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Showing posts with label Gun Myths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun Myths. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2016

Solving Problems With Guns (Ground Stood Edition)

So, this guy named Marvin Lee done got his car stuck in a ditch in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jefferson Deavner stopped to help him push it out. Lee turned into a dick after this and when the police were called to help him out of the ditch, he shot Deavner and killed him.

Ground stood!

This story is a great example of what happens when you allow the fever dream of gun rights activists to take over a country. A person like Lee should never be allowed to own a weapon but he does because of his 2nd amendment rights.

How many thousands of Lees are out there being supported by the Gun Cult?

Saturday, January 09, 2016

Town Hall Frustrations

My initial thoughts on the president's town hall on gun violence are ones of frustration. While I am pleased that the issue is getting more attention and it appears that it's going to be a center piece to the 2016 presidential campaign, there are two core points that are not being addressed.

The first is illustrated in Taya Kyle's portion of this video. As Chris Mooney noted in his book "The Republican Brain," people let emotion drive their reasoning process and this was never more true than with the gun issue. I was hoping that Ms. Kyle would have learned the lesson that her husband and Nancy Lanza did not learn and that is that the gun culture creates a myopia. Neither Mr. Kyle nor Ms. Lanza used reason in their judgement regarding gun safety and allowed mentally ill people to operate firearms. The ideology of the gun rights activist (one devoid of reason and more rooted in paranoia and chest thumping emotion) is a chief cause of mass shootings and gun violence in this country.

Instead, Ms. Kyle spoke of needing a gun for protection and spoke of the hope of declining gun violence. The former is, of course, ridiculous as has been proven time and again by study after study. If you own a gun, you are more likely to kill/injure yourself or a loved one than protect yourself or a loved one. Believing the latter is, again, an emotional response driven by some sort of need for empowerment. The latter I found to be incredibly insulting to the families of the now weekly victims of mass shooting. How can anyone say it's getting better? This is especially befuddling behavior of someone who lost their own loved one to the myopia of gun rights ideology.

I think the president knows this because he's obviously an intelligent man. I get that saying something like this would be a bad PR move but it is the truth and we have to face the fact that this ideology is a threat to our national security.

My second frustration is that the NRA and other gun rights supporters are essentially getting what they want here: enforcement of current laws. Despite their faux protestations, they have successfully shifted the argument so far to the right, that "compromise" is something they've actually supported for years. They've been employing a political tactic that needs to be countered immediately.

Instead of allowing them to set the table with talk of totalitarian governments and dystopic futures (see: appeal to fear), gun safety advocates like the president should be talking about mandatory, minimum training, liability insurance, registration, and even altering the 2nd amendment so that only people who want to devote a considerable portion of their lives to community protection own firearms. These things may seem like a pipe dream now but gun safety advocates need to cease starting from a point of capitulation.

It's clear that the gun issue is going to have ongoing prevalence. I only wish that it wasn't due to the regularity of gun violence and our inability to accept what we need to do to solve the problem.

Here is the full town hall...

Friday, January 01, 2016

Looking Back At A Great Year

At least 265 people were accidentally shot by children in 2015.

That works out to be an average of about 5 a week. Here's how most of the stories go...

On Monday, three days after Christmas, the four-year-old son of an Alaska state trooper had just returned home from sledding. He was playing by himself in the living room. His mom and grandmother were not far away, in the kitchen, the Alaska Dispatch News reports. But somehow the boy, William Anderson, found a gun belonging to his father. 

The gun went off and killed William.

What the Gun Cult fails to grasp is that society is filled with irresponsible people who end up falling through the cracks of loose gun laws. That's why we need the entire country to adopt the law that is already in effect in 28 states and hold gun owners criminally liable if children have access to their guns.

Research shows that these laws work. A 2005 study found that child access prevention (CAP) laws in 10 states prevented 829 injuries in 2001, saving $37 million in medical costs. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found that CAP laws prevented 333 teen suicides between 1989 and 2001. Clearly, this should be a federal law.

I have a great deal of hope for 2016 in terms of gun safety. The president is going to be issuing an executive order on background checks next week. We'll find get to see how well open carry works in Texas...not that any facts or data will change the mind of the Gun Cult but at least the rest of America will. The NRA is raising their membership fee for the first time in 20 years which tells me that they are hurting for cash and expect a tougher than usual fight in this year's election.

And every single time there is a mass shooting, the levee continues to erode for the Gun Cult. We've given them a long leash (largely due to fear and emotions) but its clear that leash is shrinking.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Combat Vets Torpedo Good Guy With A Gun Myth

Some combat veterans recently torpedoed the good guy with a gun lie and it was fucking brilliant.

“I think there’s this fantasy world of gunplay in the movies, but it doesn’t really happen that way. When I heard gunfire [in Iraq], I didn’t immediately pick up my rifle and react. I first tried to ascertain where the shooting was coming from, where I was in relation to the gunfire and how far away it was,” said retired Army Sgt. Rafael Noboa y Rivera. “I think most untrained people are either going to freeze up, or just whip out their gun and start firing in that circumstance. I think they would absolutely panic.” 

Many combat veterans believe that civilian “good guys” taking on the “bad guys” during an active shooting isn’t as simple as it seems in movies and video games. Although more weapons owners are taking weekend-long tactical weapon training, that doesn’t instantly make a “good guy” ready for combat.

Considering that many in the Gun Cult play video games and use its lingo ("target rich environment") to strategerize how they would save people, rationality and logic are way past gone.

I think about all the gun bloggers and commenters out there and I have to wonder...would their tits get in the way when they tried to pull out their penis extension? I doubt they would even be able to walk a few steps without huffing and puffing.

Don't have to be in good shape to use a gun effectively?

Thursday, December 03, 2015

#emboldeningterrorists

Conservatives are always big on showing force to your enemies, right? Yet they want to take no action when it comes to gun violence in our own country, even if it is the "radical Islam" that they foam at the mouth about so often. Man, the terrorists must look at us and wonder, "How many of them can we slaughter before they can be arsed to do anything?"

I never thought I'd say the day when the Right was so fucking pussy on a national threat to security. They must really love those guns!!!

Why?

The shooters in San Bernadino have been identified. They are Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a husband and wife who left their 6 month old baby with grandmother before killing 14 people and wounded 17 more. Farook worked at the Inland Regional Center and was attending a holiday party there before leaving briefly and then returning with his wife. The couple was wearing body armor and had assault rifles, shooting them indiscriminately into the crowd.

At this point, authorities don't know if this was a lone wolf, ISIL type attack or a disgruntled employee. Anything I say at this point would be pure conjecture but I do know that the guns were purchased legally by someone else and then passed on to the couple.

Regardless of any the details that will come out in the future, this is yet another nauseating example of how we need to adopts gun laws similar to Australia. We have now had 355 mass shootings so far this year. We've lost another Iraq War vet in Colorado Springs where it's supposed to be "safe." The 2nd amendment no longer functions in our society.

The dystopia that is predicted by the Gun Cult is already here.

And they are responsible for it.

Monday, November 30, 2015

The NRA Visit

NRA Visits Colorado Police Evidence Room To Check Up On Rifle Used In Planned Parenthood Shooting

“It’s a little shaken up, but it should be okay—thank God,” said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, who appeared visibly distressed while kneeling down next to the assault-style rifle and gently placing his hand on the stock. “I’ve just been worried sick since I heard about the incident. It looks like it was dropped pretty hard, and it’s barely got any bullets left, but at least it’s resting safely now. I might just sleep here tonight to keep an eye on it.” LaPierre told reporters that he would do everything he could to help the rifle return home and get back working again soon.

Good Lord, do I love the Onion.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Great Words

I posted a question on Quora recently that had the distinction of being answered by world famous game designer Ernest W. Adams. His response was amazing.

The people who are claiming that you have no right to live peacefully don't seem to know what "ensure domestic tranquillity" means. It means citizens not killing each other. Of course you have a right to live peacefully; it is explicitly one of the aims of the Constitution. The Second Amendment undermines that aim by empowering people to do violence with high efficiency. 

More importantly, however, it's simply a bad idea and needs to be abolished. Owning firearms not a "natural right" (there's no such thing), it is a privilege we allow to those who are not felons. But the privilege is so consistently, violently, tragically abused by Americans, that it needs to be curtailed. The Finns and the Canadians are far more responsible with their firearms. But I don't trust an American with one.

Considering he has an average of two million views per month with over four thousand followers, his response will get widespread attention. I am most grateful.

Given the advancement in technology coupled with the fact that we manage to kill thirty thousand of our own people every year due to gun violence, we are not domestically tranquil.

Why More Guns Again?


Sunday, November 22, 2015

Good Words

Here's a recent post from Gun Ownership is a Right and A Responsibility.

The people who love their guns the most hate humanity the most, and do this nation and this world the most harm. We see it over and over and over again.... These thugs should be arrested, prosecuted and convicted of hate crimes. In fact, it's imperative that we do precisely that.

Yep. Let's start with the gun bloggers and gun blog commenters.  In fact, we should start their very own GITMO considering that they are terrorists.

Let's see if a few years in prison will chill them out:)


Saturday, November 21, 2015

What Could ISIL Do To Us That We Don't Already Do To Ourselves?





















Amen.

I actually think that the major terrorist organizations have gotten wise to this. How do you terrorize a society that murders 11,000 of it's own citizens every year? They're probably thinking about what it would take to truly terrorize Americans, and not seeing how it would be possible, short of acquiring a nuclear device. This is why I expect to see American allies hit again and again. That sort of tactic might bring more pressure to bear on American policy than simply adding to the carnage Americans are obviously so comfortable with.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Why Christians Need to Talk About Guns

Here's a great piece on how inroads might be made into the evangelical community in terms of gun safety. I was very heartened to read about Rob Schenk's conversion and the action he has taken as a result. Here's a nice bit from filmmaker Abigail Disney.

What we’re increasingly seeing is terrible fear among evangelical conservatives. I think evangelicals have always kind of seen themselves as outside the mainstream and as having less political power. There’s always been a sense among them that [someone was] coming to get them. 

And then you pour ISIS into that, and then you pour this kind of Fox news always amping up the fear, and then you have the NRA, which is also playing on that fear pretty unscrupulously. So you have people who are convinced that on any given night, someone’s going to break in and shoot them in their home, which is just statistically just as close to impossible as it gets. You’re much more likely to be hit by lightning. 

All too true. Stop being afraid.

More importantly, stop listening to the Gun Cult.




Tuesday, November 03, 2015

What Open Carry Does

Regarding the recent Colorado Springs shooting rampage...

Bettis said she recognized the gunman as her neighbor — whom she didn't know by name — and that before the initial slaying she saw him roaming outside with a rifle. She called 911 to report the man, but a dispatcher explained that Colorado has an open carry law that allows public handling of firearms.

Again...the Gun Cult is a more clear and present danger to our nation's safety than ISIL or any other terrorist organization. They must be stopped. Yesterday.

For a group that caterwauls all the time about Nazis and gun free zones being dangerous, they sure seem to be doing a great job of actually creating and supporting that type of totalitarianism.


Monday, October 26, 2015

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

A New Way to Tackle Gun Deaths

Nicholas Kristof has a great piece up about how we need to start thinking outside of the box on tackling gun deaths in this country. The stark reality of more Americans dying from gun deaths since 1970 than in all the wars we have ever fought in needs to be addressed and his ideas are sound.

The best one is engaging the CDC more to deal with this problem. They do on a whole host of other major causes of death so why not guns? If Americans were being killed at the average of 92 a day by ISIL or Al Qaeda, we would be acting immediately.

The fact that we aren't makes this problem a national disgrace.

Saturday, October 03, 2015

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap...

The man currently in charge of the Umpqua Community College shooting massacre, Douglas County, Oregon, Sheriff John Hanlin, is a proud member of the Gun Cult. CNN has a story about how Hanlin wrote a letter to Vice President Biden saying he would never comply with any gun control law coming from the Obama administration. He also posted a conspiracy video to his Facebook page about Sandy Hook in early January 2013.

Hanlin is going to be a great example of what happens when a human being experiences cognitive dissonance. He is supposed to be a leader of safety and law in his community. Now his ideology has come home to roost. Will he change?