Just as LaPierre was finishing up his flopsweat-fest, wherein he described every single problem with society except the proliferation of firearms, news started rolling in of a multiple shooting in Blair County, PA.
Four dead, including the shooter. At least five persons wounded or injured including apparently at least three PA State Troopers.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/21/16069042-four-killed-including-gunman-in-shooting-incident-in-pennsylvania-three-troopers-injured?lite
If only there’d been trained men with guns who could have stopped this…Oh, dear.
You know, I wonder what games the shooter played for fun. Open thread.
Shakespeare
According to Twitter, which is never wrong about anything, British TV news presenting LaPierre’s speech has twice had to note that it was not a parody or spoof. Twice.
bemused
I talk about karma half seriously but now I’m starting to think there may really be something to it. It’s getting a little spooky, in a good way.
Southern Beale
Just saw on Twitter that Rush Limbaugh thought LaPierre “sounded like an adult looking for real solutions,” then went on to blame liberals for mass shootings.
Just keep it up, Republicans. You’ll be the 17% instead of the 27%. And then the 7%.
mdblanche
Jeff Danziger’s latest
Villago Delenda Est
Probably “Help Wayne LaPierre look even more like he should be the very first person entered into the national database of the seriously mentally ill” by Rockstar Games.
Southern Beale
By the way, if guns are so great, how come the NRA won’t allow them at their convention?
Just curious.
The Red Pen
Were the PA State Troopers sufficiently manly?
Ash Can
Who wants to bet that LaPierre will cancel his appearance on Meet the Face on Sunday, out of fear that Gregory will ask him an actual question?
Roger Moore
I’ll say again to Wayne La Pierre: if the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, maybe we need to keep the bad guys from getting guns in the first place.
PaulW
At what point can it be explained to people and the media that certain lobby groups are NOT the experts we ought to listen to?
The NRA’s “more guns and guards” proposal is both insulting – there is no acknowledge of the problem our nation faces with gun violence EVERYWHERE including our own homes – and arrogant – an open refusal to admit that there is a limit to how much ammo one person ought to have and that gun safety is more vital an issue than gun control.
Are we gonna have to have a gun massacre every week before the NRA is laughed out of the forum?
Southern Beale
@Ash Can:
Pretty sure no one is ever scared that David Gregory will ask a real question.
Just sayin’
BruinKid
Stupid Ron Paul fans think Sandy Hook was a set up. We’re seeing this kind of drivel from the fringe now.
They claim the girl hugging Obama must be the same girl who was killed, because her father dared to crack a smile before he spoke with reporters, and since they look similar. Because these heartless idiots have no clue how human beings deal with the incomprehensible grief of losing your 6-year-old daughter to a deranged mass murderer.
Sigh.
And as I’d hope we’ve all learned by now, simply ignoring the fringes doesn’t stop them, it only allows them to operate under the radar. Expose them early and often, I say.
c u n d gulag
GOP POV:
And from this event today, what we obviously need isn’t just to arm all of the teachers and administrators, it’s for each State’s State Troopers not to carry some pussy-assed side-arms.
They need full automatics and bazooka’s, and drive around in tanks!
Now, go speed, you Liberal motherf*cker’s!!!
Ask for another raise, you union teacher thug, yo…
Wait!
Someone remind me again of why we want to arm those union teacher thugs again?
Punchy
It just shows that each police car must have at least one armed volunteer with a shotgun riding shotgun.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
What the fuck? Are you some sort of commie or something?
japa21
@Ash Can: He doesn’t have to worry about that. Dancin’ Dave never asks questions except to wonder what somebody had for breakfast.
Southern Beale
@BruinKid:
Well, of course they do! I predicted that. See, now Obama can take their guns … just like they always knew he would!
? Martin
Should be noted that two of the injured police were due to a related car accident, but the third was shot square in the chest (vest, thankfully).
This really is shaping up to be the perfect melange of black man reelected, holiday stress, mayan apocalypse, gun anxiety, fiscal cliff all whipped up into stiff peaks and unleashed on the world.
And welcome to Poe’s Law, limeys.
Villago Delenda Est
@Punchy:
I think we need to have a second armed volunteer riding shotgun on the first volunteer, with rounds chambered and ready to go, just to be extra safe.
Booger
This wouldn’t have happened before Pennsylvania took God out of…wait…nevermind.
gbear
Is there any possible time that LaPierre could have held that presser when there are not people being shot simultaneously?
BGinCHI
Guns don’t kill people.
The NRA does.
Villago Delenda Est
@PaulW:
Alas, that’s probably not frequent enough to do the trick.
Omnes Omnibus
My gun nut cousin has approvingly quoted Lapierre’s speech on FB. She has also noted that “they can come for them but they won’t find them.”
Roger Moore
@gbear:
No. SATSQ.
Comrade Dread
@BruinKid: Yes, I discovered two of them in my Facebook lists. Suffice to say, they’re unfriended now.
gogol's wife
@gbear:
Good point.
nemesis
And now we have ammo flying off the shelves
They sold 3.5 years worth of ammo in a 72 hour period.
The cowardice, the paranoia, the stupidity in this country is staggering.
Disco
Are we gonna have to have a gun massacre every week before the NRA is laughed out of the forum?
The problem I’ve noticed is that, with each massacre, the NRA and gun nuts dig in their heels even more.
Southern Beale
@Disco:
That’s true but they’re looking ever more ridiculous with each incident. I’d say the NRA’s expiration date is about to arrive.
The Red Pen
@Comrade Dread:
If this wasn’t on Something Awful, I’d assume it was real: Your Old Friend On Facebook Has a Plan to Prevent School Shootings.
gbear
@nemesis: Like I said yesterday, I hope that every one of these ammo freaks stockpiling weapons in their basement has an electical short in their home this winter.
jl
From news summary I heard this morning, he did not discuss EVERY problem except the proliferation of guns.
He didn’t mention effed up gun nut mentality egged on by a formerly respectable and useful firearms association that turned into a ruthless and dishonest industry front group 20 or 30 years ago, that is now interested in nothing but making as many bucks for its sponsors as fast as possible.
And which reversed many of its formerly quite sensible gun regulation policy positions for filthy blood soaked gazzillions of dollars.
Funny he didn’t mention that. I think that factor may actually be more important than video games. Call me crazy, but at least let us discuss that hypothesis.
Disco
It is simply a nightmare to me. Think of the people in the gun industry who will have that much better a Christmas because sales of guns exploded after 20 children were murdered.
God bless America.
Roger Moore
@nemesis:
Actually, that’s 3.5 years worth of magazines, not 3.5 years worth of ammunition. It’s still scary, and one more sign that the people buying this stuff are crazy.
Napoleon
This will be interesting to see how the evening news plays both the NRA speach as well as the PA shooting.
GregB
One has to wonder if this shooter took G. Gordon Liddy’s advice when shooting at the police:
“Head shots, head shots…. Kill the sons of bitches.”
Disco
This will be interesting to see how the evening news plays both the NRA speach as well as the PA shooting.
I will be shocked if the shooting gets any mention.
nemesis
@Roger Moore: Didnt quite know how to word that. Thx.
Comrade Dread
@The Red Pen: Wow. That’s uncanny. But he forgot to throw in a line about how vaccinations are likewise a plot to make us sicker and easier for the UN to take over and control.
Roger Moore
@GregB:
Apparently not. Of the troopers who were injured, only one was shot, and that was in the chest where his body armor protected him. Obviously, we need a better class of mass murderer in this country.
jl
@Disco:
” I will be shocked if the shooting gets any mention. ”
Producers might make the case that a mass shooting is not really news anymore.
But then NRA saying same thing over and over again, no matter what happens, is not news anymore either.
So, maybe the evening news will skip both?
I heard a news report that NRA was planning to go the ‘arm teachers’ route. Anyone else hear that?
If so, I guess Gohmert sent up that trail balloon, and it did not fly so well.
Dcrefugee
@PaulW: Right about the time we understand the lobby groups are only advocating what’s good for them, and no one else. Sometimes, the Venn diagrams intersect; sometimes they don’t.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Sorta ot….the initial draft was signed in July. The US declined to vote at that time.
Timing….?
http://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/ArmsTradeTreaty/
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: Did you then explain to her that if they’re that hard to find, then she won’t be able to retrieve them and put them into operation in time to be of use?
And better, did you ask her how many children she’s willing to sacrifice?
ranchandsyrup
40 years ago, people laughed at Archie Bunker taking today’s pro gun positions. Now it’s dogma. Quetzalcoatl, why have you forsaken us?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLjNJI54GMM&feature=youtu.be
BruinKid
@Comrade Dread: The only reason I don’t is to keep track of the nuttery. Ignoring these people doesn’t work; it only allows them to grow stronger.
They’ve gained some power in Congress with Justin Amash (MI-03) and Thomas Massie (KY-04). And Massie is 41 years old; Amash is only 32. They’ll be around for quite a while. Amash actually represents a district Obama WON. But the folks behind those $6 million 1-day moneybombs have promised Amash will not lose that swing seat. Hell, Steve Pestka (D) outraised and outspent Amash in 2012, and still lost by 9 points.
And Boehner removing Amash from his committee has only turned him into a conservative hero. Keep an eye out for this guy in the coming years.
sacrablue
@Roger Moore: If the economy is in the crapper and these people are being taxed to death, how can they afford to buy all of this crap?
Bob2
GUYS GUYS it’s not the day to talk about gun control after another shooting!!!
i guess la pierre didn’t get the memo.
jl
@Ash Can:
” Who wants to bet that LaPierre will cancel his appearance on Meet the Face on Sunday, out of fear that Gregory will ask him an actual question? ”
Seems like to be consistent, Gregory will caution his audience to suspend judgment on LaPierre’s motives until more evidence is in.
Comrade Dread
@BruinKid: I keep in touch with the insanity via Townhall and some other wingnut sites.
I can put up with an awful lot of stupid, but being a dad of two little ones, my patience has been lacking on the subject of guns.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d like to think we could have saved a few lives here by having some husky children rush the shooter.
Gravenstone
@nemesis: Read that again, the magazines for the AR-15 are what they can’t keep in stock, not the ammo. Also note, the vendor for same called them “clips”. Clearly they aren’t real gun users, or they’d use the correct terminology.
/wingnut gun molester
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: No, I try not to argue with the crazy people. She is at a point where she is unreachable. Might my comment reach others? Yeah. I just try not to use FB for anything other than social things.
Robert
I think it’s brave that the NRA is taking a stand against video games. I mean, what else do you call it when you made and sold a video game about shooting guns and now oppose video game violence?
mdblanche
This year I’ll be spending Christmas eve with the side of my family that includes the angry young man whose life is in a downward spiral and his ultra-conservative mother who he has issues with. I don’t know if there are any guns in their house and that scares me.
SteveinSC
I couldn’t get it out of my mind when Bozo LaPierre was orating that he reminded me of one of the uber-the-top Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark. All he needed was a fedora, trench coat and a burn-scar. “Jahwohl, mein deer you vill tell us vere Herr Jones is or vee haff vays to make you talk, don’t vee Herr von Cheney?” Creepy, weird dude.
Roger Moore
@sacrablue:
They understand what’s truly important. If it’s a choice between food and being armed to the teeth, they’re going to take being armed to the teeth. As these people have spent all their money on guns designed to kill other people instead of food, you can expect to see incidents of cannibalism on the rise.
Scratch
You have to wonder if Douglas Adams was describing the USA —
“The Silastic Armourfiends were an insanely aggressive race who lived on the planet Striterax approximately twenty billion years ago “when the universe was young”. They were extremely keen on fighting – one of the best ways to deal with a Silastic Armourfiend was to lock him in a room by himself, since he would beat himself up sooner or later. They wrecked the surface of their planet in constant wars, and the whole population lived within bunkers deep below the surface.
In an attempt to deal with the problems their violent nature created, the Silastic Armourfiends passed a law that anybody who had to carry a weapon as part of their normal work (including policemen, security guards and primary school teachers) must spend a minimum of 45 minutes each day punching a sack of potatoes. It was hoped that this would allow them to work off their surplus aggression. This plan worked only until someone had the idea to simply shoot the potatoes, and the Silastic Armourfiends were excited about their “first war for weeks.”
During one of their more unpleasant wars, the Silastic Armourfiends asked the great computer Hactar to design the ultimate weapon for them. The computer complied, creating a hand-held bomb which would connect the core of every major sun via hyperspace, destroying the entire universe. The Silastic Armorfiends attempted to use the bomb to blow up a munitions dump, but fortunately Hactar had built a dud weapon since it could not conceive of any occasion when the use of the real thing would be justified. The Silastic Armourfiends disagreed, and pulverised Hactar.
Eventually, after smashing the hell out of the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug and the Strangulous Stilletans of Jajazikstack, the Silastic Armourfiends found an entirely new way of blowing themselves up, which was of great relief to the Garfighters, the Stilletans, and the potatoes. ”
RIP, Mr. Adams, I’m sure you never wanted to see the Silastic Armourfiends become reality.
JasonF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLjNJI54GMM
Sadly, the things that were laugh lines 40 years ago are serious policy proposals today.
Brachiator
For what it’s worth, a couple of the more conservative than anything else talk radio hosts on a big LA station thought that the NRA speech was ineffective and badly timed. Maybe there’s hope for the world.
OT: I’m a little surprised that no front pager has picked up on this little sad scandal yet:
Some of her customers were impressed with her creativity and her endurance, and felt that they got their money’s worth.
It’s also noteworthy that Favor appeared to work her escort activities into her travel schedule as a motivational speaker. Still, there is something sad about all this and her supposed reasons for turning to prostitution.
And the obvious thread title for this: Every Good Boy Deserves Favor
With that, I get to leave early to get my holiday on.
Happy Holidays to all.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@PaulW:
Right after people and the media figure out that the media are NOT the experts we ought to listen to. Recursion, why art thou so cruel and heartless?
peorgietirebiter
I started running a few errands right after Wayne’s presser, one of which took me to the sporting goods section of Walmart. (my mother-in-law asks next to nothing of me and I was happy to help with her xmas list.). I couldn’t help but listen in as the clerk behind the gun counter was telling a customer that they were completely out of the items he wanted. The guy then asked about a Ruger something and the clerk said they were out of any and everything automatic. I think he was asking specifically about magazines but I didn’t see a single assualt rifle behind the glass.
I wanted to chat up the clerk but decided to pass. The store is in the middle of a quite upscale area here in N. Texas. It’s really hard to wrap my head around it.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Colombine had an armed guard………
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/columbine.cd/Pages/DEPUTIES_TEXT.htm
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Jesus. Suzy F-H? I ran x-c and track in central Wisconsin a few years before her time; my brother was a younger contemporary. She was/is a legend it that little world. Wow.
ranchandsyrup
@Brachiator: Read that yesterday. I’m not sure that admitting to prostitution is a good move on her part, but she does have that galtian “I’m above the law” and “you little people can’t understand” things going for her.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Omnes Omnibus:
Has she also prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse by hiding her brains, where they can’t find them? Nothing could go wrong with that plan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Oh, I don’t know. It’s not like she needed the money, I don’t think.
It was like, this is an easy way to have sex and pick up some pin money at the same time.
? Martin
@? Martin:
And on cue, I get a text from my son that city police are on site due to rumors that someone was planning on shooting up the high school.
I’m sure it’s nothing… but can we just shut down and call it Saturday?
phoebes-in-santa fe
I read the Onion religiously and I’ve always thought one of their “every-man” figures looks just like Wayne LaPierre.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/2012-in-entertainment,30776/
The first guy.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: She isn’t my brightest cousin. Not a blood relation either. What is interesting to watch is how for he first day or two after the Newtown shooting she was posting sympathy pics and commenting about her love for her kids. Now that the talking points are out, she is posting them. It is like clockwork.
Ash Can
@Southern Beale: It doesn’t matter. I meant “actual” quite literally. After today’s episode, “How are you?” would be enough to set him off.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
And maybe for more reasons than one…
Tone in DC
@ranchandsyrup:
As I recall, far too many TV viewers in the 1970s AGREED with Archie, on a host of issues.
Norman Lear was most likely astonished when he saw that; the unsympathetic, antagonistic guy made the show a number one hit.
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: If only I had known back then….
azlib
In Wayne’s world mass shooting are a feature and not a bug. All the shooting do is increase gun sales every time they happen. Of course Wayne is going to say more guns are the solution – it just helps his benefactor’s sales which means more donations to his organizations which eventually pays his handsome salary. What a grifter.
Tonal Crow
Obviously we need trained men with guns guarding every trained man with guns, you stupid libtard. Do I have to explain *everything* to you?
/typical Republican
Roger Moore
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I think you can guess by the quality of her ideas; it’s a good bet that her brain was never big enough to tempt a zombie in the first place.
trollhattan
@mdblanche:
Bam!
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Hey, that’s my cousin you’re talking…. Never mind, carry on.
I am not a kook
They are afraid libruls will come for their guns? Well, let’s.
– institute a generous buyback program, pay with prepaid debit cards that have to be used within 6 months. It’s a stimulus too!
– after buyback program ends, you can still call the cops to take away your guns, even if they are illegal – no questions asked.
– legislate that for any gun used in a crime, every previous owner of said gun will need to answer charges of being an accessory. Using a weapon in a crime adds mandatory 15 years to your sentence.
– if a person is injured or killed with a gun, mandatory minimum sentence is life in prison (unless justifiable self defense yadda yadda). You may ask to serve your sentence with your gun “baby”. You get one bullet.
– civilians may own shotguns and max 6 round handguns. Rifles are for active hunters only and cannot be stored at home unless you live more than 50 miles from an applicable facility.
– Every gun must be registered. Use DMVs to issue licences, renewable every three years. You can buy ammo in lots of 50, pre-cleared with DMW, and you must prove you’ve used up the previous ones.
– owning an unapproved / unlicenced weapon is a felony with mandatory federal prison time.
– no concealed carry, either open (but unloaded) carry or guns and ammo must be transported in separate locked cases. Home storage in separate safes.
– any gun violence against law enforcement and they are allowed to use their shiny militarized arsenal against you, especially drones and black helicopters.
– all guns will have to have their stocks colored bright pink. Hello Kitty is acceptable too.
That should about do it?
ranchandsyrup
@Tone in DC: Yeah, that’s the same subset that agreed with Archie’s views on race and still do today. Amazingly we can still find people who don’t get that Colbert is doing satire.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Omnes Omnibus:
So I take it that Operation Hide The Brains has already been put into effect then?
rdldot
These people are seriously loosing it. I went out to get my mail and in the mailbox is a flyer, in color, with a picture of smashed-up cars and the caption ‘We don’t blame the car when it’s driven by a drunk – why blame the gun when it’s used by violent people?’. This is in Texas – who are they trying to convince? This was just somebody, who knows who? Putting these things in their neighbors mailboxes. Weird.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, not the money.
Validation. Other psychological issues. Who knows. But now that she has been outed, no matter what happens her life is probably going to get unpleasantly complicated. Her legit jobs and endorsements will quickly evaporate.
As a former Olympian, and as someone still attractive and fit, I doubt that she would have had a problem getting sex partners.
And let’s look at her rate card: $600 an hour, $4,000 for 12 hours, $6,000 for 24 hours, $1,500 add on for couples play.
You can get some hefty pins with that kind of money. Still it’s a risky business, and I bet that the tax man will soon be after her.
Also, one of the testimonials from one of her clients is unintentionally hilarious (this from the Smoking Gun article on her):
sacrablue
@Roger Moore: Oh, yummy.
Svensker
@? Martin:
Oh, Lord. Hope he and everyone there is OK. Hugs to you. Yikes.
Lee
@I am not a kook: I got one more.
Every weapon must carry liability insurance of up to $X amount
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Midwestern folk are more interesting than many might think.
Lee
@I am not a kook: I got one more.
Every
Every weapon must carry liability insurance of up to $X amount
Lee
@I am not a kook: I got one more.
Every weapon must carry liability insurance of up to $X amount
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@rdldot:
Wow, what a winning analogy on the part of the gun nuts. Why just imagine if cars could only be legally operated by licensed drivers and the owner was required to carry liability insurance? Tyranny!
ETA: and don’t even go there on the subject of seat belts. When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my Mercedes Benz.
Kay
This is a tough one for the apologists.
I think it’s safe to say God hadn’t been excluded from a church, so there goes Huckabee’s excuse, and there seemed to have been plenty of police available, so that puts paid to the armed guard excuse, and I don’t think even the paid conservative hacks can say the troopers didn’t act in a ultra-manly and brave manner. I don’t think they can blame teachers, here, as they did in the last tragedy.
For myself, I’d have to say the gun nuts are getting braver, what with ramming the police vehicle. That’s a new twist.
We may have to “deploy” ( to use a word from the gun lobbyist, talking about elementary schools) something bigger and better armored than a police car, I guess.
Soonergrunt
@Kay: Military Police use M1117 Guardian ASVs. Why doesn’t your police department, hmmmm?
Donald G
If, as the saying goes, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, then it logically follows that the Second Amendment is not a murder-suicide pact.
Tonal Crow
@I am not a kook:
You had me until you hit on this bit of nonsense. A person does not become an “accessory” to a crime because something she once owned is used to commit a crime by some succeeding owner with whom she almost certainly had no contact whatsoever. Ever sell a computer? Wanna be criminally liable if a terrorist buys it on Ebay and uses it for his plots?
rdldot
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I just think it’s weird that somebody printed up these flyers in their own home and distributed them down the street. Talk about grass-roots. I have to say that I do admire their determination. If liberals had half that much, we could get a lot more accomplished. But, we don’t sit around all day stressed out about every imagined slight or threat like they do. So, there is that for us. We’ll probably live longer, if they don’t kill us.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I don’t doubt it.
@Kay:
The gun nuts will probably shout, “See, see! What, you wanna ban cars, too? And what next? Are you going to demand that people get a license and registration before they can drive a car? No, wait….”
Calouste
@I am not a kook:
I think all guns should be completely painted pink, and open carry only. With a choice between Hello Kitty and My Little Pony stickers.
I am not a kook
@Tonal Crow: It’s a negotiation position – at least the immediate prior owner needs to be charged or they will need to attend an administrative hearing or grand jury or somesuch. The purpose is to dry up the private market for guns. Maybe if you sell to a licenced gun dealer, you’re off the hook.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
Gun toting Bronies will have no problem with the My Little Pony Stickers.
Although, these Pony fans are probably mainly nice, gentle guys not into guns and violence.
R-Jud
@Calouste:
Jesus Christ, you’re sick. You really want to countenance a world with armed Bronies in it? That would make me tear up my passport.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
Brachiator beat me to it but, dude, don’t encourage the bronies.
Though I’m pretty sure our resident bronie, Yutsano, could be trusted with a gun.
I am not a kook
@Calouste: Yeah, that would work. Maybe a pink vest with “ARMED” (can be substituted with “SMALL P3NIS” or “INSECURE” or “SCARED”) written on it while carrying.
kay
@Soonergrunt:
Well, my police are going to be “deployed” to protect the 2nd grade, so I’m not sure who guards the rural routes, school hours.
Can you feel the liberty yet?
What was she thinking, decorating for a Christmas party without her vest? I wish unarmed people would be more responsible.
And Another Thing...
@Roger Moore: W.I.N.
accidentalfision
Good for LaPierre.
I hope he keeps it up. Alienating every gamer in the country i.e. everyone under 40 years of age. I hope he succeeds in making the NRA the ostracized dinosaur it should have been years ago. Ollie North, Ted Nugent, Ken Blackwell, and John Bolton on the board of directors. Heh.
Craig
Instead of getting upset at this guy, why don’t you get a few million of your friends to pay $35 and join the NRA? You get to vote in their elections and you could, oh I don’t know, nominate Sarah Brady as NRA president and vote her in. Fill the board will the next-of-kin of gun victims and you could turn that organization into a respectable organization.
Lyrebird
@bemused: I think I follow you, but it’s hard to see that here — the lady hanging up decorations at her church* probably *did* vote for wingnuts, but…
I am grateful for any shame that comes to LaPierre, though.
*note: I live really close to this town, and this is normally a don’t lock your door/ don’t lock your car kind of area, so I’m still kinda shook up by the news.
I am not a kook
@Mnemosyne: Woah I had no idea, the world is even weirder than I thought.
I am not a kook
@Craig: From what I’ve read elsewhere, it appears that NRA is not a membership governed organization – it’s structured to avoid coups.
Thursday
Solutions! Solutions everywhere!
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121217/16231921411/police-chief-deploys-officers-with-assault-rifles-to-stop-id-everyone-says-local-crime-stats-give-him-probable-cause.shtml
accidentalfision
Ooh. Is it just my browser or has Ballon Juice been hacked?
The title box is all messed up and above it, it says:
karen marie
@Ash Can: That’s very funny. Why would LaPierre be afraid of that? Gregory hasn’t asked anyone an honest question yet.
trollhattan
@Craig:
Not knowing their corporate structure and seeing that the board comprizes dozens, I’m guessing they’re an advisory board and have no actual power.
Plus, my sending them money would be like baking cookies for those hardworking Auschwitz guards. (Yes, i’ve gone Godwin.) I don’t think I’d talk one of them out of the front gate key and to take the night off.
Lyrebird
PS: Just read over on teh Wonkette that Mr NRA Prez compared our children to our money… should protect ’em the way we protect banks.
Uh, most banks I go to are protected with little bits of information: like, the kind the digital video camera takes, the kind that records the numbers of the bills, etc.
(link with AWESOME graphic which corrects Loomis’ misuse of “head on a pike” here yes I’m being facetious on “corrects”)
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Lyrebird:
Loomis is guilty of being an imperious lecture-freak who condescends from his lofty perch to talk with mortals, from time-to-time. But he is not a head-lopper, and the only spike he approves of is found in the game of volleyball.
Liberty60
@The Red Pen:
They should have thrown mop buckets at him!
Mop buckets, man!
Lyrebird
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Preach on, formerly-Ben-Franklin.
He said head on a “stick”, and I woulda found that pretty clearly metaphorical, but I guess I also wouldn’t want to work in law enforcement in LaPierre’s neighborhood right now.
Prof. Loomis’ writings on labor history are very edgemmefying, and my only complaint I could lodge against the man is that he once proved Yglesias right when Yglesias was being a mutton-head. (“proved” by overreacting in the predicted fashion)
I’m still thinking of writing a Sternly Worded Letter to the univ. president…
PEACE TO ALL
Tonal Crow
@I am not a kook:
Come back when you’ve thought this through.
mai naem
I am not laughing about the deaths but I am laughing at Wayne.
Rosie Outlook
@Calouste: I’ll take Hello Kitty, please.
I think all utilitarian objects should be made as attractive as possible, since we have to look at them anyway. The Japanese followed this philosophy for hundreds of years, and I think they were right on the money. Look up “tsuba,” and you will be led to pictures of wonderful art squeezed onto the tiny space of a sword guard.
Jumping ahead to 21st century America, I think requiring all weapons to be in girly colors would considerably lessen their appeal to young men, who seem to be the most dangerous group.
Rosie Outlook
@Bob2: Every day is the day after another shooting.
Somebody was talking about a non-nutty gun owners’ association to put up against the NRA. Does such an organization exist? If so, I’ll join.
Higgs Boson
@The Red Pen:
You see, if those state troopers rushed the crazed gunman, he would not have enough time to kill all of them. Certainly, three state troopers are more formidable than twenty first graders.
Or some such crap.
Pinkamena Panic
@Mnemosyne: I find that offensive.
andynotadam
Late to the party, but it seems to me that if you harden one target, like schools, then something else becomes the relatively soft target, and the armed lunatic simply goes there. Where would it ever end? We’d have to have guards for the guards. There’s Scalia’s reductio ad absurdum in a nutshell…
AHH onna Droid
@I am not a kook: Most of your kind? suggestions have already been implemented and have very successfully put thousands of Black teenagers away, too many of them minors, for lengthy sentences.
I have another idea. Lets restore the duty to retreat and other time tested notions from English common law about starting shit and escalating it. Roll back the NRA/ALEC Brandish and Execute laws, styled SYG.
AHH onna Droid
@andynotadam: How did the NRA disarm? Are there lessons learned we could apply? What about the South African model at the end of apartheid, Truth and Reconciliation? White paranoia was dialed to eleven. How did they pacify that population?
Of course, assault weapons ban and ending syg would go a long way.
I am not a kook
@Tonal Crow: Who appointed you BJ gatekeeper? If you’re going to go around judging the throughness of thought on this blog, you’ve got a lot of work to do… are you sure you’ve thought through what you’re signing up to do?
Mnemosyne
@Pinkamena Panic:
What, that bronies exist? Or are you offended because you’re a brony, too? If so, you can have a gun, too. Just make sure you and Yutsy don’t shoot each other over who gets to put which character on their gun.
(And if you’re offended because you think I’m making a joke that Yutsano must be a brony just because he’s gay, that part’s not a joke. He ‘fessed up to it in front of all of us.)
whidby
@I am not a kook: The last suggestion is an excellent idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_g45BvQ4DY and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBI8GylL2vU
Yutsano
@Calouste: Only if they’re Generation 3 ponies. Gen 4 don’t need no guns. Hell, Twilight would zap you out of existence before you could blink. And don’t get me started on her brother, who’s in the Equestrian equivalent of the military.
honus
You do realize that are already a number of pink firearms for sale? Including a child-size pink .22 rifle (the “chipmunk”) and several pink handguns.
karen
Let’s just be real here. The NRA doesn’t care about the 20 slaughtered kids. They just curse Adam Lanza for shooting up an affluent area school and that most of the dead children were white. If it had been a DC school? No one would have cared, at least not the media. It doesn’t make the deaths of the Newtown children any less tragic or any less horrific. But do you really think that if some nursery school in an inner city area had 20 dead children that the same outcry would be there? I live outside of DC and kids are shot and killed every fucking day. Some through windows in their own houses. Some at school. I have yet to see any media other than local media cover it. I don’t know if it’s because the expectations are different in a not so affluent city. I don’t know if it’s because the children in the inner city are more likely to be either black or latino. I think it’s probably the combination of both. Until we discuss that fact then this whole thing is a farce.
Tonal Crow
@I am not a kook:
If you post publicly, you sign up to be criticized, possibly including being told that some of your suggestions need further work. It’s your choice how to handle that. Also, if you don’t like my brand of criticism, you’ll find it very tough going in this blog.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): That is some heavy reading.
And it couldn’t be a more stark cautionary tale that an armed guard in every school != magically solving our national shooting-at-children problem. Thanks for linking.
whidby
@karen: You best be careful there with posting the truth.
I posted link a couple of days ago that talked about the ongoing slaughter of school children in Oakland and other places and people accused me of trying to derail the conversation.
Because, you know, the conversation is how do we protect the lives of cute white kids.
It’s been especially odd to read the comments today after that NRA guy suggested armed people in schools. The horror! What kind of ghoul is he? Apparently there are an awful lot of people who don’t realize that there are many schools in the country where there are armed guards and where the kids walk through metal detectors every day. It must be nice living in the fact-free cocoon where one doesn’t know about these things.
Thursday
That’s adorable! People disagreeing with you must be “fact-free” because, gosh, all reasonable folks reach the same conclusions with the same facts, don’t they?
As soon as you come up with a way for the NRA to add $2.8 billion to school budgets for a single guard (not including training or equipment, paying national average wage), then that could possibly be a starting point for conversation about making every school an armed camp.
Of course, a single guard at each school won’t satisfy, will it? After all, Columbine had one and that didn’t stop the shooters. But still, let’s grant the anti-big government folks the benefit of the doubt: it’s a great thing that the gunman gets killed on the site by someone else instead of their usual route – suicide. That’s the important part, not actually trying to stop kids from getting killed in the first place.
Those schools with armed guards and metal detectors? They are in place to curb gang violence as much as preventing an attack from an outsider – they do nothing to stop someone from opening fire in the playground. Or the street outside. Or a library, hospital, worksite, restaurant, park…
Mnemosyne
@Thursday:
My spouse was saying tonight how weird it is that the NRA doesn’t seem to realize that they’re advocating that we set up an armed police state to prevent the government from becoming an armed police state.
Sharon
@nemesis: And now they are armed to the teeth…
Pinkamena Panic
@Mnemosyne: I am one, I don’t want a gun, and yes, I know Yutsano is one of us.
It was mostly for humor purposes.