… is this a thing? … do grown-ass men pass around handguns out like PhD students do two-in-one slide-clicker-laser-pointers? https://t.co/uWZHnJ5F32
— Hilary Matfess (@HilaryMatfess) September 4, 2019
Oh Dan. You really caught the car on this one.
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) September 4, 2019
So Rep. Crenshaw doubled down, because OF COURSE…
Local man doesn’t know that background checks routinely successfully block gun purchases. https://t.co/BrE3RgtA3v
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) September 5, 2019
Would you loan your car to someone with no license or insurance?
— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) September 4, 2019
dog i've spent my entire life in cities and i can't think of a scarier thing than a scared suburbanite who thinks they're rooster fuckin cogburn rolling up with a gun for "protection" as they quiver and shake with terror at the strange-looking people in the grocery store
— scuba chuck (@Fishfoode) September 5, 2019
As in something that's killing a lot of people so a few people can get rich? pic.twitter.com/ZkM2idcW0l
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 4, 2019
I'm from rural North Carolina and what he's saying is misleading. Yes, people very temporarily loan people guns for hunting (usually with the loaner present.) Unfortunately, people I know do not loan their guns to people who may not pass a background check.
— Ares (@AresStopell) September 5, 2019
Did You Know? In Texas they have Little Free Gun Libraries, where your neighbors can take and leave guns and build community and friendship https://t.co/ZyISGkmYyK
— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) September 4, 2019
Despite 10 million fewer people, guns kill more people in Texas than California. TX Consistently leads nation in total gun deaths per year and has seen no less than 6 mass shootings with ten or more dead, 3 in just the last two years.
Gun nuts from Texas get to lecture NOBODY.
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 4, 2019
I can count on 1 hand the times I lent a gun to someone away from a range; I’d still have 5 fingers on that hand
I can’t count how many friends, most vets and gun owners, have asked me for help or advice in separating someone in a bad way from their guns
Is *that* real America? https://t.co/dfcAz5BJel
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) September 4, 2019
I had hoped you could bring some new perspective to the House, but now I see you have been paid off and are just another party hack. Congratulations. ??
How did you win your house seat again? Oh. That’s white. pic.twitter.com/yG2ZgJjifD
— Donald Stewart (@Dcstewart8) September 5, 2019
(Gerrymandered district looks like the silhouette of a guy wearing sound-blocking headphones… )
NotMax
Déjà blech.
;)
mrmoshpotato
Would anyone in their right mind trust Matthew Dowd with political analysis?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: But when you’ve lost Matt Dowd…
Yarrow
Pete Davidson with his dumbass comments about Crenshaw on SNL the weekend before the election in 2018 did a lot of harm. It made Crenshaw look sympathetic. The district has been solidly Republican for years, but in 2018 there was a solid challenger. Texas suburban districts around big cities have been moving purple and there were hopes the Dem could win. In the end Crenshaw won by 7 points but I think it could have been closer, and the Dem candidate might have won, had that last minute boost by Pete Davidson not happened.
Groucho48
Roberts declares there is no way of telling if that gerrymandering crosses a line. No way at all.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow:
Yup.
Mike in DC
I’m trying to think of circumstances, outside of trying someone else’s gun out at a shooting range(while they’re standing nearby), where I would need to “borrow” a gun from them. Coming up empty. Is this an actual fucking thing that happens, or are they just straining to come up with a justification, however lame, for opposing universal background checks? Wait, I just answered my own question. Never mind.
Ruckus
@Mike in DC:
By Jove I think you’ve got it!
Always go with the stupidest answer first, it’s the most likely to be right 98% of the time. Of course you may have trouble coming up with an answer stupid enough because you aren’t as dumb as a lamppost. So you’ll have to work to come up with an answer as stupid as possible, it’s actually quite a bit more work for a normal person to try to be that stupid.
Kai-two
@Mike in DC:
It doesn’t seem that unusual to me. When I was a kid just starting hunting, a neighbor loaned me a deer rifle for a month or so. A couple of weeks to sight it in and shoot it then a couple of weeks for hunting. I couldn’t afford to buy my own.
I’ve loaned shotguns to people many times who wanted to take family or friends to shoot clays. I’ve loaned shotguns to people who wanted to try duck hunting. I borrowed a .454 to take to Alaska as a bear gun on a fishing trip. A friend has my .338 elk gun in his safe because it’s a pain to fly with it so I just leave it there. I’ve borrowed and loaned unusual guns just to take them out and shoot them.
I don’t get what this whole flap is about but it’s very strange to see people wigged out by the idea of loaning guns.
And, for what its worth, I’m all for improving firearms control laws.
Chetan Murthy
@Kai-two: He was writing about loaning handguns, not hunting rifles.
ETA: And it’s clear he doesn’t think the people to whom he loans those guns, need have licenses themselves.
kindness
Don’t forget. In Texas it’s OK to redraw Congressional borders any time you want to. So long as you have a majority.
Karma Republicans. Karma.
Pablo
Don’t bogart that gun, my friend.
smike
@Chetan Murthy:
I seems (to me) to also imply that the people he is loaning handguns to are unable to pass a background check at all. You know… Patriots!
Kattails
OK, my current take on this is that the “Well regulated militia” part of the 2nd amendment was put in purposefully as a demand that the militia members recognize an obligation to the government to be overseen and directed by that government. Who the hell else is going to do the regulating? Yet
the current members actively resist any regulation whatsoever, justifying this in their minds as needing to be able to fight the gummint when it becomes repressive (i.e. wants to take their guns).
We’re good guys! We don’t need no regulatin’!
Yet even a cursory read-through of the “Well regulated” Twitter feed (thanks to whoever passed on that link!) shows that too many current members of this so-called militia are, to all intents and purposes, rabble; hot-headed, self-important, mean, careless, and dumb.
If they refuse to accept the regulation of the government as it may be expressed by the majority of the voters the gov’t represents–that is if they refuse to accept the first part of the amendment, then they can’t just randomly keep the second part. It seems to me that their rights are inherent in their acceptance of the obligation. Otherwise we the people can just throw the damned thing out and come up with something better worded.
Hope this is sufficiently coherent, it’s bloody late, Ozark will be bletching any minute now.
hervevillechaizelounge
@Mike in DC:
I assumed that one-eyed asshole was talking about lending guns in a posse-type situation, like if one of his neighbor’s slaves ran away.
I’m so fucking paranoid I half believe the SNL situation was purposely created to give him an electoral edge:(
Patricia Kayden
And this is why we need a Democratic Congress and President. Republicans are going to double down on their love affair with guns. They’ll never come around to supporting gun control, no matter how many of their fellow Americans have to unnecessarily die.
Amir Khalid
@Kattails:
I agree with you 133%. By my reading of the second amendment, the right to own a firearm is pursuant to the duty to serve, if called up, in an ad hoc armed miltia organised and properly regulated by the state. Calling up such a militia is no longer the practice anywhere in the US, so that amendment should be obsoleted.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: There is the National Guard.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Which is not ad hoc and not exclusively under state control, being part of the federal military’s reserve component. And, as I understand, whose personnel are issued weapons as needed instead of bringing their own.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: The Guard is under command of the Governor of the state, however they can be federalized in case of national emergency, like to avoid having a draft.
RAVEN
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Tell that to the guys in my outfit in Vietnam.
http://www.107thsignalcompany.com/index.html
OzarkHillbilly
@Kattails: Blech.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@RAVEN: Exactly how was I mistaken?
My Side of Town
Background check question: Would applicant lend guns to others to avoid background checks? Yes. No.
If No, proceed to next question. If Yes dispatch agents to confiscate any guns applicant possesses.
RAVEN
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ah, I see, I read it avoiding the draft. It’s funny, there is a group email lit for the company and they threw a fit about Kapernick. When I went to the reunion last year they had a table covered with articles about how they went to the Supreme Court, had hunger strikes and big letter writing campaign to keep from going. It was OK for THEM to protest!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@RAVEN: OK, I think we’re on the same page.
JWR
The first time I heard of Crenshaw was during that SNL bit, but then I saw him on one of the Sunday morning shows and he was taking issue with a few of the other guests for having said that Democracy was under attack, because “hey, I’m a combat vet and so I know what it’s like to be under actual attack so watch your language, you guys!’ or some such nonsense. Good first impression, Danny boy. Lousy second.
PS. I haven’t commented in quite awhile and didn’t want to loose my rep as a fine and upstanding member of the community. (So there!)
Professor Bigfoot
Dan Crenshaw is an asshole.
But then— he’s a Republican, ain’t he?
I wouldn’t loan my car to someone I didn’t KNOW and TRUST, and I sure as hell wouldn’t loan a gun to someone I didn’t know and trust.
But that’s “conservatives” for ya.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Kind of a variant of Macco’s Razor.
SFAW
@JWR:
That ship already left the station, bucko.
matt
@Kai-two: What’s weird about it is that Crenshaw said ‘to defend themselves’ not for hunting. Which implies that he’s lending guns solely for the purpose of shooting people.
RSA
DHS would beg to disagree.
VOR
@SFAW: Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo formulated the principle and John Scalzi named it – Trump’s Razor: The stupidest possible answer consistent with the facts is most likely to be right.
BretH
The obvious question that needs to be asked of the Good Representative is, would he still lend those weapons if he were personally liable for anything that was done with it? If he had insurance would he be cool with lending a gun to someone for “self-protection” knowing he could be liable anything that then happened?
Such a simple thing – gun ownership can be a right and also completely regulated. No-one is infringing on your right to own guns, meaning someone couldn’t just look at you and say “you can’t have a gun”. But the actual ownership can and absolutely should be subject to all sorts of legal restrictions.
And the first step is full liability of gun owners for anything that happens involving that weapon, unless it was reported stolen, in which case the circumstances of the theft need to also be judged – was the weapon properly stored and secured? No? You’re liable.
BRyan
@matt: Absolutely this. i was visiting friends in florida — not exactly known for lax gun laws — and these folks had 30+ guns, including two “nope, they’re not assault rifles” AR-15s. They were so pleased to be able to accommodate friends visiting from Kansas who had left their guns at home but were afraid to take themselves to Orlando if they weren’t carrying. I can’t imagine living in the constant state of fear that gun nuts without their guns must occupy.
Richard Guhl
The gun god death cult is fear-based and can’t be reasoned with. It’s adherents believe there’s danger lurking everywhere with nameless others posing murderous threats at any moment. Once you succumb to fear like that, there’s no limit. Is one gun enough?
No.
The fear only multiplies. And you need the totem to ward off the fear at all times and in all places. But what this really means is that all the arguments of the gun god death cult about freedom or defense against tyranny are made in bad faith.
Quite often, their so-called freedom is tyranny for the rest of us. Their open displays are intended to frighten and intimidate, and limit our freedom to go about in peace. As for their assertions about defense against tyranny, I find that a big, fat lie.
For the past few years, we’ve had a President who trashes the Constitution and makes threats against a free press, and what have they done?
Nothing. In fact, they’re all in with Trump.
And while they’d vehemently deny it, the gun god death cult demands regular bloodbath sacrifices to justify their own fears.
We cannot guarantee perfect safety in life. But we don’t have to cater to irrational fears.
DigitalAmish
48 years ago (almost to the day now that Dan Crenshaw has sparked the memory) one of my buddies lent a gun to my best friend. Two days later I found him in a gravel pit with the gun in his hand and a bullet in his head. So fuck Dan Crenshaw 12 ways to Hell.