Trump spent yesterday patting himself on the back for proposing a ban on Muslims that wouldn’t have prevented the attack in Orlando. You know who actually identified a real issue before the attack?
Obama 10 days before the Orlando massacre, responding to a question on gun control https://t.co/d8mQ3SbQye pic.twitter.com/RkhaUP5KWE
— Alex Ogle (@Alex_Ogle) June 13, 2016
Boom. I don’t know if the Orlando shooter was on the watch list or not, but he was interviewed by the FBI three times. Regardless, there are evidently people on the list right now who can walk into a gun store and purchase an arsenal. That has to change.
Hillary Clinton renewed a call for reinstating the assault weapons ban that existed in the 90s and early aughts without bringing the republic to its knees. Sounds like a good start to me.
Feebog
You would think that this would be enough to at least plug that little loophole, but Republicans will block it without blinking. A Democrat should introduce this bill in a few weeks with a lot of fanfare, and then let the public see what bunch of weasels we have in congress. Not that they didn’t know it already.
TaMara (HFG)
I’m on a total news blackout so I can get through the day. I appreciate the posts here so I can see what is important.
trollhattan
There it is. Guns are in their own category of consumer goods. Where are the protests when a serial DUI driver loses his license? Does GM have congressman dedicated to putting him back into a car?
oldgold
Trump on Fox and Friends this morning:
“We’re led by a man who is a very – look, we’re led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump said. “And the something else in mind, you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot – they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable.”
Later, on the Today Show, Trump said:
”Well there are a lot of people that think maybe [the president] doesn’t want to get it.”
As Joseph Welsh famously asked Senator Joseph McCarthy:
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
The answer to Welsh’s inquiry, if it was to be asked Trump, is, sadly: no.
sharl
Via Weigel’s twiiter feed, John Kerry also this coming…in 2004:
hedgehog the occasional commenter
I donated to the GoFundMe for the victims last night. This morning I called my Congresscritter, Diana DeGette, who has an F rating from the NR A (go Diana). I left a message with a staffer to keep up the good work and to keep pushing for gun control, then I burst into tears and said until that happens, we’re all walking targets. Don’t know how effective I was but it’s one more vote for sanity.
OzarkHillbilly
Long past due.
PGE
Pretty much any legitimate use for long arms can be met with a break-open, bolt, or pump action. And for handguns, a revolver is sufficient for any legitimate use. Just get rid of semi-automatic actions and extended magazines. Any hunter who can’t live with that is likely such a poor shot they shouldn’t be allowed a license. And anyone who thinks they need more for defense is delusional
rp
Clinton, Obama, and every other Dem needs to use the following argument:
Anyone who isn’t for common sense gun control is soft on terror. They’d rather let terrorists buy AR-15s than oppose the NRA.
Turn the argument around and use the right’s own words against them.
Mike J
When the bill came up for a vote, Republicans said the terrorist watch list was too draconian, had no due process, and no way to appeal. All of which are legit problems.
How many bills to fix the watch list has the Republican led congress introduced since that time?
Tom Levenson
@rp:
Just tweeted same.
trollhattan
@PGE:
Word. And the ghoulish practice of naming civilian-edition military weapons as “sporting rifles” begs the question: what sport? Did any of the Bundyites not have at least one?
low-tech cyclist
The other argument that needs to be made is that the NRA and their allied gun nuts get the ‘freedoms,’ and stick the rest of us with the bloody check.
lamh36
rp
@Tom Levenson: Great! This is going to sound crass, but we need to view this as an opportunity. The right is thrilled in a sense because the guy is Muslim and had a connection to ISIS (even if extremely tenuous.) We need to take advantage of that and argue that cracking down on terrorism in the U.S. by Islamic Fundamentalists means keeping deadly weapons out of their hands.
hovercraft
Obama just said the murderer was able to buy the AR-15 and walk out of the store with it and yet had to wait 3 days for the Glock. WTF Florida. This makes no sense.
EBT
I’m liking just striking the whole second amendment at this point. Guns don’t save lives and we are already constrained from owning bearspray and asps in many states.
Barbara
The reality is that neither the San Bernadino or the Orlando shooters were “known” ISIL sympathizers. And most other mass shooters are not Muslim and are motivated by grounds that have nothing to do with Islam — Umpqua, Santa Barbara, Newtown, Aurora, Charleston, Tucson, Lancaster, Navy Yard, Planned Parenthood — nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, not even hypothetically. People are not less dead because their killer’s motivation was based on something other than Islam. It’s a diversion.
Miss Bianca
@EBT: I kind of like the ban on owning asps, myself.
sharl
On a separate but related matter, there is the murderer’s employer.
~
Elsewhere I read that his creepy behavior on the job resulted in a visit from the FBI, but the FBI had insufficient grounds to take action.
The responsibilities of G4S Security in this matter – whether met or shirked – is something I’m guessing Adam could speak to with some knowledge/authority. I did see that this same humongous company is the one that got the contract to provide security for the London Olympics, then promptly screwed the pooch on that to the extent that the British Army had to step in. Whether these two events are symptoms of an organization-wide disease is something I don’t know. FWIW to me it is reminiscent of the contracting company that employed the crazy guy who killed a bunch of folks at the Washington Navy Yard a couple years ago.
Barbara
@EBT: I dream that Scalia is still in one of Dante’s circles explaining how it was that he was so indifferent to the lives lost as a result of gun violence that he went out of his way to make sure anyone could buy any kind of weapon their little hearts desired. Maybe it’s because the majority of people whose lives are a living hell because of actual gun violence and fear of gun violence are the kind of people he obviously did not think too highly of.
Steve Crickmore
How about trying to educate Muslims, whose religion by scripture and practice is all but incompatible with accepting gays, that gays do have civil rights? Where in the Muslim world is there a gay pride parade? This has to be called out for what it is. an intentional attack on L.G.B.T. people. Bernie Frank: “It’s an attack against gay people, but it does not reflect a general deterioration of our standing in America. It reflects the virulence of the hatred in this sector of Islam.” Hillary did tweet this about being ‘allies of LGBT people’, yesterday at 3.30 pm, but waited two hours after the Mayor of Los Angeles used almost the identical words about the tragedy.
OzarkHillbilly
@trollhattan: They are not sporting rifles. They are weapons of war. As a life long gun owner I long ago tired of the “You can’t define an “assault weapon”. Utter Bullshit. Utter those words and we all know exactly the picture that comes to mind.
Assault weapon: Any semi automatic or automatic firearm with a detachable magazine or capable of holding more than five (5) rounds.
They won’t like that definition. I say fine. Come up with another that accomplishes the same goal. And for the record, under that definition I would have to give up my Ruger 10/22, my squirrel gun. Fine by me. I never fire more the 2 rounds in succession anyway.
Eric U.
@EBT: striking the second amendment is a really good idea. Unfortunately impossible. But a really good idea. So is taking all the guns. I like the model where you have to check it out of the gun club to go hunting
Mike J
@Steve Crickmore:
Get the log out of your own eye before you look at the splinter in your neighbor’s.
Homosexuals ‘Worthy of Death’ Bible Verse Read Before Key Vote
Keith G
I wish very tight gun regulations were in place now, but they won’t be in place until enough Americans get viscerally sick of the blood shed. So the body count will have to continue. It’s a bit like General Grant during the Civil War. He knew that victory was impossible without actions leading to a truly awful body count. So he just got after it.
I donno if the types of bodies matter. I suppose they do. Maybe 25 in a WASPy church service in the Great Plains equals 50 in a dance club filled with Gay Hispanics. Obviously, not enough have been murdered yet.
With that in mind, how wrong is it to hope for more impactful targets? I am too wrecked by this, so it’s all beyond me.
currants
Agreed, Betty, with this one (big) caveat: there are still people on that no-fly list who should NOT be.
starscream
@Keith G: If a bunch of kindergarteners getting shot didn’t do it, nothing will.
liberal
@PGE: Yeah, I said the same thing in perhaps a slightly less well-informed way in a previous threat.
Who T. F. needs a semiautomatic rifle or handgun to go hunting?
Chris
@EBT:
Ditto.
It’s not necessarily my preferred solution, all things being equal I’m happy to have guns but regulation, a happy medium, yada yada… But underlying this whole debate for me is that I actually don’t give a fuck about your, my, or anyone else’s “right” to own firearms. There are other developed, democratic nations that have put phenomenally tight restrictions on guns – it hasn’t turned them into totalitarian hellholes, and their gun homicide rate tends to be better off for it.
So even if there is in any meaningful way a fringe movement for a complete end to gun ownership in the United States, that’s as radical on the left as the NRA is on the right, let’s not pretend that a victory for that hypothetical fringe movement would be any kind of a great loss for human rights.
Barbara
@lamh36: Of course not. Remember John Nash? He didn’t kill anyone, but when he became unhinged, his paranoia took a particular form, and that was his belief that he was the victim of a world Jewish conspiracy (why??). He was unhinged, but as is often the case, the attributes of his delusions reflected biases of the culture around him. It would not surprise me that Mateen was completely unhinged but that his targets reflected cultural bias against gays and women that do exist in both Islam and in some Christian sects (especially anti-gay bias). This clearly happens in pro-life circles as well (remember John Salvi — the conservative Catholic paranoid schizophrenic who killed people at an abortion clinic?). The unhinged few are not a sign that the many are going to engage in a shoot out even if they are a reflection of biases within the group they are part of.
lamh36
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving mofo!
OzarkHillbilly
@Steve Crickmore:
Or Christains or Jews or….
PGE
@OzarkHillbilly: Right. I would have no issue with that definition, though I like the 10/22 myself.
liberal
@Steve Crickmore:
Well, I don’t know about the “gay issue” in particular, but, uh, have you looked at Leviticus lately?
liberal
@Barbara: John Nash, the mathematician/economist? It’s quite well-documented that he was schizophrenic. (Sadly, IIRC, one of his sons is, too; it’s a disease with high heretibility). Is there much evidence the Orlando shooter was schizophrenic?
Tracy Ratcliff
@Steve Crickmore: One google search says “Turkey has pride marches,” and that Albania is thinking about legalizing same-sex-marriage.
P-Dog
Look, I think it’s hypocritical for us liberals to be formerly against the terrorist watch list when it was on Bush’s watch, and all of a sudden for it because of a tragedy. We’re the US, we’re supposed to have due process.
Keith G
@starscream: No. Not in isolated events. That was my point.
Guess we need more more often.
trollhattan
@Keith G:
My irrepressible cynical side tells me we’re “getting accustomed to it,” more weary than surprised or outraged. As is common, The Onion proves they understand.
Betty Cracker
@Steve Crickmore: Fuck intolerant fundamentalists of all stripes, I say. But I understand why people are reluctant to play up the Islam angle: 1) We need the cooperation of moderate, tolerant Muslims to defeat these evil bastards, and 2) Bigots like Trump are champing at the bit to demonize one billion people, the vast majority of whom do not deserve it.
OzarkHillbilly
@PGE: I love that little gun. It’s handy, reliable, accurate, easy to maintain…. But if the only way to get assault weapons out of the hands of people who have no business possessing them means I have to buy a different .22? So be it, I’m all for it.
trollhattan
@liberal:
Evidently he was a body builder so roid rage isn’t out of the question. The ex-wife shines a light on his violent demeanor, beyond mere words.
scav
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, Christians of Steve’s stripe are rather entirely about beating up the beliefs or morals of those other then themselves and absolutely not about examining their own beliefs and practices because they’re already forgiven for everything, especially any wide stances they’re calling others out about. See also the pack of ravening pious crusaders that went after Hillary’s husband. And how they find far more use out of a dead LGBT than a live and happy one.
Matt McIrvin
I don’t see any place where he uttered the key phrase “radical Muslimistic terroristicalism” in that passage.
? Martin
@OzarkHillbilly: California continues to work that problem.
Assault rifles are illegal in California, but there’s the constant loophole exceptions that they continue to try and close.
We also confiscate guns here.
CA is also permanently confiscating guns of convicted felons. So far the world hasn’t come to an end, and admittedly it hasn’t solved all problems, but it did force the San Bernardino shooters to have to make an illegal purchase which meant it was one more potential place for law enforcement to have stopped that action had CAs laws been national laws. CAs attitude, as the largest state in the country is that we will continue to do what we need – making abortion increasingly accessible, providing reasonable gun control measures, reducing carbon emissions, etc. so that if the feds ever want to come to their goddamn senses, they can see a working template that they can simply adopt wholesale.
Don’t mind us, we’re just fixing the fucking country.
Miss Bianca
@Steve Crickmore: “Bernie Frank”?
hovercraft
Ken Burns is a national treasure.
Villago Delenda Est
Let’s see now. Domestic abuser? Check. Co-workers concerned enough to bring it to the attention of management and the police? Check.
Still able to obtain the weapons used in the shootings? Check.
Just another day in America.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@trollhattan:
i know people who react like that to anything deemed to be a gay issue. It seems to be rooted in household culture, and when combined with latent feelings of same sex attraction, a severe danger is presented.
The worst example I can think of is a Mormon lawyer, one of five sons. The guy comes up with the most lurid and detailed explanations of the sex practices of gay men outside of slash fiction.
? Martin
@hovercraft:
One needs to be able to stand your ground against the gay radiation. It’s right there in the Constitution.
Steve Crickmore
@liberal: @Tracy Ratcliff: I didn’t know Albania was muslim and Turkey’s gay pride parade In Istanbul had a predictable outcome. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gay-pride-parade-istanbul-attacked-by-police/
OzarkHillbilly
@? Martin: I’m way behind on my gun porn reading, I had to google “bullet button guns.”
trollhattan
@hovercraft:
Daaamn. I suspect folks at the Hoover Institute are tied into knots over Trump, but simultaneously indignant over being lectured by an obvious hippie. Condi and Kissinger still sleep well, despite what we would prefer for them.
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est:
Had he been convicted of even misdemeanor domestic violence, he’d theoretically be banned from buying guns per federal law (probably still would have gotten them through a straw purchase). The entire shitshow around domestic violence that makes it risky for women to speak out, to press charges, and to see the process through to a conviction needs to be addressed. It might have mattered in this case. That’s one of the laws that CA did pass – allowing for a temporary confiscation of firearms if a family member felt the person was a risk. In theory that should help domestic violence victims here feel slightly more secure that a partner at least won’t be armed while this process plays out, but I don’t think anyone really feels as though it’s effective enough to work in that way.
Chris
@hovercraft:
Well…
Barbara
@liberal: There is as much evidence that he was mentally unstable as there is that he was affiliated with ISIL. I am not fighting the notion that if there is enough evidence to put someone on a no-fly list that they should be foreclosed from owning an automatic weapon — just that the likelihood that we will have such evidence for all the unstable people who might seize on ISIL to justify their feelings of personal paranoia and inadequacy is slim to none.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
Don’t you know freedom is our most fundamental right. Can someone ask these jackasses about peoples right to live, set aside the right to be born, but the right to live. Because freedom is of no use if I’m dead. Governor Batboy was interviewed on msnbc earlier and he said it’s not about guns it’s about terrorism, he didn’t mention the LGBT community he talked about families and tourism. The attack was against the LGBT community have the decency to acknowledge them specifically.
Steve Crickmore
@Miss Bianca: Pardon me, Barney Frank: Mr. Frank also said, commenting that this would irk his friends on the political left: “There is an Islamic element here. Yes, the overwhelming majority of Muslims don’t do this, but there is clearly, sadly, an element in the interpretation of Islam that has some currency, some interpretation in the Middle East that encourages killing people — and L.G.B.T. people are on that list. And I think it is fair to ask leaders of the Islamic community, religious and otherwise, to spend some time combating this.’’ It would be nice if they would?
trollhattan
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
The stories of Ted Cruz’ morbid fascination with the death penalty and executions when clerking for Renquist give me dread as to what he’s capable of should he attain high office or a judgeship. It frankly sounds sexual.
? Martin
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I had to do a shitload of reading just to understand any of it, not being a gun owner/user. The dustup is over the ban of ‘centerfire ammo’. Now, that started a number of years ago due to CA banning or limiting the amount of lead in such ammo (it’s been showing up in our water supply around gun ranges and we are super-aggressive, a bit overly so IMO, here in CA about lead content in everything) and that just rolled straight into the bullet button issue.
But CA is not afraid to go after concealed carry, open carry, gun bans, gun confiscation, and so on. Keep watching this space.
Mike J
OT, but if you need a css library/bootstrap extension, it looks like h4a is going to release Pantsuit today. Watch Git Out the Vote, the tech blog (with very few posts.)
hovercraft
@? Martin:
To normal people we know that the radiation can permeate any shield. But seriously what is the logic or at the very least fig leaf they use to justify this insanity.
sharl
@Steve Crickmore: I haven’t kept up, but Albania has been majority Islamic since its long time occupation by the Ottoman Empire. The pre-WWII breakdown of the population was roughly 65% Moslem, 25% Eastern Orthodox, and 10% Roman Catholic. After exiting from the forced atheism of Enver Hoxha’s Stalinist dictatorship, I don’t know if those numbers held up, but I think it is still majority Muslim, as is also the case for the Albanians in neighboring Kosovo. It has always been a “moderate” and not strongly enforced version of Islam in both Albania and Kosovo, although I see occasional reports that area governments worry about infiltration by more radical versions of the faith, e.g., Wahhabism and the nasty groups that often come with that sect.
Barbara
@hovercraft: I tried to make this point to a colleague. I told him that if Trump were a Democrat I hope that I would have the same reaction I am having now, that he is completely unsuitable to be president. The guy is a professional Republican — nice, reasonable and moderate, but professionally tied to the Party. I have no idea what people like him plan to do. He wouldn’t tell me, I didn’t press.
trollhattan
@? Martin:
We have a city-owned indoor gun range turning into a lead-contamination nightmare, having migrated into the adjacent park and neighborhood. Lead’s real challenge is its persistence in the environment.
Nothing like the SoCal Exide factory site, luckily.
? Martin
So how many survivors of the Orlando shooting are being fired today for being gay, because Florida has no workplace protections for LGBTs and because the GOP has consistently refused to pass such protections in Congress. In fact, the GOP has gone out of their way to not pass such protections.
Stan
@OzarkHillbilly: Assault weapons were defined by every army in the world a few decades ago. Why not go with their definition?
As assault weapon is a selective-fire weapon that fire intermediate-power cartridges. Things like pistol grips and large magazines are typical but not really part of the definition.
“Selective fire” means it can fire semi or full auto. For our civilian regulatory purposes I suggest we go with *either* semi or full auto in the definition.
I like california’s idea of including detachable magazines. Smaller-capacity magazines need not be detachable and certainly for hunting use, no one needs a detachable magazine. Hunters are typically firing one aimed shot and stopping.
“Intermediate-power cartridge” means ammunition that is more powerful than pistol ammo but less powerful than traditional rifle ammo such as what is used in hunting rifles or old-style bolt-action rifles. The AR-15, for example, uses a 5.56mm – a typical intermediate round.
So, a very workable legal definition could be: “Any semi or full automatic weapon firing intermediate (or higher-powered) ammunition with a detachable magazine.”
(Full-auto weapons are effectively banned at the federal level anyway so we need not include things like submachineguns, which fire lower-powered ammo).
This legal definition would capture any assault rifle without bothering any but the most extreme hunters. it does not depend on superficial appearance-type attributes such as pistol grips or flash suppressors.
Hillary should take this on right now and propose a ban on such weapons and compensated confiscation.
Pennsylvania and Florida would be in play if she does.
But she should do it anyway and let’s have this battle.
trollhattan
@Barbara:
The kneejerk “but Hillary is worse” is what I got. Saves hard thinking and such.
Chris
@sharl:
The European nations where Islam forms a majority or a plurality of the population are Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, if you count it, Turkey.
Olduvai George
@hovercraft: One of my favorite things in the speech is in the following line from the second-to-last graf: “And I implore those “Vichy Republicans” who have endorsed him to please, please reconsider.” I never heard that before, “Vichy Republicans.” Hah! But then how many know about WWII and Vichy France. It’s so 20th century….
gindy51
@Steve Crickmore: Don’t forget about the Christians who utter the same damned thing..
scav
American Evangelicals aren’t exactly going to be first in line preaching tolerance toward LGBTs to Muslims, they’ve got their plate-full bringing the joys and laws of intolerance toward same (and others) in Uganda and elsewhere.. That and admiring the bare-chested embrace of state and church practiced by Putin and his Othodox against others and LGBTs.
MomSense
@trollhattan:
Ted Cruz is like Torquemada. Behind that smug face of his lurks a Grand Inquisitor.
wuzzat
So Trump keeps crowing that he called it. He’s talking about the internment camps, right? His anti-immigration policies wouldn’t have done diddly-squat against a natural born citizen, so he’s definitely talking about internment camps. I keep trying not to Godwin these threads, but Herr Babyfingers ain’t making it easy.
aimai
@starscream: I don’t agree with this. The NRA has no power–no armies, no nothing except the votes of their most fervent followers. If everyone else in this country got out and voted a hard anti-gun line we’d have enough democrats in office to start passing harsher anti gun laws and we’d have a democrat in the white house putting in new supreme court justices who were not captured by the NRA. The NRA’s power is a paper tiger. PEOPLE NEED TO VOTE. They need to stop waiting very four years for a charismatic presidential candidate to tell them what is possible and they need to get off their asses and vote, in every election, and phone their representatives, every time there is another masscare or “accidental” death of a child.
scav
It’s that Muslim majority in Poland that is frustrating all the burgeoning tolerance there, one must assume.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve Crickmore: Replace “Muslim” with “Christian” in your post, and “Islam” with “Christianity”, and there you go. Same situation with scum like Cruz, Hucksterbee, Patrick, Robertson, Graham, and all the rest.
Barbara
@trollhattan: He did not say that. I think he has walled off the presidential contest in his mind and is now totally focused on down ballot races. I think that is what most people like him are trying to do.
aimai
@Barbara: Wouldn’t tell you? Man, he must be ashamed.
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense: Whose head would look much better on a pike than on his shoulders.
Chris
@wuzzat:
Oh, pish. The fascist analogy is perfectly legitimate and for my money, has been since before Donald Trump. Dave Neiwert’s commentary on the rise of the teabaggers is, as far as I’m concerned, spot on here.
Amaranthine RBG
Allowing citizens’ constitutional rights to be curtailed when some unknown bureaucrat places them on some list, without notice and without the opportunity for review and appeal?
People who embrace that think 1984 is a how to manual.
Disgusting.
Chip Daniels
I’m just going to make the same comment I make after every mass shooting, that we need to swing for the fences and start the debate about why the 2nd should be allowed to stand at all.
Of course it isn’t going to happen soon, but the point is to push the window, provoke the debate, and get people to question the premise instead of just accepting it as a given.
Why should there exist a right to a gun, absent some well founded reason?
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: They hate Muslims because Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia get to do things they can only dream of doing.
It’s envy. Their hatred of Islam is fueled by envy.
MomSense
@Matt McIrvin:
Radical Muslimistic terroisticalismocious. Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you’ll always sound braggadocious.
Cacti
I’ll bet I know the answer to this already, but has any GOPer acknowledged that the victims were targeted for being gay?
The shooter lived 118 miles south of Orlando in Ft. Pierce. His choice of targets couldn’t have been any more premeditated.
D58826
@Steve Crickmore: And then there is the Muslim majority in the NC legislature and well known Muslim Gov. McCory who passed HB2- the bathroom bill. Maybe you can start your education program in Raleigh
gindy51
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Cuz he wishes he could get some, that’s why.
When my husband was a pilot for Delta he had a lay over one trip with a really nasty homophobic pilot. They were in a group of other pilots and flight attendants and this asshole started popping off about gay this, fag that. During a lull in the “conversation”, one of many, my husband said “You’re just jealous you can only suck cock in your dreams”. The guy practically had a heat attack right at the table, turned red as a beet, sputtered like a dying car engine, and stomped out. Every single other male person at the table admitted to having dick sucking dreams and not one of them was gay.
trollhattan
@Amaranthine RBG:
Newsflash: there is no constitutional “right” to an AR15 despite your well documented love for it and its brethren. Was wondering when you’d appear.
The end.
PGE
@aimai: What the NRA does have is funding from the manufacturers. Earlier OzarkHillbilly mentioned he’d be willing to buy a new .22 if getting rid of his 10/22 was the cost of getting rid of assault weapons. A lot of folks, myself included, would feel the same way. What’s needed is to convince the manufacturers that they have a huge market for new guns if they’ll castrate the NRA and get behind a ban
hovercraft
@Olduvai George:
Vichy you say, I’d be surprised if they knew where it is let alone that it was the epitome of the appeasement they love to accuse Obama of. Grover Norquist and his ilk have been a lot more successful than they are given credit for. As they’ve starved the government, states have starved the schools. Between that and the takeover of school boards our curriculum has been gutted.
sukabi
@trollhattan: ThinkProgress has collected a series of NRA tweets promoting the AR15, and yes, promoted as another sexy consumer ‘must have’. They’re nothing more than the promotions arm of weapons manufacturers.
boatboy_srq
@Cacti: Rubio. About the only one so far. Why is it that LGBT US citizens are only Real Ahmurrrrrcans when enough are killed to make the national news? Oh, right, the shooter was somebody the Reichwing hates worse.
ETA. Not sad today. ANGRY.
EETA: There WAS that without Lt. Gov. in TX who acknowledged the victims, but in a “got what they deserved” sense.
Mike in DC
In theory, we could ban all semi-automatic weapons, both rifles and handguns. That would leave break-open and pump shotguns, break-open, bolt action and lever action rifles, and revolvers and odd duck pistols. Considering that the bulk of guns purchased are semi automatics, this would effectively drive half the gun stores out of business. It would also be fiercely resisted.
Xantar
Tim Cook called for everyone at Apple’s WWDC to rise for a moment of silence.
hovercraft
@MomSense:
I think you’ve nailed him.
jl
Just a heard a news conference about what the feds knew about this guy, and the history of the investigation of him. I don’t think the shooter knew any more about radical Islamic jihadists than Trump does. The shooter was aligning himself with groups who are sworn enemies of each other, and fighting each other in Syria and Iraq, at one time or another. From what I heard on the news, he wasn’t a serious follower of any group. People who knew him said he was a general bigot and racist who fantasized about mass murder of blacks. Abused his first wife who divorced him after a few months. Disturbed person who was prone to random spontaneous rage attacks.
From what I heard on the news this morning, he was a primary unbalanced disturbed person consumed with free floating hate and rage, not primarily ideological. That is he common denominator with most of these mass murderers.
Outrageous that our disgusting corporate media news actor frauds could follow up the press conference I heard with fact free sensationalistic babble. Some idiot news actor asked HRC what we can do about Daesh/ISIL/ISIS that she said (paraphrase) ‘just keeps growing and getting stronger’. HRC didn’t call the news actor fraud on her BS. Very sad situation.
glory b
@Steve Crickmore: And why do you think they don’t?
Southern Beale
Give me a fucking break I am sick of this shit. Shooter didn’t need to learn to hate gays in Syria, we’ve got plenty of people spouting the same intolerant, bigoted BS right here at home.
EBT
@Eric U.: perhaps combined with just revoking hand guns totally.
J.
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: Well done. I am fortunate to have two good Senators and a good Congressman in my district here in CT, though I also live not far from Newtown, and that slaughter didn’t move the needle, so… I don’t know what else I can do. (Clearly, signing petitions doesn’t help either.)
Cacti
@boatboy_srq:
Like I said yesterday, this incident puts the GOP in a deservedly awkward spot.
They fan the flames of homophobia whenever possible, and are explicitly anti-gay as a matter of policy. But now they’re aghast that gay Americans were targeted for violence? GTFO.
mr_gravity
@OzarkHillbilly: This.
The legitimate hunter who needs a semi-automatic weapon clearly doesn’t understand the definition of “sportsman”.
J.
@rp: Where’s the “Like” button on this thing?
ruemara
@Cacti: I think he may have also been a racist. He reportedly dropped ethnic slurs as often as possible.
PGE
@Mike in DC: I’m not sure it would drive stored out of business…the current fad for AR15 type rifles is purely the result of marketing. And the manufacturers would start marketing the heck out of lever and bolt action rifles. You’re right, of course, that it would be resisted tooth and nail.
Amaranthine RBG
@trollhattan: I don’t love ARs, I don’t even own one. I just think they’re somewhat insignificant when compared to other types of firearms that are used in many more shootings.
But a careful reader will notice that Obama didn’t suggest limiting peoples’ rights by preventing only AR sales, he was suggesting preventing all firearm purchases based on whether someone was on a list.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steve Crickmore:
They are doing far more than you or I.
hovercraft
@Barbara: @trollhattan:
I think this Paul Krugman piece nails the underlying reason for party loyalty.
For republicans it’s the belief that someday they will be in position to reap the rewards, they’ll be Trump. Yes it’s delusional.
Villago Delenda Est
@sukabi: That’s basically all they have been since their founding, nearly a century and a half ago, when the merchants of death were facing the problem of peace breaking out at Appomattox.
Mnemosyne
@Steve Crickmore:
There was a white (presumably) Christiab guy here in the Los Angeles area who was intercepted on his way to a pride event with a carload of guns and explosives. When are we going to educate white Christians about LGBT rights?
And anyone who thinks that these murders in Orlando were not triggered by the ongoing hysteria about transgender people and bathrooms is a fool.
Elizabelle
@aimai: Thank you, aimai.
I am tired of the Eeyoring in “if a bunch of dead kindergarteners didn’t do it” — idiots!
Because the problem is this Congress, and we could get some better action/legislation through a better Congress. Which requires getting off one’s ass, voting, and making those around us embarrassed to not get out and vote.
The American people never decided they were fine with a classroom of dead kindergarteners. But it’s very hard to get anything through a Congress bought by the NRA and afraid of being primaried from their right.
Vote. Them. Out.
jl
Speaking of scum:
Trump Suggests Obama May Secretly Be Working with Muslim Terrorists (VIDEO)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-obama-secret-muslim-orlando
Trump says either Obama is an inadequate black man in over his head, or secretly working with radical jihadists. So, a post below this one speculated that Trump would mouth a moderate sounding speech off a teleprompter today. But looks like Trump will be hate and fear monger bigot-to-the-bone all the way through the campaign. As soon as he is not reading from a script, the real Trump emerges.
As I typed above, news conference and interviews I heard indicated this guy was a mostly a mentally disturbed person who decided recently to use radical jihadist groups as an excuse or pretext to vent his mental problems, not a seriously aligned or even half-way informed about them, just knew a person involved in the fighting in ME who was killed, and got some names from the internet. That won’t stop our dangerously corrupt and incompetent corporate news media from spewing misleading BS that they think will get them the biggest ratings, and purposefully or not, enabling garbage from scum like Trump.
hovercraft
@Southern Beale:
Yes the ‘kill the gays’ legislation in Uganda and other places was an export from the good ol US of A.
OzarkHillbilly
@Stan:
Pretty much word for word what I said Stan, but I added “or capable of holding more than 5 rounds” specifically to limit the # of rounds one would be able to fire without reloading.
delk
Christian Pastor Calls Orlando Massacre ‘Good News’
PGE
@OzarkHillbilly: except Stan’s definition wouldn’t ban any type of .22. Don’t know if I’d exclude any caliber if I was going this route. But .22 and below is at least an arguable exception
ETA: I think, on balance, I prefer your definition
lethargytartare
@hovercraft:
it makes sense if you consider the possibility that Florida politicians heard the work “glock” in a rap song once.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
As I was saying yesterday, ISIS/ISIL have basically turned themselves into a hashtag for any asshole with a grudge to attach themselves to. San Bernardino was a workplace shooting, but the killers wrapped themselves in #ISIS to convince themselves it was about more than their petty workplace grievances. Same with this guy — he wanted to kill gay people, and he wrapped himself in #ISIS to try and make himself sound important instead of a sad, angry little man who wanted to take his anger out on the world.
Southern Beale
@Mnemosyne:
Very astute observation.
The Red Pen
Speaking of “Who saw it coming,” the dumbest person on the Internet, Jim “Gateway Pundit” Hoft just came out as gay.
We’ll have to see how this works out career-wise. So far, I’ve seen a mixture of denunciation and support (but mostly support).
SiubhanDuinne
@delk:
I’d call him a sick fuck, but that would be an insult to sick fucks.
Southern Beale
@delk: @delk:
But he’s “never advocated for violence” so we’re all good, right?
germy
@Elizabelle: Maybe I’m being naive, but I’m hoping that one lasting effect of Bernie Sanders and his mobilization of the yoots is maybe, just maybe, they’ll be motivated to vote in non-presidential election seasons?
Southern Beale
@The Red Pen:
I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. That guy is too dumb to be gay. Seriously what the ACTUAL fuck? Kinda makes all of his anti-gay rants a little inconvenient, doesn’t it?
Elizabelle
@germy: We really need to figure out how to get our voters out in the midterms. That’s appalling, and maybe the youth brigade will be helpful there.
bemused
Hillary just finished great speech.
john fremont
@PGE: Exactly. Most cops ,until the mid 70’s, walked the beat with 357 revolvers or 45’s. Cops, unlike regular citizens also have legal authority to pursue into dangerous situations and for decades a nighrstick and a revolver we’re more than adequate for police work. Anyone claiming to need more than a revolver or a pump shotgun to defend their home or business is really stretching it.
jl
@Mnemosyne: Also like Dylan Roof, or Charles Manson, though in their cases it was some confused white supremacy race war fantasies. They loosely attach and identify themselves to political causes, maybe to try to justify to themselves what they do when they blow up and completely lose control, or in an attempt to explain to themselves why they have emotionally spun completely out of control or have descended into insanity.
The danger is how our putrid media has to sensationalize and misleadingly and selectively represent the political angles of these shootings, and in a very biased way. Will we hear bout the danger of white racist groups the next time some white disturbed person tries to get up yet another fantasmagorical race war when he shoots down a dozen or more people. No, we won’t. The misleading political BS is enabling the likes of Trump. I hope Trump is so outrageous and repellent that he discredits himself, and comes off as unreliable. A solid and sadly sizeable minority of the population will mistake Trump’s hate mongering, barely disguised panic and fear, and self-promotion as strength. We have to hope that most will have the sense to prefer calm and responsible leadership, and reject Trump.
Stan
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes…my point was, this isn’t a definition you or I or any other mere blog poster made up. This is something any ordnance officer in any army in the world since about 1945 could tell you.
People sometimes wring their hands and say there are problems defining what an assault weapon is. Those people either don’t know anythign about weapons (I suspect that’s most of them) or they don’t actually want to solve the problem of gun violence.
IMO there’s no problem at all with defining the weapons nor with the 2nd amendment, which doesn’t actually mean what gun nuts think it means anyway.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: I am now ‘undefined” HA! Tried to edit that I left out the language about ammo because of the KISS principle: “Keep It Simple Stupid”. A person with a .22 LR can kill a lot of people too.
Elizabelle
@bemused:
Maybe a link, later? For those of us without TV or cable. (smiling about that)
Steve Crickmore
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s been called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” this notion that Muslims can’t be held to the same standards of behavior as those of other faiths. Liberal voices often compare conservative Christians or Jews with radical Muslims. But have longtime anti-gay preacher Pat Robertson or Judaism’s Lubavitcher Rebbe ever advocated actual violence against gay “sinners”. A year ago, Michael Lucas asks, where are the celebrities, LGBT leaders, and progressive politicians who decried Dolce & Gabbana’s commercial slights, yet remain silent over ISIS murders of gay men in the name of Islam? Certainly no one did from the Obama administration for the medieval cruelties inflicted on gays, (there is no gay community there) in the Muslim Middle east. probably for fear of undercutting arms sales to the Saudis or foundation money.. Now that is reaching America, there might be a little more understanding, and criticism rather than simply the blithe remarks that all religions have its fanatics.
Patricia Kayden
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: I feel like crying too. I cannot believe this country worships guns so damn much to the point where it’s okay to sacrifice human beings for “gun rights”. What the hell?! As a commenter at LGF said today, when will Republicans start demanding that we apologize for hurting guns’ feelings or slandering guns? This is past ridiculous.
Schlemazel Khan
@Steve Crickmore:
And yet at least one sitting US Senator and the runner up for GOP presidential nod used the Christian bible to support the killing of gays. Additionally, there are many examples of Christian ministers calling for the deaths of gays in America. In Africa it was Christian governments that started imprisoning and killing gays side-by-side with their Muslim brothers. Blaming Islam for being anti-gay while ignoring that the same hatred is expounded by Christians in the same sort of percentage indicates you have an agenda that has nothing to do with human or civil rights.
Matthew 7:5, reference above, would be a good place for you to start. But that does not suit your actual goal does it?
Patricia Kayden
@Steve Crickmore:
There is no argument that Muslim-dominated countries are hostile to gay rights.
http://www.towleroad.com/2016/05/united-nations-aids/
There is also no doubt that we have our own share of anti-gay Christianists right here. I have no problem condemning both without demonizing all Christians or all Muslims.
OzarkHillbilly
@PGE: The 5.56 mm round is also known as the .223. That would be .22 caliber, a much more powerful centerfire .22 than the far more common .22 LR. Either way I don’t like leaving exceptions that one can drive a truck thru.
Elizabelle
@Steve Crickmore: What you might be seeing is people who don’t want to pile upon a religious group that is already being scapegoated and assailed falsely.
Lot of ugly history from the 20th century. More people should check it out.
boatboy_srq
@Cacti: Exactly.
I keep reading wingnuts on FB trying to make this into Moooooslum Turrruh and ignoring the anti-LGBT aspect to either write coherently about it or keep my bp in check.
jl
@Steve Crickmore:
” It’s been called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” this notion that Muslims can’t be held to the same standards of behavior as those of other faiths. Liberal voices often compare conservative Christians or Jews with radical Muslims. ”
Edit: and I would like a citation or link where these ‘low expectations’ were displayed by Obama, or Biden, or HRC, or Sanders, or Warren, or any leadership of the Democratic Party. Or even from the likes of W.
Why don’t we hold the Christians of Uganda to higher standard? How about Russia and Vlad? Your comment betrays bigotry, or ignorance about what is going on the world, or both. Look what has going on around the world, and I think that the idea that Islam is more prone to oppression and violence than other groups is not true. When horrific tragedies due to terrorism or social or government oppression hits places and people we identify with, we take notice, but a mistake to make broad characterizations based on that.
Patricia Kayden
@delk: I expected that. Just wait until Pat Robertson opens his mouth about this tragedy.
bemused
@Elizabelle:
It should be out there shortly. Hillary made way too much sense with rational comments about these massacres. I shudder to think what horrifying crap Trump will say next.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Red Pen: There is a God after all, and he has one sick sense of humor. I love it.
PGE
@OzarkHillbilly: ha. yeah… I thought of the .223 after I’d posted. And, really, I wouldn’t want a .22 short or CB in the eye either. As I said, I prefer your original definition, with no mention of caliber, just action and capacity
hovercraft
@Elizabelle:
Here you go she starts at about 45 minutes
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve Crickmore: Follow the link at 116.
Christianity is every bit as guilty of this sort of thing as Islam is.
jl
@boatboy_srq: I’m not sure there is any consistent theme to this mass murderer. From interviews with people who knew him, fantasies about mass murdering blacks was on his mind a while ago.
Elizabelle
I think a lot of people are going to perk their ears but good when they hear that someone on the no fly list can walk right in and buy an assault weapon. Someone who has been checked out by the FBI a few times, no less.
It’s ridiculous.
We need to ask the NRA and their congresscritters why they want to make it so easy to arm terrorists?
And bring back that assault weapon ban.
Villago Delenda Est
@bemused: You won’t have long to wait. Drumpf is scheduled for a “major speech” later today.
Elizabelle
@hovercraft: Thank you, but seems to be bad link.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Hi, Mnem – not sure this is the appropriate thread for this, but…just wanted to bring it to your attention that “Hamilton!” fever has hit even the online hardware/home decor business:
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/68261458?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u3109&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gallery2
? Martin
@Elizabelle:
Because it would curtail their constitutional rights. However we should strip every muslim of their US citizenship because that would be pragmatic and sensible.
hovercraft
@Elizabelle:
maybe this works
Schlemazel Khan
@Elizabelle:
You say that as if it were in our power to do it. My Congressman is stellar on the gun safety issue. I have sent money to and worked for other Congressional candidates who would also be good. People running against assclowns like Batshit Bachmann (and her equally awful replacement Tom Emmers) and John Kline. But we lost. We continue to lose for a lot of very complicated reasons few if any having to do with the ammosexual fetish. If you have a solution to the problem please share it I am sure the majority of Americans (who also support sensible gun safety measures) would all be excited to hear it.
Shawn in Showme
@Villago Delenda Est:
Are you saying that there are just as many Christian mass murderers in the world today as there are Islamic mass murderers? I think the numbers matter. For example, the Democratic and Republican parties are both corrupt but I wouldn’t say the former is just as corrupt as the latter.
boatboy_srq
@jl: True. But that doesn’t explain the idjit in L.A., either. And nobody is talking about what a close shave that was.
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle:
Things the world’s most and least privileged people say ;)
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
It’s everywhere! I saw a reference at McDonalds the other day. But I’ll hold the rest for the next open thread.
bemused
@Villago Delenda Est:
Gee thanks, I just had lunch. I can’t watch him more than a minute before feeling sick. I didn’t think it was possible but he just gets more offensive each day.
Miss Bianca
@Steve Crickmore: You know what? It sounds like you’re just more interested in Muslim-bashing – by lumping Muslims and Daesh together – than you are in expressing outrage or horror over the slaughter of LBGT American citizens. So please…just stop. Stop doubling down with the “but but but” when people point out to you that there’s plenty of homegrown hate and homophobia to go around that works just fine as the justification – such as it is – for this sick fucker’s actions. It’s exhausting and insulting for you to just keep yammering on with this point. You want agreement? Fine. Daesh sucks for all kinds of reasons, and homophobia is just one of them. Happy now?
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
To be honest, a lot of people have been questioned by the FBI. Including me.** Not sure I would want merely being questioned by the FBI to reason enuf for denying people’s rights.
** a reach to be sure, I was 14 and our next door neighbor had his car shot up. Wouldn’t have been a big deal except he happened to be the US Attorney General for the Eastern District of Missouri. Pretty sure I was not a serious suspect.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel Khan: I suspect it involves getting rid of gerrymandering, and having elections where the two top vote getters tee off; not a sensible candidate and the partisan whackadoodle that won the no turnout primary. In a district drawn for whackadoodles.
Got to have a congress responsive to its constituents, rather than its funding sources.
But it can be done. If we all live long enough. sigh.
jl
@? Martin: Repeal the second amendment. Or at least amend it so it can serve as workable in modern society.
Nit-pickers and pointless kibbitzers on this blog will natter that it won’t happen and is unrealistic. But I do agree with S****** on negotation: ask for a whole damn loaf on important issues, You might get half a loaf someday. Ask for half a loaf and you are lucky to get crumbs.
So, I am probably a movement of exactly one on that. I’m tired of the learned helplessness too many people on this issue. Repeal or amend the second amendment and that would go a long way towards finding feasible solutions. If enough people got behind it, might frighten the gun and ammo lobby into reasonable compromise.
Schlemazel Khan
@germy:
If they don’t see a difference between Clinton and Trump are you sure it is a good thing that they vote?
Some may very well figure it out but I am afraid that for far too many of them this was a cult of personality. They don’t know how Bernie was going to do it, they didn’t really know what Bernie would do for that matter but they thought the world of Bernie and only Bernie. Unless he runs for Governor in their state they may not know what to do.
jl
@boatboy_srq: Caught that guy, as far as I know a white non=Muslim guy, in time so he could (probably, IMHO) lie his ass off about what he was up to.
hovercraft
@Elizabelle:
The link at #157 foe the speech works, start at 45 minutes
Mnemosyne
@Shawn in Showme:
Define “mass murderers.” A war zone like Syria is not the same as Orlando, FL.
Elizabelle
@hovercraft: Thank you. Looks like it will. Cued up for before bedtime.
@Major Major Major Major: Truly. Also “I don’t drive.”
But it’s lovely not being anywhere near US cable.
ruemara
@The Red Pen: I hate to say it, but he seemed to be self-hating on something to me.
Shell
Ha. Ive usually heard it as “I never watch TV.” The import that they own one, but they’re just too busy doing much more important things to watch it.
Elizabelle
@jl: No harm whatsoever in trying.
Move that Overton window before it gets shot up.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shawn in Showme:
Not a 100% certainty but I think it’s a safe bet to say that there are far more Christians who commit murder in the US than Muslims, and that the same can be said for mass murders.
But that is more a reflection of population #s than anything else. I doubt very much one will find much difference in #/100,000 that could not be more readily explained by other factors. (poverty, war, etc)
Schlemazel Khan
@Patricia Kayden:
BINGO! But Steve wants us to especially condemn Muslims. He seems to have one agenda. Either he can’t see it or, more likely, is hoping we can’t.
I condemn all anti-gay bigotry Christian, Jewish and Muslim. Nobody gets a free pass.
Gin & Tonic
@Shawn in Showme: Maybe Daesh has just taken over the role formerly occupied by the IRA?
alhutch
@PGE:
The only problem is that some brave manufacturer would have to be a first mover, which hasn’t panned out for them in the past:
“A Major Gun Company Became An Industry Pariah After It Made Its Guns Safer” http://goo.gl/p1tQ5u
peach flavored shampoo
So this guy cant board a plane without someone making sure his 1/4″ flip-flops aren’t carved out and housing a AK-47, and insisting that his 3.2 fl.oz. of Coppertone represent a possible biowarfare threat, but he can walk in his flip-flops (after applying sunscreen) down to the local killery and purchase a AK-47 with firepower to kill 50 people in minutes.
I see logic and reason are in very short supply in this country.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shell: I have one, but I don’t watch TV. Mainly because I am too cheap to buy the satellite package that is full of junk I don’t want anyway. We watch movies and documentaries and TV series that are on DVDs.
D58826
Seems the Bible has a lot to say about forbidden things.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-man-just-dismantled-homophobia-and-religious-hypocrisy-for-all-those-still-confused_us_575eb9b7e4b0e39a28ae17fb
Doug R
@PGE: Getting rid of automatics and semi-automatics and limiting capacity is exactly what Canadians did.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: OHB — Let’s just take one example for our trolly friend — Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 and injured 680. Is that enough frickin’ Christian slaughter? I hate these kinds of stupid. All this killing sucks. Sucks sucks sucks. And I think our friend should ask not about the killers’ identities but about those who were singled out, targeted and killed.
No one was killed Saturday night because they were Christians.
Still barely not raging….
D58826
Well at least ‘old little hands’ is talking about the LGBT community. More than the rest of the goopers. But he’s going down hill rapidly to the old stick
hovercraft
@OzarkHillbilly:
Being a suspect is not enough. I am virulently anti-gun, I’d like to see the 2nd amendment repealed, not gonna happen. The choice we face is a free society with risks or a safe one with a lot less freedom. The UK went through decades living with the IRA bombings and they lived with the danger, they took precautions but did not for the most part over react. ( There were exceptions Guildford 4 and Maguire 7). Israel I think has over reacted and is creating an aparthied state. Everyday we take risks and that’s just a fact of life. Knowing someone or going to the same mosque as someone is not reason to lose your rights, be investigated or put under surveillance yes. The domestic violence if reported should be a red flag for the purchase of a gun, I don’t know where to draw the line but it should be debated.
Stan
@OzarkHillbilly: The 5.56mm NATO round would not be an exception under the definition I suggested, which is, again, closely based on what any army in the world would use as a definition. it is technically defensible and therefore could be a good basis for law.
jl
@OzarkHillbilly: Memories are short. Decades ago, nice Christian gentlemen from Ireland, and various European separatist movements, and some far left movements were doing a lot of shooting and blowing stuff up. I don’t recall Muslims playing a big role in the horrors of the Sri Lankan civil war. And Buddhists are committing a lot of organized violence on Muslims in Burma.
The research I’ve seen gives good evidence that political turmoil, military occupation, and perceived political and social oppression is associated with terrorism. Sadly, a lot of that in the Middle East recently. This isn’t directed at you, but in general, I have no patience for lazy ignorant easy and sensationalistic bigotry right now. Seeing too much of it from the fraudulent US news organization today.
hovercraft
Even off the teleprompter he lies. ” The killer who was born an Afghan of Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Stan: PGE was referring to caliber only. My response was more an explanation of why I prefer not use language pertaining to ammo at all. Under the definition you refer to**, a .22 LR would be exempt. That is a mistake I think. A 10/22 with an expanded round clip can be used to kill a lot of people and if you make an exception for that, people will take advantage of it.
** shot guns too? unsure
OzarkHillbilly
@jl:
I know.
Stan
@hovercraft: “The UK went through decades living with the IRA bombings and they lived with the danger, they took precautions but did not for the most part over react.”
Maybe not in Britain proper. I spent a lot of time in Belfast in those years and….well, holy crap. Barricades, searches, armored vehicles, watchtowers….and it was an unusual day when I didn’t have an awful lot of loaded weapons pointed at me. I have no idea what it is like now.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
SAY IT OVER AND OVER.
D58826
Hitler = its all the jews fault
Trump = it’s all the Muslims fault.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
This is not only untrue in Northern Ireland, but you also seem to downplay some of the outrageous perversions of justice in false imprisonments and persecutions.
Two talk radio hosts are currently advocating the denial of civil liberties and immediate imprisonment of suspicious persons. And they are asking a series of stupid questions about why don’t we do this or that with respect to restricting weapons purchase by some people, including the mentally ill. A conservative leaning station, they are avoiding the obvious NRA political influence.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly: Do you think it possible to adequately craft laws to restrict some of the deadliest guns and ammunition used in some of the worst mass shootings? I ask this not as a rhetorical challenge, but because you appear to have some knowledge of the issue. This morning I listened to one guest on a talk radio show continually berate the host for failing to distinguish between automatic and semi automatic weapons. After a while this seemed like an evasion, but the guest had other things to say that were not standard gun nut stuff.
john fremont
@Stan: My cousins from Scotland visited in the early 1980’s and we’re relieved they could sing Irish rebel songs openly in the pubs over here. Paul McCartney’s Give Ireland Back to the Irish was not even sold in the record stores over there.