Donald Trump will advance the regulation and control of deadly weapons but not in the way you might think. He is currently contemplating, which is a big word to use for Trump so maybe I mean having some verbal diarrhea that vaguely resembles an idea, banning assault style weapons and bump stocks. Of course, he can’t do that himself, it would be Congress, but he’s talking about it.
But we know that for most issues, Trump has no conviction. He’ll say one thing one day, change his mind the next day, accept a deal that totally tosses out what he promised the week before, etc. Therefore, his comments on these issues over the last several hours are meaningless.
If Trump sticks to his guns, as it were, for several days, this is going to macerate many of those Republicans, and contribute significantly to the process of the GOP digesting itself.
This is working out like the first draft of some good fiction.
In the end, Trump’s actions over the current crisis will cause a number of Congressional Republicans to get kicked out. We will never know which ones, but certainly some of them.
By the way, some of you know that I was asking around about popcorn poppers. I decided on the Presto 04841 Orville Redenbachers Hot Air Popcorn Popper
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“Macerate” works here? Interesting choice.
Since most of the news has been bad lately, some good news needs to be pointed out: the perfectly despicable Billy Graham has finally done something positive for the world and died. Hallelujah indeed.
He left it long enough.
dean:
Do you think people will celebrate your death?
It’s only shame that it took so long and that his equally despicable son did not join him
Hmmm. I heard he was looking at banning bump stocks and improving the background check system. I had not heard he was looking at banning assault weapons.
Someone celebrates the death of every person, so yes.
There are good reasons to be glad that POS Graham is dead.
* He got his start fighting against unions and laws protecting workers, and never changed that stance
* He continually argued women should be in the home and subservient to their husband
* He was rabidly anti-Jewish (he “recanting” was brought about when the PR about his stance began to lessen the money his organization was bringing in)
* Life long racist
* He started the scam of stealing money from the poor and gullible with his “crusades” and faith healing
* He was a master at conning the poor, gullible, and primarily elderly out of donating money to his organization
* He, his organization, and children (especially his son, who is worse then the old man ever was) continued to be disgusting to today
He showed evangelists of all sorts that simply by claiming you wanted to use “religion” to do good you could end of doing very well — which got to his only goals: wealth, power, and access to power.
I didn’t say I hoped he suffered. I said he did the world a favor by kicking the bucket.
It isn’t any surprise at all that you would imply saying that the death of a predator like Graham is a bad thing.
Look up the definition of “word salad” and that could be the first example — man did I butcher that.
It should be: I said Graham did a good thing by passing away. I’m not surprised that you would refer to that statement about a predator as a bad statement.
dean:
Don’t worry – I got the gist of it.
You are entitled to your opinion of Billy Graham.
I thought it was just a bit rude.
But than again, I am from Minnesota.
“Minnesota”
As comedian Tim Bedore (who also lives there) describes it:
“Where introverts stare at their shoes and extroverts stare at your shoes.”
“… suddenly-active High School Students,…”
Mmmmn. One wonders why suddenly acrive now; rather than at any previous high school incident. Whats different about the latest one?
The Parkland shooting now has the distinction of being the school shooting with the most number of dead and wounded. Maybe for this generation that was the proverbial straw.
Doug:
While this latest incident was tragic, it is not the worst ever. Both Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook had more killed.
Lest we think these school attacks are new, remember there have been shootings at US schools throughout its history.
Also: the worst attack at a school was in 1927, in Bath Michigan, when Andrew Kehoe (custodian) detonated dynamite he had wired into the school’s basement. That killed 38 elementary school students and six adults. He also, that morning, killed his wife and farm animals, burned his farm buildings to kill his livestock then drove to town after the explosion. When the superintendent and other people (who were there to help the victims) came to talk to him, not knowing he was responsible, Kehoe shot a rifle into cases of dynamite he had in his car, killing himself, the superintendent, and several others.
Even that was lucky: the entire school was not destroyed only by pure luck: when State Police began clearing out the school they soon ran out and ordered people back, then began hauling out more dynamite that had been wired but which had not detonated: 500 pounds more.
“While this latest incident was tragic, it is not the worst ever. Both Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook had more killed.”
Apparently RickA isn’t tired of all the winning brought by Trump, because here’s a case where we’re didn’t win. Just the bronze medal. Breaks his heart, I’m sure.
Hypotheses for LiD…. first generation to have grown up post Columbine…. these things have been happening all their life, and they wonder why these things happen, and they see that these things are becoming worse instead of better. This is the most technology and media savy generation yet born, and this group, now traumatized AND in the spotlight, can use their life experiences to execute on what other people would have been incapable of. From what I have seen, this is a remarkably together group, meaning that they have insights and emotional maturity that many if not most of my generation never attained.
I think that the perfect storm has come together and these brave and intelligent young people are going to bring about serious change.
And whoa be unto any politician or troll foolish enough to think that they can stop this tsunami using their typical lies, slander, and false rumors. This is a big movement and it is going to totally change the political landscape.
Not immediately germane to the topic of the OP, but relevant nevertheless.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/how-democracies-die/9471722
It’s an interesting discussion of the fragility of democracy in the face of authoritarianism, and how authoritarians use the machinery of democracy to defeat it. Worth a listen, especially for the two points:
1) authoritarianism can be present on both sides of the left/right spectrum.
2) both sides of the left/right spectrum needs to eschew authoritarianism if their otherwise valid progressive/conservative ideals are to be nurtured, valued, and respected.
My enormously ignorant company ( and their auditors who really should pick up these things ) just decided to let my enormoualy ignorant colleagues vote on a matter of what is essentially saftey science ( fatigue management ) .
I nearly fucking cried with exasperation.
Saftey has fuck all to do with democracy.
It was crystal clear to me that democracy is not always the most suitable mechanism to decide policy.
And its a nifty trick offering democracy as a mechanism for change in certain areas, fields, or scopes , when a far better mechanism exists to decide policy.
I can see allagories from what i just witnessed towards policy on medicine, climate change, and indeed guns.
Voters can be very very stupid.
Naturally my colleagues just voted to become more fatigued for no reward and certainly against best practice. Lol.
I dont want a democratic say in lots of policy areas because a democratic say is the wrong mechanism to employ in many areas of policy.
Giving me a vote about climate policy is as stupid as giving me a vote on geology.
There’s a lot of fulmination about the 2nd amendment and losing rights, and defenders are trying the “it’s too late anyway, there are > 300 million guns in the US” argument. There’s a simple way to get around both – if you can’t make it difficult for the wrong people to get guns, make it difficult for them to get ammunition.
That way everyone can still have the right to bear arms – they just can’t fire them unless they have a damned good reason to have them loaded with ammunition…
That aside, I can’t understand why the 2nd amendment applies to assault weapons.
Do you even know what an ‘assault weapon’ is? The bans being talked about in ‘assault weapons bans’ are not machine guns.
I suppose there is no first amendment violation if you ban printing presses? Maybe have a five day waiting period before publishing an article critical of a government officeholder?
Yes, it’s a military weapon* but without the burst and full auto fire modes. It is specifically designed for killing people. The absence of burst and full auto capability is of little relevance – no trained infantryman would use either. Aimed semiauto fire is by far and away the most efficient way of hitting multiple targets, which is what you need on a good killing spree. These military weapons are perfect for mass murderers and have no legitimate civilian application. While I appreciate that the gun industry has paid for an interpretation of the 2ndA which probably makes attempts to ban assault rifles potentially unconstitutional, this only highlights the damage done to US legislation and American lives by vested interest and ‘free market’ ideology.
*Gas operated semiautomatic compact rifle supplied with a high capacity (30 round or more) magazine.
“That aside, I can’t understand why the 2nd amendment applies to assault weapons.”
Because what the public owns 100 million + copies of are NOT assault weapons, but guns that look like assault weapons. They are semi-automatic rifles, just like hundreds of millions of other hunting guns that look different from so-called assault weapons but have basically the same mode of operation and lethality.
And the 2nd Amendment also applies, because the Supreme Court decisions in the past decade made it clear that the more popular is any given gun owned by the general public, the more protected it is. AR-15 type rifles are popular as heck. Lots of people bought them – I kid you not – as a way to protest anti-gun efforts.
So, banning guns that look like true assault weapons is probably unConstitutional. And banning ammunition, or making it restrictively hard to get is probably unConstitutional as well.
Can we get something clear here? The rights of individual citizens to own and use guns for their own personal protection has never been stronger in the entire history of the United States.
And the ability of Republicans to get elected and re-elected by single-issue redneck yahoos whose only reason to vote and vote consistently is to show Democrats that they can’t take their guns away – that ability has been strong for thirty years.
See the difficulty here? There is no “simple way” to solve this problem.
Yes, I do.
Besides the fact that you appear to be conflating ‘bans’ and ‘machine guns’, I haven’t mentioned machine guns at all. I spoke of assault weapons, and the apparent application of the 2nd amendment to permitting Joe/Jane Average the right to bear them. But why on this sacred Earth should any person who is not in the specialised military (and perhaps even then…) be allowed to use these weapons? They are high velocity (= high momentum) weapons, and their bullets are intended to turn the insides of victims to blood smoothies.
Who in the general public needs to have this guaranteed ability to cream the internal organs of others? If the right to bear arms is about defending oneself, a low velocity weapon will do that nicely with far less inevitability of death.
The idea that a member of the public needs a weapons that fires bullets at more than 2,000 mph is obscene, and insane.
As for the rest of your post, it’s just fallacious thimble-rigging.
By the way, the AR-15 is not an assault weapon is a bleating from the pro-gun lobby. The technical differences are largely that – technical – but the end-result of the use of this weapon is no different to the use of formally-classified assault weapons.
That people will argue semantics when attempting to legitimise the public ownership of such horrific weapons is nothing short of abhorrent. Speak to the parents of the 17 kids who were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and ask them if they think the technical definition of an assault weapon is the central issue here. Ask them if any weapon remotely resembling an AR-15 should be available outside the military. In any same society the answer will be categorically against the public ownership of these obscene weapons.
hi,
what he said he don’t have seance what he should have talk anything useless points he covered in any seminar and also motivational speeches total are bullshit ,
The latest suggestion to arm teachers to “take out sickos” suggests that Trump is himself mentally ill, were it not for the financial value to the gun lobby of all those new guns and training courses. Complete insanity!! Money -led culture gone mad, hiding behind ancient and obsolete legislation! Cowards in the NRA, with a lot of young blood on their hands.
That’s OK then, no problems everything is fine and everybody will now be safe.
Every time I think you have got to the bottom you go and prove me wrong.
As Bernard J. pointed out, the AR-15 is different from the low-velocity guns most often used for self-defense. This article makes the difference vividly clear.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/
In addition, while the AR-15 does not fit the standard definition of an assault rifle, our lawmakers can propound their own definition, as they did for the 1994 ban. Defining it as “a rifle commonly used in mass shootings” is perfectly reasonable when the goal is to make mass shootings less common.
Finally, removing the ability of the general public to buy AR-15s impairs the public’s right of self-defense exactly as much as removing my ability to buy a Ford Explorer impairs my ability of self-transport. Which is to say not at all.
“Finally, removing the ability of the general public to buy AR-15s impairs the public’s right of self-defense exactly as much as removing my ability to buy a Ford Explorer impairs my ability of self-transport. Which is to say not at all.”
Yup. There is a great bit of rationalisation going on here.
Being of course a weapon capable of full auto fire. The gun industry, inevitably, insists that the semiauto weapons it produces are therefore, not assault rifles. This is disingenuous because it implies a significant difference in lethality between full auto and semiauto weapons. How many people killed by semiauto paramilitary weapons are required to make this definition moot?
Gun control should be one of the priorities in the US. Climate change disasters will be sure to increase the number of US citizens getting out of control and conducting mass shootings, of which there have been many since this thread was last active.
The Guardian view on soaring US gun violence: America must face the problem