That nothing you post about me is remotely the case, including that last set of random pejoratives. Defensive? Panic? Irrational? Please. That this is you behaving badly - very badly. And that my central thesis throughout - that this one issue, alone in the US political swim, is jammed by irrational extremists on both sides - is illustrated, not contradicted, by this endless spittlelaunching from you. I got nothin'. The spittleflingers have, in my opinion, completely wrecked the machinery of legislation and sound governance in this matter, and only time will allow repair. We can maybe get some reasonable background checks through, some backlash against open carry threats should allow a gain here and there, but not much else. The realistic prospects of beneficial changes are not worth the career of a single good candidate for any office in the country. Just my opinion. Fortunately, big improvements in gun violence rates in the US are available in several ways not as yet pre-trashed. Drug war laws, mass incarceration of black men, militarization of the police, and some sensible improvements in mental health care and the formal handling of domestic abuse, are all on the table. They would not require extraordinary leadership, they have wide popular support, and they are likely to work imho. So that's my suggestion for the near term. But I am. I'm for almost all that stuff. No, I didn't. It's slow and dangerous and unnecessary, but it would eventually work. Nowhere near. The Swiss guns were mercenaries and pastoralists, agents of civilization and authority. Can you imagine a Swiss legend like Shotgun Slade , or a psychotic like Billy the Kid becoming a romantic hero in Switzerland? The fine machinery makers of Switzerland could have invented the peasant rifle or the revolver at any time in the 1600s - but there was no demand, in Swiss society. The US, now - there was. That's not their fault - I blame the high schools. The Constitution is a written document. You have to be able to read, to read it. Yes this is a problem - especially for the gun control advocates here, apparently - but not insurmountable: one places people educated in the liberal arts in positions of legislative and judicial power.
iceaura: This article was just published in the Guardian: Oregon shooting: Eight ideas to help stop gun violence Briefly, the ideas in the article are: Details are in the article. I am wondering which of these measures you would support, if any. (I'm also interested what other pro-gun people here think.) I wasn't aware before this that there is a congressional ban (introduced in 1996) that prevents federal money being directed into researching gun control (because such research might end up "promoting or advocating" gun control. As a first sensible step, surely removing this ban is a no brainer, don't you think?
Really? Are you serious? This a side of you I am moderately surprised at, though I have seen you lose it in a similar way in previous gun control discussions. Questions: 1. Do you think the "war on drugs" is effective? 2. Re the mass incarceration of black men: (a) I never picked you for a racist previously; are you serious? and (b) you already have that in the United States. You already have 2% of your total population in prison. What percentage do you think would be appropriate? 3. What exactly do you mean by "militarization" of the police? What do you have in mind? (4. I have no argument with improving mental health care and the treatment of domestic abuse.)
Mass incarceration of black men? Is that before or after we become a fascist white supremacist police state?
You are very defensive about this issue. I would like you to take a deep breath and re-read what you quoted. I said, clearly, that you view anyone saying anything about gun control as being panic driven and irrational and you have done so repeatedly in this thread. I was not calling you panic driven or irrational. You, on the other hand, have made several such comments about me in particular. And then you accuse me of behaving "very badly". And you have come full circle in this debate, from name calling me personally, to refusing to acknowledge any form of gun control measure that has worked in the past elsewhere, to a chest thumping display about how easily and quickly you can get a local militia group together, to now making comments about how gun violence can be improved with mass incarceration of black men. So you have nothing and you will just piss down on anyone who dares suggest what has worked in the past. Because.. AMERICA. Your suggestion is to continue with a 'war on drugs' policy that many liken as cruel and unusual punishment that has resulted in many African Americans being jailed unjustly because they are so often the target and that does not address the issue of drug use to begin with. Not only that, you suggest that blacks should be incarcerated on mass and the police further militarised - because that has gone so well already. Are you aware that you are coming across like a flaming racist bigot at the moment? Do you honestly believe that mass incarcerating blacks is a solution to gun violence? Unbelievable. You are the absolute last person I would have ever imagined sinking so low as to make such an argument. And "sensible improvements" in mental health care and formal handling of domestic violence? I think that system requires a complete overhaul. Your whining when this was brought up earlier in the thread kind of says that you are not. So which is it? Umm, yes you did. Ah, so it's everyone else that is wrong in reading the word at its actual meaning and for assuming that since local militia were organised groups in America's history, that this same regular meaning would apply... I see.. Yes. And a literal meaning of its words using the english language sees militia as being a local organised group. But hey, apparently the english language is wrong and we have to read the words and go beyond and simply apply it to individuals. Thank you Rush Limbaugh. This is true. The Swiss tend to be firmly grounded in reality. Presumably after. He appears to believe that this will solve the gun violence problem. So militarised police and mass incarceration of "blacks" is the way to achieve that. Not to mention cracking down even more with a war on drugs that has targeted blacks anyway. So it's a lose/lose situation by his reckoning for a solution, if you are black that is. You will either be shot by the militarised police or simply jailed. If we are to take his words at face value that is.
Almost all of them. As would almost all Americans, including most NRA members. You can probably find most of them recommended by me in earlier posts here and elsewhere on this forum - such as my mentioning of domestic abuse handling improvements as a way to reduce gun violence in the post immediately above. And I fully expect to be asked again, over and over, with the same condescending tone, whether I support a few of them in the future as well, regardless of how many times I post declarative sentences of support for them right in front of your face. You mean you've lost all comprehension of my posts before? Yeah, you have. You guys have a serious thinking disorder in this matter. It's not simply an inability to read, it's deeper. Steinbeck, in one of his novels - Cannery Row? not sure - writes an elderly Chinese man living as a family housekeeper for a white landowner in California, who always speaks in stereotypical broken English to whites. The landowner knows him to be a scholar and gentleman, and in one scene asks him why in all the years he never learned better English; the man pauses, and then in perfect upper class college educated vernacular English replies that when he speaks good English white people don't understand what he says - they can't hear it, from a Chinaman. He illustrates the phenomenon later in the book. I thought that to be an improbable invention of Steinbeck's, but after posting on these forums here I'm beginning to think he drew that example from life. You guys have a truly remarkable, almost hallucinatory, ability to read nothing but what you for whatever reason expect to read in my posts: nothing else registers as sense to you. Seems to be before, one would assume, looking around. Look, guys, think a sec: why was I posting there? What's my argument? I was posting about avenues of action, issues that could be addressed by those wishing to reduce gun violence in the US that have not been pretrashed by this garbage fight between extremist camps on - uniquely - both sides of the gun control issue. First a little paragraph observing the gun control issue is ruined, then an intro sentence on how there is hope, there are issues that have not been pretrashed by the loonies and offer opportunity for reason and cooperation and negotiation and coherent action widely supported by Americans, that also bid fair to enable significant gains in gun violence reduction. Then I listed a few. It's not a subtle point. I was asked for suggestions on reducing gun violence in the US, and my suggestion was to abandon gun control for a while and focus on these other areas where there is hope of significant progress. Do you have an argument against that? Do you object to some of the issues I claim can be addressed in ways that would reduce gun violence in the US significantly - you think addressing them properly wouldn't work to reduce gun violence? And I said, clearly, that nothing you have said about me - which would include describing my views, eh? - is anything but various kinds of slander and bs and bad behavior and so forth. You are completely full of shit in every single post you have addressed to me here. Like this: "Your whining when this was brought up earlier in the thread kind of says that you are not." No integrity at all - just vile. It's not everyone else. It's just you and the lunatic fringe of flailers, who want to deny the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment. Experience recommends repetition: A militia is not a standing force of any kind, regularly training, or even organized in advance. It can be, but that's not usual. Militias in American history have normally been raised at need, trained at need, etc, from the general population of a community facing a specific threat. Until the need arises, they are just folks - in some early American communities the militia was formally defined as the entire grown male population, all of whom were expected to keep a firearm in good working order so they could be called up on short notice, none of whom were expected to take time off from hard lives to "train".
Which involves increasing the effort on the 'war on drugs' which targets predominantly blacks, militarising the police, who also tend to target blacks and mass incarceration of blacks.. Those were your suggestions, were they not? Just so we are clear. Dig that little hole a bit deeper and blame everyone else for it.. Honestly, you are the absolute last person I would have expected to come out with an argument like that. I'd have expected it from someone like Baron Max. From you though? I never would have expected it.
No integrity, completely vile. Not that it will do any good with you guys and your hallucinations, but still: This was the firecracker in the chicken coop: Anyone want to, y'know, have an actual discussion? btw: I was reviewing my posting to see if I could figure out exactly where you guys went so weirdly spla (failed, there's no predicting that shit), and I checked off at least glancing and partial support for three of the eight measures you quoted -> in the post immediately above, the one you would have been looking at while typing <-. 1, 4, and 5. As I have been a gun control advocate on this forum for a very long time now, with dozens of posts on the subject, I'm thinking I could probably get another three or four checked off by diligent searching - but that's too much work, frankly, for stuff so obviously not registering and not about to register as anything I've ever posted.
That was written way before teh inerweb, you know this, right? Tings dey doeth change. One thing that hasn't changed though, is money. I don't know who exactly is making money on guns. Maybe like some politics are ruled by... like... uh... some Military Industrial Complex? Would you like teachers to bring guns to class? I think there is something very inherently wrong for things to come to that. But if people are continuing to make money...
There's a fair amount of money in private guns, but hardly enough for the scene being created, and a lot of it's Chinese etc - I'm thinking the power motive is key. Gun issues on the margin have elected more Republicans than abortion has, in my own experience. As far as teachers carrying loaded guns into classrooms of teenagers day after day - that'll be short lived. Hopefully not too many serious casualties, and some funny stories. My over/under on the first accidental discharge in any large school system permitting this is two months.
With a quick google I got a quote for $ 11 000 000 000 in all. http://www.statisticbrain.com/firearm-industry-statistics/
Yeah, but that's revenue - not profit - and a lot of it's ammunition, and it includes foreign sales. Exxon alone has made five times that in profit in a year. The pantyhose market in the US is a billion five.
We all read it in the same way. So again, it is everyone else who is wrong and not you. Perhaps if you don't want to sound like a bigot, you should try not posting like one.
Uh... It says revenue, yes. But it's about guns and ammunition. Not oil, pantyhose or abortions. There's a real lack of relevance in comparison.
About what I wrote? Yes, you three Bandar-log are wrong. As you have been, consistently, all holding hands together and agreeing on various muddleheaded nonsense for an entire thread. And the wingnuts on the other side? They all agree with each other too. Happy days. In your case not only wrong, but in bad faith and dealing in insult and without any honest attempt to correct your flagrant errors or apologize for your slanders and misrepresentations. No attempt to discuss a single issue raised in any of my posts. No acknowledgement of argument. No integrity - and as a result, completely untrustworthy with political power. Which brings us to the real problem with this kind of rhetorical behavior by the gun control fringe: this inability of - uniquely - both sides of extremists to reason with sanity and discuss matters in good faith is why gun control in the US is a ruined issue of little and shabby hope. Imho. In most issues it's just one faction with the manure spreader, and the side with the sanity and the facts has an advantage to press. Fortunately for those actually interested in reducing American gun violence , other issues and matters feature not only real prospects for beneficial change, but significant influence on gun violence - comparable to, even greater than, direct control of the guns themselves. I listed a few above, that are already on the table, with broad support for change. Major gun control initiatives in wingnut world may be unlikely, but significant reduction in gun violence is not as farfetched a goal. You were posting as if you thought 11 billion in revenue was a large amount of money from guns, and explained their political influence. I noted that it isn't actually that much money in comparison with other common things all around impinging on politics, and so its political influence needed further explanation.
The first half of the 2nd amendment is: " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,..." The US does not have a "A well regulated Militia. " It has a huge number of guns in the hands of individuals that may not even know each other and certainly do not train together in regulated groups, and that makes for Insecurity of the population. IE a 100+ times greater threat to people's lives than terrorists are. We need to enforce ALL of the 2nd amendment, not ignore the first half of it. If there were local, well regulated militia, they would routinely drill and practice together and get to know each other, especially if as is likely, after their weekly drill / military practice / they had a few beers together. Then they would notice if one of their members was going crazy. That is how the individuals becoming unstable are noticed in Swiss militia - The nascent crazy is reported to the authorities, and if confirmed he is becoming mental unstable, his guns, even those he paid for himself, are confiscated. That is why with at least as many guns per capita as in the US, the Swiss have less than 1% of the US mass murders by the mentally disturbed. IE: The regularly training militia, detects the mentally disturbed and gets his guns taken from him. SUMMARY: We need to enforce ALL of the 2nd amendment.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. There are plenty of gun laws regulating the militia.
Well, 19 million from the NRA seemed to buy George W. Bush. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/26/u...s-its-embrace-republicans-with-donations.html A Law signed by Bush that allowed the sale of guns for those practically anonymous would repealed under Clinton. http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/politics/hillary-clinton-gun-laws-nra/index.html
Do I have an argument against the mass incarceration of black men based in nothing more than their race? Do I really need one? If you thought gun violence was bad now, just try doing that. There would be so many riots and race wars going on across America we'd have to call the military in. And I for one would be on the side of those resisting such racist enslavement. If I haven't already moved and changed my citizenship to Canada that is.
