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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

In after Baud. Damn.

Let there be snark.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Now Is Not The Right Time. It Is The Only Time

Now Is Not The Right Time. It Is The Only Time

by Tom Levenson|  October 9, 20154:21 pm| 62 Comments

This post is in: Gun nuts, Their Motto: Apocalypse Now

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Two campus shootings in a single day.

Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Massacre_of_the_Innocents_(detail)_-_WGA3480

First up, Northern Arizona University, where a gun in the hands of an 18 year old student dispatched bullets into the bodies of four human beings.  One is dead.

G. T. Fowler, the chief of campus police, said that Steven Jones, a freshman, had opened fire after two groups of male students were involved in a confrontation. The police were able to take Mr. Jones into custody after he stopped firing the weapon and “everything calmed down for a few minutes,” Chief Fowler said.

This was, as Charles Pierce pointed out earlier today, not some deranged son of satan spinning out of our collective id.  Rather…

This is an ordinary Thursday night campus brawl that escalated to homicide only because one of the participants had a gun which, I guarantee you, he did not have to work hard to obtain. Maybe we should look into why these things happen.

Travel now to Texas Southern University where…

A gunman killed one person and wounded another on the campus of Texas Southern University in Houston on Friday, the second shooting at the university this week.

This one is not likely to remain a mystery either, as “The Houston Police Department said a possible suspect in Friday’s shooting was in custody.”

Note, please the lagniappe in the Times write up on the TSU murder, that “second shooting” line:

On Tuesday night, a person was shot and seriously wounded while walking across the Texas Southern campus. There was no indication whether that shooting was linked to the one there on Friday.

Guns do not create the impulse to violence. They merely ensure that the consequences of just about anything can be fatal.

Most of all, guns destroy freedom.  They erode the freedom of assembly.  They make it scary to walk across a college campus at night.  They make you wonder if saying that, say, the GOP field is a bunch of ammosexual nuts might line you up on the wrong side of a nine held by some cultist in the church of the holy firearm who takes a hard line on blasphemy.

Guns fix their owner in a state of permanent fear — how else to describe the claim of a threat so constant that going strapped is the only rational response? — and impose that fear on all the rest of us.  Guns slaughter their own, as 20,000 + gun suicides attest.

An armed society is not a civil society.  It is one that rewards not our aspirations, but our night terrors.

But we all know this.

Guns. Need. To. Be. Caged.  It’s as political — or rather it needs to be — as Social Security, for our side as well as the NRA’s.  No politician from here forward gets my support unless they are gun control absolutists.

I don’t pretend anything I want will happen anytime soon.  But I do believe that at some point the massacre of the innocents will shock enough consciences to make change possible.

Rant over.

Pieter Breughel the Elder, The Massacre of the Innocents, 1556-7

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Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    October 9, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    No politician from here forward gets my support unless they are gun control absolutists.

    Good, but vague. What does that mean?

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    October 9, 2015 at 4:24 pm

    It won’t be any one tragedy. It will be the cumulative weight of them all.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    October 9, 2015 at 4:25 pm

    Again, it’s rage that’s the problem.

  4. 4.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 9, 2015 at 4:25 pm

    Wingnuts want to make the United States, Somalia of the West.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    October 9, 2015 at 4:27 pm

    KAY,

    did you see this?

    …………….

    The indictment of Barbara Byrd-Bennett—Mayor Rahm’s front woman at CPS
    Posted By Ben Joravsky on 10.08.15 at 05:15 PM

    Appropriately, Mayor Emanuel’s name isn’t mentioned in the 43-page indictment on bribery charges handed down today by the feds against Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who was hired by the mayor to run the Chicago Public Schools.

    It’s appropriate because, as near as I can tell, the main reason Emanuel hired Byrd-Bennett was to be the sympathetic public face—thus shielding him for blame—for the cuts, closings, testing policies, and other bad things he was doing to the schools.

    Not the least of which was hiring Byrd-Bennett to run them.

    I urge every citizen of Chicago to read the indictment. But in case you’re too busy, I’ll give you a few lovely details.

    For almost a year before Mayor Emanuel hired her as CEO—I did mention that she was hired by Rahm, right?—Byrd-Bennett was a “paid consultant” for the Supes Academy.

    That’s an educational consulting firm in Wilmette run by two guys named Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas.

    The central accusation is that Byrd-Bennett used her influence at CPS to squeeze about $24 million worth of contracts from a broke-ass public school system whose leaders—Mayor Emanuel chief among them—constantly told the public it didn’t have a dime to spare.

    So stop asking for more money for things like toilet paper and janitors and books.

    And you wonder why so many Chicagoans don’t believe CPS is really broke.

    http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2015/10/08/the-indictment-of-barbara-byrd-bennettmayor-rahms-front-woman-at-cps

  6. 6.

    Tom Levenson

    October 9, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    @Baud: I’m still w. you in 2016.

    Absolutists — for me it’s a term with some flex in it.

    Right now it’s the usual suite of background checks and closed gunshow loopholes and the like.

    Going forward, I favor at the least universal registration/licensure, ballistic fingerprinting of all guns sold; bullet fingerprinting; high taxes on ammo; requirements to hold liability insurance. Imposition of real criminal liability for misuse, “accidents” and the like. Gun license renewal requirements, with gun safety testing as part of the process. Raise the costs and burdens of owning a gun to the point where it begins to bite, to make it much, much harder to acquire one or more weapons off the books, and to impose real responsibility on “Responsible Gun Owners™”

    I’m open to more/other suggestions. What you got?

  7. 7.

    Yatsuno

    October 9, 2015 at 4:30 pm

    Make that three:

    http://www.whas11.com/story/news/2015/10/09/active-shooter-situation-reported-jctc-downtown-louisville/73671502/

  8. 8.

    Tom Levenson

    October 9, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    @Yatsuno: Fortunately, apparently not.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    October 9, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    Thanks.

    I support mandatory militia membership for all gun owners with eight weeks of boot camp each year.

    It’s my Well-Regulated Militia Program.

  10. 10.

    Kylroy

    October 9, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    What is true now that wasn’t true after Sandy Hook? (Beyond the fact that Rs now control 2/3 of the federal government.)

  11. 11.

    JPL

    October 9, 2015 at 4:34 pm

    @Tom Levenson: Baud is our last hope!

    My biggest fear is that a lot of citizens will become desensitized to the killings. What might happen is that people will become more fearful, of going to movies, restaurants and malls. When it hurts businesses, something might change.

    Yes, I’m discouraged.

  12. 12.

    bs23

    October 9, 2015 at 4:34 pm

    very well put. rant on, my man, rant on!!

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 9, 2015 at 4:37 pm

    And they’re protesting President Obama in Roseburg, Oregon.

    EDITED to correct spelling of town, and to add that by “they” I am referring to armed protesters. Armed. Gun-totin’.

  14. 14.

    Calouste

    October 9, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    @Tom Levenson: Prosecuting gun manufacturers under RICO.

    And shutting down arms manufacturing plants. There are 300 million guns in the US. There is no need for any more. Smith & Wesson is worth $1 billion. If Warren Buffet or Bill Gates want to do something useful, they could buy it and appoint Carly Fiorina CEO shut it down.

  15. 15.

    Calouste

    October 9, 2015 at 4:39 pm

    @Tom Levenson: The day is still young.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    October 9, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    @Baud:

    Good, but vague. What does that mean?

    ¡Baud! For President!

  17. 17.

    MomSense

    October 9, 2015 at 4:43 pm

    Most of all, guns destroy freedom. They erode the freedom of assembly. They make it scary to walk across a college campus at night. They make you wonder if saying that, say, the GOP field is a bunch of ammosexual nuts might line you up on the wrong side of a nine held by some cultist in the church of the holy firearm who takes a hard line on blasphemy.

    Tom, thank you for writing this. I can’t tell you how many of us who have dared express our opinions on gun violence prevention have been intimidated and/or harassed by gun fanatics.

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    October 9, 2015 at 4:47 pm

    @Calouste:
    It seems to me that the gun industry in America should have had an almighty crash by now. Its customer base is dwindling. Its market is already oversaturated with product. Yet it goes on and on. What gives?

  19. 19.

    ? Martin

    October 9, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    @JPL:

    My biggest fear is that a lot of citizens will become desensitized to the killings.

    Will become?

    I then walked into a room with Sgt. Carrio. At first glance it did not appear that there were any casualties. To the left of the room as you walk in there was a bathroom in the corner. There was a massive pile up of bodies in this room. At the time I did not know that it was a bathroom and wondered how the suspect had the time to kill that many people and stack them in the corner of the room. There appeared to be about 15 bodies in the small room and several bodies, including, two adults near the entrance to the room. There was one adult and I believe one child that were laying prone on their backs approximately several feet from the entrance to the bathroom. All the other bodies were inside the bathroom or in the entrance to the bathroom. An adult victim was lying across the mass of bodies inside of the bathroom. Sgt. Carrio stated that he was an EMT (or maybe a paramedic) and that he had to check to see if anyone in the pile may have survived. I agreed as the bodies were stacked two or three high and that some of the children at the bottom, who were able to cram in first, may have escaped bullets. Sgt. Carrio began to lift bodies off of the top of the pile and bring them to an open floor area. He began to look for life signs, wounds, and to attempt to find a pulse. The victims on the top of the pile and many of the bodies had injuries that were obviously fatal. As Sgt. Carrio began to empty out the bathroom it became apparent what had occurred due to how efficiently packed in the bathroom the children were. It appeared as if the teachers in the room immediately upon hearing gun shots began to pack children into the bathroom. The children that were sitting on the floor of the bathroom were packed in like sardines. One little girl was sitting, crouched in between the toilet seat and the back corner of the room. I thought that she might have the best chance for survival. As the pile got higher it appeared that there was a mad scramble to get into the bathroom, with people stepping on one another and climbing on top of each other. The teachers would not have been able to get into the room even if they wanted to. The teachers appeared to have been shepherding the children into the room and were then probably going to shut the door. They did not close and lock the door to the classroom for some reason and were interrupted by the shooter as they attempted to fill the bathroom with children. The shooter then opened fire on the mass of children and adults. As Sgt. Carrio got to the last bodies it was clear that no one had survived.

    And in response to this we didn’t fail to act. No, we legalized carrying guns into schools and churches and bars in a bunch of states. In one state we made it illegal for police to even question whether you had a gun license or not.

    We became desensitized to this ages ago.

  20. 20.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    October 9, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    @JPL: You’re right that it will hurt buinesses. I don’t want to (won’t) go to places full of fearful people who have guns with them. And people who aren’t fearful don’t take their guns out to dinner. Or to see a movie.

    What they do with their guns in private is their own business and I don’t want to know.

  21. 21.

    Chris

    October 9, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    Some countries have suicide bombing epidemics. We, increasingly, have our equivalent in mass shootings.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    October 9, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    @Calouste:

    If Warren Buffet or Bill Gates want to do something useful, they could buy it and appoint Carly Fiorina CEO shut it down.

    How about Michael Bloomberg. He’s talked about spending that kind of money fighting for gun control, so maybe buying a gun company and either shutting it down or using its influence to moderate the NRA would be at least as good a way of spending the money.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    October 9, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    @Amir Khalid:
    Actually, the gun industry in the US is in trouble for exactly the reason you highlight. They’re undergoing a whole bunch of bankruptcy and consolidation because they’re having a hard time making much money. Instead of trying to get out of the business or to find some other way of selling guns, they’re ramping up the marketing- which in the US includes trying to ramp up people’s paranoia- and trying to sell more and more guns to the people who already have them.

  24. 24.

    Jane E

    October 9, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    But I do believe that at some point the massacre of the innocents will shock enough consciences to make change possible.

    I wish I could be that optimistic.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 5:00 pm

    @Baud: Eight weeks of [mandatory] bootcamp. LOL. I can get behind that. The exercise alone might save some of their lardasses.

    @Tom Levenson: All common sense. Treats the weapon with respect for its deadly potential.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 9, 2015 at 5:01 pm

    I hope this is an issue that the post-presidential Obama Center (Foundation, Institute, whatever it ends up being called) embraces actively and noisily, along with related issues of institutionalized racism, economic injustice, etc.

  27. 27.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 9, 2015 at 5:03 pm

    We never see the the people who have died because of these shootings. The zealots need to see the results of their extremism.

  28. 28.

    Ned Ludd

    October 9, 2015 at 5:04 pm

    @Tom Levenson: Strict liability to manufacturer, retailer, and legal owner of any damages resulting from a gun. Anyone injured by, say, Joe Smith’s Glock pistol purchased at Walmart can sue each one of those parties for damages, and the only legal questions are: (1) was it really a Glock pistol? (2) Was it really purchased at Walmart? (3) Is it really legally owned by Joe Smith? Let’s say treble damages for injuries caused in the commission of a crime for good measure.

  29. 29.

    Woodrowfan

    October 9, 2015 at 5:07 pm

    a bunch of out-of-town gun-nuts showed up in McLean, Va to attend hearing about a gun-store opening next door to an elementary school. They came armed and did their best to intimidate the meeting. Several parents who complained about the gun store have gotten death threats. The pro-gun movement is fascist, period.

  30. 30.

    ? Martin

    October 9, 2015 at 5:07 pm

    @Amir Khalid: It is crashing. Colt has filed for bankruptcy. Ruger and S&W are struggling. The problem with a shrinking addressable market is that you have to get more and more money out of fewer and fewer people, which means you have to dump a ton of money into marketing and differentiated products – customizable assault rifles and shit like that. So your fixed costs climb disproportionately to your marginal profits. At some point you need to expand your market – you need new buyers. They aren’t arriving. They are never going to arrive.

    There’s a psychology concept called an extinction burst. I won’t presume to predict this is an extinction event for the gun industry – it’s been so incredibly resilient it’s difficult to imagine that ever happening, but this kind of ‘binging’ behavior is pretty suggestive of one.

    It’s hard to say how it’ll ultimately play out. Right now it’s a pretty clear wedge between Democrats and Republicans, but it’s also a growing wedge between the Confederate states and other parts of the nation. California isn’t just tightening gun laws, but also actively confiscating guns (this shit is hard). At some point it will come to a head. I don’t think it’ll be a fun thing to be around.

  31. 31.

    ? Martin

    October 9, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    @Tom Levenson: I would only do gun registrations and training in order to carry a license, and nothing more. Gun registrations will tell you the scope of the problem. How many refuse to comply (they are no longer law-abiding gun owners), how many criminals have them, etc. Once you have this information, the next steps become clearer. Maybe we don’t need a huge deterrent – registration may be the only needed deterrent. Maybe we need bigger deterrents.

    We are working in the fog right now, by design. First step is to clear the fog. Next steps will reveal themselves.

  32. 32.

    Cervantes

    October 9, 2015 at 5:21 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I hope this is an issue that the post-presidential Obama Center (Foundation, Institute, whatever it ends up being called) embraces actively and noisily, along with related issues of institutionalized racism, economic injustice, etc.

    Post-Presidential Obama is unlikely to have as much power as Pre-Post-Presidential Obama does now.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    October 9, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Only unlikely? Just how much power do you think ex-presidents wield?

  34. 34.

    Aleta

    October 9, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    at some point the massacre of the innocents will shock enough consciences to make change possible

    Of course, the changes are coming on their own. It’s horribly ironic that by resisting changes in licensing, registration and purchase, the anti-gun-control factions have contributed to increased metal detectors, security cameras, security guards, police gear and paranoia. Hastening the security state and wider acceptance of surveillance.

  35. 35.

    Cervantes

    October 9, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    @Baud:

    And … ?

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 5:28 pm

    We need the CDC, at minimum, keeping stats of gun-related deaths and injuries, analyzing the causes and researching how to prevent as many as we can.

    This is a public health issue. It deserves treatment as such.

    We won’t know the cause of gun violence until we look for it

    from the Washington Post, July 27, 2012

  37. 37.

    Ned Ludd

    October 9, 2015 at 5:29 pm

    I’m telling you guys: strict liability for manufacturers, retailers, and legal owners:

    (1) No question of 2nd Amendment violation. Buy and sell all the guns you want, you’ll just be held accountable should (when) anything bad happens.
    (2) Internalizes incentives for safety all up the line. Owners will have financial incentive to insure and keep their guns secure. Retailers will have incentive to do their own thorough background checks. Manufacturers will have incentive to invest in R&D for safer technologies, etc.
    (3) Makes economic sense– internalizes social costs of gun violence to those who privately profit. It would effectively then push up the price of guns & ammo and reduce sales, reducing the number of guns in circulation.
    (4) Non-specialty retailers like Walmart, etc would probably get out of the business overnight since they wouldn’t need the hassle.
    (5) Market-based solution! Suck it, libertarians!

  38. 38.

    Baud

    October 9, 2015 at 5:29 pm

    @Cervantes:

    So… Your original comment doesn’t make sense to me.

  39. 39.

    Chris

    October 9, 2015 at 5:31 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    @? Martin:

    I’ve heard that a popular complaint from Mexico and Central America is that their countries are flooded with guns purchased in the U.S.A. Which I always figured would be a big help for American gun manufacturers, but I guess not.

    Does this mean that all these guns going south of the border are secondhand guns or otherwise not profiting our “legitimate” gun manufacturers? Or is the demand from south of the border still not enough to keep them afloat? Or are the Mexicans and Central Americans simply exaggerating the scope of the matter?

  40. 40.

    Arcnor

    October 9, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    If the murder of twenty-six people — twenty of them children — in an elementary school did not shock the American populace enough to act, if it didn’t push the American political system past the point where its calcified, rusted, and rot-caked gears could not help but groan and grind into action, if it couldn’t overcome the immediate delusional insistence that nothing happened, it was the federal government, it was the video games, or the kids today with their music, or anything, anything, but the easy availability of massive quantities of weaponry to a populace increasingly inclined to use said weaponry… nothing will.

    I am not the first to say this. Dan Hodges said it long ago: “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

    American is the Land of the Gun now; perhaps it always was, to one degree or another, but it’s all the way gone at this point. The rest of the industrialized world understands this. It’s just understood that the United States is in the throes of potentially suicidal — or, maybe worse, homicidal — dementia, and we’re all sort of looking at each other, and realizing the fact that so many of our economies, security measures and diplomatic treaties are utterly dependent on the presence of a not-insane America makes us… slightly more vulnerable to the whims of a foreign electorate gone mad than we’d like, and we’re all very quietly saying the same thing: “Holy shit, they’ve really lost it this time; reality itself is the enemy to a large portion of the American populace now, and they are armed, both individually and collectively, like no society in human history has ever been armed. What the entire fuck do we do? What can we do? Because hoping for the best seems like a losing bet here.”

    Still waiting for an answer on that one.

  41. 41.

    Aleta

    October 9, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    @Woodrowfan: yeah, they claim to care about freedom while practicing totalitarianism; about the Constitution while disregarding democracy; about being on the side of the people while they fantasize shooting them down.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 9, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Oh, I’m not suggesting for a second that he should ease up on these issues between now and January 20, 2017. But it’s a different kind of power he’ll have beginning January 21, 2017. For one thing, he’ll have the luxury of selecting his own priorities, rather than needing to deal with every earthly thing that lands on his desk. That in turn will give him the power to focus. As someone who has been closely watching Jimmy Carter in action for three decades, trust me, a former POTUS has plenty of power if he chooses to exercise it.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    October 9, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @Chris:

    Does this mean that all these guns going south of the border are secondhand guns or otherwise not profiting our “legitimate” gun manufacturers? Or is the demand from south of the border still not enough to keep them afloat? Or are the Mexicans and Central Americans simply exaggerating the scope of the matter?

    I think that it’s mostly that the demand from Latin America isn’t enough for them. There aren’t that many drug traffickers, and they don’t need a personal arsenal for each of their enforcers to destabilize the whole country. It isn’t even close to the market they can get by selling multiple guns to all the paranoid people in the US.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 6:14 pm

    @Arcnor:

    I am not the first to say this. Dan Hodges said it long ago: “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

    I see that sentiment a lot, and it is so batshit not true. “America” hasn’t decided dead elementary schoolers or dead anyone is bearable.

    We are in the grips of a dysfunctional Congress that’s been bought by the NRA and others who don’t have our best interests at heart. Our TV networks may be fine with the dysfunction: they get eyeballs when the atrocities pile up, and campaign ad money to keep poisoning the system.

    But there is a cumulative effect, and this feels different to me. The winds are changing.

    I wonder about the motives of those who turn up and say “nothing can be done. We deserve this.”

    We sure as hell do not.

  45. 45.

    debbie

    October 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    “America” hasn’t decided dead elementary schoolers or dead anyone is bearable.

    I think Sandy Hook brought on the realization that gun lovers were absolutely incapable of being moved.

  46. 46.

    A guy

    October 9, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    In the meantime black on black deaths continue. White meth addicts in West Virginia continue to put kids and police at risk. Don’t come for my guns fuckers. You won’t make it out

  47. 47.

    Cervantes

    October 9, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    @Baud:

    Your original comment doesn’t make sense to me.

    Not to worry. I was simply trying to avoid making a categorical statement. Purely a matter of taste.

    Have a great evening.

  48. 48.

    Anniecat45

    October 9, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Yes, I know this is anecdata, but here it is anyway:

    A young Danish woman came to San Francisco for six months as a consultant to an American company. (I met her on a walking tour that I give.) That company was trying to get her to stay in San Francisco permanently just after Elliott Rodger shot all those people in southern California. She told her company “**** no,” she did not feel safe here with all these people carrying and she was going back to Denmark where she’d be safe. The company here had offered her double her Danish salary. She didn’t think it was worth the risk.

  49. 49.

    A guy

    October 9, 2015 at 7:11 pm

    Good riddance to the Danish chick . She probably would have sat on her rights like lily Ledbetter and wanted money for it

  50. 50.

    Cervantes

    October 9, 2015 at 7:15 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Oh, I’m not suggesting for a second that he should ease up on these issues between now and January 20, 2017.

    Didn’t think that’s what you were suggesting, either.

    But it’s a different kind of power he’ll have beginning January 21, 2017. For one thing, he’ll have the luxury of selecting his own priorities, rather than needing to deal with every earthly thing that lands on his desk. That in turn will give him the power to focus. As someone who has been closely watching Jimmy Carter in action for three decades, trust me, a former POTUS has plenty of power if he chooses to exercise it.

    If you’re suggesting he may be able to do more about guns once he leaves the Oval Office than he has been able to so far, well, let’s just say you can color me skeptical.

    Would love to be wrong about this, obviously.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    October 9, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    @Cervantes:

    If you’re suggesting he may be able to do more about guns once he leaves the Oval Office than he has been able to so far, well, let’s just say you can color me skeptical.

    I don’t know about that. If he manages to accomplish anything on guns after he gets out of office, it will be more than he’s managed in office. Not that I’m blaming him for that. He has actually tried to do something about guns, but he’s hit a stone wall in Congress.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    October 9, 2015 at 7:27 pm

    @Cervantes:

    If you’re suggesting he may be able to do more about guns once he leaves the Oval Office than he has been able to so far, well, let’s just say you can color me skeptical.

    Would love to be wrong about this, obviously.

    Actually, Obama could. His foundation (or whatever) could commission the studies on gun violence that Congress won’t allow the CDC to conduct.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 7:35 pm

    @Arcnor: To take the last part of your message — and got to say, that quote about Sandy Hook from Dan Hodges just sets me off — I see he’s a Brit (one-eyed now, after a bar fight) writer and columnist.

    I wonder if he’s under the assumption that we’ve got something approaching a parliamentary system — the Freedom whackjob caucus in Congress may be confused on that count.

    We don’t become a nation of Eeyores.

    We push for funding study of gun deaths and injuries and prevention. Getting a handle on the number and circumstances would be great. The NRA realizes how powerful it is, thus the cutting funding in 1996. The numbers will shock.

    We exert pressure on media to report the gun violence totals.

    We talk to like-minded folks and make sure to get out the vote. Federally and in our local elections.

    We support anti-gerrymandering legislation in our own states. Without gerrymandering, we would not have these extremists in Congress. Make the congressional districts represent constituents, not the incumbent.

    We show up in meatspace at gun safety events and at political gatherings.

    It’s going to take a while to get better legislation through Congress — gonna take a more representative House and we need a better Supreme Court too. Legislation along points Tom outlined upthread would be great. Patience is in order.

    At some point, once we have a better Supreme Court, we take a fresh run at the Second Amendment. I don’t see us banning guns, but we could regulate them and restrict their ownership and type, and insurers could be a huge help there.

    It’s frustrating and very sad that gun violence — and our political system — are so out of control. Very wearying.

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    @debbie: I say we make restoring and expanding CDC funding a priority. Could be a great rallying and starting point. Put it on the radar for 2016.

  55. 55.

    Cervantes

    October 9, 2015 at 7:38 pm

    @debbie:

    Actually, Obama could. His foundation (or whatever) could commission the studies on gun violence that Congress won’t allow the CDC to conduct.

    I agree — but it’s not my experience that our Republicans in Congress pay a lot of attention to studies, least of all independent studies whose findings they are pre-disposed not to like.

    Incidentally, have independent studies already been conducted? Are they being conducted, just not by government agencies?

    @Roger Moore:

    If he manages to accomplish anything on guns after he gets out of office, it will be more than he’s managed in office.

    That’s a good way to put it.

  56. 56.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    October 9, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    I’m inclined to use a crossbow to stand my ground against anyone I see with a a hand gun or assault weapon.

  57. 57.

    jayboat

    October 9, 2015 at 7:43 pm

    Here are some numbers to ponder.
    Last year while I was on location in the midwest I wound up on a perch with a photographer friend from the St Louis area. Since we were in place for a couple of hours, conversation ensued. He has been employed by Remington for nearly 25 years. During our talk he told me that his employer ships 11 millions rounds of ammunition per month.

    Just to the states.

    Another 7 million overseas.

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 7:46 pm

    NY Times on Obama’s visit to Roseburg. End of the story; sounds like Obama may have gotten some support from the community too:

    Obama Consoles Families in Oregon Amid 2 More Campus Shootings

    Some prominent residents, including the publisher of a local weekly newspaper, said Mr. Obama was not welcome. The language got so angry that on Tuesday, the mayor and other city officials put out a statement saying they welcomed Mr. Obama and “will extend him every courtesy.”

    That was evident when the governor, Ms. Brown, greeted Mr. Obama at the airport. As his motorcade sped through town, an unusual number of people along the side of the road waved pleasantly.

    Then Mr. Obama met with the victims’ families in the arts building of Roseburg High School, where flowers had been placed beside trees in a school courtyard.

    After nearly an hour with the families, Mr. Obama emerged and in barely audible remarks said something had to be done.

    I look forward to hearing the barely audible remarks later. Gonna be smarter than anything the gun humpers come up with.

  59. 59.

    Cervantes

    October 9, 2015 at 7:55 pm

    Via @Elizabelle:

    Obama Consoles Families in Oregon Amid 2 More Campus Shootings

    The Onion or not The Onion?

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    October 9, 2015 at 8:33 pm

    @Cervantes: I know.

  61. 61.

    JG

    October 9, 2015 at 9:48 pm

    Pictures of the carnage need to be public – even if illegally obtained and released. Make the lawmakers respond to them. Maybe the CDC Study effort winds will change but money rules all.

    Make lawmakers see and respond to the visuals. Like the allies made the German residents tour the camps. Like america had to respond to firehosing civilrights bridge walkers. When everyone saw the film and pictures the very next morning above the fold it became real – undeniable. Make them OWN IT!

    Gun control laws will be so slow and baby-stepped to keep the money rolling in. So much money s being made and so much fear is now commonplace. To the point of addiction (ex: fox News on 24/7 at many homes and retail stores) that many people feel a criminal revolution is imminent.

    I don’t see any positive movement until the gun nuts can no longer have a reason to hide their disgust at the carnage. It may violate privacy and other rights but I feel we have no other options. Appealing to common sense; presidential lectures; and calling Congress is a joke.

  62. 62.

    Tehanu

    October 9, 2015 at 10:09 pm

    I want to be there when “A Guy” takes on the Feds with his personal, private, undoubtedly well polished arsenal of prick substitutes. My bet will be on the First Cav.

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