Words of Advice:
"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne
“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *
"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown
“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie
"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul
"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad
"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown
"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers
"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown
"Eck!" -- George the Cat
* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone
20 comments:
Would Bill Clinton sign a law banning abortion? No.
Would Donald Trump? Probably.
That's why Team Jesus is ok wid it. Meh, it's a good argument.
For me, Trump can even bad mouth ARs all day if he wants, just don't sign off on a ban and do sign off on reciprocity. I can live with that.
So, if I'm reading this right, it's not okay to take the lives of the unborn, but once they reach school age, it's open season? Is that the position of the evangelicals, conservatives, right wingers, Republicans, etc.?
When is the time to discuss sensible laws regarding keeping firearms away from the mentally unbalanced?
The end of the Second will come slowly, but with demographic certainty. The NRA hardline is not helping, and is probably hastening the first steps that aren’t too reasonable. The older, pre-Heston NRA had some reasonable positions that, if done, would have worked nicely to avoid some of these issues for years to come, not all but some. As it is, we are rapidly growing a youth that, as a whole, despises guns. That is an additional part of the demographic suicide.
There will be resistance, there will be hidden weapons, there will be resistors gunned down by authorities. In the end, the “gun” as a tool to resist tyranny will be shown to be a false idol. I don’t know if we will still be a “free country” at that point, but I can say that it certainly seems slanted to come to pass. Some would argue we cannot be a free country without the Second, but I don’t know that that is true. There are plenty of places that aspire as free or freer and don’t have more guns than people and school shootings.
The pisser to it all is the harder ANY changes are fought, the sharper the eventual backlash will be. A small amount of give now might just work to reduce the pressures and even get some nice payback (silencers are a poor, but common, suggestion) for a while. But, any compromise is anathema to the NRA and the militant Second supporters, and so we will drift on until the dam breaks.
Noted without comment:
"C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker"
-Doug in Oakland
On one hand, School Shootings are intolerable. Free society or not, this cannot be allowed to continue. On the other hand, I like shooting my AR at stuff like tin cans, metal gongs, and the occasional 'golf ball'. And, as we most all know, removing AR's won't stop the problem of people killing people.
Just giving up Assault Rifles isn't going to stop mass shootings and I for one don't feel like giving up all my firearms.
We also aren't going to start any serious Mental Health screening and Treatment programs in the near future.
As gun owners we are on the front line with so much to lose, and I for one don't like the way the discussion is going about guns.
We as a group need to stand up and be heard I'd think, but the NRA doesn't represent me since about 1980.
I have guns handed down to me by my Dad as well as ones I've bought and intend to hand own to my own Son and Daughters.
I really don't want mass paranoia to remove all that.
I have no answer, haven't even seen a reasonable answer yet. But, what the hell are We going to do?
w3ski
w3ski, exactly the point I make. I don’t have an AR, I had an SKS at one point, it was fun to shoot, but I sold it on to a friend. I don’t know how this Pandora’s Box will be resolved. I’d like to think that perhaps having designated groups in each Court circuit to evaluate situations where a request to require a temporary impounding of firearms could be made to work, but we are so balkanized now, I doubt it.
My thinking was a committee of three; one R selected, one D selected, and a third party chosen by the other two, but even that would result in a wildly varying set of decisions nationwide. Would a more strict criminal process for those not securing guns help, maybe, but with serious consequences and cost issues. Mental health is a minefield on its own without adding in guns. Demanding insurance to own guns leaves communities and people vulnerable to red/black-lining by insurance providers.
Is the magic solution is a system that draws on anyone entering a school with a weapon...but then the police need exceptions, as do armed teachers, security guards, CHL holders, and I guess we’ll have to live with a few shot moms who forgot their revolver was in that purse? The magic screen from so many sci-fi movies? That works so well in airports to screen stuff, doesn’t it. I dislike adding firearms in schools, but prohibiting them adds an attractive quality.
In this case, the FBI dicked up, but is that a possible result of the R attacks and distraction, or was it just a fell through the cracks case? There is so much in each case that shows ways these attacks could have been prevented (in hindsight), but the common factor is the firearm. I think that removing the prohibition from studying gun violence is overdue. We must be careful to gets numerous studies on this, from multiple view points and with free and clear data access/review. Only then can we really make some meaningful decisions about how we, as a society, can address this issue. Such studies would be a threat to both sides of the debate, and would be resisted by both, all the more reason to perform them.
I agree about the studies. None since 1996 and scientists say the science has gone stale. And as the differing sides of the argument drift off into self preservation, the truth gets forgotten.
Some inconvenient truths to everyone include the fact that prohibition laws don't work. Not for alcohol, not for drugs, and not for guns. We have some fairly strict purchase restrictions here in California, and given the cash and one day, I could get pretty much any gun you could care to want, including (as of a few months ago) an M60 with extra barrels. And I could have obtained an AR or an AK at any time during the assault weapons ban.
Also, the studies we do have show a reduction in gun violence in areas with stricter gun laws. Which makes a certain kind of sense: that M60 I mentioned isn't gonna get sold to someone the seller is worried about getting busted with it, let alone doing a mass murder.
Then there's the news from other countries, and some of it will contribute to the anti-gun mindset Comrade was talking about earlier, like this one:
"It's not reported much here. They've had a string of school stabbings across Russia. The country is in a panic about it because they're pretty horrific. The last two, there were 12 to 15 people seriously injured in each one. I think there's been five of them over the last couple months. Totality fatalities, zero. Nobody dies. It's almost impossible to get a weapon there. This is not a theoretical discussion. We've had this in other countries, too. We have a situation where the same thing is going on, but they don't have access to guns and nobody dies."
But looking at it from politicians' point of view, gun restrictions are a tough sell: On the one hand you have an incremental decrease in mass shootings and maybe gun violence in general, while on the other hand you have a $1.35 billion a year industry and one of the most powerful lobbies in all of politics ready to mount primary challenges to anyone who gets a little weak in their support.
I feel like maybe we need to address that situation as well, but campaign finance reform isn't much more likely than sweeping gun legislation, so I really don't have much optimism for any of this to get fixed.
On the other hand, I'm also skeptical about it getting further screwed up, for the same reasons.
-Doug in Oakland
The anti-gun folks say "let's negotiate". Negotiate what, exactly? What are they willing to give ground on? I've not seen an answer to that.
If you want me to negotiate on any topic, my basic question is "what's in it for me?" You want me to do something or give up something, I want to know what am I going to get in return.
Resume production of civilian Class III weapons? Go back to the way silencers were treated before the `34 Act? Nationwide CCW reciprocity?
If all that is going to be discussed is how much I give up, then that's not a negotiation. That's a surrender.
Exactly Comrade, but...
The demographic numbers suggest that simply stonewalling (the NRA position) is a losing strategy. It’s all fine to say, “what’s in it for me”, but you must also ask “what happens in the future if we don’t make a change”.
Here is an illustration about the Gun Control debate
https://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/
Pretty much covers it.
CP88, it takes sixty votes in the Senate to change things. That means that you've got to control 30 states or have senators who are willing to give up their seats.
Bill Clinton twisted arms to get the Brady Bill passed in `93. Even with sunsetting the AWB and magazine bans, it cost the Democrats a lot of seats in `94. As much as people say, now, that gun control wasn't the reason for the change in control of the Congress, Clinton admitted as much a few months after the election.
You don't have the votes. In 30 or 40 years, you may.
You want a grand bargain, now? the gun-control side has to commit to "this much and no more". Which they'll never do. If they're going to nibble it back to lever rifles and revolvers, anyway, then I see zero reason to compromise now.
I agree. I never said it would happen “soon”, just that the NRA, like Canute, risks being swept away in the long term.
P.S. I’m not looking for those votes, FYI. I think we could do some things, but both sides are too dug in to try them.
The NRA doesn't exist in a vacuum. They speak for a LOT of citizens.
What the anti-2nd Amendment side has been doing for some years now is eroding protections via more and more restrictive laws and judges willing to allow the Bill of Rights to be circumvented. The goal appears to be de facto and de jure complete bans, obtained where they can get them (Chicago, D.C., for example). California is still trying to ban firearms through roadblocks- make pistols get safety certified every time it is introduced or updated (does Cali do this with anything else?), make ammunition more of a hassle to buy, choke private sales (try passing a low where car sales can only be done through a licensed dealer), charge to take a safety test, get weird about magazines, and use the term "assault weapon" to describe semiautomatic rifles.
Millions of law abiding citizens are being treated as potential or current criminals. but for many law-abiding people like my mother, firearms can be the best or only equalizer available to counter the actual threat from criminals.
How about we let the CDC study it for the first time since '96 so we can perhaps find out what works and doesn't begin with "thou shalt not".
And I mean what actually works, which prohibitions do not.
-Doug in Oakland
Conservatives believe in original intent of the Founders in interpreting the Constitution.
So I guess that means you can have all the flintlock Brown Bess muskets, Kentucky Rifles, and muzzle loading pistols you can afford. That would have put a crimp in the Sandy Hook 1st grader body count.
Or is original intent not include the 2nd Amendment?
This should start some discussion/ranting I'm sure...
Jack the Cold Warrior
FLintlocka and brown bess muskets.
Sure, when your Free Speech rights only include a soapbox and a hand powered and set printing press. Tv, radio internet, powered printing presses, etc won't be protected because they weren't in existence when the Constitution was written.
Your right to travel will only include foot travel and horse powered transportation. Not cars/trains/busses/ etc.
Etc
Etc
Etc.
Jack, the "1791" argument proves too much, as B pointed out. You'd have a hard time even getting paper for those presses, as the Fourdrinier paper machine hadn't been invented then.
Hand-operated presses, hand-made paper and hand-made ink. Newspapers would probably cost fifty dollars a copy.
By the way, repeating flintlocks existed and had been made since the 1600s. They required very high tolerance parts to work, which is why they were very rare then. Any competent machine shop nowadays could turn them out in quantity.
For decades the debate has been:
Gun control group: Maybe a regulation on this most deadly thing so that--
Gun group: WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO STEAL EVERY LAST GUN EVER??
How about this for negotiation: we add regulation until there's only one school shooting per year. Come back with your counter offer. How many school shootings should we settle on as "normal"?
That would look like progress to me. If we don't have progress, eventually, we'll actually steal every last gun ever.
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