This is more insanity:
The House could pass legislation as early as this week that would roll back decades-old restrictions on gun silencers, opening up the market for a device that critics say would make it difficult in a mass shooting to detect where gunfire is coming from.
The House is also expected to move this fall on separate legislation that would allow people to carry their legally concealed weapons across state lines into jurisdictions, such as California, that tightly restrict weapons concealment.
The silencer measure is part of the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, a broad-ranging gun bill delayed in June after House GOP Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and two Capitol Hill police officers were wounded by a gunman who opened fire on a congressional baseball practice session.
Critics say silencers — called noise suppressors by supporters and heavily regulated by the federal government for more than eight decades — would make it harder for police officers to locate a shooter in an attack.
These people are out of their god damned minds.
dmsilev
Just what sort of game are they thinking of hunting?
Hoodie
There is the well known tradition whereby revolutionary war soldiers would tie coonskins to the ends of their muskets to suppress the muzzle flash. Just ask Neil Gorsuch.
Shalimar
It’s almost like the gun industry wants mass shootings to happen more often and be more deadly.
Millard Filmore
The GOP is becoming a treasonous death cult.
Wapiti
@dmsilev:
The most dangerous one of all…
germy
germy
Betty Cracker
Not only will silencers make it difficult for cops to locate shooters, it would almost certainly result in more casualties in mass shooting events. The sound of gunfire is what makes potential victims aware that they’re in danger so they can run and hide.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Waiting to hear from the usual suspects that now won’t be the proper time to discuss firearm legislation because reasons…
Hellbastard
Some clowns at truth about guns are already calling this is a false flag op designed to scuttle the SHARE act.
rikyrah
@germy:
No lie told.
BlueDWarrior
America has made its choice, and that is either to wallow in the toxic pit that is gun culture, or to cover one’s eyes and pretend it’s not there and everything will be fine if you just sit and do nothing.
This is actually applicable to a lot of things; people talk about thoughts and prayers, but they shrink away when it comes time to put rubber to road and actually do things.
Patricia Kayden
Hate to sound cold but this is what Americans want as shown by who they vote for time and time again so I don’t see anything changing. It’s pretty clear by now which political party is in the pocket of the NRA and that party has been rewarded with full control of Congress and SCOTUS by the American people.
rikyrah
That Las Vegas authorities have ruled out terrorism at this early stage is another example of how the idea has all but been racialized.
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) October 2, 2017
Essentially, by the definition currently in common currency, a white person cannot be a terrorist.
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) October 2, 2017
rikyrah
For families looking to locate missing loved ones, please call 1-866-535-5654.
— LVMPD (@LVMPD) October 2, 2017
Repatriated
@Patricia Kayden: Fair target, severe overestimation of popular support.
This is not what Americans want, it’s what a well-funded special interest group demands of the party beholden to it.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: “Hey, look– did you notice that people near us are falling over?”
SFAW
@Hellbastard:
What took those nutcases so long? I was predicting that downstairs, but figured I was late to the game.
The Moar You Know
@germy: Thotsnprarswithevictims, too soon to talk about politics out of respect.
Think I got it covered for the Traitor’s Party.
@Patricia Kayden: Ain’t nothing cold about that save that it’s the stone cold truth. We (collective we, certainly not me) like it this way.
Patricia Kayden
@dmsilev: Humans.
ChrisS
This is incredibly tone-deaf on the part of the GOP, and if they want to be part of the national dialogue, they need to recognize that there’s is more than just the last 14 words of the 2nd amendment.
However, suppressors are helpful for hunting and shooting. Rifles are incredibly loud and it doesn’t take many rounds to permanently damage hearing. Earmuffs and proper hearing protection are fine at the range, but when in the field, hunters need to hear their surroundings. Additionally, suppressors at the range can reduce neighbor’s complaints. Higher powered rifles required for large game animals or where distance is an issue (most medium calibers have an effective range of 300 yards before having to significantly elevate the point of aim to correct for drop) have heavy recoil and suppressors redirect the pressure wave leading to reduced felt recoil, better shooting (no flinch).
A suppressor doesn’t silence the gun like in movies, but reduces the noise to tolerable levels.
Patricia Kayden
@Repatriated: And that party keeps getting elected over and over again and now controls SCOTUS and Congress.
magurakurin
@BlueDWarrior:
I agree completely. Nothing will change.
OzarkHillbilly
@ChrisS:
Let this life long hunter just say “Bullshit.”
magurakurin
@Patricia Kayden:
yes.
Amir Khalid
My understanding is that “silencers” don’t actually make firearms silent, nor do they make it any harder to find a gunman’s position. All they can do is attenuate by a few decibels the very loud noise of a weapon being fired: if you use one and you fire your weapon a lot, the damage to your hearing doesn’t accumulate as quickly. It’s also my understanding that silencers that make a gun near-silent are a Hollywood invention.
I can’t imagine how a silencer would help a sniper or a hunter. I don’t think it helped much to restrict them. But the numpties who insist on treating guns as toys would be better off (albeit not by much) if they were required to use noise suppressors, it seems to me.
Take the initials, and you get SHAREA. I wonder if that means anything.
magurakurin
@The Moar You Know:
yes. America as a society has chosen this.
magurakurin
@ChrisS: fuck hunting.
A Ghost To Most
People keep telling me I’m crazy (and they are right), but then I see shit like this, I wonder why I’m considered the crazy one.
Mary G
@ChrisS: Twitler Junior has been pushing that “won’t someone think of the poor hunter’s hearing” argument for months now, so you are in bad company, comrade.
Judge Crater
Yes, we’ve made out bed…now we have to sleep in it. Trump is a symptom of some madness that has overtaken this country. And it’s not economic anxiety.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid:
It is impossible to make something moving faster than the speed of sound “silent” (sonic boom and all that) but it is still wholly unnecessary and makes locating a shooter more difficult.
SFAW
@Repatriated:
At what point does the purported overwhelming support do anything about it? “Oh, well, nothing can be done, and Congressman/woman X votes with us on everything but gun control.” So, until some mass of voters says to Congress “You’re voting for State-sanctioned murder-and-terrorism enabling? Fine — do it in some other country, motherfucker.”
I will be ECSTATIC to EAT MY WORDS if the Congress ever stops fellating Wayne LaPierre. Pretty sure I will not need to in my lifetime. And I’m old, but not THAT old.
ChrisS
I don’t own one, and I probably wouldn’t buy one (I archery hunt mostly because I don’t like the noise of guns). But it’s a thing and there is an argument for it that doesn’t involve shooting humans. But if you want just ascribe it “evil for the sake of evil”, then go ahead. It’s just lazy thinking, IMO.
danielx
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
1. It would be wrong to politicize a tragedy.
2. Decisions shouldn’t be made in the heat of the moment.
Lather rinse repeat.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
This is one of the reasons I love you. (“In a manly way, of course,” as General JC Christian might say.)
Elizabelle
@Hellbastard: The SHARE act. To enshrine more gunhumping in our society. I swear, you can’t make this shit up.
geg6
While I feel terribly for the people who have lost loved ones and for those who were wounded and even for those who are physically fine but now traumatized by being there at such a massacre, I just can’t even get exercised about these things anymore. It’s never going to change. The gun humpers and their masters in the NRA will never allow anything to be done. We’ve lost this war and we just have to get used to the idea that you must be prepared to die if you ever leave your own home and that your home is safe only if you don’t have any guns there. They have decided that guns are more important and valuable than innocent human lives, so just resign yourself to it. We are all the sacrificial lambs for the gun humpers.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
You fit right in, in this joint.
Kryptik
If only it were this.
Instead, it’s calculated cravenness. They’re beholden to the power of the NRA, where most Americans are apathetic about guns, easily dismissed ‘others’, or single-issue voters who fantasize about themselves dying on the hill in service to the 2nd Amendment in specific. There will be no political repercussion for something like this. Sandy Hook lead to loosening of gun laws around the country, if not outright repeals of them. In a country that chose Trump, can you really imagine the public consciousness coming to its senses enough to make the GOP wear this as a scarlet letter?
They’ll get rewarded as they always do: with the slavish support of single-issue voters and that sweet sweet NRA money.
schrodingers_cat
Today is Gandhi’s birth anniversary. He was felled by an assassin’s bullets. What if he had said, the sun never sets on the British Empire, why don’t I just practice law, like my parents intended. Why bother.
chopper
cmon, cole, we all know how important silencers are to hunting.
OzarkHillbilly
@ChrisS:
There are arguments for legalizing .50 cal machine guns and RPGs that don’t involve shooting humans and they are just as idiotic.
Betty Cracker
@ChrisS: The reaction is squarely on the NRA, which won’t allow the legislators it has purchased in bulk to pass even the most commonsense, widely supported safety measures. If anyone is guilty of lazy thinking, it’s them, not us.
Repatriated
@Patricia Kayden: Motivated, single-issue bloc. The opposition isn’t single-issue.
Ksmiami
@Millard Filmore: becoming?
The Moar You Know
@ChrisS: They’ve got these newfangled things, only been out for twenty years or so. Called “electronic ear protection”. I can hear everything save the gunshots.
You are full of shit, gun industry shill. GTFO.
prob50
Well if you don’t have a silencer on those deer could tell where you are and might fire back at you.
seaninclt
Suppressors are used frequently by hunters for a couple of reasons one of which being trying to be considerate to neighbors if you are hunting nearby. No one wants to hear .308 rounds at 6am in the morning.
SFAW
@ChrisS:
Right. Just like it’s “lazy thinking” to express doubts over the need of those downtrodden hunters to have semi-automatic weapons available.
In other words: “Won’t someone think of the poor hunters” has been the justification trotted out almost every fucking time.
Month Python did a skit on this, Graham and Eric as Aussie “big game” hunters, I think. That was more than 40 years ago. Nice to see how far we’ve progressed.
The Moar You Know
@Amir Khalid: true
false.
Take it from a guy who’s shot all his life.
Kryptik
@The Moar You Know:
There’s also the fact that this came from several hundred feet up (long enough that there was time enough between the report and the contact that people thought there were two shooters), and during a music festival, the kind of loud, prolonged loudness that can muddy up with the sounds of a suppressed gun.
prob50
@magurakurin:
Well, Praise The Lord, something we totally agree on.
Wilson Heath
As much to do with states’ rights as the Fugitive Slave Act.
How typical.
SFAW
@prob50:
It’s BEARS, goddamit! Amendment 2-A clearly talks about the “right to arm bears.” The NRA, of course, studiously avoids THAT Amendment.
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
I stand corrected.
The Moar You Know
@seaninclt: Bullshit. I’ve lived in the country and in the middle of a big city. If I hear somebody shooting near my house in the country, they are plain and simple going to get shot, either by me or by the cops I’ve called. Had too many idiot hunters decide that the “no trespassing” posts on my fences don’t mean anything, and the last thing I’d need or want is for them to be able to get onto my property and start shooting. Used to get at least a couple rounds through the house during every hunting season. Fine if it’s just you but try having some kids at home and see how you feel about it.
City, I also want to hear them so I can call the cops.
Bottom line is: I want to know if someone is shooting within a mile of my house because if they are my life is in danger.
prob50
@SFAW:
I always thought that was about allowing people to wear t-shirts. I hate long-sleeve shirts
MCA1
@ChrisS: No, there’s really not an argument, at least not one that’s even remotely compelling. When the counters to the supposed benefits are “Stop shooting so much” or “Too f’ing bad; take your outdoor gun range and move it away from neighbors who don’t like the sound” or “Really, we need to make it easier to kill our prey?” then there’s really no sound basis for supporting suppressors.
On the one hand: convenience for game hunters and gun humpers. On the other: public safety and potentially less loss of human life in mass shootings.
A Ghost to Not
@OzarkHillbilly: agreed. That is a feeble defense, at best
Hunting serves a valuable purpose, but silencers have no place in it.
TS
@seaninclt: I don’t want to hear .308 rounds – or any other gunshots – anywhere, anytime. I’ve never lived anywhere near where people might be shooting deer & apart from that have never considered shooting to be a “sport”. Given the intended peaceful role of the Olympic Games I have never understood why shooting would be represented there.
seaninclt
@The Moar You Know: Right, but maybe not everyone feels the same as you. Maybe some people don’t mind if someone is hunting on their property.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
There are people, including some Americans, who hunt out of need, to put food on the table. I can’t bring myself to condemn subsistence hunting as I do recreational hunting.
OzarkHillbilly
@seaninclt:
Head? Meet desk. What world do you live in? I hear all kinds of firearms at nearly all times of day and night. (jack lighters really don’t care about the law much less my peace and quiet) If you live in the country, it’s what you have to live with. It’s a package deal. And you know what? I kinda like it, that way I know when somebody is trespassing on my land while poaching deer/turkey.
Elizabelle
@ChrisS: Why not invest in developing some better ear protectors for hunters?
Your comment amused me. WRT gunhumpers: not only do they not listen to us, some of them may not be able to even hear us.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
I wuv you too.
OzarkHillbilly
@seaninclt: Obviously you don’t own any land. Trust me, NO LANDOWNER WANTS ANYBODY HUNTING ON THEIR LAND WITHOUT PERMISSION.
MCA1
@seaninclt: That will likely be the dumbest thing I read all day.
How about don’t go f’ing hunting anywhere where there are neighbors at 6:00 A.M., you inconsiderate douche? If you aren’t out in the woods miles from civilization, or in the fields of a farmer from whom you’ve gotten permission to hunt, you’re doing it wrong already.
Betty Cracker
Trump is supposed to make a statement about the shooting at 10:30 ET. Wayne LaPierre is polishing the draft right now, probably.
MCA1
@MCA1: I stand corrected. See seaninclt’s next post, which tops his first in feeblemindedness.
seaninclt
@MCA1:
lol. settle down, Francis. You can hear a .308 up to a mile away.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: oh goody.
A Ghost To Most
@prob50: My Asperger’s son once misheard a homework assignment to write a paper on “the right to bear arms”, and wrote a paper on “the right to bare arms”. He got a B.
Vhh
@ChrisS: Hunters don’t shoot high numbers of rounds (bag limits on deer are 1 to a few), and shooters practicing on ranges wear hearing protection. Suppressors cut noise and recoil and are helpful when firing a large number of precise shots at multiple targets, as in wars or massacres.
Mnemosyne
@seaninclt:
I’m pretty sure the 50 people who died or the 200+ who were injured in Las Vegas last night didn’t like hearing that sound late at night, either.
I await your correcting me about the type of round that was used in Las Vegas as you completely miss the fucking point and make it even more obvious that you don’t give a shit about other people, only yourself.
A Ghost To Most
@Amir Khalid: They are often the same thing. I no longer hunt because I get no pleasure from killing things, but many people hunt both for sport, and to put meat on the table.
The Moar You Know
@MCA1: Hold his beer. He’s got a much better argument somewhere. It’s just not here.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
The big question is: is LaPierre polishing the speech more than Shitgibbon will be polishing LaPierre’s knob?
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
And you just know he’s going to take some kind of perverse pride in the fact that it’s the biggest and deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.
Elmo
One shot, one deer.
Two shots, maybe deer.
Three shots, no deer.
A guy out hunting shouldn’t be blasting enough rounds to damage his hearing.
MJS
@seaninclt: Then don’t hunt near neighbors at 6:00 a.m.
Major Major Major Major
@Vhh: @Elmo: well, how one ought to use a tool and how one does use a tool (especially a tool prone to inducing Rambo fantasies in the user) are often not the same.
ArchTeryx
The sad part was when I heard this news all I could muster was a mental shrug. Another day in Republican America. The gun humpers won this because they are all single issue voters and nothing will change that short of a mass shooting in the Capitol building. Learned helplessness is all those of us with sense have ledt, it seems.
ArchTeryx
The sad part was when I heard this news all I could muster was a mental shrug. Another day in Republican America. The gun humpers won this because they are all single issue voters and nothing will change that short of a mass shooting in the Capitol building. Learned helplessness is all those of us with sense have ledt, it seems.
SFAW
I seem to remember a woman shot in her back yard (in Maine, I believe, but memories fade) by a hunter who thought she was a white-tail. Something about her wearing gloves. I think he was acquitted — again, pleading shitty memory — but was really sorry.
Maybe if she hadn’t been out at 6 AM. Or 6 PM. Or any time the sun was up.
seaninclt
@Mnemosyne: I have no idea what type of gun or caliber was used in Vegas. Wow, you went zero to self-righteous AF in like a second and a half. I’m not even mad, I’m impressed.
Barbara
@seaninclt: Fuck you. My family owns a farm and we would far rather hear rounds at 6:00 am so we know that someone is out there and, most likely, trespassing and poaching, not to mention endangering people who happen to be where they are supposed to be. What a stupid, stupid thing to say.
ETA: You do realize, don’t you, that when you hunt you maybe fire off one or two rounds per hour, if that much. Or maybe you don’t hunt at all and are just parroting the brain dead excuses you found on the NRA website.
SFAW
@ArchTeryx:
Even then.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: Yep. The most deadly! Not many people know that! Thoughts and prayers, first responders, yada yada.
Remember when we had a real president? Terrible things still happened, but it was a comfort to know a thoughtful, competent person was in charge. Someone on Twitter said it was like being able to take a nap in the backseat during a long road trip, knowing a good driver was at the wheel. True. This is like having a blindfolded lunatic driving.
Mnemosyne
@Elmo:
A guy who needs a semiautomatic rifle to take down a deer is a really crappy hunter with very bad aim.
TS
@Betty Cracker: Wonder if he’ll be visiting LV instead of PR.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elmo: I have something along the same lines of an argument against expanded magazines: “If you need 30 rounds to hit what you are shooting at, you don’t need a bigger magazine, you need practice.”
seaninclt
@MJS: I get that, and I’m not arguing about how objectionable hunting is. I agree that it is. But again, not everyone necessarily feels the same way I do, or you do, or anyone else does. Not that I would ever go hunting, but if for some reason I did, I wouldn’t do it at 6am – because I wouldn’t want to disturb people that live in the area. But again, other people may differ.
Mnemosyne
@seaninclt:
I know, it’s so weird that people get angry when 50 people are murdered in cold blood! I guess we can’t all be as rational as you and say, Well, they should have ducked when someone started firing on them from above with a fully automatic weapon. It’s their own fault.
zhena gogolia
I always love these hunters whose nyms I’ve never seen before who show up for these discussions in order to derail them.
Betty Cracker
@TS: I’d bet a moderate sum he’ll seize on this excuse NOT to go to Puerto Rico. If he does go to Puerto Rico, his advance team might have to pull all the troops there off relief duty to make sure the shitgibbon doesn’t get Ceaușescu’d.
Elizabelle
@SFAW: Yes. That was a very memorable story in the NYTimes Sunday magazine. I will find the link and put it up.
In the meantime, TBogg. Always useful.
I was the NRA.
seaninclt
@Barbara: JFC, lady. I’m not a member of the NRA. I’m not parroting their bullshit. They’re a bunch of assholes – much like you’re coming off right now. I said some people consider using suppressors to be a matter of being considerate. That’s all. But by all means, continue losing your shit on a website to prove how cool you are. Thumbs up.
A Ghost To Most
@seaninclt: Hunting may be objectionable to some, but without hunters, you’d be up to your asses in whitetails (in the East). Man has become the apex predator.
TS
Trump cancelling meetings to focus on the shooting issues. He didn’t cancel golf to focus on the disaster of PR. Defines him.
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: such a weird coincidence, isn’t it?
@A Ghost To Most:
You apologize to cats right now!
SiubhanDuinne
@TS:
¿Porque no los dos?
TS
@Betty Cracker: I’m on your side of that bet – not sure we’ll get many takers.
A Ghost To Most
@seaninclt: Frankly, if I am out in the woods, I want to know if someone else is out there shooting. A suppressor lessens my chance of knowing that.
kindness
It’s bad karma to wish this crazy man had gone on his rampage in the NRA headquarters instead of Las Vegas. It’s not even 8 in the morning here on the left coast and I’m already a negative on the karma scale today.
Corner Stone
@seaninclt:
No, you’d go about 4AM depending on what you’re hunting and be prepared before first light. The “disturbing the neighbors” line of thought is really not working, IMO.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
And they’re never, never members of the NRA!
seaninclt
@A Ghost To Most: Fair point. I’m an animal lover and can’t fathom shooting anything. But again, that’s me. YMMV. I also like going to a gun range and shooting paper targets – that’s fun as shit.
I had a 300lb buck slam into the side of my CRV in Suburban DC a few years ago…during rush hour…100 feet from the Capital Beltway. It caved in the right side of my car. I get what you’re saying…
jonas
@Repatriated:
True, but until the rest of America that is in favor of sane gun laws decides to be as passionate about keeping us safe as the other side is about making sure every preschooler is armed to the teeth and votes accordingly, that well funded special interest group will continue to call the shots.
The only thing that will end this is for a majority of voters to become anti-NRA voters at all times and in all places. An endorsement by the gun lobby ought to be a political kiss of death — kind of like being endorsed by NAMBLA.
A Ghost To Most
@Major Major Major Major: Yea, if I was home, and the cats heard that, I’d be getting the stinkeye.
Barbara
@seaninclt: So you know nothing about hunting or rural life. You just trot it out as an excuse to make it easier to murder people during mass shootings.
Corner Stone
There are no rational arguments for suppressors in the hands of the general population.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
The Gun Cult that exists in this nation is insane. And it absolutely is the fault of gun manufacturers. They use the NRA as a promotion arm to sell fear and paronoia, which will sell more guns. The beauty of it is that more people, feeling afraid of mass shooters, will buy guns and ammo. Lax gun laws helps the gun lobby.
I used to think that the only way any of this would change would be GOP congressmen being directly threatened by guns. But I was wrong. Several just decided to either pack heat or increase security. Can’t risk pissing off their base. Fuck these people.
I believe they’ll eventually rule the day. When everyone can own guns unrestricted, then no one is safe.
TS
@SiubhanDuinne: Cause I don’t think he wants to go to PR – but maybe he’ll surprise me.
seaninclt
@Corner Stone: You’re probably right. I’ve never hunted a day in my life. I would assume sunrise, but that’s based on conversations I’ve had with people that do hunt, but sure, I’d believe it.
Corner Stone
@seaninclt:
Good God. Somebody needs to find out what its owner had been feeding it.
Amir Khalid
@A Ghost To Most:
I ‘m aware that some do enjoy hunting for the table. But by “subsistence hunting” I mean hunting out of need, rather than choice. If it’s either you bag something or you and yours go hungry, that’s the former. If you’re hunting because you feel like a change from supermarket beef, in my book that’s the latter.
Barbara
@seaninclt: JFC, I actually know something about rural life so I know how utterly bullshit your original statement was and I called you on it and you try to go all reasonable and rational in covering up your ignorance and defending the indefensible.
Repatriated
@jonas: Exactly.
A Ghost To Most
@seaninclt: Try breakable targets; instant gratification! I used to be on a gun team, shooting Civil War .58 muskets at breakable targets for time. It was a blast, but hanging with racists and fascists got old, so I quit.
Elizabelle
@SFAW: There was a longer story too, I believe, but this is a good recap. Shooter found not guilty of manslaughter. I recall he was devastated by the murder, too. From October 1990.
NY Times: Bangor Journal; Death and Hunter’s Trial Pose Tough Questions
Props to the NY Times for working the word “provincial” in twice.
Makes me think: maybe we should all take to wearing blaze orange, as we go about our daily business. Maybe that could be a silent protest. Although it would probably just rile up the gun humpers. But maybe the politicians would notice our numbers.
Albeit, the more intelligent among us are not single issue voters.
Barbara
@Amir Khalid: My view on hunting is that unless you are a vegetarian it really isn’t fair to go after people who hunt deer and other game that they actually eat. Where my family farm is, people really do eat what they kill or sell or barter it for other things.
sukabi
@dmsilev: man
Cckids
@TS:
It would be better for both places if he just went to his goddamned golf club again, and stayed away from decent people having hard times. Haven’t they suffered enough?
Brendancalling
@BlueDWarrior: I’ve ceased to care. This is what we want, as a nation. If Sandy Hook didn’t matter -and it didn’t- then a stadium full of country music fans don’t either.
Hell, most of the audience for Jason Aldean is full-on God, Guns, and Guts.
Amir Khalid
@TS:
The Dotard has, shall we say, a unique sense of priorities.
Barbara
@Brendancalling: I have a feeling they don’t think God was sending them any messages last night. It’s just too awful.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: gun manufacturers and Antonin Scalia.
The Moar You Know
@seaninclt: Employee, more like it.
@seaninclt: Oh yes you are.
Amir Khalid
@Barbara:
That’s not quite how I see it, but it’s a difference I understand and respect.
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: A buddy of mine hunting in St Charles County took a buck that weighed in at 380 after it had been field dressed. It took 4 men to get it in the back of a p/u. Corn is what it fed on.
LAO
@Brendancalling:
Amen. That’s where I am. If 20 dead first graders couldn’t move this country to adopt sane gun control laws, I don’t believe that any act of violence will bring the NRA (and those that worship guns) to their collective senses.
Barbara
@seaninclt: And just to make it clearer, poaching and trespassing are huge problems for many people in rural locations. You are walking along and all of a sudden you realize that people are hunting on your land. Silencers would make that easier to pull off and a heck of a lot more dangerous to walk around.
A Ghost To Most
@Amir Khalid: I grew up eating venison and walleye; it was subsistence for us, even though both my parents worked.
Going to Africa to kill lions, etc. is purely (un)sport. Killing (and eating) a whitetail is managing an otherwise unmanaged resource.
eta If I never eat venison again, it will be too soon. Walleye, on the other hand, …
Amanda in the South Bay
@seaninclt: then don’t hunt near people’s houses.
schrodingers_cat
Guys don’t respond to the troll. I have never seen this person here before.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I didn’t know much about deer hunting and I was shocked when my mailman said her went to Central Illinois to hunt the really big ones. Corn it is.
Corner Stone
@Brendancalling:
That is where you are wrong, my friend! It mattered, alright. It got all the local elementary schools around the nation to start terrifying children by holding random “lock down drills” and practicing “active shooter” situations.
So instead of it “mattering” to the people in Congress who could actually do something about it, we transferred that responsibility on to our children.
Boatboy_srq
@TS: Dead White People vs. Dying Brown People. That’s really all you need to know to sort out Lord Dampnut’s response.
Is this item still on the House agenda? After last weekend? I wish I could still be shocked at the Teahad.
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
@TS:
Yeah, I meant to include snark tags. Realized I’d left them off only after the edit window closed.
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
Well, first thing T says is that we’re a country in shock.
I don’t think anyone is shocked.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
I’m sure someone else beat me to it but black people would be my guess.
John Cole, I’m going to rephrase it for you. “These motherfuckers are out of their god damned tiny little fucking minds.”
Corner Stone
@OzarkHillbilly: My goodness. That’s not a buck, that’s a junior elk! I personally have never seen one that would dress out at anywhere above 250, either whitetail or mule deer.
TS
Sticking to the script – not one word out of line. Sounds like the preachers wrote it for him.
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
@TS:
He has that medicated delivery going.
Elizabelle
Trump’s doing his concerned while presidentin’ schtick.
Not saying anything memorable, but having him quote scripture is … absurd.
Turned it off.
seaninclt
@Barbara: No, that’s you trying to impose your view on other people. Suppressors are widely used throughout Europe and Scandinavia, whose use is considered to be…wait for it…polite. But no, rage away random person.
Mnemosyne
@seaninclt:
You know what? This:
Is NRA bullshit. To the letter.
So stop pretending you’re just some guy who happened to wander in. Go back to your boss at NRA HQ and tell him we weren’t as gullible as you assumed we were.
japa21
Listening to Trump. I just can’t. He tries to put on this serious tone, but it doesn’t work. Don’t know who wrote this, but it wasn’t him, he’s quoting scripture. He’s going to LV on Wednesday. Too soon.
Also, apparently ISIS is saying the shooter converted to Islam a month ago. Highly doubt that.
LAO
@Elizabelle:
ETA: wrong tweet
mike in dc
@LAO:
Wayne LaPierre could shoot up a hospital nursery with a .50 BMG rifle and not one gun control law would pass even one chamber of Congress. Probably wouldn’t make it out of committee.
seaninclt
@Corner Stone: Now in fairness, as I locked eyes with the beast, it looked massive. So 300lb may well be an exaggeration based on a holy shit reaction of someone seeing a flying deer come at them that had just vaulted the car next to me and was about to slam into mine. (I swear the fish was thisssssss big).
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
I’m not a believer, but if I were a believer, Trump’s pious god-humping platitudes would send me straight to the welcoming embrace of atheism. He sickens me in every possible way.
TS
@Elizabelle:
So did I – he ALWAYS sounds insincere. This is going to “bring us all together”, “we will fly our great flag at half mast”. “together in love as we always are”
He said none of this in relation to the millions left destitute in Puerto Rico. And guns don’t get a mention.
Major Major Major Major
@LAO: maybe he meant that his flag in particular is very large.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Iowa, Illinois, and northern Missouri are all known for their monster whitetail bucks.
Betty Cracker
Shitgibbon wrapped his statement up. As predicted, thoughts and prayers, first responders, yada yada. He stuck to the platitudes on the teleprompter and didn’t veer off the rails into crazy town, so the infotainment media will call his performance “presidential.”
seaninclt
@Mnemosyne: Shut up. I’ve been coming to this blog since john was boozing and the fat white cat ruled the roost. Google suppressors in Europe. Christ, you do not know everything. You’re like a teenager.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet): No. Not shocked in the least. Sad surprise, when I saw the news at O Dark Hundred, but not shocked in the least.
Anger, really. That this happens, and there is no stopping it, because the NRA and rightwing bought the congresswhores.
Money killed these concertgoers. Money to the NRA, money buying politicians. Money buying Citizens United.
We voted. Our candidate won by 2 million plus votes. Didn’t matter. I think the GOP and Russkies fucked with the swing states.
Now we see this latest shooting. We are angered, and impotent to stop more. Don’t even want to go through the motions.
And fuck people who talk to us about thoughts and prayers. If more people “thought”, those people would have had a prayer of surviving that concert.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: No edit function, wanted to add that here in the hills and hollers, 200 is a big buck.
LAO
@Major Major Major Major:
I tried to embed his tweet about watching Trump attempting to be compassionate is like watching a frog in a dress. Which I thought was both funny and correct.
SFAW
@seaninclt:
You might consider shutting the fuck up, for a change. You’ve already admitted you’ve been talking out of your ass, and yet you keep going after people who not only take exception to your bullshit, but also actually know something about the subject. And your “1,000 pound bull moose crushing your F-350” bullshit story does not really add to your “credibility,” little boy.
But, please, tell us ONCE AGAIN how you’re not shilling for the NRA and their bullshit “reasons” why the right to bear silencers, RPGs, and 155 mm howitzers shall not be infringed.
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
@LAO:
It is a perfectly cromulent tweet.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet):
True. I’m appalled and furious, but not shocked or surprised. This was inevitable given that we absolutely refuse to be sensible about guns no matter how many people are murdered.
GregB
The likely dead perp sounds like a card carrying member of NRA.
Barbara
@seaninclt: And you know that how, Sean? From personal experience? You have data and statistics? You know that they are used with automatic weapons and not just single action rifles? Why don’t you link to your source?
Ruckus
@ChrisS:
If you want to put a thousand or so rounds a minute out there then yes dropping the db might be good. Of course you could use ear plugs, which are cheaply and easily available. We use them in industry, a lot. You could use ear muffs, which are more expensive but provide even better attenuation.
Of course you could also not have a fucking gun fetish and a desire to kill people and things but that’s probably a wish too far.
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
@Elizabelle:
Yes to every word of this.
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: That’s exactly what I told him: “You sure you didn’t shoot an elk by accident?”
Corner Stone
@seaninclt: Even a smallish one will destroy a car in a collision, depending. My dad hit a medium one in North Carolina at dusk one evening and it wiped out the whole driver side front end from bumper to door frame of his Suburban. Little bastard jumped right out of nowhere, as they are wont to do.
Amir Khalid
@japa21:
Eric Paddock said his brother Stephen liked going to Vegas for the gambling and the shows. Doesn’t sound to me like the type to convert to Islam.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I didn’t see it, but seeing Joy Reid’s tweets about it, it sounds like he had difficulty faking even the slightest bit of empathy.
Mnemosyne
@seaninclt:
Yes, only teenagers get upset when FIFTY PEOPLE ARE MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD.
Silly me. I should be thinking of the injured feelings of all of the hunters today, not the 50 families who have to make funeral preparations for their loved one. Why won’t anyone think of the poor, beleaguered hunters who just don’t want ear protection to impinge on their FREEEEEDDDDDDUUUUUUUMMMMMBBBBB!!!!
Again, go back to your NRA handlers and tell them we aren’t buying what you’re selling. Hint: the gun control laws in Europe are very different than those in America, which means the use of suppressors there is also differently regulated. Dur!
trollhattan
@LAO:
We’re inching closer to the LaPierre target.
mike in dc
Noise suppressors drop the noise signature of firearms by an average of 30 decibels. The people at the hotel would still hear the shots clearly, and likely the people at the base of the hotel. But the concertgoers would struggle to hear it, because if you drop 160-170db down to 130-140db, by the time you get 1700 feet away, it’s no more than light background noise(particularly at a concert).
SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)
@Mnemosyne:
The only thing that genuinely shocks me is my recognition that I am capable of reacting to news like this with — if not quite a massive shrug — a kind of resigned “Yeah? What else is new?” I don’t want to react like that — I want to be shocked by news of atrocities, because I don’t want to be the kind of person who isn’t shocked — and it shocks me that I’m no longer shocked.
If that makes sense.
ETA: I’m very sad and very angry, of course, but as you point out, that’s a very different reaction.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, bullshit. Everyone knows ALL of the EU not only has open carry of all firearms, including automatic weapons, but ALL the EU governments — plus the UK — actively encourage the cheese-eating surrender monkeys to stock up on as much firepower as they can, because
ObamaHitlarySOMEONE will try to take them away!Betty Cracker
@seaninclt: In America, any issue involving guns has to be considered in the context of our massive gun violence problem. Therefore, in this country, potential hearing loss and “politeness” take a back seat to the public’s need to be alerted instantly if some lunatic decides to open fire on a crowd.
Ruckus
@ChrisS:
Like others here, I’ve hunted in the past. I’ve owned guns. I was paid to carry a loaded gun in public and given orders that I was to shoot to kill if necessary as a 23 yr old.
Your line about hearing protection is pure bullshit. 1000% pure bullshit.
I wear hearing protection every day, it works, it’s cheap, it’s easy, it saves my hearing. I’m an old fart who has been around damaging sound his entire life and my hearing, which has been tested, is only slightly worse that would be great for a person 1/3 my age.
1000% pure bullshit.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet):
Unfortunately, it does.
seaninclt
@Barbara: Here ya go. From the GoS itself. Or
And lastly, enjoy a salty bag of dicks.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
This is odd.
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle:
I had a not shocked but depressing reaction. I woke my son up, grabbed my laptop and turned on the TV. Saw the BREAKING NEWS banner and police lights and thought, “My God. What did Trump do?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: I was driving across Wyoming when a fair sized buck ran up on the far side of the road, paced me for a bit, then decided it would commit suicide and tried to cross over in front of my International Traveler. All I had was a slightly bent bumper and a headlight that was out of alignment. Couldn’t believe it.
walden
As folks said upthread — I want to be able to hear the hunters. There have been enough times when idiots have been shooting on adjacent property (or trespassing) and have not observed (or cared to think about) the safety zone around our farmhouse. I want to hear them as I go about my daily activities — or so I can wander down the road and politely let them know that they are on private property.
You shouldn’t need a silencer if you are hunting.
Amaranthine RBG
@dmsilev:
I think the strongest argument is for heart no protection while practicing shooting at the range.
Silencers are legal now in, I think, 40 states provided you pay for the federal tax stamp. I dot recall of many homocides using silencers outside of the movies so the concerns about their criminal use are probably overblown.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Beginning to think the NRA has a nice troll farm in St Petersburg. This one sounds like “Chet” and “Steve from Antioch” (and stop me if you’ve seen that nym style before).
TS
Won’t ban guns but talk of banning outdoor concert events – install airline style check ins to hotels.
Don’t let terrorists, the NRA and the GOP define & ruin things we enjoy. They are winning with this approach.
Great comments on Joy Ann Reid’s twitter
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid
Ruckus
@seaninclt:
Once again fucking bullshit.
If you are hunting near homes with high powered rifles it is not the fucking noise that’s the problem. It’s you.
MCA1
@seaninclt: Oh, well, that changes everything. You realize that Scandinavia is in Europe, right?
So, you’d agree that we should be taking our cues on firearms regulations from Europe, then?
seaninclt
@Betty Cracker: I do not doubt that. It seems an unlikely item to take a massive stand on instead of negotiating it with the pro-2a congressional crowd. Suppressors haven’t been shown to spike crime. You know what would have helped prevent something like this? Ammo restrictions on the caliber of available munitions.
Repatriated
He doesn’t have to convince us.
We’re discussing the efficacy and utility of silencers instead of how this sociopath is not that different from other “law-abiding gun owners”. Apparently, until last night, he was one of them. (Yeah, modding a gun to full-auto without a permit is illegal, but it’s “just a hobby, and it should be legal anyhow” /s)
A Ghost To Most
@OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like a whitetail rather than a mule deer.
The mule deer around us are exceptionally calm. They will look both ways for cars before crossing the road; a whitetail will wait for a car to come, so it can jump out in front of it.
The Moar You Know
@MCA1: I’d love that, save for Finland. None of those countries dipshit cites allows you to own a firearm in your home.
TS
@TS: Great discussion points from Joy Ann Reid on Twitter
randy khan
@Amir Khalid:
My guess is that the first draft title was the “Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Improvement Act,” then somebody figured out what it spelled.
Cermet
@ChrisS: Yes, for heavy weapons some of what you say is a minor issue but once these devices are legal, every mfg of silencers will have models for hand guns – and that will really invalidates much of the argument since these weapons simply don’t present any such issues. Also, the vast majority of all gun owners that buy these devices will never hunt. Rather, it will be neat techno shit that they will want. Also, most hunters shoot very little – the danger to us and the cops far out weight the minor issue you raise. People have hunted for ever without such devices. As for the recoil – oh my god, fucking please. That is an issue? Why in the frick own a gun if one is such a candy ass that that is a problem?
seaninclt
@MCA1: I’m fine with gun laws. I’m not pro-give a toddler a 50 cal. Europe’s gun laws work for them. The world is not a one-size fits all scenario.
Gretchen
My hunting relative was talking about how good squirrel is. I asked how you cook it, and he immediately told me in detail how to make squirrel stew in a slow cooker. His Facebook this weekend shows him putting up his deer stand.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
This is like having a blindfolded fucking drunk lunatic driving.
I fixed it for you.
LAO
@seaninclt:
Maybe. But all of the reports from on the ground at Las Vegas, was that people ran for cover because they HEARD GUN SHOTS. Maybe the point of not legalizing silencers isn’t a fear of new crime but a fear that it will make a mass shooting even worse.
Also — I’m willing to adopt European rules/law about silencers as long as we adopt their rules/law on gun ownership. (Hint: they are much stronger and stringent that US laws)
The Moar You Know
@Repatriated: You are correct, discussion derailed.
I knew this guy was a straight up Trump/GOP gun fellator when nobody called it “terrorism” on the news. Had it been a pissed off liberal, that would be all over the news right now, and were he a Muslim, Trump would have blown up all of Twitter’s servers. Nobody’s saying anything at all about the guy, so he’s another Jared Loughner – a GOP Nazi whose entire internet history and lists of contacts will be sealed by court order by the end of today.
LAO
@randy khan: @Amir Khalid: You two gave me my first legitimate laugh of the day. Thanks!
Nelle
@Amir Khalid: I used to live in remote Alaska. Wasn’t nervous about kids with rifles out hunting because they had been taught….and they shared what they got (nearest grocery store was 3 hours by small plane – two mountain ranges, the Yukon Flats, and the Arctic Coastal plain away). We had to eat off the land. But there was the night when one of the villagers got drunk and went charging around the village with a rifle. We all spent the night flat on the floor. Guns are tools, with an emotional charge. I don’t deal with them. I’m married to a Vietnam vet who wants nothing more to do with them.
bemused
Saying hunters want silencers is ridiculous. I live in rural hunting country, deer, bear, partridge, ducks, etc. Hunters don’t shoot until they have their prey in their sights. They can go all day or days without ever firing a shot.
My dad would be over 100 now if he was still with us. I’ve often wondered what he and his generation of hunters who mainly used their rifles to put food on the table would say about our insane gun culture now. I have no doubt they would be mystified, astonished, horrified and full of scorn for gun nuts.
Amaranthine RBG
@Cermet:
They’re legal in 40 states already with a federal tax stamp
And there’s tons of suppressor made already for handguns.
MCA1
@seaninclt: Then why are you citing European regulations?
Let’s just take a moment to note that you’re going to these ridiculous lengths to support your original assertion that, as a matter of considerateness, hunters in the U.S. should be using suppressors.
OzarkHillbilly
@A Ghost To Most: I do not remember which it was, both are common in that area. I ended up shooting it as the impact had fatally injured it but left it suffering.
Corner Stone
@Gretchen: Your relative sounds a little kooky. Everyone knows the only way to prepare squirrel is to cut into a couple nuggets and chicken fry it in grease or oil. And, IMO, squirrel is not “good” eats.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Yep. Steve from Antioch. Was half trying to remember the critter.
Hello, little Russkie.
Nelle
@Betty Cracker: Read that too fast and thought it said that Wayne LaPierre was polishing his (Trump’s) left nut. Sadly, that too made sense.
Amaranthine RBG
@bemused:
Yeah , I don’t know that I would ever put a suppressor on my deer/elk gun. I mean I spent a fortune to get one that is lightweight at 5.5 pounds so it’s easier to backpack with. Not worth it to hang a couple of more pounds on it
But I would love to have a suppressor for my duck gun, I shoot that a lot and my dogs really don’t like wearing mutt muffs. But I don’t think suppressors are practical for shotguns
Psych1
This board sure has a number of gun nuts!
chris
Looking in from outside I don’t know how America lives with these daily events. There has been another mass shooting (defined as 4 or more people shot) since Las Vegas. But it will go unnoticed.
Maybe this website should be front and centre on every reputable news site and blog and twitter page.
https://massshootingtracker.org/
NorthLeft12
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a semi-automatic silenced weapon, is a good guy with an automatic silenced weapon…..so says the NRA.
Really guys? Silencers? Is this how the gun nuts want to reduce noise pollution and protect their hearing? FFS.
Mike in NC
NRA spent over $30M to give us Trump. Good that they had an excellent ROI.
Betty Cracker
@seaninclt: I plan to fight like hell to preserve any restrictions still on the books, which right now includes suppressors. I’d love to see commonsense safety restrictions imposed, but we know that’s not going to happen with the current crowd in charge. Until we get our insane gun culture under control, concern for gun owner’s hearing and neighborly consideration is a luxury we can’t afford.
chopper
@Amaranthine RBG:
machine guns are legal with the proper federal tax stamp. doesn’t mean they’re easy to get your hands on.
Amaranthine RBG
@Betty Cracker:
Suppressors are legal already in Florida provides you pay the federal tax
Waldo
I live in a small suburban town in Connecticut. The Sandy Hook massacre was on a Friday. Come Monday morning, the local hunters were blasting away like it was business as usual. As a parent whose kids walked to school, it was the last thing I wanted to hear. But at least I knew there was shooting going on.
bemused
@Amaranthine RBG:
That’s just it. Most legit hunters use rifles.
I join the chorus in wanting to know there is someone shooting where we live and how close shooter may be. We do walk our 60 acres and one never knows where those bullet go.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
My story is remarkably like TBorgg’s story. We even hunted in the same area. I was possibly a few years earlier than him as I hunted there in the late 60s, and drove myself there. My story deviates a bit, I’ve been shot at 4 times in my life, strangely never while in uniform. Only once was on purpose, twice were very close while hunting with people I didn’t know well, who took bad shots. After the second one of those, I never went hunting again. Too many people with guns, ammo, trigger fingers and no fucking brains. I couldn’t make their minds work, I couldn’t take away their guns, so I took away their target, me.
Patricia Kayden
@geg6:
That’s exactly how I feel. I am numb to the gun violence raging in this country since nothing is ever done to make it lessen or go away. John’s post shows that this current Congress is planning to take steps to make things even worse. I feel like guns are placed above people and we’ve given in to apathy.
Amaranthine RBG
@chopper: from what I understand, you just have to wait while the paperwork goes through.
More a bureaucratic hurdle than a legal one.
A Ghost To Most
White guy, so “psychological problems” rather than white christian terrorist.
rawstory
MCA1
Sort of side angle to this issue, but it peeves me that they included the word “heritage” in the title of this monstrosity. What heritage? “Sportsmen heritage” means what, exactly? And how does it tie to silencers and being able to concealed carry anywhere you damned well please? Stop misappropriating words.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amaranthine RBG: An Arkie buddy of mine has one. He spends a lot more on ammo than he ever did on the gun or the permit. (idjit)
Betty Cracker
@Amaranthine RBG: I know they’re not illegal, but there are restrictions (mandatory application, hefty tax, background check), which I hope remain in place.
grandpa john
@Corner Stone: I live in the middle of deer and turkey hunting country, surrounded by National forest land and large tracts of of corporate owned land. Deer hunters I know are always in the woods and on stand by daylight.When I was still teaching, many of my students went hunting before school, by 8:00 AM they were out of the woods and in school. I live in town but close to a stream that runs into National forest land and there are patches of woods all around, It is nothing to look out and see deer in my front yard or in the park across the street
Ruckus
@Barbara:
Nice call out.
I also notice that I’ve never seen these posters here. But a mass shooting and they are out in force bullshitting their way through life. Fucking wankers.
raven
Now 58 dead 515 wounded according to the sheriff.
Elizabelle
At least we will get a full accounting of gun deaths and injuries from this latest massacre.
Thinking this morning of London’s Grenfell Towers fire disaster. They have never released a realistic death toll for that one, and they may not be able to assemble the actual total, given the fire damage.
That said, no one in the UK is saying it’s a great idea, or a right, to have flammable cladding on buildings. There was an uproar.
Different here. Gun deaths? Meh. Cost of the gun manufacturers and sellers doing business.
Gretchen
@Corner Stone: the relative can afford meat at the grocery store so eating squirrel is a choice.
Repatriated
@The Moar You Know: You mentioned social media, and that’s got my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie buzzing — as it has been for a few hours now.
It starts with the notion of stochastic terrorism — that is, with enough inciting rhetoric in the public sphere, someone unhinged will latch onto it and act out. Who that will be isn’t known, just the probability that given a large enough population, there will be someone who will.
Then, add the ability of social media analysis to screen for susceptable individuals, and the ability to target them directly by shaping their social media environment.
Even if it’s not what happened in this case, the potential exists.
Immanentize
I have about a gross of sympathy cards sitting next to me at this very moment. Not one fucking one says “warm’ or “warmest” condolences. I know I am a bit fragile, but I cannot tell you how much his fake emotions piss me off — especially around death.
Ruckus
@LAO:
It wasn’t their kids that got shot. It’s the me generation on steroids.
chopper
@Amaranthine RBG:
not really. first you have to buy the thing through a legit class 3 dealer. then apply, get fingerprinted and all that shit, then a ‘chief law enforcement officer’ has to sign off on it. much of the time, from what i understand, the local judge says ‘no fucking way, you’re not getting a machine gun’. then the FBI and ATF run a background check.
all in all, if you’re lucky and the chief of police or what have you says okay, it still takes about a year to get a stamp for a title II weapon and denials are common, which is a big reason why they aren’t super common. this GOP bill aims to way lower that barrier, which will likely make them much more common.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Oh yeah.
In the 1990 NYTimes story about the young mother mistaken for a deer (link above): last sentences of the story:
Blame it on the urbanites. LOL. But still.
chopper
@MCA1:
maybe it’s ‘heritage’ as in ‘culture and heritage’. you know, white guy stuff.
Corner Stone
@OzarkHillbilly: Not to belabor this theme, but a childhood friend of mine had a 300+ acre family property in East Texas. So there are many, many deer/truck stories abounding around the supper table, as I am sure you have a barrel full also. Anyway, the funniest one (in a tragic way, obviously) was when his grandpa hit one, had it flip over the truck cab and land in the bed. It was not going to survive but for damned odd reason he had no firearm with him. He ended up braining it with a big pipe wrench. His buddies gave him no end of shit about that and one of them drew a picture of him holding a rifle stock with a wrench for the barrel and presented it to him at one of his birthdays. Less funny now that I retell it, but back then the way he told it had the whole place roaring in laughter.
chopper
@Elizabelle:
“these assholes even shot my son’s burrow owl!”
Patricia Kayden
@chris:
Wow. Speechless.
Major Major Major Major
God, this thread is a train wreck.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Betty Cracker: I hope he does. He’ll just be in the fucking way in PR, where there is actual work to be done.
Not that he’ll do anything productive in LV – maybe offer warmest condolences again – but at least he is less likely to fuck up what needs to be done by diverting personnel who have more important things to do, like getting people food and water so they don’t get die.
Whoever upthread said his language in that tweet is off the planet weird expressed my sentiments about exactly; thanks.
A Ghost To Most
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d bet it was a whitetail. We have mule deer in our yard quite often, and I can go check my mail and they will just stand/lay there watching me.
A whitetail would freak the fuck out and charge.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: What does “big city thinking” and “urban problems” have to do with being mistaken for a moose (or deer)? That’s some strange logic he has there.
Amaranthine RBG
@chopper: I
Haven’t gone through the process but friends have and it’s not difficult. Just a lot of waiting. And if you purchase via a trust you can skip the local LEO sign off.
Cermet
@Amaranthine RBG: So lets not let the Fed’s force States that want to control these useless devices off their streets alone.
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle: the U.K. doesn’t have an established constitutional right to make other people live in dangerous buildings.
Mike in NC
“We are grateful he got through the remarks today without calamity, but we know the country’s calamitous plunge into irrationality, rancor and political dysfunction under this president will not end anytime soon.” – Jennifer Rubin 10/2/2017
Barbara
@seaninclt: I think the bag of dicks is all for you. I scroll through those and read that silencers are illegal or require the same kind of permit that would be required to own the weapon, or are available only for good cause for certain types of uses. Not like us at all, and certainly not what is being proposed. You are not a persuasive shill.
raven
@Major Major Major Major: It’s always like this after things like this. There have been so many over the past few years that you could just paste in the comments and they’d be 95% the same.
Amaranthine RBG
@Cermet:
I confess I haven’t read the new bill re suppressors, , but my understanding is that states would still be free to regulate, just as they are now.
I mean suppressor are now illegal in only 10 states, I think and I don’t think this would change that. Could be wrong.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Just matching the nation.
cynthia ackerman
The audio of Paddock shooting is horrific.
It should play over anytime Lapierre opens his mouth.
A Ghost To Most
@chopper: I know several people who own machine guns. I even know a guy who owns a vintage, operating Gatling gun (and a mortar that throws 1 gallon paint cans).
Licenses for them? That’s funny.
Major Major Major Major
@raven: yeah, I know. But much like a train wreck I can’t stop watching. (Note: I don’t think I would enjoy looking at an actual train wreck)
@trollhattan: yeah, I don’t much enjoy looking at the nation either these days.
Timurid
This nut killed (at least) 58 people in Las Vegas and probably many more in Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rico story is now deader than Hitler.
Barbara
@cynthia ackerman: I second this sentiment. Every time he appears to be questioned by the media they should play it and ask for his comment.
Corner Stone
I am surprised we have not yet seen “Big Moment” Brian Williams on MSNBC.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet):
It is difficult to be shocked by normalcy. And while this shouldn’t be normal, it has become that, along with the response we are seeing from our new guests. Or old guests who never, ever comment, except in posts about shooting, and usually not even then. (All this according to them. Those of us who come here daily, often several times a day, have been for years and don’t recognize them at all are stunned that we don’t remember them, it must be us and not them, they wouldn’t lie would they?)
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: the one here today (who started on the overnight thread) has previously commented on all of four threads.
maryQ
@germy: waiting for Paul Ryan to tell us that the shooter’s heart was in the right place.
LAO
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
That’s why the NRA wants to pass legislation eliminating the tax. That’s what SHAREA does. Have you been paying any attention?
cynthia ackerman
@Major Major Major Major:
I was first on scene for an oil train wreck and fire.
You do not want to be there.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: And…as if on cue! Bring me back Stephanie Ruhle. She has the only guns I want to see right now.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
When I lived in OH we would see deer in town just walk out of the city park and across the road, in the middle of moving traffic. Was out ridding my bicycle one day with a friend, I was about 30 ft behind him, we were ridding about 18-20 mph when one ran between us. That would have bent something. Also watched while on I75 the car in front of me hit a deer at about 70 and had no problem continuing on. He didn’t even pull over. Minimal damage. I have a friend who hit a deer while ridding his motorcycle with his wife on the back. That didn’t go so well for them or the bike but they survived and healed up.
Mnemosyne
@MCA1:
“Heritage” = “white.” We knew that as soon as they started claiming that the Confederate flag was about “heritage.”
Anotherlurker
I have been considering moving to Mexico to lead the Ex-Pat’s life. To me it is a practical solution to the financial situation of being able to live on S.S + a small pension. Rent, food and expenses are much cheaper. Friends are telling me: Mexico is such a dangerous place!
Today I wake up to news of another mass shooting. This one is the worst, so far, in our benighted country.
Please tell me again how dangerous Mexico is.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:the tax is federal, not state, you dumbass
Elizabelle
We could use a fresh thread. This one is probably a monster to load on smartphones.
A pet or nature picture, too. Never hurts.
chris
JFC
cynthia ackerman
@Barbara:
I’m thinking a viral 30-second ad.
Some random clip of Wayne speechifying, replace the audio with Paddock’s gunshots.
Title: “Silencer”
Miss Bianca
@Barbara: Rural Coloradan says. “Same here.” same here. Also, I absolutely want to be able to hear hunters’ gunfire when I’m out and about during hunting season.
Immanentize
@Barbara: Maybe not — Has the Pres cancelled his trip there?
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
I’m guessing he was using it in the “goddam clueless city slickers” sense, not the way the “urban” dog whistle is used by Rethugs for the last however-many years. Yes, I realize I might be wrong.
Mnemosyne
@Gretchen:
My mom loves the taste of liver and often laments that very few restaurants make it. To each their own.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chris: does anyone use that “Pivot! Piv-VOTT!” scene from friends for moments like this?
Christ I hate the endless replay of footage of the scene. Ima go walk a dog
ETA: “know to local law enforcement”– that’s the first news I’ve seen in hours
Mel
@bemused:
I might be able to help you with that answer. My Dad is well into his 80s. He is former military, a farmer who hunted in his youth to help feed the family, and was in his youth a Republican. He started souring on Repubs decades ago, making his break final and complete during the era of Bush, Sr.
He is horrified by what’s happening in this country, and calls it what it is: people choosing selfishness, violence, bigotry, and ignorance over decency. Emphasis on “choosing” as the operative concept. He makes a good point that if someone with extremely limited technology skills, living in a rural area and looking their ninth decade of life in the eye can see the truth, almost anybody can.
He is pro-gun control, anti-silencers, pro-background checks, absolutely in favor of keeping guns out of the hands of anyone with a history of violence /domestic violence, absolutely opposed to the sale of semi-automatic or automatic weapons. A few years back, he wrote the most incredible, scathing letter to the NRA after they started sending out a barrage of donation pleas and “literature” to adresses in his rural area, telling the NRA in no uncertain terms that he wanted no part of them, and that he would consider any further attempts by them to contact him by mail or by phone as harassment, and would report it as such to the authorities.
I have a strong suspicion that your family member would have a similar response to the current gun insanity.
Inventor
Here’s my big ideas:
Let the free market regulate firearm owners by requiring liability insurance for the gun owner. Just like automobiles. The complexities of the risks associated with whom owns how many of what type of firearm and where are too complex for federal legislation. Insurance actuaries can chew the numbers and figure out the price and value of different policies. The legislation would center around the requirement for insurance itself and the minimum value for those policies. (ex. $250,000 min.). States can adjust that number up if the so choose. Any transfer of ownership must include proof of insurance. Firearms found in possession of uninsured can be impounded until proper insurance is obtained. Ultimately, the insurance companies themselves will require regulation, but that should be left to the states and the federal legislation should specifically allow it.
As far as regulating the firearms themselves: I advocate a strict magazine size limit of about 10 to 16 rounds. Magazines found large than that would be subject to confiscation by law enforcement officers. This would at least limit the lethality of mass shooters as they can typically only be stopped when they re-load.
Corner Stone
Forget about gun control. Why is no one talking about the real danger here? It is past time we start cracking down *hard* on retirement communities.
Davebo
@The Moar You Know: That is incorrect.
Everybody needs to calm down just a bit.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes, I realize that, and that the proposed legislation repeals that tax.
So if your state is one of the 40 that does not ban silencers, people will be able to get them much more easily. What could possibly go wrong there?
chopper
@Amaranthine RBG:
you realize we’re talking about a bill in the us congress, right?
Elizabelle
@Inventor: I concur.
Insurance actuaries could do us a world of good. With accurately pricing firearms insurance, and housing in floodplains (known and new, and suspected; water does not respect blathering).
ETA: Also in woodlands and fire areas. Or have a plan to stop/ameliorate the conflagrations. (Taxes, people. They can save money, where properly applied.)
Ruckus
@grandpa john:
I grew up in suburban southern CA, on the edge of Angeles National Forest. A buddy lived about 4 blocks closer to the hills than I did. He would have deer in his yard on any given day.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: First get rid of their Fox News Channel and their talk radio.
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
Bravo, Amir. Well played.
LaNonna
Watching from Italy in horror, G&T had it right in the (last?) thread, it makes everyone feel less safe, and feeds a strange fear in public when in crowds. I was in Nashville a year ago with my daughter, she was driving and inadvertently cut off another car entering a shopping mall parking lot; as the female driver brandished her gun at us, we drove off quickly, and decided to end the outing. Tennessee open/concealed/in bars/in church, etc., etc. Not returning any time soon, and delaying future trips to the US while Il Nonno continues his medical treatments here. Italian gun ownership, heavily regulated, expensive, rare, and pop-up visits from the Carabinieri included.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: That’s my next crusade. They’re poison, they’re brainwashing, not informing.
I don’t think they should be able to hide behind the First Amendment. They knowingly broadcast lies and misinformation, over the public airwaves.
You cannot dispell it with better information.
This is standing up for Goebbels.
We could not have Trump if Murdoch, Ailes and Rush had not led the way. And this is different, way different, than colonial times, with slower mass communication.
Ksmiami
@Barbara: but that’s where the bs starts- if a hunter for food used one of these high capacity weapons, he would render the game inedible- all that lead etc would ruin the meat. So really this comes down to a bloodthirsty and greedy lobby at odds with a free nation. If you can’t go to a concert or school without fearing for your life you don’t live in a free country anymore
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: That was my guess.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: fox is first against the wall
The Moar You Know
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, but it’s keeping at least one member of the Russian troll army tied down, so I’m totally OK with that. But yeah, it is.
Never seen so many new posters here. Ever. Somebody is feeling pretty threatened today.
Corner Stone
@grandpa john: I always found it ironic that my friend and his family went to all the time and effort to hunt deer in East TX when his other grandpa had a house on an acre lot on Canyon Lake (kind of in between San Antonio and Austin) and the whole community had bucks all over their yards. All the time with really excellent racks. They were pets near Canyon Lake and prized prey in East TX.
Ksmiami
@Inventor: yes it has to be solved actuarially with all states requiring insurance on all guns
Elizabelle
@Mel: I like your dad. And would love to see the text of that letter. Good on him.
Ruckus
@maryQ:
His heart is in the right place? The left side of his chest?
Sorry, I’m tired of people using a pump to replace what should be a functioning logic device. Their heart isn’t the problem, if his heart had this big a problem functioning the fucker would be dead. The problem is their brain isn’t functioning properly. Their colon is massively backed up and has filled their brains with shit. Either that or their head is so far up their own ass that………..
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
IIRC, here in So Cal there are pretty strict regulations about clearing brush away from your house if you’re anywhere near a wilderness area that could catch fire. It’s one of the best ways to avoid having one’s house go up in flames in case of a wildfire.
As far as I can tell, not a single house burned down in the recent La Tuna Canyon fire, though some people were evacuated just in case.
mapaghimagsik
@zhena gogolia: And do not get the make of the weapon wrong, or you are unfit to comment on anything regarding firearms.
Michael Bersin
@dmsilev:
“Be vewy quiet, they’re hunting wabbits…”
Corner Stone
Our “allies” in the Never Trump conservative side are all poo-pooing any mention of gun control.
eclare
@Elizabelle: When I used to go hiking in North GA, I wore a blaze orange vest depending upon the time of year. My friends made fun of me til while we were walking to the trailhead a guy on a dirt bike with a gun passed us. Then they shut up.
mapaghimagsik
@Ksmiami: Yes, all you’ll be able to do is stay home and be fed disinformation on social media.
A lame-ass plan, if there ever was one.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
I think maryQ was just repeating ZEGS’s latest tongue bath of Lying Littledick regarding the latter’s racism and lack of response re: Puerto Rico. In addition to that smarmy fuck saying that Littledick’s “heart is in the right place,” he said “he’s still learning.”
[That was part of the catalyst that led me to ask, yesterday in a dead/dying thread: is there anything Littledick could do, outside of vetoing the big-tax-cut-for-rich-people bill, that would get Ryan to say “He’s gone too far”? ]
Barbara
@Ksmiami: So few people actually hunt anymore that these kinds of lies can be told without a lot of push back.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I owned a house in the hills less than 1/4 mile from Angeles National Forest. This was in the 80-90s. We all kept any brush from our houses and had concrete tile roofs. Shortly after the big Oakland Hills fire we had one that came right down to our houses. I was standing in my front yard with a hose trying to put out embers that were landing on the roof. Fireman came by and told me not to bother. The ember would burn itself out long before the heat could get through the tile. That’s why they were required. The firemen didn’t have to do anything, once the brush burned down to the houses, it ran out of fuel. No houses were even close to being damaged.
sherparick
@Millard Filmore: What do you mean becoming? It has been, is, a death cult; a union of white nuts, white cranks, white bible-thumpers, and the .1% of super rich libertarian sociopaths whose motto is “More money for us, fuck you!” I consider anyone who votes Republican an accessory before the fact of these mass murders. If we had a sane Conservative Party with a sane Center-right voting population, we would do what Australia did after the Port Arthur shooting spree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)
sherparick
By the way, I can just imagine what InfoWars, Drudge, and RT will spread conspiracy and truther rumors about this catastrophe.
No Drought No More
“..and all the children are insane”. Jim Morrison (The End).
There’s a good reason Coppola used that song in Apocalypse Now.
Cole, have you ever wondered just how you’d feel today if you’d also witnessed the 1960’s civil rights movement and the Vietnam War unfold in real time? [clue: like someone sober in a room full of loud drunks]. I came of age during that time, and ask simply because both are the ties that bind all that which passes for my politics together.
The Moar You Know
@SFAW: Pretty sure Trump’s heart is a bag that consists of stale Frosted Flakes and Crisco.
Suzanne
To follow up on my earlier comment in the previous thread about capacity in hospitals for these types of events….
I heard on NPR this morning that the entire state of Nevada has ONE Level 1 trauma center, which is in Las Vegas. They have three ORs. Some of the victims died in the facility. The facility was able to take approximately 30 of the victims.
Our healthcare system does not have the capacity for these kinds of events.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Oh I know, just a pet peeve.
And on your second point, no, there isn’t anything he can do or say that would change their minds about backing him up except that he would never sign any legislation that they pass. Of course they’d have to pass something for him to sign first but the concept is there. Almost all of the republican party will stand by their choice for president, the racist liar in
theftchief.chris
@sherparick: Alex Jones is on it. No link.
Mnemosyne
@chris:
I’ve already seen people on Facebook claiming that no one is dead, they’re all actors hired by George Soros.
I. Can’t. Even.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
I’m assuming they’re going to have to airlift a lot of people to Los Angeles, Phoenix, and everywhere else within reach that has beds available.
ETA: We appear to have 5 Level I centers in LA County, plus there are a couple each in OC and San Diego. But the people have to be stable enough for an hour-long flight for that to do any good.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes, doesn’t a silencer slow down the bullet for one thing?
The Lodger
@seaninclt: I’d rather hear a .308 round at 6 am than be hit by one.
(Yeah, I didn’t bother to read the intervening 200 comments before I replied.)
ETA: Looks like The Moar You Know @57 covered it.
The Moar You Know
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It shouldn’t. The bullet still comes out supersonic, unless it’s the low-speed kind (subsonic) designed for silent shooting.
Corner Stone
Oh goodness. Now NBC has both Brian Williams *and* Lester Holt (in LV) covering the mass murder. That means Puerto Rico is officially flushed down the memory hole. Goodbye, PR!
Elizabelle
@Corner Stone: Puerto Rico problems will still be there, when our ratings-crazed MSM stops mainlining GUN! MASSIVE VIOLENCE!
Has der Trump cancelled his visit to that island, way out in the ocean. Lotta water, I got to tell you.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Do you know these to be real people, or are they bots? Seriously? Maybe one jackhole saying that, but multiple?
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I have no idea. Part of the problem is that ‘bots start the meme and then other people pick up on it.
Don’t forget, Sandy Hook “truthers” have been tormenting the families of the murdered for years now. Once crazy people get an idea in their heads, it’s tough to dislodge.
Death Panel Truck
@Shalimar: Why not? Shootings sell more guns, don’t they?
Seth Owen
@SFAW: Shooting at some Congressmen on a ball field sure didn’t.
CaseyL
I didn’t actually expect anything better from Congress. Sandy Hook, and all that. Since there’s no point in trying for legislative action, and no point trying to engage the gun nuts in debate, I vented by posting the following on FB (stole a sentence from John’s post; hope that was OK!):
NorthLeft12
@LAO:
If it requires the NRA and gun humpers to pass any reasonable firearm related legislation, you are effing doomed. I find it hard to believe that there is not enough motivation for the rest of the US, you know the sane ones, to push through some gun control laws that might likely save some lives.
But then again I am a Canadian and am quite ignorant in the ways and powers of gun enthusiasts.
Jack the Second
@Elizabelle:
I actually do favor red & orange precisely because I live in a wooded area and am worried about trespassing hunters. I’ve passed up many a beautiful blue, gray or green flannel precisely because it would not be visible enough when walking around on my own property.
Mel
@Elizabelle: He’s a good man. I love him dearly. He hears a lot of crazy, bigoted garbage from strangers in stores, who seem to feel free to spout nonsense thinking that he must be of like mind. I suspect it’s because of how he looks and dresses (perennial farmer tan, scarred arms and hands, dirty barn boots, plaid flannel shirt, suspenders, “gimme cap” with military or aircraft logo). Surprise, surprise for them!
Chet Murthy
@ChrisS:
I’m not a hunter, and while raised in a small town where my friends had guns, I never did. It seems to me your argument is unfairly slanted. Hunting is supposed to be -sport-. It isn’t the case, that -all- improvements in the hunter’s efficacy, are to be allowed, after all. I mean, why not allow hunters to use robots that sit motionless until the quarry shows up, and then shoots it? [ISTR in the early days of the Internet somebody set up such a thing where you could direct the weapon over the ‘net…. it was quite controversial.] Why not allow poisoned feed?
So if we believe that “competitive balance” concerns — sportsmanship concerns — can debar certain technology from hunters’ hands, then it seems pretty reasonable that we can debar that technology on … *public safety concerns*.
Fin.
P.S. Lemme put it this way: generations of hunters have done without, and done a good job of annihilating the megafauna of every continent. I don’t think they need the extra oomph. ChrisS, you certainly don’t — you’re using a bow-and-arrow, after all.
tamiasmin
”The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, and fire them without any busybody hearing, shall not be infringed.”
Gets rid of all that well regulated militia stuff and reduces noise pollution in one easy edit.
Still needs flash suppression. It’s unkind to let victims see where their death is coming from. Spoils the surprise.
”That man who was standing next to me just fell down and is bleeding on my shoes. What’s up with that?”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: One house burned down in Tujunga.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Google let me down again. Sigh.
ljdramone
@seaninclt: “Maybe some people don’t mind if someone is hunting on their property.”
Some people give other people permission to hunt on their property, then get all cranky about the noise?
Sorry, guns are loud.
Mothra
The silencers are to make shooting a more pleasant passtime, per a Congressman I heard this morning.
Duane
@Certified Mutant Enemy: That would be Sarah Huckabee, who becomes more obtuse everyday.
SgrAstar
@Repatriated: Bullshit. It IS “what Americans want.” 63 million of us voted for donald trump. Our fellow murrkans are absolutely addled by right wing media and crippled by their lack of education. On a rock climbing blog I read- normally a pretty apolitical environment- people were making false flag claims within minutes of the first LV press conference this morning. These people- mostly men- consume a constant diet of crazy, crazy misinformation that leaves them fearful and vicious…easy prey for cynical manipulators like the nra and worse. I really don’t know how we should proceed (other than blue state secession). I struggle to accept that our country has fallen apart so fast.
sm*t cl*de
Sharea law. Great.
No One You Know
@Barbara: Probably because he thinks no one here reads Cyrillic.
BethanyAnne
Well, late, and the thread looks insane, but in any case, here is the Mythbusters segment on silencers from 2011. Linky link
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@seaninclt:
That they are.
The difference though is that European countries have much tighter gun laws in general than we have, which lessens (not eliminates) the possibility of some whackjob getting his hands on a suppressed full auto and going on a killing spree.
I’m personally for easing suppressor restrictions, if the rest of our gun laws are changed to the Finnish or Swedish models as well.