One of the more amusing things is listening to Americans who have never been out of the god damned state and are terrified of their own damned shadows. Listen to all the idiots around you blathering about their every day carry and what not because they’re such fucking wimps they need a god damned arsenal to go to the god damned grocery store.
Why did a 65-year-old man kill a 20-year-old woman who had accidentally pulled into his Upstate New York driveway? Why did an 84-year-old man fire two bullets into a 16-year boy who had mistakenly knocked on his door in Kansas City? Why did a 43-year-old man in South Florida allegedly shoot at a 19-year-old Instacart delivery driver and his 18-year-old girlfriend who had arrived at the wrong address?
Experts blame a cocktail of factors: the easy availability of guns, misconceptions around stand-your-ground laws, the marketing of firearms for self-defense — and a growing sense among Americans, particularly Republicans, that safety in their backyard is deteriorating.
Since 2020, the share of Republicans who said that crime is rising in their community has jumped from 38 percent to 73 percent, according to the latest Gallup numbers from last fall. Among Democrats, that same concern climbed only 5 percentage points to 42 percent, marking the widest partisan perception gap since the polling firm first asked the question a half-century ago.
And let’s not just point to our insane gun laws- the media is complicit in this. They regurgitate the lies about crime that Republicans and tough on crime Democrats peddle.
Damien
Republican criminals convinced crime is rising…
Poe Larity
What kind of “man” would live somewhere where his family needed to be defended by guns? Let alone a bazooka.
sukabi
@Damien: they should know, they are on a crime spree….
that guy in the pic, that’s some extreme insecurity.
Roger Moore
I think there are also a lot of people looking for reasons to be afraid. I don’t really understand why, but I think they’re basically afraid of everything, so they’re looking for reasons to justify their fear.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Since crime is out of control in Republican controlled states maybe their voters should try electing Democrats to get it under control.
The first thing to do when hitting yourself in the face with a hammer is to stop doing so.
NotMax
Remember after September 11 when every podunk pie eating contest was absolutely convinced they were the next target?
Dopey-o
James Baldwin wrote “ They hate because they know once the hate stops, they will feel their fear.”
Our country is being driven into a ditch by fearful cowardly lunatics.
mrmoshpotato
@Poe Larity: Penis. Substitute.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: No, I don’t, but I believe it given what a racist shitstain the Rethuglican party has been for longer than I’ve been alive.
Also, hahaha, terrorists are going to strike Sisterfuck, Arkansas. Ok Bubba…
Suzanne
Because Fox News is inciting fear of a black planet? Because we’ve allowed young irresponsible men to get their hands on firearms?
Citizen Alan
@Roger Moore: Everything the Republican does is done out of greed, fear, and/or hate. The Republican would be lost if they had no one to be afraid of, no one to hate, and no opportunity to screw other people in order to make a buck.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
The capacity for self-aggrandizement among a subset of Americans is voluminous.
Jackie
Congrats, John! This post was posted on Memeorandum! Expect new posters – positive and negative.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: True.
Suzanne
@NotMax: The Pigsknuckle County Tractor Pull had, like, 300 attendees one year.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
It’s not just young, irresponsible men, though. If anything, the old men are worse, because they feel even more afraid because they aren’t as physically fit as they used to be. The asshole in Missouri who shot Ralph Yarl was in his 80s, and his age was given as an excuse for shooting first. See, if he had waited until the kid on his porch had shown any bad intentions, it would have been too late.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: That’s true. But young men disproportionately commit a large percentage of crimes, and we let them have guns. What could go wrong?
Cameron
@Roger Moore: I think it’s the same source as their hate. They believe they no longer control their own lives, so they’ll sell themselves to some Big Daddy who will protect them by bashing all the Scary People.
dmsilev
As the article goes on to note, objective reality is that in most communities, crime is not rising. Facts continue to have a liberal bias.
dmsilev
@Poe Larity: As home defense weapons go, it’s hard to think of much that would be more poorly suited than a bazooka. ‘We had to burn down the house to save it’.
Kelly
A problem with shoulder holsters is it’s easier for someone standing in front of you to draw your pistol than it is for you to draw your pistol.
Rose Weiss
Uneducated people who have never traveled are also deathly afraid of going to other states, let alone other countries. Some people talk in near whispers about even going to Europe as if it’s the most dangerous place on earth. If I tell them it’s much safer than the U.S. I get hostile stares.
Keith P.
He probably figures – “worse case scenario – I respawn back in friendly territory.”
Redshift
@dmsilev: Yeah, but it really pisses me off that 42 percent of Democrats say crime is going up. “If it bleeds it leads” news is partially responsible, but I also feel like lots of elected Democrats aren’t strong enough in this, probably because people don’t respond well to bring told they’re wrong when they feel less safe.
Dangerman
WTF is the Green thing?
I’m sure you’ve all heard the joke about the two Dudes that run into a bear, with the punchline being “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.”
If I’m robbing that joint, first Dude I pop is THAT guy, then I take his weapons, do my business, and run. Do you think he’s ever seen Michael Douglas in “Falling Down?”
apocalipstick
Has anyone done any research into the effect of Next Door? That app’s a steaming pile of 🐕 💩.
CaseyL
@apocalipstick:
Oh, gods, Next Door. It used to be a place where people complained about dog owners who didn’t clean up after their pets.
Now it’s all about suspicious people, everywhere, casing homes, looking at cars, loitering on street corners. (I don’t go to the forums, ever, but still get the Notifications. The only part of NextDoor I actually use is their marketplace.)
These social apps being used to drive people crazy with fear and hatred, or fear and self-loathing, or commodifying every aspect of their lives…maybe we were better off without them all.
eversor
@Redshift:
This sort of falls into a gray area though. The SO is a small tiny little woman so she gets freaked out about things that I do not. Being that she is 5’2 and you don’t mention a womans weight and I’m 6’0 200, a vet, grew up with rugby/boxing/hockey there is a world of difference between what gets our hackles up.
Catch is she’s not wrong that there are more and more homeless camps all over our trips downtown and they are more aggressive. She’s also not wrong that there are more random dipshit acts like driving a car and hurling eggs or objects at pedestrians. She’s not wrong that more and more stuff is locked up at the CVS and grab and bolts have gone up. Crime on the METRO is not that much up but yeah people still get attacked. She had a situation with her niece and has sworn off public transit forever.
But this combines with a larger issue. The non stop firehose of mass shootings everywhere! The result of this is panic for some people. There is a homeless issue in cities and a petty crime issue that is glossed over but to people more vulnerable that matters. There are solutions to this and it’s not fear mongering, it’s building more housing and dealing with wage issues. But this combines with people getting gunned down everywhere (the real fucking issue) and makes people jumpy.
We had an issue at my old job where people already on edge about a homeless camp in Georgetown (where the office was) went irate after we had an office shutdown. The issue was nothing. Just some random crazy in the office and it’s DC it happens! And he was grabbed by office workers and walked out. It was a big nothing. This stuff never makes the news, person causes a scene! But everyone thought it was a live fucking shooter event at first. Next thing you know people are yelling and screaming about the homeless camp, the human shit on the canal jogging road, the panhandling, and more. None of which has fuck all to do with random middle class whackos wandering into an office and causing a scene.
There are two problems. There’s a low level problem that all in all can be fixed by sane measures and in the scheme of things is not really a problem. And then there is a problem of constant shootings which is the real problem and needs fixed and fucking fast.
Also general thread nitpick what the dumbass in the picture he’s carrying is an AT-4 launcher/tube. Once fired it’s done. IIRC these aren’t still civilian legal if loaded but it’s completely legal if dead in most places. So this is owning the libs, or just trolling for the sake of trolling and who knows what side or what point. I can’t pick out the hip guns but they look like Civil War or American Indian Wars relics. These are not easy or cheap to get and certainly not AR-15 level monsters or even your average 9 or 45.
It’s still an idiot thing to do. But there is no way any of this was more than just bullshit cosplay!
Ken
Charles Stross’s The Rhesus Chart has a possibly-relevant passage, where one of the Laundry’s new recruits (who happens to be a vampire) is being introduced to his mentor (who happens to be a priest). The priest says,
“I promise not to try to hammer a stake through your heart or set you on fire, as long as you promise not to rip my throat out. Okay? We in the twenty-first century have this marvelous technical innovation, it’s called civilization, and it means we don’t have to make promises like that to everyone we meet because we can usually take it for granted.”
Which in turn reminds me of a talk that Paul Krugman gave at some cryptocurrency conference, where he noted that the history of banking is largely a matter of mechanisms that increase trust. That reduces transaction costs — I can swipe a credit card and the store lets me walk out with goods, because we both trust that the financial system will eventually move money from my account to the store’s. Cryptocurrency abandoned trust in favor of algorithmic verification for every transaction, but that introduces larger transaction costs.
Ken
@CaseyL: I think Colin Robinson on What We Do in the Shadows had the definitive summary of Next Door, in this clip.
“I made a posting on the website Next Door asking if anyone saw anything suspicious, but it, it just kind of turned into an orgy of racism.”
(Apparently I’m on a vampire theme tonight. Someone post something about Goldman Sachs so I can hit a trifecta.)
Ruckus
It’s faux news.
I haven’t watched in a long time but I’d bet it hasn’t gotten better in well forever. They cover any crime as if it is the absolute current BIG FUCKING DEAL and that the US absolutely needs conservative politics to fight the horrendous crime stats. With over 300 million people and a fair number of poor and an unfair number of overly wealthy who create absolutely nothing of value to anyone but themselves. What we need is a far better balance of money distribution so that not so many people are always having to be on the edge of not anywhere close enough to an economic level to live and eat regular. We have assholes like SFB, one of the most useless assholes on the planet with an air of superiority that is absolute bullshit, and is adored by complete fucking assholes who think his shit doesn’t stink. Sure he’s losing some of them but the concept that he is in any way useful, even to himself is complete and utter bull. And while he likes the limelight, there are others who are not any better and don’t make the same amount of waves and still do near as much public bullshit. The guy in the picture up top who thinks he looks like a bad ass. I guess the only thing left to say is “What the fuck is the conservative side turning into? And how do we make it stop?
West of the Rockies
@Poe Larity:
When were you last in a situation where you said, “If only I had a bazooka!”
So tired of ape-armed man-babies with their shaved heads and hairy faces.
Chris T.
@CaseyL:
I’ve been tempted to say “just pull out your AK47 and spray bullets randomly around your house any time you hear anything suspicious, like a car driving down the street”…
ortolan
You could just snatch that money out of his hand and run. He’d have no time to react.
Brachiator
It’s nuts. Americans believe in the mystical power of firearms to solve any problem. And of course Fox News keeps pushing the lie that every neighborhood is full of murderous non-white people invading the homes of good white people.
And stand your ground laws are particularly stupid. They often favor the person who shoots first, especially if that person is white. There is no possibility of hearing the other guy’s version if he is dead.
More complicated than that. The media has accurately noted stories about youth deaths exceeding deaths from car accidents and the recent report on the increase in mass killings and the weird distinction between mass killings and active shooter killings.
I’ve also read stories about how Republicans prevent the government from doing comprehensive studies about gun deaths.
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator: even worse: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/s-just-insanity-atf-now-needs-2-weeks-perform-routine-gun-trace-rcna39606
Brachiator
@Chetan Murthy:
Damn. I would think that even a generous reading of the Second Amendment would allow for reliable record keeping.
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator: I’m sure it does; that’s why Congress passed a law to forbid it, right?
tomtofa
Handling a gun raises testosterone, firing one releases endorphins.
People (mainly men) look for reasons to handle and fire guns; feeling threatened is a good reason, so people manufacture threats.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: In 2020, after Covid was in full rampage and no one was going anywhere except out of extreme need, a bunch of armed loonies decided that they needed to defend downtown Snohomish from Antifa. It made the news and was well-ridiculed, and when no baddies showed up these idiots were certain it was because they had scared them away.
Snohomish is a small town of 10,000 people about 30 miles NNE of Seattle and very whitt first glance the downtown looks like it never left the 1930s, until you look more closely and notice that all of those hardware and shoe stores are little boutiques or gigantic antique malls. There is a saloon that serves a decent lunch, and a pie shop, a fish restaurant, and a couple of other places to eat. The old downtown covers about six blocks and the architecture is a Hollywood period piece, and not a likely target of a large protest. The people protesting police brutality were busy in Seattle, marching through town or occupying a park.
Mai Naem mobile
@CaseyL: NextDoor could make you think any neighborhood is just teeming full of crime. There was a funny post on my NextDoor by a lady giving a heads up to her neighbors that she an older grey haired white lady was going to be driving around in her late model white Toyota Corolla taking pictures of front yards because she was planning on redoing her yard and she wanted some ideas to show her landscape guy.
TriassicSands
RE the photo above: I’m pretty sure that’s the largest enema syringe I’ve ever seen. I just can’t figure out why Bozo thought he needed to take it to the store with him.
TriassicSands
One of the points I often make is about how ill-informed our electorate is. While that isn’t as bad on the Left as it is on the Right, Democrats, in general, are not very well informed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Rose Weiss:
In Louisville, Kentucky I once mentioned in a fast food drive through that I was just back from Los Angeles. The teller asked if I was relieved to get away from the crime. I told him it was way safer in LA than downtown Lexington. He just stared, owl-eyed. That information rocked his world.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Brachiator:
I use a machine gun to trim the hedges.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
Ah, the Toledo Hustle. Neighbors about to get burgled.
satby
If you substitute the phrase “crime is going up” with the phrase “I see more non-white people everywhere now” it would more accurately capture what they’re really afraid of.
Baud
@satby:
👍
raven
@TriassicSands: It’s a AT4 anti-armor weapon and they are only legal once they are fired and they can’t be reloaded.
lowtechcyclist
@Redshift:
Hell, I can’t make anything of that number by itself. Maybe it also says that 42% of Dems say it’s going down, and the remaining 16% say it’s about the same, or that they don’t know.
Also, the time period. Crime is way down almost everywhere compared to the 1970s through 1990s. But even as a pretty well-informed American, I have no idea whether crime has gone up, down, or stayed about the same over the past year or two. So I have a hard time getting riled at what might be essentially random noise responses to a question that most people who don’t mainline RW media don’t think about that much.
lowtechcyclist
@raven:
Even assuming I knew that much, I’d also have to know how easy or difficult it is to get hold of one that hasn’t been fired.
As someone who knows nothing about such weaponry, it just looks to me like something that could blow a pretty decent-sized hole in a building, and that the only reason to carry something like that around is because he’s on his way to blow a big hole in a building. I’d certainly call 911 on someone that was carrying one of those.
Geminid
There was a positive development in this area Friday, when Governor Polis of Colorado signed four new gun safety laws. One raised the minimum age for firearms purchases from 18 to 21, while another set a 3 day waiting period for firearms purchases (9 other states plus D.C. have waiting periods). The state’s “Red Flag” law was enhanced, and civil liability protections for gun makers and sellers that were enacted 10 years ago were repealed.
A fifth law that would outlaw “ghost guns” is expected to pass the legislature this session.
raven
@lowtechcyclist: If it was a live weapon it would, in fact, be illegal.
Soprano2
@satby: Yep, or “I see more homeless people”.
Steve M.
They want to be the heroes of their own story, so they invent an enemy and then slaughter it.
Steve M.
They want to be the heroes of their own story, so they invent an enemy and then slaughter it.
CliosFanBoy
@lowtechcyclist:
If I remember right, after the pandemic began to ease (at least in our minds) some types of violent crime increased, but overall rates are much, much lower than they were in the 80s.
brantl
An awful lot of people have turned into brick-shitting Barney Fyfes.
Realworldrj
Is that a real picture? Because it’s unfucking real
dimmsdale
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, we can thank generations of NRA-funded congress-garbage for that, otherwise a principled, public-spirited government entity (NIH, ATF, take your pick) would have been doing public-health studies of firearm deaths for years. We’ve missed SO much history that would be crucial to such studies, simply by not collecting it at all, which of course is what “they” want.
On the other hand, HERE is a relatively recent university-funded study of several contiguous states, each with slightly different gun laws, that attempts to identify crucial factors in firearms deaths. ( https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/2019/state-gun-laws-that-reduce-gun-deaths/ )
Interesting to note that banning assault weapons isn’t as important among those factors as are background checks and red-flag laws (presumably if those last 2 were in full effect, they would have nabbed mass shooters before they could act).
The studies need to be replicated nationwide, obviously; but imo, if localities only get one or two tries at sane gun control before NRA goobers (or the Supreme Court, but I repeat myself) squash them, background checks and red-flag laws (robustly enforced!) would seem to be the way to go.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@eversor: Homeless camps and aggressive panhandling have greatly increased in my community too, despite the abundance of help wanted signs and increase in wages. More and more stuff is also locked down at the Walgreens here too. That does freak people out
We need more laws around private equity ownership of real estate. Rising rents are a disaster.
Geminid
@dimmsdale: A “permit to purchase” system like California’s would also have an effect. Missouri’s firearms violence made a noticeable jump when they repealed their permit to purchase law ~2010. These laws impose an additional step for buying firearms, and can impose additional qualifications for firearms ownership. California requires a firearms training course for a permit, and then specifically licenses each firearm purchased.
dimmsdale
@Geminid: Yeah, it’s the darndest thing, isn’t it, how removing permitting structures contributes to firearms deaths! Hoocouldaknowed! As MAGA republican legislatures remove more and more protections against crazed shooters, and the body kill mounts, I keep hoping for the penny to drop among the electorate. Hopefully soon.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the recent dumb Supreme Court gun decision, NYC instituted a set of laws requiring concealed-carry permit applicants to undergo fitness and proficiency exams AND supply 4 letters of reference as to the applicant’s character. And, given the NYPD’s bureaucratic inertia (and hopefully time needed for background checks), you’re looking at a couple months between submitting the paperwork and getting the permit). Minimal standards maybe, but they’d go toward keeping NYC a relatively gun-safe environment; hell, I can see a whole ad campaign by the tourist board: “Visit NYC! Bonus–you’re less likely to get shot here than in your own damn town!”
Geminid
@dimmsdale: Gun safety has started to be a positive issue for Democrats in purple states. Virginia Democrats used to be afraid to touch it, but they leaned into gun safety in the 2017 election and again in 2019.
They won a majority that year, and passed 6 popular gun safety measures in the 2020 session. Republicans took back the House of Delegates in 2021, and tried to repeal 5 of these laws. The state Senate stopped them, and now gun control will be a good issue for Democrats in this fall’s General Assembly races, I think.
Matt McIrvin
@CliosFanBoy: Homicide, specifically, increased and then decreased again.
But of course these shootings by fearful or enraged people become a self-perpetuating thing: shootings are violent crimes, fear of violent crime leads to more shootings, but it’s justified because, see, violent crime is up! The reductio ad absurdum is the case where two armed people meet in the street and both have the right to kill each other under Stand Your Ground, because they’re both so scared.
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift:
Well, is crime going up? It certainly seems like homicides by fearful guys with guns are going up. We’re in a weird post-pandemic situation now where things changed rapidly and fluctuations over a 12-month period might be relevant, but there isn’t good data yet. There was a spike in homicide induced by the pandemic, and a few years prior where the year-over-year numbers were increasing modestly if I recall correctly. Last I heard homicides seemed to be decreasing again but very recent data are incomplete. I don’t think property crimes have changed very much, though there are a few specific types that spiked like catalytic converter thefts.
Crime is way down compared to 30 years ago, but that isn’t what the question asked.
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne:
Yes, but it’s not just Fucks Snooze. The TFNYT spent the entire run-up to the last election hammering on rising crime rates (they weren’t), specifically associated with reforming bail policies (no association). And so we end up with House losses in NYS and then lose the House.
And as Adam reminds us, TFNYT sets the left side of any issue. It is maddening to try to convince my liberal friends and family that TFNYT is a conservative instrument of the wealthy. They agree on individual examples, but just can’t seem to quite quit The Gray Lady.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: Yeah, but no assault weapon ban. I don’t know what persuaded them not to go through with that one. :(
Bart
@NotMax:
Yup. And plenty of those podunk places gobbled up tons of anti-terrorism funds, using even 9/11 as an opportunity to grift.
Mo MacArbie
Shit, now I want to wear a bong like that.
dimmsdale
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve been a subscriber to a couple of special interest gun-collector email threads, a sort of gun-enthusiast news/ opinion ecosystem outside of the mainstream news outlets; however service-oriented they may be to their subscribers, they also traffic in justifications for owning a gun “just in case” and lovingly curate second- and third-hand anecdotes about home invasions, plucky gun owners defending their territory, and so on. Not saying these gun buffs are impervious to arguments in favor of some public protections; the carnage is getting so bad now that I like to think that support for the kinds of ballot measures Geminit mentions above, is actually coming from gun owners as well.
karensky
@Dopey-o: Excellent.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: In 2020, Virginia Democrats passed on an assault weapon ban. They enacted 6 other gun safety laws, but punted a proposed assault weapons ban to a state body that was to work on good definitions.
They may have looked at polling. The Wason Center’s poll right before the session showed that the six measures passed had 75% support, while an assault weapons ban was more like 54-46% in favor.
Johannes
@West of the Rockies: Well, Buffy needed one to take out the Judge.
The Moar You Know
@dimmsdale: if anyone were interested in a weapons ban that would actually put a serious dent in gun crime/deaths, we wouldn’t be talking about banning assault/battle rifles, we’d be talking about banning handguns.
Dems fell for the NRA framing on this issue
You point about background checks and red flag laws being far more effective than any bans is on point. Only a few states even make any attempt at either. It matters. The CA 10-day waiting period matters a LOT.
tokyokie
@eversor: The moron has those long-barreled revolvers in holsters that require him to reach across his torso to draw. If he were to encounter somebody with a 9mm automatic, the other person would shoot him four times before his gun cleared the holster. And I guess the rocket launcher is for when somebody cuts him off in traffic.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chief Oshkosh: Not to mention, shows like C.O.P.S. (which has been running almost 24/7 for decades) and LivePD (the most popular show on cable). From Birth of a Nation to Dragnet to Death Wish/Dirty Harry to COPS/LivePD, there’s been a trend of this pants-shitting, Crime Is On The Rise!!1! stuff, forever in this country, perpetually stoking the Fear of A Black/Brown Planet (because at the end of the day it is always about those people).
dimmsdale
@tokyokie: I don’t think utility is the point of the display, I think TERROR is the point. That, and some version of “I AM SOMEBODY, DAMMIT!” As long as it’s a lone bozo wearing such practically improbable hardware, that’s one thing. The MAGA-led evisceration of protections for regular folks (repealing duty of retreat, for instance) makes two or more of these jerks, especially when kitted out in Fallujah-wear, an actual public safety menace. At some point the crabbed, batshit recent re-interpretation of the 2nd Amendment has to collide with the freedom of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” that the rest of us wish to lead, but I’m not sure if we’re there yet.
Daoud bin Daoud
@apocalipstick: I regret having signed up for Next Door years ago. It was a pile of old white men shitposting about their less melanin-deficient neighbors.
Other MJS
Apparently, this was a non-functional device, so I assume he carried it to intimidate or piss people off.
tokyokie
@dimmsdale: I have long maintained that open carry constitutes the common-law definition of assault, which, according to Wikipedia, is “unlawfully and intentionally applying force to the person of another, or inspiring a belief that force is immediately to be applied to him.” The whole justification for open carry is to put others in mortal fear of violence should they somehow offend the fellow with the gun. Most people assume that some asshole publicly toting high-caliber weapon(s) is a nutcase, and accordingly, they will trim their lawful behavior so as to avoid offending the gun nut. If someone exercises their 2nd Amendment right to publicly bear arms, they can only do so by curtailing the 1st Amendment right of free association of everybody else.
Paul in KY
@Dangerman: I think it’s a rocket launcher. I’m pretty sure it is empty or fake, as those things are very illegal.
Paul in KY
@The Moar You Know: You have to have a robust buyback program to get the millions already out there.
ChristianPinko
@dmsilev: You’ve clearly never seen the end of Death Wish 3, you stupid lib.
Matt McIrvin
@dimmsdale: We need to somehow break people of this idea that guns make sense for personal or home self-defense, and I don’t really know how because I know even a lot of liberals who believe this even though their other positions are 99% sensible. In fact, I suspect that the gun industry is probably thinking they can use these stories as a pitch to sell more guns to liberals, to defend themselves from crazy Republicans when the real shit goes down.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: There’s gun crime/deaths, mostly done with handguns, and there’s big theatrical mass shootings, which are done with semiautomatic assault weapons. I think the social splash damage the big ones cause actually does justify giving them special attention. But I see no problem with a two-pronged approach.
Other MJS
@tokyokie: YES. Open carry is intimidation. Period.
JCNZ
@raven: Are some weapons illegal outside of NY and California? How does that square with the “well-regulated militia” thing? If some bozo wanted to mount a .50 calibre on his pickup in Podunk, who would stop him?
Timill
@JCNZ: The cops. But they’d have to get him on a Technicality…
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I see more homeless people in LA than I used to. I should qualify that. The only reason is that a lot of them have been supplied tents and they set them up, often on sidewalks under a freeway overpass. I used to own the business my dad started, many, many yrs/decades ago in central LA and the numbers seem about the same to me as they did when I was a teen. I see some on the Metro train when I use it but even then it is a very small percentage of the riders. I’m sure there are more, because there are more humans now. I’ve been seeing them for decades and have never had any issue whatsoever. Just another body, among the millions and millions and millions we share the planet with.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: Isn’t it a statistical fact that your gun is more likely to kill you or someone you love (including suicide) than it is to kill some violent attacker?
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
The tents make the situation more noticeable, they don’t make the numbers larger. But as a percentage of the population that doesn’t have to become bigger to actually have more homeless. The population of the city of Los Angeles over the last 100 yrs has grown from just over 1/2 million to almost 4 million. If the homeless has grown the same rate it is still a relatively small number. We should remember that there are a lot more of us now than there was 70 yrs ago.
Nancy
@Dopey-o:
I am so glad to see this piece of sanity from James Baldwin. Thank you.
RR_Mikey
We can thank the ever pervading amount of bullcrap spewed out by Fox for this mindset. Honestly, this shit scares the crap out of me every time I see one of these nuts carrying a gun into the grocery store, restaurants, and on and on. Whatever happened to my freedom to be free of the fear I feel when I see a gun toting nitwit? I know one through association and I heard him one day going on and on about how intimidated he felt on Rodeo Drive because he didn’t have his gun. Rodeo effin’ Drive?!
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
Well you know for sure that if “those” people get their way there will be a ban on brown and black human beings doncha?
Ruckus
@JCNZ:
Not that many years ago I knew a guy who collected machine guns. (And yes I thought he was fucking nuts.) But he had a federal gun license, which allowed him to own them. I believe the license cost something like $5 or $10. Apply, don’t have a criminal record, bingo, license yours.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: To have a functioning fully automatic weapon is $200 per year per weapon. An FFL (Federal Firearms License), which basically allows you to buy weapons for ‘dealer’ prices, costs about $15, but it does not allow you to own a fully automatic weapon (without paying that $200).
Bill Arnold
@Timill:
Laughed. Out loud.
dimmsdale
@Matt McIrvin: The BU study I cited above has changed MY thinking about that–assault weapons, as horrific as they are, only (only?) account for a small number of total gun homicides, so “banning” them would have negligible statistical effect. If you want to decrease TOTAL gun deaths, red flag laws and background checks (per the study) would be the way to go. If indeed you can legislate BOTH, then yay. Statistics are one thing, perceptions another, as you mention regarding guns for home self defense. For my part, I don’t know how you meet the public’s desire for safety from shooting deaths WITHOUT an assault weapons ban, simply for its perceptual value.
Tony G
These men are cowardly idiots, certainly — but it’s the widespread availability of powerful guns that makes those cowardly idiots so dangerous. Most of the men (almost 100% men) who kill with guns would not have the strength or courage to kill with a knife or baseball bat or any other kind of weapon.