Today in Lewiston, Maine, President Biden and the First Lady spent time with the families, community members, and first responders personally impacted by the tragic shooting last week. pic.twitter.com/r2XkukUfUG
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 4, 2023
Gift article: Why all the warnings about the Maine gunman didn’t stop the massacre https://t.co/Ov5VxbiYQ0
“The police aren’t mental health professionals,” Rocque said. “We have a system that is not well-organized with rules for police or [the] medical community.”
Trying to…
— Dr. Christine Sarteschi, LCSW (@DrSarteschi) November 3, 2023
To many Americans, gun violence can feel like a growing threat to civil liberties. What happens when one of those rights – to bear arms – eclipses the rest? https://t.co/FRCbukUa6T
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 1, 2023
Trigger warning: Half a dozen long reports, every one of which will break your heart:
American identity is deeply grounded in the belief that everyone, no matter who they are, is entitled to certain rights and liberties. But what happens when one of those freedoms – a nearly unfettered right to own guns – upends the calculus that safeguards others?
In recent years, U.S. courts have embraced an increasingly absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment, adding to the proliferation of firearms – now almost 400 million in civilian hands, according to one widely cited count – and the thousands of shootings they enable. To many Americans, that violence feels like a growing threat to some of the freedoms that give meaning to everyday life. The right to worship in peace. To go to school. To “the pursuit of happiness” that the nation’s founders so prized. To many of their fellow Americans, equally weary of menace, the right to guns is an essential means of protecting precious liberties. And the tension between those beliefs is rising.
How can the freedoms Americans cherish be protected when the threat of mass shootings, neighborhood violence and self-harm casts such a long shadow? With friction mounting, many are struggling for answers…
There is a powerful way for the average citizen to help in the fight to reign in military type guns. If you can vote, you must resign yourself to vote but not to vote Republican. The NRA owns the GOP and they will not compromise with reasonable gun control https://t.co/REsUDJcx3S
— Linda Clarke (@LindaMLC) November 3, 2023
This is was the common GOP line in the 90s. https://t.co/yVrIuYUQ9R
— Not up for trouble, please stop asking (@agraybee) October 26, 2023
schrodingers_cat
Rs don’t want to rein in guns because they want us to be afraid. Fear is a weapon that they use to stay in power.
BellyCat
If churches are tax exempt and I become a member of the Church of Gun, I don’t have to pay taxes, right?!?! //
lowtechcyclist
“Angry and abusive” describes their base too well for Republicans to want to do anything about that set of mental health issues. (The best way to deal with those issues is to shut down Fox News and its imitators – if only.) And even though they’ve been spouting off about “mental health” for years in response to mass shootings, they’ve never showed the least interest in spending any money on it.
So restricting firearms is the only way. End open carry. Restrict concealed carry permits to apply only to specific, limited situations. Ban the sale of assault weapons, and develop a plan for getting rid of the millions of assault weapons that are already out there.
(My suggestion: once their sale is banned, have a 2-year buyback period. Then one more year to turn them in without penalty, but no money involved. After that, possession of a banned weapon is a misdemeanor – but committing that misdemeanor empowers law enforcement to search your premises (including storage lockers, etc. that you have access to) to see if you’ve got more of the same, and confiscate and destroy all the illegal firearms they find. After several years of that, it becomes a felony.)
Another Scott
Laws and rules and norms are necessary, but not sufficient. Laws aren’t self-executing. People have to spend the time and do the work to enforce them. Similarly, lawsuits aren’t a sufficient protection for people’s rights.
Civilization costs money, and requires the population to have rights as well as individuals.
“Show me your budget and I’ll tell you your values.” – Nancy SMASH.
Freedom means being able to go out in public without fear of intimidation, or worse, by others.
None of this is new. Being distracted by arguments that “oh, there aren’t enough mental health professionals – not our fault; oh, police aren’t trained to evaluate whether someone is a menace before they commit a crime – not our fault; oh, it’s not the guns, it’s that kids don’t play Candyland any more – not our fault; etc.” is just the usual chaff.
It’s the guns. It’s always the guns.
We don’t allow people to have stocks of explosives and pipe bombs at home, even though explosives have a legitimate purpose. These war guns are the same thing.
Grr…,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott:
Yes, indeed. It is ALWAYS the guns. ALWAYS.
Villago Delenda Est
@lowtechcyclist: Good suggestion, but the reactionary filth of the Federalist Society will do anything to prevent it from happening.
Scout211
And SCOTUS is weighing in again:
Supreme Court to review Trump-era ban on gun ‘bump stocks’
. . .
I’m not sure I trust these bought-and-paid-for justices to protect us from the gun manufacturers.
lowtechcyclist
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well yeah, but I’ve never seen ANY plan for what to do about the millions of these guns already out there. So several years ago, I came up with this one.
It’s something to shoot for, so to speak.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: It’s a pretty good outline of a plan.
Brit in Chicago
When I read someone saying that gun violence is caused by X, mental health of social instability, or whatever, I always think the answer should be: OK, lets ban all guns until we have a society when everyone is mentally healthy. Just pass this gun law and we’ll all work together on improving everyone’s mental health; when it’s perfect we can reconsider the gun law.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mike Johnson said restricting guns would do no good because you can still kill someone with a car. The more I thought about that, the better I thought it represented what most people would accept as the kind of restrictions on guns. A driver has to be licensed. If they use the car dangerously, they lose that license. The car itself has to be licensed. I can’t start my car unless my foot is on the brake. The car must have seatbelts. It must have a VIN. Its emissions and fuel economy are regulated.
OK, Mike Johnson. I could live with that.
Scout211
That just proves right there that the politicians who won’t step up to regulate guns (on both sides of the aisle) are not one bit serious about the human consequences of gun violence. They use all kinds of ridiculous phrases and excuses to cover-up their cowardice and their greed for donations and votes.
After the Cleveland School shooting in Stockton, California where we lived at the time, California passed assault weapons bans and then later other states and federal laws were passed. How many are still on the books? I don’t even know anymore. So many of them were overturned and I just can’t anymore.
It’s just too tragic.
Ohio Mom
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You could “still kill someone with a car”? You mean I could drive into say, a school building, drive from classroom to classroom, mowing down children?
The guy is so ludicrous, he is Exhibit A of satire not being able to keep up with reality.
schrodingers_cat
OT Caturday art break
Its my latest WIP
I tried my new (to me) Kohinoor tritone pencils, a slimmer cousin of the magic pencils by the same makers.
Sure Lurkalot
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The gun bumpers always seem to emphasize other ways people expire as justification for their fetish. Why, the flu kills more people than guns! Have you seen the death stats for weather events or drug overdoses? Everything is more or as deadly as a gun!
The thing is, as you noted, sensible people work to mitigate the ”deadly” descriptive of these activities…vaccines, tornado shelters, rehab facilities…but the only solution to gun violence is always and ever more and more deadly guns.
Parfigliano
A gun is just a club without ammunition. Tax ammunition including at least one component necessary to reload ammunition.
Mike in Pasadena
If the originalists on the Court were true to their name, only muzzleloading firearms would be legal for ordinary people. No Walther ppks, no AR15s, no automatic firearms of any kind.
rekoob
Based on the feedback from yesterday’s open thread, there appears to be a consensus forming around a DC Meetup on Saturday, 18 November 2023:
Zaytinya — Gallery Place Metro
I’ve been there a few times — it has a lively atmosphere and specializes in small plates/mezze.
It’s quite popular, so we may need to have a critical mass to get a reservation. It’s also right across the street from the Gallery Place Metro, in the heart of DC.
Perhaps mid-afternoon? There’s a brunch on Saturdays until 3, but the main menu appears available after that. Four o’clock or thereabouts? Earlier? Later? Once we have an idea of numbers, I’ll call and see what’s available.
Steeplejack
@lowtechcyclist, @Another Scott:
This chart is my go-to visual. (One example. I’ve seen it elsewhere.) Fewer guns mean fewer deaths. End of story. The assault-weapons ban from 1994 to 2004 worked. It wasn’t a total solution, but it should be brought back.
Other “advanced” countries have people with mental problems, but they don’t have the “crazy killer rampage” problem that we do. What they do have is gun control. Maybe the argument is that there is something uniquely toxic about American culture that turns people white men into crazy killers? 🤔 Hmm, not prepared to argue against that right now.
Geminid
@Parfigliano: California requires a background check to buy amnunition. They also require a permit to purchase: an extra requirent that seems to inhibit gun purchases and gun violence. California also requires that firearms be registered individually, with criminal penalties for people caight with unregistered gun.
Our laws in Virginia are looser, but I’m pretty sure my two gun-owning friends would be fine with adopting California’s gun laws.
Ruckus
I have no idea how it’s done today but when I was in the navy all the guns not being worn or carried on watch were locked up. In port on a medium sized ship that was 2 sidearms, one for the roving security watch – me on occasion and a quarterdeck watch – one armed man. On say an aircraft carrier there were more but the ship was about 5 times the crew and just a tad larger, with 2 gangways – ship to shore access, one crew, one officers. Still only the watch men had guns. I’ve been on a ship – touring it, in the last 3 yrs and the on watch crew was far more heavily armed, and I have no idea if that was for show or normal. This country was founded upon the right to bear arms, so that the military of whatever monarch could not just walk in and take over.
Just as a side note, I had 3 long guns that I’ve had since I was a teen, that I used to hunt with and haven’t for the last almost 60 yrs. I called the police and they came and picked them up to be destroyed. In our modern, now far more populated country, with a working government of citizens, 400 million guns (more than one for every person) is insane, asinine, dangerous and far more than unnecessary. And realize that many, many people do not have one gun and some have over 100. Some well more than that.
Is it possible that we, somehow, as a nation, need to grow the fuck up?
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
And every state (AFAIK) requires auto insurance. I’ve often wondered why the insurance industry hasn’t lobbied hard to have states require that gun owners carry insurance on their firearms.
Eunicecycle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: whenever I have used that argument on gun people they always say “well the right to drive a car isn’t in the Constitooshun!” and I say “You have the right to bear arms but not ANY and ALL arms. Also Well Regulated??” but it’s pretty much a stalemate.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: All the arguments of gun nuts to keep semi automatic weapons are bs.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Damn you, FYWP—unedited my “there is something uniquely toxic about American culture that turns
peoplewhite men into crazy killers?”Villago Delenda Est
Well, yes, as the fucking gun humpers treat their weapons as toys. Time to take away the toys from the widdle boys and girls.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eunicecycle: To me, “well regulated” means you get to take your toys down to the local arsenal or other designated training ground and have them inspected for serviceability by some E-6 with a clipboard every fuckin’ Saturday. Kiss your SEC football goodbye, losers.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
I wonder if they were really destroyed or if some cop “recycled” them.
Jackie
@Ohio Mom: No, no, no. The driver waits for children to be lined up to go back inside from recess – then mows them down. //
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: Yep. Any issue gun nuts try to point to as the “real” cause of gun violence also exists everywhere else. Mental health issues? Obviously people all over the world can have those. Violent video games? Popular everywhere, in some places way more so than here. Divorce? Maybe not in certain theocratic countries but still very prevalent worldwide.
Scout211
@Geminid: Yes, we have stronger gun safety laws here in California.
Recently, Newsom signed more into law:
Governor Newsom Strengthens California’s Nation-Leading Gun Safety Laws
But the courts here continue to see lawsuits against stronger gun safety laws and some gun friendly judges to rule on their lawsuits.
A federal judge rules again that California’s assault weapons ban is unconstitutional
A new regulation begets a new lawsuit, too many times. Ugh.
ETA: edited for clarity.
Alison Rose
@Scout211: I’ve probably said this before but fuck Benitez. That dude is absolute trash.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
I think some of the problem in this country is how we formed and started it.
With individuals with guns.
Our history is replete with stories about the armed individuals that did that. So many have failed to realize that a single shot, ball and powder musket is not in the same universe as an AR-15. Or even that .45 semi automatic pistol I carried on in port watch over 50 yrs ago. And how many movies have there been over the last 75 years that were as much about guns as they were about the people that carried them? Westerns, military combat, etc, etc, everyone in a western – armed. Some of this over the decades has been subtle but out in the open. How strange was it to see the one guy on a horse ride into a town with a sign at the edge of town – No Guns Allowed? How many shootouts in the middle of main street or the OK Corral?
We have glorified the individual gun as the thing that made this country in stories and movies. And while that may actually be true, this is no longer even close to the old west.
CliosFanBoy
@Parfigliano:
There was a funny Dilbert (I know, I know, but this was 30 years ago) where Dogbert said people should be allowed to own any weapon they wanted, but only HE could possess ammunition, “because I don’t trust you people with anything more deadly than string.”
Scout211
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Benetiz seems to be going through some things. The definition of insane?
Should we suggest a mental health check for this piece of trash?
///s
Poe Larity
@BellyCat: I’ve wondered if a dealer could do that. Sermons on whether Jesus would be a revolver owner or if he’d prefer a pistol. Each Saint could have their own weapon. Sunday mass at the gun range.
I used to think about making t-shirts with “What Glock Would Jesus Own?”
Alison Rose
@CliosFanBoy: Chris Rock was on point about “bullet control” a long time ago.
(It’s much better the way he delivers it)
CliosFanBoy
@Ruckus:
So that’s how Checkov and Uhura were able to sneak onto a nuclear wessle to steal its radiation leakage~!
Actually, it was so the President did not have sole control of the military. Congress had to declare war and vote the money for it, and the state governors would have some say in how their state militias were used.
WaterGirl
@rekoob: I had missed that completely, and I suspect others may have, as well.
If you can send me an email message with all the relevant information, I can put up a post in a day or two to spread the word.
CliosFanBoy
Well, that’s what he gets paid for! ;)
Thank you for the link!
Alison Rose
@Scout211: Honestly, at some point I expect Newsom to challenge him to a fight. And I would pay cash money to watch it.
Sister Golden Bear
@Scout211: It’s not the courts (plural) that are overturning California’s gun control laws, it’s a single gun-nut judge.
Anoniminous
The only time Republicanspassed a gun law was when Little Ronnie Rayguns signed the Mulford Act which was specifically written to disarm the Black Panther Party.
Uncle Cosmo
@rekoob: Brunch is fine by me, midafternoon is fine, even early evening (say 18:00) would work – I’d want to be out of there NLT 21:00 to catch the 21:30 MARC train back to Baltimore. I’ll keep scanning the skies for details.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
I’ve heard stories about that, but I asked when I called and I asked the cops – yes 2 separate cars, 2 cops, and the “assured” me they get destroyed. I also have a receipt with a case number.
And no, I do not know if they “somehow” don’t make it into the melting pot. But I do know that this gets done here in CA a lot, the local governments do make something of this, the melting down of guns. Also these were not expensive, rare guns. One I bought at a local chain store – the 60 yr ago version of Target/Walmart, etc. Two of them were given to me. I’ve thought about turning them in for decades, just never – OK was going to write pulled the trigger – but in this case a cliché like that is really, really inappropriate – did.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@CliosFanBoy: Someone pointed out that in the original Star Trek series, they all checked their guns in when they back on board. Wherever I read this said that’s because the writers had been in the military during WWII
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack: There are some other really interesting things going on there, too. A bigger burst coincident with the Trump administration?
Subsole
@Scout211:
I think it is always very telling that the American Integralist Party/GOP always want things to be as easy as possible for the mass-murderer.
They always say “Well, they’ll just use a knife!” or suchlike nonsense.
Fine! Let them try to kill a room full of people with a knife! They might find it a slightly harder lift than twitching the ol’ trigger finger a half-dozen times.
Ruckus
@CliosFanBoy:
You are correct of course but I was talking in the individual sense, not the government/legal sense. After all the government does own millions of weapons, from pistols to rifles to tanks to warships and aircraft and missiles and nuclear bombs.
Sister Golden Bear
Not gun-related, but absolutely tragic and enraging. An Alabama pastor/mayor dies by suicide after a right wing site dox’d him as being a trans woman in private, followed by numerous right-wing sites publicizing it, and the Alabama Baptist State Convention shaming Copeland. (Note: a number of headlines said the photos showed him as being in drag, but friends say the pastor identified as trans woman.) The pastor wasn’t homophobic/transphobic, so there was no hypocrisy issue involved, the right wingers just wanted to smear and ruin Copeland’s life.
Copeland was doing exactly what Christofascists are demanding of trans people, being trans completely in private with no one knowing (aside from a close friend of two), and yet that still wasn’t enough. They want us eradicated.
Like so many closeted trans people, Copeland looks so much happier as their true self. (Photos at the link, no Nitter link because Sitter isn’t displaying images.)
Subsole
@Sure Lurkalot:
It’s creeping into everything, these days.
“Oh, more people die of the flu than guns. Here’s a bill to defund the CDC.”
Oh, more people die of car crashes. Here’s a raft of laws rolling back automotive standards.”
Oh, more people die of drug overdoses. Let’s deregulate the pharmaceutical market.”
The single, unwavering, iron-shod constant in today’s hyperconservative MAGA-First movement is the desire to make it as easy as possible for you to die.
Because when it’s easy to die, life gets cheap. And when life gets cheap, everything else gets expensive. And these assholes make more money.
Brachiator
Wow. This stopped me cold. This is some seriously crazy shit.
I was used to the old GOP, which only cared about the rich. But this ascendant group of religious fanatics and anti-science clowns is off the chart nuts.
I suppose they see evolution as denying God and the Bible. The no fault divorce thing is just hard core cruelty. And connecting either of these issues to mass shootings suggests that these right wing nutjobs are the ones who want to hurt people.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard posed for a photo-op not too long ago, pretending to buy a gun just to pander to the party’s extremist base. Then somebody pointed out that was illegal because he was an indicted criminal awaiting trial. Republicans thrive on spreading fear and hate.
kindness
My view is civilians shouldn’t be able to own military hardware. There is no reason for any private citizen to own guns of war. Unfortunately for me in this day and age, our current Representative government will never ban AKs or ARs. It just won’t happen. Sorry, really I am about that. You know what I think could pass though? A single subject law regarding magazine size. Instead of putting 10 issues together, address just the number of bullets you can have in a magazine. I’d say 10 max because there are tens of millions of 22s out there with 10 round magazines. And no grandfather clause. Offer up paying people to turn in their magazines that are larger or donate them to the local police. Then make the law for being caught possessing a larger magazine a felony. People who don’t turn in their 25, 30, 35 round banana clips can be charged and convicted of something that makes them ineligible to own guns at all. Win – win!
Subsole
@Steeplejack:
Has anyone ever explained to America the definition of insanity?
In the 30s, when mobsters had Tommy Guns, and everyone was sick of getting stuck in the crossfire, we banned them and it worked.
In the 90s, some right wing protoMAGA blew up a courthouse and we made it harder to build those kind of bombs. You haven’t seen many of those bombings since, have you?
In the 90s, we enacted assault weapons bans because the cops were tired of duking it out with bank robbers and drug dealers packing enough firepower to stand off an Apache gunship. Bans were enacted, and the death and destruction subsided.
Hell, even back in the rugged, manly days of the Wild West, they banned guns. The shootout at the OK Corral? The one all these ultraMAGAs sit around watching on teevee and fondling themselves over? That happened because the Cowboys violated a weapons ban. Even back then, people were tired of the havoc and enacted legal restrictions.
We tried the Democratic plan, and it worked. Every time. The deaths go down.
The GOP? They keep trying their plan: more guns. More guns! Guns for the cops. Guns for the teachers. Guns for the kids. Guns for the nurses. Guns for the pastor and the checkout clerk and the fuckin’ hotel roomba. More guns! More blood for the Tree of Liberty, whose thirst must be sated!
We keep letting them do the same thing over and over and over, and the body count just keeps climbing.
Has anyone ever explained to America the definition of insanity?
trollhattan
@Scout211: Benetiz is an absolute lunatic with a lifetime federal appointment and “future star” written all over his ass for a higher court, come next Republican administration. He truly believes the gun, and especially civilian machine guns, have magic powers. Thank you, George W Bush.
Reason the infinitieth to not let there be another Republican administration.
Alison Rose
@trollhattan: Well, he’s gonna be 73 next month, so I’m not too worried about future appointments. Even if it does happen in another few years, he wouldn’t have a long career left ahead of him.
Subsole
@Sister Golden Bear:
Terrible.
It says so much about the state of today’s church that people would rather die than put up with the hatefulness and abuse heaped on them by the self-professed servants of the Prince of Mercy.
You’d think that might trigger some introspection.
Steeplejack
@Sister Golden Bear:
I saw that story early this morning. Just awful. I hope 1819 News goes to hell.
MomSense
So yesterday the helicopters went over the house while I was talking to my mom. So loud. She was glued to the tv to watch the Bidens and our Governor.
We also had a major plumbing job done yesterday. The foreman was a really nice and hardworking kid who is only 21. After they finished and left for the day the owner of the company came over. He told my mom that the foreman’s father was one of the victims. He offered him the day off, but he said he’d rather work and that he’s a Republican and hates Biden.
Ugh – so many conflicting feelings. Such a sweet kid. How does he come to feel that way? Is it indoctrination? I mean I can understand disagreeing with Democrats, but hating Biden? He’s got to be one of the most decent, caring people who is also a politician.
The whole thing makes me sad.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
Maybe the argument is that there is something uniquely toxic about American culture that turns people white men into crazy killers?
I don’t think so. I believe it is our culture and how much of it is based upon individuals and their weapons. Movies – westerns with the armed, which was most every man, the saloons that had gun check so drunks wouldn’t just get in gun fights and/or shoot up the place, drunk. Military movies, with of course everyone armed. School, our history being taught from elementary school on. Our constitution with the right to keep and bare arms. Some of these concepts and history may not actually, reasonably apply in a modern world with the weapons we now have, remember when it was founded a rifle was a single shot ball and powder musket, hand loaded for every shot fired.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: I grew up around these people– is what they’ve always believed. Everything bad in the world happened because we abandoned God, and what they mean by God is their church-endorsed rules about sex and gender and spanking children and swearing and clothes. Boys wearing their hair long. Nothing they’re for could ever have been responsible.
gene108
@Scout211:
Democrats got zero dollars and cents from the gun lobby in 2022. The most Democrats received is 5%*, in one cycle, of all gun lobby donations, going back to 2014. In 2020, it was 2% of all gun lobby donations.
The gun lobby is very firmly a Republican supporting organization.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/national-rifle-assn/recipients?toprecipscycle=2022&id=d000000082&candscycle=2022
*ETA
lowtechcyclist
@Sure Lurkalot:
For instance, we’ve worked hard at making cars more safe, and the result is that your chances of dying in an auto accident are about one-fourth of what they were 50 years ago.
Anytime they want to make a similar effort to reduce gun fatalities, nobody’s standing in their way.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks!
lowtechcyclist
@rekoob: I’m up for this.
At a popular location, there’s a lot to be said for the afternoon lull. Since brunch runs to 3pm, I’d say either 2pm for a late brunch, or 4pm for an early dinner. But I’ll show up at whatever time works for the most people.
eversor
@Steeplejack:
I’m going to gripe about this because it’s not fewer guns it’s the type of guns.
Which is why nobody (outside of deranged idiots) is talking about banning shotguns, high caliber hunting rifles, or revolvers. We are talking about restricting assault rifles and semi automatic pistols with high capacity magazines.
Ultimately gun restriction will eventually happen as the younger generations grow up and take power. We are the ones who’ve had to deal with the two massive wars, school shootings, and all the rest of it. And yet even then nobody is objecting to shotguns, guns for the killing and eating of bambi, or the person who owns a pistol. People are fine with all of that. A lot of the outspoken advocates of gun control own guns themselves!
Nobody is freaking out or upset over the guys with a hunting rifle everyone can see. There’s no threat there. It’s a giant nothing. But when you get all Tactical Ted over it people are going to wonder WTF is going on in your head.
planetjanet
@rekoob: Brunch sounds lovely.
DougL
@rekoob: I’m in DC but we’re flying to KY to pickup our new pup that day (yay for new pup – a mixed poodle and Brittney that we’re gonna call Ellington – Eli for short/real!). Hope there is a report on it! And Zaytinya is excellent btw.
eversor
@Matt McIrvin:
Those gender roles do come from god though. They come from God, The Old Testament, The New Testament, and Jesus himself. You can’t follow the teachings of Jesus and throw out gender roles! The gender roles and patriarchy are as much of it as helping the poor. If you follow Jesus, women are second rate citizens and property and there are two genders assigned at birth. If you are for womens rights you cannot be a follower of Christ!
gene108
If the best defense you have of your position is “what about __________”, you aren’t defending your position. You’re a preschooler justifying doing something bad, because another preschooler did it. Adults usually tell preschoolers just because someone did something bad doesn’t mean you can do it too.
And Republican whataboutism is treated as a legitimate defense of their position.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: You might add a Permit to Purchase requirement. There is evidence that this inhibits gun violence. They are worth looking up.
Gvg
@SiubhanDuinne: because they don’t want to pay out? They don’t want to be involved with crazy people? We don’t need another industry making money on guns though.
wjca
And note that the gunfight at the OK corral was because the town marshal (Virgil Earp) was attempting to enforce the town ordinance** which said that guns must be checked at the marshal’s office when coming into town. Which the Clantons were refusing to do. In other words, it was gun control in action.
** Typical of cities and towns across the “Wild West.”
Anoniminous
@Sister Golden Bear:
If you see a trans on the road, kill ’em — Jesus
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
I have wondered before and still occasionally do that why do we actually need gender in our world. Sure the female gender can reproduce and the male can enjoy making that happen (very hopefully so does the female!) But other than that….?
Sure we are different, in the biological way we come at life from 2 sides, but from the human side, the day to day side, do we really do that so much any more? In the military, when I was in decades ago, women didn’t carry arms and fight or be stationed on ship, etc, but now they do. Woman work in most trades anymore (which ones don’t they?), we have a woman VP (doing a great job!). This world, our world is not the same one this old fart was born into and it’s a damn sight better for it. My sister helped lead that fight doing things she was great at and won awards for her work, and that was breaking ground and making it look awesome and teaching others how to do the same. When I was born there were very few woman doctors and now, my doc at the VA is and is a damn sight better than a few of the men docs that have treated me over my life. My dentist is as well. And also better than some of the male dentists I’ve seen. This is a better world when equality is actually real and everywhere. Because when I was born it was MEN did the work and woman stayed home and baked. It was bullshit then and it is BULLSHIT now. We wouldn’t have won WWII without the women helping to build the equipment. This is not a man’s world this is a world of animals, which we are a part of, and it takes ALL of us to make it a better place.
Gvg
I think we need a cultural organization like MADD was that goes after movie and TV depictions and talks with influential authors and scriptwriters, even comic book writers and discusses not glorifying guns, not making one guy with a gun always the solution and showing the mistakes more, the bullying etc. also make more of a point about gun safety. In military movies, show the guns getting locked up. Cop shows can show the stupid shoot themselves calls or the problems with drunks with guns that get to keep them. I suspect they have already had some on suicide, don’t know if any blamed easy access to guns. It would take decades just like the mothers against drunk driving campaign did but I think it could work. Just one or two laws won’t because they could cause backlash elections. Motivate gun voters which is counterproductive. We need to deprogram cult people in our society but it can be done if someone can come up with a whole plan and we can stick to it for a long time. I can’t do persuasive. I talk too much and over explain. I am sure we can’t just come out and say it’s deprogramming.
Elizabelle
Thank you for posting this, Anne Laurie. Will not have a chance to read it until much later, but it is a topic of interest. And I am so goddamn tired of the Lewiston Strong meme. Wherein, communities proclaim themselves “strong” because they’ve suffered an incredible tragedy that, with the case of guns, was preventable in most of the rest of the developed world. In my book, “Alive” beats “Strong” any day of the week. [Your community’s name here] Strong is the new “thoughts and prayers.” To me at least.
It is not a point of pride to be living in an alleged first world country and to be proclaiming yourself “strong” in the face of death and injury from gun violence, diseases preventable by vaccine and other strategies, from carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term, against the family’s wishes.
There are better ways of being “strong.” None of these events are unforeseeable.
Scout211
@gene108: There are still Democrats who vote against stronger gun safety bills.
These four Democrats voted against parts of the gun package
Jared Golden apologized, but only after the recent mass murder in his state.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Scout211: And Schrader lost his primary.
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
Thank you for explaining to me that I’ve been doing it wrong all this time. Unbelievers have in the past said things that made a positive contribution to my spiritual life, for instance, Pratchett’s ‘sin is treating people as things.’ I’m guessing, though, that this isn’t going to turn out to be one of those times. But thanks for your help regardless. :-)
matt
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’d add to your list strict enforcement of laws against using firearms while intoxicated, and loss of privileges like in the driving case if those rules are broken.
TooManyJens
@lowtechcyclist: This plan is interesting and might help. Enforcement’s a real issue though, between the cops who sympathize with the gun humpers and the people who’ve been building up stockpiles to “defend against tyranny” (i.e., people coming to take their guns). Yeah, most of those people are all fear and bluster, but some really are itching for an excuse to kill someone.
matt
@Anoniminous: Seems to me that suggests an obvious strategy for getting gun control through in present days. Arm the left.
Geminid
@TooManyJens: I read about a California state police unit which does nothing but track down people who’ve lost their rights to own firearms and confiscate their guns. Typically these are people who bought and registered guns but are now have felony convictions.
Also, I understand that when Virginia enacted a “Red Flag” law in 2020, Governor Northam designated a unit of the State Police to carry out enforcement. So if local law enforcement is unwilling, the State Police will come and take the guns. Cops, criminals and citizens alike: we’re all scared of those guys (and gals).
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m going to put something here that might get me in deep.
I was raised around church. A presbyterian church. Every Sunday, church. So I read the bible, not just the parts talked about, the entire book. I haven’t been to church since. And it’s because of having to believe in everything we can’t see that says there is only one way to do everything, spoken and written centuries before we knew a millionth of what we know today – or less. People were strung up on crosses with their wrists and ankles either tied or with pegs through arms and legs to die a slow death, so they could think about whatever. Or worse. Life was brutal and short and it seems to me that it was because no one knew better. Or worse. All because we didn’t follow certain rules. We know that everything living dies, they likely had figured that out way back then but it took a lot less time and had a lot more suffering, so stories were made up to give hope that life wasn’t as bad as it seemed, even though mostly it was. We know more now, or at least we have the ability to know more, some seemingly don’t. But religion has hung on, with other humans telling us how to and not to live. But it’s OK because of all those stories handed down that showed it was worse. And now we have weapons to make it so, so, so much worse. And some of those weapons are being sold to most anyone with the coin to buy them. I’ve seen pictures of a family that has over 200 handheld weapons of warfare, spread out on their living room floor and they are smiling about it, about how great it is to be able to take a life in seconds. We had no where near that many small arms on a US Navy war ship with over 300 men stationed on it. And that was a family of 2, and both of them with the mentality of a really asshole infant. Now they may be the outsiders, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
SomeRandomGuy
The Republican point of view is simple: since anyone could have a gun, and kill you at a moment’s notice, you must be armed and ready to kill anyone who might make you afraid.
Hell, Gov Abbot wants to pardon a guy, who shot, because the other guy had an AK-47-based rifle, and HE COULD HAVE RAISED IT TO FIRE! So, you don’t even have to be afraid that a guy *will* kill you, just that you might, in the eyes of many Republican elected officials. (I mean, Gov Abbott hasn’t been strung out to dry… not even Rep Costello gave him any grief. Hah! Sorry – I shouldn’t insult Abbot and Costello by comparing them to such a *clown*.)
m.j.
You know, when a classroom full of grade school children get chopped to bits by a high-powered semi-automatic rifle, someone needs to clean up that mess.
I think the next time this happens (and yes, it will happen) someone needs to hand Mike Johnson a bucket and a sponge and tell him to go to work.
It’s your mess. You clean it up.
SomeRandomGuy
@eversor: Since Paul insists on the proper gender roles, it is *common* for denominations to follow along, but one can certainly be a Christian and think that the gender roles went away with the dietary rules. You can’t be a *fundamentalist* (I believe) because a fundamentalist doesn’t believe the changing times might warrant changing rules. (If I’m wrong about modern-day fundies, I apologize – and “fundies” *is* affectionate… mostly.)
wjca
@SomeRandomGuy: Christianity would be rather different if Paul had been regarded as merely the heretic that he was, rather than being embraced.
sab
@wjca: Hear, hear.
I just went down a rabbit hole this week looking for the source of a quote about the necessity of love. I thought I would check out Paul’s 1st letter to Corinthians. I knew the 1:13 part about love is patient and kind…etc. I had never read the rest of the letter. OMG: Shut up women and cover your heads and faces…Man is made in the image of God and woman is made only in the image of man.
sab
@eversor: Teachings of Jesus, or letters of St. Paul? There is a difference.
tokyokie
I’ve made this argument in here before, but I’ll do so again. The common law defines the crime of assault as “an intentional act that gives another person reasonable fear that they’ll be physically harmed or offensively touched.” But the whole point of open carry, which is an intentional act, is to commit the crime of assault, to instill in others a fear of suffering a deadly response should a law-abiding citizen take an action that the open carrier misinterprets as hostile. If you’re at Walmart, where you’ve noticed some nut case nearby carrying an assault rifle, and you drop a quarter while in the checkout line, are you going to bend down and pick it up, or will you decline to do so because the gunman might misinterpret your action? If you’re having lunch with a friend at Arby’s and some asshole with a Glock in a shoulder holster begins hovering over your table, are you going to tell him to buzz off and resume your conversation or will you prematurely decide to end your talk and get the hell out of there? If you’re watching your kid’s Little League game, and a the father of a player shows up next to the bleachers with an Uzi, are you staying around to watch the game or are you deciding to hell with the game, and pulling your kid off the field and escaping in the SUV as quickly as possible? In each one of these scenarios, the gunman has committed the common-law crime of assault. And in each of them, had the guy been wielding a katana instead of a firearm, he would be arrested for such conduct. The 2nd Amendment guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” but the common-law crime of assault was part of the Anglo tradition of law before the founding of the country, before the Articles of Confederation, and before the Constitution, and it remains part of the country’s legal tradition. But furthermore, the 1st Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Is the right of assembly inferior to the right to bear arms? It seems to me that the right to assembly, which includes going to a store, having lunch with somebody, and watching a youth baseball game, has to be the superior right, especially given that open carry is itself a violation of the common-law crime of assault. And I would further argue that James Madison in articulating the Bill of Rights put those he considered most crucial to the existence of a civil society — freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government — at the top of the list.
There’s my legal argument against open carry. Go after that first, and wait until the Supreme Court is expanded or some of these assholes die off to go after the Heller decision, in which Scalia, not having a counterargument regarding the opening clause of the 2nd Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”) chose to pretend it didn’t exist, leading to a generation of barbarous slaughters.
sab
@tokyokie: That is a very interesting and persuasive approach
ETA Except if the second amendment (Constitutional Right) overrides our mere Tort rights.
Another Scott
@tokyokie: Excellent. Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: That’ll never get through Congress. Just pay good money to buy them back. What would be chump change out of the defense budget.
Paul in KY
@wjca: Modern Christianity could be called ‘Paulism’. He was a weird dude, IMO.