Monday, May 30, 2022

The Mass-Shooting That Wasn't

A woman in West Virginia fatally shot a man who began firing an AR-15-style rifle into a crowd of people that had gathered for a party, authorities said.

[Asswipe], 37, was killed Wednesday night after he pulled out the rifle and began shooting at dozens of people attending the birthday-graduation party outside an apartment complex in the city of Charleston, police said in a statement.

The woman, who was attending the party, drew a pistol and fired, killing [Asswipe], the statement said. No one at the party was injured.

She's braver than the entire police force of Uvalde, TX.

As to what can be done, I have a few ideas.
  • Raise the minimum age for buying semiautomatic centerfire rifles and shotguns that are capable of firing from detached magazines to 25.
  • Raise the minimum age for buying semiautomatic anything to 21.
  • Limit the capacity of detachable magazines to 15 rounds.  Those larger, up to thirty rounds, would be grandfathered.
  • Ban rifle-caliber magazines over thirty rounds, and all pistol-caliber magazines over thirty rounds that are less than 35 years old.  This is a flat-out ban.  Magazines in private hands would be bought back in two rounds.  The first round would be bought back at 150% of fair market value.  Second buyback would be at 100%.  After the time period expires for the second buyback, then ownership would be a felony.  There would be no exemption for civilian police.  (We can't have it, they can't have it.)
  • Vastly increase the amount of funding for mental health services, including, but not limited to, more in-patient beds (and more facilities), on-call mental health professionals to assist police, have mental-health response teams for use when someone is having a crisis.
  • Along those lines, if someone is having a mental breakdown and the cops respond with doses of bullets, start prosecuting those guys.  No paramedic would be permitted to administer ketamine without a physician on-scene.
  • Since a lot of this stuff is going to cost, well, start upping the taxes on those who can pay.  No reason why those hedge-fund weasels can't start paying their fair share.
Some explanations: Fifteen rounds is because that is both the standard magazine capability for a Glock 19 and because ten-round magazines for M-1 carbines have been known to suck. The exemption for large magazines in pistol calibers over a certain age are for the Thompson submachine guns. Legal full-automatic guns have not been a problem. As for the cops, they are civilian police. The same rules should apply to them, other than the age limits.

Taxes are going to have to go up to pay for this, unless Mikey No-Bug-Gulp wants to foot the bill.

Some years ago, someone I knew was having a psychiatric episode. That individual spent the entire night in the ER until a psychatric bed was available, and that bed was a four-hour ambulance ride away. Besides the length of the transport,it made it really hard for family support to take place. That is fucking unsat. As a country, we have gutted mental health facilities and, in effect, turned the prisons into makeshift psych wards. That is also unsat.

As a nation, we have no problem with coming up with money for killing people and for imprisoning them. That we can't see our way clear to doing what we can to help people speaks volumes about our worth as a people.

Those are some thoughts. People seeking to comment are advised to follow the house rules (right-hand column in web view). Full moderation of comments is in effect; if you engage in assholery, your comment will be deleted without warning. If things get out of hand, commenting will be disabled.

21 comments:

  1. How about not interpreting a late 18th Century document dealing with what is now antique firearm technology as of it retains full relevance more than 200 years later.

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  2. The same argument could then be made that the 1st Amendment protects inly newspapers printed on hand-operated presses.

    In short, that argument proves too much.

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  3. Spoken like a true tool of the DNC Liberals.

    I especially liked the "Fair Share" comment. Still on that kick, huh? Chances are that that guy pays more in taxes than you and any two of your neighbors....and uses less government.
    SO please, define what is a Fair Share?
    Also explain how restricting magazine capacity is gonna stop the bad guy from reloading? And I really liked the taking of private property simply because someone representing the State thinks it is a good idea. What next? Jewelry that you don't think that person needs? How about houses that are too big for those who live alone.... Cars that burn too much gas? Where does that thought process end? Where does the power of those who run the State end?
    If yer gonna raise the age to own firearms, then are you gonna raise the age for voting too? Signing contracts? Again, where does this end?

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  4. Let me start by saying I agree whole heartedly on the mental health funding issue. How best to do that is an open question, but I agree, in principle, that more funding for mental health is a good thing.
    Hell, just allow school counselors to be counselors instead of test administrators and paper pushers and I think we’d solve a big chunk of the school violence problem.

    Point the second…. Let’s assume your average, law abiding gun owner goes for such a “compromise”…, what’s in it for us? Do I get Concealed Carry Reciprocity? 50 state shall issue? It’s not a compromise (my word, not yours, I know) when it’s all take and no give.
    I’m sure you’ve seen LawDog’s cake analogy…Gun owners in this country have done nothing but make concessions since 1934, and the problems gun control promises to solve continue to get worse. It MAY be time to admit that, as a nation, we’ve been treating the wrong disease.

    Tell you what, I’ll give you the 25yo age limit if you’ll impose the same restriction on voting. I’ll trade magazine restrictions for a national voter ID required for voting in federal elections. Now we’re talking about compromise…. As it stands, you admit that your idea is so good, you have to convince me with time in the federal pen. Forgive me if I don’t buy in.

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  5. Just plain, Thank-You EARTH-BOUND MISFIT !!!

    GLBTS

    Предупреждение!! Внутри НЕТ идиотских исправных деталей!

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  6. CM, for a hard core gunner such as yourself to come out in favor of these restrictions says a lot. Thanks.

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  7. We don’t need well-regulated militias to guard against Indian raids and foreign invasions, either. But hey, better that someone with a grudge can walk in somewhere with a gun (except an NRA convention, of course) than Cletus Kadiddlehopper be deprived of his right to own his 43rd fun bang toy.

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  8. Dope. Triggers the dopamine. Once you get started you can never get enough.

    Old Boy I long-ago learned a lot from once said to me "Tommy, I've got no problem with religion, think of the drunks and dopers there'd be without it!"

    That's what we're dealing with: dopers and drunks. Weak-minded, over-stimulated.

    There needs to be twelve steps ...

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  9. Thank you for this reasoned response to Something Must Be Done (and should have been done long ago).
    FWIW, there is evidence that the 2nd Amendment was added at the behest of Southern states who felt the need for militias to suppress slave revolts.
    Oh....as to the 1st Amendment, any printed media is endangered except as a niche product accommodating old farts (like me).

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  10. “ A man condemning the income tax because of the annoyance it gives him or the expense it puts him to is merely a dog baring its teeth, and he forfeits the privileges of civilized discourse. But it is possible to criticize it on other and impersonal grounds. A government, like an individual, spends money for any or all of three reasons: because it needs to, because it wants to, or simply because it has it to spend. The last is much the shabbiest. It is arguable, if not manifest, that a substantial portion of the great spring flood of billions pouring into the Treasury will in effect get spent for the last shabby reason.”

    And Be A Villain

    Rex Stout

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  11. I let almost all of the comments through. So let's have at them.

    B, I would be more inclined to listen to you if you didn't start off by being a condescending wingnut prick. Smaller-capacity magazines, yes, a bad guy (and it's almost always guys) would have to reload often. But tell me, please, what real need is there for having large-capacity magazines other than SHTF scenarios? Which have happened how many times in the last fifty years? LA Riots, maybe?

    DWW, yes, stuff should be negotiated. Nationwide concealed carry, yep. Also, moving suppressors from Title III to Title I, or, even unregulated, as things were prior to 1934. (My main argument that Cadet Bone Spurs wasn't a friend of the firearms community is that there was no serious movement to pass the Hearing Protection Act when the GOP had the Congress.)

    DA, arguing that the Constitution is wrong or outdated is futile. You don't like it, work towards amending it or calling a convention. Good luck with both. You need 38 states to agree to amend the Constitution and that's not going to happen.

    Ten Bears, and your point is, what? Which of the recent clowns were dopers or drunks?

    Stewart, why stuff was put in the Constitution is a question for historians, really.

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  12. Comrade Missed It, somehow the rest of the world manages to hunt, keep the peace, etc, without the Second Amendment. We need the Second Amemdment to protect ourselves from the people misusing the Second Amendment. Makes a lot of sense to me.

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  13. Comrade Misfit, your suggestions seem to be very reasonable and food for thought beyond taking all the guns which won't happen or let's wait and not do anything at all while every one is emotional and then never doing anything. But the magazine capacity limit might not work so well if "The Purge" starts or there is a "Zombie Apocalypse" like in the dystopian movies. /S

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  14. Dopers and drunks is a metaphor for a mindset. Dopamine reaction is a physiological response. From rainbows to orgasms. It's not about any specific individual, though that kid did shoot up that school with military grade manufactured and marketed to kids ARs, it's about a mass psychosis. There's a glee to it not unlike dopers "f*you I'll do what I want to do (got a son like that, might be dead)." A collective tinkle down legs. I don't know what point it goes from hunter/backyard shooter to rebellious acting out - f*you I'll own as many guns as I want to, and use them - but the underlying behavioral characteristics are those of drunks and dope-addicts. Once you get a taste of it you'll always want more.

    Some people can handle their drugs, can stop at one drink; for some of us it's poison. Guns are not the problem. I've said it here a hundred times, I'm not against guns, I own a couple - huntin' rifle and a revolver, it's all a man ever needs*. I'm against the proliferation of weapons of war in the hands of civilians not smart enough to put on a mask during a pandemic, wash their hands after ...

    * Though lately I have been thinkin' a cold piece might not be a bad idea

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  15. Comrade Misfit,

    My reply yesterday was to express a Thank-You for a reasoned and logical approach to the current firearms issue. Watching your replies re-inforces my gratitude.

    And, I should have closed with this expression and its corresponding translation:

    Предупреждение!! Внутри нет идиотских обслуживаемых деталей!!
    (Warning !! There are no idiot serviceable parts within !!)

    r/s,
    GLBTS

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  16. Miss Fit, I like your suggestions. A common sense approach is the best hope for calming the rhetoric from both sides.

    Bears, thank you for the explanation. Sometimes I can’t follow along and grasp what you’re saying.

    DA, my understanding is you are against firearms and you’d like to see them severely restricted. I don’t see that happening, and I think these proposals will benefit us all.

    DWW, your counter proposals are quite a stretch. Limiting voting rights to 25+ seems excessive, since 18 year olds can be in the service. Waiting 3 years to get a beer and 7 years to vote is quite restrictive.

    Dale

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  17. GLBTS, I deleted your comment yesterday because I thought it was spam. I apologize for that.

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  18. Dale, I think the voting age should stay where it is, with a special exemption for anyone who joins the military at age 17.

    "You're old enough to kill, but not for voting" is still a valid criticism. But not as much as it was before the 26th Amendment was ratified.

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  19. There is a quote:
    We have met the enemy and he is us. Pogo

    For all;
    THe Constitution and bill of rights is not a list of our rights
    its the list of prohibited actions by government. Try reading
    it that way for a change of viewpoint.

    B: Staring with an invective and going downhill from there made the
    rest of your comment, unread. IF you want people to listen, then try
    not starting with: Hey asshole!

    The 2nd amendment was bright forth by General Gauge sending troops
    to Concord and Lexington to confiscate or destroy powder, shot, and
    cannons privately owned.

    Why Gun laws? We have people that:

    Exhibit poor to no impulse control and often have a history of doing
    stupid things.

    We have those that due to prior actions are now felons and are not
    safe with firearms, knives, or clubs.

    We also have people that have real mental issues that involve
    potential violence and suicide.

    There are those that a "children" did a bad thing. Those that are
    minor (misdemeanors or civil crimes) that may be ok to expunge
    their criminal history. However mroe often than not its a bad idea
    expecically those with assault, armed (with anything) crimes, and
    felonies that should not be allowed firearms.

    The idea of right to have a firearm is closely coupled with the
    requirement of responsibility. That I'd add is true for most
    everything.

    That's part of why we have gun laws.

    What we also have is a horrible hodgepodge of rule, regulation,
    and laws Most at best were answers to do something usually
    stupid and poorly written and implemented.

    If that didn't hit a point consider this.

    Many states have AWB or silly ass laws focused on AR15
    (not a military firearm) and bad black guns yet would
    allow a M1 Garand or 1906 Springfield that our fathers
    and grandfathers used to shoot enemies in WW1 and WW2
    and even as late as Nam?

    I don't expect answers to any of that.
    If you do, THINK first.

    Eck!

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  20. I like it, Comrade. Well reasoned and thought through well. I would like background checks for private sales, but a workable mechanism needs to be designed for that. I’m not comfortable selling a pistol to a person at/outside a gun show (or from the home) for the best money, as you know nothing about them.

    (sorry, got multiple error messages, not sure if you are getting this)

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  21. Jim Wright over on stonekettle.com had an idea that the NRA would have a hard time arguing against: make the NRA's own *gun safety rules* a law, with serious penalties for violations, scaling up with what the damages were.

    https://www.stonekettle.com/2022/05/the-gun-posts.html

    ReplyDelete

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