The News Thread
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Dak
mentat
Well some of that can be explained by ignorance right? Until it's in your backyard, we often believe we can afford ignorance.
I regularly torture myself reading all of the stuff I don't agree with, and I'm not sure what's worse in what super frequently comes from the anti-gun camp (and even after all of these years of this stuff coming up from time to time, there's no learning occurring in the interim):
1. A total misunderstanding of firearms, demonstrated by the repetition of either inaccurate, inconsequential, or vague-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness adjectives , descriptions, etc, regarding firearms and munitions.
2. Little to no knowledge of or comprehension of existing gun laws, or of how various gun control policies may or may not be enacted or enforced, or what the ramifications are. This is demonstrated by things like claiming we need laws that we actually already have, advocating for conflicting policies, advocating for policies which would have no effect on problems listed, advocating for total bans (as "sensible"!), etc.
Those two issues describe nearly all of the written material on the subject from that anti-gun position that aren't appeals to emotions or declarations of superior morality.
rms
Active Member
Dak
mentat
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...land-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/
I'll just gloss right over how often "semi-automatic" gets used to describe problematic weapons, since most private firearms in the world, and definitely in the US, are technically semi-auto (and revolvers may as well be for that matter). Tacking that descriptive onto discussions of guns reveals a lot about the agenda of the piece.
So onto the claim that the problem with the AR-15 in comparison with handguns is velocity. Well duh there's higher velocity: It's smaller projectile (if chambered in .223) traveling through a longer barrel. However, the type of projectile and what projectiles are designed to do is completely ignored in this writeup, although it discusses internal cavitation. The author claims an "AR-15" does far more internal damage than a 9mm. What if it is a 9mm chambered AR-15? It's an AR but shooting the same bullet. Furthermore, different projectiles perform differently on impact, nevermind the differences in powder loads.
The piece is a poorly written, deceptive, appeal to the emotion of fear. Like pretty much every other piece being generated, as if by an amateur algorithm fed the words "semiautomatic" "our children" and "sensible" as seed.
I'll just gloss right over how often "semi-automatic" gets used to describe problematic weapons, since most private firearms in the world, and definitely in the US, are technically semi-auto (and revolvers may as well be for that matter). Tacking that descriptive onto discussions of guns reveals a lot about the agenda of the piece.
So onto the claim that the problem with the AR-15 in comparison with handguns is velocity. Well duh there's higher velocity: It's smaller projectile (if chambered in .223) traveling through a longer barrel. However, the type of projectile and what projectiles are designed to do is completely ignored in this writeup, although it discusses internal cavitation. The author claims an "AR-15" does far more internal damage than a 9mm. What if it is a 9mm chambered AR-15? It's an AR but shooting the same bullet. Furthermore, different projectiles perform differently on impact, nevermind the differences in powder loads.
The piece is a poorly written, deceptive, appeal to the emotion of fear. Like pretty much every other piece being generated, as if by an amateur algorithm fed the words "semiautomatic" "our children" and "sensible" as seed.
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rms
Active Member
EternalMetal
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But surely the job of an armed guard at a school is to protect the people inside during an actual incident? To me it sounded like the guy just cowered outside and waited for the incident to be resolved. His job, you would think, should have been to be the first officer to respond to the scene, assess, and de-escalate.
Dazed and Brutal
Yall About to Witness
I just don't understand how conservatives are pushing for more integrating databases and tighter background checks when they are always the first to pinpoint just how incompetent and ineffective these sort of gov't programs are in other contexts.They constantly use loopholes to dismiss any bill that outright bans semi-automatic weapons, but fails to see the glaring hypocrisy of deferring to the systems that also are vulnerable to loopholes. It's such a fucking copout.
rms
Active Member
Dazed and Brutal
Yall About to Witness
I meant the GoP. The GoP wants to put faith in a system that's irredeemably fractured and woefully underfunded. Even if the system were to work effectively, there is no guarantee that it could actually preempt a spree because this isn't just an issue with misspent youths like Cruz. It certainly wouldn't have stopped Stephen Maddock.
I do understand that the GoP is making concessions, but using mental health as a benchmark is just as ill-defined as a bill banning "assault rifles". Clearly, there needs to be a lot more middle ground to uphold the 2nd amendment and to provide assurance against these mass casualty events.
Dak
mentat
Mass casualty events are a tiny fraction of homicide by gun. Successful prediction and subsequent action to prevent low baserate events is doomed to failure.
Dazed and Brutal
Yall About to Witness
I think there is some merit in this, but that's still a cop-out. I don't think these 'lone wolf' types could gain the back-channel access required to attain assault weapons if they're outlawed. I understand that most homicides by gun are in the single digits, but that's not shouldn't prevent us from discussing mass-cal as a separate issue. It's best to look at historical trends with spree killings rather set it against gun violence in general as they both have different motives. The figures clearly suggest that mass-cal events are occurring at an accelerated rate with larger body-counts. Reducing the casualty-producing qualities available to the public has the potential to lessen the scale of these attacks imo.
Dak
mentat
If we don't respond to the motives, method is relatively irrelevant. Pressure cookers/improvised explosive devices, vehicles, knives, and other firearms are all options, and handguns remain a more lethal option for close range, room-to-room style attacks. The VT shooter was the most lethal school shooter so far for a reason. The "popularity" of ARs may be saving lives in poorly defensed, close range, target rich environments. A bandoleer of .40 semiauto handguns with additional loaded magazines full of hollowpoints, or a semiauto shotgun with buckshot would likely be a far worse option.
Of course, the Vegas shooter was very lethal because of AR characteristics, but could have been similarly effective with non-AR semiauto rifles, because of the nature of the target.
Either way, bans are high on sensitivity, and low on specificity, which makes it a measure you would want to avoid unless the cost of false negatives was astronomic and pathogenic. School shootings are neither.
HamburgerBoy
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Are you suggesting that gun availability is the cause behind the acceleration in mass shootings? Guns were no less available in the 70s and 80s than they are now, and most gun crime has actually decreased significantly over the last 20+ years. Gun ownership on a per-household basis has actually gone down; most increases in gun possession are from hoarders/enthusiasts. Mass shootings are an anomaly in overall gun violence, both as a percentage of gun homicides as well as in terms of correlating (let alone proving causation to) any gun-related trendline.
It's more of a meme in the non-internet sense of the word. Two attention whores shoot up a school, a mass media spectacle ensues, and dozens of copycats follow, directly inspired by the pioneers.
I don't disagree with this on a factual basis, but that's kinda the point. The generous POV is that they don't want to add new regulations if the old ones cannot even be enforced properly. The skeptical POV is that they promote these as solutions because they know it won't really impact their constituents. I'm fine with either interpretation and with the GOP loopholing around the mess.
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Dazed and Brutal
Yall About to Witness
This is isn't what I'm suggesting. Obvious the root of the problem lies at a much more profound level that society isn't able to grapple with (i.e. sympathy for the pariahs), but that doesn't mean that we, as a society, don't need to rethink about the actual utility of assault like weapons. As I said earlier, just because gun deaths have been declining overall doesn't mean that the need for reform has. The problem is that these events are "anomalous" and should be viewed independently in severity especially when it impacts our educational institutions.
Also, why would the GoP be hesitant to enact new policies if the older ones can't be enforced? Clearly, the old measures are spread too thin to operate effectively and is too difficult ensure quality uniformly across the country. If you can't reliably predict and, in turn, can't prevent an outcome, then to look to other variables.
HamburgerBoy
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The primary utility of semi-automatic rifles is probably for fun. Same can be said for a lot of dangerous things, like SUVs and alcohol.
I don't know that it's a matter of old measures "spread too thin", in the sense that they're underfunded or lack legal authority. The Texas church shooting and this one were both failures of other agencies, the Air Force and local Florida school department respectively, to report past criminal behavior to the proper authorities. It's an inherent flaw in a bureaucratic system where everything has to be reported through several different agencies, and the federal government isn't really allowed take over the role of state governments in handling state crimes, state schools, etc. I think background checks will always be a half-measure at best by their nature, since they have so many points of failure and can be avoided relatively easily through gun theft and straw sales.
You can ask why the GOP favors that, but you could also ask why the DNC favors "common sense" regulation usually in the same form, with just a few bump stock or magazine capacity laws attached. The answer is that gun rights are one of the most contentious, single-item policies that voters care about. The NRA is an extremely powerful lobby, not because of contributions from gun manufacturers (which help of course) but because of the millions of die-hard gun owners that vote Republican along that one issue. I personally vote straight-ticket Republican on local representatives because gun rights are the one policy that I know they'll defend, because Republicans that are weak on the issue get kicked out on their ass in most states. Republicans tried bargaining in the past for decades and it meant a consistently eroding access to guns, but the line has been drawn hard now and it hopefully isn't going to budge until the DNC takes the Executive and Judiciary back, if not the Legislative as well.
I don't know that it's a matter of old measures "spread too thin", in the sense that they're underfunded or lack legal authority. The Texas church shooting and this one were both failures of other agencies, the Air Force and local Florida school department respectively, to report past criminal behavior to the proper authorities. It's an inherent flaw in a bureaucratic system where everything has to be reported through several different agencies, and the federal government isn't really allowed take over the role of state governments in handling state crimes, state schools, etc. I think background checks will always be a half-measure at best by their nature, since they have so many points of failure and can be avoided relatively easily through gun theft and straw sales.
You can ask why the GOP favors that, but you could also ask why the DNC favors "common sense" regulation usually in the same form, with just a few bump stock or magazine capacity laws attached. The answer is that gun rights are one of the most contentious, single-item policies that voters care about. The NRA is an extremely powerful lobby, not because of contributions from gun manufacturers (which help of course) but because of the millions of die-hard gun owners that vote Republican along that one issue. I personally vote straight-ticket Republican on local representatives because gun rights are the one policy that I know they'll defend, because Republicans that are weak on the issue get kicked out on their ass in most states. Republicans tried bargaining in the past for decades and it meant a consistently eroding access to guns, but the line has been drawn hard now and it hopefully isn't going to budge until the DNC takes the Executive and Judiciary back, if not the Legislative as well.
Dazed and Brutal
Yall About to Witness
Yea it's really at gridlock at the moment, but I think there's going to be a run at the courts which could run past attention spans. It's hard to not want some policy for the suffering that community has to endure.
HamburgerBoy
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The courts aren't supposed to make policy, although of course in practice it happens anyways.
Fuck their suffering tbh, the only reason this story is being treated as a bigger deal than the shootings in Las Vegas and Texas (by both Dems and Reps) is because it involved a bunch of upper class white and Jewish high school kids. Trump has only begun to waffle on 2A issues after this shooting and it's obvious why he's doing so now rather than after the many gun homicides in the past. There isn't a demographic less deserving of a bit of carnage at the moment. If Trump goes through with his suggestion to raise the age of gun purchases to 21 I'll never vote for him in 2020.
Fuck their suffering tbh, the only reason this story is being treated as a bigger deal than the shootings in Las Vegas and Texas (by both Dems and Reps) is because it involved a bunch of upper class white and Jewish high school kids. Trump has only begun to waffle on 2A issues after this shooting and it's obvious why he's doing so now rather than after the many gun homicides in the past. There isn't a demographic less deserving of a bit of carnage at the moment. If Trump goes through with his suggestion to raise the age of gun purchases to 21 I'll never vote for him in 2020.
Dak
mentat
Trumps done enough appointment wise and not done so much in a bad way policy wise that I'd actually consider voting for him in 2020. But it wouldn't take much to stop the consideration, and waffling on this would be one thing. Trump is a terrible on an interpersonal level, but he's not been near the policy snake the fake-nicer folks in DC are. Every time he bashes McCain I wanna give him another gold star.
Dazed and Brutal
Yall About to Witness
HamburgerBoy
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I don't remember hardline-Repubs willing to concede after Sandy Hook. A few more moderate ones, probably, but Republicans control basically everything right now, they have no need to be in a bargaining position. You didn't have victims/friends of victims paraded around like you do some of these high school kids either. This is primarily being promoted because it victimized members of the elite class, which is how gun control laws are generally passed (e.g. laws after JFK's assassination as well as the Brady Bill).
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