calimary
calimary's JournalExactly. NO ONE needs an assault rifle unless they're planning a mass killing.
And maybe part of the answer, or the counter-strategy should be - PUT THEM ON THE DEFENSIVE. "Oh, I see. You planning your own mass murder then." Like LBJ did with the enemy he faced - MAKE 'EM DENY IT.
I'd put that accusation out there as hard and as often as I could if I were in that arena. And straight into their faces. "So you're getting ready for a copycat massacre? That's the only purpose for the existence of the kinds of firepower like you want so damn badly."
And something else, Rainngirl - I, too, go directly to that other thought, with these wannabe Wyatt Earps: "Overcompensating much?" That's the first thing that comes to my mind! Every time! They're obviously trying to get around their own - um - shortcomings. How else would you explain it, in the deepest psychological terms? Obviously what they've got, themselves, isn't enough for 'em, for whatever "statements" they seem adamant about making. I saw a post a couple of days ago - I forget if it was here or Daily Kos or Think Progress or somewhere - in which the writer ran down a list, a VERY LONG list, of all the shootings that snuffed out more than one life. And it was, I think, just within the last few years. I forgot the time frame. But EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE GUNMEN was just that. Male. Except in a single case where it was a gunwoman. The ratio was something like several dozen to one. It was BEYOND lopsided. Ridiculously lopsided. EVERY MASS KILLER who did it with guns, time after time after time after time after time after time, example after example after example after example after example, was male, except for ONE.
Seems to me that such a glaring fact should be instructive for people.
Frankly, I just don't even want to hear from these people anymore. Not a bit interested. Heard it already, WAY more times than I care to, and it never made sense to me before, and it certainly doesn't make any more sense to me now. These people are just tiresome. And they better start figuring out how to compromise with the rest of us - because NOTHING stays the same.
True enough, maybe everybody in power on our side is afraid of the NRA. Maybe our Dems are all spineless regarding standing up to the gun lobby. Maybe it is more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings with a single bullet (or a barrage from a 100-shot magazine). Maybe the gun lobby and gun nuts do trump every other right and safeguard on the books. Maybe their right to be able to kill is far more sacrosanct than even the right to life they cling to so religiously. But NOTHING lasts forever. There's been plenty of speculation here and elsewhere that - at the rate we're going with this wanton gun obsession - there likely will someday come a massacre that just tips the whole weight of public opinion back to the side of reason and anti-hyperbolic hyperventilating and hysterics. It won't be just you and me who've had enough, and in whom something snaps. It'll be huge swaths of the American people who just finally will have had enough. And even all the hundreds of millions of dollars at the NRA's command won't make a damn bit of difference. And we'll finally have some gun regulations and gun ownership restrictions with real teeth in them. Bought and paid for by the blood of dozens more innocent men, women, and children. At the rate we're going with this madness, there may indeed come a point when it's even too much for the gun nuts anymore.
If nothing else, they might be forced to compromise in a case like that - for no other reason than not wanting to look bad, or too blood-thirsty. I hope to God that day never comes, but I'm not optimistic. I heard another statistic quoted on Stephanie Miller's show this morning that spoke of the massacre rate dropping by 60% during the years when the assault weapons ban was in place. Once it was allowed to expire, the numbers went back to hell again.
Sore Loserman 2.0.
Actually, the "2.0" part is in error. It's more like 2.0 MILLION. Or MORE: the number of republi-CONS in Congress and elsewhere in power and every last teabagger who's ever drawn breath, who are the ULTIMATE Sore Losermen because they didn't get their way (as in - THEIR guy in the White House). Like spoiled snot-nosed brat-children throwing temper tantrums.
On second thought, it's not "LIKE spoiled snot-nosed brat-children throwing temper tantrums." The ARE "spoiled snot-nosed brat-children throwing temper tantrums."
And what about YOU restricting OUR freedoms - our freedom to be safe in our own public cinemas?
Our freedoms to be safe from armed nutcases like your friend Holmes there, dirtbag? Since it's so damn important to you, senator, why aren't YOU stepping up and showing leadership on this, and "policing yourselves" like your type of idealogue always gets a hard-on for? I'd love to be able to tell a jerk like this - "you should deal with this problem - unless you want the rest of us to do it for you!" Of course, if the polls are to be believed, most Americans side with him, and not me. Which I Do NOT Get. At ALL.
Don't feel bad, snappyturtle. I'm in a funk today too. Been there for a couple of weeks,
but the Colorado massacre really got to me. I've been flamed several times (or at least, considering the mood I've been in, I REGARD it as being flamed) by these never-ending gun apologists who hang on every technicality, every typo, every weird little crumb of minutae regarding definitions and what does and doesn't qualify as such-and-such kind of gun, and I've just lost patience. I no longer feel the need to see their side of it. I find nothing redeeming or excusable in their side anymore, anyway. And I'm sick of hearing the BS from them about how their sacred right to arm themselves any which-a-way they feel like must ALWAYS trump my right to live free of fear of a domestic terrorist or other nutcase, or the lives and safety of those 12 who were murdered and the dozens more who were injured, some still on the critical list.
In the case you're making, I understand and sympathize completely. I'm just kinda out of tolerance and patience with the selfish and greedy and all the reasons they give, even Biblical references, to excuse their hard hearts toward the poor, the needy, the uninsured, the homeless, the hungry, the shat-upon, and the trickled-down-upon. I just don't want to hear from those people anymore and I'm not the least bit interested in their excuses as to why we need to be so mindful and tender and considerate toward what Garrison Keillor refers to as "the suffering of billionaires."
Your post is just fine. Nothing to regret in it, at all, as far as I can see. I think you've summed up what a lot of us are feeling.
Agreed.
Glad the penalties are this severe. I would have gone harder. Guess I'm just in a serious hard-ass mood today (just ask the gun people).
Sigh - there they go again.
Hanging with all hysteria turned up on high, on a technicality, in order to deflect any talk about the well-regulated part of the Second Amendment. You'd think ONE of them on the "don't touch my flame-thrower or my right to arm up to the tactical nukes level if I damn well feel like it" side would take a leadership position that was truly meaningful, and figure out a way to get these damn weapons of gone-in-60-seconds mass death out of civilian hands.
I hear the arguments again and again and again. They mean nothing to me and they only convince me of the closed-mindedness and pig-headedness on the one side. They blather on because they do so love their killing thingies. I yearn for the day when ONE of these folks comes to his or her senses and has the courage to take a leadership position for truly responsible gun ownership and the restriction of obscenely, ridiculously murderous instruments like these. DO NOT carry on with me about how "oh those are illegal, you can't buy guns like that." Well, THIS guy did. Don't tell me they're not obtainable. THIS guy got one. And don't tell me "oh THAT gun wasn't the right kind," or "oh this one doesn't count" or "this one had a doodad here or a thingamajigger there that was adapted and blah-blah-blah so it doesn't really apply to this case" or some other damn technicality or fine print that lets you escape all civic responsibility to your fellow man, or that the Second Amendment entitles you to own anything that mows any masses of people down in less than a minute JUST BECAUSE it's your divine right, somehow. It's always some fine-pointed technicality about why the founders' discussions about muskets and blunderbusses means that, lo these many years later, you have the sanctity of owning mass-murder machines. TWELVE people, including an innocent six-year-old girl, paid with their lives for this guy's wonderful, marvelous "freedom" to own mass-murder machines FAR beyond a simple handgun or even a basic rifle that's more than enough to hold off a home-invasion robber.
To the gun defenders - WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH? When will these continuing massacres, to the point of an epidemic, finally reach the TOO-MUCH point for YOU, too? Or will life still always remain less valuable than gun ownership? Is that the dilemma we're cursed and doomed with, here in America, in perpetuity? Are we all condemned to be hostages to the NRA for all eternity? Is that our fate in this country? Is THAT what America is?
I know I'll get flamed for this. I certainly have been piled on for speaking out like this in other threads. Well, too bad. So be it. I could respectfully suggest that you save your breath. Please don't bother wasting it on the likes of me. NOTHING will change my mind or convince me to see your point. NOTHING. Not after this. Something just snapped in me, over this one, guys. You can argue about your gun rights til you pass out. I can't hear you anymore. Not after this. I think this was one too many gun schmucks who just kicked every last one of your arguments out from under you. Your argument is with guys like James Holmes who just peed all over your gun parade, not with me. Sorry, but that's how I feel. Go ahead and dump on me all you like for wanting to deny you your "freedoms." Somehow I just don't believe the founders of this country imagined protecting the freedom to own mass-murder weapons. Simple firearms, okay. Muskets and blunderbusses okay. That's what they wrote the Second Amendment about. Weapons that targeted one victim at a time, not dozens in less than a minute. I think the founding fathers and mothers would be HORRIFIED to see their words taken to such extremes in this modern day. In my opinion NO ONE in the civilian world is entitled to own weapons and ammo like this - that are designed for one thing and one thing only, mass murder in a mere few seconds. There's NO legitimate reason that I can see.
Have at it. Pick me apart if it makes you feel better or somehow morally justified. Condemn me for wanting to deny you a "freedom " that, in all seriousness, I firmly believe NO ONE is entitled to have, ESPECIALLY after this. You won't change my mind.
Excellent post, JDPriestly!
Especially here:
"Gun enthusiasts. If you love your guns, this is your problem. People, even those of us who are not overly averse to guns, will reach a tipping point."
This can indeed happen. Reaching a "tipping point." Definitely. As a matter of fact I happen to know someone who just reached a tipping point with the Aurora CO massacre. Me.
Indeed. I bet it made him feel virile as ALL HELL!
I don't find that virility-enhancing at all.
Thank you grantcart. I'm sure you're gonna get the hair-splitters by the droves
trying to "shoot down" your arguments. Too broad-brush, or you don't understand, or it's legal, or those were Illegal, or this magazine is okay because it's whatever, or that gun isn't an assault rifle or weapon or whatever gymnastics they wanna play with the semantics here. They'll always talk their way around whatever valid points you make and somehow label them invalid.
Well, grantcart, they're NOT invalid. Not at all. I don't care how the Second Amendment folks try to dance around this. To me they can't. To me they lose before they even open their mouths. To me they're just simply and flatly WRONG. And they cling to the Second Amendment like a bunch of george zimmermans, unapologetic and proud as can be in their purported rectitude. And somehow they all avoid or ignore the "WELL-REGULATED MILITIA" phrase in that same Second Amendment. What I "love" is how many times I've made that point to some gun-lover and the response is always some version of "oh, no, that's not what it means at all! You see, what they were REALLY talking about was..." Or "oh, no. That doesn't apply. That only applies to..." Or "well, what you don't understand is what that REALLY means here, which is..." Which, frankly, is nothing but BULLSHIT. The founder weren't talking about assault weapons or AK 47s or WHATEVER you want to call them or rename them or somehow jabber-jaw your way around what they really are. Or, splitting hairs further, it wasn't the GUN so much as it was the magazine clip or cartridge or whatever the verbiage is regarding those add-ons that allow you to mow a crowd down in 30 seconds to a minute.
I don't fucking CARE! These guns are WRONG. They're NOTHING but BAD. There is NOTHING good or beneficial or "keeping me safe" about them. They're just damage and mass-murder and bad and WRONG. That's all they are! And NO fast-talking or hair-splitting or slippery-sloping or jabber-jawing or mewling about the Second Amendment and how they get to stand their ground and whatever slick (and SICK) opportunistic murderous talking points the NRA comes up with this hour will change my mind. I don't want to hear their rationales. NONE of them will convince me otherwise. Not EVER.
And frankly, the massacre on Friday night would NOT have been stopped by some law-abiding concealed carry person in the audience. First the guy threw TEAR GAS. Okay? Would any of those concealed-carry zealots have been in that theater with their own gas masks on, too? So they could see through the tear gas and shoot the killer? Yeah, sure. In that packed theater with the lights low and the movie still playing so all this weird flickering light would have been enlivening the billowing clouds of tear gas in everybody's faces, noses, and eyes? How would everyone not be choking and gasping - WHILE they were stampeding in sheer panic, with barrages of 100-shots-a-minute bullets flying everywhere? Oh I'm just SURE somebody else with a gun woulda nailed that killer and just fixed it all, wouldn't they? Some latter-day Wyatt Earp wannabe woulda saved the day, for sure! In THOSE conditions. I've also heard that there WAS someone with a concealed weapon AT the Gabrielle Giffords event when the shooting erupted there. He was unable to do anything to stop the perpetrator there, mainly because, in the chaos that ensued - even in an open parking lot area in the light of day - he couldn't be sure he'd get the actual gunman, or manage to do so without accidently shooting some innocent bystanders too. Plus the fear of what the cops might do when they arrived at the scene and saw HIM with a gun, and mistake HIM for the perpetrator. That IS not the solution.
Good question, DrDan. I don't find anything appealing in photos like that.
Photos like that just make me sad. My best friend had one of those too. She took her kids to a photo safari in Africa. While there, they got a chance to shoot some antelope-like beast. Yes I know she said that the meat from that was going to feed a village for a week. I still found it unsettling. And when she showed me that photo of everybody smiling and posing with this dead creature, it just made me sad. That's all. Just sad.
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