I found the reaction to John’s story about guard duty in the Army interesting, because the gun nuts are so wrapped in their defensive cocoon that they’re calling John a liar over a plausible story about his time in the Army. I’ll just add that I had a roommate in college who was an ex-Marine, and he told me a similar story. When he was assigned guard duty, he was issued a shotgun and some shells. His instructions were to stay awake, keep the shells in his pocket, and that he better have a very goddam good reason if he ever loaded his shotgun. So, aside from the fact that John isn’t a liar, his story sounded reasonable to me, because it makes sense that a situation where there’s a 99.9% chance that nothing will happen should be one where firing your weapon should take some extra, thoughtful steps.
It’s an interesting foray into the mindset of gun nuts to try to understand why John’s story makes them so uncomfortable. My guess is that the “guns don’t kill people” mantra taken to its illogical and fetishistic extreme would dictate that carrying around a loaded gun isn’t dangerous at all. I guess they didn’t grow up in the rural Midwest, where every year we’d hear a story of some kid who accidentally killed himself or one of his friends messing around with his Dad’s hunting rifle.
The other piece of gun nut arrogance or craziness is the notion that guns are some sort of defense from the government. When I lived in a small college town, one of my friends was an Army ROTC instructor, who was an active duty Major in the Army. After the Oklahoma City bombings, we had a conversation about survivalist gun nuts. Before his ROTC posting, my friend had commanded a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. I remember him wondering what the fuck these nuts thought they were going to accomplish if they had a real skirmish with the Army. He knew what his unit could do, and he knew any band of civilian insurrectionists would be utterly destroyed by them. That’s such a completely obvious point, but apparently these idiots think there’s some kind of Red Dawn scenario where the largest military on earth wouldn’t roll over them if they have a couple of assault rifles in their flabby inexperienced hands.
A lot of this arrogance comes from winning a bunch of fights against weak opposition. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking, but I think the fight this time is going to be different.
Litlebritdifrnt
Anyone who watched Morning Joe this morning knows that this time it is going to be different.
Bubblegum Tate
I have always wondered how these preppers, gun nuts, and survivalist whackos can on the one hand believe that the U.S> military is the finest fighting force in the history of mankind, but on the other hand, they could stop said fighting force with a few assault rifles.
But every time I wonder that, I then remember who, exactly, I’m thinking about here and stop trying to apply logic to crazies.
Amanda in the South Bay
It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the Army would do in Iraq or Afghanistan, but i can definitely see it happening in Desert Storm.
Scott S.
When you base your entire life around fantasies and the rejection of reality, the real world is eventually going to kick your butt…
c u n d gulag
Well, to give the gun nuts some credit, they’d probably stand at least some chance of beating a bunch of starving North Korean soldiers in a battle, should the ‘dawn’ ever be ‘red.’
But, let me ask you this, Bubba, ‘What good’s that BUSHmaster (purchased because he’s got a pale, putrid, limp, pecker) gonna do, when President BlackMoFo drops a drone from 10,000 feet on your empty, but still delusional, head?’
NO ONE is coming for YOUR hunting rifle!
NO ONE is coming for YOUR 6-shooter, that you keep in your home to protect your precious wife, kids, and self, from marauding bands of “OTHERS!”
We want the carnage to stop.
So, we want to stop selling semi’s and automatics, large ammo clips (or whatever these gun-loving loons call them), and ‘Cop-killer’ bullets.
AND, some sensible care for people who have mental issues.
THAT’S what we want to stop!
Is that too much to ask, after the floors of some children’s classrooms are puddled with gallons of their blood, and the finger-paintings and glue-stick sparkle creations their minds and little hands created, that were hung on the walls, are covered in the children’s own gore?
Is it too much to ask in the name of the parents, who dread the time when they will have to open the closets, and look at the gifts, so carefully wrapped, that their child’s little hands will never tear open, and squeal with joy over?
Remind that dead child’s parents and siblings, again, how much you need that Bushmaster.
PeakVT
The other piece of gun nut arrogance or craziness is the notion that guns are some sort of defense from the government.
The federal government can kill any number of so-called patriots and their pea-shooters any time the order is given. Thinking otherwise is delusional.
Whidby
How are those Bradley’s working in Afghanistan?
Certified Mutant Enemy
@c u n d gulag:
Well, to give the gun nuts some credit, they’d probably stand at least some chance of beating a bunch of starving North Korean soldiers in a battle, should the ‘dawn’ ever be ‘red.’
We’re about as likely to be invaded by Nazis from the moon as we are to be invaded by North Koreans…
1badbaba3
@Litlebritdifrnt: I cannot stomach the sight of the JokeScar, so could you elaborate for those of us with weak constitutions?
Litlebritdifrnt
Quick question. How many tyrannical governments have the “well armed militias” overthrown since the 2nd Amendment was enacted?
cmorenc
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
What about invasion by North Koreans from the moon? I’d say that’s the more likely possibility among the three.
:=)
Litlebritdifrnt
@1badbaba3:
It wasn’t just Joe, it was everyone on set, including Joe Manchin that said that assault weapons had to be banned. Manchin said that he is a hunter (just been deer hunting that weekend) and he sees no reason for anyone to own automatic weapons.
Also Scarboro issued a challenge on twitter for people to provide him with examples of where automatic weapons have saved anyone trying to defend their home and family. He hasn’t got any responses yet.
chopper
@Bubblegum Tate:
also, public school teachers are lazy overpaid union thug idiot leeches on society, yet they should now be allowed to carry concealed weapons around our children.
the cognitive dissonance in these guys is amazing.
Waldo
Guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people. Lots of people. Some of them children.
Put that on a bumper sticker, Wayne.
Felinious Wench
Yep. Texan here. I despise our gun laws…but I will say this. I learned how to shoot as a kid. I also learned gun safety. My grandfather was religious about it. His guns were always locked up in the attic (I didn’t find out where they’d been until I was in my mid-20s and he died). The people around me who hunt are also VERY careful about their guns. They are locked up with the ammunition stored away from the guns, behind combination locks.
I challenged my histrionic gun nut friends this weekend…give me a proposal. Tell me what gun safety looks like. I am bipolar, and I told them I would be perfectly willing to have the conversation about how MY RIGHTS to own guns might need to be compromised. Were they willing to do the same?
Some engaged me in thoughtful, rational discussion about how responsible gun owners MUST engage and what it can be like to be mentally ill and unmedicated. Others went full metal jacket on me. Those people have been removed from Facebook, deleted from my contacts…they’re gone.
20 babies dead and their response is to bleat about their guns. Fuck them. I’m done.
cmorenc
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Just once in U.S. history did a bunch of militias come disturbingly close to overthrowing an allegedly “tyrannical” government, and in that case the organization of the militias was on a grand, regional scale: the American Civil War. Good thing the “well-armed” southern militias got ground down and lost, although it took nearly four years for Lincoln to do so, and he had to go through quite a few insufficiently competent generals to find a couple capable of crushing the southern armies (Grant and Sherman).
RosiesDad
It has to begin with citizens applying pressure to our elected representatives at the state and federal level. We need to be on them day after day until they get the message that this time it cannot go away.
Also, Jim Fallows had a good post on the fact that the subject ought to be Gun Safety rather than Gun Control.
Punchy
@Litlebritdifrnt: Snark or not? What happened on Morning, Yo?
donnah
I had a conversation with an acquaintance last year. We’re not friends, but we spent some time together and we were sharing elements of our family life, etc. She started on this calm, detailed description of how she and her husband, who live in suburban NE Ohio, have all sorts of plans for the big Takeover by the poor, who will be attacking innocent families and killing and stealing food. This is all supposed to happen when Obamacare kicks in or something…I kind of lost track of her plans because my brain couldn’t process the insanity of what she was saying. They have stockpiled canned goods, guns, and ammunition and have a protected cabin in Tennessee for when the shit all goes down. They have provided their adult son in NYC with a bike and detailed maps on how to make his way to the cabin, since roads and airplanes will be taken over by angry mobs.
See, this is way more common than we realize. This woman seems perfectly sane, and I actually was waiting for her to turn around and say, ” Haha, just kidding!” but she was stone cold serious. People believe this shit.
These are the people with guns, folks. They are not about to agree to any type of gun control, o matter what we call it or what we try to do. It scares the crap out of me.
tinare
I think the fantasy for the gun nuts goes something along the lines of the military think like them, so they’ll join them in fighting the gubmint. So they won’t actually be up against the true US military. Or something like that.
Foxhunter
You mean, like THIS?
GUTHRIE — A 3-year-old boy is dead after shooting himself in the head early Saturday afternoon, authorities said.
This was yesterday.
dave
I just read that thread and it boggles my mind. Yes Doha was different than much of Afghanistan and Iraq. And yes different parts of those countries are different and the calculus was made in Doha that it was better to be lower risk of accident. Was it a dumb order, probably, but no dumber than any number of orders that I have been witness and subject to. And the point is that guns are dangerous. I don’t get this need to fetishize them or the poor statistical understanding that leads to no grasping that you are more likely to die by your own gun than to be saved or save someone else from them. Yes it happens but drop the fantasy. Hell if you want a great home deterrent get a Rottweiler or some such you can train them to be as sweet as you want but if a burglar hears that bark they will rethink plan. Also stop living in an action movie video game fantasy land. Or take up LARPing if you need to.
Schlemizel
@Whidby:
I don’t think the army would run into an opponent here anything like the one there.
I could see small pockets of Syria-like anarchy. The aerial bombing and helicopter gun ships would stop any progress by the gun nuts. Drones would prevent resupply in any meaningful way. The majority of folks just want to get on with life, do their job, raise their kids and enjoy a weekend at the beach. They would fall in line. It is highly unlikely the #2 nuts would get any support from anywhere. Unlike Syria neither China nor Russia would see any value in a destabilized US – hell, they would probably aid the government here.
There might follow a period of bombings and shootings but eventually the electronic surveillance net would tighten around everyone and mop up operations would be done in a year or two.
The only way for that to change would be to get a substantial percentage of the military here in the US to side with the #2 nuts. Given that the god botherers have been busy stacking the military academies and the upper ranks of the Pentagon thats always a possibility but its still very long odds
Napoleon
@donnah:
My God I hope she is not one of my neighbors.
Chris Gerrib
@Whidby: Pretty well, actually. You note that we’re still in Afghanistan, and the Taliban isn’t kicking us out.
EconWatcher
Sorry to speak ill of the dead, which I generally avoid, but I’m trying to wrap my head around Nancy Lanza’s thinking. She knew she had an emotionally disturbed young man in her house. She herself had taught him to shoot when he was a young boy. And yet she thought that was a good place to stockpile weapons? Even after, as reported, his behavior had recently become more and more erratic?
If people are going to be that stupid, we have to have some laws to protect us from that level of stupidity.
SP
I’ve been trying to think of the logic behind this idea. One thing I came up with is the hope that by staging armed resistance, they could win over some sympathizers within the proper armed forces. If you hole up with knives or revolvers, the SWAT team can take you out with tear gas and battering rams. If you have an arsenal that ensures you’ll go out in a blaze of glory, the only way to quell an uprising would be to crush them using the armed forces. Now, as many people note, tactically that’s pretty straightforward. But aside from the political implications of military action on domestic soil, asking an Army that we know has some sympathizers for this kind of thing runs the risk of some kind of mutiny (especially when the CIC is “one of them”.) Would that ever actually happen? We’ll probably never find out, but I think that’s one train of thought going through the heads of the survivalists- when the world sees their “just cause” they’ll win over support from the troops.
JPL
Lieberman wants a commission to study the problem As we know a commission is what they form to bury serious issues. We can increase the cost of weapons, magazines and ammunition ten fold immediately.
Forum Transmitted Disease
“Maude”, our new local troll, is going to blow a gasket when it sees this post.
Chris Gerrib
@Punchy: Joe make a very eloquent speech, at least 10 minutes worth, about how we needed to change gun laws, mental health resources, and “Hollywood violence” to fix this problem.
Punchy
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnndddddd now now this happens….
Anyone over the age of 18 wearing a hoodie within 2 miles of a school or daycare will result in lockdowns and swift arrests.
The overreactions are going to be crippling to this town’s ability to resume some normalcy.
Cervantes
The arms that the well regulated militia had the right to keep and bear were muzzle loading muskets. First you’d pour in powder from your horn, then shove a wad of paper down the barrel with a rod, then drop in the ball. Then you got one shot, and you had to do it all again before you got another. Owning that kind of weapon, as a member of a well-regulated militia, which is now the National Guard, is the right stipulated by the second amendment.
That’s fine if you’re hunting deer, because you get exactly one shot. The only reason to have a weapon which can load more than two rounds is to kill people. Such weapons have no other purpose.
Lizzy L
“…carrying around a loaded gun isn’t dangerous at all.”
I’m too lazy to hunt for it, but seems to me that in the last 2 weeks I read a story about a man in Pennsylvania who was backing out of a parking space with a loaded gun either on or near him. The gun fired, it’s not clear how, and killed his seven year old son, who was in a booster seat in the car. (Anyone with better google-fu than mine at this hour of the morning is welcome to search and link.)
That poor child. That poor dad.
Schlemizel
@EconWatcher:
Part of the catechism of the gun is that people who are trained and brought up correctly in the way of the gun never do these sorts of things.
This is of course quite false but is a deeply held religious belief that I be she held herself
Schlemizel
@JPL:
Thank Pasta that twit is now totally irrelevant!
Chris Gerrib
When I was in the Navy (1989-1994) we started with our in-port quarterdeck watch with the Petty Officer of the Watch having a .45 semi-auto, unloaded, with two clips. The POOW could only load his weapon when directed by the Officer of the Watch. Then, about half-way into my tour, we took the .45 away from the POOW. (This was Navy-wide, not just our ship.)
raven
It is common knowledge that, even in the bush, in Vietnam some units required a direct order to chamber a round. The same was true in Iraq and Afghanistan and they know it.
peach flavored shampoo
@EconWatcher: TPM had a blurb this weekend, quoting sources that said she herself was a gun-nut survivalist prepper fanatik. IOW, she was nearly as delusional as her son. Had all those guns to stop the, uh…um…whatever was supposed to happen.
BTW, that story could also be bunk, as was so much of the early reporting.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@SP: No, it does not. You don’t disobey orders. Period. They may not like it but they will do as they’re told if it ever comes to that. And their COs will as well.
What they’ll “win” is a crate or two of 20mm through their hideouts, and all the attendant dignity that comes with being blotted off what’s left of the walls and being buried next to a trash bag full of Burger King leftovers.
tominwv
The firepower in a modern rifle company is awesome. The tactical advantage in training would make short work of ted nugent and his beer-bellied patriots. This much I think is beyond discussion.
What caught my attention in the broader discussion on the inter-tubes is the fact of how much gun fetishism has little to do with a militia defending the nation against a tyrannical government and more to do with Lee Atwater’s nigger nigger comment. They talk about protection from tyranny but what they really mean is shooting up the blacks, browns, Hispanics, militant emasculating feminists and secularists who are coming for their stuff, and white women. It is nothing more than urban warfare porn. Go to any wingnut web site and pickup a poorly disguised vibe. The problem we have is the 800 pound canary in the American social fabric that we have had since 1619, slavery, racism and its byproducts.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
If the gun nuts were really sincere about being that potential armed people’s resistance in order to keep the gubmint accountable claptrap they constantly spout, they should be learning how to make IEDs.
Oh yeah, that would require effort beyond going to Walmart and buying guns and ammo.
Face
But guns dont kill people, parking spaces and booster seats do.
/Wayne LaPierre
Skippy-san
This is Uncle Dumbo you are talking about. Facts have never had a high priority in his writing. They won’t believe John Cole even if he produced a copy of his DD-214.
Jasmine Bleach
@cmorenc:
I dunno. Armed civilians seem to have done fairly well against standing armies in Syria and Libya, just for two examples.
Once the population starts peeling off, often a lot of folks in the military start switching, and then it’s anybody’s game.
Note that I’m all for greater gun control and greater restrictions on carrying and usage. But the ridiculous arguments that are always made like “What are a flabby group of civilians with rifles gonna do against the biggest, baddest military in the world!!!” are easily discounted, because, well, it happens quite often (not in the US, of course, but in lots of other countries over the past century).
NonyNony
@EconWatcher:
How do we know she was stupid, rather than mentally ill herself?
Parental denial is a powerful thing, and maybe that’s all it was. But there’s a chance that perhaps she herself had an undiagnosed mental illness and really shouldn’t have been buying weapons either.
Paul in KY
@Litlebritdifrnt: When they say ‘automatic weapons’ they mean guns that will shoot like a machine gun (i.e. 1 trigger pull will shoot all rounds in magazine). Those guns are tightly regulated.
The shooter had (I assume) a semi-automatic version of a weapon that would be fully automatic when issued to military personnel (or would have that firing option).
So, I think Sen. Manchin was talking out the side of his mouth. Ask him about banning weapons that fire a round every time you pull the trigger & will fire 30 or 40, if that is what is in the magazine. Betcha he’ll hem & haw about that.
JBerardi
@raven:
I’m no military expert, but aren’t friendly fire casualties very common in most combat situations?
It’s almost like guns are inherently dangerous or something.
Schlemizel
@peach flavored shampoo:
I’m sorry if this offends anyone here, it is a gross generality but: owning a bushmaster .223 (or a .223 ANYTHING) is prima facia evidence of a survivalist #2 nut.
It is a tool with only one redeeming quality, it is particularly good at killing things you wouldn’t want to eat after you shot it. Add a large capacity clip and you are near 100% assured of some sort of mental imbalance.
That assclown in Az had (I believe) 30 round clips in his handguns. That is well beyond self defense needs
Frankensteinbeck
Normally I’m in the more optimistic range of commenters, but we will not see meaningful gun control in the next four years, probably not for the next ten. When Obama was elected, the American right went off the deep end. They didn’t just become rude and obstructionist, they became self-destructive AND disengaged from reality. In a very visceral and emotional way, something their side is in favor of has just been shown to be horrible and stupid. They will now support it even more strongly than before, because they are so rabidly committed to liberals and Obama (one united Other) never winning anything, ever.
I still have hopes despair will calm the GOP down over the next few months, but they won’t get more reasonable, just less motivated. That does no good for emotional issues like this.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Punchy:
As I said up thread both Joe’s Scar and Manchin said that no one needs automatic weapons.
EconWatcher
@peach flavored shampoo:
Wasn’t sure whether that story about Nancy Lanza was credible. I’d like to know more.
My grandfather was armed to the teeth. When he started to show signs of dementia, my dad and my uncle took his guns, which really honked him off. Years later, when my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he and I discussed his guns, and he eventually agreed it would be best if I took them for safekeeping.
In other words, I’ve seen somewhat analogous circumstances, and I don’t think it’s just hindsight to say guns should be taken out of reach of people who are having mental and emotional difficulties. It’s common sense, and it’s a family responsiblity.
dave
Automatic weapons unless actual machine gun waste of time. The majority of m-4’s issued only do semi and burst and I never saw the point of wasting accuracy and ammunition with burst let alone a full-auto m-4. It’s a red herring. Full auto rifles are pretty much only for fools.
JohnK
There where a few humorous things in JGC’s skirmish with the milkooks. One guy was going off over JGC’s people using sock puppets and about how the site was going to get hit by the hoard from Balloon Juice, he was going check IP addresses to make sure. Anyway, I was a little put off that my tax dollars went to pay for military training for these guys. Iraq stretched military recruiters to the max but seriously, we don’t need to give asshole run-amucks military training.
As far as the gun thing goes, I am not a lawyer although I played one on stage once, but the whole 2nd amendment thing seems out of sync. If it is true that the first half of the amendment is just a preface without any real meaning, the militia part, what is the reason to give everyone the right to own and carry any type of weapon anywhere? I don’t get it.
This is 2012 and the second amendment was created in 1791. Things aren’t the same as they were over 220 years ago. I don’t ride a horse to work and I don’t hunt for food except in the supermarket where I don’t even need a gun. I won’t overthrow the government except by voting and I don’t see where the 2nd amendment is serving the citizens by infringing on the general welfare and right to life and liberty.
pk
I wonder what would happen if the NRA was an all black organization?
Paul in KY
@SP: The officer corp would take care of those. The vast majority of soldiers would do their duty as instructed. The ones who mutiny would face UCMJ for mutiny.
SatanicPanic
Is it wrong to hope the federal government chooses some conservative suburb to make an example of?
It is, I know it is.
Feudalism Now!
The gun humpers all think they will be Patrick Swayze in Red Dawn. They forget that he dies, as does the rest of his family with the Russians in control and no resistance left. The regular army liberates the west. I don’t see the average NRA flack willing to make that kind of sacrifice.
NonyNony
@SP:
No, it isn’t. Tactically it’s ridiculous.
It might make sense to say that you could take out the county sheriff’s office with your firepower, but these days people should know that the FBI itself could probably take out a small army if need be. Perhaps if they need some help in the hardware/manpower department they could ask the DEA or the ATF for some help.
The folks who think they could really amass an arsenal large enough to take on the Federal police forces are delusional in the extreme. You would need a lot of sympathizers within the government to refuse to act against you. And if you have that then you have political solutions to your fucking problems and you don’t need armed insurrection to get what you want.
JBerardi
@NonyNony:
A chance?
If you live in suburban Connecticut and you feel for any reason that you need to own a fucking assault rifle, then yeah, there’s a chance you have a mental illness– a chance that I’d estimate is somewhere between 100% and 100%.
elmo
My partner was in the Army in the early ’80s, and loves to tell the story of being posted on guard duty over a building containing highly sensitive, classified equipment. With a completely empty M-16. The base commander approached her one night, and asked her what she would do if the locals (this was not in the US) attempted to steal the equipment.
“Help them load, sir.”
Amanda in the South Bay
@Feudalism Now!: actually it’s implied that at the end of the movie, the US wins (or forces the Soviets to withdrawal).
jp7505a
@peach flavored shampoo: thERE is a long AP piece about the monther. Seems she is a much more complicated person than the one line blurbs would have you believe.
. According to the article she was a good neighbor and friend, always there to help a person in need. The one piece of her life that she kept to herself was her son. Now this story may also be wrong but it did go into much more detail and it did quote friends by name.
Until there are more definitive reports it seems best to withhold judgement. After all on noon Friday she was a sainted teacher at the school who died protecting her students and by Sunday she was the bride of frankenstein.
Luthe
@JPL: In 15 days, anything Liberdouche wants will be irrelevant. He’s going to be replaced by Chris Murphy, who used to represent the 5th district before he got elected to the Senate.
Sandy Hook is in the 5th district. There won’t be any question of whether Murphy will be pushing for more gun regulation.
Paul in KY
@Cervantes: If you are starving & hunting for food, then you might want 2 or 3 or whatever it took. But, beyond that scenario, you are right in thast the multiple shot weapons are designed to kill people.
Schlemizel
@dave:
Fire power is the touchstone of modern warfare tactics. During the Civil War multiple shot weapons were viewed as a waste of ammo by the army leadership (although Lincoln saw & supported a machine gun that would have been devastating his generals refuse to buy any). Now that has turned around 180 degrees. Suppression is supposed to be the key.
There was an officer in Viet Nam who became quite famous & even wrote a book (the details like his name etc are gone at the moment) but he ordered his men to not use full auto. He said it made them more mindful of what they were shooting and also helped identify the VC as they would be the ones on full auto.
Amir Khalid
I’m a lifelong civilian. My experience with guns consists of walking past armed police officers in the street. So forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant question, but aren’t soldiers discouraged from wasting ammo by firing their M-16s in full auto?
dan
In Connecticut in September.
http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/crime/police-probe-fatal-new-fairfield-shooting#.UM86zORlGSo
For what?
Mark S.
@tominwv:
That’s the only thing that’s made me smile this morning.
@Lizzy L:
No, not “poor dad.” I hope the guilt he’s feeling from his fucking stupidity is killing him. You don’t need a fucking loaded gun to go to Target or wherever they were. Maybe he can use his 2nd Amendment rights to end his idiotic life; I know I would if I had done that.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@JohnK: Don’t worry, you didn’t spend much. I had a look at that CF that Cole linked to. You had maybe – at best – a couple of actual vets, and a whole lot of 101st Keyboard Kommandos over there, who took combat injuries in the Second Gulf War from RSI as a result of jerking off in their armchairs. Some of them also suffered from Cheeto poisoning. It was a terrible time for them.
Raven
@JBerardi:Yes.
Bubblegum Tate
@chopper:
Yeah, that one, too. One Wingnut Barometer I check said just a week or so ago that he has “less than zero respect for teachers.” Not just the union, but teachers. All of them. Now? He’s all about rules requiring teachers to be strapped, with CCW if possible, but at the very least with guns in a desk drawer. Because what could possible go wrong with that? Especially with people who are, by his own estimation, horrible, irresponsible, and useless?
Paul in KY
@Jasmine Bleach: Lightly armed civilians can overwhelm a modern fighting force if the ratio is 3000 to 1 or something better. If you have 3 million crazed MFers coming at your brigade, well you are going to run out of ammo at some point & there will still be many. many more.
Raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease:Got a Blue Water Sailor from the Nam there too. Not to diminish his service but WTF-K?
Raven
@Paul in KY: Ask the 2nd ID at the Yalu.
russell
And not for nothing, but what is the deal with the Sean Connery fetish?
Is this some kind of military sekrit handshake thing?
the Conster
Who knew there were so many tiny dicks out there? This subject is like a pen!le Sorting Hat. Thanks milkooks!
ericblair
@Jasmine Bleach:
Those seem to be actual organized militias with a specific goal and guns as a necessary tool toward that goal, not a disorganized group of people with a huge pile of weapons they have to justify somehow. Otherwise, you’d see a lot more emphasis in our “militias” on command and control than acquiring stacks of new toys and building isolated tin cans in the woods.
Besides, if there were to be a totalitarian takeover of the United States, how many here can seriously doubt that the gun hoarders will be at the front of the line to help the takeover?
Scamp Dog
If the gun nuts had been paying attention, they’d know that the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents have been fighting us with IEDs, not rifles. Just another example of their disconnect from reality.
JimJohnsCreek
@Litlebritdifrnt: Exactly, I was stunned to hear Joe actually make sense and speak truth to this situation.
There’s a very good reason the gun nuts and lobbyists are silent – they have completely lost their bearings and now only the craziest of the loons (I’m talking to you Gohmert, Huckabee and Bryan Fisher) will actually walk that plank.
Citizen_X
@Jasmine Bleach:
You almost got there, but not quite.
Yes, we’ve run this experiment dozens of times in the last two hundred years. If the Army decides they’re not going to suppress the people any more, then the revolution succeeds–peacefully. If part of the Army sides with the people, then you have a violent revolution, which may very well succeed. See: Libya and Syria. But if the armed forces are united, then the revolution pretty much will be crushed.
Ironically, the only example of militias nearly succeeding against a government suddenly turned tyrannical (actually, a military coup) was the Spanish Civil War. So tell the gun nuts we need Anarchist and Communist militias!
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
You ever see what a cluster munition can do? Or a fuel/air (FAE)explosive? AS long as one side has total air superiority 3000/1 is not nearly enough.
These fools have no idea what sort of a buzz saw they would be stepping into. Particularly if the army were free from concerns about collateral damage.
Elizabelle
@EconWatcher:
Just visited a friend, who is a county social worker with two elementary-school aged kids.
She’s not been following the news closely, but her first impression on hearing about the guns in Nancy Lanza’s house:
She’s seen similar cases.
She didn’t know why Adam chose the elementary school, but thinks he wanted to kill a lot of people.
Wondering if domestic violence might be in play. It is not immediately assumed in the case of affluent blonde women with meticulously kept homes in peaceful neighborhoods.
Nancy Lanza kept people at bay; did not let them into her house. The cop uncle had not seen the 20-year old for six years (unless I’m mistaken).
But: Charlotte Fedders and John Fedders.
Will be watching for what the father and brother have to say. Probably lawyered up.
Mr Stagger Lee
@cmorenc: There once was a rebellion in Western Pennsylvania called The Whiskey Rebellion, where farmers burned down custom houses to protest a tax on Whiskey, President Washington sent a militia to put it down. You know when the Founding Fathers put in the 2nd Amendment, they did put in the words “Well Regulated Militia for a reason. They did not want those farmers coming for them.
After all the French Revolution happened a few years earlier.
Elizabelle
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Yeah, do tell about Morning Joe.
You could not have paid me to watch. Sick of the village.
Schlemizel
@ericblair:
Both cases the resistance has help from advanced military suppliers. Who will provide that support to the wingnuts in East Armpit Indiana?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Raven: I’ll give him this: he probably shot a lot of trap and skeet. Prolly a great guy to go bird hunting with.
gypsy howell
When Mr Howell was in the AF in Danang in 1970, he says he was issued a weapons card, with which, in case of attack, he could trot on over to the depot to be issued a gun.
So yeah, I believe John’s story.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@JPL:
As my high school American Government teacher told me, a committee is formed whenever something big happens and the powers that be need an excuse to point at to deflect public anger. The old “We have formed a committee to look into this and we can’t talk about it much until they release their findings” weasel line was even mentioned. Public anger subsides by the time the committee releases its findings and little has to be done to ‘fix’ whatever the problem was to satisfy the public that something was done. Then everything can continue as if nothing happened!
He was a brutally honest teacher, that’s for sure.
4tehlulz
@Feudalism Now!: That’s nto true; they want to be like those at the Alamo or the Warsaw Ghetto, fighting to the last man against an evil enemy.
JohnK
@Paul in KY: Why not vote instead, you got a problem with democracy?
NonyNony
@JBerardi:
Personally I think that if you feel that you need to own an assault rifle in suburban Connecticut out of fear, that’s a good sign that you might just need to have yourself evaluated by a trained professional. In fact, in most of the US if you feel that you need to own an assault rifle out of fear, you probably should get that checked out – it’s probably not a good sign.
But I’m not a trained psychologist. And I’d put the assault rifle ban back in place and force a small limit on the number of bullets you can put into a clip for even pistols. Something like “one”. So I will admit I don’t have much insight into why people would feel the need to own an assault rifle outside of having an irrational fear response of some kind.
nodakfarmboy
@Schlemizel: Actually, the .223 Remington cartridge is a pretty handy “varmint” round, primarily for use in bolt action rifles. See, for example, the Remington 700 ADL/BDL.
Making blanket statements that using a .223 is evidence you’re a survivalist is a bit much. The AR-15 (“civilian” version of a M-16) and Mini-14, both semi-automatic rifles (one shot per trigger pull, automatically reloads the chamber with each pull- hence “semi” auto) are often praised by that sort, but .223 in and of itself is just a cartridge size.
Bubblegum Tate
@tinare:
This from a quasi-prepper wingnut gun nut I follow online:
He also spends a lot of time blithering about “Obama’s Kiddie Korps,” which is not “Obama’s personal Gestapo” (remember that one? It’s totally real! Totally!) and is not “16,000 armed IRS agents” (remember that one? Also totally real! Really!), but a third thing, which is also totally real in the sense that it is not at all real.
So yeah, he’s extremely paranoid, but if you point that out to them, he gives a very Tasty Taste-ish “all my guns make me secure, not paranoid!” response.
rikyrah
Every weapon used was LEGALLY PURCHASED. Wasn’t out of the trunk of someone’s car. And, that evil mofo had the audacity to have on a bulletproof vest. ain’t that a bitch.
Warren
@Mark S.: Actually, he had the gun because they were trying to sell it at a gun store. And, like a fucking moron, he didn’t know that even if you took out the clip, there was still one chambered, so he was walking around with a loaded gun with the safety off around his kid.
Eric U.
when I was deployed, the first thing they did when we got to the forward base was take our guns and put them in a central storage place.
TheHalfrican
I don’t even bother with the “pfft, like yall could take The Marines” rebuttal to that childish fantasy. For one thing, I think its been demonstrated several times now that a sufficiently motivated guerrilla campaign can cause major problems for The World’s Greatest Fighting Force. Plus, let’s remember how many Conservatives are Cops & Soldiers. So there’s that.
No, the absolutely retarded thing about the “next American Revolution” justification to me is the idea that AN UNARMED POPULACE CAN’T LAUNCH A SUCCESSFUL FUCKING REVOLUTION. As if Louis XVI or Gadaffi or Ceaușescu were letting their everyday citizens walk around w/ AK-47s. lol negro please. Revolutionaries don’t need to spend decades arming because the turning point in every successful revolution ever is the Army bailing on their orders to slaughter dissidents. Duh.
Schlemizel
@nodakfarmboy:
I have fired a bunch of them & I understand their use. I admit my comment was intentionally inflammatory but I’ll stick by it.
BTW – a bunch of comments have disappeared from this thread – went fro 110+ to now just 93 WTF?
ericblair
@Schlemizel:
Very very true. No logistics, no C3I, and the population is not going to be stirred into action by someone’s basement being converted into a crater in the middle of nowhere. If society were to collapse for some reason, any hoarders just trying to hunker down would be the first targets of the new local warlords who’d be happy to overwhelm them with a couple of SUVs full of meth-addled mooks.
You want to preserve our democracy, make sure people can vote and you respect the will of the voters.
wrb
I’m afraid I’m a pessimist on this. After 40 years of watching rural and suburban delegations purged of gun control advocates I can’t see why this won’t happen again.
Unlikely as it seems to urban residents, gun owners can swing a lot of districts. Democrats will propose gun restrictions, they probably won’t pass, but they will cost the the congress and maybe the White House. Pro-gun control Democrats lose.
Southern Beale
Every time I blog about gun issues I get massive trolling by gun loonz. Gee, one might almost think these folks are trying to shout down debate! Yah think? So I’ve initiated a zero tolerance policy.
As far as I’m concerned, the issue of “whether” we need stricter gun laws in this country has been decided. It’s what, and how. That’s really all I’m interested in now.
Toward that end, I’ve thrown some random thoughts together this morning about the issue. One gun loon has already made his appearance but he won’t be back. I just refuse to have a serious discussion polluted by assholes and idiots. Also, we’ve heard the NRA talking points, for years. Been there, done that. Either get a new spiel or STFU. I’m over it.
I do think the culture of violence in this country is a contributer, and I also think access to mental healthcare in the US is totally inadequate. Those are all parts of the puzzle. But I keep going back to irresponsible gun owners. Why in God’s dame did Lanza’s mother keep guns where she knew her mentally disturbed kid could get his hands on them? That’s ground zero right there.
amy c
I do very much hope it’s different this time.
Around the internet, I saw someone argue this morning that “now is not the time” for the gun conversation (he helpfully suggested sometime after the New Year would be the time, maybe) and I saw someone argue that guns are a “pretend problem,” statistically, compared to deaths by diabetes, drunk driving, etc. He encouraged us to move on to those “bigger fish to fry.”
These were minor moments at a not-very-political website. But it told me loud and clear that there is nothing, NOTHING, the gun nuts want more than for this conversation to stop. They are trying every angle to just shut it up. And usually, it works. Usually, one or two or twelve people die and we let the conversation go on to the next thing.
We can’t let that happen this time. They are clearly scared. I know folks here and everywhere are sick of talking about Sandy Hook, and I don’t blame anyone because it’s so tragic and so grim. But we can push gun safety laws the same way we pushed Obama to victory. We were fucking relentless about Obama. Balloon Juice nagged me every day to donate, canvass, volunteer, embrace being a liberal instead of being ashamed of it, and of course, vote. And it worked. We have to do the same thing with this issue. We can’t shut up. That’s all the gun nuts have got right now, the hope that we get tired of talking about it.
David in NY
@TheHalfrican: What puerile shit.
Frankensteinbeck
@ericblair:
I think they’ve made it very clear that they don’t want to preserve our democracy, they want to preserve their democracy.
Mandalay
@c u n d gulag:
Probably not. The North Korean government is so secure because it has one highly effective tactic: you mess with them (even if you try to flee North Korea), and they go after your relatives, who get sent off to “camp”.
Kinda like the Mafia, but worse. At least the Mafia leaves the kids alone.
PreservedKillick
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Exactly. That might actually do something.
They should also be preparing to shoot down drones, but the whole line of their argument is just whacked. If they seriously – seriously – think they’re going to stop or even do anything more than slightly annoy a modern army with their guns, they are far, far off the deep end.
And if you are preparing for societal breakdown, really, there’s a lot more productive things to be worrying about. Learning to doctor, grow food, store water, produce some electricity, dentistry, *making friends with your neighbors*, etc. You should be so fucking busy that getting guns is the least of your worries and, if it is, you’re looking for a decent, simple, single shot (can’t waste ammo) hunting rifles. Archery would be a lot smarter. If the Ravening Hordes scare you, just move a bit farther off the beaten path, they won’t go there.
Eric U.
if we waited for a week with no mass shooting to have the conversation about the politics we could never have the conversation. What is it, 3 in the last 2 weeks? Hard to keep up, if someone only kills a couple of random strangers and empties a mall it hardly rates a mention any more
RSA
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Oh, great. Now I have to go order my Bushmaster telescope.
Soonergrunt
@Whidby: They aren’t in use there. And the vehicles that are there are working pretty well, thankyouverymuch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#Effectiveness
SatanicPanic
@TheHalfrican: We actually did have a civil war in this country, I don’t know why some people think they’ll have better luck this time.
Cassidy
@nodakfarmboy: If you’re only interested in shooting “varmints” a .17 Hornady round will do just fine. Owning a 5.56 NATO/.223 weapon is a status symbol. The Ruger Mini-14 is marketed as a varmint gun, but in reality it’s a more civilian friendly assault rifle based on the M14. The vast majority of 5.56 NATO/.223 weapons are assault rifles and the civilian variants do not differ much from the LE/ Military version; the only major difference is lack of 3 round burst or full auto, which isn’t on most LE/ military versions anyway, and the length of the barrel.
That being said, you’re right it’s just a round. For the Xbox Commandoes and Couch Rangers, though, it really is a symbol of their awesomeness, “I’ve got a carbine just like those cool looking guys in Act of Valor! SQUEEEEEEE!” Taking away their symbols and fetishes will go a long away towards breaking that psychosis that involves the identity of being a rugged WOLVERINE!. The gun, and to a certain extent, and the ammo it fires is a surrogate for them. Go to any gun forum and you’ll find discussions on the best round for fighting be it the .308 (cuz I’m a manly man who likes big rounds with “knockdown power”), the 6.8 Special/ 6.5 grendel (cuz I don’t like that wussy 5.56 and I want you to see how much money I have to buy overpriced uppers and ammo. Plus I read somewhere that Delta uses 6.5 cuz it’s so much better! Squeeeeee!), and the 5.56 (cuz our military uses and it’s perfectly designed for , blah, blah, blah and I dind’t have to spend $2000 like you dod to get my assault rifle and I can put all kinds of cool things on it and look like a Navy SEAL! SQUEEEEEE!). The small rounds bother them. They don’t like having to pick rounds that are generally used for varmints and small game or cartridges designed with hunting in mind. They want military specific cartridges. You take away the fetish, then we can start destroying the identity.
David in NY
I can’t even engage the juvenile claptrap that tries to justify carrying weapons of mass destruction around. What puerile, irresponsible BS!
bemused
@donnah:
Freaked out, paranoid people like your acquaintance with guns in their trembling, twitchy hands are no threat to a civilized society but Obama and Obamacare are. Sick folks out there.
ericblair
@PreservedKillick:
Or sucking up to the local power brokers in the area so when they become the local warlords they’ll just make you their bitch, instead of shooting you and taking your stuff. It’s not like we have no historical evidence about what happens to a country when a government breaks down. Power abhors a vacuum.
Liberty60
I don’t know which specific proposal will help curb gun violence (magazine limits, licensing, etc.) but one place where we can all start is to increase what we have been doing-
Publicly mocking and shaming gun nuts and refusing to accept their bullshit arguments based on the premise that gun toting vigilantes are the ones with the realistic view of life, and their bravery is superior to our weakness.
They need to be socially isolated, embarrassed, and ashamed of their gun fixation, so as to deter new recruits from picking up their toxic habit.
This is something we can do, by engaging them at every turn and denying them the stage.
patrick II
I was at a Navy station at Kamiseya, Japan in 1969-1970. We had marine guards at the gate. We were near Tokyo so the for the marines the tour at our station was usually a post-Vietnam tour reward so the guards had mostly seen some hard action.
They were armed with .45 cal pistols and took their job of guarding their post very seriously. One day a young navy lieutenant who had been out partying showed up for duty in uniform but unshaved. The guard marine refused to let him on base until he was properly shaved. The lieutenant tried to walk onto the base anyway over the guard’s objections, so the marine guard pulled out his loaded gun, pointed it at the lieutenant and told him one more step and he would shoot. The lieutenant believed him, and was wise to do so. He left and came back with a clean shave. After that they took the bullets away from the marine guards. It would have been a nasty ending — coming home in a pine box because of 4 o’clock shadow.
redshirt
Kos just front paged John’s story from GW1. Hence blog response times.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@Whidby:
No matter how many times he watches Red Dawn a pudgy, soft white middle age “patriot” with an AR-15 who whines when he doesn’t get a side a of ranch with his fries is not the same as Afgahni tribesman whose been at war since the early ’80s.
The Moar You Know
@Southern Beale: I know why. Wish I didn’t.
I dated a woman four years ago who had an “emotionally disturbed” son. And by “emotionally disturbed”, I’m talking a nine-year old kid who alternated between normalcy and psychotic rage so quickly that it scared the living shit out of me; I was 35 years older, 150 pounds heavier and twice his height and I was honestly scared to turn my back on this child. And she acted like nothing was wrong with him. She wanted to get him a bow and arrow and give him archery lessons, for Christ’s sake. All I could see was this kid shooting me in the back the first chance he got. And he would have. To this day I’m convinced that, even without a bow, he would have stabbed me with the first thing he could lay his hands on had her and I stayed together (this kid was the number one reason I didn’t stay, there were others) and I’m still convinced that one day he’s going to nail the doors shut and burn the house down with everyone inside, laughing the whole time.
I got it. She didn’t want to face what her kid was, because to face that means that you’re facing a lifetime of a child that presents an active danger to you, your other children, and everyone he comes in contact with, and no one wants to face that. She wanted a normal kid, and would seize on his good moments and his obvious intelligence, and would ignore the rest. So I get Adam’s mom. How can you face the fact that you’ve birthed a monster?
I think his mom had an agenda of her own for keeping guns in the house, and that agenda led her to ignore just how fucked up her kid was.
Ignoring a sick child doesn’t make them better.
Cassidy
@PreservedKillick:
There are other people for that. In their fantasy they are the hero with a gun.
Can somone un-moderate me at #109? Please?
Litlebritdifrnt
Being British I found Sully’s take on this very much mirrors my own.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/12/entering-an-arms-race-with-killers.html
Birthmarker
Kos is riffing off John’s post, in a front page post.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Litlebritdifrnt:
If 2nd Amendment devotion primarily derived from conerns about tyrannical oppression, Native American tribes would be heavily armed, seeing as how they have more and longer experience than anyone one else on the continent with being oppressed by a tryannical and at times almost exterminationist government imposed on them from outside. When was the last time you encountered a Native American gun nut?
Gun nuts = white men, with few exceptions. Demographics don’t lie.
Schlemizel
@ericblair:
One of the disappeared comments was someone was saying you needed a 3000 to 1 advantage to win against an army (sorry if I got that a bit wrong).
I pointed out cluster munitions & fuel air explosives (FAE). I have seen both in action and can guarantee you they would be used. There is no response these nut bags have for air superiority like the USAF would have over East Armpit, IN
In particular read up on FAE – it is a ‘marvelous’ technology; frightfully simple and monstrously devastating
Boohunney
@chopper: Yep!
Jeffery Bahr
@cmorenc: Then, as in today, the South had a long history of military families, with many competent Confederate officers. They also (initially) matched the Union in terms of artillery and logistical support. They, of course, also took over a number of military bases/posts.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: With the numbers I was talking about (the 3 million), cluster is not enough. However, the fuel/air thing could stop even that number, given enough of them dropped.
patrick II
Just a reminder for old folks. When Ronald Reagan was president in 1983 and sent the troops to the Beirut airport in Lebanon we and the French lost 299 troops to truck bombs at the barracks. The guards guarding the gate had no bullets in their rifle and were slow to respond allowing the trucks to drive through the gate and to the barracks. We had mighty Ronnie as president so not much was made of it back then.
MikeJ
@Schlemizel:
Actually the Henry repeaters were loved and coveted by those who didn’t have them. In an age of mostly muzzle loaders, the Henry was described as a gun you could load on Sunday and fire all week. Sadly there weren’t enough to go around.
AnonPhenom
@Chris Gerrib:
“fix”?
Nah, 1 minute after blaming the culture … 4 minutes into his speech, Joe calls it a “battle” and “a war at home we must win” off a fuckin’ teleprompter for fucks sake. Yeah Joe it’s the HOLLEYWOOD culture, right.
Oh, and screw this “things can never be the same again” bullshit. Its just too fuckin’ much like “everything changed after….” and we got the Patriot Act.
Just put an assault weapons ban in place, outlaw extended magazines/clips, treat the remaining legal guns like cars (license the user, register the gun, and insure the user against accidents/thieft) and make sure everyone has access to affordable healthcare & save us from scolds like Joe “glory days” Scarbrough.
Paul in KY
@JohnK: Yeah, too many idiot Republicans get elected in this country ;-)
Southern Beale
In this day and age, guns would be useless. They’d be better off writing a really evil computer code.
It’s always been pretty clear that the Second Amendment was written by the Founders because they didn’t want a standing army. Now we have both. I’ll make the loonz a deal: you can have your Second Amendment if you agree to get rid of the Pentagon. Completely.
As the Founders intended ….
Schlemizel
@Enhanced Mooching Techniques:
At war since the 1080s!
My boy related a story of waking up to hear RPG fire going off. He calculated it was not incoming & was going back to sleep when one of his guys told he he had to see this. It was two neighbors settling a dispute by firing grenades at each other.
Yeah, thats not happening in East Armpit Minnesota so there may be cultural differences that the gun nuts are glossing over
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@donnah:
If she is worried about being attacked by people desperate for food, she is by definition not an innocent but guilty of attempted murder by denying those people food.
danielx
@the Conster:
Well, there you go.
That’s exactly the point for a lot of gun freaks. Their manhood – indeed, their identity – is all wrapped up in possession of the latest superduper tactical AK/AR, or Glock, or whatever, and preferably more than one. If someone threatens to take away their weaponry, it’s pretty much like threatening to take away their balls. And that’s not even getting into the paranoia; I’ve known people who – seriously – keep a piece sitting on the back of the toilet while they’re in the shower. That’s the reality, and that’s why they’ll fight to the death politically, if not literally, to keep them. They’ve had their own way for years now, including under the current administration – Obama signed legislation allowing people to carry in national parks.
But this time may be different. It’s going to be hard for Wayne LaPierre to look in the eyes of a Newtown parent and say “yes, our Second Amendment rights are more important than your child’s right to live. We just have to accept random slaughter every so often because FREEDOM, don’t you know. Sorry your kid is collateral damage.”
Or maybe not.
Schlemizel
@Southern Beale:
See my comment @35 – it is part of the catechism that kids trained in the way of the gun never misuse the gun.
Although Moar may be on to something equally valid
Woodrowfan
nothing will change because we have a House of Representatives controlled by nuts..
Nutella
I seem to have gotten onto a wingnut mailing list. A particularly weird wingnut mailing list.
Here’s their email from yesterday:
The primary-school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, approximately 45 miles from the Colt Arms Factory, is just another one in the long line of government psyops designed to persuade the public to allow the government to take away their guns, and their means to defend themselves against the government and the banksters that the politicians really serve.
The small children murders are designed to create hysterical emotions in women to get them to demand that guns are banned. If that doesn’t work they will continue with their evil agenda with worse and worse atrocities on younger children, until they get their way and disarm the people, so that they cannot fight back against government tyranny.
Newtown is the U.S.A.’s Dunblane, which was orchestrated in Scotland in 1996 by the British establishment, to whip up hysteria in order to ban all handguns from the U.K. It was a follow-up to the Hungerford Massacre in England in 1987, which was carried out by mind-controlled Michael Ryan, who then shot himself so he could not be questioned, and it was used to ban semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
It’s always the same people behind it ‘ the gun-grabbers who want the people to be defenceless against the gun-grabbers’ employers ‘ the banksters who own all of the politicians. They get their politicians to pass legislation for them, in order to remove the people’s freedoms and means of defending themselves, and enslave them in a draconian police-state, under a mountain of debt, and then exterminate the useless-eaters.
The Dunblane massacre was supposedly carried out by Thomas Hamilton, who was a paedophile and procurer of children, for a high level paedophile ring involving senior members of the Tony Blair Labour-Party shadow-cabinet and others. The massacre served two purposes, it achieved their desired handgun-ban and killed the abused children, so they could not be witnesses against the elite-paedophiles. They then had the findings of the inquiry sealed for 100 years, which is proof of the above.
Like Newtown there were two shooters, Hamilton and a hit-man who shot Hamilton and made it look like Hamilton committed suicide after shooting 16 children, so that he couldn’t be questioned. Hamilton was found in the school gymnasium slumped against a wall and still gurgling, when an off-duty policeman PC Grant McCutcheon entered the gym and saw two semi-automatic pistols, one on either side of Hamilton’s body.
The autopsy revealed that Hamilton was killed with a .38 revolver. These people always slip-up with their crimes. There was no .38 revolver for him to have shot himself with. Thus, there was a second shooter who killed Hamilton.
Similarly, the first reports from Newtown were of two shooters, just like mind-controlled James Holmes in the Denver Batman Cinema massacre, the story then quickly changes to just one.
Columbine was similar, in that a team of shooters in black outfits were seen there and the two accused were on mind-altering prescription-drugs.
Wake up and see the pattern and their modus operandi and don’t fall for it. Never let them take your guns, except from your cold dead hands.
All of these are staged events to whip-up hysterical public support for banning the people from having guns. It works the same in every country ‘ Hungerford in England, Dunblane in Scotland, Port Arthur in Australia and the list in America is endless, because of the Second Amendment and the people having a pro-gun culture. That makes it much more difficult to break the Americans’ love of guns and the Second Amendment, which was put in place to protect the people from the government.
Gun bans work well for tyrants. They worked well for Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao, to name just three.
If you want to stop these massacres, wake-up and get rid of the banksters, their puppet-politicians and all gun-grabbers; arm teachers and ban gun-free zones.
From one who can see the pattern and hopes to enable you to see it too.
Davis X. Machina
@PreservedKillick:
Yeah, but will I still be able to get cable that far out?
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner are in charge of national firearms policy.
JoyfulA
@Mark S.: No, the father who shot and killed his son was in the parking lot of a gun store. He had been trying to sell his gun(s).
Soonergrunt
@raven: It depended entirely upon the situation. Sometimes we were red (locked and loaded,) and sometimes were were amber (mag in the well, chamber empty) but we were red more often than not outside the wire.
In Iraq, it depended a lot on current conditions and local environment. There were times when we were red the moment we left the perimeter, and times we were amber until authorization to load by the patrol leader.
Carrying at amber was the preferred manner whenever possible, because it takes half a second to pull the charging handle and chamber a round, and that action with the loud distinct noise it makes was itself a form of force escalation.
Davis X. Machina
@Woodrowfan: That’s why it’s called “The House of Representatives”. It’s…. representative.
Gex
@Mark S.: Seconded. No sympathy for someone with a deadly weapon being all sad that the deadly weapon killed someone he loves. Fucking put the safety on asshole. Carry the ammo in your pocket.
You have a loaded gun, with the safety off, in a MOVING VEHICLE with your child. Even if the chances are one in one hundred trillion of this happening, I would not take that chance with my child.
Fuck him.
Most victims of these massive gun shooting sprees or home gun accidents end up switching over to the gun control/safety side of things. If gun enthusiasts need to kill someone they love to see the light, then that’s what it will have to take. Because the rest of us can’t seem to make them give a shit otherwise.
Davis X. Machina
@danielx:
Omnipresence is after all one of the usual attributes of a divinity. Assuming that this is also the case with Moloch.
Roger Moore
@Jasmine Bleach:
Actually, the armed civilians in Libya were getting their asses kicked until other countries stepped in with air support, and the ones in Syria were getting their asses kicked until large parts of the army started to defect. If you want to know how well everyone having assault rifles works as a deterrent to tyranny, look at Iraq. Just about every household there had an AK, but it took an outside invasion to get Saddam Hussein out of power.
Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: Please take me out of moderation at 109.
Xenos
@JohnK:
You have to understand that the IInd Amendment was a compromise that came out of a divided committee. Those that wanted to restrict gun ownership lost, but in order to maintain consensus (for the whole bill of rights went up for ratification together – voters/states could not pick and choose amendments) they agreed to have a pretty meaningless clause attached to the beginning of the amendment.
It was the sort of compromise we should all be familiar with: both right and ‘left’ agreeing to pretend that the left is placing meaningful restrictions on gun ownership.
The Other Chuck
My basic problem with the idea of keeping arms as a check against the government is that the people with the most guns and that idea constantly in their head are _exactly_ the sort of violent psychopaths that the government should be defended against.
The second amendment was the right idea at the time. It is simply wrong now. Not because we have a standing military, or that said military outguns everyone else, or that personal arms have become too powerful — though it’s partly those — it’s because the people most demanding of their arms have shown themselves repeatedly to be unworthy of of any trust that they will use them with care.
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Really? How about this?…
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/10/18/army_detains_u_s_reservists_who
Vanya
Has this ever happened? In most cases what seems to happen through history is that angry armed civilians form mobs, and then rather than fighting the establishment, they go out and persecute minorities and undesirables. Think pogroms in the Russian Empire, armed right wing bands in Germany in the 1920s, the Klu Klux Klan, etc. The only real example I can think of where armed citizens spontaneously organized and attacked the government in order to institute “Democracy” is probably the Russian Revolution – not an event American gun nuts are likely to embrace. And even that quickly degenerated from the idealism of February 1917 into a take-over by organized armed thugs (aka “Bolsheviks”).
TheHalfrican
btw, Joe Scar’s speech this morning was admirable but….
That part where he blamed “violent mind-numbing video games” for corrupting our previously pure and innocent Gun Culture?
Ugh. I gagged. FOH w/ that.
I’m already seeing the bullshit news reports talking about how THE KILLER WAS OBSESSED WITH VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES. His favorite game?
Seriously? Dynasty Warriors? Was there a katana sword the cops didn’t find?
Apparently he liked fantasy MMORPGs too. Give me a break. This is like the secular version of Huckabee’s nonsense. Dynasty Warriors. Gotta be kidding me…
Turbulence
@Jasmine Bleach: Armed civilians seem to have done fairly well against standing armies in Syria and Libya, just for two examples.
I don’t think Syria or Libya make for good comparisons with the US. There’s a fair bit of research in the PoliSci literature showing that dictatorships tend to have shitty military forces because everything they do to reduce the likelihood of military coups degrades military effectiveness.
Soonergrunt
ETA–Schools in Guthrie, OK are in lockdown right now after a shooting threat
Roger Moore
@JohnK:
Because the last time we voted, the crazy voters elected an Atheist Muslim Kenyan Socialist Fascist as President. Obviously, decent white folk can’t trust the democratic process to keep themselves in control anymore, so they need weapons in case the darkies try anything./wingnut
Joel
If only Nancy Lanza had been armed, this tragedy could have been prevented.
Oh, wait.
Bob In Portland
Back on Christmas Eve 1972 I was one of the soldiers at Fort Devens assigned to guard duty at the ammo dump there. We were given M-16s. We weren’t given bullets. Sure, security has increased dramatically since then, but the point was that the military realized that someone was more likely to be killed with loaded weapons than without.
Anoniminous
@donnah:
But she’s not. From your description she’s a classic high-functioning paranoid psychotic.
The Other Chuck
@TheHalfrican: Guy had terrible taste in video games too. The entire Dynasty Warriors series is “hold stick forward, press A button 1,252,725,233,886 times. Press X for variety as desired.”
Vanya
One other point – gun nuts claim that guns preserve our freedoms, yet they also whine continuously about how liberals have destroyed America over the past 40 years and turned the US into a socialist state. Something doesn’t make sense there given the high levels of US gun ownership.
Bubblegum Tate
@Nutella:
Holy shit
The Ancient Randonneur
And why is it that owners of firearms are not required to carry liability insurance? Do they expect the government to pick up the tab when they screw up and shoot the wrong person?
MikeJ
@The Other Chuck:
I often fix my next door neighbor’s computer. He’s a gun nut who’s convinced his email isn’t working because of the email he forwards exposing Obama, and it has nothing to do with every piece of crap spyware toolbar in the world being installed.
I cannot think of anything the government could do that would make me want *him* to take them down.
Jay in Oregon
@Bubblegum Tate:
They’re the same idiots who think that the U.S. military can overcome dedicated native insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (Mujahadeen, anyone?), yet imagine themselves bravely driving off a hypothetical Soviet/North Korean invading army with those selfsame few assault rifles.
Lee
@Southern Beale:
Take a look at who the government has been going after.
How long has it been since you’ve heard of the ATF going after some militia group?
How many times have you heard the government warning about wikileaks and Anonymous?
PurpleGirl
@JohnK: Because… ACORN.
(You’ve heard haven’t you that some huge percentage of Republicans think that ACORN stole the election for Obama.)
Jay in Oregon
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Actually, the NRA offers liability insurance. I realize it’s not mandatory but it points to the fact that someone over there thinks it might be a good idea.
They even recently added a rider to cover legal defense costs incurred in a “Stand Your Ground” scenario.
Mack
@Schlemizel: It’s called trigger discipline, and there’s a reason to develop it.
Sly
A person paranoid enough to believe that they need to carry a weapon on their person at all times and keep an arsenal in their homes will, of course, be paranoid enough to believe that even a tepid discussion about restricting gun access will be an affront to not just to their own liberty, but to their own survival. They’ll think this even as violent crime has been decreasing (mostly due to advances in law enforcement) for more than a decade, especially since their chief lobbyist group doubles as a marketing outfit for gun manufacturers.
So their answer to mass shootings will always be that we as a society need more guns, because that incentive follows from the set of assumptions about the world that they’ve adopted and the interests of the institutions that represent them.
But needing to discuss arming elementary school personnel instead of addressing gun access is simply more than the vast majority of people can stomach. I have a friend who keeps an AR-15 in his home, among other guns, as a matter of “safety” and because he’s simply an enthusiast. Some people collect cars, some people collect stamps, some people collect vinyl records… he collects guns.
But I’ve said this to him and I’ll say it to anyone else; I’m not going to listen to people countenance that I need to keep a gun in my classroom because they want their personal hobbies to be as unrestricted as possible, and certainly not to placate the paranoid fantasies of some white suburbanites (full disclosure: I am a white suburbanite). We have enough crazy in this country as it is. That is the discussion I won’t tolerate, and quite frankly I think I’m in a much more logically and morally secure position to make that stand.
And I’m certainly not going to listen to the argument being made by the same political coalition that assumes, as a baseline, that I’m an overpaid and incompetent parasite and wants to restrict my collective bargaining rights accordingly.
HelloRochester
Red alert to anyone willing to discuss our death cult gun culture: you must call multiple rounds of pre-loaded ammo “magazines” and not “clips”. It’s apparently like wiping your ass with the flag.
The Moar You Know
dupe
Mack
Ditto on the guard duty with an unarmed weapon. Stationed at Fort Ord, Ca. ordered to stand guard in the cold with no ammo. Very commonplace.
JoyfulA
@Davis X. Machina: I understand Denmark Vesey had been the equivalent of an army general 3 years before he was captured and transported.
don
One thing these people fail to consider. The Constitution only specifies one crime, treason. So why exactly would they create an amendment that says you can own a gun in order to overthrow the government?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mandalay: You link actually proves my overall point.
The reservists who disobeyed orders were promptly arrested, court-martialed, and if you do some further research, eventually discharged.
You may have individuals or small groups who might not obey such an order, but the vast majority of the military WILL side with legal orders given through the chain of command, and will wipe out any armed insurrection in this country if asked to do so. And they can do so and still have plenty of time to grab lunch afterwards.
Soonergrunt
@Cassidy: I must have already done that. There’s no one in the mod filter at 6the moment.
Akismet is being its usual PIA self, however, but I don’t have access to that.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: Our kooks would fire RPGs at each other if they had them. I’m sure several would accidently blow up their own ‘command bunker’ from not properly reading the directions, etc.
Soonergrunt
@Xenos: ” they agreed to have a pretty meaningless clause attached to the beginning of the amendment.”
That is a severely wrong misreading of the history of 2A. Gun possession and carry restrictions were widely known in the colonies both before and after the revolution.
The Founders absolutely meant for gun ownership and carry to occur within the limited context of a well-regulated militia, which existence and regulation was intended to be the province of the several states, which was the agency that the Founders envisioned as a bulwark against national tyranny.
Soonergrunt
@Mandalay: And almost all of those personnel were either disciplined within the context of the UCMJ or they were administratively punished.
Rosie Outlook
All right, let’s say you’re out there in East Armpit and, having been taught all your life that the government is the enemy, you amass your own little arsenal and start a militia. For whatever reason, the government decides that you really are its enemy, rather than merely a threat to private citizens who can’t afford gated communities (insert governmental yawn). By the time the sharpshooters, the tanks, the drones, the flamethrowers, etc. get through with you, there won’t be enough left to fill a coffee cup.
Now. Say you are a 17-year-old kid in Detroit. Life is dangerous, so you arm yourself and join a gang. All your life you have been taught that whites are the enemy , so one day you and your posse decide to take the fight to the enemy in Grosse Pointe. The government decides that you are a threat, at least to the rich folks in Grosse Pointe, and by the time…fill in end of above scenario. My point is , there’s just no way anyone can beat the Pentagon. Not in this country.
Interestingly, black gang-bangers seem much more realistic on this topic than do the white gun nuts. Fred Reed once interviewed a high-ranking gang member in Chicago , and when the topic of the gangs preying on their fellow blacks came up, Reed asked why they never killed whites. “we’d like to,” the man replied, “but we know we’d lose.”. Words to live by, Red Dawn-ers.
Roger Moore
@Vanya:
If guns preserve our freedoms, then Saddam Hussein’s Iraq must have been a beacon of freedom to the world, since basically every family there had an AK. Don’t expect these people to be swayed by logic or facts.
Soonergrunt
@Vanya: Pre-OIF-Iraq had one of the highest incidence of private firearms ownership in the world, and vast majority of those weapons were fully automatic AKs and AK-variants.
I don’t remember seeing much on the news about the civilians throwing off the yoke of Saddam’s oppression, do you?
sparrow
@peach flavored shampoo: Here’s the link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/wow_waiting_for_the_apocalypse.php . Jesus. I did not know these people existed in such numbers. It’s really not good when a good fraction of the populace is delusional… I’m sure there are parallels from history that did not end well (witch-hunting, violent anti-semitism come to mind).
sparrow
@peach flavored shampoo: Here’s the link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/wow_waiting_for_the_apocalypse.php . Jesus. I did not know these people existed in such numbers. It’s really not good when a good fraction of the populace is delusional… I’m sure there are parallels from history that did not end well (witch-hunting, violent anti-semitism come to mind).
Soonergrunt
@Bob In Portland: I pulled guard in lots of places all over the world without having either live ammo issued, or having had it issued, being allowed to lock and load.
As one of my Sergeants said at one such Guard Mount on pre-positioned equipment at Travis AFB in California, “The government has seen fit to provide you with a $500 club shaped like a rifle.”
Paul in KY
@Nutella: That is some weird shit right there. Tinfoil hat & jars of urine weird.
Thanks for excerpting it.
Soonergrunt
@Mack: yup. Guarded the ASP, which the hang gliders were constantly landing in, with an unloaded weapon. Whenever I stood gate guard it was with NO weapon. Just a radio and flashlight.
Mandalay
@Soonergrunt:
I don’t doubt that, but to state the obvious, that was after they had disobeyed orders, not before.
Somewhat OT, but in a scenario like that can you EVER legitimately refuse such a (non-critical?) mission on the grounds that you will almost certainly be killed?
Given that in the military you can refuse an unlawful order, can you ever make the case (apparently unsuccessfully in this example) that a ridiculous and insanely dangerous order is unlawful?
Joel
@Rosie Outlook: Well, if you look at gangs as an economic enterprise, rather than a political one, their behavior makes a lot more sense.
carolus
@redshirt: Kos really needs to fuck off.
For years, he’s been a sanctuary for the NRA gun nuts who toe the NRA party line. Their mantra is that Dems should abandon gun control because the NRA is so powerful. Of course, most of those Kossacks wouldn’t vote for a Dem regardless.
Calouste
@Vanya: The February 1917 revolution was kick started by a sailor’s mutiny, wasn’t it?
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Nonsense. You claimed that “You don’t disobey orders. Period. They may not like it but they will do as they’re told if it ever comes to that.”.
It only took a single example to disprove your point. The fact is that they disobeyed orders. What happened after they disobeyed orders is completely irrelevant.
Unless you are trying to cloud the issue and change the subject by conflating unrelated issues, but I am sure you would not sink to such sordid depths.
Bobby Thomson
@carolus:
In recent days, apparently a lot of them have taken their ball and gone
GaltPUMAhome. Good riddance, I say, but there have been numerous diaries there decrying the lack of “civility.” Lesser people might have been concerned about the murder of a score of kindergarteners, but it’s good to see they’ve identified the real problem: the precious fee fees of a bunch of hyperprivileged commenters on a website.Soonergrunt
@Mandalay: “Somewhat OT, but in a scenario like that can you EVER legitimately refuse such a (non-critical?) mission on the grounds that you will almost certainly be killed?”
To my knowledge, the answer is “Legally, no.” Once the order is given and confirmed, then the fact that you might be killed is not grounds for refusal. What if, for example, the order is to fight a delaying action, and to hold the enemy as long as possible while the rest of the unit escapes to better ground or back to relative safety? If you fail that mission, then not just you and your men, but perhaps the entire unit or even the entire area with several units could fall to the enemy. Such a situation could conceivably occur (I don’t know the exact specifics of the event in question) to a supply unit. Armies live or die by their logistics, and failure to deliver the goods could mean that other troops will suffer because food, water, ammo, spare parts, and so on don’t get delivered, and they can’t fight the enemy.
However, military leaders are expected to candidly advocate for their troops safety. If I think that the objective of the orders I’m being given can be better achieved at less risk to my command, I’m negligent if I don’t speak up, and honestly, I’ve never personally encountered a situation whereby my advice wasn’t sought by my commanders or where I wasn’t given relative latitude as to how I achieved my objective.
ThresherK
When he was assigned guard duty, he was issued a shotgun and some shells. His instructions were to stay awake, keep the shells in his pocket, and that he better have a very goddam good reason if he ever loaded his shotgun.
Hey, I’m late to the party as always, but:
Barney Fife was instructed to keep his bullet in his shirt pocket, if I recall.
Sorta a worrisome comparison to make in real life.
Rosie Outlook
@Joel: Oh, yes, drugs are big business. My impression, from the outside, is that gangs also provide defense for their members, a sort of “family” for men who never had much of the real thing, and a means of feeling like they matter, at least in their little corner of the world.
Now that we get onto the subject, most of the gun nuts seem to be loners. Maybe having their own little posse would give them something to think about besides who might be comi ng for them.
Capri
@Waldo: @Bubblegum Tate:
I actually think they truly believe that the Army would join their side and together they’d fight THE GOVERNMENT.
No logic, is not their strongest suite.
Also, if guns don’t kill people, how do seatbelts save lives?
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: My take is that if the mission appears to be both suicidal and unimportant, one would be justified in going over one’s immediate superior’s head for verification/clarification. The mission might be more vital than one thought or one’s immediate superior might just be stupid. But, yeah, beyond that, I agree with you.
Ruckus
@Vanya:
Something doesn’t make sense there given the high levels of US gun ownership.
Your first and biggest mistake. Trying to give them the ability to make sense.
People talk about the military coming in and kicking ass, how many local police departments have military gear and training? As someone up thread pointed out the FBI/ATF/whoever else have some pretty strong weapons on their own. An armed insurrection? If the concept wasn’t so dangerous to those around these idiots it would be laughable.
Soonergrunt
Meanwhile, in that conservative bastion of freedom from government oppression, the south:
Heavily armed police to stop people in public and demand identification in Paragould, Arkansas.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
From my limited experience of living in East Armpit Florida and Minnesota as well as time spent in Michigan and Illinois I would be surprised if two neighbors would escalate to RPGs. Its not just the lack of availability. Now I could certainly see shooting bullets but we are a bit away from that I think
Mandalay
@Soonergrunt:
Interesting. This thread echoes a lot of the points you made:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?130662-Do-soldiers-have-the-right-to-disobey-hazardous-order
shortstop
Except to the swelling hordes of punkass criminals and brown people those guns are keeping at bay. Guns are super-badass with those people, but wouldn’t harm a (white, rural, uneducated) flea otherwise.
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: and again a commenter says what I was trying to say much more cleanly and succinctly.
redshirt
@carolus: Kos is on our shit list? Kos?
Lot’s of crossfire – excuse the pun – going on these last few days.
His post today was well written and entirely in line with what we’ve been discussing.
Paul in KY
@Calouste: With large caliber guns on board said ships (and in the forts also).
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
What is interesting (and somewhat chilling) is that apparently if a mission is suicidal but important you must obey…
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?130662-Do-soldiers-have-the-right-to-disobey-hazardous-order
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: I’m talking about the kind of neighbors who would have RPGs (if available) to begin with. Surely you can see 2 of our kooks blasting at each other, given enough provacation?
Work with me here :-)
smintheus
This confuses ability with intent. Guns do kill people, though they lack the intent to do so. Intent is what humans add to guns’ killing abilities.
Guns are killing tools. We need to acknowledge that they’re tools and treat them as tools, not extensions of our personalities and our aspirations and our mental therapies.
We especially need to distinguish ordinary guns and hunting rifles, killing tools, from automatic and semi-automatic guns, which are killing factories. They’re an assembly-line of death.
The Second Amendment guarantee was framed as a bulwark of *social/governmental* stability, not as a means of personal protection much less of personal expression. Gun ownership was meant to serve a social purpose. Owning your own killing factory serves no social purpose.
celticdragonchick
@Bubblegum Tate:
Unfortunately, you cannot assume that the Army would be completely under civilian control in the event of a large insurrection. While I was in the Army (around the same time that John was back in 92-93), there was some sort of study conducted on how the Army would fare if ordered to begin mass confiscation of firearms and combat operations against resisting civilians.
The study concluded that one third to one half of the personnel in any particular unit would either refuse to obey orders or actively defect to the insurrection.
Keep in mind that the Army is overwhelmingly Southern and conservative, and many, many soldiers own a sizable gun collection of their own.
carolus
@redshirt: I agree the post you reference was just fine.
Problem is, for years Kos sympathized with and protected the “RKBA” group whose message was indistinguishable from the NRA’s. I find Kos disingenuous.
Barry
@chopper:
“also, public school teachers are lazy overpaid union thug idiot leeches on society, yet they should now be allowed to carry concealed weapons around our children.
the cognitive dissonance in these guys is amazing. ”
I think that it’s a triple flip, because deep down, these guys know that having a gun case full of firepower doesn’t help at all when you get the pink slip, or a benefits cut, or your pension fund is looted, or you’re instructed to train your replacements so that the business can be offshored. The USA has been conducting a successful experiment on whether or not a heavily armed middle/working class can be degraded and largely destroyed.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: Say it with me now: WOLVERINES!!
celticdragonchick
@Rosie Outlook:
So take a look at the PIRA in Northern Ireland…opposing the rather well equipped and well trained British Army. That ended up being a bloody stalemate that lasted for decades. It only ended when both sides decided to make crucial compromises.
In any internal COIN-type war, the idiots die quickly and then the hardcore smart insurgents adapt and figure out how to make life hell for the government.
Generally, governments win COIN wars, but it often lasts years or decades with thousands of lives lost along the way.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
I think the point is more that the guys who are most fond of saying they have all those guns to hold off the gubbmint are the idiots who would die first if shit actually went down.
Yes, if some kind of IRA-like group arose domestically, we would have a hell of a hard time suppressing them, but those aren’t the guys who are most fond of talking about what badasses they are. I’m guessing McVeigh didn’t spend a lot of time bragging to all of his neighbors about what a badass he was and how he walked around armed at all times like these guys do.
Barry
@Jeffery Bahr:
“@cmorenc: Then, as in today, the South had a long history of military families, with many competent Confederate officers. They also (initially) matched the Union in terms of artillery and logistical support. They, of course, also took over a number of military bases/posts. ”
(and Pres. Buchanan, a Confederate sympathizer, deliberately did not consolidate and secure federal depots).
*and* the USA at this time had a teeeny little army, really for killing stone age trives, *and* the Confederacy was able to play defensive games.
Soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick: I don’t know. The study I saw in the early 90s basically said that the vast majority (over 90%) of the active forces would obey the orders of the CinC if they were relayed through the chain of command, and that these troops would use deadly force against armed civilians if so ordered.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Yes. As I pointed out, the idiots will die quickly. The smart ones (who may have prior service experience or may even be on active duty) can make things very, very nasty for everyone else.
A lot of those folks have spec ops backgrounds, btw. They are free thinkers, suspicious of authority and highly motivated and goal oriented. 60 minutes did an expose’ on a newsletter called The Resistor that was published by green berets at Ft Bragg. The newsletter was dedicated to anti government stories and specifically aimed at fostering ideas on when it might be ‘necessary’ for spec ops people to begin guerrilla warfare against the Clinton presidency.
I know for a fact (having experienced it first hand) that sedition was very common in the ranks during the Clinton years and talk of resistance against potential ‘unlawful orders’ was openly discussed by junior ranks, NCO’s and sometimes commissioned officers.
celticdragonchick
@Soonergrunt:
The study I referred to was a major source of discussion over at 3/75 Ranger at Hunter AAF. Presumably, it was commissioned as some adjunct to planning for unconventional warfare and the possibility that civilian firearms could be a military issue. It would be nice to have an actual hard copy, since word of mouth is always suspect.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
Keep in mind half the reason the IRA was able to keep up The Troubles as long as they could was because they had terrorist supporters like Peter King sending them money from their safe sinecures in Boston. No insurgency survives without some source of external funding.
White Trash Liberal
I am late to this thread, but here goes:
I can not believe how stupid the skepticism of JC’s story has been. Anyone who has served/deployed knows that rules of engagement and escalation of force procedures are fluid. There are different procedures based on location, unit, command, etc. ROE and EOF changed twice during my tour.
You can be under Army command, Marine command, UN/NATO command and have to change your approach from one area of responsibility to the next.
THEY KNOW THIS IF THEY SERVED
The meat headed audacity of these commandos irks me to no end.
Death Panel Truck
@PeakVT:
Our government possesses Blackhawk helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and has a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, each armed with two dozen tactical nuclear weapons. If push came to shove, the nuts would lose. Big time.
Cluttered Mind
@TheHalfrican: Yeah, I don’t recall Gandhi requiring an arsenal of automatic weapons to combat government oppression. What you said is absolutely accurate, revolutions succeed when the government’s soldiers start refusing unacceptable orders, not before.
carolus
@Yutsano:
Additionally, the IRA enjoys the support of at least half the country. That’s key to any insurgency–the rebels must have at least the tacit support of a significant chunk of the populace.
Does anyone think a bunch of fat white guys are going to amass such support?
Cluttered Mind
@carolus: SILENT MAJORITY!
Soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick: And one never knows exactly who was interviewed. It’s been my experience in the military that people’s likelihood to espouse and believe conservative rhetoric is inversely proportional to their closeness to combat.
IOW, Infantry are less likely than any other collective MOS to go for that shit, or any politics really, while the farther one gets from the fighting, the more John Wayne-ish people one meets. One of the worst conspiracy nuts and hardcore conservatives I ever met in the military was a MOS 91M Hospital Food Service Specialist who was being chaptered out for Failure to Adapt when I was at Fort Carson in the late 90s. He probably tells anyone who will listen to this day about what a super troop he was. I met the kid because I had an 11B that I had failed as a leader, and I couldn’t get him to adapt successfully no matter what I did, and now I had to escort him around the base to clear after he was chaptered out.
celticdragonchick
@Death Panel Truck:
If we have to talk about the government using Bradly IFV’s, tanks and aircraft to suppress a domestic rebellion, then things have gone really fucking wrong somewhere. Even if they lose…we all lose as well. Hundreds, maybe thousands will be dead. Our economy and large areas of infrastucture will be wrecked. Reprisals, bombings and retribution murders will continue for years. The Bill of Rights will cease to exist. Police and the military will cease to have any distinction.
I would rather not go down that road.
Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: The only caveat to that I think is the SOF community. Half of them love their country, the other half is in love with the status they’ve acheived. The biggest split would be amongst them, but even they dont have the numbers.
Soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick: “I would rather not go down that road.”
Hoowah.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: Also, there is a difference between talk and action. My guess, and guess it is, is that the vast majority of soldiers would respond to their training and follow legal orders.
Soonergrunt
@Cassidy: “he only caveat to that I think is the SOF community. Half of them love their country, the other half is in love with the status they’ve acheived.”
And I think that’s a very perceptive statement, but even for that, I think a lot of them who are more in love with their tabs on their left sleeve than the flag on the right would not cross lines, but stay with their units.
celticdragonchick
@Soonergrunt:
LOL.
Yes, the REMF types can get out of hand.
All the same, a few supply types here and there who go “over the wall” with their individual weapons would be a problem, and internal policing by a military tends to “go south”, so to speak. We all know by now that the Army does not do law enforcement real well, and heavy handed operations will almost certainly result in retaliation by the locals, and especially in our own anti authoritarian culture.
Soonergrunt
@Cluttered Mind: “Yeah, I don’t recall Gandhi requiring an arsenal of automatic weapons to combat government oppression.” and he beat one of the most powerful empires the world has ever known.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: I think that one went on for so long because the army treated it as a police action & used policing guidelines (as they should have, IMO).
Probably would have been over sooner if they had allowed the army to go 19th Century on them.
celticdragonchick
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is the best you could hope for.
Soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick: “We all know by now that the Army does not do law enforcement real well”
When all you have is a
hammerM-4 and frag grenades…Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: Possibly, probably. I’m basing the 50/50 thing of my anecdotal observations of personality, and we’ve talked about that before; half are really cool and the other half are utter failures as human beings.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: He was a coward at heart. Only a coward would surepiticiously bomb an undefending building housing a large daycare center.
Soylent Green is FReepers
So a weird little historical footnote, we all (I hope) know that the Revolutionary War was pretty much mopped up at Yorktown when Washington trapped Cornwallis by the ocean with no British ships to get him out. Washington did this by ordering an assault, led by Alexander Hamilton, on Redoubts 9 and 10 (two little entrenchments on a ridge on Cornwallis’s left flank) which had a position overlooking Cornwallis’ headquarters, from which Washington would have been able to rain down any kind of fire he damn well pleased on Cornwallis and there wasn’t much of anything the Brits would have been able to do about it (retaking the redoubts… you’d have to see the ground to appreciate it, but think of it as a half a cereal bowl, with Cornwallis at the bottom and big guns sitting up on the rim pointing down at him and you have a pretty good idea of the situation). What you probably don’t know is, the soldiers who made that attack that won our FREEDOMS! did so without a single bullet. Weren’t issued them. It was a night attack and it was more important to get them there quietly and have the element of surprise than it was to have ammunition once they got there. So the whole thing began with the Shot Heard Round the World, and ended with a bunch of guys with no bullets beating the bloody hell out of the Brits in hand-to-hand combat. You can look it up.
Cassidy
@Paul in KY: Funny you mention that, because I was having a conversation along these lines not to long ago. People don’t realize that COIn covers such a broad spectrum ranging from brutalization and genocide to fsotering trust and buying/ fixing the quality of life for the local populace. If you’re willing to do an Alexander on the local populace, you canprettymuch put any insurgency down.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
You mean “gone Cromwell” on them.
Of course, massive detainment in concentration camps, cancellation of all religious liberty and freedom of speech and movement, and mass executions…all in the age of mass communications…does tend to have consequences for a country. Even then, it would likely not have stopped the war but merely changed the placement of the battlefield.
Cromwell was a first rate war criminal, btw, but that is another topic.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: ‘Sedition’ is not a word I would throw around, when talking about things heard ‘1st hand’ from military personnel.
I assume it was drunk show-off ranting. Actual ‘sedition’ is supposed to be reported by a uniformed military person who witnesses/overhears it.
Cassidy
I suck at typing. I apologize.
Soylent Green is FReepers
@Paul in KY: It also helps if the 3000 lightly armed civilians are wearing Guy Fawkes capes and masks.
celticdragonchick
@Soonergrunt:
Truth.
Oh, while we are on this topic, and can verify (along with many others who already have) the bit that JC talked about regarding guard duty and his rifle. Of course, we were never allowed to even have live rounds while on patrol at night in Korea. We carried empty rifles and axe handles or baseball bats. My axe handle had “fuck you” carved into the grip just above where it had been wrapped in parachute cord.
One buddy of mine did load a blank round into his rifle and then put a cleaning road down the barrel. He actually shot an infiltrator coming through the wire one night (some slicky boy idiot trying to steal TA-50, no doubt) and knocked the guy out cold.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
I was there, and mere insubordination does not cover what was said. Clinton was genuinely loathed by a lot of folks in uniform, and I was astonished at how open it was.
Soylent Green is FReepers
@Paul in KY: Hey, it worked in Ireland! That’s how the French subdued Algeria. And if the Soviets had gone soft in Afghanistan, they probably wouldn’t still be pushing the international communist agenda forward with such aplomb.
Oh, wait…
Fair Economist
@Litlebritdifrnt:
The smart gun nuts are realizing that widespread availability of automatic weaponry is going to mean the end of any guns in America. Guns cause about 6 9/11s per year and if American ever realize that, they’ll repeal the 2nd amendment – if they need to – to end gun availability. It happened with Prohibition, and this time a constitutional change would *save* lives, and it would stick.
As long as gun deaths are individual tragedies, they don’t get much press and the average American doesn’t put them all together to realize just how awful and evil widespread gun availability it. But these mass shootings get lots of press, and to some extent even make people notice the never-ending drumbeat of horror that is everyday gun violence. The expiration of the Brady Bill and various smaller gun control prohibitions is converting gun violence into a form that will actually get noticed.
Manchin and Scarborough want to hunt and keep their guns, and they’re smart enough to realize that when people start being afraid to go out in public because of random mass shootings (and that’s coming), they’ll lose their guns. So they are taking action.
I suspect the NRA leadership, or at least some of it, is realizing it too, and they are probably having some serious internal dissension on how to deal with it.
Death Panel Truck
@celticdragonchick: I guess I needed to put a “/sarcasm” tag at the end.
Paul in KY
@Cassidy: Tamerlane didn’t have too many uprisings either.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: Certainly would have been much messier & more complicated (in this day of modern technology & mass communication).
Probably need to visit an alternate universe to see how it went.
Soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick: We were in Afghanistan, and the new incoming USMC command element arrived at our basecamp (the Central Corps Advisory Group at Camp Blackhorse*) and they all dismounted their vehicles, lined up at the clearing barrel, and one by one, the USMC O-6, followed by one of their O-4s, followed by the Sergeant Major all discharged live rounds into the clearing barrel by accident. Of course, that’s what a clearing barrel is there for.
The second command-wide announcement that day, after the first being the formal assumption of command by new bosses, was the revocation of the previous policy of treating accidental discharges at the clearing barrel as “negligent” and that there would no longer be UCMJ actions associated with those events. Additionally, all Staff NCOs and above in the incoming HQ were directed to report for immediate retraining on clearing barrel procedures, presented by the National Guard Infantry element.
It was awesome.
*Camp Blackhorse was built in 2003 by the 11th ACR when they were in country without their tanks or Bradleys. It seems they name all of their forward installations that.
Soylent Green is FReepers
@Fair Economist: Isn’t “automatic weapons” a red herring? They’re already heavily, heavily controlled, you have to be seriously licensed to get one and they aren’t showing up on the streets. What are available are assault rifles, which are semi-automatics. If what you’re trying to say is that nobody needs an assault rifle then fine, but if you’re saying that a semi-automatic handgun is inherently more dangerous than a revolver, I’d be interested in hearing your logic behind that because it frankly escapes me.
Soonergrunt
@Soylent Green is FReepers: because it takes quite a few seconds to reload a revolver without specialist equipment–speed loaders designed just for that particular model and caliber, while detachable box magazines for semi-automatic pistols typically hold many more rounds (15-17 for a 9mm vs. 6 for the roughly analogous .38) and can be removed by gravity and reloaded in less than two seconds.
Fair Economist
It’s a simple fact that these mass murders are committed with assault rifles and military-grade automatic (semi-automatics to be technical). A classic revolver is adequate for drunkly shooting friends during fights or accidentally shooting your teenage son but, based on the evidence, it’s not sufficient to blow away dozens in a public location.
celticdragonchick
@Soonergrunt:
LMAO!
The clearing barrel should never been the cause for actionable UCMJ bullshit in the first place, however.
Soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick: What I loved about working for the Marines was that they were all about doing what worked, and far less hung up on the idea that they couldn’t learn from others’ experience than their reputation makes them seem.
But as the Colonel said in the “Welcome Aboard” briefing (‘aboard’ a land base–never said the USMC wasn’t weird on some level): “You gentlemen are the combat veterans. You know what works and what doesn’t. We’re going to learn from you and guide, not direct for the time being.”
15th Marine Regiment HQ from Okinawa, I think it was.
Dave
what might get the “gun nuts” is having to load your magazine with tape over the top so you have to eject the magazine, remove the tape, reinsert the magazine sounds like a great way to die while futzing around with your rifle.
I wouldn’t put it past our military to issue orders like this. I had a young man in my primary care clinic at the VA when I was a resident. His company was ordered by their captain to not return fire while being shot at with rifle and mortar fire. The marines in the same camp were under no such orders. Just because the military does something doesn’t make it correct.
I also remember a certain group of marines sent to Lebanon without ammunition in their rifles; that turned out well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing
Also please see (http://www.odcmp.com/Comm/About_Us.htm) looks like the government does see a benefit in training civilians to shoot.
chris m
@EconWatcher:
It’s not just a family responsibility. It’s a responsibility of the state as the Newtown incident amply proved. The mother of this shooter should have been legally prohibited from keeping these weapons somewhere where her mentally ill son could get at them.
Soylent Green is FReepers
@soonergrunt Right, I understand about magazines, and I guess I’m just too used to the speed loaders to think of them as “specialty equipment” (Dad was a cop, carried a revolver, carried speed loaders). But to the extent that speed loaders are uncommon, doesn’t it stand to reason that they would become more common if semi-automatics were no longer available? Is anybody seriously going to argue that, if Nancy Lanza had had a revolver, that she wasn’t the type to get a speed loader? Or that, against a bunch of six year olds and their teachers hiding in bathrooms and closets, that Adam Lanza’s fast reloading speed was a decisive factor? And Fair Economist, that’s a weak correlation – they’re using assault rifles, ergo all semi-automatics are suspect? A 44 Magnum is somehow less dangerous or intimidating than a PPK because of the loading mechanism? Have you seen those guns?
Personally, I’m conflicted – I’m a typical urbanish east-coaster with the usual urban East Coast distaste for guns. I’m married to a man with a more, let’s call it “frontier mentality” who comments on blogs under the name “Gun Toting Liberal” and is a sport target shooter with an arsenal, including an assault rifle. Since we’ve moved to a rural area he’s used them twice for what we call “home defense”: killing poisonous snakes in the back yard. I’m far from a keyboard commando here, but I really wish that gun control advocates would research a little more and take a more informed, reasoned approach (and, incidentally, I also wish that gun control opponents would get back on their fucking meds). There’s a serious problem here and it calls for a serious, informed solution.
Soonergrunt
@Soylent Green is FReepers: You’re still talking about a 5-7 second pause every SIX rounds (assuming someone is REALLY good with their speed loaders,) versus a two second pause (standard time) every 15-17 rounds with a semi-auto. Even more rounds if they use those fancy-schmancy 25-round magazines as shown here.
Yeah, a .44 will do a hell of a lot more damage if it hits you than a 9mm, but are you more or less likely to get hit with six rounds of .44 every few seconds or 15 rounds? That semi-auto can empty its magazine and stay relatively close to target in about 6 to 8 seconds, where the .44 has to be brought back down from the heavy recoil after every single round, giving it an even lower effective rate of fire.
Tom
John:
Most of the critics of your post about your army experience are most likely rural white men whose military experience, if any surved beyond basic training, was the defining period of their lives because they had the opportunity to carry a weapon, which in their minute minds, outside of frequent KP disciplinary assignments, made them the equal of everyone else.
Most of these characters never emotionally-developed beyond teen-aged boys who were given a weapon to prove their manhood, while others probably got a section 6 discharge for military unsuitability! Their current militia obsession is merely to recapture what never was!
johnny aquitard
@Paul in KY:
As I understand it, fully automatic weapons can be legally owned, but they are heavily regulated, registered, taxed, and are very expensive. And as I understand, owning one also basically means the owner accepts that law enforcement can show up at the owner’s home at any time (or at whatever location the owner previously declared it is stored at) and demand to see it. And it better be there. It sounds effectively like an on-demand search warrant for the weapon.
I have heard more than one gun nut talk about wanting a fully auto weapon but totally balk at it because it also means LEOs can come snooping whenever they want.
We don’t hear of shootings and massacres taking place with fully automatic weapons. Maybe because regulating and registering the snot out of guns actually works. What a concept.
johnny aquitard
Soylent Green is FReepers:
Funny how that works, innit?
smike
Guns don’t kill people, gun nuts kill people.
Nickws
@@Whidby:
No, not even your NRA openly espouses the belief that improvised explosive devices are covered by the 2nd Amendment, Timothy McVeigh.
Paul in KY
@Soonergrunt: Good answer. Assuming no jams, semi-automatics are much more lethal than any 6 shot revolver.
Paul in KY
@johnny aquitard: Excellent recapping of responsiblity that comes with actually owning a full automatic weapon.