"S**k of Massacres? Get Rid of the Guns."
May 19, 2022 07:49:33 #
"How long does it take to get over a mass shooting?
Well, for the families and friends of victims of the Buffalo supermarket disaster, where 10 people were k**led by a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle, obviously forever. But when it comes to the rest of the country, one man who ought to know says the public has already started to move on.
“That’s the pattern,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “Despite gun violence rates going through the roof, the country only pays attention when there’s a mass shooting, and then the country only pays attention for 24 to 48 hours.”
Murphy was formerly the congressman from the district where 20-year-old Adam Lanza k**led 26 people, including 20 children, with a semiautomatic rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. Murphy later moved on to the Senate, where in 2016 he staged an old-school filibuster, speaking for over 14 hours to protest the fact that his colleagues weren’t planning to do anything after the Pulse nightclub shooting that k**led 49 in Florida.
The gunman at the Pulse nightclub used a semiautomatic rifle. See a pattern here, anybody? And what do you think we should do about it?
A) Toughen background check laws
B) Limit the sale of semiautomatics to people with hunting licenses
C) Good Lord, just get rid of them
Yeah, C does simplify things, doesn’t it? After we learned that Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old suspect in the Buffalo shooting, had been able to buy an AR-15-style assault rifle with just a little more effort than it’d take to buy a burrito, inquiring minds wanted to know why.
It turns out that in many states, semiautomatic rifles are basically regarded as weapons of sport — the kind of thing you’d use to go hunting deer or target shooting.
“The industry has gone to an extreme effort to argue it’s a needed hunting gun. I think they doth protest too much,” said Ryan Busse, a former executive in the gun industry who’s now become a critic. (A memoir of his t***sformation, “Gunfight,” was published last year.)
Claiming that you need a semiautomatic rifle for hunting, Busse said, is like arguing that you need a Formula One racecar to go shopping. “There’s a lot of safer and more effective ways to get to the stores.”
Congress did indeed ban semiautomatic rifles in 1994, in a law with a 10-year expiration date. After the ban expired, the number of mass shootings increased. And Congress responded by … pretty much ignoring the matter completely. Hey, the Republicans had taken control.
Same thing now, of course. Nobody believes anything as controversial as banning semiautomatic rifles is going to get through the current Senate. Joe Biden would love to take action, but he hasn’t come up with anything more dramatic than nominating a permanent director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A permanent director would be a post-Trump triumph. But not exactly the goal we had in mind.
Guns like the infamous semiautomatic AR-15 aren’t really needed for sport. (OK, we might permit an exemption for the folks down South who need to cut back on the herds of very speedy 300-pound wild pigs.)
In Connecticut, which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, Murphy says tons of his constituents hunt and he never hears complaints about their inability to mow down deer without a rapid-fire rifle.
In some ways, the assault rifle is now a symbol on both sides. “The AR-15 to most people in the firearms industry — it’s a statement. It’s a middle finger,” said Busse, who noted that during the J*** 6 charge on the Capitol there were AR-15 “Come and Take It” f**gs waving.
And the ban-that-rifle corps has to admit that getting rid of assault rifles won’t solve the gun problem as long as people in many states are allowed to own pistols and carry them when they stroll about the town.
(We will pause here to recall that the Supreme Court is reviewing New York’s law prohibiting people from toting handguns around without a compelling reason. Any jurist who vents about the sanctity of human life during a******n cases had better examine his or her conscience before ruling in that one.)
The get-up Gendron was wearing — body armor, video equipment attached to a helmet — is becoming more common. A sign of the times, I guess. Fifteen years ago, Busse notes, the firearms industry wouldn’t have allowed gear like that to be displayed at its trade shows. “But if you go there today, the marketing campaigns are terrific,” he said, adding he’s also run into “the most frightening video games you’ve ever been in.”
We are not going to devolve into a discussion about how everything’s getting worse. Really, people, everything can’t be worse about everything. Let’s think positive, and if you want to get attention, a simple battle is the best bet.
Get rid of assault rifles. All assault rifles. Ban them. H****rs can work on becoming better shots. The gun industry can diversify — and maybe start marketing swords and medieval knight costumes at its trade shows. I know swords can do a lot of damage, but we live in an age when one victim at a time would definitely be progres."
Gail Collins
Well, for the families and friends of victims of the Buffalo supermarket disaster, where 10 people were k**led by a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle, obviously forever. But when it comes to the rest of the country, one man who ought to know says the public has already started to move on.
“That’s the pattern,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “Despite gun violence rates going through the roof, the country only pays attention when there’s a mass shooting, and then the country only pays attention for 24 to 48 hours.”
Murphy was formerly the congressman from the district where 20-year-old Adam Lanza k**led 26 people, including 20 children, with a semiautomatic rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. Murphy later moved on to the Senate, where in 2016 he staged an old-school filibuster, speaking for over 14 hours to protest the fact that his colleagues weren’t planning to do anything after the Pulse nightclub shooting that k**led 49 in Florida.
The gunman at the Pulse nightclub used a semiautomatic rifle. See a pattern here, anybody? And what do you think we should do about it?
A) Toughen background check laws
B) Limit the sale of semiautomatics to people with hunting licenses
C) Good Lord, just get rid of them
Yeah, C does simplify things, doesn’t it? After we learned that Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old suspect in the Buffalo shooting, had been able to buy an AR-15-style assault rifle with just a little more effort than it’d take to buy a burrito, inquiring minds wanted to know why.
It turns out that in many states, semiautomatic rifles are basically regarded as weapons of sport — the kind of thing you’d use to go hunting deer or target shooting.
“The industry has gone to an extreme effort to argue it’s a needed hunting gun. I think they doth protest too much,” said Ryan Busse, a former executive in the gun industry who’s now become a critic. (A memoir of his t***sformation, “Gunfight,” was published last year.)
Claiming that you need a semiautomatic rifle for hunting, Busse said, is like arguing that you need a Formula One racecar to go shopping. “There’s a lot of safer and more effective ways to get to the stores.”
Congress did indeed ban semiautomatic rifles in 1994, in a law with a 10-year expiration date. After the ban expired, the number of mass shootings increased. And Congress responded by … pretty much ignoring the matter completely. Hey, the Republicans had taken control.
Same thing now, of course. Nobody believes anything as controversial as banning semiautomatic rifles is going to get through the current Senate. Joe Biden would love to take action, but he hasn’t come up with anything more dramatic than nominating a permanent director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A permanent director would be a post-Trump triumph. But not exactly the goal we had in mind.
Guns like the infamous semiautomatic AR-15 aren’t really needed for sport. (OK, we might permit an exemption for the folks down South who need to cut back on the herds of very speedy 300-pound wild pigs.)
In Connecticut, which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, Murphy says tons of his constituents hunt and he never hears complaints about their inability to mow down deer without a rapid-fire rifle.
In some ways, the assault rifle is now a symbol on both sides. “The AR-15 to most people in the firearms industry — it’s a statement. It’s a middle finger,” said Busse, who noted that during the J*** 6 charge on the Capitol there were AR-15 “Come and Take It” f**gs waving.
And the ban-that-rifle corps has to admit that getting rid of assault rifles won’t solve the gun problem as long as people in many states are allowed to own pistols and carry them when they stroll about the town.
(We will pause here to recall that the Supreme Court is reviewing New York’s law prohibiting people from toting handguns around without a compelling reason. Any jurist who vents about the sanctity of human life during a******n cases had better examine his or her conscience before ruling in that one.)
The get-up Gendron was wearing — body armor, video equipment attached to a helmet — is becoming more common. A sign of the times, I guess. Fifteen years ago, Busse notes, the firearms industry wouldn’t have allowed gear like that to be displayed at its trade shows. “But if you go there today, the marketing campaigns are terrific,” he said, adding he’s also run into “the most frightening video games you’ve ever been in.”
We are not going to devolve into a discussion about how everything’s getting worse. Really, people, everything can’t be worse about everything. Let’s think positive, and if you want to get attention, a simple battle is the best bet.
Get rid of assault rifles. All assault rifles. Ban them. H****rs can work on becoming better shots. The gun industry can diversify — and maybe start marketing swords and medieval knight costumes at its trade shows. I know swords can do a lot of damage, but we live in an age when one victim at a time would definitely be progres."
Gail Collins
May 19, 2022 08:25:00 #
Gail Collins couldn't find her arse with both hands and a sheriff's posse, and add to that, she's a total moron.
Semiautomatic rifles have been around since the early part of the 20th Century, and have been made by the likes of Winchester, Browning, and Remington. And it's no one's business, especially the Federal Government, what rifles people may want or need for sporting or self-defense purposes.
The writer bandies the word "assault rifle" with no concept of the term. It doesn't exist in the military, and is a figment of the anti-Second Amendment crowd. "AR" as in AR-15, stands for "Armalite Rifle".
The system flat-out failed in the case of the Buffalo murderer. The police, doctors, school system, fellow conversationalists on the "web", failed to address his behavioral problems. He passed the mandatory background check because the various police agencies failed to f**g his record.
And the murderer in Sandy Hook, murdered his mother, broke into the family firearms safe, and went on his murder spree.
Semiautomatic rifles have been around since the early part of the 20th Century, and have been made by the likes of Winchester, Browning, and Remington. And it's no one's business, especially the Federal Government, what rifles people may want or need for sporting or self-defense purposes.
The writer bandies the word "assault rifle" with no concept of the term. It doesn't exist in the military, and is a figment of the anti-Second Amendment crowd. "AR" as in AR-15, stands for "Armalite Rifle".
The system flat-out failed in the case of the Buffalo murderer. The police, doctors, school system, fellow conversationalists on the "web", failed to address his behavioral problems. He passed the mandatory background check because the various police agencies failed to f**g his record.
And the murderer in Sandy Hook, murdered his mother, broke into the family firearms safe, and went on his murder spree.
May 19, 2022 08:30:03 #
As usual, let's blame the weapon. As usual, let's get rid of them. The big question is how.
Now a trivial note, perhaps not so trivial. Let's quit calling rifles that aren't assault weapons, assault weapons. An AR-15 is not an assault weapon. It's a semi-automatic rifle.
Also, let's focus on the nut jobs that perpetrate these acts. That's the source of the issue.
--Bob
Now a trivial note, perhaps not so trivial. Let's quit calling rifles that aren't assault weapons, assault weapons. An AR-15 is not an assault weapon. It's a semi-automatic rifle.
Also, let's focus on the nut jobs that perpetrate these acts. That's the source of the issue.
--Bob
Kmgw9v wrote:
"How long does it take to get over a mass sho... (show quote)
May 19, 2022 08:42:45 #
Kmgw9v wrote:
"How long does it take to get over a mass sho... (show quote)
As soon as you get rid of all the violent criminals then you can start talking to us about gun measures.
May 19, 2022 08:53:11 #
rmalarz wrote:
As usual, let's blame the weapon. As usual, let's get rid of them. The big question is how.
Now a trivial note, perhaps not so trivial. Let's quit calling rifles that aren't assault weapons, assault weapons. An AR-15 is not an assault weapon. It's a semi-automatic rifle.
Also, let's focus on the nut jobs that perpetrate these acts. That's the source of the issue.
--Bob
Now a trivial note, perhaps not so trivial. Let's quit calling rifles that aren't assault weapons, assault weapons. An AR-15 is not an assault weapon. It's a semi-automatic rifle.
Also, let's focus on the nut jobs that perpetrate these acts. That's the source of the issue.
--Bob
👍👍👍
May 19, 2022 08:54:28 #
Blurryeyed wrote:
As soon as you get rid of all the violent criminals then you can start talking to us about gun measures.
I'd prefer they go hide on a corner and never talk about anything gun related.
May 19, 2022 08:56:07 #
Blurryeyed wrote:
As soon as you get rid of all the violent criminals then you can start talking to us about gun measures.
No doubt then, nothing will change,
May 19, 2022 09:06:31 #
Kmgw9v wrote:
No doubt then, nothing will change,
People are not going to give up their guns. The shooter in Buffalo specifically used an AR-15 styled gun so that strong measures for gun control would follow. It was his belief that gun owners will be pushed into his fight.
May 19, 2022 09:15:06 #
Blurryeyed wrote:
As soon as you get rid of all the violent criminals then you can start talking to us about gun measures.
Ok, how do we get rid of violent criminals? K**l them all? Lock all them up? If you want to lock all them up, you will have to raise taxes to pay for keeping them lock up. K**l them all how are we going to do that? Put them in hole in the ground and shoot them? You tell me.
May 19, 2022 09:47:54 #
Blurryeyed wrote:
As soon as you get rid of all the violent criminals then you can start talking to us about gun measures.
The Buffalo shooter was not a "violent criminal" until he became one in a very big way. In our society we have the right to buy powerful weapons, and can load them and legally go almost wherever we want with them and we do not break the law until we raise them up and put our finger on the trigger... There is NO mechanism to prevent people who MAY become violent criminals from acting out their fantasies. We cannot get into the minds of people. I have had patients who should not have access to weapons (one with severe anger issues who owned 23 weapons, who when asked how he was doing, at one point answered: "I haven't k**led anyone yet") - and yet there is no place for me to report him and have his weapons seized and him forced into treatment, all because he MIGHT do something. And yet, if he becomes a mass murderer, everyone will ask: "How did it happen" and "why didn't we know"?
So either we start violating the rights of individuals to live without oppressive restrictions, or we start considering reasonable restrictions on weapons. And I say this as a gun "enthusiast". I enjoy going to the range and firing my pistols or my AR. I am happy having a loaded weapon available in my home in case I need it. But some proposals would NOT impair my enjoyment or my ability to have my weapons for self defense or defense of the home. I do not need an 18-round magazine in my pistols. I do not need a 30-round magazine for my AR. California proposed a latching mechanism for semi-automatic weapons and magazine size restrictions that would require 3 seconds to change a magazine. For private citizens this should not be a problem. A few years ago one company marketed a "smart pistol". Using RFD technology, it would only fire if the owner was holding it. The owner of the New Jersey gun shop that was going to be the first place to sell it had so many death threats that he cancelled his plans to sell it - potential owners were not to be even allowed the personal choice to own this safer weapon because of the violent outrage of the pro-gun folks.
So there are ways to make things safer, but the fear that this would be a creeping way of taking away our second amendment rights makes us incapable of making rational reforms of any sort... So we pay with the lives of innocent men, women, and children.
May 19, 2022 09:51:37 #
Bill 45 wrote:
Ok, how do we get rid of violent criminals? K**l them all? Lock all them up? If you want to lock all them up, you will have to raise taxes to pay for keeping them lock up. K**l them all how are we going to do that? Put them in hole in the ground and shoot them? You tell me.
There are three main issues with decreasing gun violence:
1) prevalence of guns.
2) appetite for meaningful regulations
3) time to see effects of efforts
Clearly, liberals see these three measures differently than conservatives as they want to limit illegal guns, have some controls and a short time period to see results. Conservatives want wide open gun ownership, no regulations and a long implementation schedule. Outraged citizens will have to compel any changes to status quo. "getting rid of all violent criminals" is a response in keeping with the conservatives' long time implementation schedule.
May 19, 2022 10:42:44 #
Triple G wrote:
There are three main issues with decreasing gun vi... (show quote)
To be blunt, Warren Burger, along with others of his ilk, was/are full of crap. The 2nd Amendment is an individual right, just like the rest of the Bill of Rights. Berger was a Statist. At the adoption of the Constitution, the term "m*****a" was defined as individuals, not some later definition of "National Guard". And his thoughts are moot. The Supreme Court, in two decisions, has ruled that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right.
The "prevalence of guns", does not equate to gun crimes. Crimes are an individual event. Guns are inanimate, therefore not capable of independent action. If guns were the problem, the population of the country, in total, would be in dire straits, since the number of guns is greater than the U.S. population.
The problem is enforcement of the law, nothing more.
May 19, 2022 11:14:15 #
Triple G wrote:
There are three main issues with decreasing gun vi... (show quote)
Hey Trip, Warren is wrong, all you have to do is research the founders statements relating to the second amendment as well as other writings and state constitutions of the period. Personally I am not a gun owner, but all the same, until guns are taken away from criminals I certainly don't want to see any prohibitions placed upon law abiding citizens.
May 19, 2022 11:28:51 #
pendennis wrote:
To be blunt, Warren Burger, along with others of h... (show quote)
There would be less massacres, les suicides, less gang shootings, less accidental family tragedies, less alcohol fueled senseless deaths; if guns were less accessible
May 19, 2022 11:29:33 #
pendennis wrote:
To be blunt, Warren Burger, along with others of h... (show quote)
Whether correlation or causation, increased prevalence equates to higher violent crimes and deaths.
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/firearm-prevalence-violent-crime.html
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