These quotes from parents of kids who survived the Parkland school shooting are appalling:
John Crescitelli, a family doctor and 15 year-old Sarah Crescitelli’s father, was shaking as he was reunited with his daughter. He feared she had been killed.
“These school shootings have to stop. This is crazy. My son’s football coach died. It’s horrible,” he said. “It’s like Columbine across the street from my house.”
Asked by the Guardian if the tragedy should lead to stricter gun control for people with mental health issues, he replied: “I don’t want to get into a gun debate. I really don’t. What are you going to do? Confiscate everybody’s guns? We have millions and millions of weapons … I’m a gun owner. I don’t want the government taking my gun.”
Michael Irwin, another parent whose son attended the school, shared Crescitelli’s view.
“All the regulation in the world wouldn’t have prevented necessarily what happened today. It’s something that’s tragic, but what regulation can you pass that takes away the guns that are already out there?” he said.
His son was waiting to hear if one of his close classmates was among the dead. By late Wednesday evening, Irwin said, the student was still missing.
At least the first guy can imagine how the guns out there can be taken away. The second one can’t even imagine doing what Australia did 21 years ago.
In other news, Trump railed against mental illness and didn’t mention guns, and a white supremacist group is claiming the shooter as a member. Though I really shouldn’t call either of those developments “news”, since they’re completely fucking predictable.
Correction: The kid trained with Nazis who sang songs like “They call me Nazi / and I’m proud of it.”.
Booger
We don’t need a legislative fix or a constitutional amendment. We just need homeowners insurance to address gun liability. Free markets and all.
Cacti
How ’bout that.
Dotard has DOJ pull back from monitoring white nationalist hate groups as a domestic terror threat, white nationalist then goes on a spree killing at a high school.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Maybe we’re just a failed state with a badly designed system of government that can’t deal with this. Most people are for more control, yet we can’t get it. Most people are for a lot of things that aren’t being acted upon. Maybe what good this country had is now running on inertia.
Calouste
What’s the title of that Onion article again that they run every time there is a mass shooting? Something like “Nothing can be done says only country where this regularly happens?”
Roger Moore
And he sure as hell didn’t mention that he made it easier for mentally ill people to get guns. What’s the point of reporting people, as Trump suggested we should, if there’s no action we can legally take to prevent a massacre even if the person planning it is reported?
Jeffro
Oh…so a terrorist attack, then? Surely our national news media are reporting it as such.
ETA it looks like Cacti and I are wondering along similar lines.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Calouste: Ha, we don’t know because right now we don’t have “all the regulation in the world”. Like I said failed state.
Cacti
@Calouste:
The original author of that headline lives only about a mile away from the high school where yesterday’s shooting went down.
trollhattan
NPR found at least one sane mom whose daughter was at the school willing to say unreservedly she wants gun control and cited inaction after Sandy Hook as leading to yesterday.
They also talked to a South Dakota senator who said the AR 15 wasn’t the problem because the dude could just as well had a shotgun (slippery slope, y’all). A. I don’t think so and B. the reporter missed an opportunity to ask how effective Steven Paddock would have been with a roomful of shotguns in Vegas.
mai naem mobile
I did Nazi that a Nazi nutjob would shoot up a bunch of kids in the age of Dolt45.
MJS
I would like to report Dr. Crescitelli as a 1) gun owner who 2) clearly has a mental illness. Not only should his guns be confiscated, but his license to practice medicine should be as well. Then social services should take a look at his fitness for being a parent.
efgoldman
@Booger:
I’m sort of surprised they haven’t done so. I guess they’re paying fewer liability claims for weapons than they are for flood zones.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if some of the usual suspect states’ insurance commissions already pushed thru regulations against it.
trollhattan
@Calouste: @Cacti:
My go-to Onion reality check.
nycmt
That stupid man could not choose between his child or his guns.
SiubhanDuinne
Trump didn’t mention guns, but the Republican Governor of Kentucky explicitly said that guns have nothing to do with it:
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kentucky.com/news/state/article200251909.html
Cacti
Also too,
Apparently the shooter’s family thought nothing of him purchasing an AR-15 and storing it in their home, despite his extensive disciplinary problems and history of mental health treatment.
kindness
I’m pretty sickened by the Both Sides I am reading far too much of in the various MSM platforms regarding this issue.
The Moar You Know
I don’t want to go here but I’m fucking done with these people. I hope his kid is one of the next ones shot, because he’s obviously not going to figure this out any other way. He is the problem.
I too am a gun owner and anytime the government wants to start taking them I will hand them all over with a smile and a “thank God you’re here, what took you so long?”. Gotta be everybody’s, though. I’m not disarming if the Bundy militia gets to keep theirs.
TenguPhule
And now we know which one matters more. And its not your daughter.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ah, finally getting back to the real problem–video games. Thanks again, Kentucky for all you do to populate the nation with real political leadership!
Miss Bianca
@Calouste: “All the regulation in the world doesn’t stop murder or theft or drug use or car accidents, so what are you going to do? What good are regulations, amirite?”
condorcet runner-up
@SiubhanDuinne: Bevin is sure going to be surprised when he visits literally any other civilized country in the world …
TenguPhule
@SiubhanDuinne:
So ban the 1st and keep the 2nd.
No, I don’t want to compromise with this asshole, I want him crucified. The Roman way.
trollhattan
@Cacti:
Nancy Lanza, Take 2.
They’re complicit and I hope they get the holy shit sued out of them.
TenguPhule
@nycmt:
No, he did choose. He chose the gun.
And I realize this doesn’t make it any better.
Jay
Nomoremisternice blog has a post up on how the NRA has won the legislative battles, but also the propaganda battles.
A constant meme trotted out is that “nothing can be done”.
It’s a standard technique used to dishearten the voter, get them to quit, give up on issues and accept the current status quo or reversals.
Miss Bianca
@condorcet runner-up: It’s probably written into the KY state constitution that foreign travel will be a disqualification for the position of governor.
TenguPhule
@Booger:
Unfortunately we need a legislative repeal of the “Protection of Interstate Commerce in Firearms” Law that Congress passed first.
TenguPhule
@Jay:
This is Trump’s 2020 election theme.
Brachiator
The tree of gun worship must be refreshed continuously with the blood of innocents.
Frankensteinbeck
@SiubhanDuinne:
Literally all of that are dog whistles. Most of it means ‘rap music’ when a conservative hears it.
Hungry Joe
@condorcet runner-up: Bevin will never visit “another civilized country in the world” because We’re Number One, so what’s the point? Well, he might go on a package tour of Israel, as long as the words “Holy Land” are on the brochure and he travels with a church group.
TenguPhule
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Was running on it. That’s slowed considerably over the last year as Trump’s example of corruption now acts as a universal law of gravity in the federal government.
The good people are getting out, the bad ones are getting in.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I can’t wait for McArgleBargle’s hot take. Maybe high school football coaches should gain more weight so they can block more students’ bodies with their own?
Serious question, though: how to deal with her presence at WaPo? I subscribed during the campaign, when they and especially David Farenthold were doing yeoman’s work reporting on Trump’s financial shenanigans. I really don’t want to drop the subscription over this idiotic hire, especially since my hometown paper, the lamentable San Francisco Chronicle, is so utterly useless. So, what should a supporter of real journalism do – regular, irate letters to the editor? Blasting her in comments, since she does seem to read them? Just giving her no clicks or attention at all? Or biting the bullet and dropping the subscription (letting them know why, of course)?
Gerald Parks
@Cacti: Trained by white supremacist to kill Americans!
AND …THIS is NOT a terrorist?
Oh ….build a wall?????????
Olivia
We really have crossed over the line of lunacy when people whose children were a hair’s breadth of being shot, while others around them were shot and killed, prefer to keep their guns safer than their children.
TenguPhule
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Go with irate letters, no clicking on her and perhaps an unkind phone call or seven to ask them what hell they’re thinking?
Rusty axles and grease and all that.
TenguPhule
@Olivia: Darkest Timeline.
Miss Bianca
@TenguPhule: Yeah, we need a change from that “only I, Dear Leader, can fix everything” theme. That one is so 2016.
Lapassionara
Does the good doctor have an assault rifle? We are not talking about every type of gun. We are talking about assault rifles, and the many rounds of ammunition people purchase for those types of military weapons.
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
I just posted it that way on Facebook: terrorist group claims responsibility for school attack. Curious to see if I get any pushback.
JPL
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I’m not going to click.
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca:
Trump: “Nothing can be done. The nuclear strikes on Hawaii and California were the result of circumstances beyond our control in North Korea.”
Media:”But didn’t you launch a bloody nose first strike against Kim Jong Un?”
Trump: “Fake news! Security, throw these bums out!”
opiejeanne
@Cacti: I was going to scream about where are his fucking parents, but that right there is the answer. Idiots. They raised this creature and effectively allowed him to become this monster. They should go to prison with him for criminal neglect.
Yeah, I know, never gonna happen. I’m just sick and angry and in a rage, and I sense that we here are not alone. Twitter has absolutely blown up over this with every Senator and Congressperson who pipes about thoughts and prayers having the dollar amount they accepted from the NRA posted alongside their comments.
In other related news, Parkland FL was declared the safest town in Florida about a week ago. Any bets that that’s part of what inspired Cruz? “Oh yeah, we’ll just see about that!”
Cacti
In a rush to blame the left, the stupidest man on the internet Doxes the wrong person:
The Moar You Know
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: This is America. The only language people speak here that anyone listens to is money, so drop the subscription.
She is frankly an inexcusable hire.
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: “We have always been at war with Eurasia.”
Ridnik Chrome
Is it okay to call him a terrorist now?
ETA: Cacti and Jeffro beat me to it, I see…
TenguPhule
Breaking on Wapo.
ETA: So much for dealing in good faith.
Jonny Scrum-half
While they’ve spend the last 40 years yelling about “liberal media” and radical schools indoctrinating our children, the right has simultaneously engaged in a long-term campaign of propaganda, and we’re all now reaping what they’ve sown. Even these people, in these circumstances, literally can’t or won’t consider the possibility of reasonable gun control measures. It’s fascinating in a trainwreck-sort-of-way how propaganda works – almost like brainwashing.
Ksmiami
@TenguPhule: yes more please- I don’t think we can live with the other side- increasingly their existence threatens ours
lgerard
If you are going to make mental fitness the crux of the problem, then there is one thing that can easily be done to address the problem.
Competency hearings
You show up at the airport with a loaded handgun, then explain that you are unable to keep track of your guns…
Competency hearing
You ventilate your neighbors apartment while cleaning your gun because you didn’t bother to clear it beforehand…
Competency hearing.
Your 6 year old picks up the loaded gun you left lying around and lets off a few shots at his brother….
Competency hearing.
You publish diatribes about how you have to stockpile guns and ammunition and engage in paramilitary training in order to oppose the deep state and the Illuminati plot to enslave you….
Competency hearing
Mnemosyne
@opiejeanne:
His parents apparently thought it was normal for him to belong to a neo-Nazi group. ?
Baud
@TenguPhule: The speculative assumption that a shutdown would have worked out better for the Dreamers is quickly approaching false dogma territory. If anything, the side debate about Dem strategy probably helped doom the Dreamers because it told the GOP that they were not going to be held accountable for deporting them.
The Moar You Know
@SiubhanDuinne: I speak dogwhistle. Let me translate:
Gov. Matt Bevin told talk radio hosts his heart is truly broken for the white people of Florida and the white community has been shattered by blacks in a similar way that white Kentucky was in January. He said white guns are not the reason for increase in white school shootings, but blamed blacks, that black people delegitimize life through black video games, black TV shows and black music lyrics.
Bevin called black video games where blacks kill whites “black garbage” and said “it’s the same as black or gay pornography.” He said “so-called freedom of speech” has been abused by blacks, allowing black things that are “filthy and disgusting and have no redeemable [sic.] value.”
ETA: FWIW, although they don’t cause school shootings, for a variety of reasons I’d love to see video games in which players kill other human beings go away.
catatonia
@SiubhanDuinne:
One of the worst things about these shootings is that kind of crap from the guvnor gets trotted out every time.
“Filthy and disgusting and no redeemable value” is, however, an entirely accurate self-description.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: Well that makes sense…he does play “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at his rallies. (true!)
efgoldman
@condorcet runner-up:
Maybe not. The only place these christofascist kkklowns ever go is the Holy Land, where the Israeli army and police forces are on every corner, armed to the teeth
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@opiejeanne:
It’s a lot more complicated and sadder than that. The kid was adopted by an older couple. His dad died several years ago, and his mom died in November. He was living with family friends, and then with other friends. One of those two sets of accommodating friends (not clear which) allowed him to bring his legally purchased gun along. Dumbass, dangerous, etc., but they didn’t “allow him to become this monster.” His actual parents must have substantial culpability – an assault rifle, WTF?!? – but it sounds like he was seriously and dangerously troubled for a long time.
At the risk of drawing rhetorical fire, I feel some compassion for the monster. Nothing compared to my rage, despair, sadness, and feeling of hopelessness about his victims and the evils of American gun-nuttery, but still.
Cermet
Got a scare – my daughter called a little while ago and said she was in her classroom, under lock down and someone with a gun was roaming the hallways – while all true, the person was student with what looked like a gun and was a pellet gun. Swat did hit the school and arrest the person before they found out it was a pellet gun. She was, to say the least, extremely unnerved by her ordeal (should be home soon.) Thant goodness the police did not over react and shoot or kill the foolish student. It got too real for a short time there as she texted details and wasn’t sure what would happen to her. It is not fun fearing and going through this and she will take awhile to get over the innate fear. The police reacted well, professionally and very fast. That it ended well is what matters – I do feel for the student you caused this – their life of hell is just starting.
gvg
@efgoldman: actually why would they? they don’t have to pay claims when someone gets shot. there would have to be economic costs for insurance to be sought. so if you get a HUGE fine/ticket if your gun is used in a crime, then people would ask for insurance and companies would design rates based on if you had a gun safe and kept it locked up, prior claims, robberies in that area and I think a gun that shot a lot of fast bullets might be a higher fine so higher insurance? also resale value if it if stolen…I am not sure insurance could do what we want which is to drop the numbers and change societies attitude. currently we are too gungho guns are great. I think we need to think about drunk driver and cigarette attitude changes. Movies & TV and video game designers could help if they chose.
Its almost a license and tax situation we want. government taking a fee each year, inspections, own more cost more. different types. proper storage requirements for both guns and ammo. disposal fees for lead used rounds need to be taxed too just like paying garbage collection fees for businesses. Where you are allowed to shoot…outside of proper areas would also be a ticket fine that can suspend your license. it would be pretty invasive but I don’t see a way around it. gun owners could have been less obnoxious and allowed a few easier regulations but no, they had to be tantrum babies and bullies.
Jeffro
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Definitely write to the editor(s) and let them know why she’s a horrible person and even worse writer.
Baud
@Cermet: Damn. I’m sorry she had to go through that.
opiejeanne
@condorcet runner-up: We went to Paris in 2014 and the taxi driver asked us about guns in America, first thing out of his mouth after he established that we were in fact Americans. He wanted an explanation of how our country is like this about guns. Hell, I want the same explanation.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
What a load of bullshit! If we really had a problem as a society with delegitimizing life, you’d expect to see the overall murder rate going up like crazy. Instead, it’s about the lowest it’s been in 50 years. Mass shootings haven’t become radically more common because we as a society don’t value life. They’re happening because the handful of people who want to murder as many people as possible have better weapons than ever before.
Redleg
How about we take away assault-style rifles? At least that way we can reduce the lethality of these attacks. Assault style weapons are not needed for personal protection or for hunting.
Lee
It’s time to start taking about repealing the 2nd Amendment.
Barbara
Dr. Crescelli loves guns more than he loves his children. I hope that his kids ponder what that means for them and their friends.
Mnemosyne
@lgerard:
I’ve been saying for a while that anyone who’s in the sovereign citizen movement who acts out in public needs to get an automatic 72-hour mental health hold. If you’re driving around with a piece of cardboard as your license plate because it proves you’re independent of the United States, the cops should transport you to the nearest psychiatric ER for evaluation and treatment, not write you a ticket.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@opiejeanne: We lived in Paris for four years and got thoroughly sick and tired of that conversation. I can’t blame the people who asked, though – it’s impossible to explain rationally. “A quarter of the country is nuts and they hold the rest of us hostage” is hard to translate.
trollhattan
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Now that Jen Ruben has sorta seen the light, we can encourage her to club McMegan with a Perrier bottle for every dumb column (i.e., every column). It’s the WaPo Welcome.
Jay
@opiejeanne:
He was adopted. Hi Dad died of a heart over a decade ago. His Mom raised him alone, he was quiet and shy but an A student in JROTC and a straight B student across the board. Then in a short period of time, his girlfriend and he broke up, he got kicked out of school, his Mom died, his home was gone, and he 19, was “rooming” at a friend’s family house.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
Both his adoptive parents are dead. His Dad for over a decade, his Mom for over 3 months.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Trump does not want to help the dreamers. Trump will not help the dreamers. It’s all noise.
Brachiator
@Cermet:
Good to know that no one, including the student with the pellet gun, was hurt or killed. This kind of thing has to rattle everyone’s nerves.
trollhattan
@Redleg:
+2 Been saying it for years, for all the good that does. No civilian needs one and the fact that they felt the need to rebrand them “sporting rifles” implies the makers know this, too. An AR15 is not the Miata of the gun world, it’s the souped up semi-truck and trailer with no brakes of the gun world.
patroclus
The Senate has just started voting (cloture first). I am very hopeful that McCain-Coombs will get the 60 votes needed! This could be a very good day for the Dreamers! And if McCain-Coombs fails, Rounds-King has a chance as well (I won’t bore everyone with the differences unless relevant).
Cermet
@Baud: Thanks – I am waiting here deciding how best to deal with her issues (esp. fear to go back – overall a false alarm but at the time, she didn’t know that.) Any suggestions would be appreciated.
JMS
Reminds me of the people who keep smoking even after they’ve gotten cancer and are almost dead. Believe it or not, that’s a hopeful image. I’m sure there was a time when nobody thought smoking rates would go down or people would wear seatbelts (it’s safer if you get thrown from the car!) It’s not impossible and it can go pretty quickly once it gets started. It’s sad and stupid that tragedy isn’t enough… maybe it will have to be fashion. Somehow gun ownership becomes uncool? I don’t know how to make it happen, but I think it’s possible.
This hit me harder than most. Like the Republican politician who reevaluates gay rights when it’s their own kid, mine are both in high school right now.
Roger Moore
@Redleg:
My position on this is that the key feature of a massacre-ready gun is removable magazines. People have committed massacres with both rifles and handguns, but the big thing they have in common is that they’re very fast to reload. Limiting guns to ones that have small, fixed magazines- revolvers, most shotguns, and traditional hunting rifles- would do a lot to cut down on the amount of carnage one gunman could do.
TenguPhule
@Baud: So instead the Democrats are going to be paraded as chumps by the media for agreeing to a Republican brokered agreement that everyone knew was never going to be honored.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Dogwhistle for if we just banned abortion, all of our problems would be solved.
Cermet
@Brachiator: I am actually very re leaved that the student with the pellet gun was not hurt and I know that he has, from this foolish action, doomed so much of his life.
A @patroclus: The house is the real issue here as is the fart cloud. Need to override a veto and that is damn near impossible. The Dreamers need the dems to give that worthless fart cloud what it is demanding. The 1.8 million dreamers are being held hostage with death (for some of them) the out come if they get deported. Terrible.
TenguPhule
@gvg:
Don’t even go there.
MCA1
@TenguPhule: I’m not sure that’s quite right – if I’m not mistaken, that protects firearms manufacturers from being sued over gun deaths. I haven’t studied it, though. It may shield individual owners, too.
Your underlying point stands, though: unless and until actual gun owners are themselves the subject of huge civil liability cases for deaths at the barrel of their guns, then there’s no need for an insurance product to address same.
My personal policy prescription would be a legislative imposition of strict liability for any death, accidental or otherwise, tied to your firearm. That would open the floodgates of civil suits against anyone who doesn’t keep their gun under heavy lock and key. It would also lead to a better maintained registry of ownership at time of initial purchase (as dealers would want to be sure any gun they’ve sold is someone else’s responsibility) as well as effectively eliminate black market sales for any gun manufactured or at any time registered in the system after the date of legislation. Then, insurance companies would come in and charge people an arm and a fucking leg if they own more than one or two guns, can’t show they keep proper control over their guns, if there’s anyone sketchy under their roof, etc., etc. It’s not perfect, but it could start to change the way we think about weapons and their owners as a society.
I would even consider the extension of liability to parents of minors who commit gun violence. I’d buy that insurance product, because it would be cheap for me, and I would like for the families of murdered people to have all of society, even if it has to be accomplished through insurance premiums, pay for the externality of our apparently indispensable need to own guns. It would also ensure that there’s someone to go after when a mass murderer offs themselves along with their innocent victims.
Legitimate, “responsible” gun owners, i.e. hunters, would GLADLY comply with this sort of thing.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Cacti: I will just point out that noted Democratic Senatorial candidate Chelsea Manning hung out with Lucian Wintrich recently, it was on the Twit machine.
efgoldman
@gvg:
Government isn’t going to do it (noted elsewhere) unless and until (if ever) all branches inclusing SCOTUS are in Dems control.
The insurance companies are the only non-gov entities with enough monetary clout to impose significant financial penalties.Hell, if I get a moving violation my premiums go up AND I pay a $300 penalty for three years.
If they can assess and charge risk for different towns or even neighborhoods, for auto or homeowners, their underwriters are certainly capable of doing the same for firearms.
Zach
Proposal: A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION TO AMEND THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Why is there no single-issue advocacy group based around this idea? The National Popular Vote movement is well funded and pretty successful! NPV is just as far-fetched as amending the second amendment, and it would have almost no impact on American politics if it passed!
My proposed amendment: “States may regulate anything that can be used as a weapon in any way they want except for weapons both owned by the United States and operated by agents of the United States.”
This still lets states get in the way of a tyrannical Federal government. It probably won’t help anyone in Florida. States could choose whether or not they want to allow municipalities to make and enforce local gun regulations.
Like the NRA, the organization would be founded on this single principle. But it would also quietly lobby for smaller scale reform (banning bump stocks or whatever) and, like the NRA, advocate gun safety training.
gvg
another problem with walking back our problem is that the gun nuts are bullying us and our politicians. It’s not just the money, it’s that those guys with the guns who want to parade around in public for no reason might kill us if a manager asks them to leave a store or a politician calls for any regulation. I realized this clearly when Gabby Giffords was shot. that set of crazy’s likes people being afraid. that is the entire purpose of the open carry movement too. they need to be arrested for infringing on other peoples freedom of everything. doesn’t matter id they claim they didn’t intend that, that is what happens when anyone sees someone with a gun. cops carry openly intimidates too but people see the uniform and think they know why and how the cops are to behave. I’ll have to leave aside the problems with bad cops and racists systems because we will still need cops even when we get to fix those things.
There are places where it is…logical to carry like hunting areas, really wild areas with grizzlies and polar bears. that isn’t this kind of implied threat. Walking around in Walmart with a gun for fun and suing to be allowed to carry on college campuses is bullying.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: Right…but then how are responsible citizens supposed to defend themselves against jack-booted ATF stormtroopers, Messican hordes, and legions of Antifa thugs? Hmm?
j/k of course
This is part of the solution, absolutely. Cut down on the types of weapons, sizes of magazines/clips, ‘bump-stocks’, etc. All of it. It’s one piece of the puzzle.
So would recommendations/referrals from multiple sources before being able to buy a guy (and needing new recs/referrals every time). Want a gun? Get a recommendation from a neighbor, the local/state PD, your doctor, and _____(TBD) that they don’t see any issues with you having the power to take lives. (This is in addition to a national background check of course).
TenguPhule
@Redleg:
Then the gun nuts force us to parse “assault style” into legalese. Which results in years of committees sitting on a bill and never bringing it up for a vote.
NorthLeft12
I am sure more than a few people have picked up on this, but I’ll say it again, mentioning mental illness and then making it even more difficult for people to access treatment for it is beyond despicable.
Deadbeat Donald, Republicans and RWNJs in general are at a level of hypocrisy and ignorance that defies belief. The only thing I am sure of on this topic is that within a month they will handily exceed this and establish an even more sickeningly high level.
Jeffro
Btw for the next open thread: whaddya know, Mr. Smart Alec FCC Guy Doesn’t Want to Talk About His Sinclair Broadcasting Connections.
Nickel bet how this all turns out…I know I’m already shocked, shocked! in advance…
gvg
@efgoldman: yes but they WON’T unless it somehow is costing them money. Insurance companies aren’t agents of social change unless they are USED by the government through regulations and law changes. Currently I suspect there are laws that make it impossible to actually charge higher premiums for theses reasons and I KNOW that they are prevented from gathering statistics that could make them want to. In other words the law changes have to happen FIRST for this to work.
NorthLeft12
@gvg: Don’t you realize that when those gun humpers march around with their dicks/weapons hanging out that everyone is very polite?
Because…..”an armed society is a polite society”, amirite?
TenguPhule
@MCA1:
Which we can’t, because the basic premise of that is banned by the law I mentioned. It was designed for the manufacturers but the way it was written was…not well thought out about consequences.
MCA1
@Lee: I actually agree. The costs of keeping it outweigh appeals to tradition, or the “radical” nature of repealing an amendment to the Constitution, bleatings about freedom, etc., at this point.
In addition, the gun humpers are convinced we want to repeal it, anyway, so what’s the point in trying to convince them otherwise?
I wish Democrats would move the g’damned Overton Window on this. If we’re only arguing about whether we go with the status quo or some limited restrictions on magazine clips or whatever, then we’re only going to get results in between those two options. Even if we’re not serious about actually repealing the 2nd Amendment, we should be advocating for it as a means to get something further down the spectrum.
TenguPhule
@Zach:
Because currently the rightwingers are stronger on this and we don’t want the other amendments repealed in favor of a stronger unlimited 2nd, which the rightwingers want to do.
Mnemosyne
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
She is a white supremacist. Sadly, being transgender doesn’t protect a person from being a racist idiot.
efgoldman
@Zach:
be very, very VERY careful what you wish for. A convention could do any fucking thing they want, including repeal of the first, 13th, 14, 15th amendments, women’s rights, whatever. How do you think the Traitor States and their allies might vote?
TenguPhule
@MCA1:
Republicans want a constitutional convention to destroy amendments 1 & 3 through 15.
Destroying amendments works BOTH WAYS.
Cacti
Somebody should ask Jeff Sessions if he still thinks weed is a greater danger to the country than white nationalist terror groups.
If he says yes, they should follow up with how many kids would have died if Nikolas Cruz had showed up with a joint his hand rather than an AR-15.
But none of our castrated “librul” media will.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
My main criterion, as I spell out above, is having a magazine or clip system that allows multiple rounds to be loaded in a single action. Also, limit the maximum number of rounds any internal magazine can hold. Between those two things, you should be able to sharply limit the level of carnage guns can deal out.
sherparick1
@Cacti: It is a little complicated, because they were not his “family.” Apparently Cruz’s mother died in November and he had moved in with a friend’s family. They made a terrible mistake in letting him bring the gun into their home (again, 30 years of intense NRA propaganda to make guns seem to be as ordinary and natural as electric lights), but I don’t think they knew the kid’s full background or at least that is still to be determined. They are very lucky not to be victims themselves (Adam Lanza’s first victim was his mother).
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
Oh good, we’ve got ourselves a bogeyman: Nazis. We can all agree, Nazis are bad. There shouldn’t be Nazis! Problem solved, no need to talk about gun control.
Cacti
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Considering Manning became famous by being a patsy left holding the bag for that great, good man Julian Assange…
I’ve never been exactly blown away by her intelligence and judgment.
Lee
@TenguPhule: that’s why we repeal it via congress & the states.
If we don’t start moving the Overton window in the sane direction it will never move off of ‘more guns’
trnc
@Jay: Not only that, but the language defending the warped view of 2A almost always includes “taking guns away.” There is very little or no serious policy talk about taking guns away from people who have not committed any crime. Most actual bills and proposals by non-gun humpers seek to make the process of obtaining guns more rigorous, but that’s something the NRA can’t make scary enough to keep driving gun policy their direction.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore:
That would be the most sensible approach, IMO.
Roger Moore
@NorthLeft12:
So is blaming the problem on mental health and then making it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns. Legislators who are in the pocket of the NRA are objectively in favor of more gun massacres. There’s no simpler way to say it.
Betty Cracker
Oh, and fuck that stupid doctor quoted in the OP. What an asshole.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Moar You Know:
Oh, yes, the dogwhistles were more like bullhorns in Bevin’s comments. But nice deconstruction.
As far as violent games go — I really, really don’t like watching violence in any medium, or even reading too-graphic descriptions of violence. This is a personal aversion*, of course, but I do think there’s likely some truth to the idea that repeated exposure to these images might be sufficient to send an already troubled person with access to firearms over the edge. After all, corporations and organizations wouldn’t spend billions on advertising if it didn’t work.
*It came home to me recently. I enjoy playing a particular kind of solitaire word game on my phone, and because I am cheap I refuse to pay for ad-free options. Instead, I put up with (mostly ignore) the ads for other game apps that show up regularly. Most of them are pretty innocuous pitches for the latest iteration of Candy Crush or whatever, but recently one has been showing up that’s for some kind of sniper game, with animated graphics of faces with targets on their foreheads, and one of a terrified young girl being abducted by a suspiciously swarthy-looking guy (so racist as well as violent). Just terrible to see, and I found myself wishing that apps like this could be banned or restricted. Or at the very least that they couldn’t advertise on harmless word games ?
Aleta
Separate gun insurance (can be required by state?) would, for a start, put the actual cost of this gunlover society onto other gun owners via their required policies, instead of shifting the cost to ERs and to the insurance policies –if they have–of victims.
I think it would take the politics out of getting agreement (for the moment) on details of laws for weapon type, age, past crimes etc. The insurance prices would hopefully do some amount of curtailing; for one example, in the category of multi-weapon ownership by young shooters without jobs whose parents might or might not buy for them. Semi-automatics would hopefully cost a lot more more to insure. Maybe c— ille- and other large ammo would require proof of high-liability insurance to buy.
The cost of insurance would be an incentive for more gun owners to vocally support safety laws, background checks. Might even give owners and politicians an excuse to say they want them.
At least victims’ medical expenses would stand a better chance of getting covered by the gun owner’s policy. And a careless owner might not get reinsured. Not perfect, I know, but a start?
KickBoxBanana
I don’t want the government taking my gun.
That’s a brainwashed faux noise watcher right there.
gvg
@TenguPhule: yes I will go there. I grew up when drunk driving was much more common and sympathy went to the drunk driver after an accident. MADD changed things. After they had a certain momentum and public support, they or at least lots of people who agreed with them influenced movie and tv show producers to change things so drunk drivers were bad or at least making bad choices and that in turn influenced more people to agree and laws changed but even more society exerted influence over more people. Employers didn’t throw drunken Christmas parties, people didn’t laugh when you didn’t want to get drunk, people lost jobs sometimes and knew it could happen, people lost standing in front of their friends.
Cigarettes and smoking also changed in perceptions. I have never been able to endure smoke. In my jobs 30 years ago I had to fight with my friends to keep it away. Hotel rooms and other public places were unpleasant. Now it’s changed so much here at least. It wasn’t just the laws, it was everything, the whole picture. that’s what has to happen about guns and why if we allow gun supporters to say laws won’t change enough things, it’s true but not the point and is meant to make us give up. So we need to say this more concisely than i can manage and face it head on. People who agree need to hear it spelled out so they understand and can help.
I mentioned video games because there are in fact a lot of shooter games. I know they get blamed for every social ill and that is silly. But they are part of popular culture just like TV and movies and we would eventually need their buy in. Ratings maybe. no shooting even cute stuff in the little kid games. there are ratings but it doesn’t take that into account enough. Tobacco companies were required to not advertise on kid shows, no cute cartoon characters that made cigarettes look fun (Joe camel) some other things. no selling or free cigs for under 18. I don’t blame them for the sickness in us, but if we want to walk the rot back, they will be part of the picture.
d58826
And what if they had reported him to the authorities? Until he actually takes some overt action nothing he did leading up to yesterday was illegal. He probably doesn’t even reach the threshold for an involuntary commitment proceeding. And even if he did how long can he be held against his will? We don’t lock people up and throw away the key just because they are angry. It is the same problem with a battered woman and a restraining order. There is only so much the police can do until the person actual takes some action. Of course then it is usually to late and one of the things the police can now do is collect the dead bodies.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cermet:
So scary for your daughter, and obviously for you as well. I’m very glad the first responders acted professionally and that no one was physically injured, but the emotional impact may hang on for a while. I’m sorry your family has to cope with this situation.
Mnemosyne
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):
Believe it or not, I already have people arguing with me that his being a member of a white supremacist militia was not indicative of him being a white supremacist. And the group members certainly couldn’t have known what he was going to do, so we should just leave them alone. ?
Remember, Trump voters heard him refer to the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as “very fine people” and agreed with him.
Jay
@sherparick1:
Yup.
It appears that at a very vulnerable point in his life, he met the wrong people.
Immanentize
@Zach:
There is no such thing as a limited purpose constitutional convention. If a constitutional convention is called, everything in the constitution can be considered. And the things that protect us in the constitution are still more numerous than those that hurt. The answer is the courts, not the constitution. Or as (J.) Lennin said:
TenguPhule
@Lee:
But in order to do that, we need 5+ SC justices to repeal that fucking Washington handgun case.
Because that one fucking partisan bullshit decision is what all the other NRA bullshit hinges on.
Cacti
Literally the stupidest thing I’ve seen on the internet today is MAGAbillies in comments saying that this monster couldn’t have been a white nationalist because he killed other white people.
Morons.
Their ideal of a white nationalist leader, Adolf Hitler, killed tens of millions of white Poles, Russians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slavs, French, British, etc.
MCA1
@TenguPhule: I’m not seeing that in my cursory review of background on the PLCAA. Do you have a cite for this? There are specific provisions that limit a civil plaintiff’s ability to bring a tort claim against individual gun owners, as well as manufacturers (unless they fall into a couple of carveouts for criminal misconduct, negligent entrustment, etc.)?
My basic understanding is that it’s just too hard to go to a jury trial and get a determination that the negligence of the owner of a firearm contributed to a gun death to a degree that some liability is justified in the form of civil damages. Which could be remedied by legislating strict liability. People would sue at a much higher rate, which would create the actual value of an insurance product. Without that, there’s really no point in requiring insurance. It’ll end up being too cheap to be of much use as a deterrent on bad behavior, because insurers will never have to pay out on claims, anyway.
efgoldman
@Lee:
The ERA, which has been out there forever (the 70s?) haasn’t yet been ratified.
TenguPhule
@d58826:
Not yet, at any rate.
Republicans are going to run on a “lock the bad guys up before they commit a crime” with their definition of bad being “anyone that doesn’t support us”.
The nation is running, not walking, straight to 1939 Germany.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
The studies I’ve seen seem to say that fictional violence is kind of like pot: it doesn’t affect the vast majority of people, and may even give some people a safe outlet for their violent impulses, but there are a select few who find it’s not enough and go to seek out real-life violence.
BTW, if violence freaks you out, DO NOT see The Shape of Water. It’s a very good film and lovely in many aspects, but there is some gruesome violence and torture in it that people who haven’t seen previous del Toro films didn’t expect.
(But if you catch it on an “edited for TV” channel a few years from now, you would probably enjoy the other aspects.)
Cermet
@SiubhanDuinne: appreciate the thoughts, and it will be an issue.
d58826
@Mnemosyne:
On the other hand be young, black and wear a hoodie and you are a thug
Leto
@trollhattan: I’m just now looking at the thread, so I haven’t gotten to all the comments, but there was a teacher from the high school that Maddow interviewed last night that was calling for gun control action now. So add her to the list of sane people tired of this shit.
Mnemosyne
@Jay:
If the rumors of his posting photos on Instagram of the animals he killed pan out, you can save your sympathy. Setting fires and killing animals are very, very bad signs of a dangerous sociopath.
Lee
@TenguPhule:
No we don’t. I’m on mobile so I can’t link to ‘let me Google that for you’. But none-the-less please Google ways to change to constitution.
Elie
@Booger:
Great idea! Can a family be sued for letting their child or dependent keep guns that injure people? Is there an angle that could be used to exact a financial burden on folks with family members esp dependents who harm others?
sherparick1
@efgoldman: Don’t need a Constitutional convention. First, that is no easier than the amendment process which means 2/3rds of Congress and 2/3rds of the States. The Convention process would need 3/4s of the states to approve it.
Our so called liberal media (and all of us on twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, etc.), need to start telling people that we can buy back the guns and keep them away from those who would do evil, Australia has shown the way. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35048251 and http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35048251
Although, scary as it is with the Plutocrats and Christianists likely to be thick on the floor, I would have a little list of things a Constitutional Convention could rewrite (no more Senate, single house legislature elected with 1/2 proportional representation (party would need 7.5% of the vote to get a seat) and other 1/2 by territorial districts. Parliamentary Government with a Prime Minister and president head of State like France. Still keep the Supreme Court and judicial review. Add the Equal Rights Amendment to the 14th Amendment and strengthen the 15th Amendment to make the vote a constitutional right that no state can take away without due process of law.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: Anyone who watches TV knows that. :-)
TenguPhule
@MCA1:
This has only been successful twice. And one of them was because cops were shot by the gun.
opiejeanne
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Thank you for this information. I keep seeing “parents” mentioned as thinking his gun ownership/fetish was perfectly normal. I hadn’t seen anything that laid it out like you have just done for me.
d58826
listening to Andy Card suck the NRA’s prick. His solution is prayer. Maybe someone should point the business end of an ar15 at his head or maybe his kids or grandkids. He might change his tune
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: There are some criminologists who believe that video/computer games have had a very real impact on REDUCING crime in this country by providing time-optional entertainment opportunities for the age demographic (18-26 y.o. males) most likely to commit crimes of violence. The studies are not large, but it is as important a hypothesis as the “lead in the atmosphere correlation” for reduced violent crime trends because crime has continued to go down since the advent of entertainment gaming (think Madden, if you don’t like the FPS games) while lead in the environment has not….
TenguPhule
@Lee: Short of a Constitutional convention the Heller Decision has handicapped a lot of existing gun laws and/or made them subject to legal challenge under the new bullshit standard established.
Hint, we do not want a Constitutional convention.
Zach
@Roger Moore:
Such a limit would be struck down by the current court using a version of the logic Scalia used to ban trigger locks (or equivalent) in Heller.
From Scalia’s decision:
From the oral argument
Who knows? Self defense might just require gunning down a dozen people! Once you have basically found an unlimited right to self-defense, all reasonable restrictions are out the window. For sure there are some regulations that would lower the body count and probably squeak by this Court, and they should happen ASAP, but a limitation to revolvers will never happen.
Matt McIrvin
@TenguPhule:
We did it before. Of course, it led to endless bellyaching about the absurdity of the definition, because any bright line you draw anywhere is absurd in some way. But it seemed to have some effect.
A complaint I heard frequently was that the law distinguished between assault and non-assault rifles on purely cosmetic grounds–that there were scary-looking military-esque weapons and guns that looked like Granddad’s hunting rifle that had nearly identical capabilities, but were on opposite sides of the law. It’d be possible to craft a law that didn’t work that way… but I’m not sure the objection is even relevant. Mass shooters are performing a kind of homicidal theater. Cosmetic elements are actually important to them. Maybe it’s not so absurd to concentrate on those at all. We may want to specifically ban guns that encourage Tactical Ted fantasies.
(Hell, I get it–I like fancy-looking guns in video games. But I realize those games are fantasies of violence that don’t work like real violence.)
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
And if the rumours arn’t true?
Cacti
@Immanentize:
Not to mention, the other developed nations of the world have access to the same video games and gaming platforms available in the United States. But they don’t have nearly the same problem with mass shootings. The variable is the accessibility of guns.
Lee
@TenguPhule: you didn’t Google that phrase did you?
opiejeanne
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: He spoke English pretty well so he understood what we were saying but didn’t understand how it can be that way. He was an immigrant from Haiti, I think. He expressed his love for France and especially Paris as part of the conversation. I agreed because I love France and especially Paris too, but then I’ve only spent 20 days there.
opiejeanne
@Jay: Yes, tragic. Thanks.
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: I wouldn’t be that surprised to learn that violent video games both lower general homicide and increase theatrical mass shootings.
d58826
@Jay: well maybe he did met bad people at a vulnerable moment but he was the POS that got the gun and went to the school. The blame rests on the shooter. He had a choice. He could have said I’m angry and want to shot up a school but not today. And then tomorrow say the same thing. and the day after and the day after. But he decided today is the day.
So Der Fuhrer is going to meet with the survivors next week. I find it hard to get my head around him expressing empathy with any one. He is a totally self centered narcissists. The only sympathy he ever feels is for his bank account.
And Fla statehouse is planning on passing legislation that will make it easier to get guns.
And the c-sucking Paul Ryan is talking about enforcing existing laws.
I’m really at the point that I would contributed to a gofundme effort to hire assassins to get rid of people like Ryan. I know it’s not Christian but they keep making the same stupid statements while they are surrounded by security teams and you can’t get with a city block of Capitrol Hill with a nail file let alone an AR15.
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: My husband just mentioned that he legally bought that AR15, but that he couldn’t legally buy a Glock because he has to be 21.
Immanentize
@Zach: I think you are misreading Scalia’s argument. He was not a 2nd amendment absolutist at all in Heller. All the quotes you pulled mean that a State cannot make it legal to own a gun (in your house for self protection purposes) but then require it is not operable. Scalia specifically says that the government has the right to regulate some types of firearms (like machine guns, bazookas, military weapons, etc. — basically anything not in existence at the time of the adoption of the second amendment) and the people who can own them as well as requirements of licensing, training, etc.
Immanentize
@Cacti: That would actually make for an excellent study. Control group already existing. Call Bloomberg and get some $$$$, Set up the review at the IRB! I’m serious. That is an excellent way to study the problem.
Zach
@efgoldman:
In a world where 2/3 of state legislatures agree to a constitutional convention w/ a request to revise the 2nd, this would be less of a problem. The point of having a single-minded org with a radical goal is to focus the conversation where it should be (radically fewer guns) instead of starting the argument with compromises that will barely move the needle on gun violence.
The gay marriage movement is a great example to follow. People thought they were crazy and that it would hurt Democrats on the ballot. It did for 2-3 cycles. Folks were worried about inflaming the right into passing anti-gay laws and that happened, too. But who regrets moving the goalposts from civil unions and whatnot and uniting behind a push for marriage? Not so long ago, the fraction of people in favor of gay marriage was the same as the fraction of people in favor of a ban on ALL guns today.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, that’s at the heart of the debate, isn’t it? Until we have almost failsafe ways of predicting who those “select few” are (and if they don’t act, how would you ever prove it anyhow?), it seems pretty much like a non-starter. And a red herring, in many ways.
Controlling access to actual, you know, guns, however, seems eminently sensible.
Thanks for the warning about The Shape of Water. I had heard there was violence (along with many beautiful fantasy scenes) so had mostly decided to give it a pass, at least for now.
But her emails!!!
@lgerard:
Those things shouldn’t lead to competency hearings, they should lead to jail time.
Mike in DC
@Immanentize:
No standard of review set, though.
trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
Ugh. My first response was “how on earth?” but then I remembered–Florida, former home of Trayvon Martin.
rk
@gvg:
Violent video games and movies are part of the popular culture in many parts of the world. But only the US with its lax gun culture has mass shootings. The problem really is just too many guns in the hands of too many men. It’s not complicated. Plus the fact that a significant percentage of white Americans are utter morons. I say white only because it’s white men who are leading the pro gun brigade, and the gun culture is a white male phenomenon.
Stan
@Roger Moore:
Yes, very much so. I would argue we should ban handguns completely also, since they have much less sport value than the rest. But I’ll take your proposal too.
Chip Daniels
Just going to say the same damn thing I say everytime:
We need to challenge the very existence of a so-called “right” to own a gun.
Of course it isn’t going to be politically feasible anytime soon.
But we go big, so as to move the window and force people to confront the assumption, instead of accepting it.
Where does this “right” come from? Why is there some assumed natural right to a semiautomatic, but not a fully automatic?
Why a natural right to bullets, but not RPGs?
I’m done beginning every gun control discussion with “but of course I support a right to own guns, but…”
Because I don’t.
Jay
@d58826:
Wonkette has a good post up today;
“In the 1970s, if you thought Ted Bundy was a hero for murdering all those women, you kept that to yourself. You couldn’t just casually say, “Wow, that guy had a POINT!” to someone or else people would think you were nuts. You couldn’t go on a YouTube video and post about how great he was. Today, people who feel that way can find each other, they can commiserate without being judged. They can talk online about how much they would really like to murder a bunch of women. They get to cherish their resentments, nurture them and watch them grow.
Like a cult leader going from prophet to messiah to Literal Jesus, the insular nature of these groups creates a need for constant escalation. Someone may stop by one of these forums because they are having a bad day, because they feel slighted in some way, or because their crush wouldn’t go out with them and they feel bad, and eventually get so sucked into these communities that instead of dealing with these common life events in a healthy way, they start one-upping each other to the point where they fantasize about murdering people. They start out being “I’m not a racist but…” types and end up dreaming about a white ethnostate and praising Hitler. They lose touch with reality.
Read more at https://wonkette.com/629807/of-course-florida-school-shooter-was-a-girl-hating-white-supremacist-of-course-i-am-tired-of-writing-this-article#ecKcxou4LsYcUGPJ.99”
15 years ago, I had a childhood friend go through some hard times, ( fired, pot bust, divorce) in the span os a few months. He was a “nice guy” up until then, socially awkward, but he quickly fell in with the “wrong crowd”, mostly online, and became a seething mass of anger, resentments and cray-cray. In less than 6 months it went from me trying to help him, to getting a restraining order.
Stan
@Mnemosyne:
They are giant red flags for childhood abuse.
SgrAstar
@Mnemosyne: his parents (adoptive) are dead. Dead. He was living with the family of a friend. Every bit of kindling was in place for this conflagration. Dunno what could have been done…besides removing those fucking AR-whatevers from our communities.
MCA1
@TenguPhule: I’m not sure if you’re eliding the issue or missing it. Negligent entrustment is one of the few carveouts to the legislation’s general protection of gun manufacturers and dealers from liability. The infrequency of its use as a cause of action against a manufacturer or dealer has nothing to do with my question about whether or not the law protects individual gun owners from liability.
To recap: I posited the idea of legislation imposing strict liability on individual firearms owners as a way to make a functional insurance market through threat of civil suits. You said the PLCAA was drafted too broadly for that. I asked for a citation. You haven’t provided one. So I’m asking again, but pretty please with sugar on top this time.
Aleta
@Cermet: I’ve been thinking of the school kids, who would be scared today to begin with. Plus, they’re hearing messages that to be safer, it would help if they can identify and report a potentially dangerous student.
I know it’s important — they may be the ones most aware of student instagrams and comments. But feeling responsible can be such a heavy burden for a child. Even for parents, a child’s state can be impossible to judge.
It’s even hard for adult friends to figure out how bad a situation might be, especially if the friend is changing (as kids do every year).
We had a school shutdown (a few hours from here) today too. Feel so bad for every child there, the ones trying to do the right thing and the mistakenly suspected.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You mean like don’t give your’ idiot teenage son an AR-15 like it’s a .22 target rifle? That’s assuming he didn’t get from his nazi buddies.
Stan
@Matt McIrvin:
It is very, very easy to craft the law if you know the technology. But no one wants to discuss that because you get called a gun humper or some such thing.
Steve in the ATL
@Chip Daniels:
Second Amendment
This part has never really been tested. All the action has been at the margins, such as armor piercing bullets, large magazines (or clips!), and trigger locks. No one has pushed it to RPGs, artillery, cruise missiles, etc.–almost everyone would agree that individuals should not be able to own these, but there is less agreement about individual weapons.
I like your overall attitude on the issue, but there are complications. One of the first commenters nailed the easiest solution: mandatory insurance and liability for gun owners. It’s amazing how much the insurance industry dictates societal actions.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
The horror and the beauty exist side-by-side and juxtapose each other. That’s a huge theme in the movie, but it’s still fairly gruesome.
Mnemosyne
@Jay:
Then he still murdered 17 people. Sorry, I’m not ready to pity him just yet. Maybe once the bodies are all buried and he’s safely behind bars for the next 60+ years.
Aleta
@MCA1: Didn’t read your comment before, but I see what you mean about insurance and court results. I had thought they would set costs according to accident/crime data; didn’t think about the legal wrangling about who’s a fault. sigh
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
Automatic weapons were tested. Supreme courts back then were not completely insane.
Matt McIrvin
@TenguPhule: But my trusty Chicago typewriter!
Leto
@d58826:
How many times have we been told, here on Balloon Juice, that kids brains are still developing at this age? Yes, the blame rests on the shooter, yes he had a choice, but at the same time we have a choice in how we handle this. If we do the republican thing, lock him up and throw away the key, then we’re continuing the cycle. He’ll probably never leave jail for the rest of his life, but he also needs help. I’m not claiming mental illness, but the guy seems to have gone through a really bad patch, didn’t have the resources to deal with it, and now 17+ people are dead (saw that the high school football coach who put himself in the way of a barrage of fire protecting students died today). This is part of the larger problem that is America.
JDM
@Booger:
We don’t need a legislative fix or a constitutional amendment. We just need homeowners insurance to address gun liability. Free markets and all.
This is an excellent idea, one that Spocko has been pushing for some time as well over at Digby’s.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
There’s a big difference between pity, and understanding.
Ruckus
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Does feel like we are running out of inertia. I do agree that our system handles the bad part of humanity badly. Or not at all, in many instances.
opiejeanne
@gvg: I’m 67 and I don’t remember drunk drivers EVER getting the sympathy. My grandmother’s brother was killed by a drunk driver in San Diego in 1934. The drunk survived and sued Uncle Arthur’s estate, which cost money to defend and they had little. He left 5 children. Maybe that’s why I’m unaware of drunk drivers getting sympathy.
I’m not sure how much MADD affected an attitude change but then I lived in California which already had some decent laws on the books but maybe other states had a revelation. In CA the bartender can be held liable for a drunk driver causing an accident, and the drunk can be charged with vehicular manslaughter and worse if he kills someone.
I think one of the biggest and best changes I’ve seen, beyond the laws, is the rise of the Designated Driver. It wasn’t even a thing when I was in college, back in the Dark Ages. On my first date with mr opiejeanne he proposed on the way back from the pizza joint and I realized he was drunk, and driving a car that I was riding in. I told him then and the next day when he was sober that I wouldn’t have anything to do with him if he did that again. I wasn’t too scared because he was driving so slowly, there was no traffic, and we were in an area so rural there was nothing to hit, not far from campus.
opiejeanne
@Immanentize: I think that was Lennon. ;-)
TenguPhule
@MCA1:
“…The purposes of this Act are as follows:
(1) To prohibit causes of action against manufacturers,
distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition
products, and their trade associations, for the harm solely
caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products
or ammunition products by others when the product functioned
as designed and intended.
(2) To preserve a citizen’s access to a supply of firearms
and ammunition for all lawful purposes, including hunting,
self-defense, collecting, and competitive or recreational
shooting.
(3) To guarantee a citizen’s rights, privileges, and immunities,
as applied to the States, under the Fourteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution, pursuant to section 5 of
that Amendment.
(4) To prevent the use of such lawsuits to impose unreasonable
burdens on interstate and foreign commerce…”
“…(a) IN GENERAL.—A qualified civil liability action may not be
brought in any Federal or State court.
—The term ‘‘qualified civil liability
action’’ means a civil action or proceeding or an administrative
proceeding brought by any person against a manufacturer
or seller of a qualified product, or a trade association,
for damages, punitive damages, injunctive or declaratory
relief, abatement, restitution, fines, or penalties, or other
relief, resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of
a qualified product by the person or a third party, but
shall not include-…”
” …LIABILITY FOR USE.—
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision
of law, a person who has lawful possession and control
of a handgun, and who uses a secure gun storage or safety
device with the handgun, shall be entitled to immunity
from a qualified civil liability action.
‘‘(B) PROSPECTIVE ACTIONS.—A qualified civil liability
action may not be brought in any Federal or State court….”
Sorry, the way the law is written, its an affirmative defense against civil suits unless you can satisfy one of the exceptions and its been very hard to meet that standard. And trying to establish a criminal standard would not be possible under the Heller decision.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Cermet: Family therapy. Because her parents are scared too, and there’s nothing to be gained by making her feel this is her problem only, or even her “problem”, instead of a reasonable reaction to a terrifying incident that you all need to figure out how to move forward from. Any set of coping strategies will need to address everyone’s issues, even though different strategies may needed for different family members.
PIGL
@nycmt: Oh, he chose all right. He chose his guns.
efgoldman
@Zach:
But there was no effort to pass an amendment to the constitution. It came about because of a SCOTUS decision.
Reminder (again) that the Equal Rights .Amendment, less controversial, passed ~40 years ago, and it still isn’t ratified.
Chip Daniels
@Steve in the ATL:
No, the 2nd Amendment ratifies what we believe to be so.
What moral principle underlies making gun ownership on par with say, speech or worship?
Why should gun ownership be like driving, a privilege that can be heavily regulated, or rescinded?
Politics flows downstream of culture.
Once the cultural attitude towards gun rights changes, we win.
efgoldman
@Steve in the ATL:
Check the “s,oker” box on an insurance applications and see what happens to your rates
MCA1
@TenguPhule: Thank you. I don’t read it that way.
“A person who has lawful possession…shall be entitled to immunity from a qualified civil liability action.”
“Qualified civil liability action” is defined as “civil action or proceeding…against a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product, or a trade association…”
I don’t see actions against individual owners as falling under “qualified civil liability action.” So the usage of the word “person” doesn’t seem to mean “human individual” here. Is there caselaw, legislative history or expert analysis saying otherwise?
TenguPhule
@MCA1:
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
…
(3) PERSON.—The term ‘‘person’’ means any individual, corporation,
company, association, firm, partnership, society, joint
stock company, or any other entity, including any governmental
entity.
J R in WV
@Miss Bianca:
Yes, and defined as “…travel to any location outside the borders of Kentucky, ie To Tennessee, Illinois,Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia or West Virginia…” I think that’s all…
condorcet runner-up
@opiejeanne: happens to me every time i am traveling as well. and most of that was before the country elected trump …
J R in WV
@opiejeanne:
IIRC, actually, I believe both his parents are deceased. His mother quite recently, a couple of months ago.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
My $0.02 on the subject.
A year ago, I tried to kill myself with an overdose of pills.
I changed my mind and called 911.
After I got out of the hospital, I voluntarily surrendered my IN carry permit, as I didn’t need it.
Almost 10 months later, I get a letter from the State Police stating that my permit was temporarily suspended pending a hearing.
I called the ISP firearms division and let them know that I’d surrendered the permit to the Evansville Police back in March, and that I was not going to contest the permanent revocation of my permit.
Next month, the permit was revoked.
I bring this up because in my case, the system kind of worked, but was really slow.
What if I had went further off the deep end and decided to go out in a blaze of glory?
There was a period of several months where I could have legally bought an AK and taken out a shopping mall while committing suicide by cop.
IMHO, at most, the permit should have been suspended a week after the attempt.
Laws don’t do any good if the enforcement isn’t prompt.
Another Scott
Some things stuck with me when we visited Colonial Williamsburg a few years ago that I recall now and then.
The Magazine:
Lots and lots of guns and ammunition were kept for communal defense, locked up in a fortified place in town. Men weren’t parading and grandstanding, and going to bars and churches and schools and all the rest, with them all the time. Gunpowder was the big weapon – not simply having a musket. Having a musket without gunpowder wasn’t too threatening.
So, if we’re going to argue that the 2nd Amendment is clear, and that “original intent” is the gold standard, then it seems clear that one has to consider the context and the history and the facts. Maybe gun worshipers can have all the guns they want, but maybe we should treat ammunition like Chris Rock said and price them at $5,000 each.
Of course we know all that, but Scalia and Roberts and the other ideologues that threw out hundreds of years of understanding don’t let that stuff get in the way of rewarding their fellow travelers and punching the hippies… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman):
Goddam.. I hope you’re seeing a therapist. But you did the right thing and I think most people would be as lucid as you in such a situation.
Daddio7
@Roger Moore: No, my 70 year old M1 carbine is just as lethal as an AR-15 in close quarters. Same capacity magazines. People have changed, mostly young men. Concentrate on the problem, keep guns out of the hands of young men. How many school shooters have been thirty year old’s with 20 year old guns? No man under 25 should be able to own any gun. Those over 25 but with many mental evaluations and at least a year waiting period. That you could get passed, that would virtually eliminate mass school shootings. Gang members with stolen hand guns do not factor into this. Are you willing to compromise or is total confiscation the goal and not saving school children’s lives?
MCA1
@TenguPhule: I perhaps made my point inarticulately. A qualified civil liability action isn’t an action brought against “person” in the text. It’s only an action brought against a manufacturer, seller, or trade group. So the use of “person” in the affirmative liability shield language is superfluous and/or inconsistent. Since a civil liability action isn’t, by definition, brought against an individual, individuals aren’t really given any benefit from the separate cited section.
I don’t know if there’s guidance out there or not, but in the statutory language, while it’s poorly crafted, I don’t see any outright prohibition on the ability to bring suit against an individual firearm owner. No idea if this has been stress tested in the courts, or if experts have weighed in on statutory interpretation.
TenguPhule
@Daddio7:
Must you be reminded that some of these young men KILL THEIR OWN PARENTS with their parent’s guns before turning them on everyone else?
TenguPhule
@MCA1:
That’s because you’re not a lawyer and you’re not insane with guns. At a minimum a good lawyer could get this issue stuck in court long enough that insurance would think twice about challenging without better federal legislative guidance.
MCA1
@TenguPhule: It’s because I am a lawyer that I’ve been pushing you for something definitive here. A decent plaintiff’s lawyer would likely be quite confident, given the plain meaning of the general prohibition against suits, combined with the obvious primary intent of the legislation generally, that they’d prevail in any challenge where Joe Schmuck defendant tried to stand behind a law meant to shield the gun industry, not them. It could be the basis for a legit enough motion to dismiss that a trial judge wouldn’t laugh and an appellate court might actually hear an appeal, sure. But that’s not stopped enterprising plaintiff’s lawyers in other contexts, has it? I think the greater barrier to entry/deterrent by far has been difficulty getting juries to give a verdict for damages in a negligence claim against someone who didn’t actually go on a shooting rampage. Societally, we aren’t at the place where we deem those people responsible for their guns anymore than they’re responsible for other people’s actions.