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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Gun Safety Open Thread: The Status Quo Will Continue, Until It Erodes Away

Gun Safety Open Thread: The Status Quo Will Continue, Until It Erodes Away

by Anne Laurie|  February 17, 20185:56 pm| 254 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Gun nuts, Open Threads, Daydream Believers

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"We can't do anything about guns, it's too deeply ingrained in American culture." — Someone currently in a building where they're not allowed to smoke

— Daniel Kibblesmith ?????? (@kibblesmith) February 15, 2018

Kids, pull up a chair and let us olds tell you about when people could smoke ANYWHERE. https://t.co/BRZeZmTyD7

— Donna Gratehouse (@DonnaDiva) February 15, 2018

I can remember when asking someone not to smoke in a clearly marked NO SMOKING area was considered a social gaffe. Pushy! Uncivil! It was the 1980s…

The NRA, because they need the sales, is committed to bribing or threatening lawmakers into insisting that more guns be allowed in more places. There’s a loud, angry minority of our fellow citizens who are convinced that more guns in more places is their only protection against… everything. But IIRC, there was a lot higher percentage of adult American smokers when the first serious smoking laws were passed than there are “NRA priority voters” now…

I have a thing to say about growing up after tragedy. When I was a senior in high school, 7 of my classmates were killed & 24 injured. It was an awful day full of fear, confusion, & pain. Press swarmed. News helicopters hovered overhead all day filming footage of the carnage. 1/

— Heather Booth (@boothheather) February 16, 2018

People said the things that are being said now. “I put him on the bus and sent him to school. He was supposed to be safe.” Classrooms were rearranged so the empty desks weren’t a constant reminder. 3/

— Heather Booth (@boothheather) February 16, 2018

A federal official said, "The thing that upsets me most–we teach our kids to learn the importance of accountability. In this, there was a failure of accountability by a number of organizations.” https://t.co/FjQ8yauuh4 6/

— Heather Booth (@boothheather) February 16, 2018

29 recommendations were made by the NTSB and implemented from the local to federal level. Because this wasn’t a shooting. It was a train hitting a school bus. One train. One bus. Seven deaths. 24 injured. One year. 29 changes for 16 organizations. 8/ https://t.co/OxIjsyryQ0

— Heather Booth (@boothheather) February 16, 2018

And as kids, here’s what this meant: we saw something awful happen, then we saw adults support us, then we saw them make change happen to keep that awful thing from ever happening again. Now, I’m an adult who grew up having seen adults fix things. 9/

— Heather Booth (@boothheather) February 16, 2018

I don’t care which avenue you pursue to change the scourge of gun violence against youth. There are plenty. Pick one. Do something. Call your reps. Donate. March. Volunteer. Vote. Force the issue. Empower teens. Don’t let them down. Make change happen. 12/12

— Heather Booth (@boothheather) February 16, 2018

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Reader Interactions

254Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    February 17, 2018 at 6:02 pm

    In the “High and Mighty” with John Wayne they are in an airline flying across the Pacific when it develops engine trouble. Not only do they smoke on the plane but there is a love triangle among passengers that prompts one of them to pull a .38 and fire it during a tussle. Other passengers subdue the perp and they tell him “you can have the gun back the we land”!

  2. 2.

    Marianne19

    February 17, 2018 at 6:05 pm

    In the past 20 years, attitudes have flipped on marijuana, drunk driving and gay marriage. And I’m old enough to remember when everybody smoked. There seems to be something happening with the emotional response to this latest shooting. The victims aren’t devastated and sad–they’re devastated and angry like the angry moms who made drunk driving unacceptable. So maybe we’re reaching a tipping point where change is possible.

  3. 3.

    Smiling Mortician

    February 17, 2018 at 6:06 pm

    If you haven’t seen it yet, this speech by high school student Emma Gonzalez is excellent. I hope she’s planning to run for office and kick some ass once she gets there.

  4. 4.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 17, 2018 at 6:09 pm

    Stop voting for politicians who are owned by the NRA and who only have thoughts and prayers to offer after yet another shooting rampage. And I’m including Democrats among those politicians. Ari Melber did a story on Democrats who are weak on gun control legislation.

  5. 5.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 6:13 pm

    I saw a number: 150,000 students since Columbine have been in schools that were sites of mass killings. 150,000 CHILDREN. I have to believe that if not now, then soon there will be a massive population of families unwilling to accept the status quo.

    And obv. I hope that it’s now, not “soon” b/c obv reasons.

  6. 6.

    patroclus

    February 17, 2018 at 6:14 pm

    Heather Booth certainly is chatty today…

  7. 7.

    zhena gogolia

    February 17, 2018 at 6:15 pm

    @raven:

    Oh, yes, I love that! My husband and I laughed at all those same features.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 6:15 pm

    I believe the number of households with guns has dropped over the years. It’s fewer people with more guns.

  9. 9.

    Schlemazel

    February 17, 2018 at 6:15 pm

    Mandatory insurance for all guns. Has to be able to cover up to a million dollars per victim in the event it is used in the commision of a crime. I think it is safe to assume the insurance companies will set rates accordingly. Your .22 cal Smith & Wesson Model 41 target pistol will be very cheap. Your AR-15 with the 40 round magazine not so cheap. The insurance must cover the weapon in the event it is stolen and failure to insure is a felony with a sentence of no more than 10 years and a prohibition from every owning a gun again. This will pass the constitutional test and lead to fewer guns and not so many pointless bullshit ones.

  10. 10.

    Mary G

    February 17, 2018 at 6:15 pm

    I know it’s said every time, but this time does feel different. There is something about seeing the videos and texts right from the event that make it feel more real, and these Parkland kids are amazing. Instead of sitting home crying, they are out demonstrating and speaking now, tweeting back to Twitler and all.

    I’d pretty much given up on national gun control, though I support Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who’s been a big voice since the slaughtered first graders. Now I’ve joined Moms Demand Action, whose meetings are overflowing. I’m not a mom, but their combination of outrage and electoral activism appeal to me. Attitudes towards smoking and gay marriage have changed seismically in my lifetime, and there is no reason this gun fetishism can’t go the same way.

    In happier news:

    Starting today, Chrome will block the following on desktop: ads that take over the browser, pop-up ads, autoplay videos with sound, and large sticky ads that take over the bottom of the screen and don't move https://t.co/peficxSlve— CNN (@CNN) February 17, 2018

    Google may be evil, but they listen and adapt much better than Facebook and Twitter.

  11. 11.

    mattH

    February 17, 2018 at 6:15 pm

    This (banning of cigarettes in public spaces) is why the CDC isn’t allowed to engage in any scientific studies on guns. Tobacco had decades of research against it which helped a ton. We need to find a way to get some good epidemiological studies funded, and not stop. It’d be better if it was the CDC, but st the moment that avenue is closed to us.

  12. 12.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 6:18 pm

    Kids, pull up a chair and let us olds tell you about when people could smoke ANYWHERE

    @raven:
    I was watching early season (1 and 2) last week. The bartenders all smoked, the cops smoked in the station, the defendants smoked in the corridor and interrelation room….
    Even though I was well into my 30s when the show started, and smoked myself until the early 1970s, it still shiocked me.

  13. 13.

    Gretchen

    February 17, 2018 at 6:19 pm

    I thought Sandy Hook would be the change, and when it wasn’t I started to feel like it would never change. But this feels different – the students are angry and outspoken and I don’t think they’re going away. Maybe the Sandy Hook parents were too traumatized to organize, but one mother started Moms Demand Action just afterward. She has a good interview on Jason Kander’s podcast Majority 54.

  14. 14.

    James E. Powell

    February 17, 2018 at 6:22 pm

    When I was back in my beloved home state of Ohio just prior to the Trump convention I was talking with guys I know who were all in for Trump. They all had that incandescent rage about everything, so I was asking them why they were so damn mad when their lives seemed to be going fine – upper middle class, suburban, employed with health insurance and healthy retirement accounts. Racist grievance was the clear #1 for everyone and since they were talking to their fellow white guy from the suburbs they were not shy about it. But apropos of this post, two of them, separately, went into foaming rages about “making smokers into criminals!”

    So, yeah, it’s probably a good model for the political fight to ban or extremely curtail guns in the US, but it is also a good reminder of how much time and effort it takes, how hard the opposition is willing to fight to keep things as they are, and how stubborn Americans are about changing their ways of life.

  15. 15.

    BruceFromOhio

    February 17, 2018 at 6:25 pm

    Feb 12 (Reuters) – Remington Outdoor Company Inc, one of the largest U.S. makers of firearms, said on Monday it had reached a deal with its creditors to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to slash its $950 million debtload.

    We’ve got to scare each other more effectively if the business is going to survive.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 6:26 pm

    @Gretchen:

    I’ll go there. We spent eight years putting everything on Obama’s shoulders. Now we don’t have an Obama and people are learning how to take initiative for themselves. I think that’s a large part of the difference.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 6:27 pm

    @Smiling Mortician:

    That was amazing. What a powerful, passionate young voice.

  18. 18.

    BruceFromOhio

    February 17, 2018 at 6:28 pm

    And the Heather Booth thread is a great synopsis – as a country, as institutions, as communities, we used to fucking care about each other, and it showed.

    Now?

  19. 19.

    Zach

    February 17, 2018 at 6:29 pm

    Trump is going to use this to fire Christopher Wray. Gov. Scott called for Wray’s firing and now Sessions called to investigate the FBI. Who’s next in line if that happens? At some point we’ll presumably get down to the idiots who were leaking stuff to Giuliani?

  20. 20.

    BruceFromOhio

    February 17, 2018 at 6:35 pm

    @Zach:

    Trump is going to use this to fire Christopher Wray. Gov. Scott called for Wray’s firing and now Sessions called to investigate the FBI.

    This is rich. The two-bit ratfuck soulless criminals riding on the wave of murder created by their forebears in the Republican Party call for investigation of one of the very organizations that would help control this if they could. It’s like defunding the fire department, and then blaming the fire chief when some rube with a blowtorch sets your house on fire.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 17, 2018 at 6:35 pm

    @efgoldman: I was watching early season (1 and 2) last week.

    That’s Law and Order you’re rematching, right? Did you know there’s a podcast about it? “These are their stories“, by a guy named Kevin Flynn. As I recall, it’s the episodes are mostly self-contained? I’m getting a little worn out by shows that you have to follow week to week, miss one you’re lost

  22. 22.

    gene108

    February 17, 2018 at 6:37 pm

    @Baud:

    It is fewer people with more guns and those people have been radicalized by gun nut propaganda.

    When Obama was elected rumors spread that he was going to take all their guns. They cleaned out stores of guns and ammo. There was an ammo shortage. Stores could not restock as fast as people were buyin up the ammo.

    All I have to say is we are not dealing with rational actors on the other side, on this and many issues.

    They have accepted gun nut propaganda as fact.

    I really feel like we are at “war” for this country right now. I don’t see how we improve things unless we get conservatives to “surrender”.

  23. 23.

    indycat32

    February 17, 2018 at 6:38 pm

    If the FBI had investigated, what exactly could they have done? They couldn’t arrest him for a crime not yet committed and they most certainly couldn’t have taken the gun. He was a “law abiding citizen” up until the moment when he wasn’t.

  24. 24.

    indycat32

    February 17, 2018 at 6:39 pm

    @gene108: I’ve never understood the “logic” of OMG Obama is going to take all our guns, therefore we must buy even more guns – for what? So there will be even more guns to confiscate?

  25. 25.

    Smiling Mortician

    February 17, 2018 at 6:40 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: And she held it together so well. At her age, I would have been an emotional wreck trying to give such a speech. As I was watching, I kept thinking She’s just what we need in our politics, in our government. As efgoldman says, it’s time to let the young, angry ones take over.

  26. 26.

    Bailey

    February 17, 2018 at 6:41 pm

    @mattH:

    This (banning of cigarettes in public spaces) is why the CDC isn’t allowed to engage in any scientific studies on guns. Tobacco had decades of research against it which helped a ton. We need to find a way to get some good epidemiological studies funded, and not stop. It’d be better if it was the CDC, but st the moment that avenue is closed to us.

    How much would it take to have this study funded by an entity, perhaps a Canadian or European one, that isn’t beholden to Congressional dollars? I saw today that Bloomberg was matching all donations to Everytown. Would his money be better spent on a wholistic health and public safety study? Or would it, no matter how well researched, fall on deaf ears?

    I got shot when I was a teenager. Obviously, I did not die, but I remember immediately writing to my Senator, Bob Dole, to support gun control / safety legislation. I got a letter back from his office that might as well have been hate mail that told me to go fuck myself for it’s nasty tone and assurance that I couldn’t possibly understand gun control as an 18 year old. Since then, I’ve been just waiting for that asshole to die.

    Today is the first time in over 25 years that I feel even a tiny spark of hope about this country changing its mind on guns. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we now have a generation of kids who have grown up either being shot at in school or training to be shot at. That has to take a toll on them.

    What has always been true, however, is that gun policy won’t change until those who want it changed make it their first, most important issue. That’s how the right has managed to win on this issue for so long. There may be even fewer of them that want unfettered access to guns, but that is their animating issue and they are loud on it. Until we are all equally as loud, that change won’t happen.

    I’m glad these kids are loud and leading the way on this.

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 6:42 pm

    @gene108:

    They cleaned out stores of guns and ammo. There was an ammo shortage.

    There were ammo shortages well before Obama.

  28. 28.

    Doug R

    February 17, 2018 at 6:43 pm

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Stop voting for politicians who are owned by the NRA and who only have thoughts and prayers to offer after yet another shooting rampage. And I’m including Democrats among those politicians. Ari Melber did a story on Democrats who are weak on gun control legislation.

    Among the top receivers of NRA donations, the top Democrat was FORTY FIRST, that’s 41ST.

  29. 29.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 17, 2018 at 6:46 pm

    OT: But an IR pic of LA from the Griffith Park helipad to irradiate* your day.

    *That’s for jl if he’s lurking.

  30. 30.

    mai naem mobile

    February 17, 2018 at 6:48 pm

    @BruceFromOhio: he can fire Wray all he wants but who’s he going to get to replace him? You think people are running into to work for Dolt45 especially now when you’ve got Mueller? He’s going to use it to disparage the FBI which they’ll have to deal with .

  31. 31.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 17, 2018 at 6:48 pm

    WE DID IT! After Iowa @momsdemand volunteers sent hundreds of letters and made hundreds of calls to the Iowa senate, the Judiciary committee pulled a bill on Thursday's schedule to repeal background checks and concealed carry permit requirements for handguns ??? #ThrowThemOut https://t.co/aJL4E0O1by

    — Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 17, 2018

  32. 32.

    gene108

    February 17, 2018 at 6:48 pm

    @BruceFromOhio:

    The wierd thing is after Columbine there was a deep dive into what caused it.

    Bullying was cited as the reason.

    Then there has been a 20 year campaign to curb bullying in schools, which is a good thing.

    But clearly has done nothing to curb mass shootings.

    We have metal detectors at school entry ways, armed guards, security officers, etc. We’ve tried a lot of stuff besides gun control.

    I think this different because so much non-gun control stuff has been tried and failed. There is no other way left to go but gun control.

    All the excuses have been tried and failed.

  33. 33.

    Amaranthine RBG

    February 17, 2018 at 6:49 pm

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/21/gun-control-debate-mass-shootings-gun-violence

  34. 34.

    gene108

    February 17, 2018 at 6:50 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I don’t remember it making news before Obama. Maybe a matter of scale?

  35. 35.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 17, 2018 at 6:51 pm

    Prominent Republican Donor Issues Ultimatum on Assault Weapons

    And he says he’s going to try to convince other donors.

  36. 36.

    Gelfling 545

    February 17, 2018 at 6:51 pm

    Happening tonight in Buffalo. A local brewery serving “ thought & prayers” ale. For $5 you get a glaas full of nothing ant the $5 goes to a pro gun control organization. $ 1 of every pint of actual drinkable stuff goes to the same organization. https://www.facebook.com/mrsnstarr/posts/10211983770972781

  37. 37.

    Hellbastard

    February 17, 2018 at 6:51 pm

    That Emma Gonzalez is a rock star.

    Jame Fallows over at the Atlantic published a letter from GOPer MIke Lofgren:

    What you say about McConnell is all very true and well argued, but Democrats have more leverage on the issue than they think — if only they would use brass knuckles instead of powder-puffs.

    They simply must, day after day, take to the House and Senate floors and say that Republicans in general, and McConnell, Ryan, and Trump in particular, would prefer to see school children massacred than face the wrath of the NRA. To repeat, McConnell and company would prefer to see kids murdered rather than annoy the gun lobby.

    Brutal? yes. But is it true? Demonstrably. Etiquette enforcers, particularly in the media, would moan that Democrats were violating decorum, ripping asunder the fragile threads of civil society, and on and on.

    Let them moan: the charge is true, and in any case, Trump (with the rest of the GOP following close behind) has so thoroughly demolished whatever standards of decorum had existed that accusations of incivility would be merely a hypocritical variation on media both-siderism.

    I have argued before that any politically engaged American who wishes to oppose Trumpism and the attendant Republican racketeering will at some point have to get his hands dirty, just as principled pacifism was not a viable response to the rise of aggressive totalitarianism during the 20th century. The question is, are Democrats up to publicly calling a creature like Mitch McConnell an accessory to murder?

    Because that’s what it will take. To assume that anything less would be effective is to engage in magic thinking.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2018/02/show-us-the-carnage-and-other-changes-to-the-post-massacre-ritual/553607/

    Couldn’t agree more. Blood on their hands…

  38. 38.

    raven

    February 17, 2018 at 6:52 pm

    @Gretchen: Hell, I once smoked a joint in the head on a plane and had and LB in the pockets of my motorcycle jacket.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    @Hellbastard:

    I no be longer trust advice that involves telling Dems to be “tougher” or more demonstrative, even when it comes from our side, much less when it comes from a Republican. I know I’m in the minority on that.

  40. 40.

    eemom

    February 17, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    @Smiling Mortician:
    @Mary G:

    EXACTLY. Those kids raising their voices are a true ray of hope, and this is the first time we’ve heard anything like it.

  41. 41.

    oatler.

    February 17, 2018 at 6:59 pm

    Instead of eroding away, the status quo can FINISH the Reconstruction, which was way too mericful on those confederate cocksuckers.

  42. 42.

    B.B.A.

    February 17, 2018 at 6:59 pm

    You know, we don’t have to go full Japan. There are countries with substantial gun ownership rates (Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand… even France and Germany have more guns than you’d think) that don’t have these weekly massacres.

    The real issue is the culture, which like everything in America is heavily racialized. Gun owners see any restriction as the eeevil gummint taking away their holy right to defend their castles against the rampaging darker-skinned hordes, and any dead innocents are the acceptable price of a free society. It’s a sickness, and I don’t know how to cure it.

  43. 43.

    JohnO

    February 17, 2018 at 7:01 pm

    @raven:

    Funny!

    On topic, does anyone know why the photographs of the dead victims aren’t made public? I think some shots of a lot of dead kids would be an effective tool for persuasion, and I realize their are considerations for the surviving family members, but I also bet most would green-light the release if asked.

    Hard ball politics is in order, and I agree wholeheartedly with this:

    Let them moan: the charge is true, and in any case, Trump (with the rest of the GOP following close behind) has so thoroughly demolished whatever standards of decorum had existed that accusations of incivility would be merely a hypocritical variation on media both-siderism.

  44. 44.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    February 17, 2018 at 7:01 pm

    @raven:

    There’s a Perry Mason episode where a guy accidentally spills a small revolver out of his briefcase on an airplane and somebody picks it up and gives it back to him with a sort of mild “You clumsy idiot” look.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 7:05 pm

    I worked at a (large) rural post office for a while. In the room where mail is sorted there was a wooden work table. There were dark lines and then burns all along one edge. They apparently used to rest lit cigarettes over the edge of the table while they dumped and sorted mail.

  46. 46.

    dimmsdale

    February 17, 2018 at 7:07 pm

    Help, Mod….I’m in moderation & don’t know why. Help a guy out please?
    thanks!

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 7:07 pm

    @Baud:

    I believe the number of households with guns has dropped over the years. It’s fewer people with more guns.

    I’ve seen the same. Look at it one way, it’s pretty terrifying. Look at it another way, it’s somewhat reassuring. I prefer the latter, but am girded to deal with the former.

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    February 17, 2018 at 7:08 pm

    We watched the excellent Netflix series “Mindhunter” set in 1977, where one of the FBI agents is chain-smoking practically everywhere you cannot today: the office, the airport, on airplanes, in restaurants, etc.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 7:10 pm

    @oatler.:

    which was way too mericful on those confederate cocksuckers.

    You mean states like WI, WV, IN, PA and NJ? Those states in the confederacy?

  50. 50.

    louc

    February 17, 2018 at 7:11 pm

    Another sliver of hope: A top Florida Republican contributor threatens to cut off the spigot if legislators don’t pass an assault weapons ban. A Republican donor. So they’re going to have to choose between him and the NRA.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 7:11 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    No matter how many guns you own, you still got only two hands.

  52. 52.

    Mary G

    February 17, 2018 at 7:11 pm

    I can’t help but think that the generation coming up is the first one to have had to worry so much about not being safe at school, and that visceral experience that we did not have will cause them to fight harder for their younger brothers and sisters not to have that feeling.

  53. 53.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 7:13 pm

    @gene108: Eh, all the reports I am seeing are from no earlier than 2007. Most being 2012-2013. I guess I have to go on anecdote for now as I am not that interested in doing any more searching ATM.
    I remember during the height of Teh Surge that all the main ammo manufacturers were told to retask to fulfill US Military supply and demand.

  54. 54.

    oatler.

    February 17, 2018 at 7:14 pm

    @Corner Stone: Yes, and also Kentucky. Because “Hee Haw” sucked.

  55. 55.

    Amaranthine RBG

    February 17, 2018 at 7:15 pm

    @B.B.A.:

    Shhhh…. you can’t introduce facts or nuance into these threads. The only solution is to seize every single gun!

  56. 56.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 7:15 pm

    @Mary G: The assault weapons ban expired under a GOP Congress in 2004. So…

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 7:18 pm

    @B.B.A.:

    even France and Germany have more guns than you’d think

    I don’t think they have very many. How many do they have?

  58. 58.

    debbie

    February 17, 2018 at 7:20 pm

    @efgoldman:

    When I was on jury duty, there was a smoking room. I was a heavy smoker, but it was so thick, I couldn’t sit there for very long.

  59. 59.

    Amaranthine RBG

    February 17, 2018 at 7:20 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Not anything like they were during the Obama years, at least in my experience.

    There were spikes in sales when gun control was in the news but the shortages in the Obama years were like nothing before.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 7:21 pm

    @Mary G:

    IMO there’s been a real change in how high schoolers treat gay people and I’ve seen this happen just over the course of my own children. They changed their behavior between the time my oldest went to high school and now, when my youngest is there.

    They got better. Not to exaggerate but I’d argue in this one area they are quite literally better people :)

    It also used to be okay to bully people and beat the shit out of them for no reason, too. Now? No. They may not do that. They’re adjusting to that! They’ll be better for it!

  61. 61.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 17, 2018 at 7:24 pm

    Strange that Trump isn’t tweeting about how to punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 election.

    https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/964645264064700419

    Just like Putin’s Puppet would do.

  62. 62.

    B.B.A.

    February 17, 2018 at 7:25 pm

    @Corner Stone: About as many as Canada, per capita.

  63. 63.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 7:28 pm

    @B.B.A.: That article really does not help your thesis.

  64. 64.

    debbie

    February 17, 2018 at 7:33 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    After Las Vegas, they interviewed some guy who said he didn’t think it was weird that the shooter had so many guns. He was a collector and said he had “thousands” of guns. Yikes!

  65. 65.

    piratedan

    February 17, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    @Hellbastard: my only issue with that thought is that no one would cover it…

    #1 – how many Dems are on the Sunday shows where they are given a forum?
    #2 – how many times do you see GOP faces on the news, regardless of who is in charge?
    #3 – the GOP is perfectly willing to squelch all dissent, much less debate on any subject that they choose to on the floor of the Senate and the House, evidence of the recent travesty of their Health Care and tax reform sessions….

    It’s evident that the majority of the media is in the bag for the GOP (cripes look at the framing of just about EVERY issue), all I am saying is relying on a media campaign via the MSM is foolhardy, I think it has to be done very much in the same fashion as voting rights and getting people to the polls, grass roots and organizing.

  66. 66.

    John Revolta

    February 17, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    @raven: Impressive. Even I think that’s nuts, and I used to sell the shit.

  67. 67.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    @Corner Stone: I remember in Paris in the 90s, I had a friend who bought a rifle and learned to shoot. He had to keep it locked-up at the gun club where he could shoot it. So …. well, the raw numbers need to be analyzed in the light of what you can actually -do- with the guns, what kinds of guns, etc. Also the taxes you pay for various bits.

    It’s like with abortion: the forced-birthers yammer on about how they only want abortion to be like it is in Europe (naming some European country with stricter rules on -abortion- than ours), and leaving out that contraception, sex ed, pre/post-natal care, maternity leave, childcare, are all heavily subsidized and certainly not outlawed.

    Not saying B.B.A. is comparing apples & oranges — just that, it’s easy to do, and in this particular case, I have at least anecdotal experience saying that they are apples & oranges.

  68. 68.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 7:35 pm

    I remember when I first moved to OH and then traveled back to CA for a work event. Went to a coffee shop for breakfast the first morning and asked for a no smoking section. Hostess looked at me like I was insane. “There is no smoking inside public buildings.” Took me a second or two to realize that in the 2 months since I’d left the law had taken effect, because in OH you could still smoke everywhere. The company I worked for had ended smoking in the office I think mainly because they were having to change the air filters every month. The person in charge of that told me they went to every six months by just making the people stand outside in the snow to smoke. Columbus passed a similar law later on and all the restaurants screamed, until the first day when they were packed with customers and all the restaurants in the surrounding county were standing there with empty tables. CA never looked back, neither did Columbus. The effect of any gun restrictions will be the same. The 2 pack a day smokers were furious that they couldn’t screw over everyone else and so will the gun nuts be furious. They will adjust or not but we don’t owe them shit. They brought this upon themselves, this addiction they have.

  69. 69.

    JeanneT

    February 17, 2018 at 7:37 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Here’s a few details for the info I found on Germany’s civilian gun ownership from GunPolicy.org.

    The estimated rate of private gun ownership (both licit and illicit) per 100 people in Germany is

    2016: 32.06
    2013: 31.3
    2005: 30.35

    (The estimated rate of private gun ownership (both licit and illicit) per 100 people in the United States is 101.05)

    Right to Possess Firearms
    In Germany, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law

    Restricted Firearms and Ammunition
    In Germany, civilians are not allowed to possess automatic firearms, firearms disguised as other objects, and armour-piercing, incendiary and expanding ammunition

    Regulation of Automatic Weapons
    In Germany, private possession of fully automatic weapons is prohibited

    Regulation of Semiautomatic Assault Weapons
    In Germany, private possession of semi-automatic assault weapons is permitted only with special authorisation

    Regulation of Handguns
    In Germany, private possession of handguns (pistols and revolvers) is permitted only with special authorisation

    Law Regulates Long Guns
    In Germany, civilian possession of rifles and shotguns is regulated by law

    GunPolicy.org is no longer updating info because they don’t have funding.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    @Smiling Mortician:

    Yup. She wiped her eyes but she kept going. And what a great instinct for timing. The crowd spontaneously started up the “Shame on you!” chant. She let them repeat it 8-10 times, then picked up her comments right where she had left off. Pitch-perfect. I expect some fine and surprising things from her in the next few years.

  71. 71.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 17, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    @Gretchen: How did the visit with the in-laws go?

  72. 72.

    John Revolta

    February 17, 2018 at 7:43 pm

    @Kay: Peer pressure is a helluva drug.

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 17, 2018 at 7:44 pm

    PerSisters‏ PERSlSTERS
    Sorry we crashed your donor party, @ SpeakerRyan, but seriously.. A PARTY 48 hours after the #Parkland massacre?
    As the teacher you’re talking to in this photo said before your security guys had her and the scary pediatrician lady tossed, “No More Guns!!”
    #GunReformNow #Resist

  74. 74.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 7:46 pm

    My father had a rifle when he was a teenager and he kept it at a gun club. They had a lot of them, he says. They were supposed to learn marksmanship, which he was never good at, but he went there for some period of his teenage years, shot the gun at targets and socialized or whatever then left the gun there. They had racks with their names on them.

    He says everyone thinks they are a good driver and a good shot, which I think is true :)

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 7:47 pm

    @BruceFromOhio: This one is kind of an outlier. Remington’s problem was that it had been bought out by Cerberus. And the hedge fund geniuses decided they knew how to run a firearms and ammunition manufacturers because they run a hedge fund and are, therefore, geniuses. What they did was go on a buying spree. They bought historic legacy brands like Marlin and Winchester. Then attempted to diversify into all sorts of firearms accessories. And all while consolidating. They approached everything in terms of what made a Marlin rifle special is no different than what makes a Remington shotgun special or a Winchester rifle or any of the other things they had the company doing. Of course the gunsmiths that had been at Marlin for decades, had been trained by the previous generation at Marlin, got laid off in the consolidation. Similar with every other brand they brought on board. And then they tried to bring back a historic design the Pederson Remington Model 51 pistol and completely screwed it up. Like people bought them, loaded them, pulled the trigger, and the guns were blowing up in people’s hands screwed it up.

    Regardless of what anyone thinks of firearms, what types should or shouldn’t be legal, who can and cannot own them, how they should or shouldn’t be used, Remington’s bankruptcy isn’t a result of a post Obama Administration sales slump panic. Remington’s bankruptcy is the poster child for everything wrong with how Americans run and manage companies in the 21st Century.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 7:50 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: So hedge funds are heroes?

  77. 77.

    Chyron HR

    February 17, 2018 at 7:52 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I expect some fine and surprising things from her in the next few years.

    Unless she spends too much time on Facebook/Twitter, in which case I expect her to spend 2020 telling people that it’s better to voluntarily surrender the country to nazis (again) than to vote for a Democrat.

  78. 78.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    February 17, 2018 at 7:52 pm

    @B.B.A.:

    There are countries with substantial gun ownership rates (Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand

    It’s not that high in NZ… about 230,000 registered owners, IIRC. Most of that is rifles & shotguns for hunting, or for farmers. Hand-guns require more jumping through hoops, and membership of a pistol club.

    Yes, there is a cultural aspect… gun ownership is not seen as particularly empowering, but as a tool for some particular purpose.

  79. 79.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 7:54 pm

    @Gretchen:

    the students are angry and outspoken

    And incredibly, incredibly articulate, especially in the face of unspeakable tragedy

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 7:54 pm

    @Zach: @BruceFromOhio: Scott’s pissing into the rain. Scott’s only doing this so he can wrap himself in these kid’s deaths as he runs against Bill Nelson starting in at the end of the month. Wray won’t be fired. The FBI did screw up and it is completely appropriate for the FBI’s IG to conduct an investigation to determine why when the bureau received the phone tip it didn’t get passed on to the local field office. But Scott can’t bear to stand too much scrutiny on this. He’s done absolutely nothing vis a vis this potential problem since the Pulse night club. Neither has the Florida legislature. Because they’re under the thumb of Marion Hammer. Broward County is also not innocent here either. They changed their rules, and rightly so, to break the school to prison pipeline. So they got rid of zero tolerance and mandatory reporting. So no one at the school turned Cruz in to law enforcement. And the Broward County Sheriffs Office also screwed up. There were 35 contacts with this kid over three or four years. And Florida has the Baker Act, which is the name for Florida’s involuntary commitment law. Anyone can call up and request that someone be taken into custodial care and placed on an involuntary 72 hour hold for psychiatric evaluation. Every adult that had a negative contact with Cruz that was concerning dropped the ball on this one.

  81. 81.

    Denali

    February 17, 2018 at 7:54 pm

    My daughter has told me that there will be a walkout at high schools on April 20, the anniversary of Columbine, to push for gun control. Students have pledged not to return until changes are made. I will be there with them.

  82. 82.

    Smiling Mortician

    February 17, 2018 at 7:55 pm

    @Chyron HR: Did you even watch/listen to the speech? Why on earth would you accuse her of being pro-Nazi?

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 7:58 pm

    @indycat32: The tip that was called in involved him making a threat about shooting up a school in a comment to someone else’s youtube comment. That’s making a terroristic threat and it violates Federal law.

  84. 84.

    bystander

    February 17, 2018 at 7:58 pm

    @raven:
    @zhena gogolia:

    Nothing tops Doris Day’s tear stained histrionics as she lands a commercial plane in Julie.. And she’s the stew.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 7:59 pm

    @indycat32:

    I need this AR 15 to guard my other guns…

    //

  86. 86.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:00 pm

    @indycat32:

    He was a “law abiding citizen” up until the moment when he wasn’t.

    In some states, including mine, any report of sexual exploitation of minors must be reported to civil authorities, even before investigation. Teachers and others have been convicted and paid fines for failure to report.
    Why not do the same thing for obviously troubled and violent kids?

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    February 17, 2018 at 8:01 pm

    Tangential to gun safety and referencing a thread from a day or two ago, if you have the Heroes & Icons channel on your cable system, Hill Street Blues is coming up at 9:00 EST with “Norman Conquest”: “Buntz is in charge with Furillo out.”

    I haven’t watched Hill Street Blues since it was first on, and I don’t think I’ll start again now. It seems like one of those “edgy” shows that probably didn’t age well.

  88. 88.

    chris

    February 17, 2018 at 8:01 pm

    @JeanneT:

    Here’s a few details for the info I found on Germany’s civilian gun ownership

    Sounds a lot like Canada. Also it is illegal for an unauthorised person to carry a loaded firearm on any public thoroughfare whether it be downtown or a single lane gravel track in the boonies. Authorised people are police, game wardens, armoured car guards, and a vanishingly small number of CCW licenses.

  89. 89.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:02 pm

    @debbie:

    I guess it’s one thing if you collect them as objets d’art — there are antique weapons that are genuinely beautiful, with chased silver and rare wood, and those look very nice, displayed on an inaccessible wall — but to “collect” active weapons for deployment at will is quite another thing.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:02 pm

    @Bailey: These epidemiological studies regarding firearms are being done, just not with Federal funding and not by Federal entities. Everyone that comes out is met by a load of BS from John Lott, also known as Mary Rosh (don’t judge, he was just getting in touch with his feminine side), as well as dozens of keyboard statisticians screaming that correlation does not equal causation. Lott’s research was debunked by the same Northwestern professor who debunked the Emory historian’s equally inaccurate work arguing the opposite of Lott. The difference is that Lott had independent funding from various firearms and right wing sources so he has his own think tank. The Emory professor is now a bartender.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:05 pm

    @Baud:

    I know. That’s one of the things I don’t understand.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:05 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Constitutional carry dies in Iowa.

  93. 93.

    Sab

    February 17, 2018 at 8:06 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Remington owns Bushmaster, so isn’t their bankruptcy a good thing?

  94. 94.

    Fair Economist

    February 17, 2018 at 8:07 pm

    @Ruckus: I remember many years ago I went out to a bar. The next day I found I had no clean socks and just put on the ones I’d worn the night before. I’d taken a shower and changed the rest of my clothes – and I could STILL smell the smoke on me, just from my socks.

    I don’t know how we ever tolerated public smoking.

  95. 95.

    John Revolta

    February 17, 2018 at 8:07 pm

    @Denali: Oh man. Please, FSM, let this happen.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:09 pm

    @B.B.A.: Switzerland is the outlier because of the requirement to belong to the militia, which requires firearm ownership. The Swiss militia is not the same as American militias.

  97. 97.

    John Revolta

    February 17, 2018 at 8:11 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: OT: I’d like to extend to you a laurel, and hearty handshake, for you Gilbert & Sullivan number earlier today. I think it’s your best one yet!

  98. 98.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 8:12 pm

    @Fair Economist: Same here. I’m very sensitive to cigarette smoke and smells.

  99. 99.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 8:13 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Regardless of what anyone thinks of firearms, what types should or shouldn’t be legal, who can and cannot own them, how they should or shouldn’t be used, Remington’s bankruptcy isn’t a result of a post Obama Administration sales slump panic. Remington’s bankruptcy is the poster child for everything wrong with how Americans run and manage companies in the 21st Century.

    Not surprisingly, the quality of any Remington branded model suffered after the acquisition. They cheaped out on materials, construction and warranty/support. No one wanted their product any longer.

  100. 100.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    February 17, 2018 at 8:13 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Scott’s only doing this so he can wrap himself in these kid’s deaths as he runs against Bill Nelson starting in at the end of the month. Wray won’t be fired.

    It’s also part of a coordinated response, to blame every school shooting on a lack of neighbourhood narks. “The problem is caused by $OUTGROUP, and will go away if enough people inform on their weird or deviant fellow-students to the authorities.”

    Hence Trump’s message to the survivors, that it was really their fault for not dobbing in the weird kid.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:14 pm

    @Mary G: Actually the gun violence in schools problem started much earlier than Columbine. It was, however, concentrated in inner cities and involved teens of color shooting each other or being shot. Largely with handguns, not rifles of any type. And it was heavily correlated with the spike in the drug trade and the rise of cartels that resulted from breaking the mob, which had the unintended consequence of deregulating the drug trade, leading to an exponential rise in violence and lethality (from both the violence and from cutting the drugs in a way that killed the customers).

    When Columbine happened it was suburban white kids killing other suburban white kids. And everyone suddenly freaked out. The entire issue has always been racialized. When it was teens of color it barely registered on the news. When it’s an at least plurality white suburban high school, it gets a week’s worth of coverage on cable news.

  102. 102.

    Amaranthine RBG

    February 17, 2018 at 8:16 pm

    @Sab:

    It’s unclear whether the Remington bankruptcy will end Remington or just be a reorganization, but the loss of one AR platform manufacturer won’t really be noticed: https://www.gunbroker.com/Semi-Auto-Rifles/search?Sort=13&PageSize=24&ca=5000164

    Adam is right above, it’s a shame what the latest management did to Remington. They were a venerable brand. Now they’re crap.

  103. 103.

    indycat32

    February 17, 2018 at 8:17 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: thanks for clearing that up for me.

  104. 104.

    Amaranthine RBG

    February 17, 2018 at 8:17 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yeah, people don’t care much when it is just a bunch of black kids shooting each other. But when a bunch of white kids get shot, now that is a tragedy.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:18 pm

    @Hellbastard: @piratedan: The Majority leadership in each chamber controls the cameras and the feeds. While the Minority Leaders in each chamber are permitted to speak each day for, essentially, unlimited time, the cameras don’t have to be allowed on.

    Senator Schumer makes a statement each morning the Senate is in session. Right after Senator McConnell. You ever watch one of these? Can you remember any of them? Can you remember when one actually got covered?

    And I’ll caveat this with the statements that were covered with the shutdowns over the past month don’t count as the news was focused on the potential shutdowns.

  106. 106.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 8:19 pm

    Can someone explain to me why Cole is RT’ing a Harvey Dent Parody GoFundMe ?

  107. 107.

    WereBear

    February 17, 2018 at 8:20 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Remington’s bankruptcy is the poster child for everything wrong with how Americans run and manage companies in the 21st Century.

    The insanity of a consumer society that doesn’t let consumers buy anything worth buying… MBA thinking is an economic disaster.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 8:22 pm

    “We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. We are going to be the last mass shooting.”
    – Emma Gonzalez

    They are amazing, this group. I hope they stick together and run it themselves.

    That would be something, wouldn’t it? “After a series of school shootings one group of survivors finally prevailed….” You know, textbook language :)

  109. 109.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:23 pm

    @JeanneT: The uptick in ownership is in relation to social media, and I think you know whose been doing the social mediaing, in Germany hammering about the dangers of Muslim immigrants and refugees.

  110. 110.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 8:24 pm

    @efgoldman: Uh, b/c a report of sexual explointation is a report of a possible crime, whereas a report of a troubled kid is ….. well, the idea I’m looking for is “precrime”? “thought police”? I was a troubled kid, and never committed an act of violence. But for 1.5yr my parents (ages 16-17) my parents didn’t know where I was, nor what I was doing, nor with whom.

    If someone had repeatedly offered me drugs for free, offered to show me how to do ’em, I’m not sure I’d have declined. But nobody did. We need to remove the guns, not lock the messed-up kids. Kids have been messed-up since we were monkeys.

  111. 111.

    WereBear

    February 17, 2018 at 8:25 pm

    In The Fortune Cookie, Walter Matthau’s conniving lawyer smokes in a hospital corridor. And just throws the cigarette on the floor!

  112. 112.

    Baud

    February 17, 2018 at 8:26 pm

    Google has recently been pushing right wing “news” on my feed.

  113. 113.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:28 pm

    @Baud: Not really. Remington got so bad that the triggers in the model 870 shotgun, which was for years a workhorse for hunters, were made so poorly and they sold so many that they will finish the recall and replacement of all the bad triggers sometime in the 23rd Century. An absolute text book example of how not to run a business.

    What will happen now is that someone will buy off the legacy names, individually or together, as a result of the bankruptcy and we’ll see if they can reinvigorate them and reinstall what made the products great. But you couldn’t pay me – aside from it being an illegal straw purchase – to buy a new Marlin or Winchester or Remington. And if I were to buy a used one, it would be from before they were purchased by Cerberus.

  114. 114.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 8:28 pm

    @Chet Murthy: efg, I realize you’re also talking about violent kids. And sure, a kid that’s violent, needs to be dealt with. IIRC, brown kids who act out end up in juvenile detention. So instead of becoming school shooters, they learn how to real-time criminals. An improvement, one supposes. White kids who act out, apparently don’t get JD as fast.

    All of this is orthogonal to the real problem. Hell, I read in the Guardian about how in the UK, they’re in a big tizzy about trying to get -knives- out of the hands of troubled youth. Oh, to have other people’s problems instead of our own ….

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:30 pm

    @Denali: I’ve seen that. I’ve also seen calls for the teachers to accompany them. I wish them luck and hope they’re successful. But to be honest in a lot of places the students will simply be expelled for prolonged truancy and the teachers fired because it is a right to work state. American exceptionalism at its finest.

  116. 116.

    dimmsdale

    February 17, 2018 at 8:31 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Once again, private equity acquires a bunch of companies, turns the brands to sh8t, ruins a lot of laid-off peoples’ lives, and you can bet the principals at Cerberus are walking off with a big, fat payday whatever happens. Once we conquer the firearms issue, lets do something about the insane over-financialization of our economy.

    also, Adam, I’m in moderation upstream & don’t know why–can you get me out? thanks!

  117. 117.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:31 pm

    @John Revolta:

    Thanks!

  118. 118.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 8:32 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I have a few different Remington models, all from 20+ years ago. Would not touch an 870 Express or 700 model rifle made in the last several years.
    What a waste.

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:35 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Those women are getting added to my list of heroines. The Miami Herald story says they walked up to Ryan at his party, shook his hand, and asked him how it felt to have a party celebrating the deaths of 17 people.

    My favorite part is that Ryan’s reported reply was that he didn’t want to talk politics at his political fundraiser. Not a quick thinker, our Paulie.

  120. 120.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:35 pm

    @Sab: It depends on your point of view. Remington, which is owned by Cerberus, (a hedge fund) is now an amalgamation of a bunch of different firearms companies. Some legacy ones like Marlin and Winchester, some more modern ones like Bushmaster that primarily made AR pattern rifles. Going into bankruptcy isn’t going to significantly reduce the amount of AR pattern rifles being produced or on the market. And like every other firearm being manufactured under Cerberus’s ownership, my understanding is that the Bushmaster AR pattern rifles also faced a quality decline. I have no personal knowledge of this, I don’t think I’ve ever handled a Bushmaster rifle, but this is what I’ve read.

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    in a lot of places the students will simply be expelled for prolonged truancy

    Um, what do they do with the school once all of the students have been expelled? Sell it off for condos?

  122. 122.

    Just One More Canuck

    February 17, 2018 at 8:38 pm

    @B.B.A.: The chart says Canada has about 30 guns per 100 residents, while the US has 112 – that really isn’t close, unless you’re Megan McArgleBargle

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:38 pm

    @Corner Stone: Yep. With the exception of the highest end custom houses, every major firearms manufacturers uses modern production techniques. With anything mass produced there are going to be lemons. There are going to be teething issues going from prototype to limited run for testing to mass production for sales. Every firearms company has dealt with this from GLOCK to SIG Sauer to Springfield Armory to Ruger to Smith & Wesson, etc, etc, etc. What Cerberus did to Remington and these other brands was uniquely, spectacularly destructive in terms of quality.

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:39 pm

    @Sm*t Cl*de: Apparently it does take a village. Please don’t tell anyone.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 8:40 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    That high school is about 40% “minority” students with 20% “economically disadvantaged” – they measure that with eligibility of free and reduced lunch. 20% is on the lower end but it’s not nothing. Our school district is 50% free or reduced lunch and it’s 95% white.

    The “suburban/urban/rural” measures don’t really align as neatly as they used to. There are “inner ring” suburban schools in the midwest with very high poverty rates. It’s gotten attention the last decade or so, how some of the categories have shifted and changed.

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:40 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG: We have some significant issues as a society and a polity and an economy that we still need to deal with in the US.

  127. 127.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:41 pm

    @Corner Stone: All faces matter!

  128. 128.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:43 pm

    @Baud:

    No matter how many guns you own, you still got only two hands.

    No mutants where you live?

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:44 pm

    @WereBear: Where we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

  130. 130.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 8:44 pm

    Just sent to James Fallows at the Atlantic:

    I read your suggestion that current assault rifle owners (particularly of AR15 rifles or derivatives) might begin to recognize that the they don’t actually need to own such a weapon and possibly even turn them in.

    I happen to own two similar weapons myself, and I readily admit that I do not need them. They are pleasurable to shoot, which I do not do all that often. Other than that, they lay in the top of my closet. My Revolutionary War reproduction Brown Bess musket gets far more use.

    It also happens that I am a school teacher. I spent yesterday afternoon in class assuring 14 year old students it was okay to text their parents that all was well, after I observed several students earlier in the day replying to anxious missives from parents.

    I told them their parents were a little freaked out. I told them I was a little freaked out also.

    I did not tell them that I was livid with anger. I did not tell them I had not been able to sleep the last two nights because I was alternating between depression and rage. I did not tell them that otherwise rational adults were now insisting that I and other teachers should now bring handguns into our classrooms and pretend to be infantrymen on a potential battlefield in school every day, because it was even more unthinkable to simply not sell any more weapons of war to civilians!

    I used to be a soldier. I served, mostly in the US Army Cavalry, from 1992 to 1996. I was on guard duty at the front gate of our post in Tongducheon, South Korea, the night we went on war alert that we getting read to attack the North Korean reactor complex at Yongbyon. I carried an M60 machine gun while I was there, and I was the door gunner for my helicopter. That was a long time ago: before I was badly and permanently injured working on a civilian jet passenger liner, before earning geology and history degrees, before earning a lot of grey in my hair. I turned 50 last year.

    Like I said, I enjoy shooting my rifles. I also said they mostly sit in my closet untouched. I don’t need them. Nobody needs them. Many other people, like me, simply enjoy the hobby aspect of shooting them as I do. However, Red Dawn Wolverine fantasists who dream of Civil 2.0, and unreconstructed racists fending off the hordes of Michael Brown teens who menace their fever dreams are a very large part of the equation. They are the ones who largely drive the extreme margin of the gun rights debate.

    In any event, we know the truth. The truth is the gun lobby, many of their supporters, and their lap dogs in government will willingly sacrifice our children…my students…and me as well…to their atavistic god of American military myth rather than just live with only a lever action rifle or a bolt action deer gun. This is the sheer insanity of it. They want me to go back to being a soldier. They want my colleagues who never even went to boot camp to now be soldiers with me on the new classroom battlefield so that they do not have to even stop selling any more of these things. This is how deranged and perverse our debate has become.

    It won’t do any real good to unilaterally turn my weapons into police at this point, although I would do so if that is what we decide to do as a society without hesitation. Few other owners of similar weapons would do so. All too many have been prepping themselves for their guerilla war against gub’mint tyranny for 35 years and they will certainly not cheat themselves of their shabby uprising if we hand them the opportunity.

    However…

    We cannot dissuade ourselves that we must, at the very least, stop additional sales now! No more AR platforms in gunshops. No more Kalashnikovs or H&K carbines or whatever. No more detachable magazines of more than ten rounds. No more pandering to the nuts who dream of their own movie that they star in every night. No more attention paid to their sophist arguments on how to define what an assault rifle means, or insistence that killers will always find a way, or that silly liberals don’t know the difference between a real military weapon and (insert whatever AR clone here)…*

    My 17 year old son is not up for the gun sacrifice lottery. My students are not up the gun sacrifice lottery. My colleagues and I are not up for the gun sacrifice lottery. I am not going to go back to being a door gunner in the hallway of my school so that an 18 year old unstable kid, or a 30 year old angry man, can buy a weapon, come to my place of mentorship and learning and then kill my students and my friends.

    I’m not going to do that for you, fellow gun owners. I’m not going to do that for you, gun makers. I did my rifle carrying bit for the US of A. I am not going to do it now. My colleagues are not going to do it now. My students deserve a classroom where the threat is kept away in the first place. So do I and every other teacher.

    We are not going to shut up. We are not going to go away. We are not going to be nice or polite. That cow left the barn.

    We are angry, and we are going to make sure you know that we are angry. We are going to make sure you know that your right to buy a weapon of war does not outweigh our right to live and work in our classrooms. I can already hear the cries of hypocrisy directed at me, and maybe they are right. But I say I don’t need the assault rifles I have, and I say that if we all need to turn them in, then we need to turn them in. That is a decision we need to discuss and make. We already banned sales once before however, and we can do that right now if we have the will. Whatever we do from here, though, we are going to be in your faces and telling you that it is time to stop the insanity.

    I’ am just getting started.

    (name deleted)

    *For all those pedantic folks who keep insisting an AR-15 is not a weapon of war because it is semi automatic and does not have a select fire capability: Go ask all those British troops who were killed by IRA insurgents in Belfast and Derry with American made AR-15 rifles during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Of course, that would be hard since they are dead.

    PS…you may use this and edit as you deem fit. Please withhold my name.

  131. 131.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 8:45 pm

    @Denali: I will support any and all of my students that choose to walk out.

  132. 132.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:45 pm

    @dimmsdale: Already free. And commented on too!

  133. 133.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:46 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    you can’t introduce facts or nuance into these threads.

    Ah, your inner troll comes out. Goodbye again, and fuck you

  134. 134.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 8:46 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Somebody has been playing Munchkin I see… :D

  135. 135.

    Shana

    February 17, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    @Baud: Yeah, weird times. Hedge funds are heros, the FBI are heros.

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    @Corner Stone: There’s several million of those things that need to have their triggers fixed. The total number is just silly stupid.

  137. 137.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:49 pm

    @debbie:

    When I was on jury duty, there was a smoking room

    When I was in high school (early ’60s) there was a sttudent lounge where smoking was allowed. And of course teachers smoked in their lounge

  138. 138.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:49 pm

    @Mnemosyne: In Florida, this is entirely possible. What did Rahm do with all those schools in Chicago he closed?

  139. 139.

    terraformer

    February 17, 2018 at 8:49 pm

    I loved the article by – maybe Paul Waldman of The Plum Line? Anyway, it was an obvious thing (to readers here, at least), and incredibly clear and effective as a GOTV hook:

    Something we call ALL do to address gone violence is don’t vote for Republicans.

    From a purely political standpoint, and assuming they’re not too far gone, Dems could seize this and make a bold, stark statement. One side or the other, folks. Pick one.

  140. 140.

    Kryptik

    February 17, 2018 at 8:50 pm

    I’m kind of giving up hope of WVU ever getting any true breakthrough season at this point, in any sport other than Rifle.

  141. 141.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:52 pm

    @piratedan:

    my only issue with that thought is that no one would cover it…

    The Newtniks started out speaking to empty chambers and CSPAN cameras at night. And repeated and repeated and repeated……

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:53 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Given Adam’s comment above about teachers in “right to work” states getting fired for supporting the strike, it may actually be more effective for teachers to support it by showing up every day to an empty school and playing computer solitaire in their empty classrooms. They may be able fire teachers, but they can’t fire students. Mass expulsions just mean that administrators will get laid off, because it’s not like there are scab students out there just waiting to step into those classrooms.

  143. 143.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 8:54 pm

    @Corner Stone: And one other point, even with mass production it is possible to do it right. Just look at the Wilson Combat branded Beretta Brigadier Centurions and the new Brigadier Tacticals. Wilson basically told Beretta how to make a consistently excellent 92F. Why a third party, high end custom firearms manufacturer and gunsmith had to tell one of the oldest and most storied legacy firearms companies how to properly make their flagship handgun, I have no idea. But they did. The things are mass produced to the specs Wilson provided, not made by Wilson. Sure they aren’t $400 guns, but this was, apparently, always possible.

  144. 144.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 8:54 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Good point.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 8:55 pm

    @Corner Stone: No. No one can.

  146. 146.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 8:58 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Rahm sent the students to other schools over the parents’ protests. I have no idea what was done with the actual school property since I don’t live there.

    You can’t fire students, or bring in scabs to replace them. At best, the school could expel the students they consider to be the ringleaders and threaten to expel the rest, but if the students still refuse to come back, what leverage does the government really have?

  147. 147.

    B.B.A.

    February 17, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    @Just One More Canuck: 30 is still more than 0. My point was that France and Germany, evil gungrabber socialists that they are, have as many guns per capita as Canada, and our choices aren’t just full confiscation Japan-style or the current free-for-all.

    Also, that the real issue is neoconfederate fucktards who insist they need their massive unregulated arsenals for the “coming race war” and who somehow managed to convince our politicians that theirs is the majority position. We need a better counterproposal, and “But Japan!” isn’t going to cut it.

  148. 148.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:00 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I can guarantee you that state legislatures in GOP controlled states will pass legislation requiring any students involved in a prolonged walk out be immediately expelled. You want to put this pass the Texas legislature? Florida’s, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marion Hammer? Arizona’s? Etc, etc, etc.

    ETA: Don’t get me wrong, I support what the kids are doing/trying to do. They are very brave. But this is the US, there will be significant and severe repercussions. And that will include putting their future ability to finish school and get into college in jeopardy because the entrenched interests aren’t going to put up with being challenged and shown for cowards by a bunch of 15 year olds.

  149. 149.

    JPL

    February 17, 2018 at 9:01 pm

    Just in case it hasn’t been mentioned CNN SOTU is going to have Emma Gonzalez on tomorrow.

  150. 150.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:02 pm

    @B.B.A.:

    My point was that France and Germany, evil gungrabber socialists that they are, have as many guns per capita as Canada, and our choices aren’t just full confiscation Japan-style or the current free-for-all.

    You realize that the only people claiming those are our two choices are the gun-humpers, right?

  151. 151.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 9:02 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’m not sure they want to have that fight. Not right now. Not on this subject.

  152. 152.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 9:02 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    We don’t expel for truancy here. Attendance is all the rage in public schools. It was a focus of John King who was Obama’s (better) education secretary. Common sense, right? If they are IN SCHOOL they will probably learn more! Hence. A focus on attendance.

    We have a whole district plan- texts work well. You text the slackers and the tardies. We basically beg them- “please, oh, please come to school!” For little kids you text their parents.

    I read this management thing about a year ago and it could be summarized as “bugging the shit out of people about things works”. Nagging them. The nagees say it doesn’t work but it does :)

  153. 153.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:05 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Ever try to get into college with no high school diploma and an expulsion on your record?

  154. 154.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:06 pm

    @JPL: With Stephen Miller for balance.//

  155. 155.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 9:06 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Criminal charges on the parents in some states, but there are charismatic, vocal and angry teens all over CNN and MSNBC every day now and taking action against hundreds or thousands of other teens across the country would be a guarantee that the number grows exponentially. Just watch GOP governors try to punch down at kids who demand safe schools.

  156. 156.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:06 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I can guarantee you that state legislatures in GOP controlled states will pass legislation requiring any students involved in a prolonged walk out be immediately expelled.

    So they expel all the kids from all of the public high schools in multiple US states. Then what?

    I’m totally serious. What is their next move?

  157. 157.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 9:08 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I can bet a lot of schools will look favorably on the community action part of the application. If states try to hammer down on the students, then educators (like me) and parents need to step up and tutor etc and fill the gap.

  158. 158.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:09 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So now state colleges in AZ and FL are down by thousands of enrollments because the kids who normally would be going there are getting their GEDs and fleeing to states like California and Massachussetts that welcome them with open arms and fully-funded scholarships.

    Now what?

  159. 159.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 9:10 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Yep.

  160. 160.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:10 pm

    @celticdragonchick: A lot of them do and they will. They’ll be egged on by the active measures on social media, which will seep into the right wing media telling them they have to, otherwise they’re appeasing anarchy. Children telling adults what to do will push every social conservative button out there. We will be very, very lucky if we just don’t wind up with several lawsuits seeking to have students expulsions expunged. The North Carolina legislature would sell their mothers to have this type of fight to rouse the base going into the midterm elections. So will the Virginia legislature. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who controls the Texas state senate, would give up at least one, if not both testicles to do this and rile up the true believers going into the mid terms. AG Sessions will be beside himself at the opportunity this will provide. And that’s at least two too many Jeff Sessionses. And the President, of course, will gladly go to war on twitter and during rallies with high school students. This would be the perfect wedge issue for Mitch McConnell to be able to expand his majority by ensuring the base turns out. As I type this Steve Bannon is grinning.

  161. 161.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 9:11 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: They do the reading. They do the homework. They do their admissions essay on the issue of gun violence and the need to take a principled stand. There are good schools that will take them.

  162. 162.

    JPL

    February 17, 2018 at 9:12 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh please no.. CNN is having Emma along with other students.

  163. 163.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:12 pm

    @JPL:

    Oh, excellent!

  164. 164.

    WaterGirl

    February 17, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Let them try. I predict it will not go well for them if they try to expel students for that.

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:15 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Use this as a wedge issue to drive the base to turn out in the midterms. This is perfect for them. Pushes the law and order and social hierarchy buttons. You can’t have kids telling the adults what to do, that’s not how G-d ordained things.

  166. 166.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:16 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    This would be the perfect wedge issue for Mitch McConnell to be able to expand his majority by ensuring the base turns out. As I type this Steve Bannon is grinning.

    So Republicans start this war with high school students who don’t feel safe at school and gamble that there will be no — zero — additional school shootings until November.

    Would you take that bet if you were a Republican?

  167. 167.

    JPL

    February 17, 2018 at 9:16 pm

    If you haven’t watched the Emma’s speech, here it is
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/17/us/florida-student-emma-gonzalez-speech/index.html

  168. 168.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 9:16 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The North Carolina legislature would sell their mothers to have this type of fight to rouse the base going into the midterm elections.

    True…and I will make myself available right here to tutor to every kid who walks out that I can mange to help. I will help with collage admissions as necessary. If we need to organize and network to do this, then so be it.

  169. 169.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 9:17 pm

    Hurting bad. BBL….

  170. 170.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:18 pm

    @JPL: I was kidding, hence the sarc tags.

  171. 171.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 9:19 pm

    @Fair Economist:
    We tolerated it because we didn’t see any way not to. It was not socially acceptable to ask someone to put out their cancer stick. Just like while against the law, it was socially unacceptable to demand that people not drink and drive. Until it wasn’t. We discussed this last night on Betty’s post. Tipping points come when least expected, they often come from places that are least expected. MADD got a lot of pushback, till it didn’t. No smoking got a lot of pushback, till it didn’t. No guns will get a lot of pushback, till it doesn’t. At some point enough people have had enough. What causes that in large groups of people, that any issue can carry on regardless of it’s merit, until it can’t? No one knows what will be the tipping point for any issue. For smoking there was a profit motive. Once people realized that their heath was worth more than the “right” of a minority of people to attempt to kill them, that profit motive ceased to be the rational. We have an ideal in this country that everyone is free, can do as they please. It’s bullshit, libertarian bullshit. No group of humans is completely free to fuck over the rest of us. But to stop them takes a tipping point. Wars have been started and won over this, by normal everyday people who had enough. Do people still drink? Yes they do. Do people still get drunk? Yes they do. Do they still drive that way? Not nearly as much as used to be, because we made it socially unacceptable to do. The government enforces that but it got made socially unacceptable first.

  172. 172.

    B.B.A.

    February 17, 2018 at 9:19 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I want it to play out like you say, but I doubt it will. The passion and anger we see now will fade away soon, and the students will start returning as days and weeks go by and the protest isn’t accomplishing anything. It’ll fade into the background, like Occupy.

  173. 173.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    We cross-posted, so in case you didn’t see my question: if you were a Republican, would you bet your electoral future on there being no — zero — additional school shootings between now and November?

  174. 174.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Given that 98% of Americans don’t pay attention to anything? Yes. They’ll make this not about school shootings or mass shootings. This will all be about the breakdown in traditional values, the family structures, these kids are out of control, where are their parents, we don’t capitulate to the mob. If you value law and order and traditional values, you must turn out to vote and defend the Republic against this anarchy and the attempt for mob rule.

    These folks are still getting elected referencing the sexual revolution and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s. If they can, they are going to dine out on this for years.

  175. 175.

    J R in WV

    February 17, 2018 at 9:24 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    ” even France and Germany have more guns than you’d think … ”

    I don’t think they have very many. How many do they have?

    When we were in Spain, visiting Bilbao and staying in a high end hotel, just katy-corner from the hotel entrance in the fancy part of town near the Guggenheim museum was a Beretta store, presumably selling firearms to the public. So they are available, even in a nation just getting over the ETA terrorism campaign.

  176. 176.

    JPL

    February 17, 2018 at 9:24 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I assumed that but had momentary horror of them side by side. Think of that. ick

    You might consider a post with her speech.

  177. 177.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 9:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: What do you propose the kids do? They are the ones getting killed.

  178. 178.

    gene108

    February 17, 2018 at 9:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Protests are not without their risks to the protestors. A group of students potentially will fall behind a year.

  179. 179.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:25 pm

    @B.B.A.:

    Here’s the difference that’s emerging between Newtown and this shooting: the survivors are able to speak for themselves. They’re not primary schoolers. They’re 16 to 18 year olds, with all of the natural rebelliousness that goes along with adolescence, they’re articulate, and they’re telegenic as hell.

    They’re being murdered in their classroms and adults aren’t doing shit. This is not abstract for them — this is their daily lives. What do they have to lose?

  180. 180.

    dimmsdale

    February 17, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: thank you kind sir.

  181. 181.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    @JPL: Just writing his name produces ick. I’m a straight, male and I can pick up the creepy coming off him in waves.

    What I found interesting is when you read the description of Nikolas Cruz provided by his teachers and classmates and compare them to the descriptions of Miller provided by his, you’re basically reading the same description.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    @WereBear:
    I’ve owned two businesses. Both entirely different from each other. One industrial customers only, one mostly retail, with some product mfg for the same retail trade. Running one was completely different than the other. The only common thing was keeping the books and that wasn’t exactly the same. Any one insane enough to think that business is business and should be run the same no matter what should never be allowed to teach business or to work in any business what so ever. IOW an MBA degree is only worth anything if the paper it’s written on can be used as toilet paper.

  183. 183.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Given that 98% of Americans don’t pay attention to anything? Yes.

    I don’t think either of us has kids, correct?

    Everyone I know who has kids can’t talk about anything else right now. You really think that parents of high schoolers are going to forget this by November?

  184. 184.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:30 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not proposing they do anything other than what they’re doing. All I’m stating is they, their parents, and everyone else that cares about them and making progress on this issue be prepared for what is going to be a nasty attempted backlash and pushback. Forewarned is forearmed.

  185. 185.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 9:31 pm

    @WereBear:
    See that’s just wrong. They used to provide ash trays in the hallways of hospitals. To keep the floors clean.
    The air, not so much.

  186. 186.

    Ksmiami

    February 17, 2018 at 9:32 pm

    @Schlemazel: yes and the insurance can be set at state level so that paranoid argument about the feds will be negated.

  187. 187.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne: As I just replied to OO:

    I’m not proposing they do anything other than what they’re doing. All I’m stating is they, their parents, and everyone else that cares about them and making progress on this issue be prepared for what is going to be a nasty attempted backlash and pushback. Forewarned is forearmed.

    That’s it.

  188. 188.

    B.B.A.

    February 17, 2018 at 9:35 pm

    @Mnemosyne: The Las Vegas shooting was four months ago. Three times as many people died. Most people have already forgotten about it.

    This might have lasting political effects in South Florida. For the rest of the country, I won’t be holding my breath.

  189. 189.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 9:40 pm

    @B.B.A.: What are you arguing at LG&M?

  190. 190.

    gene108

    February 17, 2018 at 9:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    What do you propose the kids do? They are the ones getting killed.

    One day protest on 4/20 to get attention continued. Bug the shit out of their parents to get their back and vote out progun politicians in November.

  191. 191.

    Just One More Canuck

    February 17, 2018 at 9:41 pm

    @B.B.A.: I misinterpreted the point you were trying to make with respect to the statistics, but I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make overall – who is arguing for “But Japan”?

  192. 192.

    efgoldman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:42 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Somebody has been playing Munchkin I see

    Reply 1: I don’t even know the Treasury secretary
    Reply 2: I’m short, but not that short.

  193. 193.

    marv

    February 17, 2018 at 9:47 pm

    @Marianne19:
    That’s really insightful.

  194. 194.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 9:49 pm

    If my student misses 3 days in a row I get a referral. If he misses 6 days in a semester I get a notice that Child Services or someone else will put paper on me.

  195. 195.

    gene108

    February 17, 2018 at 9:50 pm

    @Ruckus:

    I’ve owned two businesses. Both entirely different from each other. One industrial customers only, one mostly retail, with some product mfg for the same retail trade. Running one was completely different than the other. The only common thing was keeping the books and that wasn’t exactly the same. Any one insane enough to think that business is business and should be run the same no matter what should never be allowed to teach business or to work in any business what so ever. IOW an MBA degree is only worth anything if the paper it’s written on can be used as toilet paper.

    The whole point of M&A, whether a hedge fund, leveraged buy out, private equity, etc. is to maximize return on investment to the investors as quickly as possible.

    Thus costs are cut, high priced skilled labor is let go, any expansion is via debt, so the investors can pull out the equity, while still keeping enough cash flow to keep the business alive.

    One bad thing from the Reagan years, which does not get much attention, is how his Admin greenlighted a bunch of M&A deals, which would have otherwise been blocked by earlier admins. Thus Company A gets bought by junk bond guys and gutted. And the modern era of companies maximizing profits above all else is born, because a company that is well run, with little debt, and a lot of cash, with well paid employees becomes a take over target.

  196. 196.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I previously owned a 92fs 9MM that I gave my dad at one point.
    My hands do not fit a Glock, even with some grip work done. But they mind meld with an H&K. So…

  197. 197.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 9:52 pm

    @gene108: “Barbarians at the Gates”

  198. 198.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 9:54 pm

    @B.B.A.: Jeebus. That’s ridiculous trolling, mate.

  199. 199.

    JPL

    February 17, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Why is he still there? His previous statements should be enough for democrats to use to take him down. I would think that at this point Trump would want to rid himself of a known white supremacist.

    Also.. I understand Trump aligns himself more with supremacists but he still has carry on a ruse to the general public.

  200. 200.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    @Kay:

    Common sense, right? If they are IN SCHOOL they will probably learn more! Hence. A focus on attendance.

    No, it’s not common sense. That is how ISD’s get paid. Butts in the seats after 10AM. That is all they care about.

  201. 201.

    B.B.A.

    February 17, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I swore off trolling for the new year, thank you very much. (And I gave up LG&M long before that. Loomis’s high blood pressure is contagious.)

  202. 202.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    @Corner Stone: So much of this is personal preference. I hated my issued M9. I have small hands for my overall size and trying to get my hands around that thing felt like trying to shoot a brick. There is now so much competition across all the types of platforms, at every price point, that you have to work to screw up your quality control, which is what Cerberus did to Remington.

    Don’t like the GLOCK, but you want a striker fired handgun, then you can go with the SIG P320 or the S&W M&P or something from the Springfield XD series (which are a rebranded HP from Croatia made under license to Springfield) or the HK VP series or the new Ruger All American or a Walther, or a Beretta APX etc, etc, etc. And each and every one has had teething issues of one sort of the other.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 10:01 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Good manufacturing is not easy, but it is much easier than it was 40 yrs ago. I used to work to the same tolerances then as now but it is far easier to make 20,000 or 500,000 parts to very fine tolerances than it was. Testing the strength of a part can mostly be done in computer simulation, long before the first part is ever actually made. Look at cars. They work far better, last far longer, pollute far less, get better mileage, are safer to drive and when crashed are far more survivable. Most of this was because of government intervention but the actual doing was because of manufacturing. The machines are available, the computers/software is available, the training is available, it’s up to the mfg to make the commitment to get it right, to fire or at least lock the MBAs up in a closet and do the work. Remington did the exact opposite.

  204. 204.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 10:04 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: H&K USP .40 and H&K USP .40 Compact
    It’s like heaven in a bowl. At least for me.

  205. 205.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    @JPL: Because he has the ability to articulate the President’s instinctual grievances. What the President has forgotten with his feuding with Sessions and Bannon, is that it was Sessions and Bannon that basically backed him when no one else would. Bannon is the guy that networked Miller. First to Michelle Bachman and then to Sessions for their staffs. Sessions loaned Miller to the President’s campaign. And the Mercers fund Bannon. The President was simply supposed to be the front man for their grievance based desires. That was it. The President, of course, had and has other ideas. Miller is just smart enough to keep just a low enough profile that no one will accuse him of overshadowing the President. But go back and watch the videos on youtube of Miller doing the warm up the crowd speeches at the President’s campaign rallies. You want to see what a coherent, for lack of a better term, polished articulation and version of what the President is selling, Miller is it.

  206. 206.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    @B.B.A.: It’s the lack of ketchup. He’s low on lycopene.

  207. 207.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 10:07 pm

    @Corner Stone: Then you’re all set.

  208. 208.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 10:09 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Ever try to get into college in a body bag?
    Neither is a good bet. But a diploma can be gotten later if it comes to that. I wanted to be a doctor, college is long and very mandatory. If some asswipes were shooting up schools I still know which direction I’d have chosen.

  209. 209.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 10:13 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I live in TX. Nobody stops there.
    I don’t have a way to do this, but: Insert emojis for my Glam Rock cover band, Devil Panties.

  210. 210.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 10:13 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I get a notice that Child Services or someone else will put paper on me.

    Guffaw. They say it the other way here. They’re on paper- the paper isn’t on them.

  211. 211.

    Ruckus

    February 17, 2018 at 10:18 pm

    @gene108:
    Well aware of this. It is a problem of the financial world we allow and live in. And that financial world keeps doing the same thing because it works for them. They keep demanding the same responses to the same situations, if you have money in your company, we want it. The people that get trained to run anything over a mom and pop sized business keep doing the same thing, because it is a good paycheck. It doesn’t work well for the rest of us of course.

  212. 212.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    Rob Goldman‏
    @robjective
    Follow Follow @robjective
    More
    The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Tump and the election.

    Thanks, Rob of Facebook Advertising but we’ll just wait for Mueller’s reports on what happened. You’re no longer credible.

    I’ll be piecing together the story of what happened in the 2016 election exclusively by reading indictments. All the rest is bullshit by various self-interested parties.

  213. 213.

    Doug R

    February 17, 2018 at 10:22 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: They show up every midterm anyway. Getting behind our kids might bring more of us out.

  214. 214.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 10:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Adam, you might be right. But let me repeat what BC said a couple of nights ago, a little differently:

    If these students effect change, it won’t be because of their own actions directly. It’ll be because their parents will act to protect their children. Just as MLK and the Civil Rights movement weren’t talking to Bull Connor, but rather to the decent Americans who were ignoring Jim Crow b/c it didn’t affect them, these kids will be telling their parents to start acting, and the whole question will be how many of their parents are going to listen. And of course, the point of doing it en masse, is so that every parent knows that every other parent is having the same conversation. So that every aunt/uncle/grandparent knows, too.

    If BC is right, and a *lot* of parents are now sensitized to this issue of “am I gonna see my baby at the end of this day?” then these kids will make change happen. If not, well, this is a snowball rolling down a steep hill on a snowy, snowy day. The next time, there’ll be even more students all over America, even more parents, traumatized. Sooner or later, there’ll be a trail of blood so wide, that things will change. I’d prefer that that trail end on Wednesday, but maybe not.

    As for expulsions, etc, again, I think if kids aren’t walking out en masse in entire districts, then there’s no point in more than a day or so. And if their parents aren’t supporting them, again, no point.

    That Sting song comes back to me a lot these last days

  215. 215.

    Corner Stone

    February 17, 2018 at 10:24 pm

    @Kay: That dude is straight garbage. Every single thing he puts out may as well have been crafted in Mother Russia. I’m not sure why Facebook keeps letting him comment on their…behalf…ohhh.
    Nebbermind.

  216. 216.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 10:24 pm

    Can I just add that I am intrigued by the identity theft/bank fraud threads in that indictment? I can’t wait for the next installment of What Happened in The 2016 Election!

    Tell us more about that part, Mr. Mueller. I for one am interested.

  217. 217.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 10:29 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Ever try to get into college in a body bag?

    My housemates swore they’d never discuss that…//

  218. 218.

    Kay

    February 17, 2018 at 10:30 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    It’s not even as interesting as “Mother Russia”. It’s pure corporate ass-covering.

    Rob doesn’t work for Russia. Rob works for Rob. I am so, so sick of Facebook’s phony “social conscience”. Just BE a venal, grasping behemoth and drop the bullshit about caring about the content or effect of ads.

    These people want it both ways. They want to be rich powerful douchebags but they also insist we LIKE them! I don’t like them! I don’t think they’;re credible or good faith actors! They can run their crap business any way they want but don’t demand we LOVE them for it! They manage to be arrogant AND incredibly needy.

  219. 219.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 10:33 pm

    @Kay: French aristos did not ask for love and look where that got them.

  220. 220.

    WaterGirl

    February 17, 2018 at 10:38 pm

    @Kay: I am looking forward to reading the entire 37 pages of the indictment.

    I found this Lawfare podcast from yesterday pretty interesting. I think they called it a Special Emergency Podcast about the Mueller indictment.

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/russian-influence-campaign-whats-latest-mueller-indictment

  221. 221.

    Brachiator

    February 17, 2018 at 10:43 pm

    @Chet Murthy:

    If these students effect change, it won’t be because of their own actions directly. It’ll be because their parents will act to protect their children.

    Some of these students will soon be old enough to vote, and I get a sense that they are fed up both with their parents and politicians for failing to do something about guns.

    It will be interesting to see if their anger is sustained and what they do with it.

  222. 222.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2018 at 10:48 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    @B.B.A.:

    Well, since it’s hopeless anyway, I guess the kids should just quietly go back to school and keep letting random assholes use them for target practice.

    Good talk.

  223. 223.

    Adam L Silverman

    February 17, 2018 at 10:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Once again, you seem to have gone out of the way to miss my point. It is not hopeless. It is, however, likely to produce a nasty response. That’s it. You can either think through possible outcomes and responses and be prepared or you can wing it.

  224. 224.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 11:04 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Well played, LOL….

    For those who have not played the game, Munchkin is a non collectable series of hilarious card games based on bad chop socky movies, westerns, dungeons and dragons, science fiction, pirates, super heroes etc. All the games can be combined for additional anarchy. The mutant upgrade to your persona means you have a chance to get an additional limb to hold another weapon…;)

  225. 225.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 11:07 pm

    @Brachiator:

    It will be interesting to see if their anger is sustained and what they do with it.

    Brachiator, I agree with you, but I’d amend your statement to:

    It will be interesting to see ihow long it takes before their anger and frustration with gridlock upends things.

    I don’t *necessarily* believe that this movement will have *any* other effect on any other issue in our times. But NO SOCIETY can survive, that subjects its next generation to these sorts of stresses. And certainly no modern, techologically complex society can survive. Children need safety and lack of stress in order to learn and learn deeply. Eventually, EVENTUALLY, there will be enough parents, who are pissed-off enough, that this will change. B/c you can’t send a personal protection detail with every child everywhere. Even if that worked, the child would be terrified just by the big guys with guns.

    Putinfluffer got it right, when he coined the term “American Carnage” for this. It is American Carnage. And eventually, after enough children die, and enough parents have had enough, they *will* put a stop to it.

    And I wanna be clear: it doesn’t need *all* parents to get fed up. Just *white* parents. B/c aside from the richest, all the rest of the white population is going thru this. That’s already enough. And this is why I don’t think this necessarily affects other social issues (as much as I wish it would). B/c even the most racist parent knows that if there’s tuberculosis in the poor part of town, their child is at risk. This ain’t like AIDS, where they could deceive themselves into thinking that it was only “those people”. This is happening to their own children.

  226. 226.

    Chet Murthy

    February 17, 2018 at 11:13 pm

    @Brachiator: OK, you were talking about the students, and not the parents. Here again, it’s a matter of time and numbers. Certainly these youth are justifiably angry, and articulate (in ways I sure wasn’t when I was 16, geez). But they’re few. Let’s say nothng changes right now. In 20 years, there’ll be a LOT more such youth. Many of them will have kids of their own. It will become THE DEFINING ISSUE of their time.

    Because again, no society can perpetuate itself, and remain an organized society, when it subjects its children to this. I mean, I guess Sparta managed it, but Sparta didn’t need people who could read legal briefs, solve differential equations, and perform differential diagnoses.

    Obv. I’m with you, hoping that these youth will kick all us oldsters aside, take over our lawns. Their tweets are incandescent with rage and yet articulate. And some of them (Gonzalez for sure) are good speakers.

  227. 227.

    Daddio7

    February 17, 2018 at 11:14 pm

    @Bailey: You got shot, by who? Was it a young man? I agree that something needs to be done but a blanket banning of guns will lead to a very, very long fight. Why not start with the main trouble source, young men. By young I mean under 26. I have a 26 year old son, he just now graduated college. We see the stupid things male college frat brother do. Men are maturing much slower now but by law can take on adult responsibilities. Would any person in their right mind put themselves one hundred thousand dollars in debt for a degree that offers no employment opportunities? Restrict gun possession to those males older than 26, they are the ones doing the shooting. Women will be held to different standards because they are different.

    I am a right wing Trump voter but if the Constitution was that ironclad and straight forward we wouldn’t need the Supreme Court now would we?

  228. 228.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 11:17 pm

    @Daddio7: You continue to be an idiot.

  229. 229.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 11:22 pm

    @Daddio7:

    Restrict gun possession to those males older than 26, they are the ones doing the shooting. Women will be held to different standards because they are different.

    My God, where do we even start with this one.

    BTW…the Las Vegas shooter would like to have a word with you about that age thing….

  230. 230.

    Gretchen

    February 17, 2018 at 11:24 pm

    @Ruckus: A friend has a St. Luke’s Hospital ashtray, because they used to provide them to patients and visitors.

  231. 231.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 11:25 pm

    @celticdragonchick: He said this:

    I am a right wing Trump voter but if the Constitution was that ironclad and straight forward we wouldn’t need the Supreme Court now would we?

    Don’t waste your time.

  232. 232.

    hugely

    February 17, 2018 at 11:29 pm

    @Schlemazel: yep insurance on the weapon and every round for it. Sounds well regulated to me. Probably not to gorsuck

  233. 233.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 11:32 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I was politely trying to ignore that bit, lol….

  234. 234.

    Psych1

    February 17, 2018 at 11:40 pm

    Perhaps a good start would be banning the resident ammosexual/gun-nuts from this BJ community. True, there aren’t many of them but they are here and very vocal when the subject of guns comes up. They not only are well armed but to me they also appear to be very disturbed.

  235. 235.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 11:40 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Why?

  236. 236.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    February 17, 2018 at 11:42 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: True enough, into the pie filter with him.

  237. 237.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 11:49 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I can only handle so much wingnuttery at one go, and the passage you cite is over my limit for the day.

  238. 238.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 17, 2018 at 11:50 pm

    @Psych1: Few people get banned here. You know that. Try not to be a fascist.

  239. 239.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 11:52 pm

    Also not sure what you guys thought of my lengthy letter above, but those are my thoughts from the perspective of a current teacher, long time gun owner and former soldier in the US Army. It’s wordy, since I tend to get that way when I am onto a tear about something I’m passionate about. *sigh*

  240. 240.

    celticdragonchick

    February 17, 2018 at 11:54 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: True, it takes real asshole skill to get banned. I didn’t see anything he wrote here that amounts to the ban hammer. We can actually disagree with people.

  241. 241.

    Mnemosyne

    February 18, 2018 at 12:06 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I never said it wasn’t going to create a nasty response by legislators. i am less certain than you are that voters will automatically rally around them against the kids who are literally on the front lines.

    The Las Vegas massacre was only 4 months ago. I think it’s much too early to declare 2018 lost over the issue of guns.

  242. 242.

    Ruckus

    February 18, 2018 at 12:06 am

    @celticdragonchick:
    I thought it was honest and heartfelt. Pulled no punches. That’s what politicians need, especially ones that don’t agree with you. No bullshit just reality. Will it make a difference? That is an entirely different question and one that none of us can answer.
    I’d like him not to be but I know Adam is correct here, there will be pushback, and it won’t be a love tap. All serious change requires a serious commitment to the change and there are a not insignificant number of opponents who will push back hard, they have money and a cult on their side. We have numbers and the ability to make them pay at the ballot box. That’s what we have to use now. We have a mid term this year, we have to affect change rather dramatically in Nov. Then we have to move on to 2020 and make a bigger splash there. It can be done but we have to go at it from every angle, not just one.

  243. 243.

    celticdragonchick

    February 18, 2018 at 12:14 am

    @Ruckus:

    Thanks. It was almost stream of consciousness since I was simply writing my feelings without any planning at all. I didn’t do any real editing or even worry much about possible punctuation errors, lol.

    You and Adam are right. There will be a reaction. Their black metal phallus totems are too important to them. However, we are going to win. I didn’t really think so before. I do think so now.

  244. 244.

    Mnemosyne

    February 18, 2018 at 12:24 am

    @Ruckus:

    There will definitely be a pushback. I’m just saying that their go-to union-busting tactic of getting everyone fired is not going to work against students, because being a student is not actually a job that you can fire someone from.

  245. 245.

    Ruckus

    February 18, 2018 at 12:37 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    Read what Adam said carefully again. Here in CA you are right, possibly in IL as well. But in other parts of the country they will take this seriously if the students do this. And not in a serious listening way. In a lot of the country TPTB are used to getting their way, right or usually wrong. I’m not arguing against the students holding a walkout or no show, day, week or whatever. I think they should. But it could be handled wrong by a lot of parts of the country who will take this as an attack on their power. I think numbers will win, I think taking a hard line against the students will backfire. That won’t stop a lot of TPTB from doing the wrong thing. And not all the kids will go along, some live in households that have guns as the center of everything. Some will not have the courage of their convictions, some will not have those convictions. But even a 50% strike would get the attention of a lot of people. And I haven’t heard anyone say so but don’t a lot of schools get money based upon the number of students attending? Cut attendance in half, even for a short time and that’s going to be enough money to require the administrations to call in some math majors to figure it out.
    We don’t have a record of general strikes in this country and unions have lost a lot of their strengths over the last few decades so this will not be looked upon as anything like normal, as it might in say France.

  246. 246.

    Mnemosyne

    February 18, 2018 at 12:41 am

    @Ruckus:

    I think taking a hard line against the students will backfire. That won’t stop a lot of TPTB from doing the wrong thing.

    I agree that there will be attempts to punish the students. Adam seems to think those attenpts will be successful. I disagree — I think they will backfire in both the short and long term. I guess we’ll have to wait and see who’s right.

    But I need to go to sleep very soon. I was at Disneyland past closing with my niece, nephew, and ex-SIL last night and I’m all tuckered out.

  247. 247.

    Bailey

    February 18, 2018 at 12:43 am

    @Daddio7:

    You got shot, by who? Was it a young man?

    I have no idea. It was at night, on the streets, while I was out for a run. I didn’t see the person. But I don’t really think it matters.

    I agree that something needs to be done but a blanket banning of guns will lead to a very, very long fight. Why not start with the main trouble source, young men. By young I mean under 26. I have a 26 year old son, he just now graduated college. We see the stupid things male college frat brother do. Men are maturing much slower now but by law can take on adult responsibilities. Would any person in their right mind put themselves one hundred thousand dollars in debt for a degree that offers no employment opportunities? Restrict gun possession to those males older than 26, they are the ones doing the shooting. Women will be held to different standards because they are different.

    The shooter from Las Vegas would like to have a word with you…

  248. 248.

    Psych1

    February 18, 2018 at 12:49 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: OK, you are right. But still, treating them as valued commentators without calling them out just encourages them.

  249. 249.

    Brachiator

    February 18, 2018 at 1:05 am

    @Chet Murthy:

    Obv. I’m with you, hoping that these youth will kick all us oldsters aside, take over our lawns. Their tweets are incandescent with rage and yet articulate. And some of them (Gonzalez for sure) are good speakers.

    You are right that they are few. But another poster noted that the students received messages from youths who had survived earlier shootings. I wonder if this is really true. If so, this group, even if small, is a very special, tragic community. They know what it is like to be shot at and terrorized, and they don’t seem to be settling for the same old excuses. Maybe they can multiply their influence using social media.

    And as you note, maybe the parents will demand that more be done to protect their kids.

  250. 250.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    February 18, 2018 at 6:10 am

    @celticdragonchick: @celticdragonchick: I’ve seen your comments here for a while now, but have never gotten around to letting you know how much I respect and admire your principles, values, and ethics.

    I’d like to rectify that omission right here and now. Thank you.

  251. 251.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    February 18, 2018 at 7:41 am

    @celticdragonchick: I’m in, too. Let’s make this happen. Better to lay the groundwork now than to scramble later–do you have a social media presence, or should I have a front-pager send you my email?

  252. 252.

    Geeno

    February 18, 2018 at 11:14 am

    @Mnemosyne:

  253. 253.

    Miss Bianca

    February 18, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    @celticdragonchick: OK, way late to this thread and you probably won’t even see this, but I loved your letter and wanted to tell you so. Rock on!

  254. 254.

    AnneWith

    February 19, 2018 at 1:08 am

    @celticdragonchick:
    I admire it a great deal, & posted an excerpt & link on Twitter. I have around 660 followers, so we’re not talking mass exposure here, of course.

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