yoink

I agree that this is probably a part of the problem, and I was incredibly proud of the NZ Prime Minister who made a statement soon after their last mass murder that the culprit would not be named or talked about for this exact reason. So start there. How hard could it be to have the politicians from both parties stand together, just this once, along with the heads of mass media outlets and announce 'that we as a people will not glorify these criminals. We will not use their names for political purposes and we will not print or air their identity for ratings. We ask all people of the United States to do the same.' Just that stance would be groundbreaking. And I suspect could never happen because there are just too many people who HAVE to be against whatever their opposition party is for. Regardless of how sensible, altruistic or obvious it was.

I think 99% of the population, myself included, tend to stick to one or two news sources. Changing that general human behavior is probably a losing battle, I suspect.

The people that support him never see stories like this because they don't appear on their radar of choice/ And that's fine. We can't expect everyone to look at every picture released then QC its origin. This is all about Trump making everything all about Trump, as always. Even tragedy. He's an egotistical, narcissistic sociopath.

For Brenthutch It's just occurred to me that rather than DuJour referring to a person or ruling, you meant 'du jour', from the French. Capitalization matters in legal issues. On that understanding my first point becomes a question - please show me, verbatim where the second amendment EXPLICITLY (your words) states that it's intent is to 'overthrow a tyrannical government by whatever means necessary'. Not your interpretation of what you think it means.

This is a good post. There ARE measurable differences in things like strength between sexes, or aggression based on testosterone levels. I agree that diversity for the sake of it is frustrating and that no person should get special rules just because they’re a member of a particular group. Even if that group is white, male and privileged.

There was an event in California today that is one of the ONLY possible argument for public carry guns that I can see. A guy with two machetes ran amok and killed 4 people. I’ll concede that in a more gun-toting state he might have been stopped sooner. But then maybe he’d have used a assault rifle instead and killed 30 people instead of 4 because it was easier to get hold of a gun there... we’ll never know. Regardless, I’m much more confident in my ability to outrun a guy with a knife than a bullet. Or even fight back unarmed, if it came to that.

Remove everyone’s access to vehicles and society collapses. Remove everyone’s access to guns and basically nothing happens. See the difference? One is a hobby that gives people a hard-on, the other is a necessary fundamental to our infrastructure and logistics system.

I'm not sure what you mean by DuJour. Please provide a link. The 2nd as written says nothing about overthrowing anything. And you deliberately ignored my point. Do you think the 2nd grants you the RIGHT to bear nuclear arms?

It's a really good question, and why we have a SC. I've long thought that that idea of having what has basically become an immutable document defining the laws of the land is daft. It should be brought up to relevance for the modern era, because with the best will in the world the Founding Fathers weren't clairvoyant. This thread is about guns though, so I'll use that as the basis for my position. I hope you'd agree that the 2nd doesn't grant you the right to bear nuclear arms at home. It would be ridiculous and dangerous. So that sets a precedent - the 2nd, as written, is not intended to freely cover all possible future technologies. We limit availability to those technologies for the good of society and so there are 'arms' that are outside the scope of the 2nd amendment. The bit that frustrates me is that we can't say that the 2nd limits availability to these arms, but not those ones!! You can't have it both ways. It's not written that way. It either grants complete freedom or it inherently expects some limitations. As the second position brent's argument of 'you've never heard of the the 2nd' thinking it gives him complete freedom to bear whatever arms he likes becomes thoughtless nonsense. Edit: There are two many '2nds' in that last paragraph, but I'm tired. Hopefully it's clear.

Neither does it say you have the right to own fully automatic 5.56 assault rifles. Or nuclear devices. So let’s assume it means what it’s talking about in the period it was written. You are completely free to keep and bear muskets. As many as you like. Glad we agree.

The 2nd has nothing to say on biometrics or even the types of arms allowed to you.

And even this probably wouldn't affect the mass-murder sprees as I think most of the guns are legally owned by the shooter. But yeah, it's a step in the right direction and while it wouldn't get us there instantly it might make the journey a bit more achievable. Ideas like this take decades if not centuries to show results and so it's difficult to get reelected on that platform, so they never get traction.

I think the problem (or at least one of them) is that people equate 'common sense' to 'easy'. There is no 'easy' change that will have the effect most of us are looking for. All 'easy' gets you are restrictions that have little effectual impact (e.g. your magazine limitations). I've put forward a few ideas over the years from crowdsourcing dangerous / questionable behaviors to new technologies and industries. All come with a cost and a benefit, and most of those costs limit some sort of freedom. The common factor in them is that I think we need a completely new paradigm to address the issue. 'Easy' fixes that are based around how the system currently works or what the technology currently is will always be limited in their effectiveness. If you put those constraints on the situation then you're driven toward difficult and extremely unpalatable fixes that never get past the first hurdle as a result. Like I said earlier, I think the first step is a broad and overwhelming agreement that there is a problem. If we had that then we a society and government could dump the problem squarely on the manufacturers and you can bet they'd spend billions in making sure that they still had a market. 'We insist your guns come with some form of reducing their potential to be used in mass shootings'. They'd figure something out.

Not the magazine capacity stuff again. That's a band aid on a jugular wound. How long does it take to swap out a magazine? 2 seconds if you're practiced? 3? Unless you're then going to limit the number of magazines a person is legally allowed to own (talk about impossible to police) then limiting the capacity is utterly pointless IMO. The magazine capacity regulations are a great example of feel-good laws that do virtually nothing in practice, which is why the NRA 'allows' discussions about that type of regulation. They can use it as a 'look what we're compromising on' argument without making any actual difference.

When was the last mass shooting that was committed by an illegal immigrant?

Did I understand Ron right earlier - [Q] is actually Trump communicating directly to the faithful? iIf that’s the case and Q is now a terrorist organization does that mean the FBI will be arresting the president?

It’s nice that terrorists now wear T-shirt’s to show membership to an organization. If only Al-Qaeda has done the same it would have made tracking them down a hell of a lot easier!

Time. Any solution will take centuries to fully enact and guns that already in circulation to be lost or destroyed. At this point all I’d like to see is a general bipartisan agreement that there is a problem that’s unique to the US. Without that NOTHING can ever be accomplished, but even that might be too optimistic.

Nothing to be done. Carry on about your business as usual.

See? You start your post by telling me outright that my own opinion is ‘wrong’. That’s a rush-ism right there. Immediately go on the attack! My opinion of what I see is my own. You’re welcome to disregard it. Like I said, I see a difference in how you post now to compared to how you used to. Maybe it’s me that’s changed.

Thoughts, Pr... etc etc. Whatever.

It seems like for the last 6 months or so every post you make HAS to be directly about Trump, even though the post you’re replying to here was about other people. The quality of your posts has declined as a result IMO. I miss the old Kallend, rather than this Rush-lite.

In fairness I think this is true of a lot of people.

M’lud, the defense rests. You can’t rationalize with a fanatic.

You can post as many actual, factual events as you like. Ron will quite happily say that he doesn't believe any of it and expect that to be a basis for a rational position.