The prosecutor released some documents in the Newtown mass shooting case, including a list of items recovered from the shooter’s home:
Also recovered were a National Rifle Association certificate, seven of Lanza’s journals, drawings that he made and books, including an NRA guide to the basics of pistol shooting, authorities said. The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also in the report: Lanza fired 155 bullets at Sandy Hook in less than five minutes. If you think about it, that feat really is a tribute to the NRA’s lobbying efforts and training program: Thanks to that organization’s hysterical response to any effort to restrict magazine capacity because FREEDOM, Lanza had nine 30-round mags, of which he expended nearly six at Sandy Hook, leaving three full.
Lanza managed to squeeze off a round every couple of seconds with the semiautomatic rifle, and as far as we know, he maintained a 100% personal safety record with the Bushmaster, registering kills only among intended targets. And when he finally pulled out the Glock 10mm, he hit his intended target with the pistol too. It would be churlish to deny credit for this stellar marksmanship to his NRA training.
[Image]
Culture of Truth
I wonder how different the conversation would be if there was some security cam footage of Lanza at least walking the halls.
kdaug
Credit where credit’s due.
Lavocat
And, somehow, there’s also a win in there for John McCain.
Schlemizel
BUT BETTY! He would have killed those kids with a knife or even a big rock! Guns don’t kill people. He could have gone in there with a hammer and swung it 155 times in 5 minutes so lets not talk about the position guns hold in this sick degenerated excuse of a society we infest.
Plus it is really too soon yet
and he was probably a liberal
The Golux
Repeal the 2nd. It’s the only answer.
Rosalita
reading those search warrants just made me sick all over again
c u n d gulag
Despite his ablility with his mothers guns, if only those children had formed a McArdle Brigade, the body-count could have been so much lower!
gogol's wife
Everybody should join one of the organizations that’s working on this issue. I’ve joined Gabrielle Giffords’s group Americans for something or other, the Coalition To Stop Gun Violence, and I’ve been a member of the Brady Campaign for years. I really like the CSGV — they send out informative e-mails and suggestions for what to do.
Villago Delenda Est
The honorary grandson of Wayne LaPierre, Adam Lanza is.
Adam Lanza IS the NRA. No question about it. None.
SatanicPanic
Betty your brilliant snark has left me speechless
gogol's wife
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wayne La Pierre is the worst excuse for a human being that I have seen in my entire life.
And yet our Congresspeople are his lapdogs.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@The Golux:
Agreed. Between the 2nd Amend and a standing long-service professional Army, one of them has to go, seeing as how they are diametrically opposed answers to the same question. I vote to keep the US Army.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Golux:
I hesitate to agree, mainly because the 2nd has been grossly misinterpreted for decades.
Back in the early days, members of the militia had their firearms (which were muskets) registered and inspected by the local authorities routinely.
Everyone forgets the “well regulated militia” part of the 2nd Amendment.
gene108
@Culture of Truth:
I think actually reporting the facts like he shot a first grader 11 times, for example.
If the media has followed through with the sort of sensationalism they displayed for Clinton’s blow job, the rest of the country would be a lot more scarred from this than they already are.
Villago Delenda Est
@gogol’s wife:
He’s just doing his job.
Moving product for the merchants of death.
Villago Delenda Est
Just imagine what he could have done with that Bushmaster modified for rock and roll!
Peppi
I am a certified NRA trainer.
Firearms safety training is important and necessary.
Perhaps if you, and other gun control advocates looked at gun violence rationally, you would make more progress in reducing it.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est:
Cherished Godson, given the tender nurture of values, belief, and behavior in the adopted spiritual heir.
Schlemizel
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Interestingly enough the second amendment exists because the founders did not want a standing army.
At the time standing armys created many problems for average people. Kings used them to crush descent. Kings used them to fight wars against other kings to no benefit of the citizenry. Average boys were often impressed into service (kidnapped) with no way out.
To eliminate this threat the founders wanted only a very tiny corp of professional soldiers with a huge backup of local militias. And that was pretty much the way it was until the 20th century. The world changed and thousands of National Guard units would not provide the sort of response to the modern threat that was needed – probably.
So today we have the huge standing army which simply MUST fight wars, though it would be hard pressed to crush local descent, wasting the national treasury and our children on the whims of a petty tyrant. There are no local militias any more but the NRA and the manufacturers have done a marvelous job of keeping the right to have weapons separate from militias.
The second amendment failed to do what our founders intended it to do and fails again in making us less secure.
PeakVT
Lanza had nine 30-round mags, of which he expended nearly six at Sandy Hook, leaving three full.
Hard to believe, but it could have been worse. Much worse. Not only did he only use six magazines, but he only used about half of each one.
Stooleo
They need to release the pictures of the bodies. Like the My Lia massacre. The only way the system will change is if the systems is shocked and brutally shocked at that.
MattF
The boy was just defending himself from liberals– and then some pesky and irresponsible schoolchildren got in the way of some bullets, and then everyone got upset. It’s just not fair.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Descent! Best fps game out there, until Half-Life came along.
eemom
That face is the last thing those children saw, is what I kept thinking when it was plastered all over the TV last December.
It’s what LaPierre and his filthy ilk would see every time they looked in a mirror, in a just, impossible world.
wmd
I don’t see the value of hyperbole on how many magazines he emptied – you put the count of bullets fired at 155 – 5×30 + 5. Saying he nearly emptied 6 magazines and then used the glock doesn’t really add anything from saying he emptied 5 magazines. Both statements condemn 30 round magazines. But the hyperbole gives the inevitable hoplophiles a point on which to ridicule.
Schlemizel
@Villago Delenda Est:
google “bump fire”. but don’t do it until you have eaten as the thoughts of what that is could upset your stomach.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
Taylor Caldwell. She used to take after the munitions makers in her novels.
Edit, spell fail.
lyford
The NRA has been promoting youth marksmanship training since 1906. The shooting badges I earned at summer camp 40 years ago were part of an NRA program.
Marksmanship and safety training is not a bad thing. There is nothing political about the recreational use of firearms. A lot of folks who shoot would like to separate the educational and political functions of the NRA.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: Oops, bad math. He used most of the 6, but not all.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: “Everyone forgets”
No, everyone does NOT forget. Only those who benefit from forgetting do.
Rob Lll
It’s not often a post elicits bitter laughter and makes me choke up at the same time. But that’s exactly what this one did.
anon
All I can say is that if it were one of my kids, I’d bide my time (“revenge is a dish best served cold”), purchase weapons made by the same people that the shooter used, then execute as many higher ups at the company that made the gun as possible. (Unless there were strong evidence that the company actually supported rational gun control.)
MomSense
Just a friendly warning that if you do decide to do or say something publicly you may end up getting stalked by gun nuts.
So far it seems to be a fairly mild form of it, but I am a little freaked out all the same.
Chet
Well, as everyone knows, guns are far safer when they’re inaccurate and unreliable, and when the people who use them are unskilled and poorly-trained.
Tehanu
@Stooleo:
I’d like to have seen LaPieere on his hands and knees cleaning up the blood in the classroom afterwards. In fact, I’d like to see him doing that at every massacre site in the country — preferably with a couple of cops holding their guns two inches from his skull.
catclub
@lyford: “A lot of folks who shoot would like to separate the educational and political functions of the NRA.”
Yeah, right. Money, mouth.
And a lot of people in the Catholic hierarchy would like to emphasize poverty and unjust war, rather than excommunicating nine year olds who get abortions after being impregnated by their step father. So sad they never get around to it.
How many times was Don Rumsfeld excommunicated by some angry Catholic Archbishop?
Midnight Marauder
@lyford:
Then they need to either get their shit together and take over the NRA, or create a rival organization.
Because this shit they are doing right now? Not helping anybody.
NotMax
So, Mr. LaPierre, if “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun” (citation), doesn’t that cast Adam Lanza as a good guy in the eyes of your NRA?
Redshirt
Cling to your guns! And Religion! And “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper stickers!
SatanicPanic
@NotMax: He’s driven up sales of guns and ammo so he already was a good guy. This is just additional confirmation.
Villago Delenda Est
@lyford:
The NRA was founded after the civil war to keep the market for rifles alive. The prosperity of weapons and ammunition manufacturers was threatened when peace broke out in April of 1865.
It is, and always has been, a method for arms manufacturers to move their product.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Schlemizel:
That’s my view, also, although I prefer to backdate the point beyond which citizen militias were clearly obsolete (both technologically and organizationally) in the face of a modern army and thus we should have junked the 2nd Amend, to the summer of 1865.
lumpkin
@Chet:
>>>Well, as everyone knows, guns are far safer when they’re inaccurate and unreliable, and when the people who use them are unskilled and poorly-trained.<<<
typical change-the-subject response. Be sure and stick your fingers in your ears too.
different-church-lady
“Sorry, our phone lines were all tied up sending out robocalls.”
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
The most predictible sentence ever written.
And it’s nice to see Chet back. Am I mistaken or is he the tool who shows up here to shill for the NRA every time a post about it goes up?
different-church-lady
@lyford:
Wouldn’t they have to reactivate the educational function first?
Villago Delenda Est
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
You are not mistaken. He’s our NRA (organ of the merchants of death) troll.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
I sit here before my monitor, humbly corrected.
different-church-lady
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.): The BATLIGHT phenomenon is not limited to one G. Green Wald. I blame that RSS thingy Mistermix is so attached to.
ranchandsyrup
Stolen from the twitters: I have a problem with people who have more of a problem with seeing 2 men kiss than seeing first graders being massacred.
Betty Cracker
@wmd: You’re right. My failure to note that the shooter only fully emptied five of the six 30-round magazines he used at the school renders any silly point I was trying to make about gun violence entirely moot. Hoplophiles (had to look that one up) are well known for receptiveness to gun control arguments — unless they detect inaccuracy. And then it’s game over, man…
@lyford: I’ll admit I can’t fathom how any sane individual would still voluntarily associate him/herself with the NRA at this point.
@Chet: Irony. You’re doing it wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Hmmm…was there ever a game called “Dissent” which was an FPS about telling the King to piss the fuck off?
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Villago Delenda Est:
I wonder why people like that even bother. Surely they can’t believe they’re going to sway anybody on a blog like this? Maybe at the Washington Post or New York Times, where all the evenhanded, independent, non-partisan, fair-and-balanced, both-sides-do-it readers are, but not here.
lyford
@different-church-lady:
The educational/training function is active. It doesn’t get much notice unless you’re involved in shooting sports.
http://training.nra.org/
rikyrah
I think they should be nailed like this.
I AM THE NRA.
yes, hang him around their necks
Tone in DC
Wayne LaPierre is the illegitimate lovechild of Henry Kissinger and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
In other news, this is OT, and a bit disturbing.
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/u.s.-b-2-bombers-in-south-korea%3A-nuclear-capable-planes-complete-training/515438e12b8c2a10e3000008
gogol's wife
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
You are not mistaken.
Violet
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.): Probably because they get paid to do it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel:
Hmmm…if he was bumping, that might explain why he had to use so many rounds to hit his 21 small targets. Since bumping degrades accuracy.
One of the reasons that the M16A2 doesn’t have full rock and roll, by design, is that it wasted ammo and degraded accuracy. The military has other weapons at its disposal to cause the other guy to keep his head down, which is the purpose of full auto in the first place.
different-church-lady
@lyford: I, of course, was exaggerating for effect.
Perhaps if they ever manage to poison* LaPierre and replace him with a new gun pope, there’s some hope for them to return to their original mission. Until then they’ve got perception problems that are entirely of their own making, which was the material of my snark.
(*I, of course, am exaggerating for effect.)
MomSense
@Tone in DC:
The situation is totally disturbing. Makes you hope their long range missile capability is mostly photoshop.
Highway Rob
@gogol’s wife: Which of those organizations has proven itself worth supporting? As far as I can tell, none of the NRA’s opposite numbers are even a tenth as effective as Pierre’s Paratroops. (Although as was noted upthread, none of them are nearly as old and established, and neither of them have industrial backing.)
Seems like those of us who’d like to see some reasonable firearm regulation should pick one of the groups on our side as a single standard-bearer. But, I don’t know nearly enough about them all to suggest which one.
rikyrah
I always wanted focus on the mother. How the hell was she a RESPONSIBLE gun owner, taking her crazy ass child to the gun range and keeping loaded weapons in the house with him?
mike with a mic
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep, this. I was in the military, you don’t really use infantry carried automatic fire to kill anything. The purpose of it is to pin the enemy down and supress them. So your guys can move into position safely. Fully automatic pistols and assault rifles are fun to use, if your goal is to cause a lot of smoke and spew a lot of lead. But they’re horrible at actually hitting things.
They removed fully auto from all those weapons because it made them less lethal.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@wmd: Yes, because his being on the sixth magazine clearly means that his nearly emptying six magazines is hyperbole.
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: AP
El Caganer
@Chet: It would have been a hell of a lot safer for those kids at Sandy Hook, wouldn’t it?
scav
@Violet: The alternative being they are sincerely pleased and reassured in their beliefs by knowing that Lanza meant and intended to hit each and every one of those children, making all things as they should be and shiney in NRA-world.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
The entire “Obama is coming with black Agenda 21 helicopters to take your guns away!” nonsense IS fulfilling the NRA’s original mission.
To move the product of Smith&Wesson, Colt, and the other weapons and ammunition manufacturers.
The entire “safety and sport shooting” thing also moves product, which IS THE MISSION.
beth
Here in South Carolina, they’re considering a bill that will remove any restrictions on obtaining a concealed weapon permit. Right now you have to take and pass a training class in order to obtain the permit – an investment of at least 8 hours if you pass the first time. So let me ask Chet if he really would feel safe if I, a person who’s only shot a gun once in my life, was in a grocery store with him with a loaded gun stuck in my pocket having only received some scant instructions from the gun dealer who sold it to me? Do NRA people really think this is the way to go? I’m not trying to scold; I’m serious – what’s the thinking here besides 2nd amendment Freedom! Why would any responsible gun owner be for this?
Villago Delenda Est
@beth:
NRA doesn’t really care, as the product has been moved.
Of course, coming back to the NRA for classes and so forth is yet another sales opportunity, so sure, the NRA will be happy to do that.
LanceThruster
Isn’t one of the post Newtown pushes for better gun and gun safety training?
Bubblegum Tate
@Villago Delenda Est:
The wingnuts I know argue around this little problem by insisting that the “militia” is, in fact, “the American people” (because the military is the military, so the people are the militia), and as for well-regulated? That just means they’re supposed to train regularly!
Not kidding about any of the above.
MikeJ
@different-church-lady: Wayne selected all the cardinals so the next gun pope will be just
like him.
beth
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, but the law doesn’t require that you ever actually learn how to use the weapon. It scares the shit out of me and I just can’t understand how it doesn’t scare the shit out of the lawmakers who, along with their families, live here.
lyford
@beth:
Personally, I’m all for more training — both in the safe and effective use of the firearm, and of the legal issues involved in using deadly force.
However, as a point of evidence, the state of Vermont does not and never has required concealed-carry permits, and it’s not exactly a hotbed of gun violence.
The argument tends to be from the “shall not be infringed” folks, who refer to it as “Constitutional carry”.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bubblegum Tate:
What they often fail to recognize is that with muskets you must drill, drill, drill to be an effective military unit.
More drilling than they would ever tolerate.
Also, the other part of “well-regulated” is that their weapons are inspected AND REGISTERED in the local militia unit’s books, where ooga booga someone with ee-vil intentions could find out they have a weapon and what state of readiness its in and AGENDA 21! OBAMA IS COMING!, etc.
They never seem to get the details that they’d find objectionable, to say the least, with the entire militia thing. Also, the militia is socia1ist in nature in the first place…all that mandatory group action that gets in the way of their freedumb.
Comrade Dread
I’m sure they plan to add an addendum to the next edition that includes a picture of a deer with a giant green checkmark next to a picture of a little kid crossed out with a red “Do Not” symbol.
Villago Delenda Est
@lyford:
Yes, all those rights without any regard to the responsibilities of wielding deadly force.
Something is wrong with this picture. Let’s ask those 21 kids in Newtown about that? Oh…wait…
Haydnseek
@Schlemizel: Yep. Tried like hell to avoid an argument with the wingnut down the street, but when he pulled out the old “cars kill more people every year than guns!” bullshit, I hit the wall. “Yeah, that’s why when you join the military or law enforcement, they give you a used Honda Civic and a bottle of Smirnoff.” Assholes, the bloody lot of them……
beth
@lyford:
So maybe only one person gets killed when Wilbur drops his loaded weapon out of his pocket in the grocery store and it fires. I guess I can live with that… unless of course I’m the one who gets shot.
It just seems like better training is such a small step to take and the gun nut response to Newtown is to do away with such things. It’s madness.
lyford
@Bubblegum Tate:
By federal law(USC 10 311)
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Villago Delenda Est
@Haydnseek:
Damn it, I spent a decade in the Army and I was never issued a Honda Civic, and as for the bottle of Smirnoff, are you kidding? Do you know how uptight the military is about drinking while on duty?
scav
What part of universally armed beserkers are the only thing keeping ‘mercans simultaneously safe from the hordes of relatively underfunded foreign armies breaking past our massively funded one and that same sacrosanct massively funded army imposing its will upon us has failed to bust through our logic gates and lead us into their ideal militia playground of polite harmony?
gogol's wife
@Highway Rob:
To me it’s worth supporting all of them. I guess I’d give the edge to CSGV, since they send me information about what I can do. Obviously none of these organizations has bought 2/3 of the Congress, so they are not as powerful as the NRA. But you have to start somewhere.
Jay in Oregon
@MomSense:
Makes you wonder why the NRA is willing to go after violent videogames, if they’re responsible for producing an army of blood-crazed monsters…
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est: “Original” is the key word here. I’m under the impression the NRA didn’t start out as an industry advocacy group for manufacturers.
[does “research”]
OK, apparently the original mission was to improve marksmanship, especially for soldiers. Then…
EconWatcher
@rikyrah:
I agree. The kid was emotionally disturbed, apparently throughout his life. How did she think it was a good idea to train him to shoot? She trained him to kill. That’s on her soul, if such a thing exists.
Litlebritdifrnt
A guy here in NC was “cleaning” his shot gun this week and he managed to shoot his 9 year old son in the head and kill him. I’m sure the NRA views that as just a tragic “accident” and has nothing to do with the fact that having a gun in a household means it is more likely that you or a family member will be shot with it and NOT an intruder.
different-church-lady
@Haydnseek: Maybe someday the distinction between “people” and “other people” will penetrate their thick skulls.
Hell, who am I kidding…
liberal
@Chet:
Yawn. My dad’s musket, which has a rifled barrel, is plenty accurate. You just can’t use it to execute many people. Of course, you’d rather see a bunch of little kids killed than gun manufacturers’ revenues decline.
wmd
@Betty Cracker: All I’m saying is it gives them a rallying point.
I’m in favor of restricting large magazines.
liberal
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Relatedly…
liberal
@EconWatcher:
Agreed. I don’t get the people (some of whom aren’t gun nuts) think she exercised reasonable judgement.
Haydnseek
@Villago Delenda Est: I know a guy who knows a guy that says his cousin’s boss can convert a mid-nineties Honda Civic to full auto for about eighty bucks. The booze is up to you…….
liberal
@different-church-lady:
The Wash Post had a series about that stuff recently.
I find it very hard to believe this just sprang spontaneously from gun-nut brains (“bottom-up”), as opposed to being hatched by gun manufacturers.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: If the
“well regulated militia” can be ignored,
Why can’t we take the ‘keep and bear’ literally? _Obtaining_ is not included in keeping and bearing, so there is no right to obtain arms.
Constitutional originalism.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
She wasn’t a responsible owner, as subsequent events proved. Unfortunately, under the NRA’s program of judging gun responsibility only by results, it’s impossible to know that somebody is an irresponsible gun owner until after a crime has been committed using one of their guns. It would be totally unfair to call somebody an irresponsible owner just because they train a dangerous insane person to use guns and keep them around where that person can use them to commit mass murder. We’re only allowed to say or do anything after it’s too late.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
That’s the publically stated mission…improving marksmanship.
BY SELLING THEM GUNS. Look at who bankrolled the NRA originally.
This has ALWAYS been about moving product, from day 1. All the activities are about keeping firearms in the spotlight, with a price tag, front and center.
No One of Consequence
@Tone in DC:
Dood. Why don’t you give a little summary as to what the fck you are referencing as opposed to just shitting out some link bait. Some readers here have a *distinct* dislike or Ariana’s shitshow. Built on the backs of unpaid, or underpaid schmucks, sold to AOL, and bastion of… not really much actually.
Fck Huffpo. Seriously.
No, I’m not bitter.
I’m alum flavored.
– NOoC
Shrillhouse
Yup. End of debate.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
“Arms” can very well mean torches and pitchforks.
Doesn’t need to mean firearms.
These guys should be running around with shovels. After all, that’s one way that a certain mass political movement got around some of the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles in the 30’s.
MomSense
@Jay in Oregon:
They don’t take responsibility! They are just good guys who are being forced to take these measures because of the threat of tyranny!
I honestly do not understand them–but I have been told by people more familiar with the culture that understanding is futile. I have also observed that there is a tendency to adopt all sorts of conspiracy theories by these same folks.
So in militia land these days there is a lot of talk about the UN plot to take away land rights under the guise of climate change–so of course guns have to be taken away to prepare for this. FEMA camps are needed for resettlement and obviously letting immigrants take over the place is a step towards doing away with sovereignty.
We aren’t hoping for meteors any more so maybe we can ask the gubmint to sick the HAARP rings on us!
Haydnseek
@Villago Delenda Est: “It’s a glider club I tell you, a glider club!”
raven
@No One of Consequence: It’s not like it was blind link, if you don’t like don’t click on it.
MomSense
@No One of Consequence:
That is why I first hover my mouse over the link to see what it is about and where it goes. Then I can either click on the link or I can find another source on the same topic.
I never click on Huffington Puffington–she doesn’t need help exploiting from me!
Roger Moore
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Just remember: guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Until the gun “just goes off” when it shouldn’t have, in which it’s a totally unpredictable, nobody could have foreseen, totally the gun’s fault and not the owner’s, gun accident.
No One of Consequence
@raven:
Certainly. I suppose I should be thankful for small favors. Seeing part of the domain kept me from clicking.
However, I am/was/notsomuchnow curious about what the OT news item of interest is.
” OMFG wow! I can’t believe this: hTEETEEPEE://somelink.fu … ”
The above doesn’t lend much to the conversation, nor to intuiting of what I might be OMFG’ing about.
Yes, yes yes, I agree with the logic of don’t like it don’t click it. But would it *kill* a brother to throw a few keystrokes towards general understanding as opposed to traffic for Aryan-Na?
Really.
– NOoC
raven
@MomSense: Hover over WHAT? It clearly is a huff post link. I mean we have a direct link to Pat Lang’s blog here and he is a confederate apologist, gun nut, catholic fucking homophobe. That’s worth bitching about!
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Heard an author interviewed who’d written a book on African boy “soldiers” (stolen children, basically, slightly older than the Sandy Hook victims). He noted that one boy with an AK47 had the firepower of a Civil War regiment.
Had our framers anticipated this rosy, freedom-filled future, they’d have taken a vastly different tack on civilian weaponry. Regrettably, our technology and the magic of mass production has outstripped our monkey brains.
Hence: Newtown, the countless predecessors, and an infinite number of future expressions of free gunnery.
raven
@No One of Consequence: Gotcha, I still think Pat Lang should be 86’d!
MattMinus
@Villago Delenda Est:
And further they forget who was regulating that well regulated militia. They weren’t thinking of something like the Hutaree or the Michigan Militia, the federal government was invoking the militia to achieve it’s military objectives because they were opposed to the idea of a standing army. The whiskey rebellion gives us a very clear window into how the founders thought construed the terms of this debate.
trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
“Hasn’t he suffered enough?” Repeat ad infinitum.
Mnemosyne
@No One of Consequence:
If you hover over the link and have the status bar in your browser turned on, it will give you the full name of the link, which includes the headline of the story that was being linked to. So, yes, the magic of technology would have revealed that information to you without forcing you to actually click on it.
Mnemosyne
Back on topic, since Southern Beale isn’t here to blogwhore, I’ll pimp it for her:
Journanimalism: The Passive Voice Gun Dodge
lyford
@MomSense:
I can’t speak for the “defend against tyranny!” folks, but the vilification of all gun owners has pushed some moderates in that direction.
Imagine that you grew up in an area where hunting and recreational shooting was normal. You don’t think of yourself as a “gun nut”, but you like to go to the range occasionally and try to get a deer in the fall. It’s just another one of your hobbies. No big deal.
Now you’ve got the national media telling you that what you do is wrong, that you, your family members and friends are part of a national problem, and that more restrictions will be placed on something you like to do because of the actions of a criminal. Pushing back is a natural reaction.
One comment I’ve seen a lot is “If guns cause crime, all of mine are broken.” Folks who are safe and responsible don’t see why they’re being blamed by association for any and all gun crimes.
cmorenc
@gogol’s wife:
He even beats out Nancy Grace, a quite difficult standard to exceed. But he does, clearly.
? Martin
@lyford:
Nobody is actually saying that. If they’re hearing that, it’s their own damn fault. If they want to consider themselves part of the gun manufacturers lobby, that’s their business, but the media is going out of their way to point out that gun owners and NRA members overwhelmingly support the idea of universal background checks. If anything they’re demonizing LaPierre and Congress for not listening to the own members and the public.
NRA members ought to be pissed that their membership is being used as cover to ensure that gun companies sell more guns and more ammo. That’s all this is really about. Everytime LaPierre or Mike Lee or one of those other assholes screams about confiscation or tyranny, gun and ammo sales spike. Santa isn’t nearly so good for gun makers as the NRA shills are. And they’re doing it all at the expense of NRA members.
MomSense
@lyford:
I don’t think all gun owners have been vilified at all! People are going out of their way to say that this is not about responsible hunters and sportswomen and men.
Do hobbyist gun owners or people who hunt or sport casually have any responsibility to disavow the extreme positions of people like LaPierre?
Folks who are safe and responsible are not being blamed for any and all gun crimes.
MomSense
@raven:
I’m responding to a post about a huffington link. Just saying that no one has to click on a link blindly–and this particular link wasn’t even a blind one.
Mnemosyne
@lyford:
Sure, just like pushing back on seatbelt laws was a natural reaction from people who assumed that they would never get into an accident, so they didn’t need to wear their seatbelts.
Unfortunately, you sometimes have to protect people from themselves. I’m sure that poor bastard in North Carolina thought that anti-gun people were hysterics and he was a perfectly safe gun owner right up to the moment where he accidentally blew his own child’s head off.
scav
@lyford: The defend all and unlimited gun brigade under all circumstances also pisses people off and drives away possible moderates. So, your point being? People are choosing sides. This isn’t necessarily going to be a let’s choose the most anodyne and universal feel-good everybody gets gold stars and a feather pillow non-debate. Heaven forfend the fuzzy middle be discomforted ever so slightly.
Even the NRA has thrice denied both Lanzas. NRA: No ‘Member Relationship’ With Adam Or Nancy Lanza
“Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory.”
Betty Cracker
@? Martin: Word.
gogol's wife
@scav:
Lyford is clearly a troll. Have you ever seen that nym here before? Ditto Chet.
No One of Consequence
@Mnemosyne: Thanks for that brilliant tech-tip Mnemo. Assuming I am on a trad desktop or laptop, or that I *have* a mouse.
With no mouse, try to guess which finger is hovering at you right now…
I am no neoLuddite, I make my money in tech.
I simply, and obviously not very well mind you, was asking for a few keystrokes of explanation to the OT blah blah blah. And throwing Aryan Na under the bus while I was at it, for efficiency purposes.
Oi. You win, next time I will just skip it, and restrain my curiosity. Much like when I run into BJargon I am unfamiliar with, but too lazy to look up in the lexicon/dictionary/BJ’ese translator.
– NOoC
lyford
@ Martin, Momsense
There have been a lot of stories/columns/posts along the lines of “I wouldn’t feel safe living next to someone who owned a gun”, “What if the person next to you had was carrying a gun!”, “What sort of paranoid nut feels the need to carry a gun?” etc. If you thought those things were completely normal, you’d be thinking “What’s wrong with these people? Why am I some sort of evil person all of a sudden?”
Gravenstone
@Chet: Ya just knew your ignorant ass would be all over this post like stink on shit. Got more chaff for us today, monkey?
However, it looks like a couple new chew toys have entered the fray today.
Mnemosyne
@lyford:
Also, you may want to take a look at this Cracked list and see what even some gun owners have finally figured out — they’re marketing guns to you like they’re Barbie dolls and pretending that a gun is as harmless as a Barbie dream car.
ETA: A choice quote —
carolus
@lyford:
All I can say is: bullshit.
First, the ‘moderates’ have been pushed in the direction of gun control. Want proof? Consider the fact two years ago, any gun control legislation was deader than Breitbart. Today, it actually has a chance.
Second, guns are your fetish hobby—it’s your responsibility to police it. Thus far, your efforts to police your fetish hobby has been worse than positive.
scav
@gogol’s wife: Oh yeah. My first EtByFYWP was a call-out to trolls that they could stand-down. Chet’s not really putting his back into it recently. The don’t scare the moderates rage was at least slightly Gay-marriage venting. I’m sooooo tired of being told to worry over the cherished dozers.
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est:
He didn’t miss much. Some of those kids were shot a dozen times.
Pinkamena Panic
@gogol’s wife: Can’t speak to lyford’s record, but Chet’s a regular on the gun threads. He’s a gun-sucker par excellence who wants desperately to steer the conversation away from his chosen fetish.
lyford
@gogol’s wife:
I drop in occasionally.
Does offering a different viewpoint automatically make one a troll?
Mnemosyne
@lyford:
People who were raised in strict evangelical homes go out into the wider world and suddenly discover that, say, yoga is considered a mild form of exercise by most people rather than a form of devil worship.
Sometimes it turns out that your subculture has some strange beliefs that are not shared by the wider culture, and you have to realize that it’s because you have some strange beliefs, not because the wider culture is wrong.
Paul in KY
@MomSense: I would sincerely hope they don’t make me ‘fear for my life’.
trollhattan
@lyford:
Everything you just typed isn’t a mere misunderstanding/misstatement, it’s an actual lie. Congrats.
beth
@lyford:
I think there’s a huge difference between carrying a gun and brandishing it and all the gun nuts know it. Lots of people around here carry weapons discretely holstered under their clothing somewhere. Most don’t feel the need to strap an assault rifle across their chest like they’re Rambo stepping into battle just to go to the grocery store.
lyford
@Mnemosyne:
Understood. I was just trying to explain why responsible gun owners might feel vilified.
lyford
@beth:
I’d agree that open carry for the sake of making a point is usually a dumb idea. Those folks are commonly known as “attention whores.”
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: technically you are always susceptible to being called back into duty. Thus you could be out on the town with your govt issued civic/smirnoff & then get the call & voila, you are getting to drink/drive on duty!
Mnemosyne
@beth:
You mean like this guy?
The funny part is, it was perfectly legal to bring a loaded assault rifle into a grocery store, but he totally would have been arrested if he’d walked into the store with no pants on the way he really wanted to.
(Sorry, I don’t usually climb onto the “gun=pen1s” bandwagon, but this one really could not have been more blatant.)
scav
And honestly, I’m not that much concerned what a few still undecided and tender responsible gunowners might just possibly feel when the bulk of opinion in this country is already in favor of some regulation and control — the problem being manufacturers, lobbyists and the officials beholden to them.
Soonergrunt
@lyford: “A lot of folks who shoot would like to separate the educational and political functions of the NRA.”
Then get off your ass and get it done before the next NRA member kills a classroom of children. Either that, or accept that the organization of which you are a member and have come here to defend is complicit in dozens of mass murders.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@No One of Consequence:
Then press, hold, and the link text will come up with a menu offering to open in a new tab. That’s the default behavior in all three browsers I’ve tried on my tablet so far; I’d say your odds are good that it will work on yours.
geg6
@catclub:
THIS.
I learned how to use guns responsibly when I was young. So what? First, I didn’t need the NRA to teach me, since I had a responsible gun owner for a dad. And two, my dad had no use for the NRA since he saw through their facade and knew them for what they were, a lobbying arm of the gun industry. Third, a childhood friend went on to become a world champion pistol shooter and still competes. He, also, is not an NRA member. Fourth, neither of those two responsible gun owners I cite were/are gun fetishists. My dad owned exactly three guns: a 30.06 for hunting, a 22 pistol, and a pellet gun for critters that got into the garden (and boys who played peeping Toms on his many daughters). Notice anything about those guns? Yeah, no semi-automatics, no high capacity magazines. My friend
owns nothing but regulation competition pistols. That’s it. And he will tell you that anyone that belongs to the NRA today signs onto the politics of the gun lobby because the purpose of the NRA is no longer about gun safety, but about selling guns. The safety stuff is meant to paper over the death toll of the lobbying arm and their paymasters, the gun industry.
I believe him and I respect my late father’s instinct for good and evil. I haven’t seen anything come out of the NRA that makes their opinions suspect. In fact, the NRA has gotten worse since I had those conversations with my dad and my friend and exponentially more appalling since Newtown, so if anything, they were giving the NRA too much credit.
eemom
I’m usually an advocate for nuance, shades of gray, etc. but you know what? Fuck that shit on this issue.
Fuck y’all gun apologists, ALL of you. Those innocent babies are dead, the bodies continue to pile up and there’s no fucking end in sight.
lyford
@Soonergrunt:
I am not an NRA member, and I do not come here to defend that organization.
Soonergrunt
@lyford:
With only SLIGHT modification, these are the same arguments that were heard after New York v. Ferber.
MomSense
@Paul in KY:
More like creeped/freaked out and not planning any events for the time being.
gogol's wife
@lyford:
Hahahaha. None of the people who come on here obsessively trying to derail gun-control discussions are members of the NRA. At least that’s what they always say.
geg6
@lyford:
Oh bullshit. No one is calling you any names. We’re calling an organization that exists and has existed for its entire existence to be a lobbying and marketing tool for their wares. I have hunted, pretty much everyone I know here in my town has hunted and many have been competitive shooters, my family members own guns and so do most of my friends. Not a single one of them has semi-autos or large capacity clips. Almost none of them are NRA members. In fact, most the NRA members I know are the least responsible, most emotionally unstable people around. And I don’t hang around them because they may be Nancy Lanzas, too stupid and paranoid to be a responsible gun owner.
You don’t like being lumped in with the death merchants, their lackeys, and the murderers they have nurtured and enabled, then I suggest you resign from the NRA. Otherwise, you aren’t any different from them.
Soonergrunt
@lyford: So all the stuff that you’ve been saying that’s defending the NRA is you not defending the NRA?
Paul in KY
@lyford: You don’t use a AR-15 with the 30 round mag, etc. etc. for deer hunting. In KY, it is too small a caliber & is illegal for deer hunting.
We are trying to stop wackos from being able to purchase a weapon made expressly for military (i.e. killing people quickly) use as easily as they purchase a bean bag chair.
? Martin
@lyford:
Thank the NRA for that reaction. The NRA isn’t advocating for ‘the person next you carrying a gun’. The NRA is advocating for the person next to you carrying an assault rifle with a 30 round clip and no background check. The NRA has deemed that those two categories are fungible – and they aren’t. And it’s not unreasonable for the public to be concerned about the latter, but the NRA is determined to defend that category at the expense of the former. And they do that because this entire debate has fuckall to do about the 2nd amendment and founding principles and whatever, and everything about shielding the gun manufacturers from criticism and boosting their sales and profits. That’s all this has ever been about. Ever. And the law abiding modest gun owners are caught in the middle of this. They broadly support everything that Obama has proposed and yet their support is being rejected by the very group that supposedly represents them. Has nobody actually questioned whether the NRA has the interests of gun owners in mind when they flagrantly oppose the wishes of their own members? Boy, Komen sure as fuck found out the hard way when they stepped even slightly over that line. Why haven’t the NRA members caught on that their organization only represents gun makers, and not gun owners?
lyford
@Soonergrunt:
Interesting. The obvious difference being that the manufacture of firearms does not involve issues of consent.
One point that reference does raise is considering the type of items for which ownership alone is illegal. There are many potentially hazardous things for which the use is regulated — motor vehicles would be one example — but ownership is not.
That’s been one of the core arguments in the gun debate — is controlling ownership the best way to control abuse? We’ve agreed as a society that it’s appropriate in some cases(child pornography) and not in others(alcohol, cars).
lyford
@Paul in KY:
If you put on a 7.62(.308) upper and use a smaller magazine, an AR is probably a fine .308 deer rifle.
Soonergrunt
@geg6: The NRA hasn’t been about gun safety since I was a kid. Anyone who says differently is a damn liar. Gun safety is a side business for them. Nothing more, and it’s only kept to maintain the facade of giving a shit about gun safety.
Little story here–
My Dad was Town Manager of Douglas, Wyoming in the mid-1970s. Small town up I-25 from Casper, Wy. Not much different today than back then. Best curly fries in the world at Koop’s on E. 3rd Street.
Anyway, the town had a problem with the cowboys and the miners coming into town and getting drunk and ignorant. They were forever lassoing the Jackalope statue on Main Street and dragging it off, for example. Well after a couple of incidents involving guns, a couple of the local bar owners wanted a change to the city ordinances that would allow them to deny service to anybody with a gun on his person. They went to my Dad and asked him how to do that. My Dad, helpful civil servant that he was, told them to hire a lawyer to write the ordinance, and talk to the City Clerk (technically his subordinate) to get an agenda item on the next Town Council meeting. The meeting comes, they present their proposed ordinance, and the council sets a vote for the next meeting in one month’s time. The town charter stated that proposed ordinances had to be published in the local newspaper, so that was done.
The next day, the rear window to his city government car was shot out. A couple of days later he and other town employees started getting death threats on the phone. These were eventually traced to the head of the county NRA chapter. A couple of guys accosted my sister and me (13 and 8, respectively) on the road to school one morning and told us they were looking out for us on the way to school because somebody might want to hurt us, so they were watching over us with their guns and maybe our dad should stop trying to take guns away from “law abiding gun owners,” or they couldn’t protect us.
Members of the Town Council reported that similar things were happening to their families.
I have absolutely NO use for that “law abiding gun owner” crap.
“Fucking potential terrorist” is what I hear whenever somebody uses that term.
You know who else was a “law abiding gun owner?”
Timothy McVeigh.
The proposed law was to keep guns out of bars, for Christ’s sake.
Paul in KY
@lyford: Nice parry, but you dodged my assertion of ‘weapon made expressly for military (i.e. killing people quickly) use as easily as they purchase a bean bag chair’.
The .308 upper would make it even more deadly (in hands of nut-murderer).
Soonergrunt
@lyford: And when society grows up, we will see gun ownership the same way we see the ownership of child pornography.
And as for consent, I’m pretty few people consent to be shot, and the children of Newtown couldn’t consent to that anyway, just like they couldn’t consent to be sexually abused. So thanks, man. That’s another way that they are similar.
Southern Beale
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for pimping me!
I was at a National Day of Gun Violence Action event at our Senators’ offices. Threw it together at the last minute but we had about 30 people and delivered letters from another 30 who couldn’t be there.
Here’s the thing that pissed me off. Two local TV stations showed up, Fox and the local NBC affiliate. I was in Sen. Corker’s office when NBC was there so I don’t know how it went. But I was there for Fox and that guy really REALLY pissed me off. The reporter decided a gathering of moms and citizens were the perfect people to grill on issues of constitutional law and the finer points of what is classified as an assault rifle … while the camera was rolling, of course! I was SO PISSED mostly at myself for not anticipating this. But in all my years of organizing and attending events of this type, I have NEVER EVER ever seen a reporter behave this way to a citizens’ group. He was totally out of line.
After it was over he was still hanging around so I chatted with him a bit. Turns out he was an ex-military gun enthusiast Tea Partier — shocker! And even HE agreed with the need for universal background checks!
Also he’s against Obamacare and believes you have to wait 20 years in England for a simple diagnostic test.
Sigh.
lyford
@Soonergrunt:
I said that I thought training was good, and stated that the NRA provides training. I have taken classes that were part of NRA training programs. I don’t consider that to be defending the entire organization, but I understand that you may see it differently.
priscianus jr
@Villago Delenda Est: Everyone forgets the “well regulated militia” part of the 2nd Amendment.
I agree. The problem is not the amendment. It’s the bullshit interpretation of the amendment that the NRA has played such a big part in propagating (though they are not the only ones, of course).
Besides, if anyone thinks the second amendment could actually be repealed, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to show them. A campaign to repeal the 2nd would be a total waste of resources and a political suicide mission. Also, as I said, totally unnecessary.
Betty Cracker
@? Martin:
That’s a damn good question. The NRA says they have four million members. I’ve long suspected it’s four million preppers, militia goobers, gun fetishists and paranoiacs, and even THEY get that it’s stupid to allow floridly crazy people unfettered access to high-powered firearms.
geg6
@lyford:
It’s not so much controlling ownership as it is controlling the firepower. Why does anyone who is a civilian non-law enforcement NEED a semi-automatic or a magazine of the capacity that Lanza used? Why are gun owners not required to carry insurance? Why are gun manufacturers exempt from liability? When the NRA can come up with answers to those questions that aren’t screeching paranoia about OMG, OBUMMER IS COMING FOR OUR GUNZ!, call me.
lyford
@Paul in KY:
I’m in favor of background checks, and more importantly, doing something about people who fail them. If someone fails a check because they are prohibited from owning a firearm, in most cases they have just committed a felony. But they can walk out the door, and there is rarely any followup.
If you were writing the legislation, how would you define the difference between a “military-style” firearm and a sporting firearm?
Southern Beale
@geg6:
I keep asking that question over and over again. Christ, here in Tennessee we’ve got a local rep who wants to require all pit bull owners carry insurance. You know what? Make it for ALL dog owners and I’m fine with that. Really I am. But guns? Noooo…..! That would be … wrong!
Richard W. Crews
HAIKU :
seemingly normal
crossing some line we can’t see
people can crack
Because gun control ain’t about the criminals. It’s about the regular folks who aren’t very “regular” and we can’t tell – because of our freedom to be whatever. How ya’ gonna’ tell? I say we can’t, so it’s the guns, not the people, that we must control.
make gun sales, not possession, illegal
We should go way beyond ALL gun sales having background checks; assigning liability to every gun, saddling every owner with that until the gun is terminated by being turned into authorities for destruction. So, sales become risky, as you don’t sell the liability – it sticks with you, making you responsible for letting that gun go. Improperly secured stolen guns retain responsibility.
We should make EVERY sale of semi-auto guns illegal. This will shut down the churning market. It will immediately reduce the value of every semi-auto in existence to near zero. Since I don’t believe pasty-white young gameBOYS have good links to an underground gun market, they will not be able to find many guns.
I bet we can identify misfits through their efforts to find theses guns – since they start as misfits within a secure society and try to delve into the hastily created underground. Should be easy pickings for the ATF narks. Heck, I bet criminal gun sellers would turn in (anonymously) most of their encounters with these losers!
Tone in DC
@No One of Consequence:
I did not notice before that the stories rotated on the site. This would be a better source.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/28/world/asia/korea-us-b2-flights
Tone in DC
@MomSense:
I think it is just Photoshop. This is just chest beating/braggadocio/semi-insanity. Hopefully.
geg6
In good news on the gun control beat:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/28/top-donors-threaten-dems-do-the-right-thing-on-guns-or-no-more-money/
The Moar You Know
First off, pretty sure lyford and Chet are the same guy.
As to the statement of who is getting driven where:
I’m a gun owner. My family has owned them for generations. And I’m waiting for the next buyback to haul the whole kit and caboodle (I have a few) down to the parking lot, handing them over to the sheriff for meltdown, and washing my hands of all of them. Including the beautiful Colt pistol my grandfather gave to me. That will be hard; it’s all I have of him.
I used to enjoy shooting. The folks at my local range know me by name.
But now all I see when I look at my guns is dead kids, Wayne LaPierre, and foaming at the mouth monsters who defend the existence of all of that in the name of fear, and an archaic law that hasn’t had any real meaning since well before the Civil War. And I can’t live with that in my house or in my life.
You want to talk about driving moderates to extremes. A cursory search will show my past postings here to be pro-gun ownership. Most of the REGULAR posters here know this to be true. But you pro-gun people have been working very hard, and it’s paying off. Just maybe not how you want.
Soonergrunt
You do not have a constitutional right to self-loading firearms (automatic or semi-automatic.) Nor do you have a constitutional right to firearms that load from detachable magazines.
You can have a revolver with locked (non-hinged) cylinder, or a pump action, bolt action, or lever action long arm with a fixed magazine.
The Moar You Know
@lyford: A much better – and as you certainly know, much cheaper – deer rifle would be an actual deer rifle. .308, 30.06, hell, .338 (that won’t be cheaper) – bolt action.
A .308 AR isn’t accurate worth a shit and you know it. Or you should.
Peppi
I would invite you to go back and read through the thread here on Balloon Juice in the weeks following the last shool shooting. The person invective was astounding.
Moreover, there were quite a few posters here who openly advocated denigration and demonization as a key part of their strategy. As in “We just have to make people hate gun owners as much as people hate smokers …”
I am not saying this was you, of course.
All that language does is just harden peoples positions.
There are a few million assholes (many of whom belong to the NRA) who will fight any sensible gun control laws. On the other side you have a few million assholes who want to do everything possible to make gun ownership as inconvenient as possible – even for law abiding folks.
The Moar You Know
@Soonergrunt: You’ve just named the guns I would actually WANT to have if I ever needed a gun, because they WORK.
I’ve never shot any of these that jammed; I’ve never shot a semi-auto that didn’t.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: Bravo. I suspect you’re not alone.
scav
Mildly amusing that one example of the things “as a society” we have decided not appropriate to regulate he goes with alcohol which can be meddled with down to the county, individual store / restaurant and bloodstream % level. Yeah, nobody simply no single body anywhere anyhow is controlling teens and toddlers ownership of alcohol. Society has deemed it so.
Peppi
DMPS .308s will shoot sub moa all day long.
(Not what I choose for a deer rifle, but the idea that semi-auto .308s can’t be suitably accurate for hunting is wrong.)
Soonergrunt
@The Moar You Know: “First off, pretty sure lyford and Chet are the same guy.”
They aren’t.
Jebediah
@Soonergrunt:
Eminently sensible. No violation of the Second Amendment and no hindrance to either target shooters or hunters.
The Moar You Know
@Soonergrunt: Ahhh, thank you, you would know.
I always hope that there might be fewer shitheads posting here than actually do.
ricky
@Peppi:
And Lord knows when they harden up you can’t pry their guns loose until their fingers is cold and on dead hands.
GregB
Hey, if ACORN can get run out of town for one person who didn’t even do anything wrong, perhaps it is time for this den of sociopaths, gun thugs and bullies to suffer the same fate.
Tim McVeigh was in good company.
InternetDragons
@lyford –
You are so full of it. You most certainly don’t speak for me or gun owners like myself.
I grew up in a family of hunters; my fondest memories of my grandmother are when she taught me (a girl) how to hunt turkey and deer. I started shooting cans in the backyard under my father’s watchful eye when I was six years old.
I own a handgun and two hunting rifles. Most of my family belonged to the NRA at one point or another. My own membership lapsed a long time ago, not for any high-handed moral or political reason but because my budget in undergrad and grad school was tight. Not that I’d join them these days — not with that psychopath leading the organization.
But my main point here is that I do not in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM take personally ANY of the anger, uncertainty, or even judgment expressed by those who are rightfully upset over the massacre of first-graders. I have critical thinking skills. Gun policy discussions now MUST be informed by the horror of that massacre, and it’s insane to act as if nothing should change as a result.
The fact that you are playing victim here (“Oh POOR me, a responsible gun owner being blamed by those meanies who are upset over dead children”) is pretty disgusting to me, to be honest. I guess I should try to moderate my tone here, but I am too pissed.
Go play victim somewhere else. Get therapy if you don’t understand how to make the personal and emotional distinctions required for engaging in these very passionate conversations. But you sure as hell don’t represent me or any number of other similarly responsible gun owners who totally get that it’s time for things to change, and to change in meaningful ways.
The Moar You Know
@Peppi: That’s nice. You know, it’s funny, but I really don’t give a shit anymore. Jerk off over all the black rifles you want. Claim whatever magic abilities you like for them. I bet one could unclog my drain like nobody’s business too.
I’m kind of done with the whole thing. Since we can’t have a ban, I’ll settle for the Soonergrunt compromise above and call it a day.
Peppi
@The Moar You Know: So you make a ill-informed statement, I point out that its wrong and your response is “Jerk off over all the black rifles you want.”
Nice.
[eta] I mean why even bother to try and discuss anything factually when it is so much easier to just spout these little insults, right?
eemom
@Peppi:
Go fuck yourself, you “both sides do it” freak. YOUR side’s assholes are soaked in the blood of murdered children.
Villago Delenda Est
@Peppi:
Up until the moment that the NRA’s poster child Lanza opened fire on those children, he was a law abiding gun owner.
A fat lot of good that did those kids.
Betty Cracker
@eemom: Inconvenience, dead children, what’s the diff? /sociopath
Southern Beale
@eemom:
Pretty sure Peppi is referring to abortion, not gun ownership. Yep, I’m positive.
geg6
@eemom:
Thank you for saying that. If you hadn’t, I was going to. And I second the emotion.
Peppi
Wow.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
I guess that’s why some people swear they need a 30-round magazine to take down a deer. It never seems to occur to them that maybe they’re really, really shitty shots if they have to unload a magazine to take down one frickin’ deer.
You know how many shells you’re allowed at one time for duck hunting? Three.
Mnemosyne
@Peppi:
Go fuck yourself.
ETA:
Also, too, it looks like he used his own guns, not his mother’s guns —
But, yes, tell us again about how saaaadddd law-abiding gun owners are that people are so mean to them just because 26 people died within 5 minutes.
scav
@Peppi: Are you equally startled by reflections in mirrors? Because that’s certainly the vibe you give off: others’ right not to get shot ends at “responsible” gun-owners right to quick, easy and painless firearm delivery. so sorry for the inconvenience, some selfish thoughtless wusses object to holes in their (and others’) kids.
lyford
@The Moar You Know:
One can purchase a 7.62 ARs with minute-of-angle accuracy guaranteed.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
You know a good way that gun owners could get people to stop hating them? Saying things like, “Gosh, Adam Lanza was a terrible person — we should be more careful about who’s allowed to own a gun!”
But, nope, it’s all about how mmmeeeannnnn everyone is for pointing out that guns are deadly weapons, not toys.
Mnemosyne
@lyford:
Here’s the thing, though: no one who is not a gun nut gives a shit about stuff like that. At all. It’s like having to listen to Apple vs. Android, except that you seem to be oblivious to the fact that, unlike an iPhone, your shiny toy is designed to kill people.
Betty Cracker
@Peppi: I’ll admit to being a tad impatient with people who oppose sensible gun control or complain about the inconvenience restrictions might involve: I once had to step over a puddle of someone’s brains and spinal fluid while evacuating the scene of a workplace massacre. Before that happened, I was probably more polite about it.
The Moar You Know
@lyford: Really? Goddamn. I’ll bet that fucker can clear a drain in one shot.
Personally, if I’m going to misuse a war weapon for deer hunting, I prefer to load up my Cessna with a 1000-pound JDAM and drop it right on Bambi’s head. I never miss. Course, there’s not a lot left for eating but that’s also true if I put ten .308 rounds through that antler rat’s gut cavity. Nothing like a direct shit injection into the meat to make it inedible.
amy c
@Betty Cracker: Yes. Anyone who reacts to the Newtown shooting massacre with concern over how easily he will be able to maintain his own arsenal is a morally deficient human being. I see shades of gray everywhere, but not here.
If you hunt for food or are under the (misguided) opinion that you need to keep a gun in your nightstand to feel safe, nobody with any power at all is realistically threatening your right to keep doing these things. If you’re worried, now, about the sob story of the persecuted, law-abiding gun owner, it’s because you want to stockpile murder weapons with minimum inconvenience. That is not even a fetish – that is a sickness.
lyford
@Mnemosyne:
Yup. Federal law requires a three-round limit for migratory waterfowl, and many states have similar restrictions for some hunting. Makes perfect sense to me.
Most repeating shotguns can hold more then 3 — 4-6 is typical — so hunters will insert a magazine plug when needed. If a game warden asks to check your gun and can load more than the legal limit, you will be charged with a violation.
johnny aquitard
@Peppi:
Fuck you and La Pierre too. I heard that sociopath son of a bitch after Sandy Hook. That bastard blamed the kids and their teachers, demanded more guns. And it’s actually language like that that made me change my mind. It didn’t harden my position. It went 180 degrees as a result.
I’m a gun owner and I’ve come to hate and despise that kind of NRA drivel you’ve been spouting. Shit, you really think you’re the victim here, don’t you? You narcissistic little pissant.
Fuck you and your “responsible gun owner” bullshit. If you were a responsible gun owner, you’d be demanding La Pierre’s resignation and universal background checks, at a minimum.
I’m all for restricting ownership now precisely because of dumb NRA fucks like you who hide behind this phoney “responsible gun owner” shit, who insist guns don’t kill people, that greater access to guns for everyone wherever and whenever they want makes us safer.
When you have the honesty to admit that regulating them is a damn commonsense good idea, you might do the actual responsible thing and support those efforts. But I won’t hold my breath. But I damn sure will vote, write my congress people, and will support any organization that will undermine and destroy the NRA. This deluded gunnut shit must stop.
Oh yeah, one more thing: You AR guys *do* jerk off over all your black rifles. You guys are pathetic, equal parts coward, paranoid, fantasist and deluded. You wanna play at army, join the army. You wanna play defender of the republic, too late. You lost any credibility when you showed your ass instead of taking up that AR to fight against the Bush v. Gore decision, the Patriot Act, torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and Guantanamo Bay. You got suckered with the non-existant WMDs. And not a peep out of you. Go jerk off over your badass rifes some more. You had a dozen years of real tyranny to defend against with your black rifle; jerking off over it is all you’re ever gonna use it for.
lyford
@InternetDragons:
I agree that gun policy should change. I’d prefer that those changes be informed by logic as well as emotion.
One of the first changes should be to drop the idiotic restrictions on gathering data about firearm use and crime. Accurate data is crucial. It’s well known that a small percentage of dealers are responsible for selling the guns used in a majority of violent crimes, and it makes no sense to ignore that.
johnny aquitard
@lyford:
No. It makes perfect sense — for them.
Ignore the problem and the NRA’s clients don’t have to worry about gun and munition sales dropping. Suppress the data gathering, and it is easy to substitute propaganda and fear-mongering in that void. Control the data, and they can control the policy decisions made from that data.
When money is finally made available to do these studies, you will see a repeat of the same strategy as the tobacco industry and the energy companies have used — dilute, obfuscate, and contradict real science with corporate-funded ‘science’ and think tank ‘white papers’.
Accurate data is crucial. But the pattern has repeated enough times we should know that what these intrenched and corrupt industry interests are doing is causing great harm, that they are perfectly aware that they are, and that they are engaged in hiding it or deceiving people about the consequences.
lyford
@johnny aquitard:
That’s what’s so frustrating — with good data you could see the patterns, and more clearly distinguish criminal and non-criminal behavior.
A large portion of “everyday” gun violence is committed by habitual criminals. That’d be a great place to start reforming gun policy. Go after: Dealers who sell an abnormal percentage of guns used in crimes. Repeat straw purchasers. Ineligible buyers who attempt to pass background checks. Anyone using a firearm to commit a crime.
I suspect that enacting those policies would be a better use of resources than debating the lethality of barrel shrouds.
Tehanu
@Soonergrunt:
Hear, hear. And I loved your story about your dad.
Jebediah
@johnny aquitard:
Yup. In my admittedly limited experience, folks who actually did join the military tend to not be gun nuts.
Peppi
@johnny aquitard: you seem angry.
Given how obvious all of this is to you, do you ever wonder why more eople don’t agree with you?
Are you just that much smarter? Do you love people more?
Rob Lll
Don’t worry, gun-fondlers — somebody out feels your pain: http://www.theonion.com/articles/emotional-wayne-lapierre-honors-victims-of-backgro,31836/
Paul in KY
@lyford: Detachable magazine that allows for 20 – 30 or more rounds & semi-automatic firing ability.
Additional things like presence of bayonet stud & muzzle brake might also be thrown in there.
Next question.
Paul in KY
@The Moar You Know: IMO, you should keep the colt pistol. You can wrap it in cosmolene & store it in a safe deposit box.
Paul in KY
@Peppi: When properly sighted in, etc. etc. an AR-15 is quite accurate, sad to say.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: Excellent point, VDE.
Kay
NRA blocked legislation yesterday in GA that would have made it easier to deny weapons to people who are what we call “pinkslipped” or in mental health crisis, but not yet in front of a judge (weekends in rural counties)
They want to make sure people have access to firearms for that crucial period between breakdown and mass shooting, I guess.
Another lie, the bullshit about “mental health”
Jebediah
@Kay:
That right there is a phrase that raises my blood pressure considerably.
johnny aquitard
@Peppi: Gun owner here, bro. Not some melt-all-the-guns psalm singer. There’s a lot of ways you could have responded to what I and others have brought up here. Instead you brought nothing. That’s what the NRA does too. Repeats the same old bullshit then pretends nothing’s wrong, nothing needs to change. You got nothing.
Peppi
@johnny aquitard: given your obvious anger management issues, you really should not have access to firearms.
You can easily sell firearms on sites like gunbroker.com or auction arms.com, and I would urge you to do so.