Happiness is a warm gun

Two stories from the US this week offer a confusing profile of the state of the nation's guns, a topic that tends to make us shake our heads in disbelief in the UK. One concerns the concealed carry law, the other the actual decline in sales of guns sending Remington to the wall. On the one hand it seems to me that a policy that claims to be about 'freedom' (what happened to rights?) offers disturbed men the opportunity to take it away from people, usually their closest 'loved-ones', while the decline of gun ownership raises the image of a dwindling cohort of madmen bunkered down in their cabins waiting for the apocalypse.

If gun ownership is the foundation of terrorism, should the NRA now be classified a terrorist organization?

Thus, on the one hand the President declared a few days ago

The eight year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end.

He was referring to the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act 2017 which would remove the restrictions States impose on citizens walking around with concealed weapons. The policy that has been promoted by the NRA has been opposed by those States that ban concealed carry, indeed New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the proposal was 'insanity' adding

“Right now, we have a good idea of who’s carrying guns. If this law passes, all bets are off. Anybody can come into New York City from any state and carry a weapon.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a8207536.html

Another analysis offers a different perspective by arguing that as most homicides caused by guns are domestic incidents, repealing the law enables the most common perpetrators of crime to gain even easier access to guns than they did before:

Here’s how this act could be devastating for victims of domestic abuse: if someone with a history of domestic abuse is denied a gun after a background check in one state, he or she could simply go to another state that does not require background checks at the point of purchase or permits for concealed carry, purchase a gun, and carry it across state lines.

in addition-
there is plenty of research to indicate that the best predictor of future violence is past violence. In addition, research has shown that when there are firearms in the home of someone with a history of domestic abuse, the potential for homicide increases by 500%.
https://qz.com/1144247/the-concealed...stic-violence/

Meanwhile, gun maker Remington has filed for bankruptcy, with a background in the industry of falling gun sales. Robert Spitzer, a Professor in New York State with a special interest in guns is quoted thus:

“Gun ownership has been declining since the 1970s and there are now fewer gun owners than ever,” said Spitzer. Fewer people are hunting, younger people are less interested in gun ownership and the gun industry has had little success in its attempts to appeal to women and minorities.

The US has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world with 88 guns for every 100 people. But just 3% of the population owns an average of 17 guns each, with an estimated 7.7 million super-owners in possession of 140 guns apiece.
The surge of gun purchases under Obama was largely driven by sales to existing gun owners. Sales spiked on Obama’s re-election and after his calls for new laws in the wake of tragedies like the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...mp-slump-sales

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act is without question a terrifying measure, as it would take away from the states the ability to determine how to protect their citizens. The same states' rights/federalism arguments that Republicans have been making for years would be asserted against it in a constitutional challenge if this law were passed. It is also a hypocrisy because the law would be passed under Congress' ability to "regulate commerce" which Conservative jurists have for decades argued (wrongly) should be invoked only for purely commercial reasons and not as a means of achieving broader policy goals. For instance, a commercial type of regulation might set price controls or quotas or in some way regulate competition. The Supreme Court has ruled that a law passed under the commerce clause only needs to involve an issue that substantially affects interstate commerce, so this would not be a problem except under the interpretation of the commerce clause they've made for several decades. This would be a law that interferes with the central activities of the states, which is to protect the health, welfare, and safety of their citizens and so the concerns about what is left exclusively to the states would be reasonable.

It is not just the self-serving hypocrisy of their support for the law that is the problem but also that it creates a terrifying situation. As for gun manufacturers going out of business....I suppose that's a good thing. They are protected in ways that other companies are not and nothing in the second amendment says that Congress has to provide protections to make their racket profitable. It's a very sad situation.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Here’s how this act could be devastating for victims of domestic abuse: if someone with a history of domestic abuse is denied a gun after a background check in one state, he or she could simply go to another state that does not require background checks at the point of purchase or permits for concealed carry, purchase a gun, and carry it across state lines.

in addition-
there is plenty of research to indicate that the best predictor of future violence is past violence. In addition, research has shown that when there are firearms in the home of someone with a history of domestic abuse, the potential for homicide increases by 500%.
https://qz.com/1144247/the-concealed...stic-violence/

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Banning people who have engaged in domestic violence of any kind from owning weapons is the surest way to regulate gun ownership in a way that's both constitutional and effective. Given that regulation of guns has taken place at the state level and there are not very many safeguards federally, such a law would basically wipe out what few protections exist and make every state as unsafe as the worst regulators. I have not paid attention but I wonder what kind of support this bill has among the Republican base.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Given that regulation of guns has taken place at the state level and there are not very many safeguards federally, such a law would basically wipe out what few protections exist and make every state as unsafe as the worst regulators.

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I probably should have thought of this all up front and put it in one post, but just one afterthought. The reason liberals have argued Congress should be able to pass similarly non-commercial laws under the commerce clause is that a broad scheme may be necessary to organize a particular marketplace rather than subject people to a confusing array of state laws with irreconcilable inconsistencies. The use of federal legislation in such areas makes sense when you are avoiding a "race to the bottom" in which states are incentivized to deregulate because it benefits their local economies to do so. The benefits of a uniform scheme are less compelling when the regulatory framework is less developed and the law interferes with common sense protections imposed by states.

Often when the federal government passes laws that affect commerce, like employee protections and anti-discrimination laws, states are permitted to offer protections that expand those offered federally. For instance, some states have supplemented the civil rights act protections in title vii with laws protecting against sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. This would be a case where the federal government would be passing a law that supersedes protections at the state level and nullifies them. It is not so much a scheme as a ban on a particular type of regulation....

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...018/338466002/

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Originally Posted by broncofan

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act is without question a terrifying measure, as it would take away from the states the ability to determine how to protect their citizens. The same states' rights/federalism arguments that Republicans have been making for years would be asserted against it in a constitutional challenge if this law were passed. It is also a hypocrisy because the law would be passed under Congress' ability to "regulate commerce" which Conservative jurists have for decades argued (wrongly) should be invoked only for purely commercial reasons and not as a means of achieving broader policy goals. For instance, a commercial type of regulation might set price controls or quotas or in some way regulate competition. The Supreme Court has ruled that a law passed under the commerce clause only needs to involve an issue that substantially affects interstate commerce, so this would not be a problem except under the interpretation of the commerce clause they've made for several decades. This would be a law that interferes with the central activities of the states, which is to protect the health, welfare, and safety of their citizens and so the concerns about what is left exclusively to the states would be reasonable.

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Again this is where my lack of knowledge abut the law benefits from your insight, but again raises questions about this peculiar way you have of importing into one law a clause that is or should be related to another law. I understand to some extent the inter-state commerce issue, I don't know how it worked during prohibition, but I assume there are issues with a state X that sells Marijuana legally that is illegal in the neighbouring state. It would I assume be harder to police than firearms if someone purchasing weapons must be registered in some way but if you have a situation where anyone can buy any amount of weapons over time and then travel to another state concealing those weapons then I guess it makes mass murder that much easier for someone determined enough to do it.

I think Sandy Hook was a defining moment, if your Congress could not be bothered to take action then, few are surprised that nothing will be the result of Parkland, and what could be more perverse than the news of another mass shooting, wherever it is, whoever the victims are, being greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and the dismissive 'that's what Americans do', as if you had paralysis of the brain and are utterly incapable of finding a solution to what looks more like an epidemic. I don't know if the Democrat victory in a supposedly safe Republican seat in Florida yesterday means that party if it gains power will make a real effort to change the status quo, the record does not look promising; neither does the future of your schools where it seems you prefer to spend over $45 million putting armed policemen in them rather than dealing with the cause of gun crime. To cap it all, all the evidence so far suggests people who knew Cruz expected him to go crazy and knew of his obsession with guns.

Stavros, your timing is prophetic
God, Guts, and Guns is a monkeygrip credo that apparently no amount of depression can loosen, the gun issue is a hot potato that feeds the Republicans, and burns the Democrats. The Freedom of Guns and Religion the Republicans offer really is free, The Quality Schools, Social Security, and Medicare the Democrats offer costs a ton of money. There are so many different and difficult ways to say "this is all politics" that it gets lost that a few simple unpartisan regulations really could fix days like yesterday. But we all know Trump hates regulations. Adding Insult to Injury. There seems to be no Intelligent solution, there seems to be no Heartfelt Solution, which might be worse.

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

Stavros, your timing is prophetic
God, Guts, and Guns is a monkeygrip credo that apparently no amount of depression can loosen, the gun issue is a hot potato that feeds the Republicans, and burns the Democrats. The Freedom of Guns and Religion the Republicans offer really is free, The Quality Schools, Social Security, and Medicare the Democrats offer costs a ton of money. There are so many different and difficult ways to say "this is all politics" that it gets lost that a few simple unpartisan regulations really could fix days like yesterday. But we all know Trump hates regulations. Adding Insult to Injury. There seems to be no Intelligent solution, there seems to be no Heartfelt Solution, which might be worse.

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There is nothing prophetic about this, as it is becoming routine, and it is only a matter of time before another mass shooting takes place. As for The Freedom of Guns and Religion the Republicans offer really is free that is not only not true, you wonder where did this 19 year old get the money from to buy weapons and enough ammunition to start a war? Claims that he is linked to a white supremacist group called Republic of Florida and that he trained with them doesn't prove he was supported by them, or he was depressed after the death of mother and breaking up with a girlfriend, and so on. He may or may not tell the truth in court.

The same hypocrite President who talks about mental health issues rather than guns blames the victims tweeting

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!

And yet he has done more than any recent President to attack mental health services:

the president has rolled back a rule that would have made it more difficult for the severely mentally ill to obtain firearms; made it easier for fugitives to purchase guns; and proposed $12 million in cuts to America’s background check system. He has also tried to slash $625 million from federal mental health programs, and $1 trillion from Medicaid, one of the top sources of health insurance for the mentally ill in the United States.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...eport-him.html

The USA is disoriented, going round in circles as it tries to avoid the obvious: Cruz and all the other murderers would not have been able to kill so many had they been armed with a bow and arrow. But mention Guns and the country squeals. Perhaps the fact is that the US has become a country of cowards who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their support for gun ownership, and looks the other way when the victims rack up, week after week, month after month. And no sign of leadership on this issue. The problem is that the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to find a rational solution.

Stavros, did I miss your Solution in your op-ed????
I think the problem is there's a particular brand of loser who knows the American Dream doesn't include him, and it just takes a bad day, moment, week or year to push him over the edge. In my grade his name was Riffy, he was always stoned, and after a big fight with his Mom one afternoon, he died in a shoot-out with the Police. I was friends with twins in my elementary school, but by high school they became "hoods" and we never really talked much. While skipping school one day, Charles killed himself playing Russian Roulette with his Dad's gun. Years later I would talk with his brother, but high school was a high pressure environment. My Job never gave me three hours of homework.
To be totally honest, but without giving anybody ideas, I'm surprised some troubled soul with some smarts and a whopping Imagination hasn't pulled off a terrorist event that kills hundreds of thousands. Like YodaJazz was eluding to on another post, everybody has a kind of moral gyroscope that limits their kills to a kind of Justice in their own minds. The Columbine kids were bullied, I remember. If a solution to gun violence is found, I would think it would have to be a roundabout solution, like taxes, black people with concealed weapon permits, an end to gerrymandering, or a Russian Scandal so huge the entire Country gets revolted and leans left for a generation. I remember when everybody in the USA smoked cigarettes, how suicidal is that?
Here Stavros, Dylan, Elvis, and Warhol, three of your favorite artists......n'est pas? Like I explained to you before, The USA is #1 because of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We're Killers, Man, Remember Lexington and Concord?
https://preview.ibb.co/fdPXy7/Elvis.jpg

I wonder if our gun problem has gotten so out of control that simple gun control won't have the effect here that limiting availability of weapons has everywhere else. There is no bright line separation between the law and culture. Guns have been a part of our culture and so has paranoia about limiting access to them. As a result, we have so many millions of guns out there and so many people who are gun obsessives, posing with guns, taking them into fields and shooting things with them, imagining they are shooting people and doing something heroic.

Of course we should take whatever measures we can to eliminate gun violence, and that will have some effect, but in other countries I think you not only don't have so many guns on the street, you don't have people fetishizing guns in quite the same way. For every Nicholas Cruz who kills you have at least 50 people who pose with their guns in creepy ways and the guns play an inordinate role in their lives already.

That said, we can see that Congress has not responded at all to these crises like they would any other public health crisis. They did not ban bump stocks after Vegas, when the only purpose of bump stocks (which I had never heard of and has now become part of the American lexicon) is to make semi-automatic guns fire like an automatic. They do stuff like try to pass laws making silencers legal, which I lost track of. There's the law Stavros brought up in the first post, which really is directed towards allowing people to carry weapons like they can in their home state anywhere they go, because this is the biggest priority. And of course there is the Ar-15 which seems to be used in nearly every one of these crises and which people seem unconcerned about. Maybe they think, "well what's the difference between 17 dead and 7 dead if they just had a handgun." Well, ten people! Ten people! Or whatever the difference would be if he had a different weapon and not a war machine. If there's no purpose to own such a thing except to murder, then nobody but the military should have it, but that's just obvious.

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

We're Killers, Man, Remember Lexington and Concord?

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The death totals on both sides indicated they weren't using Ar-15s. Let's bring back muskets.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

The death totals on both sides indicated they weren't using Ar-15s. Let's bring back muskets.

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That was just my Ugly American cheap shot at Stavros for running down my Country. Only WE have the right to run down our Country!!!
Many Hunters do use a bow and Arrow to hunt, although those compound bows they make now probably are more deadly than a musket.
It seems like yesterday was the day to be bummed out, I woke up this morning in a really down mood, today was the day to get mad. These fuckin Republican Fatcats hiding behind the second amendment to line their pockets with NRA bucks needs a look. Little Kids getting murdered and they're accusing the Democrats of politicizing it. The stats on guns are unbelievable!!! No way could they exist without Political Cover. I can't say the Republicans are directly responsible for a Gun Crazy USA, but I would go out on a limb and say the children are innocent. Maybe we need an Amendment to the Constitution that says we should look out for our kids.
Obama said talking to the parents of the Sandy Hook Kids were his hardest days. God, I miss that guy....

https://preview.ibb.co/euXcFn/0000.jpg
upload image gif

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

That was just my Ugly American cheap shot at Stavros for running down my Country. Only WE have the right to run down our Country!!!
Many Hunters do use a bow and Arrow to hunt, although those compound bows they make now probably are more deadly than a musket.

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I thought it was! Now's not a good time for us. During the Obama years it was obstructionism and rising racism. But now it's peak racism, treason, and massacres. We know who we are, but it's impossible for other folks to not wanna let us know what they're seeing. It's not a pretty picture.

When I was 12 I fired some sort of ancient gun at summer camp. It's the only time I shot a gun, other than a paintball gun. I can tell you this, I definitely wouldn't be able to figure out how to work one of those muskets. They have powder and a flask and musketballs.....

The NRA problem is tied to another problem which is money in politics. Are we going to have to come up with bigger bribes to Republicans to save our kids?

Republicans already have a surefire gun control system: Move to an ULTRA-RICH Neighborhood.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

I think the problem is there's a particular brand of loser who knows the American Dream doesn't include him, and it just takes a bad day, moment, week or year to push him over the edge. In my grade his name was Riffy, he was always stoned, and after a big fight with his Mom one afternoon, he died in a shoot-out with the Police. I was friends with twins in my elementary school, but by high school they became "hoods" and we never really talked much. While skipping school one day, Charles killed himself playing Russian Roulette with his Dad's gun. Years later I would talk with his brother, but high school was a high pressure environment. My Job never gave me three hours of homework.
To be totally honest, but without giving anybody ideas, I'm surprised some troubled soul with some smarts and a whopping Imagination hasn't pulled off a terrorist event that kills hundreds of thousands. Like YodaJazz was eluding to on another post, everybody has a kind of moral gyroscope that limits their kills to a kind of Justice in their own minds. The Columbine kids were bullied, I remember. If a solution to gun violence is found, I would think it would have to be a roundabout solution, like taxes, black people with concealed weapon permits, an end to gerrymandering, or a Russian Scandal so huge the entire Country gets revolted and leans left for a generation. I remember when everybody in the USA smoked cigarettes, how suicidal is that?
Like I explained to you before, The USA is #1 because of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We're Killers, Man, Remember Lexington and Concord?

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There is nothing personal about this, what puzzles a lot of us outside the USA is how you can do so many things at world class level, while in other areas you undermine that quality of performance -race relations and gun ownership being two outstanding causes. You could argue at the cultural-historical level that violence has been endemic in American life since Jamestown, that without Lexington and Concord there would be no USA, but that doesn't make it necessary today and the USA's greatest achievements did not necessitate murdering people in their thousands, and nor is the US number 1 as you depict it, given that per capita it is more dangerous today to live in Honduras, El Salvador and Syria than it is in Florida. Parkland was the safest town in Florida before this incident.

I agree that it is often the case that resentment of one kind or another motivates lethal violence, and that you can't legislate for that. But what you can do is use the law to make it harder for people with seething rage and resentment to go into a shop or visit a gun show or purchase online the weapons that give practical expression to that rage and resentment and results in multiple deaths of innocent people -or family members as is the case with so many gun-related homicides.

Watching the President yesterday was to witness a sickening hypocrisy from a man who says there is a mental health problem having made it easier, rather than harder for such people to buy weapons. When is this man going to be subjected to the robust face-to-face grilling that our Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition is subjected to in the UK?

An 18-year old Cruz was able, legally to buy a semi-automatic weapon, but not old enough to buy a beer. Why make one illegal but not the other?

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

...It seems like yesterday was the day to be bummed out, I woke up this morning in a really down mood, today was the day to get mad. These fuckin Republican Fatcats hiding behind the second amendment to line their pockets with NRA bucks needs a look. Little Kids getting murdered and they're accusing the Democrats of politicizing it. The stats on guns are unbelievable!!! No way could they exist without Political Cover. I can't say the Republicans are directly responsible for a Gun Crazy USA, but I would go out on a limb and say the children are innocent. Maybe we need an Amendment to the Constitution that says we should look out for our kids.
Obama said talking to the parents of the Sandy Hook Kids were his hardest days. God, I miss that guy....

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I can’t say either that the Republicans are directly (or indirectly) responsible for a Gun Crazy USA, but they are responsible for current policy and the current sorry state of our laws relating to firearms.


I do not believe the US has more ‘crazies’ than any other nation. Take any other wealthy nation, give them our gun-laws, our healthcare system, our collapsing pension system etc. and you will probably find school shootings and other gun violence rises to the proportion we find in the US.
Violence in the US is a symptom of our failure to develop successful policies for dealing with all of these other issues; that failure is primarily due to our failure to see beyond ourselves, our own self-interests, our failure to empathize with others and allowing corporations to essentially codify this attitude into (if not a national philosophy, then) the philosophy one of our major political parties.

Trish and Stavros:
I'm painting with a broad brush here, but Republicans taking away guns from poor white trash would be like Democrats taking Welfare Checks away from Poor black Single Mothers. There really is two USAs, not Republican and Democrat, Rich and Poor. It's not the guys with huge Historic Gun Collections in their Basements, It's more about inner city poor kids, and poor people in "flyover" USA. People with shit jobs, no future.
They once polled "poor" Republicans, and found out they don't have poor Republicans, they have WORKING CLASS Republicans. One of my Street Whores told me she could get me underage girls, drugs, machine guns,....anything I wanted if I looked out for her. The same people who buy 50 Lottery tickets buy guns. They say Americans are the only people in the World who think they are ENTITLED to happiness.
I'll explain gun violence to you two when you explain to me why two such highly intellectual individuals are hangin' on a debate page peppered with mind numbing tittlating shemales!!!
Hey, if this was an easy fix, it would be fixed. It is what it is. A Mystery is what it is. All those Republicans who got huge checks from the NRA were so upset in their tweets yesterday. Trish and Stavros, I agree with both of you, your are right. But I am more right. Because my Mental Disease allows me to see the Despair more clearly. And Revel in it.
If the USA didn't rise as ONE after Sandy Hook and Columbine, it's every man for himself. I don't know, I really don't know. How did we get Trump as President? I haven't figured that one out either, but I'd bet the answer is not good. Even if you can explain the problem, you would have to fix a problem that doesn't want to be fixed. Everybody has an amulet around their neck with pain, misery, death, taxes. The solution is sometimes not to think about it. For all it's riches, America has a cancer.

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

Trish and Stavros:
I'm painting with a broad brush here, but Republicans taking away guns from poor white trash would be like Democrats taking Welfare Checks away from Poor black Single Mothers. There really is two USAs, not Republican and Democrat, Rich and Poor. It's not the guys with huge Historic Gun Collections in their Basements, It's more about inner city poor kids, and poor people in "flyover" USA. People with shit jobs, no future.

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I cannot write with much authority on the US as I don't live there, but the danger in referring to a 'coastal' and 'flyover' America is that repeated enough times it creates a division that is not there. The supposedly 'liberal' complexion of Boston and New York on the East Coast, San Francisco and LA on the West, sits uneasily with the coastal regions of Florida and Texas and in any case this is the wrong analogy to use. Although it may be a given that the USA is divided, so are most countries that I can think of including the UK. It sounds philosophical but I think part of the problem is that if you ask Americas what does America mean, you get a diverse range of answers. They may all agree on the importance of the Constitution and the rule of law, but not agree on what the Constitution means, or judge that the rule of law is fair in the sense that everyone is equal before the law. One could get lost in a labyrinth of contested interpretations of 'What America means to me' and yet this has been the source of its politics since 1776.

Gun control thus may be seen in this context, and whether or not it is an optional extra or a necessary part of what it means to be an American. I see it as an affront to the authority of the State, for if the State concedes its monopoly on the legitimate use of force to citizens on the basis of trust, but only that basis, it cannot in fact control its society if gun owners challenge state authority indeed, repudiate the authority of the government and law enforcement agencies. As the USA provides its citizens with protection from external attack through its military and intelligence agencies, and protection from domestic attack through its police services, there can be no justification for the widespread ownership of firearms, just as the first ban on the ownership of such weapons was introduced after the Civil War when fears that freed slaves would run rampage across the south killing all in their path.

I suggest a major contradiction has now opened up between the authority of the state and its law and order regime, and the widespread ownership of firearms by Americans who have not only lost faith in their own governing system, but may resort to the use of those weapons at some future date if they believe their inherited privileges are being undermined by an America they do not recognize as their own. 'A well regulated militia' may have been written into the Constitution to protect the country against another British incursion (as indeed happened), but it no longer applies and if anything is now a direct threat to the survival of the USA as an integrated union of 50 states.

Hence the question: can the 2nd Amendment be repealed or replaced? Maybe it is time to stop tinkering and go for the core justification that is no longer relevant, or is a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if young lives are extinguished before they even have a chance to realise that dream. Happiness is not a warm gun, after all.

Nice pensmanship, Stavros, I live in Northern Virginia, and I can tell you if I drive an hour and a half south it's a different world. That's about the same distance it would take me to legally discharge a firearm.
I'm sure you could amend the Constitution to make pink hats mandatory, but that's not going to happen.
Marshall Law, that's not going to happen.
Sometimes you'll get a Brady Bill, like after Reagan was shot, and one time Reagan imposed gun laws during the time the Black Panthers used to walk around with rifles in their neighborhoods.
They had a list of the Republican Senators that received NRA money last election, as much money as the Russians spent, the NRA spent more. We've got overlapping problems going on here.
Americans have a fascination with guns.
If the Military, the Police, the Red Cross, Medicare, Social Security all had more money, living in the USA would be Heaven on Earth.
As it is, the book goes out the window when the demands exceed the ability. This is what a twenty trillion deficit looks like.
Try to look at the bright side, that's the best I can offer. I'm stressed out of my mind lately.

No surprises that the pathetic response of the President is to blame everyone else. Blame the FBI for not taking action against Cruz, blame Obama and his supporters for not passing stronger anti-gun laws in their first term, as if he supported such things. Nothing about guns, a refusal to publish any photos of him signing away the Obama era ruling making it harder for people with mental health issues to buy guns, and not a word of criticism of the NRA or the gun show that opened this weekend just miles away from Parkland.

And yet, is this a turning point, as students plan their own march on Washington DC? Is Emma Gonzalez the face of a new movement led by women that is transforming the public sphere in the US? Or is this just a spasm of rage that the NRA and its supporters will see through while passing Conceal and Carry and turning every school, hotel, mall, cinema, hospital and station into an armed fortress, increasing the number of guns in society? One wonders if it is, or if Bannon was right to claim, in somewhat hysterical fashion that the #metoo movement was women putting an end to 10,000 years of history dominated by men, though I am not sure where the 10,000 came from.

On the one hand the US has been here before, on the other hand maybe it is too soon to predict, and we may be surprised....

I like my guns...im a licensed gun owner who locks his guns up in accordance to the laws of my shitty state
( Massachusetts) Everyone screaming for gun control of a certain type of gun( which is not an assault rifle, Armalite Rifle = AR........) thinks that this will magically stop any future mass shooting and they are painfully wrong. It won't. Will never happen. This stuff will keep happening . I dont want my guns banned because I am a responsible gun owner and I can bet my balls on it that I will never go out and shoot up a work place or school. I carry a gun for self defense. I am licensed for that. I never ever want to have to use my gun...but I am trained to do so if needed. It chaps my ass when someone says " no one needs a gun like that"....Dont tell me what I need.....

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

I like my guns...im a licensed gun owner who locks his guns up in accordance to the laws of my shitty state
( Massachusetts) Everyone screaming for gun control of a certain type of gun( which is not an assault rifle, Armalite Rifle = AR........) thinks that this will magically stop any future mass shooting and they are painfully wrong. It won't. Will never happen. This stuff will keep happening .

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No one. Absolutely no one is saying gun control “will magically stop any future mass shooting,” so please don’t set up any more straw men. We’re all intelligent enough to see through that.

One: gun control has effectively reduced the number mass shootings, familicides, suicides and just plain stupid accidents in other nations and it can (and eventually will) do so here.
Two: It’s not magic. Ban semi-automatic assault-like firearms (whatever the fuck you want to call them) and fewer people will be shot with them.

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

It chaps my ass when someone says " no one needs a gun like that"....Dont tell me what I need.....

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If you’re still talking Armalite AR......., then you don’t fucking need a gun like that. I grant you may want it. You may want it real bad, but I even doubt that. You don’t need it.

If they didn't give a gun to the people who mark YES on the "I am an Asshole" question on their registration application, I think we could clean this whole mess up in no time.

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Originally Posted by trish

No one. Absolutely no one is saying gun control “will magically stop any future mass shooting,” so please don’t set up any more straw men.

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Supporters of an assault weapons ban, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), say that the goal of the bans is to prevent horrific mass shooting incidents, not stop the run-of-the-mill gun violence that kills dozens of Americans each day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.dd6272f41af0

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Originally Posted by trish

If you’re still talking Armalite AR......., then you don’t fucking need a gun like that. I grant you may want it. You may want it real bad, but I even doubt that. You don’t need it.

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you dont know a thing about me or what I do....so to say I dont fucking need a gun like that is rubbish...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dreamon

Supporters of an assault weapons ban, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), say that the goal of the bans is to prevent horrific mass shooting incidents, not stop the run-of-the-mill gun violence that kills dozens of Americans each day.

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if they do ban these extra Killy black rifles and the mass shooting continue, which they will, they will see how futile their efforts were. No one ever mentions the slaughterhouse that Chicago is yearly....wonder why?

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Originally Posted by trish

One: gun control has effectively reduced the number mass shootings, familicides, suicides and just plain stupid accidents in other nations and it can (and eventually will) do so here.
Two: It’s not magic. Ban semi-automatic assault-like firearms (whatever the fuck you want to call them) and fewer people will be shot with them.

.

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yes because every one will turn them in, even all the criminals who illegally have them and follow all the laws.....

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

No one ever mentions the slaughterhouse that Chicago is yearly....wonder why?

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In fact Chicago has been the model for the President's 'American carnage' rhetoric that masks the fact that he and Attorney General Sessions manipulate crime figures in Chicago as part of their blanket of lies-

Last February, Mr. Trump claimed that “the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years.” Wrong: The national rate remains at an all-time low. It’s true that the 10.8 percent increase in murders between 2014 and 2015 was the largest one-year rise in more than four decades, but the total number of murders is still far below what it was in the early 1990s.
For his part, Mr. Sessions has repeatedly hawked a nationwide crime wave that doesn’t exist, and he has called crime spikes in certain areas a “dangerous, permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk” — despite the lack of any evidence that recent upticks will last. To the contrary, in 2017 the crime rate in the nation’s 30 biggest cities actually went down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/opinion/sunday/donald-trump-and-the-undoing-of-justice-reform.html

Ask yourself why Chicago is 'the model' and not Boston, New York City or Washington DC and you might find that there is a marked difference between the outcomes of confrontational policing in one -high rates of crime- and a lower rate in more community-oriented policing in the others-but that smacks of pinko liberals doing good. That was Obama, and everything Obama did must be undone, reversed, trashed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

you dont know a thing about me or what I do....so to say I dont fucking need a gun like that is rubbish...

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Go on then, tell us, in civilian life, *why* do you need an assault rifle?
(I'm not having a go at you, I'm genuinely curious).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

you dont know a thing about me or what I do....so to say I dont fucking need a gun like that is rubbish...

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You don't need a fucking gun like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jericho

Go on then, tell us, in civilian life, *why* do you need an assault rifle?
(I'm not having a go at you, I'm genuinely curious).

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thanks for not having a go at me like this other twat who I will not acknowledge, this will be my last post in here anyway. I am a state certified instructor for gun safety...I help people learn about guns in the safest ways, instructional shooting techniques, how to get properly licensed and handle all firearms in the safest manners...I need knowledge on all kind of firearms and there are many different types of guns. People own or want to own AR-15's wether some agree or not...its just life. I have half a dozen other guns that do the same thing as an AR but they do not look like the dreaded " assault" rifle...anyway thats it...thanks and have a good day

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

thanks for not having a go at me like this other twat who I will not acknowledge, this will be my last post in here anyway. I am a state certified instructor for gun safety...I help people learn about guns in the safest ways, instructional shooting techniques, how to get properly licensed and handle all firearms in the safest manners...I need knowledge on all kind of firearms and there are many different types of guns. People own or want to own AR-15's wether some agree or not...its just life. I have half a dozen other guns that do the same thing as an AR but they do not look like the dreaded " assault" rifle...anyway thats it...thanks and have a good day

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So you need the gun to show other people how to use the gun which they need because.....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dreamon

Supporters of an assault weapons ban, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), say that the goal of the bans is to prevent horrific mass shooting incidents, not stop the run-of-the-mill gun violence that kills dozens of Americans each day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.dd6272f41af0

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And it will. She didn’t say “all” and she didn’t say “magically”. Good article by the way. The chart included demonstrate the ten year ban from 1994 to 2004 was indeed effective.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

yes because every one will turn them in, even all the criminals who illegally have them and follow all the laws.....

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No, not everyone would turn in their AR-15’s etc. Who said they would? But there WOULD be fewer on the street and consequently fewer used in shootings. Also not turning them in would be a criminal offense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Murmdrum

.... this will be my last post in here anyway.....

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Before you go, and I'm truly seriously curious also....what were your SAT scores?

Having been told over the weekend the President was now considering gun control measures, after chatting to guests at Mar-a-Lago, presumably because he has no ideas of his own, it emerges a ban on bump stocks is the best he can propose; while students from Parkland made the trip to state capital in Florida to watch the state congress sit on its hand rather than take action to limit gun ownership in the state. On Sunday that devout Christian Marco Rubio said Cruz should be executed if found guilty of the murders. I guess that is what American Christians call forgiveness. Sounds like cowardice all round from where I am.

Like Joe the Plumber said:

your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights

An article in the New York Times offers an explanation for the high number of mass killings by guns in the US compared to other countries, and concludes the volume of guns in private ownership must be considered a factor, being even more relevant than issues of mental health or race, thus:

The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns.

and

Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns. From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.

Adjusted for population, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people — a distinction Mr. Lankford urged to avoid outliers. Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.

One has to agree with the conclusion, echoing a remark I made in an earlier post:

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/w...rnational.html

Maybe it is time for the US to enter the 21st century and scrap the 2nd Amendment.

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Originally Posted by trish

And it will. She didn’t say “all” and she didn’t say “magically”. Good article by the way. The chart included demonstrate the ten year ban from 1994 to 2004 was indeed effective.

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Except it wasn't.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.05c7334af0ce

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed...211-story.html

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-114754-1427r/

https://townhall.com/columnists/doug...k-now-n1476009

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Maybe it is time for the US to enter the 21st century and scrap the 2nd Amendment.

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Aren't you from England? Don't you guys get ID'd to buy plastic cutlery? Bold talk about "entering the 21st century".

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Originally Posted by dreamon

Aren't you from England? Don't you guys get ID'd to buy plastic cutlery? Bold talk about "entering the 21st century".

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They're not the ones cleaning up blood at their high schools and talking about arming teachers when there are very simple legislative solutions.

WE ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY FUCKING INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY WHERE THIS ROUTINELY HAPPENS!!! COULD IT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE AVAILABILITY OF GUNS? Everybody else has fewer guns and less dangerous weapons and restrictions on who can purchase. And nobody else has dozens of these massacres per year. And you fucking geniuses want to arm teachers?

It doesn't matter how many times you dislike other people's posts, it doesn't change the facts. Children's lives are more important than your inferiority complex.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dreamon

Aren't you from England? Don't you guys get ID'd to buy plastic cutlery? Bold talk about "entering the 21st century".

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I live in the UK, and yes, the English part. And comment is free, just as you are free to comment on anything that happens in the UK that you are interested in, something I welcome. You can pick up plastic knives, forks and spoons for free at the checkout in the food halls in Marks & Spencer stores, no ID required, though there are now stores that will not sell kitchen knives to under-18 year olds and the law may get tougher given that knife crime is a serious problem in some cities.

It is not bold, but certainly a challenge to you as an American to ask if the time has come to completely re-think your relationship to weapons of mass destruction, because that it what semi-automatic weapons are. Look again at the figures from the Las Vegas incident: 58 dead, 851 wounded -the Wikipedia figure- other sources are smaller but over 500. Estimated time it took to achieve this: 10 minutes. Is it any wonder that we sit here and shake our heads, and some say 'Americans are mad'.

But look again at the arguments that are presented by people like Wayne LaPierre and you wonder if the USA is in the grip of civil war, as if the President's use of the term American Carnage was a description of everyday life as lived by Americans across the country, with tattooed gangs armed with guns and knives prowling the streets of your cities selling drugs, shooting up bars, turning whole blocks into no-go zones. And then to use this image of permanent war into a recipe that is more likely to increase it than reduce it.

There was an armed officer at the Parkland school, but he chose to stay outside rather then enter the building and confront the shooter, assuming he could have done that. To arm 'gun adept' teachers marks a low point in history when the Chief Executive of the USA, backed by some hysterical morons in effect says he cannot produce a solution to the gun problem except to increase their availability. Wayne LaPierre then takes on the FBI, the 'media', the Democrats as if these were all enemies of America. But maybe that it is his point: they are the enemies of his America. His America is a country where Black people know their place, they don't complain, they don't vote, they don't have guns, and they don't occupy the White House.

Wayne LaPierre should tell the truth. If the US elects another Black man, or a Latino, or a woman, and presents the country with what he calls 'Socialism', he and his people will declare war on the Federal Government, and they have their weapons to engage. That millions of Americans may actually vote to reduce gun ownership will not be democracy in action but 'socialism' or whatever label is handy to dismiss it as a genuine concern of American citizens, and the signs are that a new generation of young Americans is taking a very different view of their country from LaPierre, and they are not actors, but real people too.

In the end this is not just a debate about guns, it is about what you think the USA is, and what you would like it to be. In the UK we are engaged in the same question, but it is about the exit from the EU and the consequences for us as a country, and there are solutions to both. It is up to you as an American to either stay silent, or engage. We don't want to see any more dead children than you do, so what are you going to do about it?