DL Open Thread Wednesday May 25 2022
Any Delaware politician, Republican or Democrat, that accepts money from the bloodthirsty Delaware arm of the NRA needs to be removed from office. We can start with the Democrats, every primary day. Accepting donations from NRA/De Sportsman’s Assoc. should result in certain defeat.
Yesterday 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered in an elementary school. Meanwhile, the Delaware arm of the NRA continues to fight tooth and nail against ANY common sense gun restrictions in Delaware.
You know who could make a huge difference in the gun control debate?
The cops.
They don’t. Gee, wonder why.
It’s time to adopt some realpolitik. Sandy Hook proved that gun control is a losing issue regardless of the body count. If we can’t get guns off the street, better to focus on separating the most dangerous people from society.
From parkland to Sandy hook to Michigan, there has been a consistent set of traits among the shooters. After the fact we find that these animals all gave off a series of red flags. To say they had “mental health issues” is an understatement. They had mental defects, some of them likely organic. Ever since Ronnie Reagan defunded our institutional systems, there are literally no places to secure these individuals unless they wind up in the criminal justice system.
The Republicans in Texas are already expressing more gun love and are back to “arm the teachers” and turning schools into gun proof bunkers, in addition the new one is “Ballistic Blankets”. Good name for a punk band, bad idea for anything else. Expect to see a feeding frenzy when I go past the local Guns, Guns, Guns! store when I head south this afternoon, I’m expecting a line out the door.
Sandy Hook was the realization for me. Massacre of 5 and 6 years olds. Nothing will change. We don’t care. We’re all very sick and the country is depraved.
The drooling, simple masses need their toys and their treats. Disgusting toddler nation. I choose to continue trying because it annoys the worst among us and I’ve got some free time.
When Americans, particularly conservative ones, ask why I moved to France, guns are the No. 1 answer. It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll get shot — it’s that I don’t want to soak in a culture that worships the damn things. And if you think we don’t, try counting how many guns you see in one night of American TV.
It’s not that it’s impossible to get guns in France, but it’s not easy, either. Here’s the rundown from Wikipedia. This is how firearms are handled in civilized countries.
We had a commenter last night claim it was impossible to get rid of the assault weapons. Bullshit. Australia did it, and that country’s percentage of meatheaded victims of testosterone poisoning is probably higher than ours. We can’t do it because we lack the will, and that commenter is Exhibit A.
Of course the gun nuts would fight it. And the corporate Democrats will, as always, back down, because they’re wired for flight, not fight.
Easy for you to say, you are far removed from the consequences should there be a federally organized gun confiscation. We missed the boat on that effort by about three decades
I’m an American citizen.
What happened when Australia did it? Why would we be different?
It’s not as if agents go house to house confiscating guns. People turn them in, the government pays them for them. Those who don’t now have illegal guns. They won’t disappear, but those who own them are now criminals and can be treated as such.
What part of this seems impossible to you?
The cultural landscape of Australia was and is wildly different. Think about how marijuana is used as a pretext
In America today. You think that we won’t suddenly have an explosion of no-knock warrants being executed in the pursuit of illegal guns? Do you think that this approach will be applied fairly or will minorities suffer? How about the creation of a new black market?
You are a citizen but you don’t have to suffer the consequences when these ideas go sideways
Yes. Every other country is normal and we’re not.
I do love these weak args. Same with social programs everywhere else (eg universal healthcare). That’s fine there, but we could never due to…. ahhh… cultural landscape?
Cmon dude. Australia is basically the USA in the southern hemisphere. You’re just making it up.
We have at least three different gun problems:
– Delusional sociopaths with semi-auto rifles and extended magazines
– Punks with handguns in their waistband
– Suicides and partner homicides escalated by ready access to guns.
Vastly different problems with different solutions.
^excellent observation.
Why?
No, same solution: Make guns much harder to buy, own and access.
Gun solutions focused on mental health seem to miss the mark, probably on purpose.
They aren’t solutions because they are predicated on keeping guns away from problem people, and not problem people away from society.
As far as I’m concerned anyone who believes in Q needs to be committed indefinitely. That’s a real mental health solution
No other country has people with depression or schizophenia or borderline personality or are suicidal.
Totally unique to the US
We have the greatest percentage of untreated patients in the developed world, after deliberately dismantling one of the best mental health care systems, because neoliberals were uncomfortable with “one flew over the cuckoos nest” and big pharma promised they could do it better.
Neoliberals? It was done by Reagan. C’mon, man.
Alby: Reagan struck the final blow but there was a concerted grassroots effort for de-institutionalization that took hold in the 60s. The promise of “community treatment” was never realized and today medical doctors (not exclusively psychiatrists) are routinely writing scrips for powerful psychotropics.
the mental health argument is complete bullshit. Imagine a case worker going to a home of a ‘suspected individual with mental health issues that could impact the community around them’. what should that case worker do? involuntarily commit them? then we’ll be hearing the constitution idiots scream about the 4th and 5th amendment. Should they remove guns and should it be illegal to buy guns after this time? here come the 2nd assholes again. should they be referred on to a psychiatrist? back to the 4th and 5th and now the repubs will be screaming its liberals making these decisions.
We already have a ban on machine guns which seems to be accepted by gun nuts. We need something similar for semi auto.
This is a flavor of gun nut sophistry that paralyzes possible action. Get into the weeds of gun statistics and minutia until the opposition is beaten down and exhausted.
we have one gun problem – money
First-step solution: Register all guns. Vehicle owners are only as responsible as the government forces them to be (people didn’t have to register horses, because they weren’t as dangerous as autos).
If they don’t like it, use their own logic on them: We’re only doing this because you’ve forced us to.
Wishful thinking. If we are going down that path how about we register crazy people instead, and rank them on a tiered risk system like we do for sex offenders.
Register and rank people on a craziness scale. Yeah, that sounds like a real solid plan. Well done.
No less fanciful than universal gun registration. But probably more effective, and useful
In terms of addressing other social ills like addiction and homelessness.
Explain why, if we have universal car registration, we can’t do the same for guns. In fact, try answering any of the questions I’ve posed.
Let’s put it this way: It’s existential for your continued presence here to converse, not pontificate. That’s our job. If you want to do that, start your own blog.
In short, we have car registration because 1) car ownership rights are not clearly enumerated or implied in the constitution and 2) the regulatory infrastructure and political norm of car registration were developed concurrent with widespread adoption of the automobile. Not to mention it’s hard to stow a dozen cars in a bed room closet
I just wish the kid that rear ended me last year knew that auto registration and insurance are universal requirements
How about you think about how hard it is to tell what you call the crazy people from the rest.
Think this through. That “solution” would cause far more problems than it solves. For instance, consider how little registering sex offenders has done to prevent sex offenses.
I’m sorry about your fixation on mental illness, but it is just that — your fixation, nothing more. As H.L. Mencken said, for every complicated problem there’s a solution that’s clear, simple and wrong. Congratulations on finding this one.
You know, it’s pretty easy. From columbine through sandy hook, Michigan and likely in Texas, the perps displayed a clear pattern of aberrant and destructive behaviors that caused reasonable people around them grave concern.
The registry system is a tangent but proves my point. Dangerous people (sex predators and otherwise) need to be separated from society
No, it’s not easy at all, and to think it is shows the shallowness of your idea.
Again, answer the question: Why is gun registration impossible? Or wave bye-bye.
BTW, the kid who did this came from a troubled home and was bullied for his speech impediment. Should we have locked him away? Your opinions are despicable.
Plenty of kids have those issues, but the kinds of mental defects that lead someone to shoot up a school are far more serious (and in many ways, terminal, and perhaps genetic). As always, it will come out after the fact that a pattern of increasingly aberrant and destructive behaviors were observed, but nothing was done.
Here’s how a federal gun registration rule will play out: just like with masks a vaccines, a whole contingent of society will decide they aren’t beholden to rules. Knowing how cops are, laws will be selectively enforced or not at all. There are more guns than people in the US, and a black market for unregistered firearms will balloon, fueling a new avenue of violence alongside the goons whipped up to believe that gun registration is the sign of impending world government.
Exactly. Plenty of kids have those issues. How would you have picked this one — and only this one — out of the background noise? You wouldn’t. No one could.
Meanwhile, I didn’t ask you “how it would play out.” You’re full of that kind of speculative bullshit that you claim certainty about, when nobody has that kind of certainty about the future.
Start your own blog, buddy. Your worldview isn’t welcome here.
A central tenet of gun advocacy is the necessity of their existence as a bulwark against a tyrannical government. Suggesting that the ‘evil gubmit’ is going to psychologically analyze and rank its citizens for ANY reason will play exactly into that argument and make the situation exponentially worse.
Re: Second Amendment, for the purpose of maintaining a regulated militia, I’d argue a well regulated armory is necessary and gun registration is a requirement of the second amendment. After all, we need to know where are weapons are and their condition in case King George decides to rise from the grave ….
Gun registration and permits have always been opposed as an “infringement.” But the right has no problem requiring a permit to exercise your right of assembly. Rights are not absolute.
I envy Alby living in France, wish I could go live in Europe and get away from the madness. Suspect far worse is coming in this years election and much worse, a very possible second attempt at a coup in 2024. Here in the country I’m surrounded by guns and gunners, and no, it does not make me feel “safe”. And yes: I’ve had enough.
Check into Portugal. They actively encourage immigration and the cost of living is pretty low.
Everyone ignores the well-regulated bit.
And the sloppy writing, so the right wing can pretend for 250 years the subordinate clause doesn’t apply.
Or maybe not so sloppy: https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2021/07/the-strange-syntax-of-the-second-amendment/
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/590920670/from-fraud-to-individual-right-where-does-the-supreme-court-stand-on-guns
“This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime”….. Warren Burger
Individual right to carry a gun goes all the way back to…. 2008 Heller case.
Individual gun rights are fake. Created by the Supreme Court 15 years ago.
It was really neat that those 2 absolute gargoyles Pelosi and Clyburn went down to protect their leadership positions and campaigned for Cuellar in TX.
Anti Medicare for All
Anti abortion rights
Anti Pro Act
Vote blue we can’t do anything!
Two very odious “leaders”.
Pelosi will become smarter after the Catholic Church kicks her out for opposing the presumed Supreme Court ruling on abortion. In fact, the church could make millions smarter by just closing up shop and freeing all those minds.