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Post by Old Badger on Oct 6, 2015 20:57:59 GMT -5
Let's blame the victims!
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson attracted criticism Tuesday for appearing to suggest in an interview that the victims of last week's tragic school shooting in Oregon should have acted more forcefully to prevent the attack. "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me," Carson said on "Fox and Friends" Tuesday morning. "I would say, 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all.'" link
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 7, 2015 9:17:30 GMT -5
I often have noted that the NRA is a major enabler of killers and other criminals. Here are examples of their support for the criminal class:
"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? Because Congress, under pressure from the N.R.A., prevents the federal government from keeping a centralized database that could instantly identify multiple sales. Gun sale records are instead inconveniently “archived” by the nation’s gun dealers at 60,000 separate locations — the stores or residences of the nation’s federally licensed gun dealers, with no requirement for digital records.
"Rather than preventing crimes by identifying a trafficker before he sells guns to potentially lethal criminals, the A.T.F. has to wait until the police recover those guns from multiple crime scenes. Then law enforcement officials can begin the laborious process of tracing each gun from the manufacturer or importer to various middlemen, the retail seller, the original retail purchaser and one or more subsequent buyers.
"Meanwhile, dealers who work with traffickers are protected by another N.R.A.-backed measure that ensures that firearms dealers do not have to maintain inventories. Think about that: A car dealer keeps an inventory to know when cars go missing so the police can track them down as quickly as possible. Why the lack of curiosity among gun dealers? Well, gun dealers must report lost and stolen guns to the A.T.F. because large numbers of missing weapons are a red flag for trafficking. Without an inventory requirement, it’s easier to sell guns off the books." link
Yes, the NRA systematically protects the criminal racket of running guns to criminals, and does so knowingly. Their defense is that the ATF are "jackbooted thugs" but a funny thing about that:
"The A.T.F., which has helped convict tens of thousands of gun criminals, has of course been a perennial target of the N.R.A., and the lobbying group has worked relentlessly to limit the A.T.F.’s budget and strangle its operations. Today’s A.T.F. operates with about the same number of agents 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.
"Since the N.R.A. seems to loathe the A.T.F., one might think it would work to disband it or have its mission performed by an agency like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with its more polished and professional public image. But the N.R.A. prefers the hobbled A.T.F. just as it is, and every year it helps ensure that Congress approves legislation banning the transfer of A.T.F. operations to any other agency. You don’t get much more cynical than that."
Right. The NRA wants to keep "enforcement" in a weakened ATF, while decrying the existence of the ATF. Cynical? No--it's criminal.
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Post by mudcannon on Oct 7, 2015 9:57:59 GMT -5
Let's blame the victims!
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson attracted criticism Tuesday for appearing to suggest in an interview that the victims of last week's tragic school shooting in Oregon should have acted more forcefully to prevent the attack. "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me," Carson said on "Fox and Friends" Tuesday morning. "I would say, 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all.'" link
Good lord. One guy did that by the way.
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Post by jon on Oct 7, 2015 16:03:38 GMT -5
"appearing to suggest in an interview that the victims of last week's tragic school shooting in Oregon should have acted more forcefully to prevent the attack."
he made no such suggestion and anyone who listened to what he actually said and repeats this false inference is guilty of lying. As usual, some "journalist" tried a gotcha question and he responded with integrity & intelligence----something apparently foreign to leftist political extremists.
did you hear all of what he actually said, OB? do you understand logical English?
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 7, 2015 16:08:30 GMT -5
Paul Waldman explains why Carson's crazy-sounding statements are just normal within the GOP:
"Was it unspeakably insulting to the victims of the Oregon shooting and their families to suggest that they were killed or injured because they didn’t have the physical courage and quick thinking that a hero like Carson would have displayed had he been in their shoes? Of course. And is it an absurd fantasy that in the instant he was confronted by a gunman, Carson would in the space of seconds organize a bunch of terrified strangers to mount an assault on someone ready to kill them? You bet it is.
"But this fantasy is nothing unusual at all. In fact, it lies at the heart of much of the efforts Republicans have made at the behest of the National Rifle Association in recent years to change state laws on guns. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” says the NRA, and Republicans believe it, too. So they push for laws to allow guns to be brought into as many places as possible — schools, government buildings, churches, anywhere and everywhere. They advocate “stand your ground” laws that encourage people to use guns to settle arguments. They seek both open-carry and concealed-carry laws on a “shall issue” basis (meaning the government presumes that you should get the license unless it can prove you fall into certain categories of offenders) to put guns in as many hands as possible.
"All of this is driven by the fantasy of the gun owner as action hero. Sure, the world may see you as just a middle-age middle manager with an expanding gut and a retreating hairline, but at any moment you could be transformed into Jack Bauer! Woe be to the al-Qaeda commando team or deranged shooter who comes to your town, because you’ll be ready for ’em! The world is divided into the sheep who cower while waiting to be killed, and those possessed of the courage and firepower to stand up at those life-and-death moments. This is what the gun industry, the NRA and the Republican Party encourage people to believe. So, of course, Ben Carson believes it, too." link
Yep, and you can read those same action-hero fantasies here from jon and others. But that's not all. Waldman also notes this incongruity:
"Think for a moment about how we reorganized our government, our airline industry and entire swaths of our society, spending hundreds of billions of dollars, creating a new apparatus of surveillance, all because nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. We didn’t like spending all that money, creating all that fear, compromising our privacy and constitutional principles and making everybody take off their shoes at the airport, but it was a price we had to pay because of those 3,000 deaths, right?
"It takes about a month — every month, month after month — for that many Americans to be killed with guns. Just imagine how we would have reacted to an attack 10 or 11 times the scale of 9/11, which is but a single year of the death toll guns place on our country...But unlike their position on terrorism, the position that the entire Republican Party now adopts — not necessarily all its voters, but virtually all its elected representatives — is that a toll that size is simply not meaningful enough to justify any action to not even restrict, but merely to inconvenience Americans’ ability to own as many guns as they want and to get them as easily as they want...
"I doubt that the young doctor [Carson] said to himself, “Wow, that’s a tragedy that we saw three people shot to death this week, but it sure would be a bigger tragedy if people had to get background checks at gun shows” — but it is indeed the position of his party. The fact that it sounds crazy when he speaks it out loud doesn’t mean it’s not what they believe."
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Post by mudcannon on Oct 7, 2015 17:08:22 GMT -5
"appearing to suggest in an interview that the victims of last week's tragic school shooting in Oregon should have acted more forcefully to prevent the attack." he made no such suggestion and anyone who listened to what he actually said and repeats this false inference is guilty of lying. As usual, some "journalist" tried a gotcha question and he responded with integrity & intelligence----something apparently foreign to leftist political extremists. did you hear all of what he actually said, OB? do you understand logical English? Asked to clarify his comments, Carson said "What needs clarifying?" www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/07/ben-carson-says-would-have-charged-oregon-community-college-gunman/
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 7, 2015 18:46:41 GMT -5
"appearing to suggest in an interview that the victims of last week's tragic school shooting in Oregon should have acted more forcefully to prevent the attack." he made no such suggestion and anyone who listened to what he actually said and repeats this false inference is guilty of lying. As usual, some "journalist" tried a gotcha question and he responded with integrity & intelligence----something apparently foreign to leftist political extremists. did you hear all of what he actually said, OB? do you understand logical English?
Yes, and you simply are wrong on this. Again, here's the statement: "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me," Carson said on "Fox and Friends" Tuesday morning. "I would say, 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all.'"
How do you read that any other way?
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 8, 2015 11:29:32 GMT -5
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 8, 2015 12:48:02 GMT -5
Living in an NRA world:
"On Tuesday, customers were coming and going in the parking lot of a Home Depot near Detroit when a shoplifter suddenly came tearing across the blacktop. The shoplifter, who appeared to be in his 40s and wore a black shirt and hat, was pushing a cart full of stolen power tools and welding equipment worth more than $1,000. As a Home Depot loss prevention officer came running after him, the shoplifter shoved the stolen goods into a waiting black SUV and jumped in. That’s when a female bystander pulled out a concealed pistol and fired several shots at the fleeing shoplifters, possibly striking one of the SUV’s rear tires...
"'It’s my worst nightmare as a [concealed pistol license] instructor,' Doreen Hankins told the Detroit Free Press. 'You have to know the entire situation before you pull that handgun out. And I don’t see that a shoplifter at Home Depot fills any of those criteria.' Hankins and other firearms instructors told the newspaper that concealed weapon license holders should only pull their guns if someone is in imminent danger of death or serious injury, including a sexual assault. Those who draw their pieces too quickly and frivolously fire at people can face serious felony charges, from the reckless use of a firearm to assault. All three instructors agreed the woman had overreacted." link
Of course it was an over-reaction. But one that the NRA and its allies have been arguing is perfectly OK, and they've been effective at it:
"Since the 2012 Newtown, Conn., massacre of 26 people, including 20 school children, the percentage of Americans who think gun ownership could “protect people from becoming victims of crime” has gone up by nine points, according to a 2014 Pew Research Poll. The shift was most significant among Republicans, whose support for gun ownership between 2012 and 2104 rose from 63 percent to 80 percent."
So, get used to it, because this is where we're headed for the foreseeable future: civilians pulling guns and firing in crowded malls, schools, libraries, parking lots, city streets, and residential neighborhoods, egged on by the bought-and-paid-for voice of the gun industry. Yeah, of course some innocent bystanders will get killed. Sure, a lot of them will be kids, parents, and grandparents. But what the hell, gun nuts will get to play Wyatt Earp and make up for their personal deficiencies with firepower. Hey, its only lives we're talking about, and as Ben Carson reminds us, Second Amendment rights are much more important than those.
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Post by leftylarry on Oct 8, 2015 13:01:32 GMT -5
I think it's fine.
Think people will be shoplifting form HD when women bystanders are firinf pistols at their nuts?
I don't think so but of course law and order is anathema to Leftists, only Serbs should be bombed or shot, Kurds & Israeli's probably too,
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Post by brisco0317 on Oct 8, 2015 13:15:24 GMT -5
I am on the conservative side but I agree we don't need people pulling out their guns to shoot at shoplifters, that's reckless and ridiculous. Instead of pulling out a gun, get the license plate number! Take a picture with your phone! Don't worry, HD has insurance for theft!
This is not a good thing for those supporting the right to own guns. If anything, it will probably motivate these shoplifters to bring guns with them "to protect themselves".
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 8, 2015 13:46:49 GMT -5
This is not a good thing for those supporting the right to own guns. If anything, it will probably motivate these shoplifters to bring guns with them "to protect themselves".
Good point.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 8, 2015 14:19:02 GMT -5
"Senate Democrats unveiled plans on Thursday for gun control reforms that include closing background check loopholes, expanding the background check database, and tightening regulations on illegal gun purchases...The senators will demand that "all domestic abusers" are banned from purchasing firearms, and that people are not allowed buy guns without a completed background check...Eighty-five percent of all Americans favor universal background checks on gun sales, according to research conducted by the Pew Research Center in July, while 79 percent favor laws that would stop mentally-ill people purchasing firearms." link
Good luck. The NRA will rally the gun-nut minority and tell the 80 percent to stuff it. But eventually, we'll reach the tipping point, and then: BLAM!
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 8, 2015 16:51:59 GMT -5
Regarding the Texas law that will allow concealed carry in classrooms: "The law, which was passed four months ago, will take effect on Aug. 1, 2016. That’s 50 years to the day since one of the first and most infamous mass shootings at an American school, the beginning of a bloody tape loop. It happened right here, at the University of Texas at Austin, where an engineering student climbed to the top of the iconic tower in the center of campus and, for an agonizing hour and a half, sprayed the surrounding area with bullets, killing 14 people and injuring more than 30." link
Yes, that's right, Texas will mark the anniversary of the first modern mass murder in US history by requiring UT to allow more guns on campus. The first shooter, Charles Whitman, used a high-powered rifle to shoot individuals sniper-style, one by one. It took him an hour and a half to shoot all those people. Of course, today the killers have access to multiple-kill military weapons that allow them to kill that number of people in mere minutes. So, of course, what we need is MORE guns on campus. Nuts!
The case against this law "was pressed by the chancellor for the University of Texas system, William McRaven, who hardly winces at the mention of firearms. He was a member of the Navy SEALs who rose to the ranks of admiral and helped to plot the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011...'I absolutely understand the Second Amendment,' he added. 'I have spent my life fighting for the Second Amendment. You know, you have to ask yourself why did the founding fathers put freedom of speech as the First Amendment? They may have done that because freedom of speech is incredibly important, and if you have guns on campus, I question whether or not that will somehow inhibit our freedom of speech.'
"Pressed to elaborate, McRaven continued: 'If you’re in a heated debate with somebody in the middle of a classroom and you don’t know whether or not that individual is carrying, how does that inhibit the interaction between students and faculty?' That concern was raised time and again by faculty members and students with whom I spoke over recent days. Joan Neuberger, a history professor and one of the founders of a new advocacy group called Gun Free UT, told me: 'If I know that there’s a possibility that someone will have gun in his pocket, I can’t in good conscience get students to debate the way they do now.'”
When I was a young Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State, I happened to notice the handle of a six-shooter sticking out of the belt of one of my students in a class of about 100. I announced at the end of class that from now on no guns would be permitted in my classroom--period. I never saw one again, though perhaps they just were better-hidden. It's absolutely intimidating to have armed students sitting in class.
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Post by LeftyLarrysTaint on Oct 9, 2015 15:29:07 GMT -5
I think it's fine. Think people will be shoplifting form HD when women bystanders are firinf pistols at their nuts? I don't think so but of course law and order is anathema to Leftists, only Serbs should be bombed or shot, Kurds & Israeli's probably too, Shoplifting is not a crime that should be punishable by death.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 9, 2015 16:38:17 GMT -5
Turning America's colleges and universities into shooting galleries with live targets:
"One fraternity member was killed and three others wounded in a fight that escalated into a shooting early Friday near a Greek-life dorm at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz...According to NAU Police Chief Greg Fowler, “two separate student groups got into a confrontation” shortly after 1 a.m. Friday. “The confrontation turned physical,” Fowler said, and Jones “produced a handgun and shot four other students.”...Hours after the bloodshed in Flagstaff, Texas Southern University in Houston went on lockdown after a shooting." link
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munertl
State Legislator
Posts: 261
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Post by munertl on Oct 11, 2015 8:07:31 GMT -5
2 more school shootings while gun nuts were protesting the president coming to Roseberg to console the victims families.
All the NRA and gun nuts are doing is creating more scenarios like the Home Depot vigilante, or the so called good guy with a gun that "helped" the victim of a carjacking by shooting him dead accidentally and fleeing the scene.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 11, 2015 23:46:27 GMT -5
"Amid the bloodbaths of 21st-century America, you might think that there would be a lot of research into the causes of gun violence, and which policies work best against it. You would be wrong. Gun interests, wary of any possible limits on weaponry, have successfully lobbied for limitations on government research and funding, and private sources have not filled the breach. So funding for basic gun violence research and data collection remains minuscule — the annual sum total for all gun violence research projects appears to be well under $5 million. A grant for a single study in areas like autism, cancer or HIV can be more than twice that much.
"There are public health students who want to better understand rising gun-related suicide rates, recent explosions in firearm murders in many U.S. cities, and mass murders like the one this month at an Oregon community college, where a lone gunman killed nine people. But many young researchers are staying away from the field. Some believe there's little hope Congress will do anything substantive to reduce gun violence, regardless of what scientists find. And the work is stressful — many who study gun violence report receiving angry emails and death threats from believers in unrestricted gun ownership...Meanwhile, the longtime leaders in gun violence research aren't getting any younger; many are in their 60s and 70s." link
Gun injuries are the 5th most-common cause of death among Americans under the age of 65, yet the gun lobby has stymied research into the causes of such deaths, including the rising number of suicides. Can you imagine any other public health issue of this magnitude in which this would happen? It's shameful.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 12, 2015 0:18:59 GMT -5
"The U.S. Supreme Court could announce as early as Tuesday whether it will hear a challenge to a suburban Chicago law banning firearms commonly known as assault weapons...Gun rights advocates are challenging a 2013 law passed in Highland Park, Illinois, that bans the sale, purchase, or possession of semi-automatic weapons that can hold more than 10 rounds in a single ammunition clip or magazine. In passing the law, city officials cited the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado...Central to the dispute is the Supreme Court's 2008 ruling that, for the first time, said the Constitution's Second Amendment provides an individual right to own a handgun for self-defense. While it was a watershed ruling for gun rights, it also said "dangerous and unusual weapons" can be restricted." link
Yeah, what the country needs is more multiple-kill weapons, cuz we have had a shortage of mass shootings, at only a bit over one per day. But that the Court might even take up this case, in which both the District and Appeals Courts upheld the restriction, isn't half as scary as the statistics cited by the plaintiffs in their claim that such weapons are "common" and therefore constitutionally protected:
"The Illinois State Rifle Association, which is challenging the law's constitutionality, says the weapons are in no way unusual. The AR-15, the group says, is the best-selling rifle type in the nation. Between 1990 and 2012, the group says, more than 5 million AR-type rifles were manufactured for sale in the U.S., and 3.4 million more were imported. As for the magazines, the gun rights group says they are "ubiquitous," with nearly 75 million of them in possession of gun owners."
So, there are more than 8 million of these things and 75 million big clips floating around the US? Let's hope the vast majority are in the hands of the military or police, and not the gun-nuts behind this case.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 12, 2015 11:21:31 GMT -5
Best anti-gun protest ever coming soon to a campus near you:
"Come next fall, students at the University of Texas Austin will protest concealed handguns on campus by strapping “gigantic swinging dildos” to their backpacks...The “Campus (DILDO) Carry” event juxtaposes two regulations: the state bill signed this summer that will allow license holders to carry a concealed handgun throughout university campuses (including inside buildings), and the section of the Texas Penal Code which forbids individuals from displaying or distributing obscene materials. As of early Monday, 3,600 students had indicated online that they would participate in the action, alongside nearly 700 who are “maybe” joining in." link
Says the organizer of this protest: “The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it DOES have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a DILDO to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid the penis.”
You know how I'm sure this will catch on? Because, borrowing from the 1960s slogan "Make Love Not War," they're calling the movement #CocksNotGlocks. Honestly, how many college kids can resist putting that sticker on their backpacks, right next to one reading, “You’re carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I’m carrying a HUGE DILDO.”
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Post by mudcannon on Oct 12, 2015 21:25:39 GMT -5
That is so awesome.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 14, 2015 8:49:05 GMT -5
"MILWAUKEE (AP) — Jurors ordered a Wisconsin gun store to pay nearly $6 million on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by two Milwaukee police officers who were shot and seriously wounded by a gun purchased at the store. The ruling came in a negligence lawsuit filed by the officers against Badger Guns, a shop in suburban Milwaukee that authorities have linked to hundreds of firearms found at crime scenes. The lawsuit said the shop ignored several warning signs that the gun used to shoot the officers was being sold to a so-called straw buyer who was illegally purchasing the weapon for someone else...
"Authorities have said more than 500 firearms recovered from crime scenes had been traced back to Badger Guns and Badger Outdoors, making it the "No. 1 crime gun dealer in America," according to a 2005 charging document from an unrelated case. Norberg and Kunisch cited that detail in their lawsuit, saying it showed a history of negligence." link
Bravo to those Milwaukee jurors! Of course, the gun shop owners already are using a paperwork dodge to avoid responsibility: "Badger Guns, previously known as Badger Outdoors, has since closed and been replaced by a gun shop called Brew City Shooters Supply. All three entities have been run by Allan family members." Yep, the Allan family: supplying weapons to cop killers through several generations! What good citizens they are.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 14, 2015 19:26:47 GMT -5
"The Democratic presidential candidates have thrust gun control forward as a dominant issue for the national election, signaling a sea change in the politics of a controversial subject that recent Democratic nominees have often avoided. After years of deadly mass shootings across the country, and with President Obama voicing deep frustration with inaction by Republicans in Congress, the Democratic candidates led by Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed in a debate here Tuesday night to toughen restrictions on gun owners and gun manufacturers. Most seemed not merely willing but determined and eager to lead the push for gun control into next year’s general election and effectively declared war on the National Rifle Association...
"The Democrats’ evolution on the issue has been vivid. More than a decade ago, while serving as chairman of the party, Terry McAuliffe cautioned Democrats to bypass gun control, especially in swing states. Now as Virginia’s governor, McAuliffe has become a leading advocate for universal background checks and has called himself “the most aggressive candidate ever in Virginia history talking about safe, common-sense gun regulations.”...Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist with Third Way, noted how few Republican candidates and leaders jumped to the NRA’s defense in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s debate. “The politics have changed, and the NRA has become a pariah for much of the country,” Bennett said." link
I have been warning the pro-gun crowd for several years that Just Say No is not a viable long-term strategy for them. The constant drumbeat of death--especially mass killings--has changed the politics on this, and one party benefits from that.
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Post by jon on Oct 15, 2015 9:32:23 GMT -5
So what has the Obama ATF done to prosecute this store?
BTW I understand Hillary, and so by extension OB to be sure, is campaigning to "hold gunmakers accountable" for the misuse of their products. So do you also advocate holding distilleries, breweries, and carmakers "accountable" for harm caused by misuse of their products? Pharma companies?
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 15, 2015 10:41:27 GMT -5
So what has the Obama ATF done to prosecute this store? BTW I understand Hillary, and so by extension OB to be sure, is campaigning to "hold gunmakers accountable" for the misuse of their products. So do you also advocate holding distilleries, breweries, and carmakers "accountable" for harm caused by misuse of their products? Pharma companies?
Those other industries face liability lawsuits all the time, jon. Only gun manufacturers are exempt. That's the whole point. How'd you miss it?
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 15, 2015 15:03:39 GMT -5
"I am a responsible gun owner. I bought my first gun when I was 12. It was a Browning 12-gauge shotgun, and I saved money from my paper route and cleaning a drive-in restaurant to buy it in time for dove season. In the years before I could legally drive, I’d tie the Browning across the handlebars of my bike and ride to the fields outside town to hunt. I’ve owned several guns since — deer rifles and target rifles, shotguns and a handgun. I bought that gun, a semi-automatic Ruger, to keep my family safe, and locked it up to keep them safe from it. Like I said, responsible.
"Although I’d like to believe I’m not party to the gun violence that stains the United States, I can’t. My grandmother shot and killed herself with a gun, and a few years ago my father shot and didn’t quite kill himself with one. A family friend lost a teenage son in an accidental shooting while he and his friends were playing with a gun. My stepbrother died in a murder-suicide with a gun, and the husband of one of my sister’s co-workers was killed in a mass shooting by a guy carrying three of them. None of that happened with my gun, of course, but after every new mass shooting, I’m reminded that I, as a responsible gun owner, bear a portion of the responsibility for our nation’s gun violence.
"After the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon — after every mass shooting on a college campus, movie theater, elementary school or wherever — someone from the National Rifle Association or some other gun-rights group, or someone in Congress or running for president, goes on television and says we can’t fund federal studies on gun violence or have universal background checks of gun buyers or do anything that even hints of gun control because it infringes on the rights of responsible gun owners. My gun is being used to argue against doing anything to even try to reduce gun violence in our nation...
"The Monday after the shootings, I disassembled my Ruger, clamped the pieces in a vise and cut them in half with an angle grinder. I sent the proper paperwork in to the state to report it destroyed. And then I wrote about it on Facebook, and included a hashtag: #ONELESSGUN. I’m not an activist, I’m an angry American. I’m angry about the senseless killings, and the more senseless “stuff happens” response to them. I’m angry that the gun industry’s special-interest spokesmen claim to speak for me, and that politicians believe them...Maybe cutting up a perfectly good gun is just a symbolic — some say stupid — gesture that will accomplish nothing. Maybe. But at the very least, there is #ONELESSGUN."
link
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 15, 2015 17:09:57 GMT -5
Breaking news:
"RICHMOND — Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Thursday unveiled a raft of measures intended to increase enforcement of existing gun laws and prohibit firearms in dozens of state office buildings across the commonwealth. The order also creates a task force to prosecute gun crimes offenders and identify gaps in laws regulating the sale and transfer of guns, sets up a statewide tip line and seeks to expand the forfeiture of guns in domestic violence and stalking cases...McAuliffe’s move immediately bans the open carry of guns into state office buildings, but banning concealed weapons will require a more lengthy regulatory process including public comment. State policy bans state employees from bringing guns to work." link
I guess banning non-government visitors from bringing guns into state office buildings where the employees are unarmed should equalize things, at least as well as making those employees arm themselves against well-armed irate visitors, huh? What's amazing is that this is happening in Virginia. In the Capital of the Confederacy, of all places. And, of course, the official residence of the NRA!
The Republicans, of course, reacted immediately, no doubt anticipating calls--or worse, a visit--from Wayne LaPierre: "Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) called the ban on guns in state buildings “shortsighted” and hinted lawmakers would try to reverse it. “We will review this policy during the 2016 legislative session and take the appropriate action to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens,” he said." Of course they will.
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Post by Old Badger on Oct 15, 2015 21:53:45 GMT -5
Evidence-based gun laws that would save lives:
"The most promising option is a national permit-to-purchase, or PTP, policy requiring people to obtain a permit, contingent on passing a background check, before buying a firearm...In Missouri, the 2007 repeal of a PTP law was associated with a 14 percent increase in the murder rate and an increase of 16 percent in the firearm-related suicide rate. Studies that examined Connecticut’s 1995 PTP law found that it was associated with a 40 percent reduction in the state’s firearm homicide rate and a 15 percent reduction in firearm suicides. Further, no “substitution effect” was observed in either Missouri or Connecticut, meaning criminals didn’t switch to other weapons when they failed to obtain firearms...
"Additionally, a number of states have passed laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of perpetrators of domestic violence..such policies were associated with a 19 percent reduction in intimate-partner homicides.
"Individual-level studies also provide support for expanding federal firearm denial criteria to include those with convictions for violent misdemeanors... The study found that the group with misdemeanor convictions who were allowed to obtain guns were two to four times more likely to be later arrested for violent or firearm-related offenses. The authors concluded that the “denial of handgun purchase is associated with a reduction in risk for later criminal activity of approximately 20 percent to 30 percent.”
"Finally, in the United States, gun manufacturers are able to design their products without regard for consumer safety. This is largely the consequence of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which gave broad immunity to gun manufacturers and dealers from liability litigation. Before the passage of the PLCAA, tort liability lawsuits were slowly influencing the conduct of gun manufacturers and dealers, better aligning them with public health. Lawsuits in Chicago and Detroit targeted retail gun shows and wholesalers engaged in practices facilitating illegal straw purchases. Studies on the effects of these suits found that there were substantial reductions in the flow of guns to criminals in these cities." [In other words, repeal PLCAA.] link
No confiscation of weapons, no gun bans, no "jack-booted thugs" breaking into homes. Just simple changes in existing law to make it harder for criminals and crazies to get guns. A panacea? No. But even if "the combined influence of these policies could prevent only 10 percent of our nation’s more than 33,000 annual gun deaths that would still be the equivalent of preventing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, every single year."
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Post by jon on Oct 16, 2015 10:48:10 GMT -5
" Those other industries face liability lawsuits all the time, jon."
Duh.... sure they do. For design and manufacture defects, but not for people misusing their product. How could an honest person miss that distinction? If someone drinks a full bottle of rum and then runs down a pedestrian in their silent Prius can Toyota and Bacardi be successfully sued? That analogous to what you & Hillary propose.
BTW do you support denial of Constitutional right to bear arms to those who have been accused of, but not convicted of, domestic violence?
" No confiscation of weapons, no gun bans, no "jack-booted thugs" breaking into homes." I remain unconvinced that you, Hillary, Obama, et al are actually opposed to just that. (actually some Dems have been caught saying they would ban every gun if they could ) You just understand you can't get it all at once so continue to chip away. You deny the rights of soldiers who might have had some PSTD treatment, then the guys who have been falsely accused of domestic abuse, etc. Of course Obama has promised you could keep your Dr. too, and that your Obamacare premiums would go down, etc. It's called lying. All the while completely ignoring the gang thugs who shoot people every day.
It's like...."first they came for the Jews, but I'm not a Jew........."
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Post by goldenbucky on Oct 16, 2015 19:29:52 GMT -5
Jon the makers of Oxycontin wish you were right. They didn't get the benefit of special immunity.
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