Category: Gun Control

This is just too good not to pass on in its entirety:

From AMERICAblog:

Earlier today, someone took a killing machine and loads of ammunition into a heavily-trafficked area and opened fire, killing some and wounding more. The shooter may have a history of mental health problems; they may be a militant racist; they may be a Men's Rights Activist; they may be a religious extremist; they may have just gotten laid off from work. Whatever their motive, they will almost certainly have obtained their killing machine legally.

You've probably read the details elsewhere by now, but at the end of the day, they don't matter. This story isn't all that different from the many that came before and are sure to come after. America averages one shooting of at least four fatalities per day, with one shooting per week at schools. These shootings are happening faster than we can meme them. The routine is familiar, and we already know how the next few days are going to play out:

First, we will be reminded that this is definitely not the time to discuss ways that we could have prevented this shooting, along with tomorrow's and next week's and the ones to follow. At times like these, a bad reading of the Second Amendment is more important than a basic understanding of the First:

There needs to be a mandatory waiting period imposed on anti-gun extremists commenting on breaking news crime incidents. #UCCShooting ~ Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 1, 2015

Instead, it would be much more productive for all of us to quietly appeal to a higher power—one that has pretty clearly signaled to us that they're agnostic when it comes to American gun policy:

Praying for Umpqua Community College, the victims, and families impacted by this senseless tragedy. ~ Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 1, 2015

Second, we will be reminded that although America's homicide rates are practically off the charts compared to other countries, now is definitely not the time to second-guess our borderline religious commitment to the killing machines that make it way easier to kill a bunch of people at once:

After all, don't you know we might need to revolt against the government some day?

Third, someone from the NRA will say that the real solution that would have prevented all of this is more guns. Most of America will find this ridiculous. Congress will find this reasonable. President Obama will scold them.

Fourth, there will be a new round of public opinion polling showing broad support for public policies that could have prevented the shooting, ranging from universal background checks to a ban on high-capacity magazines. We will flash a momentary glance at Congress to see if they will pass any of these policies, and then remember how unbothered they were by what that guy from the NRA said.

Fifth, gun sales will go through the god damn roof.

Sixth, this video will go viral:

Seventh, another mass shooting will take place. We will go back to step one.

See you next week."

And NRA spokesdouche Wayne LaPierre has another orgasm.

NRA spokesdouche Wayne LaPierre orgasms again.

Wayne LaPierre's weekly orgasm.

NRA's spokesdouche Wayne LaPierre has another orgasm.

It's happened again.

Make it stop.

Five year old shoots and kills his two year old sister.

Lapeer, MI — A security officer at a Lapeer charter school left a firearm unattended in a school bathroom on Monday, Jan. 14, a school official said.
The security officer "made a breach in security protocol" and left an unloaded weapon in a restroom "for a few moments," said Chatfield School Director Matt Young.
Translation: The idjit unholstered his firearm, put it on the sink or shelf or somewhere in there, and walked away having forgotten he'd done so. The fact we've heard about it likely means someone else found it before he remembered his gun was gone.

Young said the school has been in contact with local authorities about the matter and wouldn't discuss any possible repercussion for the officer, calling it "a personnel matter." Young also declined to name the security officer.
Translation: If they won't say he was fired or formally reprimanded or fined by the local PD for reckless endangerment, in all likelihood it was just a verbal reprimand.

"The school has put additional security procedures in place that follow local law enforcement practices and guidelines," Young said in a statement.
Translation: We've told our armed guards they're never to unholster their firearms, even when taking a piss, a dump, or merely washing their hands because they might forget them. Because apparently we needed to point out the obvious.

"At no time was any student involved in this breach of protocol.
Translation: This happened during class periods and we're pretty sure the adult teacher or custodian who found the weapon was the first person to encounter it. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Because legally, if a child found it, we'd be in big $ trouble.

"We will continue to work on improving school security."
Translation: We really hope you all forget this ever happened.

Young stressed that no children were exposed to the handgun or put in danger, and declined to comment more on specifics of the incident.
Translation: We really, really hope you all forget before some irate parent decides to file a lawsuit. Besides, we asked the kids if they saw anything and they all said 'no', and we all know kids never lie about anything if you ask them in your serious-voice.

The school recently hired the officer, who is retired from the Lapeer County Sheriff's Office, as a means to bolster school security.
Translation: Because police officers never make dumb mistakes like the rest of us humans do. Like, for instance, shooting up a paper delivery truck that looks nothing like the one the police were looking for.

Source.

"What strikes me is we've actually gotten a glimpse into the mindset, though, of the pro-gun people like Wayne LaPierre and some of these others. It's bizarre. They have this vision that we're living in a 'Mad Max' movie and that nothing can be done about it. There are plenty of gun owners who are fine, but the lobbying groups—the NRA—is now revealed as an insane organization." ~ Economist Paul Krugman

From the Daily Kos (bolding mine):

The Connecticut Post, via Joe. My. God.:

A false fire alarm, 45-minute waits to get into the Capitol complex, even the heckling of a bereaved parent of a Newtown shooting victim marked Monday's day-long legislative hearing on gun control.

"The Second Amendment!" was shouted by several gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.

I'm going to put "heckling the father of murdered six year old" right at the top of my updated list of signs that America can safely ignore you, or at least not give a single flying shit as to what supposed rights you think you have, but I do want to reiterate one point: For a sizable percentage of America's most aggressive gun fetishists (not "enthusiasts," please—there's a difference between shooting as a hobby and stockpiling guns as your own personal anti-government, anti-society religion) the ability to quickly murder a classroom or two of elementary school kids isn't a bug. It's a feature.

This would be the prime argument of all the loons citing incipient "tyranny" as the reason they deserve guns, and all possible guns at that. If you're claiming that you need your guns because you might need to murder members of the government (yes, that is what "fighting tyranny" comes down to, when you're doing it with stockpiled ammunition), then the ability to murder a large number of people quickly is a prime feature. These aren't people who mumble about needing high capacity, military style weaponry because today's modern deer really need 30 or so shots pumped into them before they'll stay down—they're perfectly blunt about saying they need it because someday, there's gonna be "tyranny," and if they themselves wake up one morning and decide that "tyranny" has come they need to be able to go to their closet, arm up, and start killing people who think otherwise. Often, for some reason that most of the rest of us can't even begin to parse, it's couched in crackpot religious terms, often citing "prophesies" and other Jesus-sounding stuff as the reason why potential mass murder is, well, just around the corner.

That someone can easily dispatch a roomful or two of elementary school children, or college students, or theater-goers, or restaurant-goers with these same weapons is not seen by these people as something that needs fixing—at all. Yes, it's sad that those particular people got murdered, but whether Americans have the God-given right to murder a large number of people quickly, and easily, if they feel the circumstances warrant it is something the tyranny fetishists will go to their graves, or your grave, or the local sheriff's grave believing in.

The other tricky part of this is that (of course) the people most obsessed with defending themselves against government "tyranny" are the people who see "tyranny" in absolutely everything. The United Nations is coming for them; Barack Obama is a crazy Marxist; bicycle paths are a sign of the devil. The most unhinged people among us are the people who have volunteered themselves as the judges, juries, and executioners of any American government figures they've decided they don't like—and those are the people that a large segment of our no-gun-regulations-ever crowd are catering to. Why? You could suppose the NRA, as obvious example, is merely acting as passthru for the manufacturer's lobby, which makes a very sizable income off of crazy frightened people, or you could suppose them to be unironic believers in the tyranny theory of American proto-terrorists someday becoming American freedom fighters—but why does the we'd like to maybe someday be able to kill members of the government theory get so much mainstream love from supposedly mainstream sources?

It seems rather obvious that we could take all the arguments as to why one might need a 30-round clip because of potential tyranny and just flush that entire population from legitimate discussion. If tyranny does come to America, your little closet stockpile is not going to do a damn bit of good against the Air Force, and basing all our public safety decisions around your own little delusion that it might, someday, is not a very good reason for our continued enabling of frequent, convenient mass murder. So that seems a good first step: If you're arguing that people need to be able to speedily murder other people because someday you and your little band of societal malcontents may want to murder the right people, the ones who really need murdering, all of the policymakers concerned with American public safety ought to write off your opinions on the matter from the outset. Then the rest of us can begin to have a discussion on guns in America that isn't objectively, you know, insane.