The News Thread

[CiG]

So your confusion is over why right-wing groups don't commit political suicide by supporting left-wing causes? Great question.

If you're conflating genuineness with bipartisanship I think you have no idea how any representative form of government works. Is no political movement genuine until it controls political power?

No I just think that if you care more about freedom of movement than you do allowing terrorists easy access to your nation, you're no better than an American who cares more about the right to bear arms than they do allowing a mass shooter to have easy access to firearms.

 

[no country for old wainds]

it's been pretty widely reported that it's 290ish shootings since the start of 2013, but i'll grant you it might be Fake News. more likely it's as you say, they just include anything that could vaguely be categorised as a school shooting even if it had no real consequence

 

[CiG]

Gun in any context going off + school = included in the numbers, from what I can see.

 

[Einherjar86]

the difference being school shootings happen in the US literally over once a week lol

YBtw I looked up the school shooting chart and you're talking out of your ass.

Furthermore instances like a young girl with a pistol accidentally going off in class or someone driving past a school and shooting at it are counted in the school shooting stats lmao.

it's been pretty widely reported that it's 290ish shootings since the start of 2013, but i'll grant you it might be Fake News. more likely it's as you say, they just include anything that could vaguely be categorised as a school shooting even if it had no real consequence

You originally said "over once a week." If only 53 of those 290ish shootings are more than "a gun accidentally going off in class," then you weren't talking out of your ass.

EDIT: I assumed you were talking annually; it's since Sandy Hook that there have been over 200 school shootings, so that's less than once a week. Thank goodness.

 

[Dak]

It's not irrelevant if they use that emotion to create a movement to heavily restrict firearms. It was widespread emotion that caused the Port Arthur massacre over here to become the catalyst for our current gun laws, which for better or worse was something the majority of Australians supported.

Irrelevant in a rational/logical/philosophical sense.

Most people are dumb, democracy is only a defense against 18th and 18th century genocide.

 

[CiG]

You originally said "over once a week." If only 53 of those 290ish shootings are more than "a gun accidentally going off in class," then you weren't talking out of your ass.

Just look for yourself: http://everytownresearch.org/school-shootings/#5890

lmao here's one example they include in the school shootings stats:

"A thirty-seven-year-old assistant professor fatally shot himself in the electrical engineering building."

Wtf?

 

[Einherjar86]

See my edit.

 

[CiG]

 

[tagradh]

It happens to majority white countries that aren't involved in America and Britain's molestation of the middle east. For example, France.

France not involved in ME molestation?


Given that North Africans are always lumped in with Arabs anyway, and given France's massive involvement in both North Africa and the ME.... Wot?



Also, the people you're criticizing for feigning empathy are definitely counterbalanced by the 'WE MUST DO SOMETHING, DON'T EVEN THINK IT THROUGH JUST DO SOMETHING' brigade. The reality is that none of this shit has any real impact upon the vast majority of our lives and that's precisely why nothing drastic happens in response.

Terrorism has been a serious issue in the UK since the 60s/70s. If you paid any attention to the news then you don't even have to be that old to remember shit about the PIRA being on TV all the time.

It's a shame that pre-Desert Quest 2.0 more people didn't take on board the fact that if civilized potato herders didn't like occupation, a bunch of crazed djinn worshipers were likely to react just as uncouthly.

 

[CiG]

I'm not aware of any French meddling in the middle east, beyond trying to exert political pressure in the absence of American influences here and there, like with the Saudis. But that's something every state does with every other state.

 

[Dak]

It's a shame that pre-Desert Quest 2.0 more people didn't take on board the fact that if civilized potato herders didn't like occupation, a bunch of crazed djinn worshipers were likely to react just as uncouthly.

Post 9/11 in a nutshell, except it started earlier.

 

[tagradh]

I'm not aware of any French meddling in the middle east, beyond trying to exert political pressure in the absence of American influences here and there, like with the Saudis. But that's something every state does with every other state.

It's hard to know where to begin given that they've done as much meddling as the US and UK in the ME and North Africa (excluding North Africa when talking about this sorta thing is, like excluding Afghanistan, ridiculous) over the past century (i.e. the sort of time span that's definitely worth considering given that it's still very much on the minds of so many in the region).

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not sure if this flies in the face of second amendment gung-hoes (puns galore--or should I say, guns palore?), but I find this to be a measured and totally practical commentary. I think we should shift our focus away from banning (which is impractical, sadly) and toward managing. People need permits and certifications to operate certain vehicles, so it just seems to make sense that similar protocols should be followed with weapons--even semi-automatics like an AR-15.

https://agingmillennialengineer.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/fuck-you-i-like-guns-2/

I understand that people want to be able to own guns. That’s ok. We just need to really think about how we’re managing this. Yes, we have to manage it, just as we manage car ownership. People have to get a license to operate a car, and if you operate a car without a license, you’re going to get in trouble for that. We manage all things in society that can pose a danger to other people by their misuse. In addition to cars, we manage drugs, alcohol, exotic animals (there are certain zip codes where you can’t own Serval cats, for example), and fireworks, among other things. We restrict what types of businesses can operate in which zones of the city or county. We have a whole system of permitting for just about any activity a person wants to conduct since those activities could affect others, and we realize, as a society, that we need to try to minimize the risk to other people that comes from the chosen activities of those around them in which they have no say. Gun ownership is the one thing our country collectively refuses to manage, and the result is a lot of dead people.

 

[Dak]

Getting a CCP is generally about as involved as getting a driver's license, and I don't have too much of an issue with that - plus it is handled at the state level. Otherwise, alcohol, drugs, and business zoning are handled at lower-than-federal levels, and I've never heard of permits for buying alcohol for consumption. If one is talking about being a dealer, selling firearms requires FFLs. The writer says a lot of other stuff that is varying degrees of misleading. For instance, it's true military firearms are housed in armories when not in use, and weapons are generally not allowed in barracks. Guess how many weapons are residing in base housing though? Probably more than in the armories. Many married military personnel will store weapons for single personnel in their homes for them, besides their own. Base violence being low has nothing to do with a lack of access to weaponry, or frankly even the training.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The problem is that many spree killers are unlicensed individuals that steal from their licensed family members, and the family is often oblivious (or deeply in denial) about the threat that their spree-killing relatives possess. You could maybe use it as a weapon to severely punish individuals with permits that had unsecured weapons stolen, though I bet if a parent is that worried that their child is going to shoot up a school, they've already done something about it. Permits are fine from a practicality standpoint if you want to reduce gun accidents, just as driving permits prevent (in theory) untrained drivers from operating vehicles. Gun accidents make up something like 3% of all gun deaths though, and no one really cares when Bubba asks Billy Ray to hold his beer and "Watch this".

EDIT:

With this in mind, is anybody surprised that nearly every mass shooter in recent US history has used an AR-15 to commit their crime?

This is totally wrong btw, unless he defines "recent US history" as "maybe the last 5 years", and "nearly every mass shooter" as "maybe half the shooters that killed 10 or more people and made it to national news". The overwhelming majority of mass shootings (if we're going by the usual definition of 3+ people shot in a brief time period) are done with handguns.

 

[Dak]

The problem is that many spree killers are unlicensed individuals that steal from their licensed family members, and the family is often oblivious (or deeply in denial) about the threat that their spree-killing relatives possess. You could maybe use it as a weapon to severely punish individuals with permits that had unsecured weapons stolen, though I bet if a parent is that worried that their child is going to shoot up a school, they've already done something about it. Permits are fine from a practicality standpoint if you want to reduce gun accidents, just as driving permits prevent (in theory) untrained drivers from operating vehicles. Gun accidents make up something like 3% of all gun deaths though, and no one really cares when Bubba asks Billy Ray to hold his beer and "Watch this".


This is totally wrong btw, unless he defines "recent US history" as "maybe the last 5 years", and "nearly every mass shooter" as "maybe half the shooters that killed 10 or more people and made it to national news". The overwhelming majority of mass shootings (if we're going by the usual definition of 3+ people shot in a brief time period) are done with handguns.

Yes to all of this but 4+*

 

[Einherjar86]

The deadliest mass shootings do involve an AR-15. And it doesn't require significant certification or permits to purchase one. At least a driver's license requires a driving exam.

The fact that shooters might steal the guns from their parents isn't an argument against more stringent certification requirements.

 

[Dak]

The deadliest mass shootings do involve an AR-15. And it doesn't require significant certification or permits to purchase one. At least a driver's license requires a driving exam.

So let's say we extend the common CCP requirements of a day-long class and a brief qualifying shoot as the licensing requirement for purchasing any firearms. Do we think that this would prevent any of these recent school shooters from acquiring the firearms? School shootings are something that are "snap decision" sorts of crimes. This most recent dude was supposedly introducing himself to people as a school shooter and making social media postings about doing such.

 

[CiG]

Do we think that this would prevent any of these recent school shooters from acquiring the firearms?

Well requiring a driver's license to legally use a car stops unlicensed drivers from driving stolen vehicles, so yes it will work.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The deadliest mass shootings do involve an AR-15. And it doesn't require significant certification or permits to purchase one. At least a driver's license requires a driving exam.

The fact that shooters might steal the guns from their parents isn't an argument against more stringent certification requirements.

Correct: if you pick spree shootings, responsible for ~1% of all gun murders, and then pick the deadliest ~1% of spree shootings, responsible for maybe ~10% of all spree shooting deaths, you'll find a bias towards AR-15. Congrats, you've successfully extracted the scariest, most newsworthy form of gun violence, maintaining a public image of doing something about the issue while actually accomplishing very little. I hope Dems continue to fight along those lines because even if they eventually win that battle, they still have hundreds more to fight if they want to really crack down on gun ownership.

How is it not? More stringent vehicle certification against the parents won't stop the occasional 15 year old from going on a joyride.