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+--- Thread: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" (/showthread.php?tid=12583)
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - robkelk - 01-02-2018
Wow.
Again, my Canadian viewpoint surprises me. (Up here, only two people are not allowed to vote: the Chief Electoral Officer and the Assistant Chief Electoral Officer. And that's to prevent any perceived conflict of interest on their part. Our constitution may not use the phrase "inalienable human rights", but we still try to abide by the principle.)
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Matrix Dragon - 01-02-2018
Yeah, add this Australian to the 'WTF voting?' collection.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Dartz - 01-02-2018
Yeah.
It makes sense when you compare which demographic is most likely to be disenfranchised with the geographics where that demographic is most likely to be disenfranchised.
It's not that they don't want felons voting - they just don't want anyone who'se not a fine upstanding member of the picket-fenced community from voting. Everyone's a felon in America if you look hard enough.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Labster - 01-05-2018
Right. Don't look at felony disenfranchisement as a strange penalty. Look at it a Jim Crow law that is still legal. So much of America's politics are still wrapped up in the consequences of slavery and civil war.
Of course, a pardon can get voting rights back, and well, I'm sure if you donate enough money to your state governor it'll prove you're really penitent.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - hazard - 01-06-2018
Good luck getting that much money when you've a conviction on your record.
And it's even worse than a Jim Crow law still on the record; due to the manner in which the War on Drugs is performed it also hits another potential voter base hard; marijuana users tend to be hippies, and hippies tend to be leftist and concerned with environmental issues. Both things that the Republican party either doesn't like or likes to ignore.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Bob Schroeck - 01-23-2018
And the can't-talk timer is reset again.
Damn, there are just too many shootings for anyone to talk about stopping them.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - hazard - 01-23-2018
Huh, just two weeks?
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Bob Schroeck - 01-28-2018
RESET!
You know, if people would just stop shooting each other, we could actually talk about how to stop people from shooting each other.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Bob Schroeck - 02-01-2018
RESET!
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - robkelk - 02-01-2018
(02-01-2018, 01:54 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: RESET!
Does this one count? Nobody died (yet).
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - hazard - 02-01-2018
3 shootings in what, 10 days?
Not yet enough to be certain mass shootings are increasing in numbers, the over time sample size is too small, but this is a chilling prelude. At least it's 4 shootings across an entire month, basically.
Far from good, far from it, but 1 shooting every 3 days is rather more terrifying than a shooting every week.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - robkelk - 02-14-2018
Thirteenth reset this calendar year - and it's only mid-February.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - SilverFang01 - 02-14-2018
And if you notice, Congressmen don't even bother with the boilerplate "thoughts and prayers" anymore.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Matrix Dragon - 02-14-2018
Some do. Namely the ones trying to pretend their lips aren't wrapped around the NRAs cock.
Seriously, the mentality about guns in the US is fucking horrible. Children are getting murdered on a regular basis AND YOU DO NOTHING.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Labster - 02-14-2018
(02-14-2018, 06:27 PM)SilverFang01 Wrote: And if you notice, Congressmen don't even bother with the boilerplate "thoughts and prayers" anymore.
Oh come on. The bodies aren't even in the ground yet! It's way to early for Congressmembers to have thoughts.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - hazard - 02-15-2018
It seems to be averaging twice a week now. Is it just me or is there a notable increase in mass shootings compared to previous administrations. And I mean all previous administrations.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - SilverFang01 - 02-15-2018
The CDC is forbidden by LAW to conduct any study on gun violence. The NRA managed to get Congress to delay the appointment of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy because he dared to voice a stance against guns.
And seeing as how a lot of people are just looking the other way while the republic is being dismantled and authoritarianism is nicely settling in with the generous help of Russia, the usual defense that the 2nd amendment is needed to make government behave has been exposed as bullshit.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - robkelk - 02-15-2018
(02-15-2018, 06:11 AM)SilverFang01 Wrote: ...
And seeing as how a lot of people are just looking the other way while the republic is being dismantled and authoritarianism is nicely settling in with the generous help of Russia, the usual defense that the 2nd amendment is needed to make government behave has been exposed as bullshit.
I've made this offer in the past, I'll make it again here. If any of the regular posters want permanent residency in Canada, I'll help you navigate the paperwork. Please note that there is no constitutional guarantee to possess arms in Canada.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - robkelk - 02-16-2018
WIRED: Pro-Gun Russian Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting
And now, an attempt to change the mood...
The Onion: Veteran Congressman Can Still Remember When Inaction On Gun Violence Actually Presented A Moral Dilemma
The Onion: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
![[Image: DorkTower1430.jpg]](http://www.dorktower.com/files/2018/02/DorkTower1430.jpg)
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Pyeknu - 02-16-2018
As I commented on Facebook...
...the only way that the NRA would EVER change its stance on anything is if relatives of NRA leaders get gunned down in a mass shooting.
Even then, I strongly doubt it.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Dartz - 02-16-2018
Perhaps if we adjust the ration of thoughts to prays, somethiing might change
https://www.thoughtsandprayersthegame.com/
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Black Aeronaut - 02-17-2018
The thing to keep in mind about the NRA: It originally represented the gun owners. But now? They represent the gun industry. And the gun industry makes the most money when there's fear mongering about "They're gonna take your rights away so buy as many guns as you can while you can!!!" So the NRA does its level best to keep that sort of talk going on. Which is most assuredly not helping the situation any!
Oh, and Hazard asked what the difference between USA and Canada was?
Easy. Samuel Colt. We had him. Canada didn't. And the man was a marketing genius for the time. He made damn sure people were buying his guns and was pretty much the root of America's gun culture.
I mean, seriously, look at this excerpt from the Wikipedia article about the man where they talk about how he marketed his guns...
Quote:When foreign heads of state would not grant him an audience, as he was only a private citizen, he persuaded the governor of the state of Connecticut make him a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp in the state militia. With this rank, he toured Europe again to promote his revolvers. He used marketing techniques which were innovative at the time. He frequently gave custom engraved versions of his revolvers to heads of state, military officers, and personalities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth. Colt commissioned western artist George Catlin to produce a series of paintings depicting exotic scenes in which a Colt weapon was prominently used against Indians, wild animals, or bandits in the earliest form of "product placement". He placed numerous advertisements in the same newspapers; The Knickerbocker ran as many as eight in the same edition. Lastly, he hired authors to write stories about his guns for magazines and travel guides. One of Colt's biggest acts of self-promotion was the payment to the publishers of United States Magazine $1,120 ($61,439 by 1999 standards) to run a 29-page fully illustrated story showing the inner workings of his factory.
After his revolvers had gained acceptance, Colt looked for unsolicited news stories containing mention of his guns that he could excerpt and reprint. He went so far as to hire agents in other states and territories to find such samples, to buy hundreds of copies for himself and to give the editor a free revolver for writing them, particularly if such a story disparaged his competition. Many of the revolvers Colt gave away as "gifts" had inscriptions such as "Compliments of Col. Colt" or "From the Inventor" engraved on the back straps. Later versions contained his entire signature which was used in many of his advertisements as a centerpiece, using his celebrity to guarantee the performance of his weapons. Colt eventually secured a trademark for his signature.
You want to know how America went so gun crazy? There you go. And there's no real way you're gonna get that genie back into the bottle. Believe me, that's not a hill you want to die on, metaphorically speaking.
But if there were a way to pull the teeth out of the NRA, I'm welcome to suggestions. Though I'm pretty sure that reforming corporate personhood laws here in the USA will go a long ways towards that.
I would like to reiterate: while tougher gun laws may cut down on SOME of these outbursts of violence, it's not going to stop it entirely. After all, even a ten year old can make a pressure cooker bomb with some fertilizer, diesel, a cell phone, and a few sundries from the hobby shop. I shudder to think how much worse the Las Vegas attack would have been if the man had used pipe bombs hidden in discarded drinking cups.
I'm not saying it wasn't horrible. I'm just saying it could have been worse. Yes, I know. It's horrible. It's morbid.
But you know what? IT'S THE FUCKING TRUTH. And we all know the truth sucks sometimes, and that truth is that gun laws are not some magic bullet that's gonna make everything better (pun not intended). Please don't fall into that kind of trap.
I will gladly caveat that the background check system is a fucking mess and it needs to be fixed. I will gladly discuss ways that the background check system can be fixed. But beyond that you need to look at other factors. This is not a simple matter and it cannot be treated as such.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - SilverFang01 - 02-17-2018
(02-17-2018, 04:43 AM)Black Aeronaut Wrote: I would like to reiterate: while tougher gun laws may cut down on SOME of these outbursts of violence, it's not going to stop it entirely. After all, even a ten year old can make a pressure cooker bomb with some fertilizer, diesel, a cell phone, and a few sundries from the hobby shop. I shudder to think how much worse the Las Vegas attack would have been if the man had used pipe bombs hidden in discarded drinking cups.
Seems to me that you are falling for the Nirvana fallacy. If it is not a 100 % effective, then it's not worth doing. Like with everything else, it's a step, nobody is expecting it to completely solve the problem, but is a step that allow us to take the next, and the next.
Quote:It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet you are not free to desist from it. "Ethics of the Fathers"
With respect to the NRA, the fact that the organization is in the sights of the FBI for helping funnel russian money to Trump and the GOP can be used to undercut the organization's hold on politicians. Specially as more people are starting to make deals with Mueller. It will be just a matter of being unmerciful when taking the NRA to task.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Dartz - 02-17-2018
The "Guns didn't do it" arguments made it here before the news did. Now we're seeing the 'If you want to ban guns, ban abortion' posts. It just popped up fifteen minutes ago and I had to actually sit there and look at its existance to make sure it hadn't come from a Putinbot. But, yep, there it is, still sitting there trying.
That's just fucking sickening. The whole fucking lot of it.
There's cynicism, there's bitter idealism, and there's this sort of level of thoughtless haymaking.
RE: "It's always too soon to talk about gun control" - Matrix Dragon - 02-17-2018
Can I just say the survivors of the latest round of Gunman in a School are freaking awesome. Within the day, they were out there, taking a stand against the politicians and celebrities trying to shut down the debate with the usual 'too soon'. They stated their reasons, they shot down the bullshit, they said the simple truth. They shouldn't have to do this, but everyone else has failed them, so they rise to the occasion.