NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch spoke this morning at CPAC. She was the warm up for NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. I’m not sure I know exactly how to describe her remarks, so you’ll just have to watch for herself. I’ve spent a 1/2 hour looking for a transcript to no avail for those who would rather not watch. Sorry. To be honest, this has to be seen to be believed.
Update at 12:50 PM EST
Here’s the video of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s speech at CPAC.
David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo succinctly and accurately sums up LaPierre’s speech:
Watching the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre hold forth at CPAC–carried live on the news nets–is a good reminder that while it carefully crafts an image as a membership association of gun owners, the NRA is really a house organ of the Republican Party. What I’m saying isn’t new. The reporting documenting the NRA’s shift under LaPierre has been out there for years. But listen to his rhetoric. This isn’t about guns or gun rights.The Second Amendment argument, as anathema as it is to many people, is window dressing. It’s about using “guns” as a political cudgel, using “guns” to catalyze the resentments and grievances of conservatives, using “guns” as a bulwark against political threats to the Republican Party. Plain and simple.
Open thread!
guachi
Not certain if this was mentioned below, but Obama tweeted in support of the students.
If you have a Twitter account, why not help make it the most liked tweet ever?
In the first 90 minutes the tweet is at 274,000 likes already.
Just the Facts
Loesch is despicable, but why did no one lay a glove on her last night at the CNN Town Hall?
Actually, why was the NRA even there? Why didn’t Jake give any background on what the NRA truly is, an organization dedicated to gun manufacturers’ profits? Hell, why not actually show this video on their jumbo screen in the arena, for instance?
I really want this time to be different, but I think what we’ve got here is Occupy Wallstreet 2.0. Everyone will fetishize “The Kids are All Right” crap, but in the end, the entrenched powers will prevail.
And we’ll have more perforated children, organs mulched by war weapons, littering the freshly-waxed halls of our nation’s schools.
Happy Thursday, everyone!
Sab
I don’t want to be trivial, but good god why doesn’t that woman wear a functionning bra in public.
Suzanne
Refuse to watch. This lady just makes me dumber.
Waratah
I watched her last night with the students, the first I have ever seen or heard her she is disgusting. I will not watch or listen to her again if I can help it.
Gin & Tonic
Um, no.
eemom
Her boss is in the headlines now. Dear GOD, how I HATE that inhuman, filthy, creature of ugliest evil.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@guachi:
It flipped to 280k when I liked it a few minutes ago.
Brachiator
I guess Wayne Lapierre is doubling down. From the Guardian
I particularly like this part:
It ain’t about dead and wounded kids. It’s all about the NRA.
foucault swing voter mistermix
I can’t find the clip right now but last night she was sitting and nodding happily while the sheriff reeled off a list of changes (more power for law enforcement to take away guns, better school construction to make them harder targets), and her expression and demeanor changed abruptly when his last point was banning bump stocks and assault weapons. That’s worth watching if any one can find it.
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: Section D of the 38th Amendment…
Or she’s wearing one of these:
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Do it!!!!
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: They didn’t have his speech up yet on the youtube or I’d have included it. As David Kurtz wrote:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/wayne-lapierre-defends-nra-at-cpac-after-school-shooting
germy
McMaster seems to be exiting.
I suppose the last straw was when he spoke truthfully to the press.
AnotherBruce
She is vile, but she was not wrong about the “white mothers in grief” comment. Pointing out that the stuff is ratings gold for the MSM. Implying that black mothers don’t get that kind of coverage.
Suzanne
@Adam L Silverman: All of the women in that ad have that same gross trashy basic look to them as Dana Loesch, who, as I learned in a previous thread, thinks she’s hot,
Eljai
The FTFNYT recently described Dana Loesch as the NRA’s “telegenic warrior”, but she is truly hideous on the inside.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: She’s definitely not wearing one of those. She’s pretty obviously not wearing much of anything under her clothes, which is not a good look if you are pushing forty and you got where you are in life by having a pretty face and a well-endowed body.
schrodingers_cat
@Sab: What is with those earrings? So huge, they would make rather large bangles for me.
OT: Justin Trudeau is getting attention in the Indian media for his bridegroom like get up on his India trip. But at least he is easier the eyes than this Dana person, even in that blindingly red kurta. Justin, fire your stylist and call me. Pro tip. Traditionally Indian men mostly wear white.
Chet Murthy
@AnotherBruce: The Shooty McRaper party is a past master of divide-and-conquer. Let’s not let them. When white mothers and children find out that the GrOPers are enemies of American family life, we’ll have even more allies. It cannot hurt to support these youth and their families.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: They’ve put it up. I’ll update upstairs too.
donnah
I watched it.
I feel like I have been hit with a 2×4. As I expected, she is angry, hostile, and filled with venom. As I expected, she boldy lied about law enforcement, The FBI, and the media. As I expected, I wanted lightning to strike her and turn her into a pile of sooty black ash.
Having her as the face of the NRA is perfect, as she represents the absolute bottom of humanity and what hate and anger coupled with unlimited money will do. But just watching her, you can see that she is a vain, power-hungry vampire who will do and say anything for blood.
Jay S
I’ve made it about halfway through, the first 3rd was a lot of squid ink about other shootings that she claims didn’t have town halls and crying white mothers. At the halfway point she’s denying responsibility for the audience and NRA and blaming the FBI.
AnotherBruce
@Chet Murthy: I totally agree with you. But her jab was directed at the media. I can figure out her motives for saying this, and I’m guessing that they are not honorable motives, I’m guessing she doesn’t give a damn about grieving black mothers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Just the Facts:
Shit don’t get happen until people get busy. If vested interests can block progress indefinite then blacks would still be slaves.
Maybe it will end with the SOS, but something feels different this time.
Stan
The gun-in-a-bra thing is hilarious.
So it sure looks like these women are carrying a pistol with a round in the chamber and the safety off. Pointed upwards too. I mean, what can go wrong? Anyone want to give me odds on gun-in-a-bra accidental discharges?
Can you breastfeed in public with those?
Could it BE another excuse for lame-ass guys to look at boobies?
The jokes write themselves. Truly sorry if anyone is offended but dark humor gets some of us through things.
Sab
@schrodingers_cat: You have a point about those earrings. They should have parakeets sitting on them.
Still trying not to be trivial, but with these folks it’s hard.
AnotherBruce
@Adam L Silverman: I read that as: We must harden our hearts.
Irony Abounds
What is going through my head is “don’t say the C word, don’t say the C word, don’t say the C word.”
Peale
@schrodingers_cat: yep. Was he going to a state dinner? Did someone not tell him that it was ok for him to wear a tuxedo?
germy
@donnah:
Not a good idea to piss off those three entities.
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: Her sartorial choices are not my problem.
Steeplejack (phone)
Mandatory Archer.
schrodingers_cat
@Peale: No he was hanging out with movie industry people at that dinner, who for some reason were all wearing black.
ChrisS
what does hardening our schools do to prevent a gun nut from taking up residence in a hotel and spraying a concert with his AR-15s?
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: You told us to watch her!
notoriousJRT
@Sab: There is a reason why Katherine Jean Lopez is never the “face” of conservative movement issues. The old white guys need more than a gun to get their rocks off..
Adam L Silverman
For the love of someone’s, anyone’s Deity, give Florida AG Pam Bondi a protocol sheet for how to properly address the President.
Tom
@Stan: @Stan: It’s already happened.
“A Michigan woman died Jan. 2 after she accidentally shot herself in the eye while adjusting a handgun in a holster attached to her bra. The accident that claimed the life of Christina Bond, 55, occurred Jan. 1, but details of how the shooting happened were released by Michigan authorities this week, according to Michigan news outlets. A St. Joseph, Mich., police official said Bond was adjusting the holster, couldn’t get it to fit right, and the gun accidentally discharged.”
Frankensteinbeck
I heard her on television pull out the English Common Law Sheriffs trope, so she’s a white supremacist. That’s one of their big ‘Anglos invented all that is good’ things, and why they think sheriffs are special.
Villago Delenda Est
@Just the Facts: Tapper is a walking petri dish of the Broderism virus.
schrodingers_cat
@notoriousJRT: Busty blondes in short skirts seem to be the favorite.
Walker
Can an NRA member hold security clearances? Because going forward, NRA membership should clearly be a disqualifier for security clearance.
Adam L Silverman
Incorrectly placed flag decal aficionado Seb Gorka decided to get handsy with a reporter at CPAC this morning. While someone was taking video. Genius!
d58826
And speaking of disgusting human beings. Dana Lorach blistered the MSM for loving the rating hits that they get from, ‘white mothers crying for dead kids after a school shooting’ She then complained that she needed a security detail in order to protest her from the angry crowd after the Cnn townhall. School kids are not entitled to the same level of protection. She also ranted on the FBI for dropping the ball and not following up on the tip about the shooter. Now the the FBI should follow up on why the tip did not get from DC to Fla., but even if it had exactly what could the FBI do? Local officials were aware of this kid and his problems. Sure the FBI could have interviewed the kid but they have no legal authority to arrest him BEFORE he does something. Local authorities might have had more legal authority to detain/commit him under a danger to the community type mental health law.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/22/nra-spokeswoman-attacks-media-government-over-mass-shootings-criticism-421688
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: I did. I did not, however, say get all up in her underwear.
Puddinhead
She’s just another failed right wing media hack trying to get herself back into the media via the NRA spokesperson job. Not blonde enough for Fox I suppose. Didn’t listen to much of her screeching, but didn’t she announce something about her NRA TV show during it? If so, all you need to know is that this speech was an advertisement for that show.
germy
Someone ask George H.W. Bush about the NRA.
d58826
@Adam L Silverman: assault and battery is ok if you are a GOOPER. After all they sent to Congress a gooper convicted of assault.
Dan
@Sab: She doesn’t want any control of her guns.
d58826
@Tom: This probably sound cruel but at least she died happy? Her bra was protecting her from what ever……………………
Rob Lll
No doubt there are some people cynical and low enough in “the media” to think of school shootings mainly through the lens of their being ratings gold — but on the other hand, journalists also have families, kids in schools. Why shouldn’t they be concerned?
But I suspect that what’s really going on here is the usual with RWNJs — projection. The media gets “excited” over mass shootings? I should think that goes double for gun manufacturers — if I’m not mistaken, gun sales tend to go up whenever there’s talk of new restrictions, as happens after things like the Parkland incident.
My observation of angry, bitter, hateful people like Loesch is they tend to attribute those traits to others all the time. They need to believe that everyone else is as ugly on the inside as they are.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: This one? “Hey, asshole.”
Villago Delenda Est
“I have a RIGHT to own a weapon that has no purpose but to kill people in ways that turn their internal organs into goo.”
This is the NRA’s credo.
They are terrorists.
Kay
I love these activist kids very much but inviting Betsy DeVos and The Trump Family into every public school in the country to set policy won’t end well for public school students.
Unless you want your kids in a public school that resembles a maximum security prison don’t let the far Right run away with this.
Public schools are in a very real sense where children live– that’s why these shootings affect them so profoundly. Not just a workplace- an extension of their home and central to their childhood “community”- the people they know.
The far Right will destroy their quality of life inside the school to protect the gun and their quality of life inside a school is important. Outside of their homes it’s where they live.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: I do think once you are a naturalized citizen you are a citizen. What were we thinking when we let this guy in? Now we are stuck. He is no longer the UKs problem. Now he is ours.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
He and his family, especially the kids, look cute. They seem to be having a good time.
donnah
Dana also claimed in that speech that she needed security protection to leave the town hall last night. Is that true? I mean, had I been there I might have innocently stuck my foot out to trip her, but I can’t imagine that she actually needed armed protection to escape the venue.
d58826
@germy: And while I enjoy watching the Nicholle Wallace show it was her boss who allowed the assault rife ban to expire in 2004. She seemed genuinely horrified as she had to report on what happened last week. Funny how during the 10 years that it was in effect we had elections, kids went to school, babies were born and all of the other routine things of life happened.
Miss Bianca
For some reason I saw this thread title and thought it said not the “the loesch of war”, but “the leech of war.”
Amir Khalid
@Just the Facts:
Is this you?
GregB
I think we need to have a moment of silence for the real victim if this tragedy, the NRA.
Mary G
I don’t know, maybe I am just fooling myself, but this feels like an inflection point. I always thought the difference with the AR-15 and other guns like it was just how many more bullets per minute they could deliver, but no.
The Atlantic has an article up:
What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns
They weren’t the first victims of a mass shooting the Florida radiologist had seen—but their wounds were radically different.
The bullets from these guns have much higher velocity than bullets from handguns and do much more damage to the body.
I am profoundly gun ignorant, having lived in California for 60 years. I know people who own guns, but they are ex-Marines who are strictly careful to keep them locked up where I’ve never actually seen them. I have only held a gun in my hand once, when an idiot I dated in college took money his dad gave him to pay off credit cards and bought a Walther PPK instead, because he’d just seen a James Bond movie and wanted to look cool.
So maybe everyone but me knew that injuries from these guns are worse, but it seems like a good approach to banning them.
Kay
I hope the far Right is getting what these kids are saying. When they talk about a school they don’t mean the buildings. It’s the relationships they value. Schools aren’t just workplaces to kids. They are a community.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: No she keep turning to him and addressing him this way:
“President, as you know”. “President, we’re…”. As you know, as anyone who has been through 5th grade civics knows, it is Mr. President or President (insert last name here). President isn’t his first, last, or only name.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: True but his outfits are a bit much. He looks like a bridegroom at his wedding reception, veering into the costume territory IMHO.
Miss Bianca
@Tom: News of the Weird used to have a special section for stories like this one called, “Thinning the Herd”.
Kay
Important in schools, quality of life, but also important to adults.
Let’s talk about that. How have gun obsessives made the quality of life in the United States worse for everyone except gun obsessives?
How fucking selfish are these people, anyway? Everyone in the country has to sacrifice so you won’t be inconvenienced?
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: His association with Vitezi Rend should have been disqualifying for citizenship even though he’s married to a natural born US citizen. That he failed to disclose that, according to the legal theory the Trump administration is pushing in an ongoing case to strip a naturalized citizen of their citizenship, lying on one’s immigration forms means that the conference of citizenship through naturalizations is null and void.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: I know you had intended a serious thread, but women of my age have to think about these things, and this public spokesperson didn’t. Blatant lack of self-awareness and also lack of general public awareness (the essence of her job) on her part. Her underwear alone demonstrates she is an idiot.
rk
“Crying white mothers”? Does the NRA really want to take them on? I’m in a suburb where white moms are a force to be reckoned with. They get their way with the school system and everything else, and pretty much are an organizational force. The NRA would be pretty stupid to weaponize that force against themselves.
Adam L Silverman
@donnah: Here’s CNN’s statement:
Here’s the video of how it went down:
gene108
@Just the Facts:
OWS didn’t really have much of an agenda. Income inequality is bad and the rich need to be taken down a peg or two is sort of vague.
The kids want gun control. It’s specific. Plus their are groups that have been working on gun control, which could use a boost these kids are giving the issue.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I’d love to see this idiot get caught in an immigration snare of the GOP’s making. Consequences, bitchez.
That being said, I don’t want to see that snare put in place.
Sab
@donnah: I can. 34 parents lost children.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
i saw LaPierre– who many people are saying wears his dead grandmother’s underwear as pajamas– was ranting about Obama and socialism, cause he’s all about personal freedom and security.
(turned on MSNBC to check out the McMaster rumor up-thread in time to hear Kristin Welker doing the “Mightn’t the president have a point…” thing about arming teachers. WOuldn’t potential mass shooters be less likely to approach those schools? I don’t know where she went to college, but her parents should ask for a refund.)
Mnemosyne
@Irony Abounds:
Don’t say it. She’s an asshole and bears much more resemblance to that body part since she spews nothing but shit.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
My favorite amendment!
Dear lord that’s mental. And I must protest, the perp in the opening sequence looked suspiciously white. Falsie flag! Pink text crawl at the end was a nice touch.
Miss Bianca
@rk: Go, White Mothers. Smash NRA!
Origuy
@Frankensteinbeck: Interestingly, the UK has basically gotten rid of sheriffs in the USA sense. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, high sheriffs are ceremonial officials. In Scotland, they are judges.
Villago Delenda Est
Dana Loesch’s lack of reverence for the lives of others will come back to haunt her someday.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Any rifle will do more damage than a handgun. The additional barrel length allows for even handgun caliber rounds to achieve higher velocities and deliver higher foot pounds of force into the target. It is why a .357 magnum shot from a snub nose revolver, while being quite destructive, is much less destructive than the same round with the same grain weight of the bullet and same amount of powder shot out of a revolver with an 8 inch barrel. Or from a carbine or rifle.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
This is life while “the alpha males are in charge.”
We’re stuck with this douche, aren’t we?
Gin & Tonic
@Sab: US naturalized citizenship can be and has been revoked.
Betty Cracker
There’s a story on CNN about the first family that took Cruz in after his mom died. They apparently didn’t allow guns in their house (smart!). Cruz had an altercation with his friend (the son of the host parents) and made threats, etc. The family called the cops and told them they were afraid Cruz had hidden a gun in their backyard and reported that he said he’d put guns to people’s heads before. Yikes!
So, he left there and moved in with another friend’s family, and the stupid parents in that family allowed him to amass guns. God, what a pair of fucking idiots. I saw them on TV the other day and wanted to reach through the screen to slap some sense into them. I’m glad Ms. Gonzalez specifically called them out in her speech.
What I wonder is this: Even if the cops HAD followed up on every tip, would they have taken Cruz’s guns away? I don’t think they could have. It’s damn hard to involuntarily commit someone to a mental hospital — and it should be. It may be even harder, at least in this state, to take guns away from someone who hasn’t committed a crime…yet.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
100% this. The SPLC needs to declare the NRA terrorists. They have far greater reach and influence than our homegrown nazis or the klan and harvest far more deaths.
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: It is what it is.
Starfish
Some people have been talking about her appearance. This is the Southern White Girl High School Popularity Contest Winner look. It involves getting up an hour before the rest of your household to blowdry your hair. Her hair is died some extra-shiny and unnatural color that high schoolers would not generally be able to afford. The giant earrings are part of the look. When I was in high school, they were some ugly giant lion earrings.
The reason that this woman is the front of this movement is the exact reason that someone up thread mentioned. She can say mean and angry threatening thing and then claim that she is in danger from liberals threatening to attack her. This is part of her schtick. All the stories about her last year are how she was forced to move due to rape and death threats. Clearly, she is persecuted. ?
donnah
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, I figured as much.
Because Dana is a monster, her hearing probably perceived the crowd’s booing as cheers.
And SAB, having a parent shoot Dana at the event would fly in the face of everything the parents are trying to say about not having guns.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I’ll just be pleasantly surprised and amused if either the reporter presses charges or the appropriate local PD takes action because a bunch of people have tweeted the video at them already.
Sab
@Gin & Tonic: I know, but that makes me very uncomfortable. Once you are one of us you should be one of us.
VOR
@Mary G: Yes, long rifle rounds have much higher velocities than hand guns and hence do more damage. Not an expert, but just scanning wikipedia an 5.54x45mm cartridge (i.e. AR-15) will have an energy of 1679-1843 Joules, with 20″ barrel. A 9x19mm Parabellum has an energy of 481-617 joules. The long rifle round has more propellant and a longer barrel so it moves a lot faster. More force despite a smaller bullet.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: I doubt he’s going to be deported. Whether it is for today’s assault, or another one in the future, he’ll eventually get himself into serious trouble. His type always does. When he’s actually confronted with someone legit that he can’t bully he folds.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
That’s the crux, isn’t it? I’m not confident that even in states with the “toughest” gun laws someone like Cruz can be kept away from his precious. Yet that’s the goal.
BC in Illinois
Wayne LaPierre:
Tweet by Kyle Griffin, quoting Donald Trump:
Is hardening our schools the word of the day?
Maybe it’s not a “school” problem — hard or soft — but rather an “American society awash in guns” problem.
Otherwise we need harder nightclubs and harder concerts and harder workplaces . . .
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: I am also a fan of that amendment. A strong supporter, if you will.
Sab
@donnah: I know, but these parents are, to a person, better than I could ever be.
Corner Stone
I didn’t watch the video but from the clip MSNBC is showing she appears to creep walk back and forth over the podium. It’s not a good look.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Betty Cracker: This can’t be true, because all of this is the FBI’s fault. I mean when my neighbors are being assholes I always call the Special Agent In Charge at the local FBI office, not the Sheriff.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
I hope so. The headline “Gorka to prison” is one decent people everywhere would relish. That said, I assumed George Zimmerman would be in prison or dead by now, yet walks free. He has an advantage over Seb of not being magnetically attracted to cameras.
Corner Stone
@Stan:
I watched it..and…uh..what was it you were saying again?
Gin & Tonic
@Sab: The US Justice Department had a whole section devoted to “denaturalization” for over 20 years. People were denaturalized and deported, some put to death.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BC in Illinois: pretty sure I heard Andrea Mitchell use that phrase. It struck me as odd.
Somebody needs to point out to trump and Wayne what this obsession with hard, hard force suggests about the size of their… hands.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: Most of these folks tend to develop a very good manner of placating cops, therapists, and/or the social workers from Children and Family Services. They quickly figure out what to say and how to say it so that the police, therapists, and the CFS folks don’t have enough to actually intervene. From what I can tell from the reporting, this is what happened in Cruz’s case.
As to the second informal foster family. The father is a veteran, was familiar with firearms from his service, and they had, apparently, not only required Cruz keep his guns locked up, but that he had to have their permission to remove them. They wrongly believed they had the only key to the gun locker. Their real failure was in not purchasing the safe themselves, which would have given them the ability to control the keys. Instead they let Cruz do it and trusted him when he said he gave him the only key.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t have much of an eye for this. I figure if people look comfortable and happy and not too ostentatious or ornate, then it’s all good. His red outfit seemed a bit much. But again, as a group, the wife and kids seemed to look OK and to have no problems being kids, running and playing.
Mnemosyne
@Rob Lll:
This. We usually shorthand it as “projection,” but bad people like Loesch assume that everyone else is just as mean and dishonest they are, and anyone who appears otherwise just hasn’t been caught yet. In fact, they tell themselves that they’re actually more honest than other people because they don’t pretend to be nice.
This kind of personality usually develops thanks to really bad parenting, but Loesch is an adult now and responsible for her own actions.
EZSmirkzz
Just to add my two cents worth on the whole issue, beyond the fixing the blame instead of the problem problem, or pesky Russians and trolls pinching my nym, a far more serious issue in my opinion, yet I digress. Let’s get to it.
First off lets be clear about guns, and bows and arrows as far as that goes, which are designed exclusively for putting holes in things. Targets, animals and people, usually in that order. A sizable minority of Americans enjoy the first two previously mentioned hole creation activity, and like Atrios has said and I concur, I don’t care how these people go about spending their money, The few people that enjoy putting holes in people are the problem, whether they’re trigger happy cops or deranged individuals who have taken it upon themselves to inflict their anger and self righteousness on other people.
Wayne Lapierre can hide behind government intrusion and the Constitution all he wants to, the blood of the innocent is still on his hands. Those who have made an effort to militarize American society, and succeeded, are not without sin, including Evangelical Christians that are worshiping at the golden calf of god of fortifications, bear some if not all of the same guilt as the aforementioned. Josh Marshall has good post up today on the NRA and Lapierre which I agree with, you might as well.
As a rule I have no problem with gun and bow and arrow owners. I don’t really care if they have high capacity clips and tape them together so they can bump stock 60 rounds into a target in under two minutes, or if they want to pay a couple of grand to hunt and kill a hundred pounds of deer sausage. It’s their money, I don’t care.
Where I do care is when people in possession of these weapons go online or hang out in their favorite tavern, bar, or beer joint and start mouthing off about using their guns to “kill dem som bitches” whomever “dem som bitches” happen to be. I care when some yahoo takes it upon himself, like the yo-yo behind the highway barricade with his rifle aimed at the BLM agents during the Bundy stand off. I will make no bones about it, I want to take these peoples weapons away from them. I don’t want to hear any horseshit about sovereign citizens and all that yada yada, from people who have never read Hobbs, much less Burke, and have no intellectual idea about the founding of the liberty they now so loudly proclaim to be theirs.
The use of force is an exclusive right of the state. We all have a right to self defense, but the use of force is a privileged granted by the state to an individual, not an individual right, much like your drivers license is a privileged granted to you by the state.
It’s time in my opinion for the politicians to quite playing footsies with other peoples lives, and quite using guns as a rally around the flag ploy for the ignorant, or more apropos, the ideologically warped, to further other agendas and view points. Many of these politicians will loudly and proudly claim and proclaim their devotion to God and the Christ, but they privately do not believe, or they need to read the Book. They’re going to spend a long time finding, marking and burying bones if they do.
Having said that,
trollhattan
@BC in Illinois:
Tried to find out how many public schools there are, came up with circa 98 thousand. How much money will it take to “harden” 98 thousand schools then staff them with unemployed Marines? Let’s say six per school or a bit over half a million? They need rifles, pistols, communications, ammo and regular drills and target practice.
The free markets will automatically harden and guard private and for-profit schools, so I don’t worry about those.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
FWIW, us ladies usually discuss support garments with a much more clinical eye than dudes do. ? So mentioning that Loesch is wearing an unflattering foundation is not actually discussing her body, but her clothes.
Gravenstone
@Sab: Naturalized citizenship can be revoked if it was granted based on a fraudulent application. Happened recently, actually. And Gorka is nothing, if not a fraud.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
This article is over at Deadspin. Link
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Here you go, below. The problems are twofold:
1) LTG McMaster had been told in Fall 2016 that he was in his terminal assignment – Deputy Commanding General, US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and Director of The Army Capability Integration Center (ARCIC) – and to prepare himself for retirement. When he agreed to be the Assistant to the President – National Security Advisor, this short circuited how the Army personnel office (J1) had him routed.
2) There do not appear to be any lateral 3 star billets or any 4 star billets coming available that they could place him in. In both the generating and operating sides of the Army. Most of his peers never wanted him to get 1 star, let alone 3 or 4, so there is unlikely to be a lot of interest in sidetracking someone else’s promotion so that the President can save face if/when he fires LTG McMaster.
Adam L Silverman
Incoming!!! Incoming!!! Prepare for days and days and days of whining about stifling of 1st Amendment rights!!!!
Gravenstone
@donnah: Given who she works for currently, I imagine she has security as a matter of course. Not like she making additional friends these days, with this bullshit.
Sab
@Gin & Tonic: I know that is the law, but I am still uncomfortable with it. Once you are an American you should be one. We have lots of Americans that we and our government have issues with. That’s different. Once you are a citizen you should safely be a citizen.
Adam L Silverman
@Starfish:
eemom
Breaking: Mayor of Dallas told the NRA to stick its convention up its ass. (Paraphrasing.)
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
“An unflattering foundation” can also reference a historical home in a flood zone that has been raised above high water line using a cinderblock structure.
Adam L Silverman
@BC in Illinois: Here you go:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/palgrave.sj.8350024
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, but considering the kid’s history – particularly his habit of turning nasty and threatening people who tried to deny him access to his preciouses – I have to say that their “only mistake” was a pretty fucking huge one.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: They let a deeply troubled teenager bring multiple guns into their house. That’s just plain stupid in my book. The father said he didn’t think it was weird at all that this kid working at Dollar Tree was spending hundreds on guns and that he thought the kid “went hunting” with the AR-15. Also, the story about the gun safe sounds fishy to me, like something they made up after the fact to cover up their own appalling negligence. Is there such a thing as a locking safe that comes equipped with only a single key? Heck, even locking suitcases and little girl’s diaries come with a pair of keys!
No Drought No More
Politically speaking, it’s Freud’s cigar all over again, i.e., they’re nothing but “wolves in wolves clothing”. In that sense they’re all biblical, and we’ve have been warned, haven’t we?
Adam L Silverman
None of the stuff the President proposed when talking off the cuff during the photo spray this morning can be done without changed Federal and/or state laws. It doesn’t matter what Florida AG Pam Bondi thinks. Florida law actually prohibits municipalities, with actual penalties including jail time for elected officials who violate the law, from enacting harsher gun safety laws and regulations then the state does. As does Pennsylvania. And 38 other states have firearm regulation preemption laws too.
bluefish
@BC in Illinois: One problem is that we’ve a hardening of the arteries gang looking to pretend to address these issues. Trump acts like a gaga Ben Cartwright for the cameras — while the rabid dogs at NRA-CPAC fan the flames and stir the pot. Anything, anything at all, in order NOT to address the central problem and call it out by name. These young student activists are getting a real world education. With any luck and a helluva lot of effort, time will be on their side. To see the craven so up close and personal is a searing experience, on top of what they’ve already gone through, but they are young and strong — And eager to call BS to its face when they see it.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: 21st century America is making a mockery of your assertion.
I used to agree with you. Was a cornerstone of my college education (I majored in psych) and was an article of faith in my house growing up (my mother was a therapist who did a long stint in a mental hospital – as a therapist, not patient!). I no longer believe it. We’ve made it far too hard to keep people who are a manifest, obvious danger to themselves and to others off the streets. The cops are now the ones dealing with them directly, and instead of medication and therapy are using bullets. It’s not working very well. For anyone.
Starfish
@Adam L Silverman: So it is not extra cynical of me to believe this is all marketing?
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Cruz figured out that the best way to manipulate them was by pretending to be respectful and emphasizing their shared love of guns. They’re lucky he didn’t decide to kill them on his way out the door like the Newtown murderer did, but he probably hadn’t lived with them long enough to be enraged at them. A few months longer, though …
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: Speaking of bad sartorial choices:
And the content is whacked too!
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: She does not move well in stiletto heels.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
This is part of the problem: in Gun Nut Land, amassing multiple high-powered guns, high-capacity magazines, and thousands of bullets is normal behavior. Why would that foster dad see anything weird about this kid doing the exact same stuff he does?
At this point, it’s a cult, and cult members never think their own rituals are weird.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: Heels like that are just like hats and bikinis. If you can’t carry it off, you should not wear them.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I knew they would shove it off on schools. I GUARANTEE none of it will be funded, either.
Nothing Can be Done by anyone, outside of school employees. They are the people we dump everything on- “here- you fix this giant public policy problem, and also fixing it can’t cost anything and can’t take any time out of the school day, which is already jam-;packed with all the other national problems we dumped on you. Good luck!”
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: It isn’t projection, she’s exactly the type of person that thinks they need a gun to feel safe, but shouldn’t be allowed to have one. Broken home, impoverished family, grew up amid scarcity and insecurity. She went from being scared and able to be killed to still being scared and now able to kill. She never dealt with the underlying issues. We see this all the time in the dojo with people that want to learn self defense fast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/style/dana-loesch-national-rifle-association.html
The Moar You Know
@Adam L Silverman: Their hair alone is a war crime.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I did not mention her body, just that you all are all up in her underwear.
d58826
@Betty Cracker:
Like it or not we have a tremendous bias (and correctly I might add) in favor of not taking action based on words but based on specific deeds. It’s what makes the ‘protective order’ that a battered woman obtains just so much paper. She has the order but until the man actually does something there is little the cops can do. Of course once he does ‘something’ it is usually to late for the woman and the ‘best’ outcome is her family will see the scumbag spend the rest of his life in jail. Cold comfort for all.
It’s the same reason that all of the pissing and finger pointing at what the FBI did or did not do. Even if the Fla field office had to warning there was no way they could arrest him, commit him or take away his guns. Maybe if they talked to the parents they might have staged some kind of intervention that would have prevented the shooting. On the other hand it might simply have delayed it.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Nice to see the NRA kept their collective eye on the ball and worked the state legislatures to provide a rear guard to their vested interest in MOAR GUNS!! //s
Frankensteinbeck
@Adam L Silverman:
I was about to quote Johnny Dangerously, then realized what horrifically bad taste it would be under the circumstances. Ugh.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: He’s not the Mayor of Dallas. He’s the Mayor Pro Tem of Dallas. There’s a difference.
BC in Illinois
@Adam L Silverman:
Wow. Thanks for the article. I will need to think through what “counter-terrorism” and more pro-active “anti-terrorism” will mean for the general American awash-in-guns level of gun deaths that we have learned to live with. How does the response to terrorism compare/contrast to the response to American gun violence? Have to think about that.
I do think that it is a societal problem. Not a “school problem.” We can learn. We can change. Maybe we can look around the world to see “shining cities on the hills” around us – – you know, the countries that do not have the mass shootings that we have. You know, like virtually all the countries of the world. They’re sure not looking to us, as an example to emulate.
Hardening the entranceways to all our buildings is not the answer.
Corner Stone
I want to hear where the funding for the “very strong” background checks is going to come from?
Rommie
“Harden” schools. Whoop diddly doo. Outside of the problems of the cost of going Fortress Albion for every school building (this includes colleges, you know!) and the message it will send to everyone attending said Fortresses every day, it won’t stop mass shootings. The Football Field isn’t secure. The big-box supermarket near the high school isn’t secure. Churches are not sec…oh, wait, that was already figured out.
It doesn’t take Wile E. Coyote, S.G., to find soft targets
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: I always love being in Eastern Europe in the winter, watching women in 4-inch heels navigating icy cobblestones faster than I can in shoes.
Corner Stone
@Frankensteinbeck: There is never a wrong time to quote Johnny Dangerously.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: @Betty Cracker: I’m not suggesting they made the right decision. Nor am I denying their responsibilities. They are the adults. When you read through the rules and requirements they laid down they sound appropriate and reasonable. Even the gun related ones as they clearly didn’t want to alienate Cruz, they wanted to help him.
As for safes: even electronic safes come with two backup keys in case the power goes out or the batteries need to be recharged. But if they’d purchased the safe, they would have been able to know their were only two keys and they had them both. I’m not denying they screwed up.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I think heels are stupid, but more power to them if they like the heels and they can pull it off. Which they obviously can if they are moving along at a good speed on ice!
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Nah, didn’t think you were making excuses for them. I think my view is the same as Mnem’s – mulitple gun-ownership is a cult thing, and members of the cult can’t even begin to fathom that think their actions might look weird or even insane to non-members.
Adam L Silverman
@Starfish: No it is not.
d58826
@Mnemosyne:
Firsdt of all I don’t hunt. The last time I fired a rifle was at boy scout camp. fired 20 rounds and did not even hit the paper. My question is what do you hunt with a semi-automatic rifle? It would seem like by the time you emptied a 32 round clip into an animal there would not be enough left to eat. I guess something large like a deer or a bear but wouldn’t you rip up the flesh that would make it useless or at least unattractive for eating?
Brachiator
@BC in Illinois:
Fortress America. Border walls. Hardened schools.
Nothing but crazy.
Gravenstone
@Corner Stone: Given the main pull quote from the movie, this time there probably is a “wrong time”.
Miss Bianca
@Miss Bianca: FYWP won’t let me edit that comment, so let me amend it here: multiple-gun ownership – when you don’t have any *actual* reason for it – is a cult thing, and members of the cult can’t even begin to fathom that their actions might look weird or even insane to non-members.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: From mental health funds. Or from existing gun law enforcement funds. Just not from higher taxes on parasites like the Mercers, the Kochs, the DeVoses.
d58826
@Rommie: and lets not forget all of the school buses. that should get you 40-50 sitting duck targets
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: That’s why I never wear anything with a higher heel than my cowboy boots (walking heels), only ever wear baseball caps or a boonie hat (if I’m hiking and want to keep the sun of my ears and neck), and never wear a bikini.
Villago Delenda Est
@d58826: It destroys the meat. You do not hunt with an AR-15. It’s not designed for it. It turns internal organs into goo, as the trauma docs dealing with Parkland casualties found out.
Stan
@Mary G: No need to feel badly for not know technical aspects of guns ;)
The issue with weapons like the AR-15 is *both* the rate of fire (how many bullets it can shoot in a given time) *and* the more powerful bullet they fire. There are a bazillion variations I would not bore you with, but, some guns are lot more lethal than others. You were right to focus on both.
BruceFromOhio
@Suzanne: This.
When your drones are only capable of rudimentary thought processes, and the lizard brainstem is all you got to work with, you’re sort of stuck with this solution set. Sets the stage very nicely for the next civil war.
trollhattan
@Rommie:
Right. Plus, Cruz had the inside knowledge only a student or staffer would have, and an ROTC shirt that enabled him to blend in both when entering and the after the slaughter.
A school of over 3000 kids plus a staff of hundreds wouldn’t function with airport-grade security. Guessing it’s a sprawling campus as well, like the big suburban high schools in my region. Those would require conversion to prison compounds.
It’s a moronic distraction, advanced by sociopaths.
Leto
@Mary G: @Adam L Silverman: Not only does a long rifle deliver more energy, but the AR-15 bullet is designed to tumble once it enters a body. From the article you linked:
It’s because the round tumbles once it enters a body. Small entry hole, large exit wound. This is covered, repeatedly, in every single weapons training class the USAF delivers, about the effects that the bullet will have on the human body. The AR-15, and it’s derivatives, is a battlefield weapon that’s designed for maximum lethality. It does it’s job extremely well. It has absolutely no place in the hands of civilians. They need to be perma-banned from the civilian populace.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: Infinitely more expensive than a military grade weapons buyback program would be.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think one of the problems with the legal system remedies is they are too blunt force. THere’s a growing recognition of this- the newest question is along the lines of “what is the least amount of restriction we can use for each person and still keep other people safe?” We try to tweak it. Can the person keep all the rights of “the person” and we just take over their money? Can you use a POA instead of a ward/guardian remedy? It needs more flexibility. It’s outdated in the sense that it only has 2 choices- competent or incompetent.
That’s why this NRA approach is so nonsensical. If they would allow JUST the gun ban for people like this shooter we could do a much better job actually protecting THE REST of his rights. They’re almost forcing the legal system to create a whole class of incompetents JUST to get the guns away from them!
They’re leaving no choice, no nuance. It’s either make him a ward and strip him of everything INCLUDING guns or just let him run rampant where he harms other people.
They’re going to regret this. It’s tragically stupid.
d58826
@Miss Bianca:
Well there are some people who collect guns as a legitimate hobby.
The problem with the ‘responsible gun owner’ meme is every one is a responsible gun owner until one day they aren’t. Obviously we have little or no way to determine when the day comes until the ‘responsible gun owner’ starts to shoot
Corner Stone
@Gravenstone: The scene where he shows his little brother the “elephantitis of the nuts” movie?
Adam L Silverman
@d58826: @Villago Delenda Est: Wild boar/feral hogs. They’re used quite widely for that in the Southwest and other parts of the South where the wild and feral pig population is out of control, a real nuisance, and can be a real problem. Often they are AR pattern rifles chambered for a more powerful cartridge. AR-10s, which are chambered for .308 Winchester (NATO 7.62), or AR pattern rifles in 6.5 Grendel.
Even most places that allow AR pattern rifles for hunting wild/feral pigs, restrict their usage for deer and other game.
Suzanne
@Kay:
Back when America was great, schools were the only community center of many neighborhoods.
Mr. Suzanne, an educator (he doesn’t want me to say “teacher”) of many disabled, poor, and non-native-English-speaking students, is unsurprisingly HELL NO on guns in his schools.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s it. I don’t need to go to the grocery store any longer as I doubt I will ever eat again.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: So it’s not for hunting in the traditional sense, but for oversized vermin control, where you don’t care if you damage the meat.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
So basically she is a coward who lied.
d58826
@trollhattan:
and if i wanted to shoot up an airport I would either do it outside the TSA security zone or have someone breach security and when TSA started to re-screen everyone there would be hundreds of targets milling around.
We are a country of soft targets. I don’t think we would want to live in a country that was made up of hard targets. Heck even Russia has had it’s share of terror attacks on theaters, schools, and airplanes/. And we know that Putin is no bleeding heart liberal.
Miss Bianca
@Stan: This. Anyone who says they need an AR-15 for “hunting” is either lying or so delusional as to be clinically insane, unless they’re hunting the World’s Most Dangerous Game. In which case, they’re (presumably) not planning to eat the meat.
ETA: OK, with the exceptions for wild porcines that Adam pointed out above. Was forgetting about them.
Stan
@Miss Bianca:
Ever been a foster or adoptive parent? They tried.
Yeah, they made a big-ass mistake but these deaths are on the shooter, not the few people who genuinely tried to help him out.
celticdragonchick
@Mary G:
The .223 round used by AR platforms has ballistic properties that make it particularly lethal to humans. Since the bullet is actually fairly small and lightweight (less than half the weight and kinetic energy of the .308 round used by the earlier M-14 or the .30-06 round used by the M-1 Garand and M1903 Springfield) it immediately looses stability and tumbles when it hits flesh where earlier and more powerful rounds remained stable and actually did less damage. This is where reports came from in Vietnam of NVA and VC soldiers sustaining horrifying wounds from M-16s that had not happened before when using M-14 rifles…heads exploding, arms torn off completely etc.
The rifling in newer rifles is somewhat tighter to improve stability somewhat, but the round still does terrible damage to a person when it hits.
Miss Bianca
@Corner Stone: Oh, I dunno…the bikini and the sparkly emergency tiara might be quite a fetching ensemble. > : >
d58826
@Adam L Silverman: so it is using a specific weapon to address a specific problem that is relatively limited in scope. That makes sense.
celticdragonchick
@Miss Bianca:
The .223 round is absolutely NOT the round to take hunting. Ruins meat. See my comment above.
celticdragonchick
@Leto: You beat me to it I see.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: You are a wise man.
Miss Bianca
@Stan: Actually, no I haven’t, but since friends and family of mine have been foster parents, and I’ve had to take an active hand in helping foster *their* foster kids, I’ll say this: no FUCKING WAY should these people have allowed this. Hell, even the teenage *girls* my friends and family fostered were hard enough cases that they shouldn’t have been trusted with so much as a razor blade in their hands. (As my sister found out the hard way, with one of them). And this kid sounds like he was off-the-charts level of messed-up and violent. Sorry, my judgement stands. Their hearts may have been in the right place, but their heads weren’t.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that is getting thru.
When Trump parrots the NRA and says they will “harden” schools they are talking about “hardening” places where children live.
Different than an airport. Where they LIVE a good part of every day. Where their friends are. Where their day to day is.
I bet you get it too in addition to Mr. Suzanne because architects understand it- we recently built a new public school and the architect incorporated all of this. The planning sessions were not about the building until the end. What he wanted was “what is this school community like- how does it function as a group of people who are connected?”
Emma
@celticdragonchick: I had a hunter friend that groused that all the idiots with their fancy firepower were going home with pre-ground venison burger.
Leto
@celticdragonchick: I like your explanation better than mine. Plus more knowledge is never a bad thing.
Chip Daniels
Since the gun nuts and the political party in power have so rabidly fetishized the 2nd Amendment, I am ready to balance things out by asserting a full repeal of it.
It doesn’t matter that it isn’t politically possible.
I just don’t want some middling minor tweaking of magazine sizes of bump stocks to be the edges of our discourse.
I stake out my position as that there is no such thing as a natural right to own a gun, no moral logic that supports making guns into rights, and a full ban is morally justified in a civilized society.
Once we start with that, I am willing to talk compromise..
randy khan
@Adam L Silverman:
What is the proper protocol for addressing someone who bribed you to solve a legal problem for him?
d58826
@Kay: I guess they could do some minor ‘hardening’ i.e. make the class room doors more resistant to forced entry or gun fire. But we really do not want to turn a school into a medieval castle, complete with gator filled moats
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: I’ll admit that I aged out of my youthful fascination with guns 30+ years ago, but where the hell did all these new calibers come from? 6.5 Grendel? Someone mention 5.54 X 45 above. Great innovation in the art of death dealing!
Leto
@Kay: When I hear them talk about “hardening” all I can think about is that they’re going to complete the process of turning our schools into prisons. As you’ve stated, this is where children spend a large part of their life growing up. How we design/treat this micro-community has a lasting impact/impression on these kids that will last a life time.
trollhattan
@randy khan:
Jan Brewer is between gigs, so perhaps available for a word.
randy khan
@Rommie:
Not to mention that of course you could just wait until school gets out and start shooting people as they leave.
trollhattan
@randy khan:
Since Las Vegas I guarantee everybody running a big city school with nearby high-rises is going “Oh shiiiiii…”
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes, but… My understanding is that given the size of some of the pigs being taken, that the size of the caliber isn’t damaging the meat to the point of making it inedible. Smaller hogs, .223. Larger hogs, .308. Hogzillas, 6.5 Grendel.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: She has issues.
Adam L Silverman
@d58826: See my article that I had linked to above.
trollhattan
The Onion, as they do, summarizes things succinctly.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: People use AR-15s for boar hunting? Never heard of that. My gun nut dad, uncles, cousins, etc., hunt boar using shotguns and rifles.
glory b
@Mnemosyne: As someone who used to work in Macy’s “Intimate Apparel” department and knows how to fit a bra, I concur.
Leto
@celticdragonchick: @Mary G: Also from the article, describing in a bit more graphic detail, the doctor describing the effects of tumbling:
Edit: bolded two parts
Mnemosyne
@Stan:
As I said above, their biggest mistake was being members of the Gun Cult who could not comprehend that guns are dangerous in the wrong hands.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: There’s been a lot of wildcatting going on. Part of the reason the AR platform is so appealing is it is basically a tinker toy firearm. With a little study you can change almost everything out on an AR. From stock to rails to barrels. Because of the nature of the AR design, there are people that set up one or two lowers that can accommodate a couple of different caliber sizes apiece just the way they like them and then with just the push of two pins, change the upper – also set up exactly how one prefers it – out. Or change the barrels out. It is a very modular system. And as such it appeals to a lot of people that like to tinker with their firearms and other things for that matter.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: Texans…
Steve in the ATL
@d58826:
My stepfather did, but they were Ethan Allen period and none was fired or had been fired in a century or two. But people who collect modern guns? Weirdos.
joel hanes
@celticdragonchick:
The .223 round used by AR platforms has ballistic properties that make it particularly lethal to humans.
It was specifically designed to improve the kill rate on smaller people. The WWII and Korean War military rifles were designed with 80-kg enemies in mind, and performed poorly against SE Asian irregulars, who tended to be more like 50 kg. You know: like an American schoolkid.
celticdragonchick
Teachers are taking over instagram and twitter with #armmewith.
https://twitter.com/Celticlassy10/status/966770204817666048
celticdragonchick
@joel hanes:
Also, battle rifle rounds were deemed wasteful since most engagement ranges were well under the maximum effective range they were designed for.
joel hanes
@glory b:
You are not the target audience for Ms. Loesch’s sartorial choices.
I believe she understands her audience quite well, and knows exactly what she’s doing.
Ohio Mom
@Miss Bianca: This couple was just completely niave. They raised two or three typical kids successfully and had no concept that atypical kids existed in their orbit.
Cruz went to their kids’ suburban school after all. The creepy kids are on the inner city, don’t cha know.
And they weren’t part of a foster care system: they didn’t have any training, they didn’t have an experienced social worker advising them. Cruz wasn’t in high school anymore so they didn’t even have any teachers who knew him to trade notes with.
They were just beginning to realize they were in over their heads. The mom had taken Cruz for an initial visit with some sort of counselor.
I really do not hold anything against them. I feel sorry for them, they must be devastated. The son who asked to invite Cruz into the home must be besides himself, I bet he feels awfully guilty for exposing his family to all of it.
Jamey
It’s been a long strange trip from Fröbel’s Kindergarten (Garden for Children) educational concept to LaPierre’s “Harden Our Schools,” but that in a nutshell is the America that Conservatives want for all of us.
M. Bouffant
@Sab: Nope, naturalized citizens can have their citrizenship revoked. Let’s get started!
Leto
@joel hanes: That’s not exactly correct:
There’s many reports of North Korean soldiers being shot with a .30 carbine round, during winter time, who simply got back up and kept charging. A combination of the round being underpowered, combined with the enemy wearing heavy clothing, meant the round never made it to the body.
celticdragonchick
@Leto:
The M-1/M-2 carbines attracted a LOT of complaints because of the round it was chambered for.
joel hanes
@Leto:
That’s what I get for repeating the story my Army drill sergeant told me in M16 training in Basic Training in 1972.
scav
Harden the school rooms? They’ve certainly hardened their hearts and heads, so for them it would be the next logical step. It’s all about getting their hard on.
Duane
@eemom: That’s okay. I hate Loesch on an equal level. Truly a danger to society. She needs a mental institution.
mikefromArlington
All I can think of when I hear Loesch is C u next tuesday.
Boatboy_srq
@ChrisS: At a concert, there’s music and alcohol and sex and drugs and [gasp] dancing! Ain’t none o’that in a school.
/s
George
I realize that by now this is a dead thread, but I just wanted to write: They are fascists and they need to hang. Every last one of them.
Miss Bianca
@Ohio Mom: Very dead thread, but just wanted to say: I hear you. My mother took in waifs and strays, friends of my younger brother mostly, after I’d left the house for college. They weren’t part of the foster care system – just boys whose families had essentially abandoned them. Everything worked out fine, but I can’t imagine my mother *ever* allowing them to bring guns into the house. That would have been a complete deal-breaker. But then, we weren’t a hunting or other gun-totin’ household, so I can’t imagine a scenario where we would have thought that giving disturbed young men permission to bring along their own arsenal would have been seen as acceptable.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman:
Sir Isaac is rolling in his grave.
Sorry, but I gotta….
Force has units like Newtons and pounds(-force) and dynes and so forth.
Foot-pounds is a unit for torque (twisting motion).
You probably meant to say the rifle bullet delivers substantially more “kinetic energy” to the body – KE = 1/2 * m * v * v (doubling the velocity increases the kinetic energy by a factor of 4).
Since all of the kinetic energy of the bullet is transferred to the body (assuming the body stops it, and neglecting the energy required to deform the bullet), higher kinetic energy does more damage.
Wikipedia has more.
HTH.
How to stop a train with a BB gun has some interesting calculations, also too. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: In ammunition parlances foot lbs is used for energy, so force was an incorrect phrasing. For instance, here are the ballistic tables for Buffalo Bore’s (a niche, high end manufacturer of premium ammunition). This is for one of their outdoor loads in .45 ACP+P:
https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=402
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Weird.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.