See this guy? His name is Michael Aaron Strickland.
He’s pulling out a gun that he then pointed at a group of Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon. He claimed he was feeling “threatened” by unarmed and peaceful protesters because they called him a racist, the poor little snowflake. He was arrested and charged on a slew of offenses.
The good news: He was actually convicted. I know, hard to believe.
The funny news: he exploded his own defense.
Jackson said Strickland’s contention that he was in grave danger isn’t believable, pointing out that Stickland reholstered his gun and stepped off the street and onto the sidewalk to give an interview in front of a TV camera just steps away from the scene of the confrontation.
Oh, man. These people are stupid. Stupid and armed.
I first read that as “reupholstered” and had a moment of significant confusion.
His pistol is now paisley.
Well, that does it for him having access to firearms again. Convicted felons are prohibited from possessing firearms.
Hopefully, he’ll also learn anger management while he’s in the big house.
There seems to be some sort of resonance about guns and cars that I’m trying to work out in my head, but I’m failing.
The gun-nuts always like to say that cars are a weapon too. I always say most people shouldn’t be allowed to drive, but we make it happen out of necessity. So, they introduce the idea of necessity concerning firearms.
Both situations are crazy, but one is clearly more crazy than the other.
The part I’m struggling with is the knowledge that not everyone can be good at everything. The gun-nut thinks he is a cool-trigger and the driver thinks the other guy is lousy behind the wheel.
My conclusion is that reason can’t prevail over ingrained culture.
Now if Petra L. (who kicked the refugees on camera) weren’t married already, I would think, based on their defense arguments (being the same) they’d make a pair.
Speaking of ill conceived intent, the conviction of Ahmed Hamed stays with its 10 year sentence for terrorism, and the Obama administration said it back in last December, the definition of terrorism was used to broadly, it would have been a small miracle for this administration to follow suit. At least on the bright side American courts are still independent a working.
The gun-nuts always like to say that cars are a weapon too
I’m surprised to hear that, since I’ve often pointed out the same thing to make the opposite point. We recognize that cars are potentially lethal but also useful, so we require people to take a course and pass a test to drive one, not to mention buy insurance in case they hurt someone. So why can’t we do the same for guns, which are significantly less useful and more dangerous?
Re: fishy at #4…
The obvious inference is that any given individual should be allowed to drive *or* to own guns, but no both. So to people like the one described, he needs to make a choice. Does he want to own guns or does he want to drive.
@fishy, there really is no resonance between the two. One has no enumerated right to operate a motor vehicle, indeed, one’s operator’s license can be administratively revoked.
That said, there is no fundamental right to take another person’s life. One also does not have the right to terrorize other people, especially unarmed, peaceful protestors. As this idiot learned the hard way. He’ll have some years to consider the stupidity of his actions and he’ll be prohibited from possessing firearms in the future.
At least in this instance, nobody was injured.
@Sarah A, do we have a license and test to be permitted to vote, speak in public, assemble peaceably or practice a religion or irreligion?
All are enumerated rights. The closest that I can find for a test is that some jurisdictions require proficiency and safety training before issuing a concealed carry permit. If anything, that training should be more stringent, as that person is now in a position of trust, wandering about with a lethal weapon.
@Sarah A #6: The official, NRA-infused argument is, that vehicles on a yearly average kill more people, than guns… except it’s misleading, the claim compares all deaths caused by vehicles to the combined number of homicides and suicides, but not manslaughter, that alone cause more gun deaths, than vehicular deaths.
My stance is, and though they deny it, the gun safety instructions of the NRA is the same, that guns must always be handled properly. So, the laws regarding restrictions on driving should apply to guns too, like if one’s blind and can’t drive, they shouldn’t shoot either, being under the influence of drugs or alcohol should exclude using guns, having a panic attack should exclude gun use (impaired judgment), and so on.
@secondtofirstworld #10, substance abusers and people with mental illness, as well as domestic abusers are prohibited from possessing a firearm.
Alas, states are deficient in inputting such information into the national database.
wzrd1, you amuse me; your position is that USAnians have an “enumerated right” to wield firearms, and therefore case closed — yet you hold that right to be utterly and permanently revocable for certain minor infractions or conditions.
(I don’t blame you; you swim in that pond)
Sarah@6,
I agree.
How would you grade your driving skills?
@John Morales, I was unaware that a felony is a minor infraction.
Felonies are major crimes, not minor infractions. Mental illness is not an infraction or minor if access to firearms has been withdrawn, as a mental health care professional would attest to the fact that that individual was a danger to self or others.
Also note that I never championed for “wielding” firearms, but mentioned possession. I’m not very fond of the notion of ill trained people wandering about our streets with a firearm, either openly carried of concealed.
I do own firearms, I hunt and I compete with them. I don’t lug them around during my daily life, as I find that beyond unnecessary and something that could cause alarm in my community.
But, I do champion totally and happily for my totally unencumbered right to keep and arm bears. Thus far, I entirely lack any takers on such an offer, as bears tend to prefer the limbs that they were born with.
wzrd1 wrote:
If it’s such a fundamental “enumerated” right that must be upheld, why are those with mental illness prohibited from owning them? They’re allowed all those other enumerated rights like voting, free speech, free association, etc., and they’ve done nothing wrong to warrant the loss of such an important right. Even ex-felons are permitted many or all of those (depending on where they live).
Sorry, but the “mental illness” exception that gun fans like to carve out seems like an admission that they know that gun ownership shouldn’t be a right, but a privilege. Yet, they want to insist that it’s an inalienable right because it makes owning, buying and selling guns more convenient.
In the USA, kiting a check is a felony.
so is loitering
Note that as you said, ex-felons may regain their rights, depending upon the jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions, they never do regain their rights. That is variable.
The federal government created a law that states that the mentally ill may lose very specific rights, under very specific conditions, be it firearms ownership or their freedom, should it be adjudicated that they are a risk to society.
As for buying, selling or transferring firearms, I’m quite favorable to having all transfers be conducted through a licensed FFL holder and the record placed into the bound book of that dealer. That is how every one of my firearms were transferred and how I transfer any out of my own ownership.
I’ll also say, I am not a fan of any firearm any more than I’m a fan of my claw hammer. They’re both tools, they’re both capable of causing tremendous harm, with a firearm having a much greater range of danger if it is inappropriately used.
I have very, very rarely said the words “accidental discharge” when referring to the unintentional discharge of a firearm and in that context, it was due to a malfunction that caused the weapon to discharge. I refer to non-malfunction discharges for what they are: Negligent discharges.
Is not kiting a check a form of bank fraud? Banking related fraud is typically treated as a felony in the US. Many other financial crimes are also felonies.
Loitering is most often a misdemeanor, not a felony, save if loitering to commit a crime is involved. Loitering to acquire a controlled dangerous substance would be a felony. Loitering outside of a bar would be a misdemeanor.
Oh look, another thread that’s all about how the right to fondle guns is a fundamental right because reasons.
wzrd1 #14:
Sure. In the LARP which is your country, those are the game rules.
Which doesn’t at all dispute my point about the revocability of the enumerated right to which you referred; it merely tells me you believe that the guy who pulled a gun is a major criminal rather than a minor infractor under your game rules.
Heh.
I note you again do not dispute me, for that would deny the claim that “your position is that USAnians have an “enumerated right” to wield firearms, and you’re too honorable to deny that.
I don’t. But people here in Oz do all those things, and there exists no similar “enumerated right”.
So though that right might be sufficient, it’s certainly not necessary for any of the activities to which you have referred in your stout defence of firearms.
numerobis:
It is true.
I too think the point of the OP was about how it’s remarkable when the law actually gets applied appropriately. This is in the context of BLM and double standards.
Why not just repeal the 2nd Amendment and bring in some sensible laws? You repealed Prohibition.
I realize this is politically impossible but it seems so sensible.
On the other hand, it’s good to see that fool get convicted
@wzrd1 #10:
The central issue remains to be the letter and the spirit of laws based on well imposed restrictions, and how risk assessment works. It is that, that suffers from inefficiencies. I’ve just checked out a “lovely” conversation about the documentary Under the Gun, and one guy went to great lengths to distort basic reality by pushing the envelope on the term immigrant in an effort to prove, the majority of gun crimes isn’t committed by white people. This is how, in his book, Christopher Harper-Mercer became a mixed race shooter, and not at all the white supremacist woman hater, that he actually was. He called Elliot Rodger an immigrant. He did that with the few others, as in his book, if your parents are immigrants, although you were born in the US, you still are an immigrant.
A different guy shed crocodile tears over the fact, that a gun of a deceased person cannot be just put in a will and be granted to a surviving relative. True, he also mentioned background checks and training, but it’s also unfortunately true, that some states require more training hours for a hair dresser, than being a gun owner, and at least one made it into law, that no training is required at all.
The restrictions you mention are based on impaired judgment or a danger factor from the individual aka common sense, except since LaPierre took over, it flew out of the window. Should they come through with banning the government from getting oversight on private sales (very plausible under this administration) no restriction will make sense anymore. The one thing I was surprised by (as of the moment of this writing), that a crowdfunding page wasn’t set up for his legal defense, similar to the cop, who shot the unarmed black suspect on camera.
The core issue is, whether limitations can and should be imposed on personal responsibility, or not, as everyone is perfectly capable to make a decision. Like the guy who broke federal law by selling his gun from his collection (without license, presumably, as he is yet to be found), and it ending up on the black market in Belgium, where the Paris attackers bought it and used it. The restriction put on ATF banning them from using a computer database, and the effort to quash bans on guns sales to people on the terror watch list aren’t signs they want responsible ownership. Riding the issue, that the problem is caused mostly by inner city violence isn’t a sign for improvement either.
That’s not even mentioning, how the motivations for abhorrent acts aren’t different from the rest of the world, the “resolution” is. The most clear cut from the restrictions you mention is substance abuse, frequent drug tests screen out such people, provided they have those tests. The other two… even without statistical correlation, there’s one big common sense reason for a workplace shooting. Getting fired in most places isn’t a big deal, unless it’s not a major screw up or general incompetence, most people get a new job. However, as we both know, the provider of health insurance still is the employer. Unemployment benefits exist, but it doesn’t, can’t and won’t cover a lifestyle a person is accustomed to. Also, health care coverage doesn’t extend to everything. Since the system has been only tweaked to be more humane and realistic, people still have to choose, what they want get treated or not based on affordability. This also means, a necessity might come into play on abandoning an effort exploring the effects of psychological pressure in the work place. As illogical it sounds, at least some of these assailants put more money into buying and maintaining guns, than go to therapy and resolve the issue peacefully. It also infers the craziness of medication being more expensive, than bullets, when it should be the other way around.
Lastly, I think you meant convicted felons of domestic abuse, as merely making the arrest, and making and dropping the arraignment doesn’t exclude the handling of guns, and that’s giving the benefit of doubt the domestic abuse case goes through without victims and witnesses not retracting their statements, and even that was a concession. If it were up to me, I’d include all convicted violent offenders, and people who promote hate speech resulting in the deaths of unarmed civilians.
jrkrideau: likelier just twist the 2nd to irrelevance, just as the 1st and 4th have been highly restricted.
Fun fondlers fight really hard for the 2nd, generally not so much for the others. There isn’t a group nearly so vocal fighting, say, asset forfeiture; that’s a much more niche issue, despite being obviously unreasonable seizure.
Hmm. This one always gets me. What is the “tool” known as a firearm for exactly? See… its iffy, at best, to call it “for defense”. My brother, and ex cop, is rather specific about a few things regarding “firearms”:
1. Rifles are not defensive weapons, but hunting weapons, and/or weapons of war. If you use one, its to make sure the target is dead, without seeing you, at all.
2. Military weapons are not hunting weapons. Sure, some of them can be, if they have semi-decent aim, for one shot, but they are designed for stopping power, used, in military settings to fire bursts, and are employed by starting at the bottom left of the target, and letting the recoil pull the subsequent shots up, and to the right, while not giving a single fuck what might be behind the target (i.e. innocent bystanders). Again, they are not “defensive” weapons.
3. Handguns are: a. not useful at long range, b. may not be effective, assuming the enemy can charge at you, especially with another weapon, at less than 10 feet, c. can still hit things “behind” your intended target, especially if you are crap at shooting, d. are ironically less useful when drawn (someone well trained at the action to pull, unsafety, and fire a gun has a few second edge on the guy with one out, and in hand. According to my brother, they used modded paint guns, which would fit in a holster, to test this, and 100% of the time, the guy with the holstered weapon got his shot off *first*), and d. you are an idiot to open carry, since it means, if some bad guy does want to do something, they know exactly who the threats are.
In short, handguns are… shitty defensive weapons, in general, and just make you a target, if someone knows you have one on you. I also doubt a lot of people go hunting with them.
So… if they are not as good as.. just about anything else you might grab at a moments notice for defense, including maybe one of those horrible Trump brand lamps…, and they are mostly worthless for hunting (and rifles, etc. tend to be useless for anything but killing people from hiding/cover, which isn’t exactly “defense” in most cases), then what the F exactly is this tool good for? Because, it seems to me, the only things its good for at target practice, and killing things, and it does the latter far worse than would be preferred, in the hands of.. almost anyone, including some cops. Its not a case that its “other purpose” is killing people, its **only** purpose is killing things, of which people tend to be, unfortunately, a much greater target of opertunity than, say, squirrels, never mind deer.
And, that is without twits, like the people locally, that *attempted* to recently overturn the rule banning people randomly shooting in the air, during celebrations (who I have no doubt where all NRA members, since no one else could possibly be so stupid as to think this was a good idea… But, then, that is what you get when your organization doesn’t actually give a damn about anything other than promoting guns, so you let every flipping clown with a gun join up to support you…)
But, yeah.. its a tool. Sigh…
Meanwhile, a Milo Yiannopoulos fan shot a protester is Seattle, nearly killing him.
He claimed self defense and the police let him go.
It’s been 3 weeks. It’s unlikely he will be charged.
Now why was that guy at the protest and why was he carrying a gun?
secondtofirstworld #23,
The letter and spirit of the second amendment was extremely well documented, the case law settled and its obsolescence as it stood addressed via the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act of 1968. I do believe there is more ground to cover, such as moving semiautomatic firearms that are derived from selective fire military service rifles under a new chapter of the NFA. That would sweep up the SKS, AK47, AR15 derived rifles and ludicrous pistols, restricting them to those who can pass a highly stringent background investigation (it’s the same background investigation utilized for a Top Secret security clearance).
Alas, politicians, US politicians in specific are really lousy at risk assessment.
I’m familiar with that documentary. As the overwhelming majority of the US populace is white (82%, if I recall correctly), the claim falls on its face as pure bullshit. Of course, that’s a given, as the defenses given are NRA talking points, which range from occasional distortions of history and fact to the far more common bullshit.
Odd, I inherited a hunting rifle, ancient shotgun and some handguns from my father. I sold the handguns to a gun shop and a family member (transferring the firearms at that same gun shop), as well as the shotgun that I had no use for. I retained the hunting rifle.
I agree on all counts! Since the NRA went off of the deep end, I refuse to participate in any competitions or events that involve them, preferring CMP programs (Civilian Marksmanship Program). The latter organization was sponsored by the US Army and was chartered by Congress for sporting usage of firearms, not the NRA’s victory via superior volume of fire insanity.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Republican party trumpets on about personal responsibility, then it proceeds to legislate against it, at least in regards to things like firearm ownership responsibilities, no, let’s say it for what it is, duties.
Firearms are dangerous in the wrong hands or when carelessly handled or stored, as such, an owner has a duty to the community to safely handle and securely store firearms.
I’m unfamiliar with the story about an unlawful firearm transfer and it ending up in Belgium. If you can provide a link, I’d greatly appreciate it.
I do disagree with prohibiting people from access to firearms based exclusively upon an administratively created list, which is infamously error prone, merely upon administrative suspicion. What else do we restrict? Speech, assembly, religion? A court of law must curtail a right, not some administrator in a cubicle in a classified office location.
As for inner city violence, it’s more than just inner cities, smaller cities have the same problems, but have a lower population density. That’s largely a side effect of desperate, inescapable poverty and a highly efficient school to prison pipeline. Worse, no will politically to address it. Mix in a societal embrasure of violence as a means to resolve problems, we’ve got a perfect storm.
Drug testing costs money, both to administer the testing and to record and read the results. There are occasional issues with false positives and erroneous level interpretations (I had personal experience with that, which cost a medical professional his career when he staked his reputation on his erroneous interpretation and I happened to personally know the physicians who created the guidelines).
Losing a job in the US can be a big deal, decent jobs, with livable wages are still a bit hard to come by. Unemployment insurance is denied for termination for cause. We also have a number of “right to work states”, which means terminate at a whim states. That said, shooting up the place won’t get one one’s job back and such eliminates any chance of finding a decent job anytime in the future.
But, we do have a societal love for violent solutions to any problem. We also have a problem with mental health care coverage being variable in the extreme in terms of quality and medication pricing that is totally out of control.
Just this week I learned that one common and popular form of Naloxone prepared dosage unit had its price jump from $650 per dose to $4500 per dose, resulting in communities and hospitals not ordering replacement units. Psychiatric drugs have had similar spikes. Alas, psychiatric drugs tend to cost a great deal more than bullets, with their pricing being subject to the whim of the pharmaceutical companies CEO’s.
Actually, anyone subject to a protection from abuse order, is pending a domestic violence charge or was convicted of domestic abuse are prohibited from firearms possession. Unfortunately, our enforcement of domestic abuse laws is spotty at best in some areas, absent in others.
To answer another poster’s question on revoking the second amendment, besides a lack of political will, there are practical problems with that as well.
The second amendment also authorizes the militia, aka the National Guard *and* the unorganized militia (currently defined as able bodied males between 18 and 45, as well as veterans to age 61 and females in the National Guard). The unorganized militia actually does have a muster via the selective service system (aka, “the draft”). It would have to be replaced to still codify the militias, lest there be no Constitutional grounds for the existence of the militias, which are frequently called up in time of emergency.
I’ll not even go into the paranoid, who honestly believe that they can defeat their own government and odder, that the Armed Forces would commit the capital offense of mutiny to join them.
Yeah, those assholes scare the hell out of me too!
@Kagehi, a firearm is indeed a tool. A dictionary might help you understand the concept. It, like many other tools, have very narrow usages.
I will say that military types of rifles make for lousy hunting rifles, save for sniper systems, which mostly began their design existence as hunting rifles (with a few specialist exceptions). The notion of hunting deer with an M16 is ludicrous, both due to the rather low power of the round and the notion of full automatic being used against a deer (don’t get me started on my feelings about some jughead wandering around the woods shooting at deer with a 30 round magazine!).
Your notion on the usage of military weapons is flawed. First, we rarely fired in full automatic/burst mode, as we’d rapidly run out of ammunition from missing.
An M16 would be considered a defensive weapon, when used in a defensive role. Those roles and weapons were defined in long standing, ratified treaties. Those same treaties also order that we do “give fuck all” about innocent civilians and we have to try to minimize or eliminate injury to them. I’m guessing at this point that you’ve never heard of the Geneva and Hague conventions!
May I suggest a Google search of “military definition of defensive and offensive weapon”?
As for handguns being worthless at long range, your specification is deficient. US Army infantry have frequently engaged at 25 meters with their M9 pistols, when pressed to do so and they were quite effective. I’ve engaged adversaries to a range of 50 meters, reliably hitting my target and ending the threat to myself and my team. We’re not talking about conscripts, but professional, well trained soldiers.
I’ve also used a handgun offensively, clearing a building where I had no room in narrow hallways to swing a carbine.
So, I’ll compete with my AR and win cash prizes. I’ll hunt with my 30-30 lever rifle for deer. I’ll defend my home with a bowling ball.
OK, a really, really bright flashlight and a bowling ball.
@raven,
Speaks of intent to me.
@wzrd1 #27:
Before LaPierre took over, NRA wasn’t as political as it is today, the guy managed to force Nixon and Bush Sr. to give back their membership. He is almost personally responsible for perpetuating the John Wayne myth, that the Wild West got its name from being completely lawless, and only honorable cowboys could protect it. It’s very telling, that some gun enthusiasts claim the most horrible gun related violence infused crimes happen in gun free zones… except for the Texas terrorist attack on military property, the Navy Yard shooting, and almost every bank robbery ever. Frontier towns were mostly gun free zones, it’s well documented, not to mention, some commenters with Scandinavian heritage pointed out on PZ’s Not my America post how their ancestors were treated like s*it. Yet Wayne started to peddle the idea, that inner city crime (a typical American racist code to avoid blaming them for being black) is the reason why the police can’t protect anyone, and they have to return to the roots they never had. Ned Flanders said it best in a Simpsons episode, and I’m paraphrasing here, “we like to reminisce about the America of the past, that only exists in our heads”. So laws were lobbied and introduced to drop the importance of the well regulated militia, and only focus on bearing arms, lessening restrictions first on what types of firearms can be possessed, then secondly on who can own them. This is why they’re lax with followup, but firm on denying funds to study the effects of gun related violence.
Don’t interpret this the wrong way, but I think I’ve found a genuine fairy from the Irish lore, a responsible gun owner, who has open issues with a politicized institution. I’m not joking, personally this is the first I meet someone like that. On that note, I’m not against firearms, I’m against irresponsible ownership, and I’m vexed by the open ignorance of gun lobbyists of accepting a person being a danger to a community. Then again, they’re not alone, just with the most money, the crowd redefining anorexia as an eating regimen, and the other crowd claiming mental illness is made up by big pharma are not better, with antivaxxers being the worst.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-30/why-did-gun-used-paris-terrorist-attacks-come-fast-and-furious Okay, this just getting better, I did not know until now it was linked to Fast and Furious, but it seems to make sense why the 900-page report was redacted.
See, this is my problem. Yes, shooting the place up doesn’t get a job back, but I wanted to point out, and you also confirmed it, it’s more than that: one’s existence, their very existence hangs upon being employed. Being fired exactly means no coverage, no unemployment benefit, no way to pay the mortgage, the car, the gas, the school for the kids. It screams, that by making drugs much more expensive than handguns and bullets, a wonder lies in people seeing a way out of desperation instead of mass murder. Yet it shouldn’t merely rely on “god will provide me with a different job” or “I can just move back in with my parents”. While there’s no central EU regulation, in most countries the dividends already paid in to the health care provider means continued coverage, and getting fired means getting a new job harder, not losing everything. This is maybe why we don’t murder each other so quickly and easily. You’re not personally responsible, but damn, more national conversations are badly needed in America. As for drug tests, it’s a bit funny, not ha ha funny, but still… in my culture, we like to make pastry with poppy seeds as filling, not decoration. When my family first came here, it was a bit of a cultural shock with some immigrants, who view poppy seed exclusively as opium. I can’t blame them, but that’s not the weird part. So, a few years back, drivers were fined for DUI despite not being under the influence of anything. Turns out, the poppy seed produces a similar result as alcohol, resulting in an unique don’t eat and drive situation.
As for the intent of the 2nd Amendment. When I looked up the history of its inception and its bouts in Supreme Court (including a case where a German American in the 1930s wanted to form a pro-Nazi paramilitary), the original intent was to form a precursor to a police. It’s not even hypothetical, during the Whiskey Rebellion (where the immortal vampire Ted Cruz, who is totally the Zodiac Killer and the shooter on the grassy knoll, protested Washington, my take on kooky conspiracies) they have invoked it to support the government. Sure, they later retracted the booze tax in 1806, but the point is, it was never meant to be used against the government, unless it’s a government appointed by a foreign power. They have also stated taxation without representation doesn’t fly, and it did not took 8 years in SCOTUS. So, Strickland thought he could enjoy the 2nd by what Lapierre, Thomas and Scalia made out of it, and that post-1974 interpretation is the problem, not the amendment itself. Just like in physics, there’s no action without reaction in human relationships.
@secondtofirstworld, you missed the mark in a few areas.
One, US military installations are “gun free zones”, which I was always fine with. Tracking where which service member and their weapon, with potentially leaving a weapon in a latrine would be a logistical nightmare! I’ve never needed my weapons in the PX, barber shop or laundry. At a FOB, yes, but that’s an entirely different environment.
But, “So laws were lobbied and introduced to drop the importance of the well regulated militia, and only focus on bearing arms, lessening restrictions first on what types of firearms can be possessed…” is a bit of a stretch until quite recently. A US citizen has always been permitted to possess any form of firearm, even artillery, suppressors and machine guns. One has to go through a rather stringent background investigation to do so and pay for the tax stamp. That hasn’t changed the National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed, which restricted those firearms to such requirements.
What I find insane is Wayne’s idiocy with the “hearing protection act”, trying to deregulate suppressors. Suppressors only silence firearms in movies, so they’ll protect nobody’s hearing.
The NRA became an industry support group after the NRA had supported the Gun Control Act of 1968. Then, the industry took over, lobbied the membership for control and they’ve been a rocket sled on rails to insanity ever since.
But, they didn’t change the history behind the second amendment, nor did they lessen anything in regards to what firearms one may possess. They do fight against some commonsense laws, which would lower some forms of violence, as that’s bad for business for the bosses that run the NRA today.
Oh, Geeze, Fast and Furious, a rogue law enforcement operation that gives and keeps on giving. :/
Don’t even get me started on what the paranoid crowd conspiracy theories are, they couldn’t get more outlandish if they included space aliens!
I do hope that the employees responsible for that debacle have careers as healthy as the Keystone Cops.
Oh, good! I was hoping that you were aware of Ted Cruz’s dark, secret past.
More seriously, the founding fathers didn’t want a standing army, preferring to retain local militias, which obviously only mobilized at the orders of their government.
At one point in my military career, I was with the 1-111 infantry (Stryker) battalion. It has a long and storied career, originating as a militia, “The Norris City Rifles”, founded by no less than Benjamin Franklin. Alas, the storied career involved them getting trounced in every military action that they were mobilized, until quite deep in the conflict that they were mustered to.
In the French and Indian war, it took no less than 3 SCOTS to rescue the unit! The American Revolution continued their tradition in suffering high casualties, with lackluster performance. That continued yet again in the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish – American War, WWI, WWII, Korea and finally acceptable performance was achieved in our war in Iraq.
Yeah, so much for the legendary militias.
I have noticed a bit of hypocrisy on the part of the GOP, where when a jurist legislates from the bench, it’s excellent case law and when a jurist enforces the laws and Constitution against the latest GOP fascism, it’d decried.
Much as they object to laws that “trample upon states rights”, while trying to force a national concealed carry law, the rights of the states be damned.
They hate it when I call them on that. Moderates present notice that hypocrisy when it’s illustrated (one case in point was in a discussion over the state of Maryland’s magazine capacity restrictions, where I pointed out to some of the most vociferous that just the previous week, they were championing states rights as of paramount importance). But, those folks aren’t well known for consistency or logic.
Yet another reason I avoid sharing a range with that crowd. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust them with a specially blunted infant feeding spoon.
All
A giant (tee-hee) part of this is easy to figure out:
1. Except for that single person right in the middle, 50% of males in the U.S. have a big dick.
2. Except for that same person right in the middle, 50% of males in the U.S. have a little dick.
We have all met plenty of freaks and weirdos and kooks and losers and rubes and fools with their small dick who went out and acquired 50 or 100 firearms plus the requisite 150,000 rounds.
Substitution, compensation, whatever. Small dick = many firearms. Males with a big dick don’t need to own 100 firearms.
P.S. Slightly related—Reagan had “missile envy.” Theirs were longer, harder, bigger, fatter, straighter, stronger, steelier, shinier, louder.
wzrd1 @29:
This is irrelevant and therefore evasive. Everyone understands that concept.
Point being that Kagehi, you, I and probably every reader knows full well a firearm is a tool for killing.
Yes, you can prop something on it. You can have fun shooting at targets. You can use it as a paperweight.
You can kill or maim an animal. You can use it as a wall decoration. You can use it as a toy. And so forth.
But nonetheless: their raison d’être, their Aristotelian purpose, their very basis is to be a deadly weapon.
[erratum — @27, not 29]
@wzrd1 #29:
My main concern remains, that the manufacture industry peddles the idea, exclusively in America that gun control can only mean confiscation, that a right should be an obligation, and that training, if at all, should only be required before getting a firearm. I call this a huge hypocrisy for 2 reasons: one, in other countries, where they license their models to be built, like here, they don’t lobby for an armed populace, despite making profit, and two, it’s the definition of irresponsible to expect someone’s word is enough, that they responsible gun owners and a good shot. The latter is physically impossible, it’s like the difference between being able to learn to drive and being a drift racer.
Logistical nightmare? I don’t know. The one practice I’m aware of involving officers with commissioned firearms is as follows: whenever outside the office, the sidearm is at the designated place, and while in office, in a safely locked away place. The number of cases, where soldiers or police officers (both fall under the jurisdiction of a military tribunal) accidentally discharge a firearm is low. What the supporters of the NRA policies don’t want to accept is, that by reducing the number of owners to responsible ones, taking action against the “bad guy with a gun” is much easier. I’m not claiming the culture I grew up in is more welcoming, than America (I did mention the camerawoman could be Strickland’s wife), it too is prone to blunder. After the NATO fence was put up, there was a bombing last September by a possibly deranged far right perpetrator (the deranged is under audit, not the political leaning) threw a nail bomb at 2 police officers. I cannot yet establish a connection, as prosecution has not done so, but there’s a guy on the far right, who’s in and out of jail since ’91, when he and 2 buddies tried to amass weapons from the leftover Soviet cache to overthrow the government, which was right wing, and the first democratically elected one. Since then, he has either instigated or took part in activities against the state, so his recent conviction might have been a trigger. Think of it like as “border hunters” from Arizona were outraged over being prosecuted for vigilantism, and one of their buddies bombed an abortion clinic, and his conviction has to be avenged. So, the bomber guy had a connection to a bigger fish, who had a weapons collection, and materials for bomb making. 2 weeks after the bombing, they drove up to his place without taking a tactical team, and he shot one of the cops. It’s not a Waco level of incompetent, but smaller country, smaller blunder. The intelligence community knew he operated a paramilitary, had financial connections to the Kremlin (they operate a pro-Putin far right website), was acquainted with people convicted of racist acts, many of his weapons were unregistered, but sure, 2 cops will be enough.
Stupid and armed is a very dangerous combination.
my ass.
The 2nd Amendment states American citizens have the right to establish makeshift defense organizations, aka “well-organized militias.” The establishment of police departments and the Army rendered it obsolete, as the peace and the country in times of war is defended by those two organizations instead.
The 2nd Amendment does not – NOT – mean “any rando can amass an arsenal that makes African warlords blush.” This is a deliberate distortion – in other words a lie – of the words and intent of the Amendment perpetuated by the ammosexuals, which is enabled through the simple fact it’s written in misleadingly worded 17th century legalese.
Lastly, they are called Amendments for a reason. The Founding Fathers did not envision the Constitution as immutable Gospel, but as a living, breathing document that needs to be amended once one of its elements grows to do more harm than good.
@secondtofirstworld #28
You really should be more careful what sources you choose. That article doesn’t make a link between the Paris shootings and Fast and Furious, except that one of the guns was traced to one of the cities where the operation took place. From there, it’s just just a bunch of insinuations and unnamed sources, and “It’s not clear if” the FBI is covering it up.
@secondtofirstworld #33, I can only say that corporate greed rules the US. This is blatant since the Citizen’s United ruling.
Logistical nightmare in, I’ve had Privates leave their rifle or pistol, variably, in a motor vehicle or field latrine. Both the unit and leadership then had to then backtrack the service member’s activities in order to locate that accountable end item, frequently necessitating the closure of the military base in question to ensure that should unauthorized personnel acquire that weapon, they’d hopefully not get off the installation with that weapon.
A negligent discharge simply resulted in non-judicial punishment, quite frequently involving loss of rank and pay, assuming no injuries or loss of equipment occurred.
As for NRA lunacy, I can see where NRA notions could protect one from “a bad guy with a gun”, when one is surrounded by a veritable wall of firearm barrels. Frankly, a reinforced brick wall would be far more cost effective.
I’ve referred to it as the “county mountie problem”, where a small county sheriff/police department thinks of every problem in a small department way, never considering until it’s too late, that there is a larger, organized problem that they’re underestimating.
Of course, there’s the converse problem with large PD’s, “Lacking That Small Match Temperament” (both a Culture series ship name in-joke and a very real world issue, where everything looks like a nail to the guys with the sledgehammer).
@applehead,
Unfortunately, until quite recently (late 19th and early 20th centuries), that was entirely true. It was after that time that modern, professional police departments became the rule, rather than the exception.
Something not recognized by far too many idiots, who seem to think that suburbia has the same level of policing as our most distant rural areas (and apparently, the same number of grizzly bears that will enter schools or something).
Alas, some of those debating the second amendment thought exactly that, they were extremists and rejected by their peers, but their peers compromised and the NRA ignored that, also quite well recorded history in order to reinforce sales.
In that, I totally agree. I disagree in reinterpreting the Constitution “in accordance with modern views”, rather than amending it as is appropriate for the times. Neither side should attempt to re-write the history books, but faithfully retain the history, while adjusting the outmoded to reflect the complexities of contemporary life.
@Daniel Henschel, I’m uncertain how much the FBI is covering up, if anything. Most of the investigation was conducted internally by the BATFE, who did attempt initially, a coverup, then a white washing. There’d have been a far less blackened eye on their reputation if they simply referred to it as a Keystone Cop operation that was rogue within their organization and regrettably overlooked.
What I find rather outlandish is, if the cartels and other organized crime organizations in Mexico acquired the firearms, why would they export that which they’d still require in order to conduct their side of the “war on drugs”?
Of course, that implies something far more dire, organized gun running, both north and south of the US border *and* overseas illegal arms trafficking, which is far more worrisome and something that needs to be swiftly addressed, as it is global in reach, compared to a regional destabilizing issue.
@wzrd1
I don’t see where you get that I don’t think guns are a tool. Setting aside the laugh that the M16, or other military weapon is “always” defensive, kind of by definition, when you have similarly armed people shooting at you, what I think about guns is that they are *crappy* tools for the usage that most people think they want them for. Why?
1. Most of them don’t hunt with them, so, lets just throw out that entirely.
2. Many use them only at shooting ranges, which… makes them a damned expensive toy, and of the sort that, if it where any other kind of toy, would be banned, purely based on dangerous it is in general.
3. As for defense… The more useful you make it for this purpose, the more dangerous it is, the less reliably you can control it, and the less responsible the owner actually is. Again, why? Well, lets think about that.
A. If locked in a safe at home, you can’t get to it to deal with a home invader. The more accessible it is, the more likely that you won’t be the one that gets to it first, or, worse, someone else, like your kid, will get it ,and shoot it. Sure.. in principle, a lot of other tools, including knives, hammers, etc., could kill someone, by accident, but they are not “designed” to kill people, so the odds of them being non-lethal, and just cutting you, or breaking a bone, etc… yeah, not seeing a gun being that safe of a tool, and, again, the easier it is to use the thing on a home invader, the easier it is to have it used “on” you instead, or misused, by someone that shouldn’t be handling it, like a child.
In fact, this escalation of irresponsibility, where by the more useful the tool is, the less responsible the owner must be to have that use from it, has resulted in completely stupid situations, like the local instructor who died because he was “sure” a small girl could handle an M16 safely. So, its not just the escalation of danger “in” your house, and the irresponsibility that goes with it, that is the problem, it extends into whether or not such people even have the basic sense to be concerned “if” a child should have access to guns, never mind machine guns, at all, never mind in their house.
B. When it comes to having them in public, same problem. The more “visible” the weapon is, the more likely you are to e a target, and the more likely someone else might get their hands on it. So… the safest it can be, in terms of not being misused, would be stuffed in the bottom of a purse, or the like, and the least safe/responsible would be “in hand” and unholstered, for what ever reason. Which is also, funny enough, a sure sign of irresponsibility….
C. And that brings us, inevitably, to cops, or the use of deadly force, at all. The argument is always, “I care about human life, but protecting my own more.” But, this is pure bullshit. If you care about human life, you would actively find ways to defuse problems, avoid them, use less lethal solutions, etc. Yet… the ***first*** solution of every clown who buys one of these things is, “I will shoot anyone that comes on my property, or I think might be trying to hurt me.” We see, all the damn time, BS like someone shooting someone that is fleeing, purely because, “They had my stuff on them!!” Again, one of the most recent shootings in my own city was a guy shooting at a repo man, and the cops them shooting at the home owner, who are “protecting his car”. Why the F is stealing your car, or anything else, grounds to decide someone needs to die? Well, because I had a gun, and I needed to stop them! Right? And, we see, quite clearly, that his bloody dangerous thinking translates right into the cops – the guys that are supposed to be trained to not do that sort of thing.
So, again – the more “effectively” this freaking “tool” is applied, the more irresponsibly the person using it is, by definition, acting. Its like throwing bloody water on a grease fire – the more you try to “fix” the problem with guns, the worse the problem gets, and the more f-ing responsible you are with them, the more worthless, inaccessible, and unnecessary the bloody tool becomes in the first place. The NRA, and Republicans, I suspect, know this very well – its precisely why they appose actually passing laws that limit, restrict, ban, or curtail stupid behavior with guns. Its impossible for a gun to be anything close to effective at self defense, or home defense, or any of the other “defenses” they claim the things are good for ***without being reckless and irresponsible***. The less care you take in how, when, by whom, and even if, someone else can get the thing, or they know whether you have it, the more “effective” it is, when you want to use it. The more care you take to keep people from misusing them, or picking you out as a target in public, or anything else that would make things “safer” for everyone else, the less likely you will have *any* chance to actually use the thing to do jack all with it.
I am not sure I can think of *any* product, or any kind, being marketed, at least legally (though, some South American remedies that include lead and arsenic, for example, might count. if any of those tools actually did what was advertised), which is actually becomes more dangerous, the more usefully its used. And.. I am pretty dang sure **no one** would think any other product with this attribute should *ever* be used outside of a very narrow set of guidelines – kind of like primacord, or other explosives, none of which, are sold over the counter, to any twit that wants to use it to dig up tree stumps, or to, “Keep around, in case one day I need to use it for something.”
Guns are crappy tools for what they are being sold to do, save for a) hunting, or b) war. And, the latter is almost universally Hollywood, nonsense, and BS, wrapped up in delusional ideas that we would actually be “better” at dealing with vast military forces pursuing us, or at “freedom fighter” tactics than people who have spent decades being brain washed and trained to do this sort of thing. After all, we are “Americans”, so.. a dozen halfwits, with a closet full of guns and ammo, can surely stop an invasion, or an insurgency…. Sigh! Only if they where just as badly armed. Otherwise.. its David vs. the Greek titans. He might manage to get Goliath, but.. then next one just stepped on him.
But, we can’t even bloody write futuristic fiction without putting a bloody gun in it (though, thankfully, some of them have stun settings, or use tranq darts). Other solutions, especially “preventing” the problems in the first place, or reducing recidivism, so the worst we have to worry about will be the same fool kid breaking in, in the 50s, to steal spare change, and the biggest threat being that you might hit them with a lamp.. Yeah, that isn’t the world any of these clowns are looking for. Nope, they want one where the kid stealing you spare changes was “lawfully shot”, by some guy who is 100 pounds heavier, because he, “Had something in his pocket, and I was scared!” And, sadly.. there is a chance the twit down the street just had his gun stolen, and its what was in fact in the kids pocket. A safer world all around…. Using one of the, imho, most horribly misused, misapplied, and mismanaged tools ever invented.
@Daniel Henschel #36:
Duly noted, however, it still remains an illegal transaction. If it had been a State Department approved sale through a trusted vendor, and it was later stolen, then I wouldn’t make a fuss about it. The fact of the matter is, he or she did not care who it was sold to, otherwise the next sentence would be, and then ATF arrested the seller. On one occasion, and this can be treated as a statement, a woman commented on a movie, about how the characters were stupid to not arm themselves when visiting South America, and how she got a gun under the table by trusted friends. If she really meant this as a truthful statement, it would be a chain of felonies. Using a firearm outside the US as a non-diplomatic civilian, or not being as a member of a protection detail, that is authorized to carry a weapon by the receiving state depends upon authorization by both the State Department and the foreign ministry of the recipient country, which makes it the second felony. She did not remark if she had used it, that would have been a fourth felony, as the third is possession of an unregistered/unlicensed firearm.
I’m not claiming law enforcement agencies covered it up, I’m saying the gun got to Europe by way of illegal sale, and while the 2nd Amendment allows a foreigner to use a firearm, sale to foreigners on US soil is very hard, so the seller was very likely American.
@wzrd1 #37:
My bad, I built such an experience with avoiding such a logistical nightmare on my birth country’s Warsaw Pact Army. Try losing the gun in the latrine, and the rest of the time from the 18 months of service, all you see is latrine. Leaving equipment was dishonorable conduct for a soldier with harsh punishments, but then again, nobody thought shooting up barracks, when the whole state power is up in the family’s behind as retribution. Just to provide context, we offered refuge to Carlos the Jackal and to PLO terrorists, so it’s not like we didn’t have enemy combatants, maybe, just maybe they did not wanted to mess with the KGB.
The cops in the case of the paramilitary leader were detectives of a local version of the FBI, and trained by the FBI, so they weren’t small town. It was, sadly a power play. My birth country has a SWAT division with a leader of Joe Arpaio’s mentality, and in the last few years, the administration introduced a security theater, with the police being background backup. They wanted to prove they can nail an old man without getting them involved. The problem is, that these far right groups don’t just get money from Moscow, they get lectures on Specnaz techniques too. What we know for a fact about the bomber guy is, sorry, alleged, he hasn’t been convicted, although several CCTV shots identified him on the scene, and leaving it, and he bought bomb parts, that were used in the nail bomb… but not yet proven guilty. Anyhow, he was abducted as a kid by his father who took him to Latin America, more specifically Ecuador. There, he was surrounded by white supremacists, which is why my hot take is, that he bombed the cops (they survived, btw) in retaliation for convicting his hero.
If my past is your future in regards of what kind of policies the administration wants, people like Strickland will be convicted, as the administration want people to be angry, not to act without their insinuation. It also means there might be instances, where rough guys will block democracy, and go unpunished, oh and results of votes, even if unsuccessful for them will be presented as a win. Because among those who voted, they agreed with them in majority. I’m referring to a case from last October, where a referendum was held on whether or not to accept a European Commission proposal (long since dropped, like months before that), and the level of success was 50% of all eligible voters, they got 36%, it was cold, and nobody really cared. Fast forward a few days later, but still 3 weeks before Trump getting elected, they said, based on the results, 90% of the population rebutted the rejected proposal. As you may notice, they dropped mentioning voters in favor of citizens, and used the number of voters favoring their outcome among all the voters as the number, that represents a nation.