DL Open Thread Monday November 21 2022
The Low Background Hum of American Anti-GOPism
For many Americans it is too taxing to get outraged anew each week, so a low background hum of outrage has settled on the country. And the Secret Blue Wave (or the Red Wave That Wasn’t) was in part due to the fact that voters – even the non-political weirdos – understand the fact that one party is in favor of weekly gun mayhem and mass shootings and one party basically isn’t.
Even people who have never touched a protest sign understand the fact that one party is in favor of burning the planet to a cinder and one party basically isn’t. And even people who don’t like using “they and them” understand the fact that one party is in favor of making non-whites, women, gays and transpeople second class citizens and one party basically isn’t.
Gun rights advocates target Delaware’s high-capacity magazine buyback in latest court filing
High capacity magazines and military machine guns must be freely available for purchase by deranged psychos because it says so in the Constitution.
That’s an attractive gun philosophy because it lays the blame for mass shootings where is belongs – at the feet of James Madison. I don’t happen to believe the Madisonian spin. Targeting the patrons of LGBTQ nightclubs, and children in schools for mass murder is not the work “lone wolf” nut jobs exploiting an anachronistic quirk in the bill of rights.
stochastic terrorism
the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted
MAR-A-LAGO BATHROOM, Fla.—According to current and former and probably also future U.S. officials, President Trump is guilty of yet another Very Illegal Thing. It is similar to all the previous Very Illegal Things, but somehow Even Worse. No former President has committed anything like this, let alone within the first term of the Presidency.
This Illegal Action threatens our national security, as well as our relationships with our allies, and will most likely result in nuclear warfare. According to the Constitution, which Trump has “totally read, of course, obviously,” the Commander-in-Chief is not allowed to perform the act that Trump actually performed just now, in the fifteen minutes before his next round of golf. It has been five months since President Trump, who at one point wanted to impress Billy Bush on a bus, took office.
“Targeting the patrons of LGBTQ nightclubs, and children in schools for mass murder is not the work “lone wolf” nut jobs exploiting an anachronistic quirk in the bill of rights”.
Perhaps for attack on a gay club, not so much for a school. “Stochastic terrorism” attempts to wrap it up in a nice bow, but this phenomenon has been exploited since the 90’s by the right. They know that there is a minority of people out there, with intrinsically disordered thinking, that they can radicalize into kamikazes for their dirty work.
As a society we continue to let those who demonstrate this deeply disordered thought, who are the most vulnerable to this kind of radicalization, walk freely among us. We reap what we sow. Personally, rather than chase our tail on magazine bans, I’d like to see the re-establishment of a robust state institution system, along with a legal framework to expedite the commitment process. Just like the proposed drug courts, a psych court would be ideal.
Of course this won’t happen. There is too much money to be made in the twin scams of “community based treatment” and antipsychotic drugs. Barring that, I propose that the left wing create a mechanism to weaponize the same group of people, and identify soft targets on the right. They don’t even need to use guns, knives and hammers are clearly sufficient.
I don’t have time thins morning to note everything you got wrong in that comment.
Not all mass shooters “demonstrate deeply disordered thought.” But they all use guns.
Provide me more than one or two names of mass shooters in recent history where mental illness was NOT a contributing factor
Frankly, you don’t know of all the mass shooters, and neither do I. But the Las Vegas mass murder perpetrator demonstrated no signs of mental illness ahead of time.
Are terrorists mentally ill by definition? How about right-wing dominionists? Etc.
So what’s your solution then — we subject everyone in the US to mental health investigation, just so we can keep selling high-powered guns? If you can’t see the folly of that position, I think you might need the mental health investigation yourself.
I think we’re missing an opportunity to classify Magatry as a mental illness and use that to take all magat’s guns.
That’s a very useful dodge. It is no wonder so many gun nut trolls go directly to it.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t do more for the mentally ill. It’s just that they’re separate issues, even if there’s a decent-sized Venn diagram overlap.
Thinking you NEED a gun with a high capacity mag that can shoot 40+ rounds a minute and is built solely to kill in mass quantities is a mental illness
But they are all solid citizens up until the moment they walk into the school, nightclub, synagogue and pull the trigger.
Lone wolf explanation, see also: “bad apple” theory of police brutality.
Arguing with gun nuts who think that their flavor of gun nuttiness is the reasonable and right version of gun nuttiness is something I stopped doing a few years ago.
I’m by no means a gun nut, I just have a better approach to the same outcome we all desire. In the past I have advocated for:
-raising the age of majority to 21
-banning production of the .223 round for domestic use (including police).
-creation a military vs. civilian ammunition designation, which is quantifiable based of projectile size and velocity
You do not know what l desire any more than you know the mental health condition of mass shooters.
Why are you so intent on keeping your guns?
Unlike you, I can’t pack up and leave the country when conditions deteriorate. A
firearm can provide me a margin of safety to get to a safer locality or border.
Gun nut.
OK then, why are you so paranoid? Why do you think that, most gun violence either being committed by someone close to the victim or unknown to the victim, you would be a target?
You, my friend, are the one who needs a bit of counseling from a professional. Your solutions are no more workable than those proposing the banning of such weapons.
If you have the resources to purchase your guns — do you take them with you everywhere? — you have the resources to live elsewhere, though I doubt it would do you much good. The paranoia will follow you everywhere unless you get some help for it.
BTW, guns have nothing to do with why I spend half the year in France, so you might want to drop that line of “reasoning.”
You haven’t done much research on what it costs to become an expat. Look into Portugal. Or do what Dave did and check out Merida.
It’s a little more complicated than retiring to Florida, but it doesn’t take great means to do it.
You say that if things go to hell, you’re going to use your gun to flee for the border. So you WILL leave the country, you just won’t do it until you fight your way there with your gun?
I appreciate your attempt to find ways to minimize gun mayhem, but I don’t think your proposals are any more workable than bans on certain weapons would be, and I’m unclear on why you think bans wouldn’t work.
Those are all good ideas in ADDITION to banning sale and manufacture of assault weapons, and banning unlicensed concealed carry. Not “instead of.”
Asssualt weapon is in the eye of the beholder. Unless fitted with a bayonet, it’s the round that kills. The .223 round was designed to cause disabling injury on the battlefield over distances greater than a hundred yards without the need
for precision. At close range it causes devastating and often fatal wounds because of the amount of powder(power) behind the round. Rounds with that kind of power only belong on the battlefield.
Actually, it’s in the eye of the legislation. We wrote a definition for a successful ban on machine guns. By “assault weapon” I mean we need to write a definition for a ban on all but the most limited semi-automatic weapons.
That “definition” was a 10-page list of firearms by make and model and generalized characteristics subject to interpretation. My approach is based on physics, which as far as I know is pretty consistent on this planet.
There you have it. When was the last time you heard about a bunch of kids getting killed by a machine gun? Bans work.
Given the statistics and plain facts of gun use in this country, anyone who thinks they are fingering their guns for “safety” is a gun nut. And not arguing with gun nuts who think they alone know the secret correct and right level of gun nuttiness has made my life so much better.
testing
Greetings from down state, here an argument about guns and the immortal right to own them is only a beer away. As such I avoid that discussion as you cannot argue with a mad gunner, especially since “open carry” is in visible effect and dangerously popular. After Sandy Hook I gave up, blast away as there is no level of gun slaughter that will change anything, I have no answer other then to stay the hell away. Realize many cannot.
Situation is the same in Dover, as three miles outside of town you might as well be in rural Alabama. There is no arguing with these people, who think they are hardcore because they own 17 guns but are also afraid to drive into Philly.
My friend Will weighed in on a recent fb conversation I started on guns. Will illuminates in a most welcome way. Common sense constitution:
“People like the 2nd Amendment less and less when they see what the well-regulated militia actually is.
Clearly defined in the Constitution, one of its three stated purposes is the SUPPRESSION of insurrection. In other words, observing yahoos running around with guns they’ve bought and putting them under the dirt if they get too rowdy. THAT’s the right the Founders wanted protected.”
The point to keep in mind about the Constitution, ESPECIALLY if someone wants to portray themselves as an originalist. is that the document is not allowed to contradict itself. A given right or authority is mentioned in one place, and one only.
The power of the nation to raise a militia, have it train, etc. is covered by the 2nd Amendment. The “right” in it refers to one’s basic status as a human being. In 1787 the law in Europe (outside Switzerland) was that a non-noble person was automatically in violation of the law to be holding a weapon. (each was required to take a loyalty oath to a noble, a member of the ruling elite) That’s the point- in the new country, you could not be guilty of a crime simply because you were holding a gun or a sword. (You were vested in your right to hold a weapon by the authority of the federal government, and need not take an oath to a social “better” (In Europe, you could be charged and arrested just for being seen with a weapon.)
But your “right” to buy and possess weaponry is not addressed by the 2nd Amendment AT ALL. It’s completely covered by the Commerce Clause of Article One: Congress has the power to regulate commerce, no exceptions or limitations. We can “infringe” on your right to purchase guns just as we do with cars, food, medicine, clothing, and anything else. We regulate that.
:: grins :: Bear in mind, this is not the court’s current view. The Heller case (2008) in which Scalia ruled that the 2nd DOES, in fact, extend to the private ownership of weaponry. In my opinion, that decision will one day be hanging next to Plessy and Dred Scot in the Hall of What the Hell Were We Thinking?
Or, tl;dr, the word “own” isn’t in the Second Amendment.
what is the limit of text here? I’ve lost 3 attempted posts perhaps due to length.
Sometimes an extra long text gets stuck in the spam folder–or some other black hole. I’ll do a little detective work…
Thanks.
FWIW, I’m an administrator and sometimes it sends my comments to the trash folder for no reason any of us can figure out. It’s just a buggy system.
👍🏻
I see the “lost” comment is now posted, so I am good.