Saturday, October 11, 2014

The only person who can stop someone with a gun...

In case you have short memories.



Quote of the Day

Nothing like letting the NRA babble:
Some would suggest that the rate of suicide may indeed be higher among firearm owners than non-owners. Gun owners are notably self-reliant and exhibit a willingness to take definitive action when they believe it to be in their own self-interest. Such action may include ending their own life when the time is deemed appropriate.
Source, which has again been mirrored.

Also, the idea to treat suicide as a matter of self-reliance is hilarious considering how much the right fights against things such as euthanasia and abortion.

Does Race Shape Americans’ Passion for Guns?

Fox

What if large groups of African-American men carrying shotguns and semi-automatic rifles started moseying into stores across America to tout their support of open-carry gun laws?
Would they be greeted by the same anxious looks shoppers gave groups of armed white men who did the same this summer at Target stores and chain restaurants like Chipotle? Or something more lethal?
For Charles Gallagher, a sociologist who studies race, the answer to that “what if” is easy.
“Whites walking down Main Street with an AK-47 are defenders of American values; a black man doing the same thing is Public Enemy No. 1,” says Gallagher, a professor at La Salle University in Pennsylvania.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Reading Gun Loon Comments

I find that gun loons' comments are easier to understand if you read them while thinking they are Bluebottle from the Goon Show:
SEAGOON: Who are you, you little tea-stained, crumpet-ridden idiot?
BLUEBOTTLE: I am a little tea-stained, crumpet-ridden idiot. Thinks: I'm a little tea-stained, crumpet-ridden idiot.
SEAGOON: Great larrups of dongle. He thinks he's a little tea-stained, crumpet-ridden idiot.
BLUEBOTTLE: Yes!
There are one or two of them who this really applies to.
www.thegoonshow.net/scripts_show.asp?title=s06e19_the_jet_propelled_guided_naafi

Special quote of the day

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai is someone who can say that guns don't give anyone power.

On the afternoon of 9 October 2012, Malala boarded her school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat. A gunman asked for Malala by name, then pointed a Colt 45 at her and fired three shots. One bullet hit the left side of Malala's forehead, traveled under her skin the length of her face and then into her shoulder.
 

Let's toss in that Pakistan, especially where Malala is from, is awash in guns.

So, if guns give freedom: explain Pakistan!

And where is the British Genocide?

Anyway, given Pakistan's gun culture, the fact that Malala was shot, and that she is now a Nobel Peace Prize winner, I will post this special quote of the day.

Bill Maher, An Unusual Liberal


But he’s not on my side: I’m a Muslim, and Bill Maher thinks that makes me violent. Bill Maher hates all religion, but he hates Islam especially. He is not an equal-opportunity atheist. He believes Islam preaches violence, that religious extremism is Islam’s default instead of its corruption, that the issues in the Middle East stem from its religion rather than the ugly colonial residue that colors the region. He eagerly conflates Islam with extremism, the religion with militant jihadism. And when people try to tell him otherwise—as Bobby Ghosh did, as Reza Aslan did, as even Ben “I’ll be naked in this movie, but I won’t wear a Yankees hat” Affleck did—he falls back on his old standby, talking over them and sometimes cracking a joke.
And so I take his betrayal particularly personally because, insulting and offensive and generally dickish as Maher can be, I’ve always assumed that he isn’t actively racist because he’s a liberal. I don’t feel betrayed when Bill O’Reilly talks about Muslims being inherently violent or crazy. I don’t care about Bill O’Reilly’s opinions—I already know it’s in his best interest to say anything that will get him ratings. But the audience of Fox News is notoriously conservative, and conservatives are notoriously racist.
But Maher is on HBO, the network of The Wire and Sex and the City. HBO doesn’t cater to conservatives—it caters to the part of the 18-to-34 demographic that’s into prestige television and boxing. Maher’s show especially, which usually consists of him and some liberal buddies of his talking over people from the intellectual side of American conservatism, seems to appeal largely to young liberals. It isn’t in Maher’s best interest to appeal to racists because his audience isn’t supposed to be racist—it’s the youth of America, the beautiful, post-baby boomer future. We’re sex-positive, we want to legalize weed, and we have a lot of gay friends. We’re supposed to be better.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Quote of the day

The NRA fully understands the racial dynamic at play here. As long as we can blame something other than guns, America will not have to come to terms with the truth that violence is a complicated phenomenon that is made far more lethal by the easy availability and killing power of firearms. And for an organization with an overwhelmingly conservative, white base, that "something other" is minorities.
The fact that this issue is actually complicated if probably why most gun loons don't really get it.

It's Not About Self-Defense--It's About Posing

We've all seen it.

The 400-lb tub o'goo wearing the "CrossFit" tee shirt.  Or the 98-lb walking acne farm rocking the "US Olympic Sex Team" tee.

Open carry is no different.  It's a way for society's losers to self-proclaim they deserve your fear, awe, and respect because they were man enough to shell out a couple hundred bucks and lug a gun around town.

It ain't about self-defense.

A Gresham, Oregon open carry enthusiast was robbed of his weapon on Saturday by another man with a gun.

According to KOIN Channel 6, 21-year-old William Coleman III of Gresham was standing and talking to his cousin shortly after 2:00 a.m. on Saturday when another man approached him and asked for a cigarette.

The other man — described as a black male around 6 feet tall with a lean build and wavy hair — asked Coleman about his weapon, a Walther P22 pistol.

He then pulled a pistol from the waistband of his pants, pointed it at Coleman and said, “I like your gun. Give it to me.”

Quote of the day

Fear has, in this moment, a respectability I’ve never seen in my life.
It should be no surprise that the Richard J. Hofstadter article about US Right Wing Politics was called The Paranoid Style in American Politics:
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics. In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Piers Morgan and Sean Hannity Agree on Obama Disagree on Guns

Accidental Poisoning Death is 51 Times More Likely than Accidental Shooting death

Breitbart

The raw figures show there were 600 accidental shooting deaths in 2010, yet there were 30,781 accidental poisoning deaths in that same year. There were 554 accidental shooting deaths in 2009 vs. 31,758 accidental poisoning deaths and 592 accidental shooting deaths in 2008 vs. 31,116 accidental poisoning deaths.

Another way, perhaps a fairer way, to look at this would be to compare accidental and non-accidental poisoning deaths to all gun deaths. That would pretty much even things up, wouldn't it?

But, the real point is, so what?  What's the point? Should we continue to nonchalantly respond to preventable gun deaths just because there are more deadly things out there?

Of course not.  

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Confession time:

Whoah--Confession time:  This time the NRA admits that not every gun sold goes through a background check.  In fact, being able to sell guns to criminals might be a violation of the concept of "gun rights".

To the first point, it is incontestable that a vote for the Manchin-Toomey-Schumer bill constitutes a vote to take away gun rights.  Currently, gun owners in most states enjoy the right to privately transfer firearms.  They often do so by facilitating such transfers at gun shows and by advertising through online and print publications.  The private transfer restriction amendment would have outlawed this activity, making firearm transfers more difficult, and therefore less likely to occur.

Thank you, NRA.

The best thing to do is to let gun loons shoot their mouths off and screen cap their comments.

Law abiding, my arse.


Source:
www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2014/10/fact-checkers-appoint-themselves-arbiters-of-what-constitute-gun-rights.aspx

BTW, the above site has been mirrored.

Another open carrier robbed!

"I like your gun...give it to me!"

Yeah, we know the entire progun argument is based on lies and half-truths, such as John Lott's obviously bullshit "More guns, Less crime" and the disproven Kleck DGU study.

Anyway, the perp wore flip flops.

More here.

It doesn't look like having a gun is the best method of self-defence...

This is what winning looks like

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.


Quote of the Day

More proof that the concept of "gun rights" may not be popular:
In Washington State this November, none of that will matter. There are no phone calls to Senate offices in referendum campaigns. The losses that Alan Gottlieb worries the American public may inflict on the gun-rights movement will be delivered directly, by ordinary people checking boxes on pieces of paper. In other words, pretty much the exact opposite of a police state.
Source

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Change in US attitude toward Guns and the NRA

It used to be that the NRA was considered a political force not to be crossed, yet that opinion seems to be changing with politicians openly talking about regulating firearms.



It is a welcome change.

Josh Horwitz on the Wicomico County (MD) Sheriff Mike Lewis



Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis made headlines in Maryland recently when he suggested he might not enforce new state gun laws that he believed were unconstitutional, despite court rulings to the contrary.

But Sheriff Lewis didn't stop there. He also threatened “all-out civil war” if the federal government attempted to enforce gun laws in Wicomico County.1
Despite these threats, Sheriff Lewis still holds a certification from the Maryland Police Training Commission to train law enforcement officers in the state.
The mission of the Maryland Police Training Commission is to "ensure the quality of law enforcement...through the establishment and enforcement of standards and the facilitation and delivery of training, education and prevention programs." Simply put, it is difficult to see how a law enforcement officer who is threatening to wage war with the United States government meets any recognized standards of public service. 
There is no place in public service for those who promote "Second Amendment remedies." Thank you for standing with us in this important campaign.
Sincerely,
Josh Horwitz
Executive Director
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
 

Guns in China



East Asian News and Politics

The gun control blog Mikeb323000 has done an excellent job over the years documenting the dangers associated with firearms, both in the hands of legal and illegal gun owners, as well as the police.  

While the recent rise in death by cops in America seems to be rising, like the killing of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson Missouri, an article from the Washington Post highlights at least in America the police are held more accountable than in China. 

Invoking the threat of terrorism, Chinese police for the first time in years have started carrying guns and, with little training, using them.

The fatal effects have rippled across the country, reaching even this tiny mountain village.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Can Magazine Capacity Limitations Save Lives?

taken from another discussion

When a guy is pulling the trigger and sending lead down on his targets, any interruption, no matter how brief would be welcome. Am I wrong about that? When firing the next round requires only another trigger pull, that next round is almost guaranteed. But when it requires a magazine change, there's at least a momentary delay plus the chance of fumbling the mag, dropping it, anything could happen, all of which are better than another trigger pull and another round fired.

John Oliver on Drones

Gun Reform Group Says GOP New Hampshire Candidate for Congress Marilinda Garcia Is Against Closing Gun Loopholes




PolitiFact

The liberal group Americans for Responsible Solutions asserts that New Hampshire Republican Marilinda Garcia holds views different from most of the state’s residents.

In a 30-second spot titled "Strange Ideas," Americans for Responsible Solutions -- founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly -- says Garcia opposes raising the minimum wage, giving women the same pay as men for the same jobs, and gun ownership restrictions.
PolitiFact New Hampshire decided to check the record on those claims. In this article, we’ll take a look at whether Garcia "opposes closing the loophole that allows dangerous criminals to get a gun without a background check."
About halfway through the ad, an image is shown of a smiling Garcia holding a pink rifle in front of racks of other guns. The printed message says, "Garcia’s against closing gun loopholes."
Lower on the screen, what looks like a newspaper clipping has the headline: "Online ads are the latest way gun buyers can avoid background checks."
Another common loophole for people to buy firearms without a background check is at gun shows.
Our ruling
The ad claims that Garcia "even opposes closing the loophole that allows dangerous criminals to get a gun without a background check." Her comments on gun control, both past and present, are too vague to draw any real conclusion, but her vote to effectively water down a background-checks bill while serving in the state House does provide some support for the ad’s claim. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True.