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

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Ah, That Explains It

With the standoff down in rural Alabama entering its second day, we now know a little more about the suspect who shot a school bus driver and took a kid hostage. His name is Jimmie Lee Dykes, age 65.

Neighbors describe Dykes as being "anti-government" and said he was "a long time concern" in the community, WSFA.com reported. Court records show he was due in court Wednesday morning to face menacing charges, according to the station. 

Gee, I'm shocked. I wonder if he was a regular reader of Kevin Baker's site. Of course, this is a great example of the study that I put up from the other day as to the danger that this type of person, whether acting alone or with others, presents to the public. Where are the left wing radicals that shoot bus drivers and take kids hostages?

And this is yet another example of why the current system we have regarding guns needs to be refined.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Working Out Just Fine

Let's see...

Grades too low, so St. Paul dad pulls AK-47, charges say

Authorities: NM teen accused of killing family put rifles in van, planned Wal-Mart shootout

Gunman in Ala. bus shooting holds boy hostage in bunker

And breaking just a few hours ago...

3 shot at Phoenix office building

And these are just highlights of the last week.

Yes, I see it now. Our gun laws are sufficient and seem to be working out just fine. In fact, we need less regulation and more guns in light of these events. That'll solve the problem, George Orwell.

What was I thinking?

The Clock is Ticking

On Monday, the president met with law enforcement officials from the five communities where there have been mass shootings. One of those communities was mine where seven people died in a workplace shooting at Accent Signage, in Minneapolis, last September.

The man seated to the right of the president in this photo  is Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek. Sheriff Stanek was elected sheriff in 2006 and again in 2010. I voted for him both times as he is a fantastic example of a leader who recognizes that thinking outside of the box is vital in pursuing solutions to the very serious problems our communities face today.

Oh, and Rich Stanek is a Republican.

Sheriff Stanek's point to the president was this. "Gun control alone will not solve the complex problem of guns and extreme violence. We have an access problem. Individuals with severe mental illness should never have access to guns.

This is from his piece in the Star and Tribune a two weeks ago.

Federal law already prohibits high-risk individuals from buying guns -- persons determined by a court to be "mentally ill and dangerous," felons, drug addicts, fugitives, illegal aliens, dishonorably discharged soldiers, those who have renounced U.S. citizenship, and domestic abusers all are disqualified from gun ownership. 

The National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) assists law enforcement in identifying the disqualified. Trouble is, the system is woefully underdeveloped. A majority of relevant records have never been included in NICS; millions of names are missing from the federal database.

Since then, Congress passed the NICS Improvement Amendments Act to improve development and management of the NICS Index. But state participation still is voluntary, and only 12 states actively have engaged in an effort to submit mental-illness records.

Step One: Make state participation mandatory. This would have broad bipartisan support and have an immediate impact on gun violence. But how much of an impact and is it enough?

But even if we updated the NICS Index with every relevant record (and we should make every effort to do so), it still would not be enough. For a mentally ill person to become disqualified for gun ownership, there must first have been an act of violence, or an arrest leading to the extreme measure of a court hearing and decision. In my view, this is far too late to provide meaningful care and treatment to those in need. 

Multiple studies show a strong link between untreated mental illness and an increased risk of committing violent acts (when properly treated, even the severely mentally ill pose no greater threat than do those in the general population). The parents of Andrew Engeldinger, the suspected killer at Accent Signage in Minneapolis last summer, said they tried to push their son to seek treatment for paranoia and delusions, but he was an adult and refused help.

This is the crux of the problem. If someone is an adult, we can't force them to seek care. As Stanek goes on to explain, we have an epidemic of mental illness in this country that has reached biblical proportions. Other countries have plenty of guns but they don't go around shooting each other at the rates that we do. Why?

It's not enough to say, "Well, it's our culture." Other countries have access to the same films and video games that we do. It's more than that and once you get into the details, the central cause that emerges is mental health.

We need a real strategy to address this unmet need for forensic psychiatric care and to prevent those with untreated mental illness from committing acts of violence. This must become a public-safety priority as well as a public-health priority.

More than anything, we must encourage individuals facing mental-health issues to seek treatment. We must "make it OK" for our family, friends and colleagues to seek treatment.

Exactly. And this would be why I will support Rich Stanek as long as he continues to run for office. We need more Rich Staneks around the country to embrace this mentality.

Yesterday.

Monday, January 28, 2013


Saturday, January 26, 2013

Bubble Translated!

Let's put the following headline

President Obama pushes to fill ATF's top spot

through The Bubble Translator, shall we?

(processing....processing...processing)

Ah, yes...here it is...

Ex-Ghetto Organizer, Current Negro Named Head of Federal Gun Grabbing Department

Big Babies

To give you an idea just how childish the Right are these days, take a look at these numbers.

Gallup

And these numbers...

Washington Post

And now, take a look at this...

Washington Post 2

So, they support all the policies that President Obama has presented but if his name is attached to it, then they hate them. Yep, that's just about right.

And they wonder why the American people voted to keep the adults in charge...

Friday, January 25, 2013


Thursday, January 24, 2013

Bill Nails It

Interesting...many of my libertarian friends have made this exact point...

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Compare and Contrast

I find the different reactions to tragedies like Columbine and Sandy Hook to be fascinating and, well, quite revealing. On the one hand we have the Sandy Hook Promise which talks of supporting families and making communities safer through education. We also have Rachel's Challenge which took the writings of the first victim of Columbine and turned them into a nation wide movement based on love and hope.

On the other hand, we have this:

Men armed with rifles walk through Portland to 'educate'

and this:




The guy in the photo above went into a JC Penny's with his gun to go shopping and prove a point, I guess.

I imagine the world that the people behind the Sandy Hook Promise and Rachel's Challenge are trying to live in. Then I imagine the world that the ass hats in Portland and Riverdale want to live in. It seems pretty clear to me which one is the better choice.

That would be the one that does not look like the NBC television show Revolution. 

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Rather than carry around their guns on a chest thumping parade, they should be...you know...out maybe helping people?

I think about how this culture created a person like Eric Harris, who walked up to Rachel Scott as she was eating her lunch outside Columbine, and shot her multiple times in the head, toros, arm, and legs and then I take in all the ugliness from the gun community, the idiots above being prime examples, that we've seen in the last few weeks since Sandy Hook (some of it here in comments) and I'm led to an inescapable conclusion.

They created  this problem and they should never EVER be put in charge of anything.






































Yes. Yes it is what they are saying.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Making Our Case For Us

Remember this photo?






















Every American does.

It was a moment when we all stood together and began to heal. Everyone rallied behind the president who promised that the people responsible for the attack would be hearing from us soon.

Can you even imagine anyone accusing the president here of being a disgusting human being for using the firefighters as props in an obvious PR campaign?

Yet with this...












...some in the country did just that. A few of my Facebook friends said truly ugly things that left me speechless. It's enormously sad that these same people can't see that both photos are the result of the same type of violence...devastating...senseless...profoundly horrible. More importantly, both photos represent the best in America in the face of brutality and hatred.

Yet because the latter has to do with guns, it's pile on time and fuck you, Mr. President. I wonder how long it will be before these kids start to get harassed by the Right. It's happened before. I agree with what Nikto wrote yesterday. There's something really sick about these people. That's why I have no filters on their comments here.

Their words make our case for us.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

The Numbers

Let's take a look at some numbers today. There's been a lot of shrilling from the gun folks about how Americans overwhelmingly support their point of view. That's not true.

A Pew Poll shows the following:







































A recent poll from Washington Post-ABC shows similar numbers. 

So, what should we take away from this? Well, the first thing is obvious. The majority of Americans back the president. Specifically, an overwhelming amount support background checks for private and gun show sales. An overwhelming amount back the prevention of people with mental illness from purchasing guns. Two thirds support a federal database to track gun sales. Over 50 percent back bans on high ammo clips and assault weapons. That's much higher than I thought it would be. It seems clear to me that the background checks, the mental illness exception, and the database are all going to happen. It's simply going to be a matter of time.

But a key question remains as we go forward. Right now, the NRA has just under 5 million members. There are roughly 300 million people in this country. Are we going to let 1.75 percent of the population dictate how  we are going to live in this country with guns? What a load of bullshit. I get shit constantly for the 50.1 percent that supposedly rule our country but 1.75 fucking percent? Are you KIDDING me?

The gun folks like scream long and heard about dictatorships and autocratic rule. Perhaps it's because they hate in others what they fear in themselves. The 2nd amendment doesn't trump every other right. The Constitution also guarantees the right to private property and charges the state with the task of protecting that private property with force, if necessary. If the 2nd amendment is, indeed, unlimited, the government can't protect private property anymore and we have anarchy. Don't I have the right to peaceably assemble or do I have to have a gun now? Don't I have the right to go to church (another place where there have been shootings) and freely worship?

According to the gun people, I don't.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Reason-able?

An ex-student recently sent me two links from Reason.com which I found interesting. It bears mentioning that I've always had at least a third of the classes I teach be comprised of libertarians. These aren't like the conservatives that post here. In fact, they are mostly like one of my star commenters, juris imprudent.

They don't give a crap about gay people, abortions or any other social issue. They think our military budget should be slashed dramatically along with everything else in the federal budget. They think the United States should not have foreign troops stationed anywhere in the world. This last one has caused many an intense debate in class and usually marks the one time when I get the most opinionated, citing example after example of why it is necessary, at times, to have an American military presence in parts of the world. One such student asked me if if I though he was being naive. Since I don't lie to kids, I said yes. He's the one that now works for the Cato Institute, btw:)

Anyway, another ex-student sent this article to me regarding Jon Stewart's recent piece (which I posted here) on the gun debate and this article from last December on the NRA's massively tone deaf presser. I found both to have some very interesting tidbits. Let's take the last one first as that was the first to be released. First we have the title...

NRA Fights Anti-Gun Hysteria With Pro-Gun Hysteria

No shit. That's really what's going on, isn't it....pro gun hysteria.Reason's analysis of their statement?

Not exactly the voice of calm reason. LaPierre evidently wants people to panic, as long as they stampede in the direction he prefers.

Which would be right out to buy more guns...just like they did. And they like to throw out words like "sheep" and "useful idiots"...

The article then takes an interesting tack...citing how rare these mass shootings are so why is he encouraging people to go out and buy guns? Oh yes, the federal government.

After a very funny comment about LaPierre (" but it is drowned in the flood of foam flying off LaPierre's lips"), the article concludes with this...

Last night I suggested that Piers Morgan's televised faceoff with Larry Pratt "pretty accurately reflects the general tenor of the current gun control debate, with raw emotionalism and invective pitted against skepticism and an attempt at rational argument." The NRA and Wayne LaPierre seem determined to prove me wrong.

It's nice to see an admission of error from the Right.

The other article expands on this amazement at the irrational behavior by the gun people.

So, should we be pursuing new, "common-sense" restrictions on the buying, selling, owning, and operating of guns? I am not a gun person - I've gone shooting exactly twice in my life and didn't enjoy either experience - and I find many of the arguments of gun-rights advocates unconvincing or uninteresting. The notion that a rag-tag band of regular folks armed with semi-automatic weapons and the odd shotgun are a serious hedge against tyranny strikes me as a stretch (and I even saw the remake of Red Dawn!). Hitler and the Nazis didn't take away everyone's guns, as is commonly argued. They expanded gun rights for many groups (though not the Jews). When the whole mutha starts to come down, if the choice is between Jesse Ventura or Janet Napolitano, I'm not sure where to turn.

This is an excellent summation of the libertarian youth of today and how they think. It's a very astute statement that relies on facts and has criticism in it that is highly justified. Who are the real leaders here and why should any young person follow them?

My only criticism of the article comes at the end.

Once you strip away the raw emotionalism of the carnage at Sandy Hook, or the Aurora theater, or Columbine, or Luby's, or whatever, you're left with a series of inconvenient truths for gun-control advocates: Over the past 20 years or so, more guns are in circulation and violent crime is down. So is violent crime that uses guns. Murders are down, too, even as video games and movies and music and everything else are filled with more fantasy violence than ever. For god's sake, even mass shootings are not becoming more common. If ever there was a case to stand pat in terms of public policy, the state of gun control provides it (and that's without even delving into the fact that Supreme Court has recently validated a personal right to own guns in two landmark cases).

This is one of the problems with the youth of today. They lack empathy. We can't "stand pat" after Sandy Hook. I think it's fantastic that the numbers are going down but that doesn't mean we should ignore the qualitative analysis of these crimes. And, even one death, as the president said yesterday, means we're not doing something right. Further, those same landmark cases also said that the 2nd amendment is not unlimited. That means there is room for new policy.

But I take a great deal of heart in these points of view because they have kernels of rational thinking in them. At least that's a start.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

What They Need To Understand

Check out the reaction from Joe Scarborough and the rest of the commentators in this clip. It's a perfect summation of how far out there the "in the bubble" folks are today . Sick, indeed, Mika...but will they understand and come to terms with their behavior?

 

Who These People Are

Close your eyes for a moment.

Think about what those classrooms at Sandy Hook looked like after Adam Lanza went through them.

Spend some time trying to fill in the details.

Now, listen to this:



This is the mentality level we are dealing with today. I'm completely at a loss at the monumental disconnect from simple human decency here. If you think that this is just an outlier, I had a few of my Facebook friends make similar comments. But it gets worse.

Remember Gene Rosen? Several of the Sandy Hook kids showed up on his doorstep as the shooting was going on. They told him that their teacher was dead. He took them in and comforted them to wait for help to arrive. Guess what he gets now?

Gene's oft repeated, and changing, story about that day, focuses totally on the kids and the sound of gunshots. Even though his eyes and ears should've taken in the whole scene, his story focuses completely on the kids and the guns. Why? Well, if this was a false flag event designed to move political opinion on gun control, here in America, then you would get a lot more bang for your buck by talking about the innocent little children. That's what tugs on America's heart strings the most ... especially around Christmas time.

The above comment is one of many harassing emails and posts accusing Rosen of not only being a gun grabber but also being a part of the secret, liberal plot behind Sandy Hook to take away our guns.

Put both of these together with the latest from the NRA...



...and what do you get?

A bunch of fucking scumbags who need to be stopped.

These people have no compassion, only paranoia. No honor, only cowardice. No courage, only fear. No love, only hate. That's why they are called the American Taliban.

More importantly, that's why I have been urging the various groups who have courageously taken up the mantle to solve this problem to break out the big fucking dick and start swinging. If they think this is bad, wait until the voting in Congress starts.

As I said yesterday, it's time to get serious, folks. Because they sure as hell are.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Who Will Take The Promise?

Later this morning, President Obama will deliver his plans on gun violence. I'll be putting up a post this afternoon on what was said. In the meantime, I've got something on my mind regarding the subject of guns.

The relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook domestic terrorist attack have spent the last several weeks grieving and trying to figure out what to do with the massive hole in their life.

This is an excellent start. But that's all it is...a start.

I look at the questions on this list and then I think about the gun lobby and their supporters. The inevitable and quickly realized conclusion is that these questions will be received in a manner similar to Alex Jones' mouth foam on Piers Morgan last week. When I think of this likely reaction and then think about the people running out to buy the same gun that killed all those children, it's clear that more is going to have to be done.

The people that are running the Sandy Hook Promise and other organizations like it need to understand that the gun lobby are a bunch of greedy fucking scumbags. And the only way to deal with greedy fucking scumbags is hit them where it hurts: their money. In fact, the people trying to do something about the FUBAR that are our nation's gun laws already start with an advantage: they don't give a shit about money. Their end goal is protection and safety, not profit. They are motivated by the love of other people who they never EVER want to see go through what they are going through now.

So, we have to start with the dissemination of a simple fact. Groups like the NRA and other gun rights groups don't give a shit about "freedom from tyranny." That's the line they feed to sate the paranoids (and man, do they lap it up). They want to sell guns and they play hardball to make sure they are going to get to keep doing it. They've already made millions off of the bullet ridden bodies of 6 and 7 year olds and they want the gravy train to keep running smoothly. So, hardball statements like this need to be repeated over an over again.

They make money off of dead children, black presidents, fear, and paranoia. 

If they don't like hearing this, they can fuck right off. They are the ones that set the tone for this debate so they deserve to get it back tenfold.

Now, many on the left make the error of thinking the next step means bans on guns or high capacity magazines. This is a giant mistake and plays right into their hands....feeding their paranoid delusions and pathological hatred of government. Instead, what they need to do (in addition to the things I listed recently) is start showing photos of dead children who have been murdered with military grade weapons. Go on talk shows, the news, the internet...wherever...and show what a dystopic present looks like. People don't really know how bad it is and they need something visual to truly understand how awful these weapons are and what they can do. The problem with most American is that they are shielded from the realities of the world due to "good taste." Well, the gun lobby doesn't have good taste so it's time to take that advantage away. This is a street fight, not the debate club.

Some of the victims families may balk at this or even think I'm way out of line. Obviously, this is something they really need to think through. Do they really want to win this? If so, it's time to break the cocoon of good manners and let reality smack people upside the head. With a cocoon in place, the gun folks are able to create an imaginary villain on which they can project a paranoid fear. What the public needs to see is the results of the actual problem and that's going to require some tough stuff.

If some brave family decides to do this, an image will be in our minds that will never go away. None of us can forget the sight of the planes hitting the towers or the people jumping from the World Trade Center's top floors. We weren't coddled then and, since this is really is domestic terrorism, we shouldn't be coddled now.  Put up one photo and start running ads and this shit is over and done with in a fucking week. Publish a list of all the Congressional representatives that support Joe Shitkicker being able to have his own private arsenal "just in case" we become monarchy again. Play the video of Alex Jones right next to the photo. Put up quotes from gun blogs along with it as well.

In terms of gun deaths, we certainly have plenty of examples to make great visuals don't we? We will likely have more as this process plays out. Let's show people just exactly what the fuck happens when someone gets shot with a Bushmaster and other weapons like it. People need to be so sickened by what military grade guns can do that they won't want to buy them anymore. Demand will fall off, companies that make money selling weapons that ordinary people shouldn't own...of off fear and dead bodies...will change their business model or go bust, and the free market will sort it all out. Unless they are trained and regularly checked out, make the people that own these weapons about as socially acceptable as child molesters.

If they families of the Sandy Hook victims or any other past shooting spree truly want something done, this is where they have to go. I liken it to the highly graphic drunk driving videos produced by MADD. It has to be that in your face and it absolutely has to be from a private, non governmental source. Having the government put this stuff out will only feed that imaginary demon the gun lobby and their supporters have created. Let's give America something real to be afraid of for a change.

That's the promise I want to see people make.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

As Always, Reality Fails Them

I've been holding my tongue and keyboard on the whole "Hitler took away people's guns" hysteria to see if people would realize that it is, in fact, pure fiction. Guess what? They just did.

Unfortunately for LaPierre et al., the notion that Hitler confiscated everyone’s guns is mostly bogus.

The 1938 law signed by Hitler that LaPierre mentions in his book basically does the opposite of what he says it did. “The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition,” Harcourt wrote. Meanwhile, many more categories of people, including Nazi party members, were exempted from gun ownership regulations altogether, while the legal age of purchase was lowered from 20 to 18, and permit lengths were extended from one year to three years.

This would be a great example of why I don't really want to waste much of my time anymore having discussions with people who make up their own history.

Oh, and Stalin?

“As for Stalin,” Bartov continued, “the very idea of either gun control or the freedom to bear arms would have been absurd to him. His regime used violence on a vast scale, provided arms to thugs of all descriptions, and stripped not guns but any human image from those it declared to be its enemies. And then, when it needed them, as in WWII, it took millions of men out of the Gulags, trained and armed them and sent them to fight Hitler, only to send back the few survivors into the camps if they uttered any criticism of the regime.”

So, when that crazy uncle of yours at the next dinner starts pulling the conversation into the Land of Moonbat, kindly remind everyone of what actually happened.

And suggest that someone take your uncle to see a mental health professional.