I don’t know how you carry out a hit on a guy who is walking with his 5 year old son. And that happened in my old neighborhood. It’s a shopping area I actually used. Then there’s the guy who opened fire in a nightclub last night because he was angry about being sprayed with champaign. There’s the kid in Louisville who was gunned down today “like a dog.” There’s the cops killed today in Houston and Milwaukee. There’s a couple of victims in Minnesota who got shot on Saturday. There’s four people who got shot in Chicago tonight. Can’t forget the firefighters who were shot and murdered in upstate New York today. A guy got shot at a bar in Bellevue, Washington. Don’t forget Las Vegas. No one notices when people die in Baltimore. A man lost his life in York, Pennsylvania yesterday. Look, another club shooting, this one in Memphis. People were too drunk to remember this Alaska shooting.
I could go on, and on, and on, and on.
Merry Christmas.
We all need personal armed guards.
The guy that killed the firefighters was “rehabilitated” after serving a 17 year sentence for murdering his grandmother according to BBC. Two questions: How does a guy that murders his grandmother EVER get allowed access to guns. And how does a guy that murders his grandmother EVER see the light of day outside a prison?
Rehabilitation doesn’t happen in prison; certainly not in the torture chambers the US calls “prison”.
Right. That’s why the quotes.
Your list would represent a year’s worth of shootings in many other industrialized countries.
Maybe we can get some gun legislation through but I’m doubtful. I’m especially hoping this isn’t a sign of what’s to come in a second term…
Merry Christmas, Boo.
Tomorrow is Christmas. On Christmas, the shootings will continue. It’s inevitable.
There are a reported 270,000,000 legal guns including semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles, in America, and an additional number of illegal guns including even automatics. How can it be otherwise?
Right, we have a DENIAL problem and a PRIORITY Problem.
Largest denial problem: “We are powerless to stop insane people, criminals from carrying out their crimes”.
Are we even trying? No.
The classic example being the recent meltdown of the guy in New York, who shot and killed two voluteer firemen. This guy was a FELON; just how and where did he get his guns and ammo? It is illegal for felons to have guns/ammo.
Second large (and bogus)excuse: “We can’t afford more/better security in our schools and universities”.
Really? Apparently some have forgotten Congress was spending $8 BILLION per month on the Iraq war fiasco, and this went on for years.
I guarantee you providing better security for our schools/universities would not cost $8 Billion per month.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2008/0310/p16s01-wmgn.html
That first one is where I’ve gone shopping as well. To be honest, I am not surprised.
And I’ll be honest: whenever I leave my house in this city, I worry about getting shot, or my kid getting shot. Same with when I ride the bus, the subway, or the trolley. It’s awful.
The only times I worried about getting shot in the city was whenever I drove between Passyunk and Washington on 15th or 16th or 17th street. Most of the random shootings occurred above 18th, but still…
Oh yeah, that area’s pretty bad. But with all the violence in this city -especially among teenagers- it can (and does) go down anywhere.
The NRA talks vaguely about “freedom”. Like every other part of wingnutia it’s hard to pin them down as to what they mean by “freedom” but one of their favorite slogans involves pointing out that Hitler enacted gun registration – the implication being that unconstrained gun access is needed to prevent a fascist state from emerging.
But listen to their vision of America they’ve articulated these past two weeks. Citizen gun patrols everywhere – kindergartens, churches, shopping malls. And not just people with handguns in holsters, armored guards with full automatic weapons to deter bad guys with semi-automatics. And massive computer databases collecting every bit of information about citizens in order to identify the bad guys in advance.
Now tell me that their vision isn’t a picture of exactly what we imagine a fascist police state to look like.
Ron Paul’s come out against that. His vision isn’t much better, though, considering he subscribes to “more guns less crime.” I find it just as authoritarian as when I’m forced to carry a gun by virtue of the fact that everyone else has one.
My best guess is that “freedom” amounts to freedom to coerce and oppress – what someone like Karl Polanyi might have called “negative” freedom. It’s not a “freedom” I would want to embrace, that’s for sure.
The 28TH AMENDMENT:
The Second Amendment shall not interpreted to apply to weapons with one or more constituent parts designed or patented after 1900.
This would mean that individual localities can regulate the shit out of all the killer weapons, but that hunting rifles, shotguns and some pistols will still be legal.
But cannon and all other kinds of explosives would be protected.
One of the “funny” things about the conservative interpretation of the 2nd amendment is that there is an unwritten line drawn regarding what arms are allowed for individuals. Machine guns, yes. Bazookas, no. Armor-piercing bullets, yes. Rocket-propelled grenades, no.
And as you can tell by those examples it’s not based on whether the arms are “personal” in nature.
There is no logic here, at least none that will stand up to a few minutes of scrutiny. Your local wingnut militia won’t be able to defend itself for long against a UN invasion or an Obama-inspired military takeover of the US with just automatic rifles. Remember that Iraq had automatic rifles all over the country in private hands. And you don’t need semi-automatic rifles to defend your home from common criminals unless the country is already awash in such weapons. And forget about using them for hunting.
Ultimately, with the NRA, we’re dealing with an extremely strong emotionally-driven movement. Yes, I know there are NRA members who don’t agree with the crazy elements who run the organization now – I grew up with one in my house (a career gunsmith) and am extremely familiar with the movement. I wrote about the NRA for my undergraduate thesis. But even the so-called “rational” NRA members still side with the leadership because they do deeply believe that Democrats will take away their guns. No amount of evidence will persuade – the fact that Obama’s only gun-related action in his first term was to allow weapons into national parks only convinced them more that he was waiting for the right time to seize all private guns. Like people perpetually predicting the date of the rapture, NRA rank-and-file never back down from their core belief.
The NRA would continue to deny there is a “gun problem” in this country even if Wayne LaPierre himself was gunned down in broad daylight by another gun nut with an AR-15.
These people nauseate me.