size of its membership, thanks to their service as the lobbying arm of the firearms industry.
2) Like any well-organized group of passionate single-issue voters, the electoral power of the NRA is disproportionate to its membership size. If the organization can consistently sway two to five percent of the electorate in any given race to vote *against* any candidate who crosses them, that’s enough to make a borderline “safe” race competitive, or vice-versa.
3) The NRA benefits from having an undeserved benign favorable image as a gun-safety / sportsman-hunter supporting organization at the grassroots level among voters who aren’t very high-information. Note the disconnect between the NRA leadership and its grassroots members on many issues; it’s doubtful a significant portion of its membership understand how unreasonably fanatical its leadership is, in part because of how successful the NRA leadership has been at convincingly communicating misleading propaganda to the membership.
I sure hope NRA’s recent public rants are changing factors 2 and 3 for the better, as more people’s eyes are getting opened to the real character of the NRA leadership and being less favorably impressed by them and their propaganda.
Chet
@the Conster: Army bases are gun-free zones. Have you ever been to one? Try to bring your personal firearm on base and you’re looking at Federal charges. If, for some incomprehensible reason you need to be armed on a base in the middle of Texas, the Army will decide whether you need to be, they’ll issue you the gun when they do, and you’d damn well better be able to account for every single round of issued ammunition when you turn it back in.
Davis X. Machina
@hoodie:
Which Portland, though? ‘Cause it happened in Maine, and in Oregon, about two weeks apart.
Sea to shining sea, baby.
Chet
@aimai: Yes, like the shooter. Don’t be dense.
Roger Moore
@the Conster: @aimai: @sb:
DNFTT.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mandalay:
What part of “public record” did they not understand?
Perhaps public records laws in the past worked on the principle of security through obscurity, but that’s the past. Do you think gun ownership should be a matter of public record or not? If not, then change the public records laws.
Greg
@Chet:
Gee, how amazing that every single one since 1950 happened in an area that wasn’t even defined before the Gun Free Zone Act of 1990.
Clearly the solution here isn’t an assault weapon ban, but an assault time machine ban.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chet:
You mean like Fort Hood?
sb
@Chet: So your definition of a gun-free zone is any area where private citizens are not allowed to have guns? That includes police stations, right?
Mandalay
@TooManyJens:
This.
The wierdos on this site are not restricted to the comments section (which is part of its appeal I suppose).
Napoleon
@Chet:
It’s been well reported that others had guns there and in fact one person nearly shot an innocent person because he mistook him for the shooter.
pseudonymous in nc
@Chet:
Yes. Now fuck off. This aims to be a dumb-free zone, and you’re packing dumb.
SiubhanDuinne
@sb: oh, sorry, YBMTI.
the Conster
@Chet:
So, that’s why Hassan was there then? He chose Fort Hood instead of going to the local school, because everyone knows that Fort Hood is a gun free zone? LOLWUT?
SiubhanDuinne
@the Conster: And you got there even firster!
rammalamadingdong
@Emma: I think they put the targets on the girls. The school is just a convenience.
sb
@Roger Moore: Ah. Didn’t know Chet was a troll. I just scrolled up and saw someone (forgot who) suggest Chet only comments on the gun threads and always about this topic.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Chet: Having….heh, shot yourself in the foot, so to speak, with saying that the attempted assassination of Giffords occurred in a “gun-free zone” when it in fact occurred in a place where people were not only allowed to conceal carry but did so, and were unable to respond properly (and almost shot some innocents) because they couldn’t tell who the real shooter was, a situation that will come up every time in real life, you now try to distract from having made the anti-gun crowd’s argument for them by using Foot Hood as an example.
Your agenda is quite obvious; your methods deeply flawed, your arguments – worthless. Back to basic training for you.
sb
@SiubhanDuinne: No need to apologize. I think I’ve been beaten to the point at least three times this thread alone! :)
sb
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I’m going to consider this comment a wrap re: Chet’s worthless arguments.
aimai
@Chet:
That is incorrect. He did not go to shoot gifford because it was a gun free zone–he went because she was OUT IN PUBLIC meeting the public. There was at least one other person there who ended up tackling him who was also carrying a gun.
Mandalay
@pseudonymous in nc:
Yes and no. People are conditioned to think that the only possibilities are public and private, but things don’t have to be that way.
Yes, if I want to know whether my neighbor has a gun then I think I should be able to find out through public records.
No, I do not think it is appropriate to pull all public records of gun ownership, and publish the results in a newspaper.
I don’t see those two positions as inconsisent.
El Caganer
@aimai: Exactly. Remember how much wailing and baling the Islamophobes did when Breivik called them out as his heroes?
mistermix
@TooManyJens: It was an attempt to play on the money spent and attendant class issues around childbirth, not to diss the vagina, which is an amazing organ, nor to diss epidurals, which are one of the 20th century’s great innovations. If I had it to write over again, I’d probably strike the “epidural deadened” part, (and I just struck it) because it detracts from the rest of it. And I’d re-word the whole thing for more clarity. But, hey, I’m not the world’s greatest writer. If I were, I’d be writing books or at least moving picture photoplays.
Is the statement that “you can’t pick which vagina you’re dragged out of” offensive too? I mean, kids do generally come out of a vagina, and they don’t fall out, they generally need to be dragged out. I’ve seen it happen, actually, and it’s pretty miraculous. It’s just the frank truth of the matter.
And yeah I could have left the Sidwell Friends’ mothers out of it but the point is the kids didn’t pick them, so it’s hard to leave them out completely. I realize I tend towards the crude, but I don’t try to be offensive.
aimai
@Lynn Dee:
I agree that that remark was creepy–speaking as a vagina american who has given birth both with and without an epidural. I also don’t get why it implies that the having of an epidural is, in some sense, distinctivly upper class and therefore elitist or a sign that the families are used to being pandered to? Epidurals are given to laboring women because labor is painful. Allowing women to escape their labor pains and give birth without agony was actually a revolutionary act–women have been given something to dull the pain only since god damned queen victoria insisted on being given laudanum against the custom of the time which was to consider labor pains fair punishment for Eve’s sin.
ETA I think it was the new chemical “ether” not laudanum. Also ETA to say I cross posted with Mistermix. I usually like your posts but you really let your desire to turn a phrase get away with you. It was a weird, creepy, sick image–the vagina isn’t “deadened” with an epidural and, more importantly, the woman is wholly conscious and in control of her labor. Your imagery is out of whack with whatever the fuck youthought you were saying.
MomSense
And did it ever occur to the a$$holes at the NRA that the first family do not need to be lectured about gun violence as there is no other family who receives more credible threats?! Every single day they go about their lives with grace under incredible pressure KNOWING that there are threats against them.
To incite anger at their daughters is one of the most despicable things I have ever seen. The NRA is nothing more than a hate group at this point.
gogol's wife
@Mandalay:
I basically agree with you. But I find it interesting that even the liberal NYTimes focused (in opinion articles by Bill Keller and Carr) on the outing of the poor gun owners, without mentioning the ridiculous outpouring of hatred and death threats against the employees of the newspaper, even people who had nothing to do with the decision to publish the addresses. This was covered in a news article inside the paper, but the prominent position was given to Keller’s and Carr’s opinion pieces, both on the same day.
Chet
@Napoleon:
And yet it was a “gun-free zone.”
I’m not a troll, BTW. Trolling would constitute agreeing with Mastermix that it’s reckless of the Sidwell Friends school to announce their security policy to every potential assailant in the US, and then disagreeing with me that it’s reckless of any school to announce their security policy to every potential assailant in the US.
Mandalay
@mistermix:
When you are in a hole (no pun intended), stop digging.
Chet
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I’m not the one who brought up Ft. Hood.
And you’re simply factually incorrect; La Toscana Village mall is a “gun-free zone.”
Tokyokie
@cmorenc: The stint in which they used Charlton Heston as a front man also helped them attain an undeserved respectability. Heston was a figurehead, nothing more, but because he’d one been a major Hollywood leading man, he drew attention and legitimacy to the organization and kept the spotlight off LaPierre as he converted the group into a conduit for hefty GOP campaign contributions from armaments makers.
sb
@Chet: Oh, is that what you were doing? I thought you were suggesting that a gun-free zone was where mass shootings were most likely to occur.
And ‘Mastermix’? Really?
Yutsano
@Chet:
Jeebus people. Tells. Always watch for the tells. Anyone who treats federal as a proper noun always has huge wingnut tendencies.
@Mandalay:
What has been seen cannot be unseen. :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Has a single high-profile member of the NRA resigned? There was/is a decent human being inside of Poppy Bush, buried under all the self-serving, cowardly and ruthless ambition.
I was looking at the their board the other day, wondering if there was anyone who might show a flicker of decency. The only names I recognized were Tom Selleck, Dan Boren, and… Larry Craig.
mistermix
@Mandalay: I’m deeply offended by your use of the word “hole” in that comment. The “(no pun intended)” part does not excuse the obvious misogyny embodied in your use of that cliche in this context.
Chet
@the Conster: Well, no. He went to Ft. Hood because he worked there. And when he opened fire, trained soldiers had no way to respond except to throw furniture at him, because it remains against Federal law for them to be armed on an Army base.
Hassan wasn’t taken down until the armed MP’s arrived, after 43 people had already been shot.
cmorenc
NRA membership is relatively inexpensive ($35 per year), roughly equivalent to the cost of a magazine subscription focusing on a specialty topic of interest, and with your membership you also get a subscription to your choice of “American Hunter” or “American Rifleman”. This is what the NRA website says about “American Hunter”:
I think you can see part of the problem here: to the much of the grassroots, the NRA presents itself predominately as a sportsman/hunter organization which provides training in safe use of firearms, although you cannot miss the obsessiveness with defending firearms per se if you visit the NRA website (the dramatic music is a cue right-off the bat).
QUERY: Would the sounder strategy to counter the NRA’s influence in politics be to hope the national leadership ends up discrediting itself by its recent string of offensively over-the-top public displays (e.g. the Obama kids ad) and fanatical anti-regulation advocacy counter to the majority views of its own grassroots membership, or would it be a viable option for progressives to join and form an opposition from within? Most progressives don’t object to gun ownership for legitimate hunting or self-protection per se, and so this tactic wouldn’t necessarily be the sort of hopelessly contradictary undertaking that e.g. pro-choice advocates joining an anti-abortion organization would be. The counter-argument is that unless progressives joined in sufficient numbers to become an effective counter, joining would only reinforce the apparent strength of the NRA, and thereby the current fanatical zealots leading the organization. In any event, it makes an ideal case study for whether a takeover from within might be a feasible vs hopeless strategy, as opposed to seeking to discredit it from outside.
Chet
@sb: I thought you were suggesting that a gun-free zone was where mass shootings were most likely to occur.
Since 1950, gun-free zones are the only places where mass shootings have occurred.
And ‘Mastermix’? Really?
Sorry. Mental bleedover from my day job, I guess.
TooManyJens
@mistermix: I appreciate your response. I think you’d have done best to stick with “those kids didn’t pick the families they were born into.” Issues around childbirth really have nothing to do with it, not to mention that you don’t understand them very well.
rda909
@aimai: The NRA has become so powerful by bullying people for decades with the fear of death, and unbelievably, they’re using the President’s young daughters in their latest threats. I still can’t quite believe this is a serious topic of conversation on TV news and in the papers. Shows how far The Crazy has overtaken everything in our politics, enabled by the media every step of the way. Thankfully, four more years of President Obama should do a lot of fix this.
scav
I can’t decide if chet sees his shooty stick more as a dewy-eyed virginal blond, innocent of all possible dangerous action, surrounded by scary things without so much as a cream-puff to defend herself (insert chet in white-steed action here!) or as ethereal being being unjustly crucified for the salvation of all humankind until we be so humble as to accept his holy and all-embracing goodness and dominion over all. Maybe a warm and friendly Hallmark puppy, only capable of harming others by over-enthusiastic licking?
sb
@mistermix: Please, tell us you’re not sarcastically feigning outrage to suggest Too Many Jens, Aimai and others were wrong to express concern if not outrage at your bizarre comments about epidurals?
mistermix
@TooManyJens: So you’re saying I’m in station 0 fully effaced but not dilated when it comes to my understanding of childbirth? And that reading my stuff is like looking at a mucous plug and/or a bloody show?
Mandalay
@mistermix:
Good. Now get back to posting drivel.
gogol's wife
@mistermix:
Okay, now you’re being kind of a troll. I’m surprised, I must admit.
Corner Stone
These gun threads get weirder with each recycle.
TooManyJens
@mistermix: I’m saying that if you are portraying epidurals as something contemptible and the province of the upper classes, your grasp of the social aspects of childbirth is weak. And your grasp of the gender aspects of why your comment was a bad idea is even weaker.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Mixing in strange childbirth metaphors sure doesn’t help.
sb
@Chet: No sweat on the typo, though ‘a’ is a long way from ‘i’ so I thought you were being sarcastic. Hell, I should apologize for calling you on it. Typos happen.
But, again, if where Giffords was shot is classified by you as a ‘gun free’ zone and a miltary base is classified as a ‘gun free’ zone, then wouldn’t every place on the planet where there isn’t a current war happening be a gun-free zone, up to and including police stations?
I’m sensitive to this because of the suggestion that schools would be safer if there was a gun on campus. I’ve been involved with education for 20 years, the last 8 as a classroom teacher. I say this without a trace of exaggeration–there are colleagues and all of my students that I would literally take a bullet for and knowing all of them, there is not a one of them I would trust with a gun, including yours truly. The “good guy with a gun is needed to beat bad guys with a gun” argument is, to my mind, crazy.
mistermix
@sb: Well, I’m half serious and half joking. Serious: If someone’s going to criticize my choice of words, then using “hole” in the context of talking about female sexuality is pretty tin-eared, no matter if you disown it. Joking: the overwrought tone.
the Conster
@Chet:
Maybe you should ask yourself why military installations think it might be a good idea that everyone there isn’t walking around with their guns loaded.
TooManyJens
@the Conster: I guess soldiers just aren’t as responsible with their guns as J. Random Patriot.
Mandalay
@mistermix:
You are such a fucking phony. Just admit your error and move on.
ericblair
@sb:
I like this argument. I hope that the gun nutz continue to point out that a) even the US Fuckin Army thinks it’s a bad idea to let people walk around with firearms wherever they please, because most people don’t know that; and b) it’s only because the Army is a bunch of weenie peaceniks and/or fascist oppressors who don’t know anything about guns.
TooManyJens
Speaking of things people shouldn’t write about women’s bodies, at least mistermix’s line wasn’t as bad as this one I just read: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-worst-story-intro-you-will-ever-read
Holy fucking shit.
(Edited for trigger warning. Seriously, it’s bad.)
Betty Cracker
@Chet: Can you provide any evidence for your claim that the parking lot of the shopping center where Rep. Giffords was shot is a gun-free zone?
kc
@mistermix:
Dude. Stop. Step away from the computer.
sb
@TooManyJens: And that was written by a woman? Jeebus.
sb
@TooManyJens: And that was written by a woman? Jeebus.
max
but their years of playing Call of Duty and masturbating to old war movies makes them think “soft target” when they hear “Quaker school with unarmed guards”. (And why Sidwell couldn’t have just stuck to “no comment” on security is also a good question.)
Well, I personally don’t like Call of Duty (too rigid – Medieval Total War or Crusader Kings is more my thing) and I’m not really seeing the masturbating to Das Boot, so I guess I’m OK even if I do like war movies and war games. Now that that’s out of the way, I had exactly the same thought when I saw everyone going around saying Sidwell doesn’t have armed guards. Really, I don’t care what the NRA thinks enough to feel the need to broadcast that fact to win the day or the point or whatever.
They should probably have some Secret Service dudes over there for a couple of months.
max
[‘Otherwise it’s begging for a replay of that episode where the elderly Nazi dude attacked the Holocaust museum.’]
Yutsano
@TooManyJens: Uhh…wow. No wonder Comrade Mary rants about the Sun.
Denali
@Chet,
The shooter in Webster, New York was not operating in a gun free zone and was quite intent on taking out as many people as possible.
gbear
@Chet:
Do you think it’s a coincidence that when any of these things happened it was because some moron was using a gun to shoot bullets into a group of innocent random citizens?
Christ. Turn your logic right-side up.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, mistermix seems to have opted for the brown acid instead of coffee this morning.
mistermix
@Yutsano: That’s the Star, the “liberal” paper in Toronto. (Sun is conservative, Globe and Mail is center-left, roughly).
Mandalay
@kc:
Very sound advice.
dr. luba
Epidurals are quite a small-d democratic thing–80% of women give birth with epidurals, at least in our hospital.
In the early days of epidural, there was a lot of push-back from the anesthesia department (they didn’t like having to come in at night to give them) and insurance companies (they didn’t want to pay for them, so considered them elective procedures). The wealthier patients would get their epidurals, but many of the poorer patients would forgo the epidural rather than risk hundreds of dollars in anesthesia fees.
Things have changed. It was pointed out by medical ethicists and others that obstetric pain is real and severe, and that it is unethical to refuse pain relief to laboring patients. Insurance companies were forced to cover epidurals. Now they are routine. Pretty much any patient in labor who requests one, and has no obstetrical or medical contraindications, will get one.
And why shouldn’t they? If we have the ability to ameliorate pain, without casing harm to the patient, shouldn’t we do it?
El Caganer
@gbear: Guns don’t kill people, gun-free zones kill people? WTF?
Mnemosyne
@Chet:
Wait, you think a supermarket in Arizona is a gun-free zone? They have open carry in Arizona, you nitwit. You can legally carry your gun into a fucking bar.
There were at least two people with guns at the scene, but they weren’t able to shoot Loughner because he was in the middle of a group of civilians and they didn’t want to accidentally shoot anyone else.
Which is kind of the point — Loughner knew there was a good chance that other people there would be carrying guns and he didn’t care. He knew the element of surprise would work in his favor.
quannlace
For a Randolph Scott oater plot-line, it’s great. For gun safety policy, it’s nonsense.
Mnemosyne
@mistermix:
The only person I know who had a doula was a graduate student at UCLA who was able to have one through her student health insurance.
So, yes, you’re unnecessarily being a dick about women and clearly don’t know a fucking thing about the “class issues” involved in childbirth.
Short Bus Bully
Good post, but this was some serious non-germaine, left field, randomized, useless bullshit. What the fucking fuck does this even mean?
My wife had an epidural with two of our three and the hospital we went to was pretty nice as well. Is that good or bad? Is she a real woman or some kind of spoiled yuppie hippie?
Yutsano
@mistermix: Oops. It got turned in my brain. Need coffee. :)
Comrade Mary
@TooManyJens: That’s Rosie Fucking DiManno, associate of Christy Fucking Blatchford. Set both of them to SHUN and IGNORE.
I’ve read about the case: no, the doctor was not raping her during surgery (not that raping her behind a screen while in the OR is less than fully fucking evil, either). If you’re going to be deeply offensive in an attempt to be pithy, don’t add factual error to it.
kc
@TooManyJens:
Good God, that’s awful. Someone needs to get fired for that.
trollhattan
When McClatchy
stolelured Jack Ohman away from the Oregonian, they got an editorial writer along with a cartoonist. Today’s paper:Read the whole thing.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/19/5125288/editorial-notebook-why-im-one.html#storylink=cpy
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano: It wasn’t even the Sun, man. It was the Star, which is supposed to be the mushy moderate paper for everybody. These two women have infested every paper in the city over the past couple of decades. Feh.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
This one seems not so bright. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Of course he can’t. First he climbed in his time machine so he could try to retroactively apply a 1990 law to every mass shooting since 1950 (managing to be completely wrong about Charles Whitman, you will not be surprised to hear), then he tried to claim that the Giffords shooting happened in a “gun-free” zone despite the fact that there were at least two people there who were carrying guns.
Apparently Chet’s definition of “gun-free zone” is “any place where people are not walking around with a loaded, safety-off gun in their hand and pointing it at random passers-by.”
Marc
@J: Yeah, I’m glad we’re focusing on the real villains here–the Sidwell Friends moms.
Snarla
It’s not calling an area a gun-free zone, it’s the fact that the zone is actually free of guns. Fewer kids get shot that way, typically.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
This, too. It isn’t private at all, and in my state when you are granted a CCW license your name is printed in that week’s legal ad by the county who awarded you the license.
So shortly after I got mine, a neighbor said “Packin’ now, huh?” to which I said, “no, not at the moment, but I could be.”
He was using a very dry sense of humor, and knows that I have guns. He has them too, to shoot deer and the like.
Nothing private about it, tho. Here that’s by law, and I’m amazed it isn’t everywhere.
My next door neighbors were in my class, which was NOT taught by an NRA guy but by a Deputy Sheriff with many years of duty behind him. Much preferable to a NRA guy in my book.
I am sure the President’s kids are as safe at school as they are everywhere else, and I hope that’s good enough. I can’t even think of them being a target, but I know that crazy people don’t think like other folk do… so I’m scared for them a little bit.
I worked hard to see President Obama re-elected, and am as happy as I can be that he has been, but I’m still scared for him and his family, because there are people out there who are sick in their heads.
Mandalay
@pseudonymous in nc:
Well I am surprised to see that is exactly what they have done in New York, though the change looks like a backward step…
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/NY-gun-control-law-limits-access-to-permit-info-4207942.php
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Chet:
Chet is the guy in the second panel.
Yutsano
@Comrade Mary: Yup. Derp moment.
taylormattd
is there something evil regarding epidurals about which I should know?
Certified Mutant Enemy
@taylormattd:
At one time, some Christians apposed anything that relieved pain during childbirth because the Bible says women are supposed to be in pain during childbirth…
xian
debate: troll :: wrestle : pig
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano:
A derp moment for any paper to hire either of these women? Totally.
Corner Stone
@J R in WV: I’m not sure I understand the rationale behind this. Unlike property ownership, you don’t pay ongoing civil taxes on guns owned. And unlike publicly reported charitable or political donations the gun owner doesn’t interact in the public sphere of policy.
It’s unclear to me why this should be public knowledge.
Jay C
@cmorenc:
For any appreciable number of people who think that “counter[ing] the NRA’s influence in politics” is a worthwhile goal, I think another way to go about it might be the promotion of a rival, saner gun-owners’ organization – one not so inextricably tied to Republican politics, gunmakers’ profits and absolutist wingnut ideology: one that would be able to take the lead in promoting actual (and reasonable)gun safety measures while remaining free of the connections to the rabid paranoia which it it all too easy to tie the NRA.
The NRA is too well financed to ever “go away”, but isolating and limiting its extremist influence is, I think, certainly doable: and promoting an alternative organization to provide a voice for those “sane and responsible gun-owners” who we are told (probably truthfully) are the large majority of firearms owners in this country would be a good start.
IIRC, there already IS a “alternative” shooting-sports org out there which has always taken a less-wingnutty approach to gun-control issue, but I don;t recall it’s name; only that it has long been overshadowed by the NRA’s numbers, organization and money.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay C: the problem is that a substantial number of sane and responsible gun owners have shown a tendency to believe slippery-slope arguments suggesting that any attempt to reel in insane and irresponsible gun owners won’t stop there, and/or culture war arguments about how Teh Librulz want to eliminate all guns because they think owning guns for any reason makes a person primitive and rednecky.
Yutsano
@taylormattd: Genesis. Pain of childbirth is the collective punishment for Eve’s disobedience for eating the apple. Ancient Jewish stories can be rather dramatic like that.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Read any gun thread here and it’s no mystery how that belief propagated.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I do think that there’s a widespread feeling among right-of-center people that liberals just want to mess with their lives, with gun control on the same spectrum as spiral light bulbs, anti-smoking ordinances, and mandatory recycling.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
Here in California, you can request to have your driver’s license address be a PO box, in large part because of the murder of Rebecca Schaeffer by an obsessed fan.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with concealed carry owners asking to not have their addresses published because some of them actually are in fear for their lives and it would put them in danger if their addresses were published.
But, for me, that assumes that the state they live in is one of the ones that makes you go through a lot of hoops to get a concealed carry license, like New York or California. In a state where any idiot can get one just by filling out a form with no training required, I would want a lot more documentation before they were allowed to withhold their address from public records.
Lojasmo
@Chet:
The safeway parking lot where Giffords was NOT a gun free zone you mindless fuckwit. There was a CCW holder on the scene, even.
Will you kindly shut the fuck up?
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@FlipYrWhig:
I think the pushback at BJ in response to ACA and it’s shortcomings went something like this…”Hey you have to begin with baby steps. Just like Medicare, the growth toward
single payer will see those changes over time”
Some see GC’s modest beginnings the same way. I think it’s called ‘Mission Creep”.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mandalay: So, you’re ready to restrict first amendment rights about public records to preserve the feelings of people exercising their second amendment rights who wish they weren’t public. Right.
Mandalay
@FlipYrWhig:
Right. The New York paper that foolishly chose to publish the names and addresses of local gun owners is a prime example. There was no public interest served by doing that, and it confirmed the worst fears of those right-of-center people (and even those way left of center in my case).
Judge Crater
It may be too late to mention it, but I live about a block and a half from Sidwell Friends. There is a large Uniformed Secret Service presence on school days around the school. Two or three marked cars or SUVs on streets around the school. Sometimes more. And, I would guess, plain clothes officers, inside.
JCT
@Betty Cracker: Chet the NRA troll gave himself away by referring to the name of the “shopping center” – no one here refers to the Safeway at Ina and Oracle by the name of the mall. Not to mention the fact that the NRA meme re: gun- free zones falls apart with the Giffords shooting. The NRA has tied itself in knots trying to argue that it was in fact gun-free because there is a school nearby. Bzzzzt. Wrong answer. There are so many charter schools scattered around Tucson that the whole town would be “gun free” by that rule. This was a “tell”.
Lojasmo
@Chet:
They weren’t in the mall, dumbass.
polyorchnid octopunch
@aimai: To be honest, I think it’s a class thing badly executed. If you’re unemployed or working poor with no insurance and giving birth, given how expensive it is, I’m thinking your number two priority is keeping the costs as low as possible… which means turning down the epidural regardless of preference, after all, you’ve got to be able to pay for what you did get during childbirth, plus still pay the rent, buy food, etc. There were what, around one in six women in that position not all that long ago IIRC?
eemom
Holy shit. What the fuck is wrong with you?
This may be the most gratuitously misogynist, ignorant tripe I’ve ever read here.
What the fuck do you know about epidurals, or childbirth?
Hypatia's Momma
@mistermix:
Yep. Most of us were actually pushed out, sometimes with a bit of guidance from the OB, sometimes not. Pain-free or not, child-birth is a lot of work for the mother (just like the entirety of the pregnancy!), so painting the mothers of the Sidwell Friends children as passive lumps of flesh out of whose “deadened vaginas” they must be “dragged” is very offensive.
polyorchnid octopunch
@TooManyJens: Oh, that’s Rosie DiManno. She’s a fucking tool; she’s the token female conservative reactionary on Toronto’s ‘neither corp(se)-agenda-driven (Globe and Mail) nor wingnut crazy (Toronto Sun)’ daily, the Toronto Star. Not nearly as bad as The Blatch (er, Christie Blatchford) at G&M nor Babs (Barbara Kay) at Sunmedia, but still there. “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” is the watchword with those three. That phrase is undoubtedly there to drive clicks and therefore revenue and therefore help keep her valuable to the biz folks in management. The buzzfeed story is undoubtedly sweet sweet nectar to her.
The whole thing that’s going on up here among our media and political elites, as revealed in stark relief by Idle No More, has made me consider submitting a guest post to Cole about it to help you guys understand it. The reactionary/plutocratic right’s been working on Canada for a good twenty years, ever since Manning started to get some traction against the Chretien government in the 90s. It’s made for some very large changes here, most of them very bad.
eemom
I see now that this has been covered already, but nevertheless, that statement is an absolute jaw-dropper. Nor is it improved by that “doula” bullshit.
You need help, asshole.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yutsano: That’s not the Sun. That’s the Toronto Star. That’s the progressive daily in Toronto. The Sun is a sewer, and it’s comment section is a midden.
polyorchnid octopunch
@mistermix: No, the G&M may appear centre-left, but really it’s plutocrat-whateverworksontherubes. It used to be centre right, but owned by decent people, but now it’s literally owned by the phone company (BellGlobeMedia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises, to be totally specific). They are plutocrat-reactionary because even given Harper’s clearly autocratic actions wrt prorogation, restricting debate, and the parliamentary committee handbook given to MPs about destroying the ability for committees to actually do their work, the G&M endorsed him anyway because he’s good for rilly big corp(se) profits.
Lynn Dee
@aimai:
Good post. I actually had a C-section, so I guess my kid wouldn’t be included at all.
I get that mistermix was using the journalistic/creative writing ploy of “making it specific.” So, instead of saying the kid didn’t pick his (rich?) parents, he refers to the vagina that pushed him out. (Although of course that may not be same “vagina” that raised him or wrote out the check for his schooling, right?) But frankly, if it hadn’t been such an obvious (and confusing) journalistic trick, I would’ve found it vaguely misogynistic.
He could’ve referred, for example, to the Glenfiddich-soaked cum that spawned the kid. But really — why do that?
polyorchnid octopunch
@dr. luba: The key word there… “insurance”. AFAICT, your country’s still working on that. I’m glad to see progress is being made… really glad. You’ve still got a ways to go to get to the point of really fixing that up. Edwards was a flawed man, and a tool, but when he said “the insurance companies won’t get a seat at the table” he was absolutely right.
FlipYrWhig
The gun-free zone thing is so ass-backwards anyway. Mass shootings, or the worry about the prospect of a mass shooting, drove the idea of trying to protect a crowd of people going about their business by keeping guns away. First there was a crowd as a target of opportunity, then there was a law, then there were crazy people intent on breaking that law to find a crowd to shoot. The correlation doesn’t work the way the NRA wants credulous people to think.
Anna in PDX
@Short Bus Bully: Yeah, not to pile on because i usually reallylike mistermix’s posts. But as a woman who bore two kids i had a real defensive and negative reaction to that line. First, give me an epidural over pain fuck yes. Do you get your root canals without anesthetic? And second dragged out? Like i am just lying there not pushing? And i am pretty anti rich in general but really it just sounded nastily anti women to me. If he took my advice he would delete the whole image. Very dissonant.
FlipYrWhig
@polyorchnid octopunch: That sounds more like “neoliberal,” or leftish on cultural matters paired with a leaning towards high tech and free trade.
Mandalay
@polyorchnid octopunch:
You are conflating two issues: first amendment rights and public records. There is nothing in the first amendment that says that anyone is entitled to publish whatever they want just because it is public information. The theme of this thread raises that very issue, regarding the security of Obama’s children.
Information can be both publicly available, and provided with those with a legitimate need, on a need-to-know basis. Not a difficult concept to grasp.
More troubling is that legislators are changing their minds about what should be public information in the first place. See post #138.
Lynn Dee
@Anna in PDX:
Hear hear. It sounded anti-woman to me too. The only thing that mitigated it for me was that it was so lame it was hard to take it — or the wielder of BIC pen that wrote it (see? I’m using that same “make it specific” ploy that mistermix attempted so unsuccessfully) — seriously.
MikeJ
@Lynn Dee: I believe Mix was just showing us what a good christian he is:
“To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.””
You know how much he hates it when people go against the word of god.
Lynn Dee
@MikeJ:
:D
Another Halocene Human
I dunno about secret, but you know after 9/11 I was trying to sketch out the location of alleys and businesses near a train station for a website I was doing for fun about how to have fun getting around on the transit system and at least one business owner freaked out and thought I was a scout for terrorists.
People who like to take pictures of trains (“trolley jollies”, “foamers”) were getting hassled by police and arrested on platforms a lot, too, even if they had the required written permission from transit management. (Now, there are real safety concerns, like when idiots trespass on railroad property trying to get that kewl shot–which they may turn around and sell for money–so I sympathize. But I’m talking about totally safe and legal transit photography that ran against paranoia about terrorist attacks in transit stations and cops who bark first and ask questions later.)
But, you know, the President’s daughters are blah, so fuck discretion.
AA+ Bonds
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Believe it or not, Mandalay has put his finger on what may be the most important dispute in public records law right now: the purpose and scope of mass public records requests from the press.
There are cases working their way through the courts all across the country under various state regimes. Where you want to keep an eye on things is 1) this issue and 2) the issue of metadata as public record.
dr. luba
@polyorchnid octopunch: In my state (and perhaps others), almost all women are insured for pregnancy/labor/delivery/postpartum care. Medicaid is available to just about everyone who is otherwise uninsured (unless high income). And, even at my suburban hospital, there are several doctors on staff who take Medicaid.
And Medicaid covers epidurals. (It didn’t many years ago, and that’s where many problems arose.) As a hospitalist, I take care of women in labor; we do not treat them differently based on insurance status.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mandalay: If you’re restricting the people who can see a given piece of information, it’s not really public.
FlipYrWhig
@Lynn Dee: But wielding the pen is a strong and active image. Unlike the “dragged out of” bit. Mistermix’s words didn’t choose whichever wheezing Gateway beige box coughed them out between Blue Screens Of Death.
polyorchnid octopunch
@FlipYrWhig: Which is how they portray themselves. It’s their willingness these last few years to ignore those precepts when necessary that reveals them for what they are.
Keith G
Ahhh… M Mix…come on. What the really stupid NRA did was really stupid, but tell you what….Next week get a toy gun, dress in black tactical drag and sprint up to the gate of that school. Any bets on how close you get?
Anna in PDX
@Mandalay: as a public employee my salary is public record. I am also a citizen with rights. To me being on a registry as owning something dangerous like a gun is not scary any more than typing your address into google and getting all the real estate details about your house. Or seeing my boss’s salary in the paper. Or any other way in which a lot of info is now available. Unless there is a specific problem ( an ex stalking you, or being an ex criminalwho needs witness protection) why do gun owners deserve secrecy?
JWL
“..I don’t see how any self-respecting human, gun owner or not, would want to be associated with an organization that would stoop so low”.
Lest We Forget: Rush Limbo (as my Mom always calls him) referred to 13 year old Chelsea Clinton as “the family dog” on his nationally syndicated show, and went on to reap millions of dollars and be named to Missouri’s Hall of Fame.
polyorchnid octopunch
@dr. luba: Aye, that may very well be true where you are. However, from what I’ve read in the US press about these issues, that’s hardly true everywhere in the US. How does Medicaid define high income… and in which state? From what I’ve read, in many states pretty much covers anyone with a full time job at anything more than minimum wage plus a buck… which means that lots of pizza workers get neither insurance nor Medicaid.
All that said, I’m not really here to argue finer points of health policy… I was using that as an example to point out that Mistermix’s comment looked a lot more like class animus rather than misogyny to me. I’ll also say that it’s very badly phrased and it’s easy to read it as misogyny instead. The doula comment helps support my point, imho.
Catsy
@Yutsano:
Not that I disagree as to Chet’s trollery, but this isn’t necessarily correct. I used to make that mistake all the time when using “state” or “federal” as an adjective. Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake.
MattR
@Mandalay:
Huh? How do you reach this conclusion about an amendment that explicitly says the government cannot interfere in what journalists publish? If information is part of the public record, it is available to any individual to disseminate in any way they choose.
Corner Stone
@Anna in PDX: I see this argument as being backwards. Why does a one time purchase of an item I pay no further taxes on justify a public record?
Another Halocene Human
@mistermix: Are you serious, mistermix?
My mother was pregnant 8 times, gave live birth 6x. I was the first and yeah, I was ‘dragged’ out with forceps.
The second the doctor was impatient and gave my mother an episiotomy (plus lotsa drugs) so she kinda slithered out. Btw, episiotomies are a really, really bad idea. Really bad idea.
I have no idea about 3&4 but I think they were pushed out. You know, that thing women do?
5 was upside-down like me (yeah, the reason forceps were needed because I was twisted like a corkscrew in the backwards position and my head got stuck in the cervix like the plastic tine in a zip-tie–the forceps turned me around, then I could come out), but after so many births the opening was a little stretchier. A little arm came out, then another, and he pulled himself out.
6 fell out. straight up. mom was taking a walk to try to dilate more and plop. 6 was kinda on the small side.
So yeah. Babies fall out. Babies get pushed out. Babies get tongs to their skulls to get twisted like a bolt until they pop out. Babies get cut out o’ there. A lot. Look at the stats.
If you were going to diss upperclass useless people it’s odd you don’t mention C-sections. Although as others have said, the real poncy thing is natural birth at fancy birthing centers and epidurals are considered “weak”.
Mandalay
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Nonsense. You continue to insist that there are only two possibilities: information is either completely private, or information is completely public. As long as you continue down that dead end path any further discussion is pointless.
dr. luba
Also, too–from an ACOG Committee Opinion (2004):
Labor causes severe pain for many women. There is no other circumstance where it is considered acceptable for an individual to experience untreated severe pain, amenable to safe intervention, while under a physician’s care(emphasis mine). In the absence of a medical contraindication, maternal request is a sufficient medical indication for pain relief during labor. Pain management should be provided whenever medically indicated.
….The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) believe that women requesting epidural analgesia during labor should not be deprived of this service based on their insurance or inadequate nursing participation in the management of regional analgesic modalities.
AA+ Bonds
@polyorchnid octopunch:
There is no body of state law of which I’m aware that gives the public the right to see every record created by the government, in whatever form they request it.
Of the law concerning records that are considered public records (and this varies from state to state), I am aware of no body of state law that requires the government to respond to requests in a way more onerous to the government than defined in state law, or in a way that violates the obligations of the government under its constitution or other laws.
It may feel uncomfortable (and trust me, it can become very uncomfortable in specific situations) but there is a real legal grey area here that has tied up the courts in knots over the last few decades. This is not something where you can just point to freedom of the press under the Bill of Rights and consider it an answer.
polyorchnid octopunch
@MattR: Bingo.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Corner Stone: Because your duly elected representatives determined that the nature of your purchase did, that’s why. Given that assault rifles and handguns in particular are designed to kill human beings, they probably want to keep track so that if that particular tool is used for the purpose for which it was designed they know where to go looking for its owner.
Another Halocene Human
@mistermix: So you’re saying I’m in station 0 fully effaced but not dilated when it comes to my understanding of childbirth? And that reading my stuff is like looking at a mucous plug and/or a bloody show?
Oh my fucking god. I used to like you. You need to apologize. Like right now.
AA+ Bonds
@MattR:
I really worry when liberals catch this Fox News disease where they think complex issues can be worked out by the layman in five minutes with enough spit and elbow grease. Government records law is fraught with danger because under those laws the government has the obligation both to protect people and fulfill its other obligations as government while providing transparency at the same time. There is nothing simple about it, and I am usually the first person you will see on here throwing javelins at legal eagles.
Another Halocene Human
@mistermix: Mistermix boycotts Courtney Love. As a feminist.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mandalay: No, but I am saying that public information is, you know, public. That’s what it means. Once gun registrations have been determined to be public records, it’s very bad form to suggest that the state should then restrict private actors from using those records in any way they see fit.
There’s a reason why the first amendment is the first amendment, and not the second.
AA+ Bonds
@polyorchnid octopunch:
This is like saying the Second Amendment is, you know, the Second Amendment and that’s what it means. It’s the reason we have the phrase “begging the question”.
What is a public record? It depends. What is a valid public records request which the government is obligated to fulfill? It depends. When is the government justified in fulfilling a request in a way not 100% in line with the request? It depends.
polyorchnid octopunch
@dr. luba: The problem is paying for it. Yes, they will be given one. Then they’ll be billed for it. Go try being poor for a while. It’ll be educational. Actually, go read Scalzi on being poor http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ that might get it across to you.
Feel free to have the last word. I’m done.
lou
@Mandalay
I don’t know. My reaction was that if I were the parent of a child who played with a neighbor’s kid and discovered the parents were gun-owners by looking at that database, I’d want to have a serious conversation about just how responsible they are at locking up their guns. There have been way too many accidental shootings that have happened because parents were not responsible about locking away the firearms.
So I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Papers publish teachers’ and state employees’ salaries, and other information all the time. Why is this any worse?
eemom
I can’t believe that any of you people are dignifying that raw misogynist sewage with actual serious commentary about the pain of childbirth….as though we need to justify how fucking outrageous it is.
FTR, “misogynist” is a word I never, ever use lightly, having been so disgusted at the way it was tossed around by the Hillbots during the 2008 primary.
Tim I
I don’t see why this is such a big deal.
You do realize that there are probably 10-20 heavily armed Secret Service agents at Sidwell any time Sasha or Malia is in attendance. There are also other kids who have their own security details, some of these details are provided by the Diplomatic Security division of the State Department.
This school is among the most highly secured campuses in the world.
MattR
@AA+ Bonds: There are complexities regarding what information should be made public due to the issues you mentioned, but once you have decided the information is public data you cannot expect there to be any kind of restrictions on how it is publicizied. If you don’t want to allow this unlimited use, you don’t make it public. You keep it private but create rules giving limited access to qualified individuals.
Mandalay
@MattR:
It is not that clear cut. Other interests might trump that. There are plenty of examples of publicly available information that you might be prevented from publishing:
– How to kill your kids, how to dispose of a corpse, how to make a poison gas bomb, etc.
– Detailed information about the president’s security.
– Or for something more mundane:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View_privacy_concerns
Now to be clear, the paper publishing the public records information about gun owners was not violating the law. But legislators are starting to scrutinize how large amounts of public information are being used – see post 138 above. The end result may be that we have more restrictions on what is public information.
YellowJournalism
@Yutsano: You ever want to see something really nauseating check out their comments section. It’s like Yahoo! News or IMDB, only with fewer comments and a Canadian spin. I read the Sun opinion pages for a laugh because the editor puts in little comments at the end of each editorial that are usually mega-dittos to conservative views, spreading of misinformation, or failed attempts at sarcasm. I’ve also had friends and family who have been targets of the comments section, thanks to local coverage of some incidents they were quoted about. People are assholes, sometimes.
LongHairedWeirdo
What kind of asswipe takes a swipe at a woman for what choices she makes during childbirth? What kind of “save money by using both sides!” asswipe then takes a shot at someone for daring to have someone stand by her side while she goes through such a difficult experience?
I’m sorry, that’s really despicable misogyny. That’s as sexist as (I won’t say “as bad as” and I’ll grant it’s very different from) a rape joke.
Yutsano
@YellowJournalism: I dated a Canadian conservative, does that count? We had rather entertaining Harper discussions. It was even more fun because his best friend is a Communist. And a Quaker. No I’m not bothering to unwrap that package. :)
Chet
@scav: I can’t tell whether you think guns are more like Draculas or Frankensteins. When you tuck your kids in at night, do you check under the bed for guns?
TR
@TooManyJens:
Amen. That was weird as shit.
Hypatia's Momma
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Presumably, someone who thinks that women really just don’t understand childbirth and that what a birthing mother really needs during that difficult time is a manly-man to do manly things in a manly way with his manly muscles.
muddy
@Hypatia’s Momma:
Hence the term “labor”!!! Jeez. I didn’t have an epidural, I self-hypnotized on the contraction monitor numbers. But I tell you what, when it’s time, you have to push. I mean you *HAVE* to push, it’s entirely irresistible. Might as well tell you to quit breathing. The nurse was telling me not to push because the doctor wasn’t there yet, AS IF. Out he comes! 26 hours is plenty.
My theory is that childbirth is like teenagers. Childbirth is hard, but by that time you are really over being pregnant, so you don’t mind as much. Then when the sweet things are teenagers and act like know-it-all brats, and you are really over that, then you don’t mind as much when they move out.
Anyway, It seemed to me that mistermix was going for an edgier form of “totebagger”, and the child theme got away from him. In a post about how you shouldn’t drag kids into things, it was odd, and I was taken aback.
If there is such a thing as karma, perhaps mistermix will have to shit an absolute brick one day, and while doing so he can imagine how it would be if it were the diameter of a softball. ;-)
Mike E
We can haz open thread? I am basketball jonezing, and Clark Kellogg has me looking for my home epidural kit.
Mandalay
@lou:
I agree, and said exactly the same thing in post 77:
But while I argue that I am entitled to check on my creepy neighbor, I do not believe that a newspaper is entitled to publish the names and addresses of all gun owners. I don’t see why it is inherently bad to have information being freely available to those with a legitimate need to know, but not automatically available to everyone.
That paper’s foolish action has already had the unintended consequence of getting New York legislators to redefine (i.e. restrict) what is public information.
sparrow
@TooManyJens: My humble unasked for opinion is that when someone makes a “mistake” as Mistermix did, it’s fine to point out his sexism/obtuseness/insensitivity. But to continue to harp on it begins to give it more attention that it deserves. It was unfunny and insensitive, but are women such delicate flowers that we must lose our shit over every poorly worded blog entry? People stop listening to you once you’ve hit “shrill”…
Chet
@sb:
No, look, it’s not that hard, and it’s not about what I “classify” anything as. There are places – like Army bases and malls – that claim the legal right to tell you that you can’t carry a weapon for your personal protection under various state, local, and federal laws, and there are places that don’t.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mandalay: Look, it’s really quite simple. Public records are a subset of governmental records. This means that while all public records are governmental records, not all governmental records are public. The means by which governmental records are determined to be public records in a democratic republic is (nominally) by legislatures passing laws saying which governmental records are public. After that, they should be available to the public. If you don’t like that those records are public, get your legislators to change those laws. Bitching because a member of the public publicized public records is pretty much a non-starter. As for complaining about the addresses being public… have you never heard of the phone book?
Americans are crazy about armaments. My personal opinion is that semi-automatics and handguns should be heavily restricted. Don’t even worry about magazines; if someone wants to hack up a 30 round mag for their bolt action rifle, they can fill their boots as far as I’m concerned. Getting the fire rate down to 1/s is far more important than worrying how often they have to reload.
muddy
@Corner Stone: Car.
YellowJournalism
mistermix, as someone who usually enjoys your posts and realizes you’re not a misogyinist, please take my advice and next time go with something like his in response:
“I’m sorry. I have removed my previous comment because I didn’t realize how offensive and insensible it was to many of you. I was trying to be clever but maybe was being too harsh toward upper-class mothers and insensitive to mothers in general while trying to make an indirect attack on class struggles. My main point about the issue at hand stands, however, and I hope we can continue that discussion without dwelling on my misstep.”
Then if people were still piling on you, they would look like unforgiving jerks who were derailing the thread. Because we all know you’re not a misogynist. Instead, you chose to double-down on the insensitivity in a way I read as defensive but could come off as woman-hating.
Now can we all go back to the civilized discussion about how the NRA needs to DIAF for attacking the President’s kids and their school security?
sparrow
@Mandalay: That is no where near a rape joke. You’re overreacting.
MattR
@Mandalay:
I was not clear enough. By saying “information that is part of the public record” I did not mean all information available to the public. I was referring to records and other things that the government has mandated be made public. I don’t consider what I wore today to be “part of the public record” even if I went out into the public with those clothes on.
Isn’t this a good thing? Shouldn’t they be reevaluating the costs and benefits of all laws to make sure they stay in balance as society changes?
sparrow
@YellowJournalism: Agree 100%
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mandalay: There is no difference between lou and the newspaper. The fact that apparently NY has shitty state legislators is not the newspaper’s fault. The fact that the newspaper has cowardly editors is not the public’s fault. The newspaper’s proper reaction is to point out that they’re public, that if you don’t like that, don’t buy a gun, and that the legislators are idiots for panicking because the nutjobs among you were demonstrating that.
As for the addresses; if you know someone’s name and which municipality they live in, you can find their address from a large number of private actors, so what difference does that make? I’ve always found American’s paranoia about gov records while not caring about private DBs puzzling to say the least; I can at least exert pressure on my legislator; I have no such levers to use against nynex or yppa.
Mandalay
@MattR:
Why are you insisting there must only be two options? Why not have a third option which allows members of the public to view information if they can justify the request?
Do you think the CIA only has two categories of information for their files: “unclassified” and “top secret”? Of course not. Why should local government data be any different?
scav
@Chet: any kid I would have is more logical than you, even in onesies. While they might look under the bed in case you were there, you’d shoot under the bed in fear of them.
Chet
@the Conster:
Not to stop you guys from just making up whatever argument you need in order to contradict me, but if the Army chooses to revisit this policy, will you?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mandalay:
But then it’s not a public record; it’s a governmental record with limited distribution. See?
Omnes Omnibus
@Chet: The army won’t revisit it for a whole bunch of reasons – starting with the fact that they are more aware than most how much damage can be done by weapons and they want to avoid that kind of damage happening outside of a fucking war zone.
MattR
@Mandalay: Was just typing this comment out.
We are really arguing semantics about what “public” means. To me, public is an absolute. If the government declares something public then it is available without restrictions on its use. OTOH, if the government allows certain individuals to see information and they legislate limitations on how that information can be used then IMO it isn’t truly public. It is not completely private, but it is not public either.
(EDIT: or what polyorchnid octopunch said)
Mandalay
@polyorchnid octopunch:
You are saying that, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I believe gun information should be freely available to the public, but only if there is a legitimate reason.
You could not be more wrong if you tried. In New York they have just changed the law to constrain what is defined to be public information as a direct result of the paper publishing public information.
I have control over whether my name is in the phone book. I have no control over a paper publishing public information just because they want to behave like an asshole.
General Stuck
Mistermix, never let your inner sexist pig loose on a liberal forum. Civilized liberals are bound to be outraged and call you a clueless dickhead. Or, deadened dickhead, as it were.
scav
Kids being frightened of dangerous things is apparently a trivial, laughing matter to this chet, they’re only dangerous imaginary objects, silly kids, it’s not like Draculas and Frankensteins have left their blood drained bodies around classrooms in real,life, huh?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
Welcome to the First Amendment. A free press doesn’t necessarily mean a press run run by people who live up to your standards.
Corner Stone
@polyorchnid octopunch:
I think that’s a broad and fact free assertion. And it doesn’t explain why you (the public) should know what I spend my money on.
Mandalay
@MattR:
Agreed. And TBF that is how most people, including legislators, have generally thought.
I guess I am arguing that with advances in technology we need to rethink what “public” really means. I really don’t care whether the third category I proposed is called “semi-public” or “limited public” or “FSM”…it’s the concept that matters.
Corner Stone
@muddy: That makes no sense. A car is required to be inspected and registered every year. I can buy a gun, stick it in a safe and not touch if for 50 years.
Your analogy is irrelevant.
TooManyJens
@sparrow: Your concern is noted.
(Also, now I’m “shrill”! I feel like I’ve hit the big time.)
MattR
@Corner Stone:
This can be changed :)
And technically, you can leave a car in your garage for years without having it inspected or registered.
Chet
@scav: OMG, you do!
Corner Stone
@MattR: Sure, if I want it to be useful. Take car out of the garage and drive it and you owe the govt (the public) money.
But the reverse is not true for a firearm.
scav
@Chet: Yes, I speak to my imaginary children and instruct them to distinguish real dangerous objects from imaginary ones, while real children are afraid in schools and you mock them. Care to polish your ghoul badge a little more brightly?
Chet
@scav: Shouldn’t it concern you that, if the case against private ownership of firearms is so strong, you can’t seem to make it without lying about those who disagree?
Omnes Omnibus
@Chet: Who the fuck is making a case against the private ownership of firearms? I’ve seen people argue for restrictions on ownership of some types of firearms. I’ve seen people argue for various types of registration and licensing regimes. I’ve even seen people argue that owning a gun means you are a sociopath with a tiny dick. I have not seen anyone argue for banning private ownership of firearms. Linky?
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Seriously? Moderation?
@Chet: Who the fuck is making a case against the private ownership of firearms? I’ve seen people argue for restrictions on ownership of some types of firearms. I’ve seen people argue for various types of registration and licensing regimes. I’ve even seen people argue that owning a gun means you are a sociopath with a tiny wang. I have not seen anyone argue for banning private ownership of firearms. Linky?
Edited to hopefully avoid moderation.
dr. luba
@polyorchnid octopunch: @polyorchnid octopunch: I’ve read Scalzi, and lots of other writings on poverty. I’ve been lucky enough not to have to live it myself, although I did grow up working class (not silver spoon).
And I’ve spent time in the third world, and dealt with poverty. My hospital in India takes care of primarily indigent patients.
My point was that women used to be denied pain control in labor because they couldn’t afford it, and because labor pain was somehow considered different. It was not OK to deny someone with kidney stones pain medication, but a woman in labor–that was “natural.” It was a Victorian attitude. It’s not OK any more, ethically speaking, and that has been a major change in attitude.
Mistermix’s comment may have been meant as class animus, but it reads as misogyny….as well as medically specious. Epidurals are not an upper class thing–that was my point. I’ve worked in suburban and inner city hospitals, and never seen a woman refused one if she met the medical criteria in recent years. Most uninsured care in poor patients, at least in the systems I’ve worked with, eventually gets written off. YMMV
Evolving Deep Southerner
I know this thread is taking its last gasps – I sure as shit ain’t going to go up and read 230-odd (230 odd without the hyphen?) posts, but I see nowhere else more appropriate for this gem. I feel bad for laughing when I read it, but I can’t help myself. These dumbasses want so bad to be seen as the authorities on firearms and firearm safety, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot. Literally.
ETA: For those who don’t want to spend the time reading the link, just this afternoon a patron at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show in Raleigh accidentally discharged his weapon and shot/injured two people, including a retired sheriff’s deputy.
J R in WV
@Corner Stone:
I don’t know that public policy is any part of the decision of WV to make public notice part of the law, just that folks should get notice that that someone they may interact with is now authorized to pack heat.
You can lie about your past on the application, and it would be less likely to slide by if people who know you’re crazy get a chance to call the law about it.
Maybe so neighbors who think you’re crazy can stay away from you, or call the sheriff to tell him about all the restraining orders?
Why do you think it shouldn’t be public information? I’m glad all my neighbors know I’m a good shot, frankly.
Anna in PDX
@Corner Stone: because of the nature of the item. It is a tool for killing. I have an expensive musical instrument that i have insured. I hope no one steals it. But it is not designed for the sole purpose of killing people. I wd want to know if my neighbor has a gun. Say he is having a fight with a family member. Is he armed, i wd want to know tha when calling the cops. Or say my kid is friends w a neighbor kid. If i knew they owned firearms i might want to restrict my kid from visiting or some such. (Sorry for abbreviations, typing on a nook is a PITA).
Pococurante
This group here had no problem making the same pronouncements.
This same group that has no problem with interactive maps that let anyone find a gun owner, know their address, and give any punk a chance to case the house,
In other words this is a community that is degraded and really no different than the Fix News or abortion terrorist organs.
Feel proud.
Corner Stone
@J R in WV: I haven’t seen any argument for making a one time purchase of a consumable good part of the public record. It doesn’t contribute any funds to the commonweal, nor does it remove funds that could be applied to other areas of public policy.
People keep conflating this one time purchase with recurring fees assessed by the govt.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anna in PDX:
I largely agree with your overall point, but this statement is wrong. Firearms are tools that are designed to punch holes in objects from a distance. As it turns out, far too many of those objects are people and we should be working very hard to decrease that number.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Corner Stone: Nobody has made the argument here, but it’s hardly without precedent. See cars, boats, motorcycles and houses.
Pococurante
@Omnes Omnibus:
And yet people find reason to use any number of objects intended to twist other physical things past what they were meant.
In other words people kill themselves and each other all the time without a gun.
By focusing on the gun you miss every other reason why people want to kill each other. Whether wholesale or en masse.. Either way you miss the core issue.
J R in WV
@AA+ Bonds:
Actually, in many states everything is public, with few exceptions. Here in WV there is a Sunshine Law which requires, for example, meetings of public bodies to be announced in advance, with a list of issues to be discussed.
It is illegal for the County Commission to take up a topic not included in the agenda published prior to the meeting. Environmental permits, inspections, and violations are all public. Public employees job status and pay grade are public.
The state publishes a “Blue Book” each year that lists every public employee, what they do, and where they work and their residential address.
In WV you don’t need to interact with government to buy a gun, except for the federal background check, and the form where you affirm that you aren’t a violent criminal or adjudicated crazy.
But applying for a CCW permit is different, and part of that difference is that the issuance of the permit, like any environmental permit, is a public document, and CCW permits in particular are required to be listed in a legal ad in the local newspaper… both of them if there is a Democratic paper and a Republican paper.
The only state data in WV that’s private is Tax records, health records, and personnel decisions, like why someone was fired or transferred.
Well, trade secret industrial processes related to environmental permitting are kept secret, but that’s a pretty small group of data, and state engineers are who determines if your “trade secret” is really a secret.
The Sunshine Law got it’s name originally from the state of Florida, where the first one was passed, IIRC, but FL may no longer have such a broad FOIA (freedom of information act) on their books.
Here in WV a FOIA request for data must be responded to within 24 hours with an estimate of how long it will take to provide the requested data. Sometimes it takes longer than that if the original request is sent to the wrong office, but they work hard to meet the requirement, lest they get sued.
Corner Stone
@Evolving Deep Southerner:
All items the govt collects fees for the betterment/maintenance of the commonweal.
That’s not making the argument in any logical way.
J R in WV
@Chet:
I want to point out that chet, whoever that individual is, is someone I don’t agree with about anything whatsoever, including the color of the sky on a sunny day.
Also too:
Iz there any ways we can get an American English spell checker??? Cause I’m so tired of neighbour and colour being the correct spelling of words actually properly spelled neighbor and color!!!!!
That is all.
EDA correct speling of “words”
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Corner Stone:
Is the “tax guns/ammunition” part of the argument not a pretty common suggestion from those making these arguments? As is the recommendation that gun owners be required to have liability insurance? No, the latter wouldn’t be collected by the government, and the payouts wouldn’t be for the “common” weal, but it would certainly benefit victims.
scav
@Chet: says the man who came to the thread flinging hyperbole, mockery and slipperly slope from the git go. So, in this exact instance, nah, doesn’t concern me much. You pulled out the imaginary kids first, I was originally mocking your abject unwavering and no-compromise allowed devotion to the cause.
J R in WV
@Corner Stone:
A weapon is not a consumable good, ammunition is. Get your facts straight. The last my cousins were over to the farm to shoot, Bill brought a .32 Colt automatic, pat’d 1903, and probably nearly a hundred years old.
My (deceased) uncle carried it in his back pocket when he ran moonshine 75 years ago. It hadn’t been shot for at least 60 years, as it now lives in a safe deposit box as a family heirloom. We loaded it, and each of us ran a 5 round clip through it, and it worked like it was new after the first shot.
Not a consumable good, dude.
A tool for projecting power, not like a crowbar or hammer.
Corner Stone
@Evolving Deep Southerner: I think you’ve evolved into a different argument.
Currently, guns and ammo do not require yearly taxes or liability insurance. But some argue they should be public records without those additions.
Let’s stay with the current set of data points please.
Corner Stone
@J R in WV: Of course it is. It’s a one time purchase that doesn’t require ongoing fees or registration. Whether your gun lasts 6 months or 60 years it is a consumable item and will eventually need to be replaced or discarded.
Don’t misunderstand that it isn’t a bag of chips just because it can be reused for a period of time. It’s an item that’s purchased by a consumer of that category.
This is like saying your HDTV isn’t a consumer item because it’s still working 8 years later.
TS
Bit sad that the right wing policy of attacking women’s vaginas had to be part of an otherwise relevant post
jefft452
@Mandalay: “I believe gun information should be freely available to the public, but only if there is a legitimate reason.”
This doesn’t scan, if its limited to those you think have a good enough reason, then it isn’t freely available to the public
It seems like you don’t want who has a gun permit to be a matter of public record, but can’t bring yourself to say that
So instead, you argue the difference between “published in yesterday’s paper” and “available at the county clerk’s office from 10am to 2pm weekdays”
Available to any Tom, Dick, or Harry that take the time and effort to file the right request, after we make it really obscure and annoying to do so, is a really piss-poor way of determining who has a need to know
Omnes Omnibus
@Pococurante: Yeah, but the guns make it so much easier to kill. If you can’t see that, you are blinded by ideology wrt guns.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Corner Stone: Because you’re buying something designed to kill people. Not even cars are that out there as a consumer good. Don’t like it? Don’t buy one, or move to Somalia.
polyorchnid octopunch
@dr. luba: You should find out what happens to the people whose debts get written off by your hospital (even after they’re ‘written off’), as writing them off usually means selling the debt to a collection agency for a few cents on the dollar.
jefft452
@Evolving Deep Southerner: “…accidentally discharged his weapon.”
From “Hot Fuzz”
Sgt Angel: We don’t put “traffic accident” in reports, we write “traffic collision”
PC Danny: What’s the difference?
Sgt Angel: “Accident” implies that no one is to blame
polyorchnid octopunch
@Pococurante: Yeah, the core issue you’re missing is the efficiency with which you can kill people with a gun. Esp. handguns and semi-automatic guns. Interestingly, given all the talk I’ve seen “that group there” talk about hammer killings, why aren’t they suggesting arming schools with hammer wielding janitors to protect against the spree gun freaks?
Corner Stone
@polyorchnid octopunch: You can’t make a rational case for what you continue to spout, nor are you even bothering to try.
MattR
@Corner Stone:
Why do any of these details matter? I just don’t see any relevance to whether it is a one time or repeated purchase or whether the item directly contributes or removes funds from the public. Why isn’t “the public wants to know who in the community has a license to own one of these deadly devices” sufficient?
Corner Stone
@MattR: Why would it be?
Back off your emotional response and make the case that you deserve to know what’s in my house.
MattR
@Corner Stone: If “the public wants to know who in the community has a license to own one of these deadly devices” is persuasive enough that the majority of the community agrees with it, then why isn’t that sufficient? Are you saying there is a constitutional issue with requiring registration of guns or with the publication of that information? Or is your point simply that it is bad public policy or unfair to gun owners for them to have to comply with that requirement?
Anniecat45
@Chet:
Rubbish. There have been reports posted on this site of people who shot up police stations, hardly gun-free zones. And Adam Lanza’s first victim, his own mother, had plenty of guns in her house.
Also, there was a school shooting a few days ago stopped by a teacher with no gun who talked the shooter into stopping after (I think) one victim. Not to mention the Unitarian church incident a few years ago where unarmed parishioners at worship were able to disarm the gunman.
I don’t normally engage with trolls but I’m sick of gun worshippers and their garbage, I won’t ratify it by my silence, and I don’t want to live in the kind of place you would create where everyone believes the only way to resolve a problem is with a gun.
Suzanne
@Chet: Um, the La Toscana Village Mall, which is really just a strip mall, has a PARKING LOT. And there were other armed people in that parking lot, regardless of the rule. I used to shop at that fucking Safeway all the time. I will remind you that there is likely nowhere in Arizona that is gun-free.
Yay epidurals. They fucking rock. Anyone pretending that they are elitist has, well, never experienced how fucking awesome they are.
slightly_peeved
@Pococurante:
Plenty of people in Europe and Australia and Canada want to kill one another.
But a lot less of them do.
They have a lot less guns. They have mentally ill people, violent video games, violent movies, and cultural tensions – many are less homogeneous than the US. And the amount of assaults is reasonably similar to the US.
but they have a lot less guns, a lot less people get shot, and a lot less people die.
Very few people really want to kill other people, compared to those people who want to hurt other people, or fight other people. In the US, more than many other countries, THOSE situations end up with a death.
Another Halocene Human
@Mandalay: Maybe because you’re arguing against freedom of the press here?
Essentially you’re arguing that some data should be classified, except to special people.
With the wave of public records laws in the US and worldwide, it would seem that the public has a pretty high standard for what the government can classify.
Gun owners? That’s dumb.
But maybe there SHOULD be restrictions on publishing addresses. Not for speshul peepul (ie, cops) but for everyone. Government employees, people who do business with the gov’t, etc. And there should be laws restricting private entities from doing this as well.
They could publish zip only, for example.
Another Halocene Human
@dr. luba: Most uninsured care in poor patients, at least in the systems I’ve worked with, eventually gets written off. YMMV
It may be written off, but that’s not stopping hospitals from selling the bad debts to collections agencies.
Oh yeah. Coupla years now.
Jebediah
@JWL:
I’m not even Chelsea Clinton, but I have not forgotten (and certainly not forgiven) that incident. It’s also a go-to when talking to people who don’t believe me that Limbaugh is a sub-human scum pit.
Older
@Another Halocene Human: Six years now in my location, to my certain knowledge.