Another shooting, another 10 youth killed, and where is the Republican reaction?

[Benvolio]

Liberals would never be satisfied with reasonable controls, they will continue to demand more and more, until all private guns have been outlawed, and only criminals will own them. To a liberal a compromise is just at step toward an absolute. We have had too much experience with the democrats and slippery slopes to give up this aspect of freedom.

 

[rareboy]

Oh bullshit.

And speaking of paranoid......

However.

There are as many gun hugging liberals in the US as far right wing nuts with classic compensatory behaviourial issues.

But this is also one of the tired old shibboleths of the paranoid right wingers...that nothing must be done because it would lead to only criminals owning guns.

It is no wonder that the US can't even move one step forward on this issue.

 

[thewiz]

I would echo Rareboy's bullshit. Many of my liberal friends (who claim to be "fiscal conservatives") love their guns but agree that something must be done. The second amendment specifically mentions a "militia" and I rather like Kuhli's idea of requiring them to train, to be tested, to be background checked -- all would be required of a good militia so you don't get nuts.

Perhaps when Ben has to look at the carnage caused by one of these mass shootings or it is someone you know/love, you might actually grow a pair and realize that where we are headed is anarchy -- plain and simple. And leading the charge are many of the right wings who worship at the feet of Donald Trump and the Clown Car.

 

[Benvolio]

Oh bullshit.

And speaking of paranoid......

However.
So
There are as many gun hugging liberals in the US as far right wing nuts with classic compensatory behaviourial issues.

But this is also one of the tired old shibboleths of the paranoid right wingers...that nothing must be done because it would lead to only criminals owning guns.

It is no wonder that the US can't even move one step forward on this issue.

So you believe that criminals will obey any laws requiring the registering or giving up their arms?

 

[peeonme]

The key word is paranoia.

The US has been a highly neurotic and paranoid nation from the outset.....a nation founded and forged on fighting off existential threats both real and imagined.

The truth is.... lot of ammosexuals out there suspect that they wouldn't pass the mental health or other tests required to own firearms.

So they have manufactured this great myth about the right to bear arms while ignoring the part about the well regulated militia.

And the gun nuts out there are so limited in their experience of the rest of the world that they don't even see how obviously infantile the outright refusal to implement reasonable and rational controls on access to weapons and ammunition appears to the rest of the civilized world.

And of course, guns are one of the only things that the US still manufactures...so it is a huge economic issue as well.

Eventually, in the dystopian hellscape being created by the oligarchs and plutocrats in the US....I suspect we'll see little kids running around with Kalishnikovs as people fight to make their way across the desert to Gastown.

Canada would be paranoid as well if the whole world was against them!

 

[Kabluey]

So you believe that criminals will obey any laws requiring the registering or giving up their arms?

Given the gun homicide rate is four to ten times less in other developed countries than the USA, yes.

In most countries, possessing an illegal weapon is an offence in its own right. Simple possession if you're not a legal owner is cause for seizure and charges. They don't have to be honest, they just have to be searched with reasonable cause.

 

[thewiz]

No, criminals will be prosecuted to maximum extent of the law. However, throwing up your hands and screaming "we can't do anything" gets us nowhere as well. With the market so flooded with guns -- many unregistered -- putting even more into the market will do little to get weapons out of the hands of criminals. One first has to register the weapons that are out there, require background checks, establish national registries and data bases that would include the fingerprint of weapons being registered (which would assist in crime solving), stepping up registration of persons with mental issues (taking medications, diagnosis, etc), and limiting the ability to conceal carry.

It is legal to conduct drunk driving checkpoints; how about weapons checkpoints in high crime areas? Stop and frisk without racial profiling?

Unfortunately, Republicans have their hands so in the pockets and heads so far up the arses of the NRA that nothing is going to see the light of day and we'll continue to have one more mass shooting every other week until it changes.

 

[thewiz]

So this op-ed makes a case the press has not widely reported, but it has potential to change the debate. It suggests that the NRA has a very dark side that most Americans don't know about. It undermines law enforcement by abetting gun traffickers, criminal gun dealers, and criminal gun users. Because of Congress, out of pure cowardly fear of the NRA, the ATF operates with about the same number of agents nationwide as it did 40 years ago, fewer than the number of officers in the Washington, D.C., police force, yet it is charged with investigating violations of federal gun, arson, explosive and other laws nationwide. Here is part of the intricate argument of how the NRA undermines law enforcement:

"Consider, for example, the federal law requiring licensed gun dealers to notify the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when a single purchaser buys two or more handguns within five days. The A.T.F. knows that multiple purchases are an indicator of trafficking, and that traffickers can evade the law by making a single purchase from five, 10 or 20 different gun stores. So why doesn’t the A.T.F. crosscheck those purchases?

[Quoted Text: Truncated] © 2015 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/o...mtrref=www.nytimes.com&assetType=opinion&_r=1

 

[Kulindahr]

You're less likely to be shot in every other developed country.

I'm more likely to be a victim in other developed countries, because my life is not considered worth defending -- but the life of someone who attacks me is. Here, if I'm attacked I have a fair chance of beating my attacker; elsewhere, if I'm attacked I'm screwed.

So in the situation that matters -- when someone decides to attack me -- in those other countries, I'm required by law to be a victim; here, my chance of not being victimized is greater than zero, while there my chance of being victimized is pretty much 100%.

 

[Kulindahr]

This is in recognition that the report doesn't include incidents which are not essentially a threat to the police or public. Drug/gang related mass shootings for example. Or domestic incidents where a mass killing occurs due to murder-suicide involving family or neighbours only. Furthermore, the report INCLUDES incidents where the victim toll fails to qualify as 'mass'.

Exactly. So you misrepresented the report.

There is absolutely no difference in the ASSUMPTION that i made, to the assumptions that you make about liberals WANTING people to be unable to defend themselves. Your assumption IS a flat-out lie, since such a suggestion goes against the ideological purpose for gun control in the first place.
My assumption however, was based on your own opposition to practical means of regulation. It was an observational point on your focus appearing to be damage limitation rather than prevention. I can concede that my assumption was a little unfair, but it was drawn from a reasonable observational point. You and your whole 'they don't want people to be defended' couldn't be any more UNREASONABLE.

No assumption involved. You FLAT OUT LIED about what I have written here -- and you repeat it again here. I've written more about prevention than anything else.

But you choose to focus on the point at which I want more prevention: prevention of harm to the innocent. Harm gets prevented once an incident occurs by ending the threat. Ending the threat does not mean waiting for the gunman to decide he's through, it means eliminating him as an active threat. That means good guys, and good guys are more effective with guns. Almost never is one of these animals stopped except by good guys with guns.

This is how i know you didn't bother to study the report.

Just over 56% of conclusions were initiated by the SHOOTER (40% suicides, 16% waiting for arrest, or fleeing the scene).

Then, police action, take second most common means of conclusion, followed thirdly by UNARMED civilians.

So much for citizens with guns being the answer. It is citizens with guns that are the problem.

Read my paragraph just above -- it relies on the report.

As did my statement before, which is correct: "It's almost always civilians with guns ending these incidents -- no military involvement needed."

 

[Kulindahr]

So now that Ben Carson has blamed the victims....we have passed another one of the milestones in getting to the point of nothing being done once again about America's paranoic and pathological gun problem.

Called it again. Although traditionally, it falls to the NRA to blame the victims after a shooting.

It is like it just gets easier and easier each time

Wow -- what an example of the standard liberal approach: appeal to emotion, and lie.

Carson didn't put blame on anyone -- he most certainly didn't blame the victims! All he did was say what he would have done, and because he said he would have actually acted instead of enthusiastically letting the bad guy have his way, he gets attacked. The only possible basis for that attack is a preference that people just roll over and give in to evil.

Nor has the NRA ever blamed the victim -- almost invariably, blame is put on the people who make it easier for people to be turned into victims, which is those who delight in laws that make things harder on the law-abiding while not doing one single damned thing to bother the criminals.

If you want to be consistent here, you should be condemning the guy who took a bunch of shots himself trying to protect others -- he did what Carson described.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

What Carson said was a lie, because he wouldn't do what he said. The man couldn't even speak up when it came to the debates, he sure as shit isn't going to run up against a person on a mass shooting. He only said it to appeal to voters and nothing more.

 

[Kulindahr]

Saying that these people were "standing and waiting to be killed" is so fucking messed up to me it is unreal. His views and your views are distorted and unrealistic. Ben Carson can stand up and tell people all this bullshit, because it is easy to do when not in this situation. I would bet someone like Chris Mintz wasn't someone who had a hero complex and sat around preparing for a mass shooting, he did what he did because the situation happened and he reacted. That is a hero and it is incredibly insulting and insensitive for people like Ben Carson who are attempting to take the spotlight away from actual real heroes, who more than likely don't even think of themselves as ones.

You're either standing there, or you're acting. If your orientation about life is that you're never going to have to act because the government protects you, then all you've done to "prepare" is choose ahead of time to just stand there. And if you're just standing there, you're waiting to be killed (or whatever the bad guy decides to do with you). In other terms, you're empowering the bad guy by doing nothing. That's just the bare logic of it.

Carson didn't try to "take the spotlight", he was asked a question. The only reason for him to be attacked for essentially affirming what Mintz did is that he isn't being a sheep and following the politically correct agenda. If Carson was wrong to say what he did, then Mintz was wrong to do what he did; you can't have it both ways. All Carson really said was that the thing to do is what Mintz did, so to condemn him is to condemn Mintz.

Your arguments only reveal that there is a serious need for reform when there are gun enthusiasts who have a distorted view of reality like this.

I gave you facts. The numbers range anywhere from five to eleven times as often that the police shoot the wrong person once guns come out. And even when cops shoot someone in cold blood, the result is a paid vacation -- they call it "paid leave", which is just a vacation with a different name. Cops have spent over a year on their paid vacations while their departments either dither or come up with a way to justify what their comrade-in-uniform did.

There is need for reform: the number in that FBI report would be vastly different if more everyday citizens were armed. If in a rough one-eighth of active shooter situations unarmed citizens manage to stop the shooter, they would be more able to stop him if they were armed (that is, after all, why police carry weapons). So we need Congress to act to encourage additional responsible citizens to be armed, and to make training more available.

And as I keep repeating and so far get either ignored or shot down for, we need Congress to act on its Article I Section 8 authority to organize and discipline the militia, and where that applies most directly in this case is requiring all guns not in use to be safely and securely stored so animals like this one can't just "borrow" other people's weapons.

 

[thewiz]

As a former officer and one who has studied more than 220 departments in the US as well as in the UK, I think the "everybody needs a gun" mentality in the US clearly creates more problems than it solves. As I have stated earlier, when I began police work in 1979, the assumption was that most people were unarmed. Yes, you checked to make sure a trunk was closed and shone your flashlight into the car as you approached (or watched for furtive movement) but in more than 10 years on the road, I never encountered a weapon. Concealed weapon licenses and permits were difficult to come by and we usually knew who had them in the community of 10,000 (and county of nearly 70,000).

Today, everyone wants a gun; everybody must be assumed to be "packing" and now the NRA and right wing wants to flood the market by arming every man, woman, and child with a weapon. When I was just in England, they have "Armed Response Units" that are strategically deployed in large cities but the vast majority of officers (and population) are unarmed. You find that the officers are much better at "talking a subject down" and "de-escalation" than officers in the United States.

Putting more guns on the street is a sure fire way to kill even more people. I was just reading that a woman shot at a shoplifter in the Detroit Metro area yesterday (or the day before). Shoplifting is not a felony and does not justify deadly force. She was legally carrying a weapon and fortunately never hit the person fleeing else she would likely be facing homicide charges (and justifiably). The old west was unpleasant for a variety of reasons and I don't need to see people strapping on their leg shooters and shotguns to feel safe; knowing how most people shoot, I feel extremely threatened because I'd be the one shot before the bad guy. Add to that the chaos that comes when a shooting does occur because the police have to now assume EVERYONE is armed and EVERYONE may be a perpetrator and it is a sure-fire accidental death waiting to happen.

If guns make people safer, Ronald Reagan should never have been shot; he was surrounded by people with rather awesome firepower and yet a crazy with a pistol still almost killed him. Same with Gerald Ford. Same with President Kennedy. And the same with Ft. Hood's shooting.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

You didn't give facts, you gave a perspective and blanket statements that cannot be backed up.

You are painting this scenario as if the way people act is so black and white, which is further proof that you're out of touch with reality. These people didn't just stand there and make a decision to just get killed, they panicked, they were scared or the acted in ways that was trying to avoid the shooter rather then approach them. Which there is nothing wrong with, but you fail to see that.

And as I keep repeating and so far get either ignored or shot down for

You have ignored specific points other people have made as well, if you're going to do that to them why do you expect people not to do the same?

All Carson really said was that the thing to do is what Mintz did, so to condemn him is to condemn Mintz.

No it isn't, because Mintz isn't a politician trying to make himself look good in front of voters. Talking about doing something and actually doing it are two different things. Again, I doubt someone like Mintz was making plans to do what he did and what Ben Carson described wasn't what Mintz did, because Mintz wasn't attempting to put other people in harms way.

 

[Kulindahr]

The key word is paranoia.

Yes, it is -- a paranoia that leads those who don't understand to come up with terms like right below:

The truth is.... lot of ammosexuals out there suspect that they wouldn't pass the mental health or other tests required to own firearms.

"Required"? If I have to pass a test someone else proposes in order to exercise an inherent right, the only basis for that is if I am someone else's property. That's a typical attitude on the left, that we are the property of the state and thus need "permission" to exercise rights -- ad the left always wants people to get permission from them when it involves something they find scary.

In this case, what they find scary is the idea that their fellow citizens actually own themselves and are allowed to make decisions without consulting the liberals, that their fellow citizens don't see any need to rely on the state as though they were still little children.

So they have manufactured this great myth about the right to bear arms while ignoring the part about the well regulated militia.

No myth, and nothing manufactured -- it's right there in the history books.

Though many enthusiasts have taken the selfishness revolution that began in the 60s and went materialistic in the 80s and don't want the responsibility side of rights, most would be quite enthusiastic if Congress were to exercise its authority and take steps to provide for a well-regulated militia, such as a tax credit for annual training. Yet not nearly as many would welcome other aspects of a well-regulated militia, one of which (as revealed in correspondence to and from the Continental Congress) was having officers who would conduct inspections of the care and storage of weapons -- and the corollary to it, namely that weapons not in use should be stored safely.

The well-regulated militia is supposed to be a result of keeping and bearing arms. Bridging the two is organizing and disciplining the militia -- and the authority for that rests with Congress, which has been abysmally negligent on the subject.

And the gun nuts out there are so limited in their experience of the rest of the world that they don't even see how obviously infantile the outright refusal to implement reasonable and rational controls on access to weapons and ammunition appears to the rest of the civilized world.

How things "appear" don't matter much to those who choose to exercise their inherent right to keep and bear arms -- reality is what counts. And the reality is that armed people are far less often successfully victimized than the unarmed. The reality in the latest incident is that liberal-driven policies cost lives, from keeping willing and trained people from intervening to not wanting citizens exercising their rights on campus in the first place.

As with the founding of the U.S., there is nothing owed to the rest of the world to care what it thinks appears proper, only to give an explanation. And the explanation hasn't changed, because human nature hasn't changed: an armed people is a free people; liberty is a well-armed lamb.

And of course, guns are one of the only things that the US still manufactures...so it is a huge economic issue as well.

Eventually, in the dystopian hellscape being created by the oligarchs and plutocrats in the US....I suspect we'll see little kids running around with Kalishnikovs as people fight to make their way across the desert to Gastown.

The odd thing is that liberals see the present greatest danger to liberty, and aren't arming themselves to prepare in case ballots fail. That's a great indicator that today's liberals have abandoned the great liberal tradition -- because it was classical liberalism that believed that "The great thing is that every man be armed." How liberalism moved from standing for the individual against the state to supporting the state is quite strange.

 

[Kulindahr]

Liberals would never be satisfied with reasonable controls, they will continue to demand more and more, until all private guns have been outlawed, and only criminals will own them. To a liberal a compromise is just at step toward an absolute. We have had too much experience with the democrats and slippery slopes to give up this aspect of freedom.

Given the statements of the leaders of the hoplophobes, that's totally correct: the goal is to ban all weapons. Criminal gangs are just drooling over the possibility of that happening!

BTW, the only "reasonable" controls are the ones that would enhance aspects of the people being a well-regulated militia.

 

[Kulindahr]

Oh bullshit.

And speaking of paranoid......

However.

There are as many gun hugging liberals in the US as far right wing nuts with classic compensatory behaviourial issues.

But this is also one of the tired old shibboleths of the paranoid right wingers...that nothing must be done because it would lead to only criminals owning guns.

It is no wonder that the US can't even move one step forward on this issue.

No, the problem is that liberals keep proposing "solutions" that would do nothing (e.g. universal background checks would have had almost no effect at all on the last two decades: criminals don't do background checks, and the mass shooters have had gun purchased after successful background checks). About the only proposal from the left that would have had an effect was safe storage, and with typical absolutist thinking they wanted all guns locked up, when it's only ones not in use that should be. And the problem is that the right has become so individualistic that they reject anything that might affect their individual wishes, regardless of other considerations.

So no one is actually paying attention to the militia clause and the link it gives between the individual right to keep and bear arms and the well-regulated militia that is the reason given for protecting that right! The link rests in Article I Section 8, where Congress is given the authority to take substantial steps toward making the militia -- which is, like it or not, all of us in the U.S. -- well-regulated. There have been a few insightful commentators who have noted that leaving one's arms about where other can just walk away with them is hardly an aspect of a well-regulated militia (an observation that echoes one made by George Washington!), but I've never seen any politician follow up on that.

If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns is quite true, but it is a mantra used not so much logically as a reinforcement of the selfish interest in a person's individual right, neglecting the rest -- namely, the militia, which is far removed from being an individual affair, because it requires submitting one's own self to the interests of the community (note that some colonial militias were far more than military-function units, but served as what we would call neighborhood watch, welfare agencies, and more). There is little aspiration among the militia, including the armed part, to be a well-regulated militia, meaning not just armed but trained and disciplined -- and that discipline involves two responsibilities of the old time militia officers: being sure weapons were stored securely, and knowing who was not competent in -- including to be trusted with -- arms.

The constitutional model would mean re-establishing a structure of local militia officers, certified by their states and chosen by the people, and requiring those officers, at a minimum, to verify that the arms of all armed citizens are properly cared for and stored, and to know who in their communities should not be allowed the use of arms. Yes, "No free man shall be barred the use of arms", but even that statement was made with the understanding that some were not mentally competent to do so (not that such status excluded them from the militia necessarily; there were other duties necessary to the functioning of a well-regulated militia besides personally bearing arms).

 

[Kulindahr]

I would echo Rareboy's bullshit. Many of my liberal friends (who claim to be "fiscal conservatives") love their guns but agree that something must be done. The second amendment specifically mentions a "militia" and I rather like Kuhli's idea of requiring them to train, to be tested, to be background checked -- all would be required of a good militia so you don't get nuts.

Perhaps when Ben has to look at the carnage caused by one of these mass shootings or it is someone you know/love, you might actually grow a pair and realize that where we are headed is anarchy -- plain and simple. And leading the charge are many of the right wings who worship at the feet of Donald Trump and the Clown Car.

Training is a concept necessary to "well-regulated militia"; besides poor weapons, it was Washington's top complaint. Not training to shoot; even he occasionally marveled at how many militia units were all marksmen! but training to work together, to accept commands, and to be disciplined about their weapons in care, storage, and security.

But the same concept requires officers for that militia, because it was the officers who were to see to it that everyone maintained proper discipline. That's why Congress isn't just authorized to discipline the militia, but to organize it: the two go hand in hand.

More and more I like the idea of establishing two things in tandem: the community mental health system I keep arguing for, and a federally-mandated state militia organization that would see to, well, training.

And as the T-shirt says, the Second Amendment was the "original homeland security". It's still supposed to be -- but that requires people becoming an actual well-regulated militia, not just a (thoroughly) unorganized one.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, criminals will be prosecuted to maximum extent of the law. However, throwing up your hands and screaming "we can't do anything" gets us nowhere as well. With the market so flooded with guns -- many unregistered -- putting even more into the market will do little to get weapons out of the hands of criminals. One first has to register the weapons that are out there, require background checks, establish national registries and data bases that would include the fingerprint of weapons being registered (which would assist in crime solving), stepping up registration of persons with mental issues (taking medications, diagnosis, etc), and limiting the ability to conceal carry.

It is legal to conduct drunk driving checkpoints; how about weapons checkpoints in high crime areas? Stop and frisk without racial profiling?

Unfortunately, Republicans have their hands so in the pockets and heads so far up the arses of the NRA that nothing is going to see the light of day and we'll continue to have one more mass shooting every other week until it changes.

Point of information: "registered" is a term that applies only to NFA firearms, such as machine guns and bazookas. There's no such thing as registration for regular arms, nor can there be; SCOTUS has ruled that you can't be required to register for any right, be it religion or anything else.

Registration has historically always been the first step toward confiscation. I'm always amazed that anyone on the left could propose it; one of the first things a right-wing Christianist regime would do with such information is disarm anyone who didn't agree with them! It would also result in the biggest bloodbath since the Civil War, since there are reportedly four to five million gun owners who have stated they will shoot any agent who tries to register their guns -- and probably one in ten of those wouldn't stop with the agents who came to make them register their guns, but go right on shooting anyone connected to such an effort.

No, the proper way to do it is to get back to the Constitution's militia model, which pays little attention to guns and a lot to people.