I used to somewhat respect the notion of the 2nd Amendment, and thought it was pointless to even think about removing guns from the general population. That has changed. I’m fully supportive of an Australian style reaction now.
My attitude is simple- the gun nuts had a good run, but now it’s time for the adults to take away their fucking toys. I know it will cause a lot of sads among the rambo cosplay set, but hey, I was bummed when my cylon raider toy was recalled in 1979 and we’ve done ok since lawn darts were banned in 1987, so life will go on.
You want a bolt action rifle? Fine. You want a revolver? Fine. You want a shotgun, Fine. You can have those whne you are over 18, have had a psych eval, aren’t a felon, aren’t a domestic abuser or sex offender, and have passed specific training.
Assault rifles? Fuck off.
50 round magazines? Fuck off.
Bump stocks? Fuck off.
All of it. Fuck right the fuck off.
Anything else, fuck off. You don’t need it.
And don’t start with your but 3d printers will make guns ubiquitous. We’ll fucking ban them, too. And tax the living fuck out of gunpowder. You can’t get your god damned hands on fertilizer in bulk after McVeigh and the first twin towers bombing, we can do the same with the chemicals to make gunpowder. Fuck off.
Start working on your sword skills, 3 percenters.
Unabogie
Yes. All of this. Yes.
eemom
#loveCole
ChaunceyBaker
I love you John. And I love how you point out that we are appeasing 3% of the population. The fucking NRA has given us collective Stockholm Syndrome.
Aardvark Cheeselog
I endorse this product and/or service.
Van Buren
Views, newsletter, etc.
Mike J
The same constitution that includes the 2nd amendment said it was ok to own people, people whom you could then rape or murder on a whim.
We need to get past this moronic idea that the constitution was handed down on stone tablets and was ideal in every way.
Gretchen
I want to see the specifics of the arm teachers proposal. Are the weapons loaded or unloaded? Are they locked up, or sitting out on teacher’s desk, or strapped to her hip and she has to keep the little ones from hugging her too hard for fear they’ll set something off? Does she bring it to the bathroom, or sternly admonish them not to touch it while she’s gone?
Omnes Omnibus
This is pretty much where I have been for years.
donnah
I love you, Mr Cole.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gretchen:
Why? It is a stupid idea that was put out to distract people. Let’s not fall into the trap.
The Moar You Know
The three percent crew would drop dead of heart attacks in seconds if they had to give legit fencing a shot. I say we go with it.
#prymyswordfrommyfatwheezinghands
Villago Delenda Est
Right on, John.
john fremont
@Gretchen: Is the teacher liable or the school for insurance claims due to accidents and injuries? Are they peace officers with the legal “duty to pursue” or just to defend themselves and bystanders?
OzarkHillbilly
as a gun owner, I am in 119% agreement.
PhoenixRising
@Gretchen: I want patriotic, smart people to STOP talking about that BS. It’s BS. It can’t happen. It won’t happen. And every time we dignify bullshit like ‘make schools FOBs’ we are being distracted from the common sense obvious things we can do that will help. See above for a short, coherent list.
This isn’t easy (because we are afflicted with racists who aren’t dying fast enough, like every other policy problem we have), but it is simple. Take away the guns. Yes, we are coming to take away your guns, if your guns include weapons with no purpose other than killing people at a distance. That is the goal, and it’s simple, legally permissible and morally correct.
The Midnight Lurker
Amen. Like I told my wife, nobody fucks with a guy mowing his lawn in shorts, wearing a sword.
Another Scott
@Gretchen: It’s not a serious proposal. It’s a distraction.
Cheers,
Scott.
Flanders' Other Neighbor
Not my fault these folks invested in guns instead of real estate. And as for the manufacturers, you can make other products. A lathe and mill doesn’t care whether it makes weapons or flashlights. Figure it out.
Frank Wilhoit
Quite right, the Australian option is the only one worth pursuing. If they can do it, we can do it; their politics are similar to ours (tho’ perhaps a paler shadow) in that everything comes down to urban versus rural. Any lesser measures would actually make the situation worse, by being impracticable to enforce and by stoking the rural sense of grievance.
mai naem mobile
I don’t get the gun fetish. I don’t even get the hunting unless you’re doing it for food. I can kind of see rhe sport if going to a shooting range and seeing who’s the most accurate at target shooting but that’s it.
grubert
I agree. I’ve been pimping this program on Facebook.
Sales ban, confiscation when found by police in the course of any crime, no home raids unless the person has been making threats implying ownership. Well funded buyback program.. after a grace period any confiscation for possession in public will result only in a misdemeanor ticket…
Oddly enough, my old gun-nut buddies have been quiet about my proposals. Only a few habitual contrarians have argued, and they don’t fight for long.
I think the mood of the country is changing on this one, thank Gosh.
I think it’s really important to loudly assure America that this is not going to involve home raids. Let the old kooks keep their arsenals as long as they keep their mouths shut. Their kids ( if they have any and are on speaking terms, ) will most likely prefer the buyback money after the old kooks pass on.
Civilians do *not* need semi-automatics at all.
WereBear
How one dad got lawn darts banned
Of course, there wasn’t a powerful lawn dart lobby.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: I usually call BS on ‘X is to distract us from Y’ theories but in this case we do seem to have fallen for it.
Raven Onthill
And, in honor of the occasion (actually, it was just about done), I finally put out my piece on how we got the “Well-regulated militia,” how we were wrong about it, and how we might think about it in the future. A Well Regulated Militia: Classical Republicanism, Scottish Republicans, and the Second Amendment. It’s mostly a historical and philosophical piece. If people are looking for solutions now, I suggest Jim Wright’s Bang Bang Sanity.
And, yeah, we need regulation. That’s why Fletcher called it a well-regulated militia.
zhena gogolia
Excellent post.
Just One More Canuck
@Gretchen: who would fund it? it’s not like the school system is flush with cash
m0nty
Australian lurker checking in to say: go you good thing.
john fremont
@Another Scott: No argument there, it is deflection. Some of the gun manufacturers may see an untapped market though. Supplier contracts with hundreds of school districts throughout the country, cha-ching!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve been in the “treat ‘m like cars” camp for 30 years. Registration(with an annual fee), liability insurance, and a license(where you need to prove your basic proficiency) AND a background check.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
Perfect.
Amir Khalid
Sounds good to me, as far as it goes. What is your stand on parents teaching minor kids to fire guns?
m0nty
@Frank Wilhoit: Yes, American politics are similar to Australian politics, but if you’re going to emulate what we did, you need a John Howard type, someone who is willing to lead from the right to the centre on this issue. Not sure you have anyone remaining on the right who is willing and able to take that risk. Those who are willing are not able, those who are able are not willing.
I think it will take a President Gillibrand or similar to get it done, in the first 100 days of a new administration with control of both houses. Hard to see any other scenario.
Jay S
I thought handguns were restricted to people 21 or older. Apparently that’s not quite right, they can’t be sold by licensed dealers to people under 21 but they can be possessed by 18 or older. Long guns have a rather odd set of restrictions. A hopefully accurate summary here.
Major Major Major Major
@m0nty:
And, of course, as soon as somebody on the right started to, they would find their membership in the right wing memory-holed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mike J: Amen.
RSA
I think it would help if people knowledgeable about guns (not me) could develop criteria for separating weapons of war like AR-15s from other guns. Rate of fire, magazine capacity, muzzle velocity, and so forth. I mean, I’m fine with no guns at all in civilian hands, but I’m told there are people who disagree. Clear dividing lines, even if they’re arbitrary, might help us make progress.
chris
Pretty much every country in the world has more restrictive gun laws than the US. Chile requires a psychiatric examination before you can get a license!
Pick the laws you like and enforce the hell out of them. How you get them passed is whole ‘nother problem but maybe these teens will be the ones to do it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: The first time my dad let me “drive” (I sat on his lap and steered the car into the the garage), I was about six. I was given a single barrel 12 ga. shotgun when I was 12. It came without ammo and with a shit ton of rules.
ETA: And I turned out just fine.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Gretchen: Some jackass named Jesse Kelly has done the “arm the teachers” proposal one better (or rather, worse), in what very well may be the peak of/unsummitable derp.
Last I heard the relatively accessible plastic 3D printers were effectively useless for making guns, and that the metal printers necessary for such were prohibitively expensive (at $11,000 or so).
Patricia Kayden
Having grown up in Canada, I see no need for any civilian to own a gun of any kind. Ban them all. The 2nd Amendment speaks of a “well regulated militia”. Seems as if the modern SCOTUS completely ignores that part of the amendment. I’m glad to see that Republicans are being forced to defend their anything goes pro-gun stance. Under pressure, some of them may bend and we may actually get something done this time around.
Chip Daniels
Important to remember who drove us to this point.
It’s not like we got all enraged by Uncle Bob hunting deer.
If the fucking 3 percenters hadn’t turned into drooling nutters, and if the NRA hadn’t gone all in on white supremacy fascism, people like wouldn’t have come to decide we need to take drastic action.
Omnes Omnibus
@Patricia Kayden:
No one in Canada hunts?
Another Scott
I like John’s proposal, but I would like to also see discussion of things like:
Maximum firing rate, maximum muzzle velocity, maximum caliber limitations, types of slugs that are forbidden (no “cop killer” bullets, etc.). The things that matter in terms of lethality.
We don’t want companies to come up with guns specifically designed to get around bans, like Bushmaster did.
My favorite uncle had a 3-pounder cannon that he would fire on artillery ranges occasionally. I don’t think he had any need for it (he was not a civil war re-enactor or something). He was a Life Member of the NRA, had something like 30 rifles and shotguns and pistols of various kinds at home (chained up). He didn’t seem extreme, but he had no need for all that stuff, living in a small town in Ohio farm country…
But the most important thing is to win the elections in November, and ultimately change the state and federal laws – which can be done even under Heller (7 page .pdf) – to get these weapons of war out of the public universe.
Cheers,
Scott.
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus:
Are you sure about that?
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
And in the event of a parent not as responsible as your dad?
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
I can very easily imagine an enterprising tech-savvy criminal investing eleven grand in a 3D metal printer to take advantage of an unexploited market niche.
Mnemosyne
My new response to people who say that the killers could have used a .22 rifle to kill the same number of people is, “Fine, we’ll ban those, too.”
If every gun is equally dangerous, then we need to ban them all. Thanks, gun nuts, for convincing me that a total ban is the only way to solve the problem.
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I also can’t imagine it’s a much lower barrier than going to the hardware store and buying parts for a zip gun.
trollhattan
Seconded to the infinity. If we took a nationwide vote on this tomorrow it would pass easily, and gun humpers would be surprised to face the reality they’re a small and nasty minority holding us virtual hostages.
Gelfling 545
@The Midnight Lurker: Some members of my Tai Chi group do sword Tai Chi. One of the guys mentioned that his neighbors became a bit standoffish after he started practicing in the driveway.
wmd
I’m pretty much the same place. Maybe allow target pistols like a .22 Ruger MkII to be personally owned, but kept at the range not at home.
Adam L Silverman
I am available to teach these – both group classes and individual instruction – for a reasonable price.
tybee
what meme am i unaware of?
Adam L Silverman
@The Midnight Lurker: I prefer a hisatsu for conceal and home carry.
https://www.bladehq.com/item–CRKT-Hissatsu-Knife–7607
Tom
What John said.
raven
@tybee: Catch any fish?
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: Like when Rubio said something like, well if you want to ban all weapons like this, we would have to ban all automatic weapons and the audience cheered! (Details of exactly what he said are wrong, but close enough.)
Adam L Silverman
@Raven Onthill: Excellent, I’m glad you finished it. I was beginning to wonder.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: I think he said semiautomatic.
Omnes Omnibus
@japa21: Maybe?
@Amir Khalid: I think I would set the age limit lower than John would, but I would require safety measures (gun safes, bio-metric trigger locks, etc) for any weapons in a home in which a person with a learner’s permit lived. John’s list is a pretty good outline, and any disputes I might have with it are around the margins.
Adam L Silverman
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): He writes for Erick Erikson’s new site. What do you expect?
Bill Arnold
WSJ Editorial Board Member: Arm Teachers With Stun Grenades
I don’t know what to add to the article (and video for those who want to see a female gun-nut speak), so quoting a big chunk. (Bold (of quoted snark) mine. Benjamin Hart, February 25, 2018)
I agree with John in the OP; even if we get only 50% (or 25%) of the way there it would be a substantial improvement. I’d argue for better controls on handguns since they do the most killing in the US.
debbie
Not enough. I want the Second Amendment relitigated (or whatever the word is).
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Recent FBI discovery–in 2016 for 30 minutes Stephen Paddock flung knives at an outdoor concert from the 32nd floor of his hotel and nobody noticed. Back to the drawing board.
Another Scott
@Raven Onthill: Thanks for that. Well done.
I assume you’ve seen this argument from Thom Hartmann? It seems persuasive to me, but I’m no expert. Your thoughts?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@debbie:
Also, liability insurance.
schrodingers_cat
@Bill Arnold: These crackpots want to make schools, war zones? For what exactly? No. This is unacceptable.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks for the correction. I told you I wouldn’t have the detail right! But it was a great moment, I can replay it in my head. And the look on his face when they were cheering was priceless.
edit: I guess I am replaying the emotional appeal of that moment; if I had actually been able to replay it in my head, I would have gotten the details right. :-)
Psych1
It is good that you are still evolving. I believe you still have a way to go but at least you do seem to be going in the right direction.
Adam L Silverman
@tybee: A bunch of the “patriot” crowd incorrectly claims that only 3% of colonials turned out to fight on the American side during the revolution. So they call themselves the III%ers. And yes, I know, they’re mixing Roman numerals with modern designators for percentages.
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus: Definitely as far as I’m concerned. All cheeseheads are automatically fine people. Wait, except for those who voted for Trump and Walker. Oh, and those in the far western part of the state who are Viking fans. Oh, and anybody from the Janesville area with the first name Paul and last name Ryan.
I was thinking more about others wondering how you turned out.
Jay S
@tybee: The meme, it googles. Google 3 percenters Basically a militia group with a belief that it only takes 3 percent of a population to foment successful armed rebellion.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Is it because the modern numbers come from India?
Omnes Omnibus
@japa21:
It is known.
I will leave that to them.
WhatsMyNym
@WereBear: You could sue the lawn dart manufacturers & sellers for injuries, which was a big incentive to get out the business. Gun makers have an exemption.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Amir Khalid: But that’s $11,000 to manufacture the parts for one M1911 pistol, over several hours. The prices an M1911 costs on Gunbroker ranges from $480 to $2300, in comparison.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Well-Regulated-Militia-Founding-Fathers-Origins/dp/0195341031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519607766&sr=8-1&keywords=saul+cornell+a+well+regulated+militia
It’s from an actual historian.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: can’t use those a-rab numerals!
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): but then you do it five times a day, you see. He’s talking about making a little factory I think.
Cermet
As I have said the last few days and others have – the 2nd amendment clearly states a well regulated militia. The courts have failed and that requires impeaching the sexual predator Thomas and removal of the illegally appointed Gorsuch. Then a real court, following law can correct the monstrous lie that any/all guns should be like candy.
efgoldman
@The Moar You Know:
Most of them would pee their pants and run away screaming if they were ever confronted by a gun-wielder
scav
As a thought though, the vision of a nation’s worth of armed teachers might indeed make negotiating that pay raise and school budget a little more interesting. Parent-Teacher conferences: any criticism of my performance and curriculum?
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: No, it’s because they’re morons. They have no idea where modern numbers come from. Hell, if you told them we call them Arabic numerals, you’d have three days of Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters trying to expose that this Muslim attempt to subvert math explains anti-conservative and therefore anti-American attitudes at American colleges and universities.
cgordon
A plan: ban manufacture, importation, and sale of new assault rifles. Then have the Federal Government offer to buy existing rifles in private hands, at a price that makes it very hard for anyone else to compete.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gretchen: Gretchen raises good points. Simply dismissing another’s argument out of hand is the same as saying you can’t refute it. Like it or not, one has to take their stupidity seriously if for no other reason than the fact that they do.
debbie
@Mike J:
The people who state the Second Amendment is set in stone are the same people who keep trying to end Roe v. Wade. Can’t have it both ways.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
A necessity, I agree. The amendment has for too long been interpreted in the most dangerous way possible. But given the political difficulty and the likely timescale involved this will have to be a (very) long-term goal.
Chet Murthy
@Another Scott: Well, that’s what John did. He said (paraphrasing):
[Uh, I think] The argument is pretty simple: You can’t easily reload any of these, and none of them are useful for sniping in any quantity. Notice this forbids all guns w/spring-fed magazines. So no semi-auto handguns. Doesn’t matter if they’re gas-powered or recoil-powered. And I really like his position on gunpowder. They fucking control access to fucking Sudafed, they can fucking control access to gunpowder and bullets, ffs.
Jay S
@scav: I am pretty sure they want to arm principals and admins as well. An armed negotiation is a polite negotiation, don’t you know.
Westyny
A thousand times this.?
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: I take it you don’t like Thom’s take?
IOW, more words please.
Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Actually, the decimal system is an Indian invention, brought to Europe by Arab traders.
Eric S.
@Omnes Omnibus: single action revolver. Make them pull that hammer before getting another shot.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: This is the same group of people who wanted to build themselves their own little fortified “paradise” out in the back of beyond and based the concept sketches on …well, see for yourself.
Certain aspects of the modern world (modern being defined as “the last 1000 or so years”) seem to have passed them by.
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid:
At a regulated, supervised range with 100% adult supervision, the weapons don’t leave the facility? Sure. I did when I was 11 or 12, at the on-post range where my dad was stationed. Single-shot bolt-action .22s, under the auspices of the Boy Scouts. My mom wouldn’t have allowed a weapon of any kind in the house. When my dad had OD, he took the sidearm out of the gun safe at HQ, and checked it in at the end.
raven
@Chet Murthy: Make sure you throw in the pony.
eemom
@m0nty:
You mean Gillibrand the erstwhile NRA whore, before she lucked into becoming HRC’s successor? Um, no thanks.
magurakurin
@chris: pretty much every country in the world has more expansive health care coverage as well because not all Americans have accepted the idea that access to healthcare is a human right. Conversely a large amount of Americans still accept the idea that owning a gun is a human right…even those who don’t own or wish to own a gun. Nothing changes until owning a gun is a privilege and not a right. Only three countries in the world provide explicit constitutional rights to own a firearm: The United States, Mexico, and Guatemala. But no country has enshrined the right with such reference that the 2nd Amendment holds in the United States. Nothing changes until that does.
I will freely and happily relinquish my constitutional right to own guns. And I support any method to remove them from the population and to institute a strict system of ownership privilege with a high bar to both attain and maintain.
Dave
@Jay S: Which is sorta interesting because they will complain about the tyranny of the majority but are perfectly willing to enact a tyranny of the tiny minority if they thought they could get away with it or if the world actually worked that way.
Major Major Major Major
@Chet Murthy: is a revolver not semi-automatic?
Adam L Silverman
@Chet Murthy: Actually there are semi-automatic bolt action rifles and shotguns. Some with detachable magazines. Some with integral ones.
Amir Khalid
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
@Major Major Major Major:
Major Major Major Major has read me right. It would indeed be cost-prohibitive to make one gun that way. But if you made half a dozen a week, and sold them …
chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course they do. But we have laws with teeth and we’ve had them for a long time now. Gun ownership here is a privilege not a right and most people respect that. It will take generations to change in the US but you have to start somewhere.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Allegedly
scav
@Jay S: They’re going to need a lot more principles. . . .
Also, those III%ers? Of course they’re all about MeMeMe and damned be the rest of everyone: Right there in the the nomenclature. (leaving the rest of us to look at them and mutter Ai-yi-yi%ers.)
kbuttle
This!
Like Omnes and Amir said, fk yeah Cole.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike J: True. It has been changed or ignored before so there’s no reason to treat the misinterpretation of the 2nd Anendment as untouchable gospel.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: He’s not necessarily wrong in terms of effects in the slave holding states, but he’s taken a piece and made it the whole thing.
trollhattan
@Chet Murthy:
Have more than once pointed out to a gun fanatic that Lee Harvey Oswald was quite successful with a bolt action rifle and are they not as proficient as some wannabe commie?
Patricia Kayden
@Omnes Omnibus: Perhaps but there is no right to own a gun. There is no 2nd amendment to back up any claim to civilians owning weapons.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I am aware of their plans.
Baud
I think this post is illegal in West Virginia.
Let us know if you need bail money, Cole.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: My Arisaka has 5 round internal magazine and is a bolt action and one of my .22’s is a tube fed bolt action.
magurakurin
@WhatsMyNym:
Thanks is part to…our very own…Vermont Jesus.
Teddys Person
Hi Adam – I have an off topic question for you. I’ve seen here and elsewhere people mentioning that, if the president wants someone to have security clearance, they have it. Where does the president get that authority? Not doubting, just curious. Thanks.
JPL
There are five states that allow the police to get an order from a judge to remove guns from a household. They are California, Oregon, Washington, Indiana and Connecticut. Rather than blaming the FBI and the local sheriff office pass a law that allows them to act.
PIGL
@Frank Wilhoit: as if it needs stoking.
Alain the site fixer
As someone with a number of friends who depend on the meat from hunting to keep their table filled with healthy, organic meat, I’m very much against anything that would go much further than John’s ideas. Gun companies need to diversify and make useful things without attached body counts.
WaterGirl
@eemom: I saw her interview on Colbert and I was not impressed. I was hoping she might redeem herself when Colbert brought up Franken. HATED her answer. She came off like a fool who cannot distinguish between a squeeze at the waist during a photo shoot and harassment or abuse. She said there were “8 credible” accusations. Bullshit. I hope to god that she is not our nominee.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
They’re not the brightest bulbs in the quiver.
Another Scott
@Chet Murthy: .50 cal revolvers?
Supposedly, “by comparison, the standard AR-15 bullet travels at 3,251 feet per second and delivers 1300 foot pounds.”
And there are cheap gizmos that enable rapid reloading of revolvers (16 shots in 4 seconds from a revolver).
Gun manufacturers will examine any new rules and work to figure out ways around them. We should think about possible ways around them, too.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
You a are too accommodating John. Repeal the 2nd Amendment and ban gun ownership.
The gun nuts have pushed too hard and too long to have guns everywhere.
25 years ago conceal carry was sold as crime protection, so that if criminals didn’t know, who was armed, they would be too scared to rob people. There were tests and licensing requirements. Recently man states have done aaway with those, so you can conceal carry anywhere. Then they went to open carrry. And they have pushed to force more and more places to allow conceal carry and open carry, except NRA conventions and CPAC, where guns are forbidden.
They over reached.
They need to pay the price.
WaterGirl
@Dave: Tyranny is fine as long as they get to be the tyrants!
m0nty
@eemom:
If there is enough groundswell from her base, she’ll weathervane towards the popular outcome like any politician.
PIGL
@RSA: I think John’s guidelines were pretty clear: Bolt action rifle; revolver; shotgun. No semi-automatic anything.
Patricia Kayden
@chris: I never knew anyone who owned a gun and my understanding is that gun ownership is heavily regulated. Neighbors have to be notified, for example. Worked for me.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. I appreciate it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: It is not. In a revolver you manually load each round into a separate chamber in the cylinder. But in order to shoot each of those rounds you have to pull the trigger each time.
Part of the confusion here is nomenclature is close enough to cause confusion.
Semi-automatic refers not to type of fire, but to type of loading. Semi-automatic pistols, rifles, and shotguns are really semi-automatic loaders. As in you load a magazine or stripper clip or belt of ammunition, either detachable or integral, then charge the weapon/chamber a round by working the action (bolt, lever, slide lock release for pistols). Then the action of the gun automatically reloads as a result of firing it. Semi-automatic pistols, rifles, and shotguns all require that the trigger be pulled for the firearm to fire. One pull, one shot.
Automatic weapons are usually also auto-loaders, but the automatic refers to type of fire. In a fully automatic weapon, pulling the trigger and holding it in the depressed position will allow the firearm to shoot every bullet loaded, whether by detachable or integral magazine, stripper clip, or belt if it is belt fed. There is also a variant of automatic fire that is set for a burst, usually three on US military rifles (M16s) and carbines (M4s). This is called a three round burst.
magurakurin
@Alain the site fixer: are you willing to say that owning a gun is a privilege to be justified and not a right? Because that is the key point, not the particulars of the weapons themselves.
Is it a right or a privilege?
schrodingers_cat
@magurakurin: More like the false prophet of Vt.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Agreed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
It is both. Part of it is ‘Nuh uh, if you’re going to say something I don’t like, I’m going to change the subject and say something even worse!’ However, the ‘arm teachers’ proposal matches their dogma and I am pretty sure the entire gun nut crowd thinks it’s a brilliant idea, at least a double digit percentage of the population is considering it, and the vast majority of the remaining Republicans are going ‘If it pisses off liberals, I’m for it!’
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I will update the files.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Did you get that information from Chris Mathews?
magurakurin
@schrodingers_cat:
false indeed.
But I guess if were being fair it’s the “stammering, old, fuckwit of Vermont that thousands inexplicably see as a savior”
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
Wikipedia tells me that as a US Marine, Oswald scored at a sharpshooter level, but in his last year of service his score dropped to marksman. What does this signify about his shooting skills?
Sab
@Gretchen: My seventeen year old grand-daughter just had random shooter response training in her public school. Her younger sisters will also have it. I am angry.
I had Cuban missile response training in Florida in the early sixties. My baby sister had tornado drills on Ohio in the seventies. We had very little control over those : USSR or the weather. Ditto for California earthquake drills.
This gun stuff is a problem completely of our own making and under our control. We have chosen (fairly recently) to let this problem fester.
When I was in high school nobody much had guns because you couldn’t do much with them except hunt or target practice. Being caught carrying them around was a felony. And yet the 2nd amendment was alive and healthy.
I do not want armed teachers in my grandchildren’s schools. I do not want teachers who want to be armed teachers teaching my grandchildren. Yes some of my relatives own and like their guns. None of them want them in schools.
We are the only major democracy in the world that can’t solve this. Maybe the problem is our approach and not just something insurmountable.
As Isaid before, when I was a child in the 1960s we had a 2nd amendment and no school shootings. Just saying.
gene108
@WaterGirl:
Franken was becoming a distraction. Was the initial accusation a case of ratfucking? Probably.
But as questionable contact after questionable contact came out, there was going to be a “what about Franken,” chorus to rebut the any claims of wrongdoing by a Republican, like Roy Moore.
You maybe able to do nuance, but most folks can’t. They genuinely believe Al Gore lied about inventing the internet, and other right-wing smears that make it into the popular narrative for politicians.
Peale
@Bill Arnold: Christ. They think it’s a movie and stuff explodes and the heros just bounce right back up. The American hearing aid manufacturers association would love that idea.
raven
@Amir Khalid: That he practiced a lot after he got out of the crotch.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman:
so even though a loaded normal revolver will get you six shots for six trigger pulls, the details of the loading and specific action mechanisms mean it’s not semiautomatic. (I always thought it was just “one trigger pull, one shot”)
lgerard
Now I have that damn Lawn Dart song stuck in my head
Adria McDowell
@Amir Khalid: I know you didn’t ask me, but here is my stance on teaching under 18s how to shoot guns (full disclosure: there are guns in our house, including an AR-15):
Bow and arrows for hunting? Sure. Guns? FUCK NO.
chris
@Adam L Silverman:
See British law. I think it’s three rounds in a rifle and two in a shotgun, magazines have to be blocked.
magurakurin
@Frankensteinbeck: this is where we fall behind. It’s not a distraction. It’s the motherfucking law in Texas. Seriously, it is all so worse than most of us are willing to admit.
Texas law allows teachers carry as school marshals.
Eric S.
@Jay S: it’s like they’ve never considered a school employee could fly of the handle and star killing.
raven
@Adria McDowell: So when I went in the Army at 17 they should have waited a year for me to go through trainfire?
Adam L Silverman
@Teddys Person: The laws regarding classification and clearance/access are old. Like late 1930s in preparation for WW II old. They vest ultimate questions of classification and access, as in what is and is not classified and who should or should not have access, in the office of the president. As a result the President has the final say. If he decides tomorrow that anything published anywhere outside of the NY Post and broadcast on any platform other than Fox News, Limbaugh and Hannity’s radio shows, and his own twitter feed is classified, it is all now classified. I don’t think it would hold up, but he has that ability – please for the love of someone’s, anyone’s Deity or Deities, DO NOT TELL HIM!!!!! Similarly, if he decides tomorrow that Vladimir Putin should have access to all classified material in the US, Vladimir Putin is now cleared for access.
While there are always concerns, president to president, about what should or shouldn’t be classified – as in is stuff being over classified and if so is it because it should be or for political reasons – and there is always at least someone who is probably a bad risk that get’s cleared because the president at the time or other senior leader (cabinet secretary) want’s them cleared – this has never been a concern like it is now. What we have here is that the current president really could care less about classification, except as a weapon or a shield. And he could care less about people who are bad risks and would never received a clearance under any other administration because they’re either his relatives or his people – as in the people that are on board with working for him and supporting him.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Amen.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Nor the sharpest knives in the plastic chop stick drawer.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: In the movies and TV, the shooters always seem to prefer the three-round burst. Don’t know why.
Chet Murthy
@Another Scott: Just to be clear, I view John’s proposal as a compromise position. I live in California, and we have pretty strict laws here. Until we get to where *nobody*, but NOBODY has to endure active shooter drills …. until that point, our gun laws are too lax. Period. That’s my position. I don’t care about details — only about results. I had on idea that since Columbine, school were going thru this … pretty much everywhere.
So sure, John’s position is a good one. But it’s just a -means- to the goal.
ETA: Someone posted about ALICE training. That blew my mind. Completely blew it. I suddenly realized how much of a safe bubble I live in, here in SF. I want that bubble for every child in America. Gun-lovers can have their penile extensions, conditional on every child living in that bubble.
Teddys Person
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks!! Since I’m a historian of the late 18th/early 19th century, those laws are pretty new to me; ) I was looking for something in the Constitution.
ETA The timing of those laws make historical sense to me.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: I was too terse.
Gretchen isn’t going to get answers to her questions about the details of how it would work in practice because no advocacy group is going to take the time to flesh it out with numbers and statistics and estimates of costs and benefits. Because everyone knows that school systems that have to have bake sales and door-to-door begging for funds in the community aren’t suddenly going to come up with thousands of dollars per school in new money to pay for guns and ammo and safes and training and all the rest. And that’s even before the hard questions about wearing vs storage in a locked desk vs locked in a central safe are considered.
It’s not serious.
As you say, it’s an article of faith that it would “help protect the kids” if it were an actual policy, but articles of faith are more often than not wrong. Yes, it’s pablum for their supporters. But that’s all it is.
Wasting our time trying to get answers to questions about the detailed cost and the mechanics of how it would work aren’t going to convince them that the proposal is wrong. It’s never going to be enacted (short of places that already have such policies that let teachers bring in their own guns).
Eyes on the prize.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott:
1) To get those results from a revolver, you have to have no less than an 8 inch barrel. You’re approaching short barrel carbine length at that point.
2) That’s Jerry Miculek. Almost no one else in the world has ever been able to, can, or ever will be able to in the future do what he does with a revolver. Or a pistol for that matter. Using him as an example of how fast one can reload with a speed loader, is like using Michael Jordan or LeBron James as an example of how the average person can shoot a basketball.
chris
@Patricia Kayden: You lived in the city? Different world, in the country there are a lot of guns and people are touchy about it but they obey the law because the cops can come and check anytime. And they can take your guns right then and there if they have a concern. Never heard of the neighbour warning and don’t see it in the laws.
Trentrunner
@eemom: No sexism there. Nope, not a drop. Not at all.
Adam L Silverman
@PIGL: Again, there are semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. Both integral and detachable magazines. Semi-automatic doesn’t refer to type of fire here. It refers to type of loading of the firearm.
Adria McDowell
@raven: Yep.
If I’m being completely honest, I don’t even think people should be allowed to serve in the military until the age of 20 or 21 anyway, when decision making skills are much better.*
*Just based off my own experiences in the military. Older troops tend to get into less trouble. But that’s OT, and a discussion for another day.
raven
@Adria McDowell: Ha! 21 year olds were called pops!
ETA
Topic, we don need no stinkin topic!
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
That hyena has left the zoo. He doesn’t care.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adria McDowell: Let’s move voting back to 21 then as well, right?
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, like that
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: The issue of what the militia was supposed to be, versus what it was, why it was preferred, and why it was ultimately useless in the Revolutionary war are so much broader than what Hartmann is stating. Cornell takes you through all of it. Hartmann, while not necessarily wrong in what he’s written, produces an incomplete and, as a result, a misleading picture.
zhena gogolia
@Chip Daniels:
Yep.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman:
Rotating tag nom.
Adria McDowell
@Omnes Omnibus: There is a big difference between voting and being allowed to own and operate a firearm.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: No, did Chris Matthews do a special on this? I don’t watch him unless I have no choice (as in I’m watching the election returns and MSNBC puts him on because he’s Chris Matthews).
zhena gogolia
@Cermet:
I agree!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Amir Khalid: The average price quotes I’m getting are that pistols average $500 – $950 whole, and about $400 in parts (Glocks & Smith & Wesson are consistently in the $400-$490 range; Walthers $200-$500). Most assault rifles and submachine guns are generally priced $1000 to ~$3000, though Kalashnikovs and Armalites can be found in the $650-$1000 range; I saw two AR-15s going for $400. As is the only comparable prices I got were for a transferable Uzi Submachine ($12000), an American-180 ($14995), and an M2 Browning ($10000) I’m skeptical that a black-market arms manufacturer can get costs for a pistol below four digits.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Correct regarding a revolver. Depending on the size of the cylinder and the caliber will determine how many chambers it has. 22.LR revolvers have 8 or 9 depending on the revolver.
As to semi-automatic pistols, rifles, and shotguns: yes, you have to pull the trigger for each shot. One trigger pull get’s you one fired round. Then the trigger has to reset and be pulled again for the next shot. What makes them especially dangerous in the mass shooting sense is that oversized magazines are made for a lot of the most popular semi-automatic pistols, rifles, and I’d assume shotguns. Even having to pull the trigger to fire the gun each time, if I have a 20, 30, 50, or 90 round magazine I can do a lot more damage because I don’t have to stop and reload as often.
Adria McDowell
@raven:
Emma
@gene108: So we sacrifice an innocent person so Ms. Gillibrand can get her foot on the Presidential ladder? How Republican of us.
Adria McDowell
@raven: LOL, I was never called “pops” but I was called other things.
Gretchen
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s a profoundly stupid idea, but it’s shaping up to be an issue in the Kansas governor’s race, so I’m afraid we have to show why it’s stupid to arm teachers.
Amir Khalid
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
A black-market gun maker can also offer untraceability, because he sure as fuck isn’t going to put his name or a serial number on his guns. That will be a selling point for black-market gun buyers.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Do you know a lot of 18-20 year olds you’ d trust trotting around town with a semi-automatic weapons on a bad day? We don’t let ’em drink. Why let ’em carry things that can kill people.
Has anyone suggested a responsible teen couldn’t borrow his dad’s weapon? No. Issue is can he/she buy one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Emma: Politics ain’t beanbag. And people get cut loose for being a distraction quite often. She made a political call on a political question. You don’t get that high up in politics without the capacity for timely ruthlessness.
Another Scott
@Adria McDowell: Brain development doesn’t (mostly) stop until age 25.
I’m sure you’ve seen the articles that say that armies need young men (< 20) because they can be "molded" and "trained" to do things that are dangerous to their life and health with less concern about the future than those that are older (who have wives and kids and mortgages and the like).
I agree with the observation that there are lots of contradictions about dates of majority in the USA. When I was a youngster in Ohio, there was "3.2%" beer that 18 year olds could drink before they turned 21. Didn't keep them from buying a case and getting drunk on the weekends. And underage college kids in Chicago would drive up to Wisconsin to get beer. But lowering the voting age to 18 was a good idea (even though the first time it helped re-elect Nixon).
And being able to get a learner's driver's permit at 16 was good in most cases, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@chris: I used to live in Scotland, I’m aware of British firearms laws. Those are legal limitations on how large the integral magazines can be. They are very important. They are not, however, functional description of different types of firearms and their actions based on their designs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: I am on record up above for not wanting anyone carrying a semi-automatic weapon. And I think the drinking age should be 18. One is an adult or one isn’t.
magurakurin
@Emma: let it go. Franken wasn’t a serious contender( he has said so himself numerous times referring to skeletons from his heavy cocaine use days) and frankly neither is Gillibrand (although she may well run…lot’s of people will.) Her action weren’t motivated by the desire to take down a presidential rival. There is more to the whole thing than we will ever know and Gillibrand was far from the only one calling for him to step down. It’s done and dusted. Neither one will be president.
Chet Murthy
@Emma: I don’t think it was so Gillibrand could get her foot on the Presidential ladder. It’s much simpler than that. In this time, #MeToo is a weapon for Dems. It’s a weapon, b/c we can use it to beat the GrOPers, but they can’t use it to beat us. Franken’s continuing travails (howsoever unjustified) were weakening that weapon. And we need that weapon. He did us all a solid by resigning, EVEN IF he was innocent. And YES, he should pursue his case and clear his name (if he’s innocent). But RIGHT NOW, he took one for the team.
Just watch: sooner or later, one of these youth leaders from Parkland will get caught doing something ever-so-slightly immoral or illegal. Let’s say they get caught with some weed. The GrOPers will be all over them for it. I’m not saying it’s right. But this is a war now. A fucking war.
efgoldman
@Chet Murthy:
My granddaughter (4.5, pre-k) started at 2 in day care/nursery school. It is to weep
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Same reason that everyone I know in uniform, as well as DOD or Service civilians that are both deployable and would have to be armed during their deployment, has been trained not to use full auto, but to use, at most, 3 round burst. Fully automatic fire results in a loss of control of the ability to target with the rifle or carbine. It wastes ammunition. And a fully automatic magazine dump is going to happen so fast because the military uses 30 round magazines, that it isn’t effective for suppressive fire. That is what the SAW or the 50 cals are for.
magurakurin
@Gretchen:
it’s already coded into law in Texas.
Stupid ideas are U.S.
Adam L Silverman
@Teddys Person: You’re welcome. Read through Brad Moss’s twitter timeline. He covers it in several places and this is his legal specialty:
https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq
magurakurin
@Chet Murthy:
pretty much.
PIGL
@Amir Khalid: Yeah…..and someone determined could smuggle arms in from War Zone X; or train to be a ninja and commit mass murder with a sword. Hell, I could do that latter pretty effectively, and I’m no master. But the point is, these sorts of attacks almost never take place. Mass attacks rarely occur in Europe, for example, where nations from France to Poland have large arms industries, and presumably corruptible supply chains. The vast majority of arms deaths are *not* caused by highly motivated, well financed, professional criminal masterminds with very many lousy connections. It’s an entirely different problem.
Patricia Kayden
@chris: I lived in Brampton, Mississauga and briefly in Toronto. My family is still up there.
Timurid
@The Midnight Lurker:
Except Rand Paul. And it did not end well for him.
PIGL
@Gelfling 545: I have encountered this response myself: I do long sword and dao. These forms convey the sinister martial intent better than the empty hand forms. And we use real weapons….or real enough, anyway.
Chet Murthy
@efgoldman: I asked a friend if his (middle/high school) kids went thru active shooter drills at their school. Apparently teachers talk about what’s happening with the kids, but no drills. I didn’t inquire of others I know, who have children. I’ll have to do so now. [b/c if CA’s laws aren’t strict enough, that we can eschew active shooter drills, then our laws aren’t strict enough.]
B/c shit, you live in MA. I’d have hoped that MA would be safer than that. Oh, but now I think: “MA is next to CT, NH, VT”. Argh.
Indeed, it is to weep.
magurakurin
@PIGL: in fact most of the gun deaths aren’t caused by mass shootings and AR-15’s. They are caused by handguns. America has such a long, long way to go. Not sure if people will ever be able to pull their heads in on the gun issue.
Kay
Senator Ivanka has weighed in:
Butt out of our kid’s schools, Ivanka. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I know media have to pretend you’re qualified for these jobs you take but no one else does.
PIGL
@Adam L Silverman: Very nice. Full of the deadlies.
Ruckus
I’m not sure I’m in agreement. I know there are people who hunt to eat. But we are now at the point where anything larger that a mid sized town is too crowed with people for guns. Cars are bad enough, I’ve been close to being run down, in crosswalks 3 times in the last week. That’s with cars, a device that is pretty much a necessity in the modern US everywhere but in the middle of gigantic cities. Even with the transit trains and bus system in LA, there are just too many places I need to be that our transit systems don’t work well enough.
But guns? I’ve lived in big cities and traveled fairly extensively for decades and I’ve never seen the need for a gun. Was talking to a guy at work the other day, he said he’d like to go hunting, just to experience it. I told him killing something isn’t difficult, and if you think it is, just look at the number of people killed with a gun every year in this country. I think we’ve arrived at the point that a gun is not necessary for the vast majority of people. Hell the regular cops in the UK don’t carry guns. OK they have much higher trained people who do but not the every day cop.
I’ve owned guns, I’ve gone hunting, I carried a loaded semi auto pistol in the military for 2 yrs. I know how to use one, I was an expert marksman in the military. All of that has made me further understand that guns have no use other than to kill. And I don’t need to kill anyone. Neither does the vast majority of the citizens.
magurakurin
@Kay: @Kay:
I hate her more than I hate her father. And I hate him a lot. a whole lot.
Corner Stone
@magurakurin:
This is, quite frankly, a deeply stupid and naive take.
Chet Murthy
@Amir Khalid: Did you know that all laser/inkjet printers print patterns of dots on their output pages, nearly-indiscernible, that uniquely identify the printer? [Yeah, that’s part of how they got Reality Winner.] Been that way forever. Now imagine what you can do with 3d printer software — have it detect well-known gun patterns and alert LEOs, shut down if that module is tampered-with, etc. And as John said, control&tax the fuck out of gunpowder. And bullets. And shells.
N.B. I wasn’t the one who noted this about 3d printers — read it someplace on the Net.
Jay S
@dmsilev:
I am pretty sure these morons were different (or perhaps a subset of) the other morons. This always looked like a plot to separate fools from their money. IIRC pretty much every gun humper saw through this scam.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
The reason the military, especially the ground fighting branches, prefer kids is because younger troops are easier to train (spelled “i-n-d-o-c-t-r-i-n-a-t-e”). They are less likely to question orders (once basic is done).
There was hell to pay in my basic training company in the late 60s because we had a law school grad who questioned everything, and two advanced grad students in their mid-20s. The former was a reservist and going home, the latter two draftees who’s deferments ran out
Emma
@Omnes Omnibus: So we do the same things — character assassination being the kindest name for it — as the Republicans but it’s ok because our hearts are pure. Gotcha.
Gretchen
@gene108: Roger Stone knew Franken was going down before it happened. Leanne Tweeden was involved in taking down Shirley Sherrod before she took down Franken, the week after he ferociously questioned Jeff Sessions about lying about Russia. It was a political hit, carried out by Kirsten Gillebrand. She lost my vote right there. We could have waited until January and done a hearing about the accusations, most of which were bullshit and the rest were situations that could have been misunderstood, but Gillebrand ran with it and got rid of one of our most effective Senators.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Try this. See if it works. We could get a majority to support it. If it doesn’t help, then take the next steps.
Emma
@magurakurin: I’ll let it go. But I won’t forget it, If she’s the candidate I will vote for her but that is the only thing I will do. My money and my efforts will go somewhere else.
Emma
@Chet Murthy: And we mow down the innocent when necessary? No thanks.
Look, last word (added). I am not a proponent of the old Vulcan saw about the needs of the many. Too many damn dictators in the world use the same reasoning. If that’s the road the Democratic party is going…. *shrug*.
MomSense
I’m pretty sure the producers of this Olympics closing ceremony are on some hard drugs and I need some of what they are on to appreciate this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Emma: What was Obama’s pastor’s name? The one dropped like a hot potato. Come on.
magurakurin
@Ruckus:
and owning a car is a privilege not a right. That is exactly what the Pennsylvania state trooper who gave me my driver’s test told me right at the start of the test. Yet, in America owning a gun is seen by many as an inalienable human right. That thinking has to change. No idea how that happens. Can’t even imagine it, honestly. Y’all are fucked. Invest in kevlar or move to a country without guns…which, all other things aside about a place, is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Adam L Silverman
@PIGL: I’m also partial to a nice kukri.
Emma
@Omnes Omnibus: I. Don’t. Care. One of the few things I did not like about Obama was the way that man was treated, even if he was a loon.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus: I was drafting a whole argument with you until I re-read your argument and realized I maybe agreed with you. No semi-automatics for anyone . Kid can have his .22 at 18. Close to your position?
magurakurin
@Corner Stone: please. Franken was never going to be president. For fuck’s sake, he said so himself. Plus he will be 68 in 2020. There is an argument to be made that the Democrats in the Senate should have circled around Franken and fought for him. I don’t personally agree, but at the same time I see the merits of that argument and am willing to admit that it may have been the correct call. But the whole “Kirsten is a conniving and scheming opportunist who just wanted to eliminate one of her strongest rivals” take, is fucking stupid.
Gretchen
@Kay: I’m betting there are no armed teachers in Ivanka’s children’s lovely and expensive private schools. That’s for the plebes.
efgoldman
@Chet Murthy:
The kids are in VA, which has a mandatory drills in schools law age two and up.
I’d love it if they lived in New England. Alas, no
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: With your Scots past, why not a sgian-dubh?
chris
@Adam L Silverman: Agreed. You were talking guns, I was talking law. British law and an Australian buyback would end a lot of America’s problem in short order.
Doug R
So…like Canada, except with revolvers added?
magurakurin
@Emma: Pretty sure you won’t have to worry about voting for Gillibrand. I don’t plan on supporting her either in the primaries. I got nothing against her really, but some other people are looking far more appealing to me. Odds on her grabbing the brass ring are exceedingly small, I reckon.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: As I also said above, I broadly agree with John’s position. We can all argue a bit on the margins.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Nothing wrong with them at all.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Agreed. Story:
My father (M1 Garand(semi-auto), army marksman WWII Europe, was once was asked to shoot out a (German) window at 1500 yards (iron sights) and did. (Luck involved, yes.) ), made sure that his kids including me knew how to use a rifle (iron sights, no scopes for us), but only allowed an air rifle at home.
(Very much liked the Olympics closing ceremony dance immediate after the turtle swam through the time tunnel.)
Omnes Omnibus
@chris: And if it didn’t, then we would know that our country can’t behave responsibly with guns at any level and drastic measures would be needed.
Gretchen
@magurakurin: This isn’t about Franken for president. There are other important positions besides president. Franken was a strong voice on the Judiciary Committee, investigating the Trump administration. Roger Stone saw that, and took him out, and Gillebrand helped. I don’t even know the name of the Senator who replaced him, but she’s not on the Judiciary Committee demanding that Jeff Sessions account for his lies. We lost an important voice.
Adam L Silverman
If you had a 144 of this guy, you’d have gross stupidity:
Corner Stone
@magurakurin: Yeah. Exactly why Franken recently wrote a book and was on a book tour. Trump is 111. Biden will be 90 and Sanders somewhere around mummification.
Don’t try this bullshit on. KG is shooting for 2020 and it’s not even a close call. Franken was a competitor and is now hamstrung. KG put together the cabal of calls for Franken to resign. Don’t be fucking stupid.
Ruckus
@raven:
I turned 21 in boot camp. I was called gramps.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus: Jeremiah Wright. I rather liked him until he stomped on his own congregant (sheeples named Obama). Pastors are supposed to protect and lead their flocks, and he blew it that time bigly.
I do not think this was typical of his ministry. Just too late in time for a good minister to retire and let his church time to rebuild. Also too bad he put them in that position. Rebuilding one year after thirty years of initial building.
chris
@Omnes Omnibus: Gotta start somewhere but it’s going to take generations.
Jay S
I was trying to find an article I read the other day about the firearms regulations concerning automatic weapons. Which are not illegal to own, but cannot be manufactured for sale anymore, and are registered and tightly controlled if owned legally. There was an assertion that we could modify the law to embrace semiautomatic weapons with similar licensing and regulation. There might be the political ability to do something like this if the momentum keeps building.
PIGL
@Cermet: Further to this, and some other remarks about the urban/rural divide, this, by the grace of God, could be the issue that finally breaks the power of the Republican coalition. If that doesn’t happen in the next decade or so, I predict the result will be the dissolution of the Union. How much longer will the blue states and the urban areas WHO ARE PAYING FOR ALMOST EVERYTHING accept to be dictated to on existing terms, terms which include the ritual sacrifice of their children? What can not be sustained will not endure.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: Thank you. I didn’t have a problem with what he said. I also didn’t disagree with Obama choosing to cut him off. Politics can be ruthless. Since Trump’s election people have been saying that this is war and why don’t the Dems do what they need to do to win – okay, Gillibrand did that.
elm
@RSA: The simple dividing lines are semi-automatic mechanism and barrel length.
Ad semi-automatic weapons and handguns (12 inch or shorter barrel) to the firearms covered by the National Firearms Act (classify them as Title II firearms).
magurakurin
@Gretchen: As I stated above that is a different argument. Maybe they should have fought harder. I am talking about the idea that Sen. Kirsten Gllibrand personally orchestrated Franken’s removal to give her an advantage in 2020. If she was able to convince the majority of the Democrats to go along with nefarious plan then I guess she really is all that and we should get ready for President Gillibrand.
Senators call for Franken to resign
Aleta
How about ‘must go through Basic Training to get a gun.’ (Doesn’t work, obv-)
How about ‘must serve part time in a nonprofit volunteer org for 3 years w/good performance reviews,” which would eliminate some of the people w/ anger management problems, serious mood disorders or periodic psychosis.
But what I really believe is that the mental health aspect won’t work if it’s only designed around gun safety. To identify and prevent there has to be constant availability and easy access for everyone, and ways for families to get a fast consult. I think that fighting the stigma and ridicule of people who are ‘weird’ because of neurology is probably necessary too.
Chyron HR
@Corner Stone:
Well, nobody here wants at least two of them to be president either.
Omnes Omnibus
@chris: No disagreement.
magurakurin
@Corner Stone: well, she took out the wrong rival then. Maybe she should poison Kamala Harris next and try to set up Cory Booker with a prostitute.
whatever, dude.
she’s not all that.
and frankly, neither is Al Franken.
but you want to hate on her for her, be my guest. It’s a free country. At least until Kirsten gets in there.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Usually when we argue on the margins I end up agreeing with you. Mostly because I realize I hadn’t understood your argument. I hang with large dogs. I can be very dense.
The Midnight Lurker
Maybe we should bring back lawn darts to replace guns? I nailed a 2nd cousin with one at a family reunion in 68′. He was an asshole. God, I miss lawn darts.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: And I will take years if ever to forgive her.
Corner Stone
@magurakurin: She didn’t set up a majority to call for Franken’s resignation. She only needed five or six to back her call within 10 minutes of her declaration.
You’re fooling yourself if you think she’s not setting her groundwork for 2020.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: If that is true, why has general crime been going down? It’s just mass shootings that are increasing.
Fads for crimes come and go. I was just thinking that serial killers like we used to get in the Seventies and Eighties seem to be nearly extinct. I guess there was one in Anchorage recently. But Wikipedia has a list–the few we’ve had in the 2000s are nothing compared to the number of serial killers running around and getting on the news when I was a kid.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: Eh, I don’t often do proper step-by-step legal writing here because who has the time. As a result, I can be cryptic.
Belafon
Add this to your list of “Well, there goes another talking point”: A man waves a gun in an Amarillo faith mission, is tackled, and the police shoot the guy who did the tackling because he was holding the gun. Imagine being at a school where a teacher have guns. Who is the police going to shoot at.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
LOL! Guessing you found out thus: “Hey Gramps, you can go get us beer now!”
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: You are always cryptic. That is part of your appeal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: I see.
PIGL
@scav: I like the way you think. I wonder how we could re-write the lyrics to “Harper Valley PTA”.
efgoldman
@Aleta:
The ACA was supposed to be heading in that direction.But even where mental health is covered, there are often too few providers – like here in enlightened, blue Southern New England/
trollhattan
@magurakurin:
Jesus, are we really all getting ready to punch ourselves in the crotch on the road to 2020? Find me somebody with a D who can win, bigly with a congressional sweep, and I will vote for him/her. I’ll worry about the method later.
The end.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought you were Protestant
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh I wouldn’t expect a no gun or far, far fewer guns to happen any time soon but a boy can dream can’t he?
I was stating my opinion, which is in my mind not realistic, given this countries asinine love affair with guns. But then so is the fact that drumpf is president totally unrealistic. I expect no change until we take back the government from those looting the fuck out of the place.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: Harrumph!
Raven Onthill
@Another Scott: It is persuasive, and so is the piece that by Prof. Carl T. Bogus (talk about a name to live down!) it is based on, but the evidence, though strong, is indirect. Here’s what I wrote about that argument in the paper:
The cites are:
[27] Bogus, C. T. “The Hidden History of the Second Amendment.” University Of California Davis Law Review 31, no. 2 (Winter 1998): 309–408. (Available online if you dig around.)
[28] Sheehan, Colleen A. The Mind of James Madison: The Legacy of Classical Republicanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
“What is your stand on parents teaching minor kids to fire guns?”
Mine is look at what happened when those little kids were handed a Uzi and the recoil wound up killing the range master who handed the little kids the gun they couldn’t handle. Imagine being 6 or 8 years old and killing the guy standing beside you!?!? Happened at least twice not too long ago!!!
Just nope!
catclub
@Omnes Omnibus:
so you say.
PIGL
@cgordon: And an escalator clause such the price decline over time, and the penalties for unlawful possession increase, say over a 10 year period.
efgoldman
@Belafon:
Nobody. They’re going to wait outside until it’s over
magurakurin
@Corner Stone: whatever dude. You keep up the fight against history’s greatest monster…Kirsten Gillibrand.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: I will entertain arguments to the contrary. You ludicrous toad.
magurakurin
@efgoldman:
huddled together in groups of three.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Cryptic, not Coptic. Oy!
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
That was my Scandinavian flick.
Amir Khalid
@J R in WV:
Syou wouldn’t be keen on something like this?
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
As usual, my way is much funnier
PIGL
@Amir Khalid: you would be tracked by the crimes of your dumbass customers and put out of business in short order.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Who is the last good WASP comedian? Newhart?
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: Co-sign.
schrodingers_cat
Can we has a new thread about something other than guns.
Aleta
I remember this tweet just before the election last Nov.
PIGL
@Baud: I suppose this is a way to enforce fire discipline of some sort. It’s hard to keep a steady aim after many rounds are fired in sequence. Also, you tend to run out of ammo before actually hitting anything.
Corner Stone
@magurakurin: Not doing that. Just saying your take on what went down was stupid.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Steve Martin? The hideous sexist asshole who’s name I’ve blocked out – ah Andrew Dice Clay.
Jay S
@schrodingers_cat: We need an automatic post generator that kicks in at 200-250 comments. Maybe M4’s Neural Net can be drafted.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Let’s go with Martin.
Corner Stone
@Jay S: After seeing his Frontline hedders…no thank you.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Actually didn’t need to buy them beer. On a base where the land is owned by the federal government (OK it was this way 45 yrs ago) anyone in the military 17 and older, which was everyone, could purchase beer on base. 18 and older could purchase any form of alcohol. A civilian guest on base could only drink based upon state law. In CA that meant any civilian had to be 21 to drink alcohol. And in most other countries that I ever landed in no one seemed to give a damn how old you were, if you could pay for it you could drink it. In Norway, in a bar a tray was passed around with samples of what we would call illicit drugs, lines of coke, pills, whatever. You pointed out what you wanted, they told you how much and deal done. Not a hidden club, a normal bar, just with added refreshments.
magurakurin
@Corner Stone:
funny, that’s what I was doing. I’m not going to convince you are you damn sure aren’t going to convince me. Think what you want with Gillibrand. Whatever makes you happy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: “I will cut a Belgian.”
Jay S
@PIGL: Hey they gotta keep Movies on budget. Give actors free fire and they’ll over act every time. Squibs and blanks aint free you know.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had to think really hard to come up with him, which is your point. Bob Hope was protestant, I think, but neither last, nor for the last few decades, funny.
Corner Stone
@magurakurin: We can agree to disagree, but you’re still wrong.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Maybe Ackroyd, but he is Canadian.
Another Scott
@Raven Onthill: Thanks!
Cheers,
Scott.
eemom
@Trentrunner:
Right, freakazoid. I’m a sexist.
PIGL
@Adam L Silverman: Konrad, is that you?
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
On most decent-sized posts, the O-club and the EM club needed beer and liquor sales to make money.
Gvg
I basically agree with John but don’t think we can easily get there. I admire the kids not knowing they can’t succeed and getting some unexpected success, however I am older and have lost this fight over and over inch by inch the interpretations of the 2nd getting loonies every year so I can’t help saying concerns…
Prohibition failed. 1st example I was taught as a kid about why we couldn’t just ban guns or regulate them a little more. Of course if banning something always didn’t work we would have stopped making laws thousands of years ago but well sometimes there isn’t enough popular buy in to actually make something stick. I do think we haven’t got the level of buyin we need for a drastic change yet. A more productive question is how do we get there? I really do think the smoking restrictions and anti drunk driver campaigns are the most useful models. There was a lot that was deliberate in the changing society.
Other thing is our side really needs a win on some point of this fight because we have gotten kind of hopeless. I want a mostly symbolic automatic weapons ban as a start. I also want the law that prevents gun death stats from being kept and studied repealed so people can get the real numbers and the special protection of gun manufacturers not being sued repealed.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: It isn’t true. Senator Santorum is just dumb. You are correct that almost all crimes in general, and almost all violent crimes in specific, have been going down year on year since the late 1980s. There are the occasional spike in specific categories in any given year, but the overall trajectory has been down. And there is no consensus among criminologists as to why.
My pet theories are a combination of 1) removal of lead from the environment (paint, gas, etc), 2) hyper levels of incarceration via zero tolerance and 3 strikes and things like that. In the case of the former we’ve removed a major environmental driver. In the latter, we’ve locked up anyone and everyone we could, which reduces the population of potential offenders.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
Nope, Catholic; he’s buried at the San Fernando Mission in the “Garden of Hope” just outside the chapel.
eemom
Now that I read more comments, allow me to add: fuck ALL of you smug ass, know nothing dick swingers who are here to mansplain us about Gillibrand’s ratfucking of Franken. Seriously. Fuck you.
Adria McDowell
@Another Scott: Yes, I’m aware of brain development. I went through basic training with kids who were literally going back to high school that fall. The majority of them had no business being there- for many, it was their first time away from their parents. They acted like it was summer camp.
I’d rather give an 18 year old a beer (and take away the car keys) before I’d hand them an M16.
Mandalay
@m0nty:
Well there is another scenario: instead of an all-or-nothing approach, make changes at the state level:
IANAL, and there may be a dozen reasons why that can’t happen, but the idea of individual states telling Congress GFY over their gun laws is very appealing. At a minimum it would at least force right wing nut jobs to crawl out the woodwork and argue against states’ rights.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
No kidding. That was the main reason a lot of guys went there in the first place, available and cheap. Considering what we got paid in those days…. It was difficult to be falling down drunk on enlisted pay then. Not impossible though.
And a lot of bases didn’t have the clubs right outside the gates that tried to take business away from the on base clubs.
Adam L Silverman
@Belafon: All of them Katie!
Mart
@Sab: I thought Wright’s God Damn America sermon was righteous, just needed to here it the whole way through. It was not an angry black preacher radicalizing the faithful. He would rant about slavery then follow with GDA. He would rant about black folks getting lynched or sterilized and pop a couple more GDA’s. Radicalizing the faithful is the job of white protestant preachers.
Jay S
@Corner Stone: Maybe we could take a slice of the pie filter until the Neural Net feels better. OTOH it shouldn’t be too good or it could put the regular posters out of work. It could find a random headline, excerpt a random graph and take 2 or 3 comments using uncommon words from the graph from that or some other article’s comments for a mash up.
magurakurin
@Corner Stone: cool. It’s all copacetic.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Eh, fuck you too. Feel better now?
Adam L Silverman
@PIGL: I’m missing something. Context please?
Kelly
I concur Mr Cole. No legitimate reason for anyone to throw up a wall of lead. As far as that goes I’d outlaw lead bullets to.
efgoldman
Are all the front pagers asleep and/or drunk and/or high?
Corner Stone
@magurakurin: I personally don’t care if you’re a Coptic like Omnes or not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Don’t try to drag me into this fight.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Clay is Jewish. (More’s the pity.)
@Omnes Omnibus
Jay Leno? (Not my cuppa comedic tea but undeniably successful.)
J R in WV
@Patricia Kayden:
Long guns are legal and common in parts of Canada. If they weren’t, more people would be eaten by polar bears, wolves, etc in the winter time.
I’ve been stalked by a big cat in the Arizona mountains, and it is a very bad feeling to be aware that you are not the apex predator in the surrounding 50 or 100 yards.
No offense, just saying, we aren’t all in town all the time.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Most likely.
Jay S
@efgoldman: We need auto post, stat.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: I doubt that someone with the last name of Leno is a WASP.
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Cole’s on Twitter griping, again, about getting “Verified”, and griping about FedEx. He doesn’t have time to read his blog.
HTH!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Your religious choices aren’t being evaluated. And there is no fight. I put that BS down long ago.
Mike in NC
Maybe Bush the Elder can record a PSA against the terrorist NRA that he quit before he croaks. Would slightly mitigate the sorry lot of children he cursed us with.
smike
@ChaunceyBaker: That 3% is starting to bug me. Raw Story has a story up with Dana Loesch ranting about what she thinks 5 million gun owners want (didn’t click on it, because, you know?). In 2016 the population for the US was over 223 million people. Maybe 218 million people would like to tell you “Please to fuck off, lady.”
efgoldman
@Another Scott:
What about AL the night owl; I haven’t seen Adam leave for the dogs’ belly rubs yet.
What else do they have to do that could possibly be more important than taking care of us?
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
In your case, how about we just stipulate to a mutual ongoing fuck you and be done with it.
Sab
@Mart: I thought so too. Putting it on the internet was just getting clueless whites like me to consider reality.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Gosh, I do admire you so.
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Emo Philips could be hilarious, but I guess with a name like Soltanek it’s possible he’s not a WASP.
Cheers,
Scott.
eemom
@Mart:
It was righteous whether he was angry or not. Why shouldn’t he be angry, other than to pacify racists?
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Well, you are the one single person I have ever defriended on facebook. So, yeah, fuck you.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, and for that I weep in the night. ???
eta: I ain’t the only one to notice what a passive aggressive creep YOU’ve turned into, right here.
magurakurin
@smike: 323 million, but point stands…even taller.
geg6
@m0nty:
Fuck her. I have no use for a weathervane and she can go fuck herself after her horrible Franken work and her even worse excuses for it since. I will work my fingers to the bone to make sure she is not the nominee. She’s in Wilmer territory for me, which basically means sitting out the general if my party is stupid enough to nominate her. I will never vote for either one. They are dead to me.
Yutsano
@Adria McDowell: My friend who’s in called his older female NCO Company Mom. If it helps, it was (mostly) a term of affection. Except when she yelled at him.
magurakurin
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s actually sort of an impressive honor.
I only have 23 friends on Facebook, so I have never defriended anyone. A few defriended me though. My Facebook wall is a white hot mess. Only old, old friends in the real world can stand it. They know me.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I’m awake. I don’t drink. And because I’m subject to randomized drug testing because of my work, I am not high.
Is there something you need assistance with?
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: Do you remember 2016? At all?
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Father Italian, mother Scottish. If you round up…
How about Carol Burnett?
Omnes Omnibus
@magurakurin: I let very few people in. 75-ish. One less a few weeks ago.
Jay S
@Jay S: @Adam L Silverman: I think he is looking for a manual implementation of my proposed auto post generator.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Dear god. I don’t know. How do you identify?
Adam L Silverman
@Jay S: Okay. There doesn’t appear to be anyone poking around in dashboard.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I wish you well. I don’t want you in my friend circle. It sounds like you agree with that view.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay S: I have rectified the grave injustice that Balloon Juice has been inflicting on efg.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yep. Also with the view that you have some very sad psychological issues.
Jack the Second
While we’re on the topic of armed revolt against the government, is there an actual historical precedent for the sort of armed uprising of the citizenry against the government the three-percenters imagine actually working and resulting in some sort of stable post-revolution government what didn’t suck?
The American Revolution was not at all that, since it was really a rebellion of the colonial governments against a distant, foreign government; it’s easy to see why that turned out relatively well, since for most people in the country their lives didn’t change that much. The Civil War was almost the same thing, the penultimate layer of government rebelling against the highest, and it failed for a number of reasons, but if it had succeeded there’s no reason to think the South couldn’t have formed a stable government,
So historically speaking, what’s the best case these three-percenters could hope for?
PIGL
@eemom: You must be super endearing ray of teh sunshine, in real life.
burnspbesq
@The Moar You Know:
And for God’s sake don’t tell them that the most accomplished American fencer is a hijab-wearing African-American woman from New Jersey via Duke.
J R in WV
@Gretchen:
There are Secret Service agents in Ivanka’s kids school, or private guys equal in skills to the Secret Service. Probably bodyguards AND Secret Service agents.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: She was amazing.
Doug R
@PIGL:
Any resistance in Canada to the long gun registry came from the rural/urban divide. Harper played to the rural hunters and made sure the registry got shredded, after millions of registries/data points. Quebec sued to get their part of the database, but the courts denied them and the entire database got shredded. Still not as bad as you guys….
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: As Andrew Clay (no Dice), I seem to recall he was pretty good in Crime Story.
Jay S
@Adam L Silverman: Gracias @schrodingers_cat: Would thank you as well if she were still around.
Gin & Tonic
@Jack the Second: I find the concept of an armed rebellion against a government that could, without blinking, put a Hellfire missile straight down your chimney from a thousand miles away kind of amusing, frankly.
smike
@schrodingers_cat: Them are god-damned ARAB! numbers. Leastways, that’s what I’ve heard.
PIGL
@Adam L Silverman: Konrad is a character in William Gibson’s novel “All Tomorrow’s Parties”. He is a Zen assassin, trained in an probably fictional school of Argentine knife fighting (pace Jorge Luis Borges). He possesses preternatural skill with the tanto, his only habitual weapon (he’s also death on toast with a handgun).
“That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates outcome; the anticipation of outcome guarantees, if not failure, the absence of grace.”
I would recommend Gibson’s work to anyone like you, especially the Bridge Trilogy. (Idoru, Virtual Light, All Tomorrow’s Parties).
Doug R
@magurakurin:
Wait, what? Thought it was Killary Clinton?
PIGL
@Doug R: I know it very well. It was bad. And it created a contingent of loons just as loony as your Cold Dead Hand’s brigade. Just not as numerous or powerful. But it was backed by the same shadowy contingent of reaction Adam L Silverman alluded to in a post a few days ago. If you want to discover who has been plotting the destruction of American for the last 40 years, your clues are in Canada, where they have not felt it as necessary to cover their tracks.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
She’s not prejudiced – she hates everybody
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
No. Child sized or peculiar colors make them into toys. Most girls don’t want pink anything around here – they want their outdoor stuff to look like the boy’s stuff.
I learned on a full sized .22 rifle that was my grandmother’s farm rifle. She used it for varmits – often chickens from the next door farm in her garden, or ground-hogs or rabbits in the garden.
I was probably 10 or 12 when we started, and I had watched older cousins from behind, way behind, for a couple of years. Eventually I was spending most of my weekly allowance ( like $1.00 a week, spent on reading material in the winter) in the summer time on boxes of 50 rounds.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I let few people here into FB. This one was a mistake.
Tinare
I’m in the tax the F out of bullets camp. The guns are already out there. I’m all for making firing them expensive.
J R in WV
@smike:
Not 223 million, 323 million. You are off by a hundred million people not necessarily wanting guns.
smike
@magurakurin: You are correct! Didn’t realize I had put the 2 in front.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, thank God! I have long worked so hard for that approbation.
Maybe I could join your FB circle now?
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: They probably saw Seven Days in May a few too many times, and imposed a different ending.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
Thanks Cole.
Calouste
@Jack the Second: I’m pretty sure no armed uprising of the citizenry has succeeded in overthrowing the central government without the armed forces going over to their side.
Jimmm
I’ve been reading this blog for almost 15 years. I almost never post, but I love this place in no small part because I feel the echo of my own political philosophy (and its continued evolution) reading Cole’s posts over the years. This is no exception.
My male relatives continue to be gun enthusiasts, but I’m pretty much done. I don’t know why this time is different, but something has just shifted for me. Want to outlaw all semi-automatic weapons? Sure. Ban magazines holding more than 5 rounds? I’m in. Require longer waiting periods, deeper background checks, mandatory registration and insurance for each and every weapon you own? Sold.
Prevailing social norms and values sometimes change – I recall being startled at how quickly the dominoes fell once that balance tipped for same-sex marriage… I’m looking forward to the day when it happens for gun control.
Amir Khalid
@J R in WV:
A few years ago this company had on its web site a photo gallery of children wielding its kid-size rifles. Then the photo gallery got noticed, drawing lots of negative attention, and the company had to take it down
Adam L Silverman
@PIGL: Okay, now I’m following you. I’ll put them on the list, thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Jack the Second: If we’re absenting the American Revolution, which didn’t actually produce a very stable government, hence the need for the 2nd founding within a decade, not really. In most cases the revolutions or rebellions aren’t even successful. Or only partially successful leaving the new government too weak to properly function and often leading to a prolonged insurgency.
Adam L Silverman
@burnspbesq: @Omnes Omnibus: She’s phenomenal.
grubert
@eemom:
Thanks for mentioning that, eemom. I looked it up, Gillibrand was an NRA darling and anti-immigrant to boot. I had no idea.
I saw her on Colbert, was already a little steamed because I voted for Franken, but there was something else about her I didn’t like, couldn’t put a finger on it.
Now it makes total sense. I’m opposed to her going any further.
EBT
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Not really, you can get a purpose made machine to do the receiver (the legally controlled part of the gun) for about 500 dollars.
Aleta
I’ve been thinking about changes that could circumvent the politicians. Don’t know how likely, but theoretically ….
Yesterday I saw a mention that credit card companies could if they choose refuse to finance gun purchases. AR purchase is usually done by credit card. Bank of America supposedly is thinking about the possibility. There was also mention of teachers in Florida who want to clean out gun manufacturer stocks from their pension funds. A lot of people could decide to divest, though those stocks are apparently scattered throughout funds universally.
I used to think that a single law for gun owners insurance would work sooner than politicians. But someone here (Imma.) explained, I believe, that lawyers and courts would need detailed laws in order to resolve liability questions.
But still. Insurance companies can deny policies or raise rates depending on the conditions in a home. For ex, in the past, companies didn’t ask homeowners if they (or their tenant) use a woodstove, but now they do. They either deny coverage or set limitations and diff. rates if you heat with wood.
I wonder if they have the right to ask if there are guns in a home, and then raise rates or deny a policy. Can auto insurance companies decide they won’t cover people who drive with ARs in the car/truck back, or raise their rates? Are they required to back up policy changes with safety statistics?
Not saying it would affect everyone, or prevent lying. (Or that I like insurance companies.) Just that pricing is also a sort of regulating.
Sab
@eemom: I agree. Thanks for your clear exposition of my position.
Jack the Second
@Adam L Silverman: I’m willing to count the American Revolution as a success in that it didn’t devolve into rounds of serial executions as one government after another displaced the last, but again, basically all of the “founding fathers” were members of the colonial governments and not just crazy guys in the backwoods muttering about taxes. They didn’t really have to “form a new government” so much as “just keep governing like they had before” (and form a federal government, which as you pointed out took them a couple of tries). My impression of the 3-percenters is that they don’t really have any real experience in governance and they want to scrap everything that exists now and start over with the ten commandments they can remember and what they imagine is in Adam Smith’s writings.
Ramalama
@Aleta: On a slightly related note, Dan Savage made a pretty good suggestion.