If you needed any more evidence that the “good guy with a gun” talk was nothing more than a fantasy, it took Gilroy Police one minute to engage and kill the shooter at the Garlic Festival, yet he was able to kill 3 and injure at least 15.
On another topic, is Trump just going to do some kind of racist name calling that targets a MoCoC (Member of Congress of Color) every week? Won’t he run out of targets before the election? Will all the targets have a hometown paper as quick on the draw as the Baltimore Sun?
Open thread.
Harbison
It’s almost as if someone determined to kill people will be able to kill people.
MattF
IMO, the ‘good guy’ fantasy is a rationalization of a desire to shoot someone. So it’s not even a debateably good idea.
randy khan
Hmm. Today’s July 29, so call it 66 weeks until the election.
A quick search says there are 56 blacks, 44 Latinos, 15 Asian Americans, and 4 Native Americans in the House, plus 4 Latino, 3 blacks, 3 Asian American, and 1 multiracial Senators, for a total of 130.
So he could hit just under 2 of them a week between now and Election Day 2020.
MattF
@randy khan: And all, coincidentally. from infested, shithole districts.
dmsilev
@randy khan: Some of those are Republicans (not many, but some), so we should probably prune the list a bit. It’s OK, he can fill in the gaps of his racism with some additional misogyny.
Jerzy Russian
@Harbison:
I guess we should take away their guns then, and make it a bit harder for them to do so.
JGabriel
Mistermix @ Top:
Yes.
He’ll just rotate through them. Most of his supporters won’t even notice – their memories aren’t very good.
Elizabelle
The Second Amendment is trumping the First Amendment, right of free assembly. Without fear of being shot.
Dial the Second Amendment back, or delete it. We are all targets.
Unless we’re the NRA’s whores in Congress. In which case, we work behind taxpayer-funded layer upon layer of security, amenities, and privilege.
MattF
@JGabriel: The techical term is ‘perseveration’. Normal in children, a sign of neurological problems in adults.
Litlebritdifrnt
Twitler started off his week this morning with another racist rant, this time about Al Sharpton. His so-called “advisors” must be ripping their f*cking hair out.
JGabriel
@Harbison:
It’s almost as if bad people with guns will be always be able to kill, maim, and injure a lot of people before good people with guns can can even take notice, respond, or hope to stop them.
Jerzy Russian
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Perhaps he is unaware of the Third Lady’s “Be Best” initiative?
JGabriel
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Why? Aren’t most of Traitor Donald’s advisors just as racist – and just as oblivous to the potential electoral consequences – as he is?
rikyrah
ONE PHUCKING MINUTE!!!
Gin & Tonic
@Litlebritdifrnt:
His only advisor that matters is Stephen Miller, who a) loves this shit and b) has no hair.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic: Well played
Yarrow
His racism is both a goal in itself and a tactic to keep attention off things that will hurt him–Cummings’ subpoenas of Jarvanka’s emails and other private communications, the Epstein case, obstruction of justice, etc. His racism is a terrible thing and has real world consequences. It also serves to keep media attention and social media attention on his comments and off things that will actually hurt him.
It’s a difficult situation because his racism must be called out but its use as a tool to distract should be too. Limiting comments to, “Oh, it’s just a distraction” doesn’t acknowledge how awful it is and the real world effects it is having. But not acknowledging its use as a distraction technique means we’re allowing him to control the narrative again. Walking that line is challenging but I think it’s important to acknowledge what’s going on so we can better figure out how to respond.
Elizabelle
I am angry about this shooting. I have been angry about all of them.
We deserve better. We do not have to live like this.
Caught a bit of profiler Clint Van Zandt last night on MSNBC online. He was suggesting that, before or on arriving at public events like this festival, parents photograph their children and family members. So they can quickly describe and help identify them later in the event of a shooting or other mayhem. No worrying about “what was my child wearing?”
Frees the mind to concentrate on finding the exits. Another strategy; review them on arriving. CVZ was at a public event with his own young family members yesterday; he took notice of the exits and sufficient police presence. Believe he said he was in Fredericksburg VA (halfway between DC and Richmond).
Thanks NRA!
Elizabelle
You guys: talk away amongst yourselves, but I am not going to talk about Trump all thread. Don’t give him that much attention. Although, stay aware of what his administration is doing.
He is doing it to demoralize you all. You don’t have to magnify it. You really don’t.
randy khan
@dmsilev: Well, if we go on to misogyny, he probably can do at least 3 a week.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: “So they can quickly describe and help identify the bodies later in the event of a shooting or other mayhem.”
FTFY.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Sorry, but appointing Ratcliffe as DNI is scaring the c–p out of me.
Citizen Alan
@JGabriel:
There are no good people with guns. Every gun owner is one bad day away from becoming a spree killer.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Good comment, and good to see you posting again.
OzarkHillbilly
@Citizen Alan:
Ummm, no. Your paint brush is a little broad there.
eclare
@Elizabelle: I know this won’t happen, but I fervently wish that gaggle of reporters that ask him questions during chopper talk would agree en masse not to follow him and ask questions. If he wants to get air time, do an actual press conference.
Sloane Peterson's knee therapist
It’s a good thing Jeff Epstein isn’t black or tratface would really light him up.
Ohio Mom
The Cincinnati Jewish community has been fortifying itself for years.
Whenever a synagogue is open for services or religious school, there is a local police officer posted at the door (other times the doors are locked); going for a swim or a meeting or daycare or whatever at the Jewish Community Center requires you to be buzzed in past bulletproof plexiglass doors; a few weeks ago, Ohio Dad and I went to a kosher barbeque festival that was absolutely swarming with law enforcement. I felt a little sorry for them in their dark, heavy uniforms on a sweltering, humid day in a shadeless parking lot.
I sadly note that the events at the Gilmore Garlic Festival confirm my skepticism about the effectiveness of all these defenses.
They are no doubt better than nothing but if you want guarantees that you will be safe, stay home (unless there are guns in your house. In which case, it’s on you and yours).
@Elizabelle: You nailed it, the Second Admenent is voiding the First. Assembling for the most benign purposes (let alone protest) is a risk.
MattF
@zhena gogolia: Well, the real DNI was really always Trump. So it’s just reality getting into clearer focus.
gwangung
@OzarkHillbilly:
But painting widely is now a survival trait.
Immanentize
@Yarrow:
I am worried that he is now actually hoping for targetted violence.
germy
Any truth to the reporting that the shooter had an accomplice?
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, most of the country’s introduction to Ratcliffe was seeing his batshit crazy line of questioning of Mueller. He was not foaming at the mouth like some of his Republican colleagues, but that does not mean he was not in tinfoil hat territory.
So talk about Ratcliffe and his insufficient qualifications. Talk about the importance of protecting our elections.
I am hoping that Ratcliffe turns out to be non-confirmable. Not a likely hope, but it could happen. Shit getting real.
Don’t focus on what a douchebag T is for appointing him, because that is what he does. And did you hear this latest thing T said? Who wants a master’s degree in collecting all this shit and outrage? It’s enervating
germy
rk
Well if I was an editor of a paper in a non white democratic politician’s district, I’d already have an editorial written all set to roll. Something like they do for obituaries.
Elizabelle
@Citizen Alan:
Bullshit. But there is no need for civilians to own the firepower that is out there. The Gilroy shooter was getting off 3-4 shots per second.
Took out a six year old boy, the tough guy did.
germy
eclare
@Immanentize: I am past worrying, he is lighting the match on purpose. Besides, there already has been targetted violence: Heather Heyer, the Tree of Life, those men in I think Oregon who were stabbed to death because they tried to stop other guys harrassing POC, etc. And I am sure I’m leaving many out.
Ruckus
@Litlebritdifrnt:
His “advisers” are as racist as he is. They wouldn’t be his advisers if they weren’t.
@Jerzy Russian:
He’s trying to be the bestest racist………..
germy
Sloane Peterson's knee therapist
Then there’s this shooting yesterday.
https://nypost.com/2019/07/29/drive-by-shooting-at-miami-synagogue-leaves-one-man-injured-report/
germy
@eclare:
He deliberately does the chopper talks so that he can pretend not to hear, and then ignore followup questions and rush through the whole thing. It’s a strategy.
Ohio Mom
@Elizabelle: To be fair, it’s always a good idea to have a recent photo on hand of your young ones when traveling and venturing into crowded places like airports, amusement parks, zoos, and the like. Little ones do wander off and get lost.
A photo can be a big help in reuniting family members. The kid could have pictures of their parents too, if they can be trusted not to destroy them,
I used to carry Ohio Son’s school picture in my wallet, that was in tne days before cell phones. Nowadays we all have extensive photo albums on our phones (that we are going to download and print out real soon, haha).
But yes, the thought that this could be needed in case of a mass shooting is chilling and depressing.
wvblueguy
I have had it with the pro-gun people after reading more about the Gilroy shooting. I can no longer sit silently when they talk about the right to own and bear arms. A child with his whole life ahead of him at 6 years of age was shot down and killed. The story is another in a long line of misery that others have to suffer with as someone precious is taken from them. Prayers are not the answer. Mental illness is not an excuse. Our nation is turning into a living hell for so many as we continue to destroy ourselves. This must end.
joel hanes
@Citizen Alan:
Every gun owner is one bad day away from becoming a spree killer.
This is not true.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Trump’s Twitter rages have no impact on any of this. All these investigations will continue. The people doing the investigating, including Cummings, are not deterred or hampered by Trump’s angry ramblings.
And Trump is a racist pursuing a racist agenda. His policies hurt people and divide the nation.
It’s got nothing to do with “distractions” and narratives.
Ruckus
@germy:
In that wild west when this would happen and innocent people would get killed, most towns would enact gun control and you’d have to turn in your gun to the sheriff when you arrived. You’d get it back when you left town. It’s worse than the wild west.
zhena gogolia
@MattF:
I don’t think that’s quite correct.
MattF
@Brachiator: In fact, Trump’s tweets are good evidence that the investigations are getting ‘warmer’. I think there’s a significant undercurrent of ‘He really sounds guilty’, although media geniuses manage to ignore that.
germy
@Ruckus: That history was rewritten by Hollywood westerns.
I remember an episode of The Rifleman, where a nervous substitute sheriff tried to lock up everyone’s guns. The rifleman was appalled by this. The sheriff was portrayed as anxious and ineffectual and wrong. Eventually, some trouble occurred and the citizens were unable to defend themselves. The rifleman saved the day.
Elizabelle
Per Sacramento Bee headlines, the Gilroy shooter may have been 19 years old.
germy
Profit!
Bruce K
Thanks to Second Amendment absolutists, America is turning bit by bit into a war zone – not that there’s gun battles everywhere all the time, but we’re being trained to expect gunfire anywhere, at any time.
Living in a war zone is pretty debilitating, I’ll wager. I’m sure that Our Gracious Host can speak from personal experience on the topic.
And who benefits? The iron mongers. The merchants of death. And their backers, who benefit from destabilizing America.
germy
Associated Press:
A Ghost To Most
@OzarkHillbilly:
Forget it, Jake. It’s Jacobins.
Harbison
@Citizen Alan:
If true, this is a very compelling argument for more gun ownership.
There are about 100 million people who own guns in this country. Since there are only fifty or a hundred spree killing each year, that means that there are about 100 million people WHO HAVE NEVER HAD A BAD DAY!
Raoul
I realize Al Sharpton isn’t an MOC, and as a TeeVee host he’s not exactly off limits for criticism, but Trump saying 5 hours ago he “Hates Whites & Cops!” we’re just at the stage of direct, egging on race riots.
Harbison
@Bruce K:
You know that shooting deaths and crime rates are much lower nowadays than 20 or 30 years ago, right?
This is part of the reason why Trump’s “Make America Great” again worked — the combination of nostalgia and ignorance of history is very powerful.
Raoul
@Litlebritdifrnt: His so-called “advisors” must be ripping their f*cking hair out.
Stephen Miller in particular. Oh, wait.
rikyrah
@germy:
When the shooter is WHITE……
Let that have been Abdul Shamah who did the shooting, and it would be wall to wall coverage.
Brachiator
@MattF:
People read whatever they like into Trump’s Twitter ramblings. He probably enjoys this.
Trump Twitter raged and ranted continually about Mueller. This was irrelevant to the investigation and its outcome.
“Sounds guilty” is gossip. Not much really to report on.
MattF
@Raoul: Sharpton is a performer, and wants, principally, to get onto your TV screen. I’d be cautious about declaring him an ally.
Harbison
@Elizabelle:
Yes, there are more constructive things to do than volunteering to be a force multiplier for Trump’s tweets.
Tazj
@wvblueguy:
Yes, I have too.I hate that line that many spout, “In a free country you’re going to have incidents like this.”
How is it wonderful and free to live in a country where you’re afraid to send you kids to school and you always have to be on guard at any social gathering?
A Ghost To Most
@Harbison:
You are a fucking useful idiot. I’m sure Pootie is proud of you.
Cameron
@Raoul: The racist mole rat?
khead
Bunch of open threads and I managed to post in the wrong one.
Dropping out of the rafters. Again.
Fuck Rand Paul..
You want to “appreciate America” Rand? Try taking US Route 52 from Wytheville Va to Huntington WV.
Also, don’t even get me started about Baltimore. Hope everyone is doing ok.
Raoul
@Ohio Mom: To your last point, I do feel a chilling effect. I still attend protests, but am much more watchful about exit paths, where is security, etc.
I feel like a sitting duck sometimes for a disgruntled loser to just decide it’s their time to let fly and die (or be apprehended, as does still happen for some white guys).
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Today is partly safe with a chance of shootings.
germy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control_in_the_Soviet_Union
The Moar You Know
Gilroy has always been a pretty sad town, typical of agricultural California. Used to drive through it many times a year on my way to/way home from college. Most of the garlic used in the US used to come from there. Now it all comes from China, thanks to a complex and well-thought out dumping plan that destroyed Gilroy entirely; Gilroy’s fields are fallow, the factories largely idle. It was never wealthy at its very best and now it’s a lot less so. The garlic festival was about the only thing they had left.
My most vivid memory of the garlic festival was sipping some garlic-infused white wine, about a couple of sips, and that shit gave me the worst hangover/allergic reaction I’ve ever had in my life.
There were always a lot of cops there. I’m glad they were there for this, but it wasn’t enough. The only thing that would have stopped this (the space is completely indefensible, if someone wanted to get in, they can and obviously did) would be a nation in which this shooter was not allowed to get a gun. Anywhere.
Betty Cracker
Haven’t read much about the latest shooting, but one account said there was heavy security at the event and that the shooter cut through a fence in the woods to bypass the searches and emerged into the festival wearing tactical gear and shooting an AR-15 or similar gun. I’m sure more details will emerge today.
Here’s what I wonder: Remember those open-carry nuts who parade around towns in tactical gear with AR-15s to prove a point about their “rights”? I’m waiting for a bystander to run one of them down with a car or drop a block on his head from an open window or something. I hope a jury would acquit if that happens. It would be a reasonable reaction, given the frequency of mass shootings.
germy
@Raoul:
Adam Silverman made the offhand comment one day here that he doesn’t see movies in movie theaters for this reason. He waits until they’re available for home viewing. It was during a discussion of the movie Shazam.
The Moar You Know
@germy: That’s odd, Russian gun makers make all those things.
For export.
Capri
@JGabriel: That’s actually gun nut’s other main reason why guns can’t be regulated every – because no amount of laws will stop 100% of the problem 100% of the time.
germy
@khead: So Rand Paul told Omar to go to Somalia and see how she likes it? But Somalia is libertarian. Why doesn’t he move there?
Oh yeah, then he’d lose his government health insurance.
Oh wait, the last time he needed medical attention (after the lawnmower attack?) he traveled to Canada, IIRC.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: There was some noise about DC’s open carry ban a few years ago, but the idiots who wanted to give it a try backed off. It may be noted that there is no open carry in the halls of Congress.
rikyrah
@germy:
For real?
Bruce K
One:
I’ve seen from multiple sources that the Gilroy mass shooting was the 246th mass shooting of 2019.
July 29 is day 210 of 2019.
That means we’re averaging well over one mass shooting every day.
Two:
Putting more guns into the hands of more people won’t solve this. A firearm isn’t a precision instrument except in the hands of someone with an abundance of talent and training for it, which disqualifies most members of the human race. I speak from personal experience; I was judged an above-average shot with a battle rifle, and fared fairly well with a pistol, under the guidance of various range masters, but getting bullets to not go in the wrong place is far beyond my skills…
Ruckus
Those of you giving kickback to @Citizen Alan: are correct.
But.
Literally correct, not everyone who owns a gun is going to be a mass shooter or even a “loved one” shooter. But think about it, how many of these guns are out there, how many are not locked, unloaded in a gun safe? It isn’t only the person who owns the gun who might pull the trigger. Kids do it because they don’t always have impulse control. Adults do stupid shit because a lot of them don’t either. And while most gun owners will never be a mass shooter, nor shoot a friend, relative, etc, there is always the risk if you have a gun. One can drive a car for decades without wearing seatbelts and not suffer for it at all, but the next minute you may be dead, or kill someone because of it. And you don’t have to be at fault at all. How much are you at fault if your gun is stolen and used in a robbery or any kind of shooting? I wore a loaded gun in the military. In ports in different cities and countries. My orders were to shoot to kill if necessary. I took that very seriously, because it was. Many others just did it because they were told and didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t ever want to pull that gun out of the holster because it meant I might have to use it, not everyone sees it that way. Others here have been to war and watched people die from the very types of guns that mass shooters use. Some of them know what it’s like to be shot at. Or shoot at someone.
Anyone is capable of becoming a killer.
Anyone.
Means. Motive. Desire. That’s all it takes. You don’t think so? We have millions of vets who really do know better. And lots of cops. And a few mass shooters.
Means. Motive. Desire.
germy
@rikyrah: He went there for hernia surgery after the attack. But he claimed he paid completely out of pocket. He said the Canadian healthcare provider is “outside the Canadian system” which I suspect is a lie.
Maybe commenter steeplejack can fact-check me.
Martin
@Litlebritdifrnt: Any advisor that cared left long ago. The ones that are left either support it or don’t care so long as they are getting ahead. We didn’t even get the ‘inside sources say that Ivanka expressed her displeasure’ report after the Baltimore thing. Even the kids have dropped the pretense.
Ohio Mom
@germy: There’s an ironic joke in there somewhere.
Second Amendment nuts are always telling us we need guns to protect us from big government and allow us to maintain our “liberty” and “freedom”
— and here is Russia, with permissible gun ownership and it had been one sort of totalitarian state after another forever.
Gun ownership does not protect you from the Gulag, but it would have stopped the Holocaust. Sure.
mrmoshpotato
Sixty seconds to kill 3 and injure 15? That’s f’ing madness.
How about these “well-regulated militias” are only allowed muskets?
Side note – If the government really wanted to become tyrannical and, say, drop a bomb on your house, how’s a handgun or rifle going to take down a fighter jet?
joel hanes
@Harbison:
It’s almost as if someone determined to kill people will be able to kill people.
One must admit that their task is made easier if they can acquire quasi-military firearms designed specifically for killing people. The Gilroy perp was getting off several per second between reloads, and expended at least forty rounds during the endless minute or so before the police shot him down. That would not be possible with a deer-hunting rifle, nor with a shotgun suitable for bird hunting.
Before the coup by 2nd-amendment absolutists in 1977, the NRA helped the federal government frame laws to keep military firearms out of civilian hands. That’s one reason you can’t purchase a surplus M60 30-cal machine gun at Bob’s Bait and Firepower Warehouse, nor grenade launcher.
Brachiator
@germy:
Rand Paul? He’s a libertarian who hates America.
Didn’t he vote against the bill to aid 911 first responders?
If anyone should leave America, Rand has got to be at the top of the list.
Martin
@The Moar You Know: Netflix had a documentary on garlic, part of their ‘Rotten’ series. Wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, it seemed pretty muddled.
Elizabelle
@Harbison: Force multiplier. Thank you. That’s the word.
gvg
I want to see media and social media repeat over and over, Trump attacked Cummings right after Cumming subpoenaed records and mentioned impeachment inquiries. He’s guilty and covering up. Of course he is racist. But I don’t think it’s coincidence. Hope we get to see those records soon.
Elizabelle
@mrmoshpotato: Yes.
And I’ve heard several witnesses say the shooter was not really aiming at people. He was just sweeping the gun, left to right. Right to left.
18 people shot in the minute it took law enforcement to take him out. How’s that for odds?
joel hanes
@The Moar You Know:
My most vivid memory of the garlic festival was sipping some garlic-infused white wine
Jeebus. You don’t have to try every novelty just because it exists.
The garlic perfume is another example.
The garlic-battered fried mushrooms and artichoke hearts are wonderful, albeit something one should only eat once a year. The garlic-crusted tri-tip is so good I learned to make it myself. I really miss the garlic-butter frog legs that were once sold by now-defunct Santa Cruz Italian restaurant.
The Christopher dehydrating plant in Gilroy still runs full-blast in mid-summer, but these days it mostly makes dehydrated onion, using onions from further down the valley. Because of the late-night land-breeze running up the valley, cool July and August mornings in Silicon Valley usually smell strongly of onion.
Bill Arnold
@joel hanes:
(Also responding to Harbison)
(Some quick notes, so perhaps badly formed or ignorant of existing arguments.)
The conflict between the second amendment and the first amendment is deeper here. There are some competing ways to reduce the chance of terrorist incidents like this, including:
(1) Reduce access to military-grade weapons, consistent with the 2nd amendment but pushing on NRA-style interpretations. This way is the path most of the rest of the world has taken. (Though most don’t have a 2nd amendment equivalent.)
(2) Build out a police-state infrastructure that actively monitors all political groups, including all their communications, with an ostensible focus on fringe groups, and including the development and use of additional (some new) capabilities to disrupt the activities of such groups. This pushes on the first amendment’s “freedom on speech” and the “right of people to peaceably to assemble” and arguably the right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. This is a path towards a dystopian police state; such capabilities are usable by anyone who controls them, so election of autocrats is more immediately dangerous.
Note that the police state approach means banning encrypted communications, to better protect us from terrorists/pedophiles/bogeymen(/enemies-of-the-state). It means further normalizing of ratfucking of political movements, to protect “us” from “our” political enemies (who may in fact be “us”).
trollhattan
@Harbison:
Oh, you’re one of those.
The Australian model is better than the US model in every way. Period.
Ohio Mom
@The Moar You Know: That’s interesting about Gilroy and garlic.
We have an independent produce and gourmet food store in the neighborhood, and one of their schticks is announcing where things are from: Tennessee tomatoes, (local county) corn, Michigan blueberries, etc.
I’ve long wondered why tne garlic is almost always from China. It seemed awfully far away for a store that generally likes to promote local and regional agriculture.
Now I know why (sorta, but I really don’t need to know the deatails of the “complex and well-thought out dumping plan.” It suffices
to know it exists).
germy
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
Little known fact: Stephen Paddock flung knives at the crowd from his hotel window and nobody noticed. Only then did he turn to industrial-scale killing machinery.
opiejeanne
@germy: Scott Adams. Is this Scott Adams the cartoonist?
Mnemosyne
@Harbison:
It’s almost like it would be harder for someone to kill people if they had to do it with a knife or baseball bat instead of a gun, you fucking NRA ball-licker. But I know you’re happy to have more wanking material since you love to jerk off to photos of murder victims.
rikyrah
Miss Bianca
@Harbison:
It’s almost as if someone determined to say fatuous things will just keep saying fatuous things.
mrmoshpotato
@germy:
He can also yell at reporters then.
Emma
@Harbison: So how are we, the prospective victims, tell the difference? Because, considering our history of mass shootings, I look at everyone carrying a gun in a public place where there is no reason to carry one, as a possible killer. I can’t help it. It’s what history has shown me.
Ksmiami
@mrmoshpotato: that’s the Rude pundits point- if the government is after you on that level they’ll drone bomb you like we have in Afghanistan and your measly rifle will be melted rebar in 30 seconds so the entire 2a argument disappears
A Ghost To Most
@Ruckus:
Point taken, and agreed to.
Lumping all gun owners in with the crazies alienates a lot of D voters, many of whom support strong gun control laws. We are supposed to be a big tent party. Act like it.
Amir Khalid
@joel hanes:
Maybe you haven’t had your bad day yet.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
This. If the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, the obvious solution is not more good guys with guns but to stop letting bad guys get guns.
Michael Allen
@Litlebritdifrnt: Except for at least a few snickering at their desks like Miller.
Gin & Tonic
@Emma: Attempting to engage rationally with this commenter on this topic is a waste of your time.
germy
@opiejeanne: Yes.
Bruce K
@opiejeanne: The same Scott Adams who gets the money for the Dilbert strip and books. I suppose it’d be fair to call him a cartoonist.
Amir Khalid
@Harbison:
No it ain’t. A good guy with a gun is actually of little use against a bad guy with a gun ,especially when the bad guy has the drop on him.
raven
@Ruckus: There’s a big “No Guns Allowed” sing at my VA.
Martin
CNN reporting (without mentioning the suspects name – yay, we’re learning!) that he was likely a white supremacist.
Ruckus
@germy:
That was TV. There seems to be even less time spent trying to be realistic on TV than in movies. Maybe that’s just me.
“The rifleman saved the day.” And a TV legend was born, guns saved the day. People that like guns think they are powerful and easily controllable. There are gun safes, trigger locks, hell the NRA safety classes say never store a loaded gun, or at least used to. What did it take to make seatbelt usage pretty universal? Seatbelts don’t kill you, they actually do save lives. I’ve owned cars that didn’t have seatbelts. Neither of my first two cars did and they were both less than 7 yrs old when I legally drove them without seatbelts. We had to pass laws about cars had to be equipped and you actually had to use them. You can be ticketed just for not using them now. Usage is something like over 90%. And yet we allow guns built to imitate/actually be weapons of war. Sooner or later someone was going to see the ability and figure out a need to demonstrate that, not in a war zone, because they aren’t in a war zone. Yet.
Citizen Allen wasn’t all that wrong, just a bit too inclusive. His overall message is correct, anyone can be a mass shooter or a victim of a mass shooting. It’s easy, the means are all around us. I know a fella who was at Las Vegas and the person next to him was shot. That’s what, zero or one degree of separation? I’ve been shot at intentionally, once. That was enough to get my attention.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
He’s in love with his shouty voice and you’ll notice he crafts situations where he can deploy it.
This is the result of his watching hundreds of hours of his own tapes, especially “The Apprentice.” Thanks, reality teevee people.
mrmoshpotato
@joel hanes:
Well someone doesn’t want to make Dracula look like a fool!
Yellowdog
@zhena gogolia: I have not seen a story where Coates said he is resigning, only the shitgibbon’s tweet. So what happens if Coates says he hasn’t resigned? Shitgibbon is afraid to fire people face to face.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
And the presence of a gun in the house raises the odds of suicide in that house. Considerably.
trollhattan
SF Chron
“I’m really angry.”
Ruckus
@raven:
I know. The VA is a federal facility, no guns allowed. It’s predominantly posted at every federal facility. I’m on my way this afternoon to one of the largest VA facilities in the country. I don’t expect to see a gun there, other than the federal police.
There are no guns allowed in congress either. But we aren’t good enough for a law like that.
opiejeanne
@joel hanes: When we lived in SoCal we drove through Gilroy someimtes from I-5 on the way to the 101, and there were days when the garlic smell was almost overpowering. It was incredible. That was in the 80s and early 90s. We never went to the garlic festival when we lived in the bay area in the 90s because it was always hot and the crowds were already more than we wanted to deal with, but also do I really want to pay to enter a place where I can buy garlic chewing gum or garlic ice cream?
Kirk Spencer
@Citizen Alan: Rephrased, I agree.
There are hundreds of thousands of gun owners. I have no idea when one is going to turn into a bad guy with a gun, and more than one does so each day so this is a non-trivial number. Therefore I must think of all of the gun holders as potentials and treat most if not all with wariness.
Rebuttees please note on a small scale this women’s position toward men. Speaking as a white male gun owner.
MattF
Trump, the Hero-President:
Mike in NC
I blew off today’s 90 minute “Walking Tour of Greenwich” and instead went with my buddy to spend about 2-1/2 hours shlepping around the National Maritime Museum, which despite the crowds struck me as one of the best history museums I’ve ever set foot in (free admission).
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
This thread has made me really really curious to try some garlic ice cream.
trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
Yeah, I’ve been through there hundreds of times. It’s transitioned from a small ag town to basically a Bay Area exurb, but there’s still an agricultural core due to the Salinas Valley. Steinbeck country.
opiejeanne
@germy: @Bruce K: Thanks. I’m not sure what else to call a guy who draws cartoons for a living. I’ve had people try to differentiate between comic strips and cartoons, but that word “cartoon” has a pretty broad definition. including the drawing you use as a guide to cut glass for a stained glass window.
Professor Bigfoot
@Citizen Alan: well, ain’t that a broad effin’ brush.
Meanwhile, given our history with these “conservatives” over the last hundred and fifty years, I ain’t givin’ mine up.
You institute “gun control,” and the only people who will be disarmed will be black.
‘Cause that’s what “gun control” has ALWAYS meant in this country.
Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms.
joel hanes
@Amir Khalid:
Or maybe I have. You don’t really know, do you?
Bless your heart.
Today’s American gun culture is a sickness.
Perhaps it has always been sick, but once it was much less septic.
Elizabelle
Press conference underway from Gilroy.
Mayor (?) saying one can never imagine anything so [sad] happening there.
Really? I NEVER think that any more. It’s more, there but for the grace of God …
It happens everywhere. Except where guns are completely prohibited. Like in Republican congresscritters’ offices.
MomSense
And now I just read that a man was killed while waiting for services to start outside a synagogue in North Miami Beach. Drive by shooting.
joel hanes
@Amir Khalid:
This thread has made me really really curious to try some garlic ice cream.
Overrated novelty, IMHO. Not stomach-turning, but not delicious.
West of the Rockies
If Trump’s plan is just to spew racist shit to fire up the base, I think he’s misfired. We don’t even have a handful of potential Democratic candidates yet (we still have 20+).
18 months of non-stop bigotry might send tingles up the legs of 27% of the population, but it will alienate a lot of the so-called fence sitters and such.
That’s just, like, my opinion…
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: Our next door neighbor’s grandson killed himself with a gun the day after he graduated 8th grade. He was 13. There was a gun safe in the house but his father didn’t use it for anything.
Her remarks to me on the subject were shocking: “people have the right to raise their kids any way they want” was one of the least terrible things she said. She had bought that gun safe for her son so his kids would be safe.
Amir Khalid
@joel hanes:
You and I, we don’t know if we’ll get through our lives and never have a day that bad. We can’t know. If we do avoid that worst of days, we had at least a bit of luck. That’s all I’m saying.
Professor Bigfoot
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Red Summer of 1919.
Do you guys really expect black folks to disarm themselves, given the history of “conservatives” in this country?
Tell you what– you manage to get the white “conservatives” to disarm, and I and my friends will consider it. Until then…
The Red Summer
Elizabelle
The dead: the 6 year old boy; also a 13 year old female victim; second male victim in his 20s.
AK 47 assault rifle.
Purchased legally in Nevada on July 9th.
Professor Bigfoot
@Amir Khalid: I expect my “bad day” to be filled with white supremacist “conservatives,” resorting to violence as their ancestors have ALWAYS done.
It’s funny how discussions of “gun control” completely remove black people and our concerns from the discussion.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
joel hanes
@Amir Khalid:
Amplifying: CA claimed that every gun owner was a potential spree killer, someone who kills indiscriminately.
I know I could deliberately kill if I had the intent; I was carefully trained by the US Army to do so. And I have some experience with rage.
And I know, despite the debunking of the Milgram experiment, that most people have it in them to kill if the social situation is structured that way: the military likes to talk about “squad cohesion”, which might be one way of saying that you’ll kill if your buddies are threatened, or if your buddies expect you too.
I don’t agree that every hunter or target shooter has it in them to commit unprovoked, wholesale, indiscriminate murder, which was the claim.
Perhaps I’m naive.
You’ll excuse me if I leave this conversation at this time?
Elizabelle
Santino William Logan. 19 years old. The shooter.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I think what it would be fair to say is that we can’t just look at somebody and know for sure they’re a good person who would never become a mass shooter. Even if they seem sane and normal today, there’s no telling what the future holds.
Elizabelle
We are legally selling assault rifles to 19 year olds? Great.
trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
Jesus wept. I can’t name many teens who don’t have those occasional grim days accompanied by dark thoughts of ending it all. Hormones, growing awareness of an imperfect world, other kids being their nasty selves gang up on them. It happens, and parents must stop lying to themselves that everything is kittens and cupcakes 24/7. Protect your kids every way you can, and that includes eliminating the easiest, most obvious pathway to oblivion!
Elizabelle
They’ve accepted FBI assistance. Because of the size of territory to be searched. Still looking for a non-shooting accomplice. ETA: And processing the crime scene. Some question if there is a second? (I didn’t hear the precise response.)
trollhattan
@Professor Bigfoot:
Your concern, it is trolled. What’s the St Petersburg weather like?
Martin
@MattF: President Mary Sue. The smartest, handsomest, bravest, and least racist President ever. Had he been in Gilroy, at the moment shot rang out he’d have grabbed a secret service firearm and shot the bullets out of the air, saving everyone, then grabbed and suplexed the gunman WWE style, and enjoyed some lovely garlic food, while the garlic queen and her court demanded he do sexy with them all.
catclub
@Harbison: Y
yes. Ask Kevin Drum about lead in the environment.
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: first, I have no idea how the weather is in Petrograd; but it’s not bad here in Akron.
Second… great job of deflection and ignoring my point. Thanks.
Martin
@Elizabelle: We don’t legally sell or allow possession of assault rifles in California.
eclare
@khead: I am convinced that they are trying to get Ilhan killed.
Roger Moore
@opiejeanne:
Originally, a cartoon was a quick sketch used as a model for another artwork. That meaning expanded to relatively simple line drawings like political cartoons and then to animated and serial cartoons. If you want to restrict “cartoon” to political commentary and use a different word for strips like Dilbert, you might describe Scott Adams as a comic writer. Of course the line there is pretty thin. You have strips like Doonesbury and Bloom County that are in the four panel format but are heavy on the political content and people like Jeff McNelly who did both political cartoons and comic strips.
jl
Hearing reports that witnesses saying cops got there is ‘seconds’ and took down the shooter with one shot. So, they had good luck here with well trained police, willing to run toward mortal danger, who were good shots. I’m not sure how reliable that is, but usually time seems to stretch out for people under mortal danger, so sign that the cops shut down the shooting almost immediately after it started. If there were yahoos waving guns around when they arrived, I wonder how many of them would have gotten shot by the cops. I guess the NRA would suggest that we get rid of cops, since they complicate the system of having vigilante good guys with guns respond.
There is a court battle in SF Bay Area over local laws to require background checks for buying ammunition. The guy advertised as the NRA spokesperson seemed to be a local guy who was so old and broke down, he could barely wheeze enough to talk. And h mumbled stuff about the law was stupid, the government was stupid, it wouldn’t do anything and the whole thing was stupid. So, I guess the NRA eating itself up as produced some progress for sane policies. Since the only ‘spokesman’ they apparently could find was barely understandable and just called everything he didn’t like stupid.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Note that he had to go over the border to Nevada to buy it and then brought it back to California. That’s how a huge amount of gun crime happens. Chicago is awash in guns because gun dealers in Indiana sell massive amounts of guns to straw purchasers with zero regulation by the state of Indiana. They’re basically domestic arms dealers with the same lack of morals. And there’s very little the state of Illinois can do to stop it, because Indiana says it’s A-OK and there’s no federal regulation saying it’s not.
trollhattan
@Professor Bigfoot:
You don’t have a point. Hope that is helpful to your future efforts.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Yeah. Totally clued in on “Nevada.” The Steven Paddock state!
(One of the few recent mass murderers whose name sticks in my memory.)
A Ghost To Most
@joel hanes:
I would say the same about America’s alcohol culture. It causes more deaths than guns. Put the two together, and shit happens. Are you advocating to ban alcohol?
Jacobins.
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Since your point seems to be that it’s A-OK for mass shootings to continue as long as you get to keep your personal guns, prepare to be ignored for being a troll.
MomSense
@Professor Bigfoot:
A time traveling troll. How novel.
Elizabelle
@A Ghost To Most: False equivalency alert.
Today’s American gun culture is absolutely a sickness. Joel is accurate.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
Ah, good catch. I missed that the first time.
Martin
@jl: Background checks for ammunition is a state law, went into effect on July 1, IIRC.
Martin
@eclare: I don’t think they’re trying to get her killed. I just don’t think they give a shit if she is killed.
MomSense
@A Ghost To Most:
First, none of us are saying ban guns. We want to regulate firearms. I personally want to see an assault weapons ban including ending importation of assault weapons. Alcohol is regulated and of course we can discuss ways to better regulate it.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
Not dead, in stable condition.
joel hanes
@A Ghost To Most:
If I understand the thrust of your argument, it’s a straw man.
I’m not advocating banning guns. Or alcohol.
I am an advocate of a ban on civilian ownership of military-grade firearms,
and of instituting at least as much bureacracy around owning and operating a gun as there is around owning and operating a car.
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: @Mnemosyne: NO NO NO NO NO…
IT IS MOST CERTAINLY NOT RIGHT FOR MASS SHOOTINGS TO OCCUR.
Jesus H. Christ, I’ve had that argument with other gun owners– that if we, as “law abiding gun owners” don’t engage HONESTLY with people who simply don’t want kids killed in job lots at school, eventually that precious 2nd Amendment WILL go by the boards.
But at the same time, y’all ignore the history of angry white mobs attacking innocent and peaceful black people.
And that makes me a “troll.’ Jesus Haploid Christ, but you’re SO WRONG.
Emma
@Gin & Tonic: I noticed he didn’t answer.
Elizabelle
@joel hanes: I am with you on all of that.
Get the insurers involved.
No more military grade weapons in civilians hands. No assault rifles. Buy them back, or confiscate them.
trollhattan
Did anybody bring ice cream for this fresh Monday pie? We made it from some of Cole’s peach haul.
Roger Moore
@A Ghost To Most:
We don’t ban alcohol, but we do have reasonable alcohol regulations, e.g. minimum drinking age, banning public consumption, forbidding driving drunk, etc. Most of those restrictions are considered to be sufficiently popular that it would be politically risky to suggest relaxing them. OTOH, we have an entire lobbying organization dedicated to overturning even the most sensible gun regulations, like not allowing people convicted of violent felonies to buy guns.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Haha. Pied yourself, you troll? ?
Aleta
@Elizabelle: I want to trust they are checking the white sup. boards and the anti-immigrant groups, including the CBP facebook group, and all of Stephen Miller’s contacts, for questioning about their groups and contacts. Esp. after T has announced he wants harsher terr00ist-like treatment for antifa groups.
I hate that the news on people imprisoned and mistreated in camps at the border—the immediate reporting from there, incl the protests by clergy and the identification as an international humanitarian crisis encouraged by our gov’t– has shifted to (also important) editorials on T’s dangerous racist speech; and that much coverage about yesterday’s deaths will go to ‘the debate’ and security and “who were these people?” and “what were the signs?”
‘These people’ are in our government.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
There’s something unique with the far-too-frequent spree-killer threads. They never fail to bring in a fresh harvest of both new and sideline-sitting trolls to be concerned about the looming threat of not the killers, but of imaginary gun-bans. But pie is good. As are waffles.
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: and here you are, one more example of how white Americans are utterly unwilling to engage with the legitimate concerns of people of color, while applauding themselves for being “liberal” and “woke.”
Just another American white twatwaffle numty.
Bill Arnold
@Professor Bigfoot:
I bothered to look, and you (and a previous nym) made some really on-point comments in the past, going back a decade.
The point is that that argument is in a known Russian troll argument class, and has been for a while. Also the vernacular usages seemed a little wobbly, though TBH I’m NY area not Ohio. So you lit up my troll detector too (hence the look; i have my own crawls and grep in addition to google etc.)
As far as the argument, well yea. A variant: politicians are soft targets for someone trained with a rifle with a scope. A movement to train large numbers of non-right-wing political activists would get a lot of attention. We really don’t want to go there as a country though. At least I don’t, at least not yet. It would be dominated by right-wing death squads pretty quickly.
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/gilroy-california-mass-shooting
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: All true. I think I have some waffles in the freezer. Mmmmm
J R in WV
@Harbison:
First post, huh? Keep it up…
Professor Bigfoot
@Bill Arnold: that there is a *fact.*
I don’t want to see that day come, I truly don’t… but as I’ve said before, *we got history* in this country.
I am just as horrified as anyone at the unhinged mass shooters… but since I come at it from a slightly different perspective, my thought isn’t to “get rid of the guns,” it’s to “stop giving white men the ‘benefit of the doubt’ and recognize that American white male culture tells American white men that they are entitled to EVERYTHING, and that they are justified in resorting to violence when they don’t get whatever they want.
You know how I knew this shooter was white? Because the cops that took him down then tried to do CPR to save him. If the shooter had been black or brown, they would have stood around and watched him bleed out; then given each other high-fives and fist-bumps. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Professor Bigfoot
And that’s why none of the black gun owners I know are willing to give up their arms.
We got history, yo.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
Despite being a huge “Parks & Rec” fan my kid is deeply anti-waffle. I have somehow failed. :-(
Ksmiami
@A Ghost To Most: alcohol is fun and safe in moderation and guns are lethal at any dose. So your point is pointless-
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: I actually think arming minorities is smart under the current and historical paradigms
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
No one is coming for your guns.
Repeat:
NO ONE IS COMING FOR YOUR GUNS.
Okay, do we have that out of the way yet, or do you need me to repeat it again?
I think everyone here — including me, a DNA-certified 100 percent white person — is acutely aware that these are WHITE SUPREMACIST attacks. The majority of these mass shooters are WHITE SUPREMACISTS who are trying to terrorize the population at large.
Given that reality, why are you convinced that the commenters here are going to call for you to give your guns up first if we know you’re Black? Calm the fuck down, man, and have a sensible conversation. You don’t see us demanding that synagogues and mosques stop having armed guards, do you?
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Kid must not be a syrup fan.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
If your worst failure as a parent is not raising a waffle lover, you’re doing well.
Jay
https://mockpaperscissors.com
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly:
I truly don’t think so. Imagine the most sensible, sober, responsible gun owner you can find. Now imagine that he lost his job, his wife walked out and took the kids, he got a cancer diagnosis, and somebody ran over his dog all on the same day. Are you still comfortable with him having a gun?
gvg
@Professor Bigfoot: You are a new to me poster. There are multiple black posters who comment often, are known to us, and have a totally different opinion. You aren’t the only black person, and you don’t speak for all of them. We just don’t find your argument convincing.
Your argument is pretty much the same as all gun nuts, a variant of a good guy with a gun can save us. It is a false argument, dangerous to blacks to buy into. A gun can’t save you from the Army, the whole police force nor a mob and you will be just as surprised as an unarmed person by a spree killer. Your children are just as uncareful as a white child, your family is just as prone to suicidal thoughts and guns are not your friend. Do you know what SWATting is? Its when a malicious person anonymously calls in to the police about someone they saw dangerous, to get the SWAT team to go break into some ones house that wasn’t actually doing anything. People get killed by this prank. Now picture stupid paranoid white people seeing a black person armed? Guns are not magic and won’t save you. Guns are actually more dangerous to minorities than white people, and they are plenty dangerous to us.
Reducing the number of guns around you and all of us, improves the odds. It’s only one thing of many that are needed to actually protect blacks from this society of course. Consider that you may be wrong.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Waffles and starting an MS-13 chapter at her high school.
Speaking of importing terrorists, our kid’s French friend flew from Paris to SFO yesterday for a month-long stay here. Customs thumbed through her passport and noticed a bunch of stamps from visits to Tunisia, where she has family. Evidently thinking they had an ISIS recruit on their hands they hauled her into secondary and quizzed her the better part of an hour. Of course, after she gets to Sac we all hear for the first time about Gilroy.
We are a deeply messed up nation.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
While in Tuscany, Italy a few years ago, we visited a small winery on a farm where we took a cooking lesson. Then after we did a lot of very Italian farm-style work in a very nice cooking classroom we had lunch, mostly what we made in the morning classes.
Dessert was really good vanilla ice cream with 20 year old balsamic vinegar on it — it was a fruity syrup. and really delicious, much to my surprise. They had vinegar up to 30 years old, it got thicker every year in barrels with an opening covered with cheesecloth. The older barrels were quite a bit smaller than the barrels used for the first 10 or 15 years… the price went up a whole lot also too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne:
Who said the people here would do it? Not I.
But there’s HISTORY, madame, history that you seem utterly unaware of. And that history shows that the primary purpose of “gun control” in this country has been to *disarm black people.*
As a cogent example, I give you the Mufford act, signed by that arch “conservative” Reagan, and only because Black Panthers open carried their firearms per then California law.
I said that *black people will be the first ones disarmed,* and I stand by that.
You don’t really think they’re going to disarm white supremacists, do you?
Steve in the ATL
@Professor Bigfoot: the Mufford Act disarmed everyone—black, white, brown, yellow, red, purple—and at the same time, did it not?
Professor Bigfoot
@gvg: As I have been a reader, lurker and commenter on this blog for more than a decade now, your “new to me” comment is ignored.
Oh yeah? Who? Name names, and show EXACTLY how they disagree with me.
I see your argument as little more than the “I have black friends!” defense.
trollhattan
@J R in WV:
Err mah gurd, “real” balsamic is amazing to the edge of being magical. Wish I had discovered it decades earlier, so now I have to catch up.
They do not give it away, however.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve in the ATL: It did… but it only happened because there were armed black men.
And I maintain that the fundamentally white supremacist culture of American policing will take the cops to the black mens homes FIRST.
Jay
Scumbag Nation.
Citizen Alan
@A Ghost To Most:
I am mortally offended At being compared to those cosplay socialist muppets at jacobin.
Aleta
Smaller towns like Gilroy bring in visitors and $ to merchants by organizing/revamping local festivals to bring crowds to main street and open spaces. Our little town has spent money to do this, following what seems to be a trend. In the last 10 years there are 3 more yearly things with themes. Supported by advertising and investment in the planning, fireworks etc. And a couple of traditional events (band concerts in the park, 4th of july) have been upgraded to get bigger crowds, named musicians, etc.
I looked on Gilroy’s website and they have a couple more (smaller) events coming up in the nest 4 months. Music festivals are another example of local organizing for community and vendors.
Direct harm to individuals and families and schools doesn’t matter enough to most lawmakers. Sales loss for a few months after a shooting at movie theaters and malls on big shopping days doesn’t last long enough for them to worry. I wonder whether this shooting will worry enough cities, businesses and restaurants who’re banking on crowds in August to lobby their representatives.
Adding security to their event won’t help if people just stay away from their music festival—state fair- –food fest—beer brewing festival—arts walk—river days. How long before people with guns aren’t enough to prevent chaos at a rodeo.
In the US businesses and investors have to hurt before big money and its legislators want change. Right now investment is huge in the security state and its industrial complex– contractors, manufacturers, and training and licensing scams to produce untested security professionals.
trollhattan
Somebody who huffily said they were done with us lot more than a hundred posts upthread seems to not be able to say goodbye. (But the pie–chef’s kiss)
Go Felicia, go! Byeeee!
trollhattan
@Jay:
Shed myself of him and his libertarian ass during the ’16 election. I see my disdain was not wasted.
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
So everyone should keep all of their guns and the mass shootings should go on because you don’t want to lose your ability to shoot back if things continue along this same fucked-up path?
I’m not going to deny that it’s a nasty Prisoners’ Dilemma. And I certainly would NOT suggest that you be first in line to surrender your guns.
But opposing things like limiting ammo purchases or banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds because white supremacists might break the law is you thinking about your own personal feelings rather than about sensible measures that will REDUCE THE NUMBER OF MASS MURDERS. It makes you, frankly, exactly like the racist white people who insist that their personal need to feel safe at Chipotle by open carrying their AR-15s is more important than anything or anyone else.
trollhattan
Monday in America.
Jay
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus:
Which is really what I was saying. The phrase “one bad day” was a reference to The Killing Joke in which the Joker argues to Batman that anyone could have become a killer like him after one sufficiently traumatic experience.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne:
So black people should be disarmed when the white supremacists come for us AS THEY HAVE DONE FOR DECADES? Right.
Have you heard me say anything about actual, “common sense” measures to limit mass gun murder?
No, my dear, you have not. Take that assumption and put it where it really belongs.
But most “liberals,” when they talk about “gun control,” are all about “take away the ‘assault rifles,’ if they won’t give them up, confiscate them,” etc. etc. etc.
Madame, that dog won’t hunt.
I, PERSONALLY, would like to see universal background checks, elimination of the so-called “gun show loophole,” and a few other things.
But the plain fact is that there are between 350 and 700 MILLION guns “in circulation” today.
Good luck trying to “confiscate them,” especially in the face of REPEATED threats to commit violence to preserve them (“cold dead hands” and all).
If you manage to disarm the white supremacists, I’ll happily give up mine.
UNTIL THEN, well…
Jay
Back in May.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/31/gilroy-police-seize-machine-gun-conversion-devices/
America is a very sick nation.
CarolDuhart
@Professor Bigfoot: i disagree with you. It’s worth noticing that for all your tenure, this is the thread you have chosen to de-lurk on. l’ve been here since 2006, when I first started following the Terry Schiavo affair. I’ve also followed the line for years given by the NRA that “gun control” means disarming people.
There are 300 plus million guns in this country that we know of. There is neither the political will or even the resources to confiscate guns in this country, and nobody thinks that would be a first step even if there were anyway. So why do these people go to “confiscation” immediately?
You know who really waters the tree of liberty these days? Ex-wives, girflriends and children. For every mass shooting like Gilfroy, there are several families who die this week, several stalked girlfriends and exes whose deaths do not even merit more than a blip on the news.
Re guns and resistance: even an AK-47 in an unorganized mob is no match for real military with cohesion and training.. So unless you are willing to go out and train in guerrilla tactics, it doesn’t do much more than postpone the inevitable.
Actually I’m against repealing the Second Amendment. Repeal would leave things up to the states with the loosest arms rules. Bootleg rocket launchers anyone? No “red flag warnings?” Open carry everywhere? No thanks>
joel hanes
@opiejeanne:
do I really want to pay to enter a place where I can buy garlic chewing gum or garlic ice cream?
Those are bad reasons to go.
The arts and crafts vendors are very good.
Some of the local wines available to taste are very good.
Some of the music is very good.
I’ve seen a really good bluegrass band at the GF,
and one year, Carlos Santana with a pickup band that
included a bunch of famous musicians from SF.
Some of the food is very good; some is execrable, but with reasonable discretion, you can eat very well indeed.
But it is _very_ hot in the afternoon.
Professor Bigfoot
@CarolDuhart: no, we don’t really disagree.
First, well, I usually don’t de-lurk simply because I’m not fast enough to catch up with the current thread; but I have done so before, and many times under my previous nym “Ivan Ivanovich Renko.”
Then, when you say,
I think you underestimate them. Badly. I have seen estimates ranging from 350 million to over 700 million, and in my humble opinion, THOSE numbers are too low.
AND THAT THERE SUCKS DONKEY BALLS. I understand and I agree with this; it genuinely pisses me off. And while I believe the best defense against those angry exes is for the potential victim to be armed, I understand why that’s just not feasible for many. (and it goes along with the argument about rape– why are we teaching women to avoid rape rather than teaching men to NOT rape? I GET THAT.)
Well, unlike those neo-Confederate white-supremacist “conservatives,” I don’t hate my government and I am not armed against the government. Only a damn fool with a rifle would try to take on just a SQUAD from the US Army or Marine Corps. The black gun owners I know just ain’t that effin’ stupid.
But I AM armed against white surpemacist neo-Confederate “conservatives.” It is THEY who have been the boot on the neck of black people since the Founding. And it is they who have told you repeatedly that you will pry their guns from their “cold dead hands.”
CarolDuhart2
Too many NRA talking points. The reality they really fear is people giving them up-buybacks, and putting them on the pyre somewhere. That people may just go back to handguns that kill only a few people instead of street sweepers and others means less money for the arms manufacturers and the end of the fostered paranoia that leads to people feeling they need those kinds of guns. As far as your comments go, a pistol, shotgun, or even a revolver works for that against unorganized people.
rikyrah
Not shocked in the least.
REVEALED: Racist final Instagram posts of ‘Gilroy Garlic festival shooter’ quoting anarchist book and complaining about ‘Silicon Valley’ moments before he opened fire on terrified crowds, killing three including a six-year-old boy
The gunman was named on Monday as Santino William Legan, a 19-year-old
He was shot dead at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California at 5.41pm Sunday
An Instagram account run in his name complained about ‘mestizos’, a slur for a mixed race person
It also complained about ‘Silicon Valley twats’ and posted photographs from the festival itself
Witnesses say he was dressed in army fatigues, had a handkerchief around his neck and had an assault rifle
When asked why he was firing into the crowd, witnesses say he replied: ‘Because I’m really angry’
Police say he got into the festival by using bolt cutters to get through the metal fences surrounding it
The event, which attracts 100,000 every year to Gilroy (the garlic capital of the world), had metal detectors
Authorities believe the gunman had help and they are searching for his ‘accomplice’
One of the three people killed was six-year-old Steven Romero of San Jose, California
Fifteen people were also injured and many remain in various hospitals in the area
By JENNIFER SMITH and MEGAN SHEETS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:51 EDT, 29 July 2019 | UPDATED: 12:56 EDT, 29 July 2019
Professor Bigfoot
@CarolDuhart2: and once again, you get the neo-Confederates to give up theirs and I’ll happily give up mine.
UNTIL THEN… you’re telling me I have no right to defend myself from them because *white men go crazy with guns and shoot up places.*
I can’t go for that.
joel hanes
@Mnemosyne:
No one is coming for your guns.
To be scrupulously fair, the cops are likely to treat black (or brown) people even more harshly if they are found to own firearms, even if legally owned and responsibly secured. “gangs”, you know.
Professor Bigfoot
@CarolDuhart2:
Which ones are NRA talking points, madame? DO, please, enlighten me.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Sadly, the stories write themselves for the most part. We know who they are. We know what they do. We can never truly know “why” because that requires acquiring a twisted mind, but we can sure the hell make some predictions based on their beliefs and historical actions.
End civilian ownership of military weaponry. Now.
joel hanes
@Steve in the ATL:
Facts usually an ineffective rebuttal to fear.
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Well, there’s this one:
That’s one hundred percent NRA bullshit right there. There is ZERO proof that arming a domestic violence or stalking victim does any good whatsoever. The only thing that does any good is to REMOVE guns from the household and from the hands of the abuser.
When your answer to everything is MOAR GUNZ, then you’re parroting the NRA, whether you realize it or not.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Seconded.
Sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Which Akron?
CarolDuhart2
NRA talking points are “confiscation” as a response to any mass shooting and any attempt to regulate guns. The “good guy with a gun” fantasy. Arming girlfriends prevents rape and domestic violence. A lot of rape is date rape, where nobody expects it, or are too impaired to stop it. Let’s not even talk about incest or molesting, where the victim either trusts the victimizer or is too small to defend themselves effectively. All of them are not true.
With domestic violence, how do you protect children? Arm them too? Even six year olds?
There’s this fantasy of ‘outgunning” and quick response. The reality is that the shooter knows, the potential victims don’t, of if they do the shooter has placed them in a position to be unable to resist. The victim is caught off-guard here.
What about folks who get killed going to and from work? What if a person is armed, but outgunned?
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne: well, a stopped clock is right twice a day, isn’t it?
I didn’t come to that conclusion from the white supremacist asswipes at NRA; and I couched it as “in my opinion.*
Your preferred solution is to disarm the potential shooter; and I agree with that– IF YOU CAN.
Sometimes you can’t. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But okay, I’ll give you that. Nonetheless, that’s a difference of *opinion,* and you have no monopoly on what’s right and what’s not.
As for me, any time some asshole wants to threaten his girlfriend or his wife or his ex or WHATEVER, I’d like to see them *plugged.* I guess that makes me a barbarian.
What else?
Professor Bigfoot
@Sab: Akron Ohio, home of the mighty Zips, center of the global tire and polymer industry, and all around nice place to live. :)
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne: Oh, and let me state this for the record:
FUCK the NRA, fuck ’em sideways with rusty farm implements. I go NO love for those racist fuckers.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ruckus: @Citizen Alan: How about we put it this way:
Whether or not they’ve had a bad day, or a bad several days, or a bad life. Having to choose, locate & buy the weapon – not to mention passing a background check – provides a significant “cooling off” period during which the putative shooter can have second thoughts.
** “Sufficiently powerful” meaning able to deliver multiple rounds able to cause mortal injury within an interval too short for armd security to react. Muzzle-loaders contemporary with the Second Amendment need not apply.
Sab
@Professor Bigfoot: I am there too!
I remember that white supremacist nut job open-carrying with a semiautomatic down Copley Road because the neighborhood made him “nervous.” And the cops claimed they couldn’t do a thing unless and until he actually shot somebody.
ETA agree it’s a nice place to live.
Ascap_scab
The 2nd A sez you have a right to bear arms (we’ll forget about that militia part for now), nowhere does it say you have a right to ammunition.
Professor Bigfoot
@Sab: yeah, I remember that asshole.
They are always *white guys,* who identify as “conservative,” “hate the government” (’cause it’s been the Feds who have stepped in to defend the rights of minority communities from Little Rock onward), and live by the “cold dead hands” credo.
Someone above mentioned that “facts are usually an ineffective rebuttal to fear.”
But no one wants to address *why* we have that fear of these (almost always) white, “conservative” whackos.
Professor Bigfoot
@Sab: okay, I lied. I always say Akron because pretty much nobody ever heard of Canton (unless they’re pro football fans.)
I really consider Akron/Canton to be one place, since i usually fly in and out of CAK… :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, and every woman is three drink from wanting to have a girl-girl experience.
Sab
@Professor Bigfoot: My Chinese BIL thinks Canton’s name is hilarious.
Neldob
Maybe we should name the mass shootings like hurricanes but after particular senators or congresspeople. Or number them, like this could be slaughter Mitch McConnell # 240, something like that.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have to admit, I lean way more towards Citizen Alan’s opinion here. I have the possibly cynical opinion that everyone is capable of lethal violence under the right circumstances — it’s mostly luck that very few people get pushed to that point. But because I think everyone is CAPABLE of it, that makes me comfortable with pretty restrictive gun control.
@Professor Bigfoot:
Here’s my offer: each adult over 21 is allowed a maximum of three operable guns. A bolt-action hunting rifle, a shotgun, and — if they pass additional screening — a non-semi-automatic handgun. In order to own these three, they must pass a screening similar to the one you have to pass in Illinois to get a handgun license. Any other guns on any property owned or leased or rented by the license-holding adult are subject to confiscation, and they can lose their license and ANY right to own guns for violating this.
Good enough for you, or do you just HAVE to own an AR-15 just in case Cletus next door is breaking the law?
tarragon
@Professor Bigfoot:
The rubber city, but not as fun as that makes it sound.
Mnemosyne
Argh. It wouldn’t let me edit with the IL FOID link:
https://www.gunstocarry.com/gun-laws-state/illinois-gun-laws/foid-card/
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: My view is that we almost are capable of violence in the right circumstances. I do not think that most people are likely to go on a killing spree or mass shooting of strangers.
Roger Moore
@CarolDuhart2:
What about innocent bystanders who get caught in the crossfire? It’s actually pretty shocking how often this happens. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the LA Times Homicide Blog, and one of the things that’s clear is that many of those homicides are of bystanders who were shot because somebody has lousy aim.
Cameron
First they came for the guns,but because I was not a gun,I said nothing…..
A Ghost To Most
@Citizen Alan:
I have no idea what that means. The Jacobins I refer to are the purity queens constantly trying to shrink our big tent in the name of their one burning issue.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne: no, that’s not good enough for me.
You’re not qualified to tell me what I “need” to deal with white supremacist mob violence.
Those white supremacist mobs have been stockpiling ARs for decades.
You want me and mine unarmed in the face of racist murderers (please don’t pretend that we folk of color are in no danger from these people.)
But you go on and do you, lady, and enjoy your privilege.
Elizabelle
@Neldob:
Love your idea. Shame and ridicule the enablers of this gun violence.
A Ghost To Most
@Mnemosyne:
No thanks. Your offer leaves out my .58 muzzleloader. It never shot a thing that could have lived, just clay pots and clay pigeons. Nothing is simple.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: What do you believe that you need ?
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Then you’re enabling white supremacist murderers like the one in Gilroy. Period.
By the way, I have friends from Gilroy who fortunately were not at the festival this weekend. The town is about 300 miles north of me. But, please, tell me again that I have no idea what it’s like to have your friends and family in the cross-hairs of white supremacists from your comfortable seat 2,000 miles away from the actual bloodshed.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
One problem with your offer is that people who shoot competitively will frequently use multiple calibers of rifle and pistol. Also different calibers of hunting rifle are used for different types of hunting, for different ranges of shot. You don’t hunt Alaskan bear with a deer rifle, for example, nor deer with a varmite rifle… And goose hunting, duck hunting, and peasant hunting all take different gauges of shotgun. My old time farmer next door hunted with a 28 gauge shotgun, which is rare and very small.
I have my Great-Uncle Harlow’s pistols, neither of which is particularly useful for self-defense, but both of which are, to me, heirlooms and rememberances of my Great-Uncle, of whom I have vague recollections of him and Aunt Cata playing sonatas, she on the piano and he on the violin. He carried a pistol when he was a pack salesman with mules carrying his merchandise, crossing rivers on horse propelled ferries in the mountains of Southern WV.
One is an Ivers-Johnson short .38 revolver, a little rough looking as he used it as a hammer at least once. I hope he unloaded it, but since he died of very old age he didn’t injure himself with it. It still works, but ammo for it is scarce.
He also had a .22 revolver which I don’t shoot as the cylinder doesn’t always line up with the barrel, which is very dangerous for the shooter. Neither of these pistols is likely to be useful for mass murder, nor would I like them to be confiscated. I do have some history books Great-Uncle put together, which are also heirlooms in their odd way. They go for big bucks back home. He was also a slight-of-hand magician, with a big shock of white hair, never lost a bit of it. Wish I had inherited THAT! An interesting character.
I also have some pistols that belonged to my best friend’s father, who was a gunsmith. They’re all .22 pistols IIRC. Interestingly, his wife is a bishop… He still has some of the more interesting guns that were his father’s. I have some because there were so many… heirlooms, though, all of them.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: The same things they have.
Is that so hard to understand?
I mean, I can see that Mnemosyne is so wrapped in her safe white privilege that she simply cannot acknowledge that there might be a legitimate need for the legitimate defense of innocents— going so far as to tell the black gun owner who is armed to defend himself and his family against white supremacist violence that HE is RESPONSIBLE for a white supremacist killer.
I guess that’s not so unprecedented, though, it’s always our own fault that we’re shot by police or lynched by white mobs or have our homes bombed from the air— we MUST have done SOMETHING to deserve it.
Ain’t that some shit? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Bill Arnold
While poking at this effect, found this:
The Age of Trump Is Producing More Black Gun Owners (May 8, 2017).
Apparently black gun dealers did not see the “Trump Slump” in gun sales; precisely the opposite. (That article touches a bit on Ohio, FWIW.) Interesting to read.
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yes, I’m the one who FUCKING KNOWS PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LIVE IN MOTHERFUCKING GILROY, CA, but I live in a sheltered world of privilege where I can’t be touched by mass shootings.
You know what? Go fuck yourself, you narrow-minded asshole. I know you don’t give a shit if I live or die as long as you can have your fucking toys.
You’re 2,000 miles away from Gilroy and you’re telling ME I’m sheltered and privileged?
Fuck.
You.
Asshole.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne:
Yes I am, privileged white woman. Becky. Karen. Whatever.
Mnemosyne
@Professor Bigfoot:
So, just to be clear, I live in a privileged bubble where the worst thing that can happen is that I’ll be randomly murdered by a white supremacist with a gun, while you live in the harsh real world where the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll be randomly murdered by a white supremacist with a gun?
Yep, that sure is a huge difference. What a shame it is that you can’t live in my sheltered bubble of being randomly murdered by white supremacists. I sure will stop complaining about people being randomly murdered by white supremacists now that I know that being randomly murdered by white supremacists is the kind of thing that only happens to sheltered white people.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mnemosyne: That’s correct, Becky.
I have a MUCH GREATER CHANCE of being murdered by a white supremacist than you ever will, Karen.
But you, with your privilege. and your privileged stupidity, will NEVER acknowledge that shit, you wretched pale faced numty.
But you keep on howling, okay? Keep it up, Becky.