It will take more work than this to get people scared of slightly broader background check rules for gun buying. I imagine Rwanda would have turned out differently if the tutsi were heavily armed and paranoid.
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Mike in NC
Wingnut politician from South Carolina — who could have predicted?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I realize this guy is just trying to find any analogy that will keep this bill from getting through, but I also can’t help but think back to that article that Doug linked to a while back (that lots of people didn’t like), where the guy said owning a gun made you think about the world differently.
raven
De Mau Mau!
Punchy
Isn’t there a provision that says if you’re selling to a friend (undefined, I think), no checks are needed? Dont know if this is a loosening of regs or maintains the status quo, but that seems to be a loophole so large that the whole thing becomes farcical.
I suspect gun sellers will suddenly have many, many friends.
JPL
Gun ad’s use to be about hunting, now they are about protecting you from the government. wtf. I blame Obama.
Schlemizel
When the crazy is turned up to 11 already where is there to go?
If they were not making such a mess of the world we all have to live in I’d sort of feel sorry for the poor dumb bastards
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Punchy: Yes, but at the same time, it will look awfully funny if a gun store owner suddenly buys 30 of his own guns, a few of which turn up in a crime.
The family/friend loophole is no change to current policy.
JPL
Rick Warren’s son bought the gun he used to commit suicide over the internet without a background check. The law does seem to take care of that. Toomey wanted to add, that 5 sales a month over the internet didn’t require background checks. Schumer said no.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Unfortunately a lot of people I know are buying into this bullshit hook, line, and sinker. I feel like the only one not wholly convinced that any minor expansion of gun control is just asking for super-massive fascism. And anything I say and do basically leaves me feeling like I should be kicked out of the whole goddamn country because GUNS ARE FREEDOMS, BTICHES, YOU SUPER MEGA ULTRA FUCKING GUNGRABBING TRAITORRRRRR!!!!!
SatanicPanic
Let’s talk about some of the voter registration laws the Republicans are pushing. You have to give the the government your address, TAKE A PHOTO and tell them your party ID. Have they considered that with all that information, it would be really easy for the government to round up every conservative voter and kill them?
J.W. Hamner
Well, back to the drawing board guys… those clever conservatives have seen through our fiendish plans AGAIN. One day we will realize our dream of an America filled only with illegal immigrant black gay women who hate guns!
Villago Delenda Est
These people are idiots.
They know a bit about tactics, but they know nothing of logistics.
SatanicPanic
Cut the emotionally stunted trees!
Mandalay
So the Republican position is now that states’ rights are sacred….until it comes to guns:
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
It has always been so. “States’ Rights” didn’t apply to fugitive slaves, you know.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: Call of Duty doesn’t count. The thought of 90% of these fools in a firefight makes me laugh.
The Moar You Know
@Mandalay: Well, the immediate cure for this is that it will die in the Senate.
A more long term cure is the North Carolina route, where the state just says “fuck the federal law, you come into our state with a concealed weapon and you’re in jail”. I mean, hell, if the Confederacy is going to go there let’s not make it a one-sided thing.
Mojotron
Nobody seemed to pick up on the eerily similar stories from opposite coasts two weeks ago; they occurred days apart.
Emmy-Winning Documentary Filmmaker, Humanitarian Killed By Neighbor During Tree-Trimming Dispute
Guy was trimming trees on his property while packing a .44 and got into an argument with his neighbor who he claims had a gun (he did not, no gun found)and shot him twice, killing him.
Three killed after dispute between neighbors
and about that second guy….
Harrisburg shooter denied concealed carry permit after 2004 assault
Your well-regulated militia folks, speaking for the trees.
Mandalay
@The Moar You Know:
You are probably correct that the bill will die in the Senate, but in the unlikely event that it becomes law I doubt that the argument “fuck the federal law” would be well received in the courts.
JoyfulA
@Mojotron: Yikes! I’ve had disagreements with neighbors on both sides about my trees. I bought this particular house because of all the big trees on the lot.
One neighbor, the week we moved in, told me to cut down the tall evergreens on his side of the lot because they were shading his pool, which was built decades after the trees were planted. And he does get blind drunk at times. I wonder if the gun permit data are online.
The Moar You Know
@Mandalay: I would hope it wouldn’t be, but I have no confidence that would be the case.
tjmn
My Dad is thoroughly convinced that the police will show up and try to take is guns. And the military is questioning President Obama’s commander-in-chief skills. And Fox news is the best source of news.
Hungry Joe
@Schlemizel:
12.
Bobby Thomson
Man, these people are idiots. Rwanda actually provides solid evidence for one of their pet arguments – that people lacking guns will use other weapons to kill people. Thousands of people were murdered and maimed (especially maimed) by people using nothing but machetes.
But the argument they are actually making is just plain stupid. It’s like arguing that people need the census in order to figure out where white people live (which is probably something some of the crazier ones believe already). Telling the difference between Hutu and Tutsi was not some hard distinction that people needed a registration for. People were killing their neighbors.
Mnemosyne
My gun-loving mom (who was horrified by Newtown) said something interesting in passing last weekend: she thinks that if people want to kill themselves, no one has any business intervening, so it’s morally wrong to try and keep guns out of the hands of suicidal or mentally ill people to try and prevent them from killing themselves.
That was … weird. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.