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Congresswoman and Staff Gunned Down
tkprit writes "What a shame that a Congresswoman makes herself available to her constituents and she and six of her staff were gunned down for the effort. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot, along with members of her staff, for trying to hear the concerns of the people she represents."
CNN reports that at least 12 people were shot by the gunman. According to NPR, "The suspect ran off and was tackled by a bystander. He was taken into custody. Witnesses described him as in his late teens or early 20s." Update: 01/08 20:07 GMT by S : Other sources are reporting she's still in surgery, and early reports have been amended to list Congresswoman Giffords in critical condition.
Their only reason is to kill people. Just ban guns already.
Check out the comments on there.
Living With a Nerd
Or so says yahoo news.
http://yhoo.it/hBMCx6
Right now there are conflicting reports on whether she is dead. There are reports that she is in surgery. In either case, this is an absolute tragedy.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
is this guy affiliated with American Extremist Groups? People should be more concerned about American Terrorists more than any others.
Republicans are sore losers.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
This matters.
I hope she pulls through. I went to college with her husband Mark's twin brother Scott
that works.
Read radical news here
"is just a very American thing to do"
Far more incidents of this sort happen in the Middle East so why is this "a very american thing to do"?
Multiple sources, including a spokesman for the Tucson University Medical Center, are saying she is alive and in surgery, albeit in critical condition.
FC Closer
It is incredibly sad that people are mouthing off their vile political views even before all the facts are in.
They don't care that this lady, and her staff members, were killed and/or severely wounded. They just want to exploit this horrible event for their own ends.
The vast majority are sockpuppet trolls, of course, but even then...people have absolutely not shame when it comes to anonymous discussion of politics
This type of story is news for everybody, including nerds. Secondly, she serves or served on the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics which affects funding for one of Slashdot's favorite government programs called NASA. Her husband is also an Astronaut for NASA.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
Because returning evil for evil is a great example of taking the moral high ground. The mark of a civil society is the execution of justice in relation to those who perpetrate crimes, not the acceptance or encouragement of vengeance against perceived accomplices.
Like watching an episode of "evidence of revision" being made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riHY9Ik-Uoo
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Indeed, Gun Crime is much, much worse in those countries where guns are banned.
I assume that this statement is intended to be sarcastic, right? You are surely aware that this isn't true.
You should be aware that sarcasm and irony tend to be invisible on the internet.
How's this for the nerd connection: From TFA:
Giffords, a Democrat, was first elected in 2006. She has served as chairwoman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee and also holds seats on the House Science and Technology and Armed Services committees.
Reports are that she got shot in the head.
Even if she were in critical condition but still alive, if she makes it, she's probably going to have long term brain damage that will keep her from working at McDonalds much less working in the House(No, now is not the time for jokes about brain damaged people in Congress).
This is purely political terrorism egged on by a political party that doesn't seem to have a human heart, in particular, Sarah Palin.
When people say, "There's no difference in the parties." no, there is. And this is it. The Weather Underground put down their weapons in the 70's and 80's. Yet the Birchers still go on. God bless America. God damn America.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Representative Giffords is the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly, and seems to be one of the few congresspeople who are knowledgable about science and technology.
This is a great tragedy.
Politics should not be conducted by gunfire.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Before everyone starts speculating on why this was done and politics etc etc. Try to remember that people were killed and their families and they did not deserve such a thing regardless of your political affiliations. This doesn't solve anything.
I'm sure you have some facts to back that up, or are you just spewing more political rhetoric?
FC Closer
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords isn't particularly liberal but is one of the 20 in Congress "in Sarah Palin's crosshairs" for her vote on health care reform. I don't know the motives or mental state of the shooter, then again people could have said the same thing during 9/11...in this instance, look at the target, look at the political climate. Sure, many times it's the most unstable people who take the final step but they obviously pick up on signals from all the vitriol. That particular brand is simply more prevalent on the Right (or at the very least, more "popular" in media). And yes, any knee jerk reaction with gun control ideas would be completely misguided.
the rest 11 ? all of you are asking and updating about the congresswoman. what about the 11 other people ? ffs.
Read radical news here
Crazy, paranoid, murderous people exist in every society - in all subcultures, in all religions, in all age groups (with the capability to express it), across all education levels, etc.
The problems we've been having in the US, as I see it, largely spring from ignoring this, and forcing every response to a tragedy to be an implication of any groups they belong to.
Are republicans or tea party members responsible for this act? That's a misleading question. Neither answer leads to a meaningful result - and only forces us to alienate eachother further, resulting in more tragedy.
If we are to avoid having every response wedge us further into madness, the shame of such tragedies, the murder of well-meaning and innocent people, must be a problem that we all have to solve, rather than a point of blame we use as a tool.
Does the frequent madness expressed the tea party help? No - but that's all of our problem, and it isn't going to be solved just by mocking them as an enemy, or thinking of them only as monsters who kill people.
Any of us could find ourselves romanticizing violence, like the tea partiers (the legend of the tea party IS one of violence) and other folks. There but for the grace of chance go any of us.
Insanity is not something we can every 'get even' for - whether it is terrorists or confused local murderers. We can only rebuild, and work together to be able to live in a way that makes it ever less likely, while knowing that freedom will always allow it in one way or another.
Ryan Fenton
This just popped up in yahoo news. There are conflicting reports on whether she's dead or in surgery.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
http://i.imgur.com/eDr2J.png
the crosshairs don't help your case
Interesting, one of the by-standers, who helped hold the gunman down, said he was white and clean shaven. Where did you hear he was hispanic?
"The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing and said nothing during the shooting or while being held down, although he struggled at first."
http://gawker.com/5728501/arizona-congresswoman-shot-outside-grocery-store
It's a tragedy, and let's remember early reports are often wrong. So maybe you should take your own advice and not bring politics into this.
Seems somebody looked at the gun sights on this http://www.alan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sarahpac_0.jpg and acted on it. Scary.
"I think I'll go for a walk" - Gabrielle Giffords
Way to not make this political, jackass. Think you could have made your point without taking the opportunity to jump on progressives?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Need more of those paranoid Blackwater types with full tactical gear and long rifles in plain view.
It was certainly fascinating to watch the story evolve amongst the social and news media. Perhaps if someone could work in that angle...
Regardless of her political party, regardless of YOUR political party, we did not need this. We are all, on both sides of the aisle, diminished when this happens.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Some time what the majority think they want is wrong. that we have congressmen, we are a republic for good reason.
It's a complete and utter lie, intended to deflect blame from the responsible party onto everyone's favorite scapegoat, "some hispanic guy". Witnesses at the scene described the attacker "as a white male in his mid-20s with short hair and “dressed in a shabby manner." Furthermore, they report that "the congresswoman was standing behind a table outside the Safeway greeting passersby when the gunman approached her from behind, held a gun about a foot from her head and began firing." No mention of any shouting.
Your hatred for anything conservative and Republican doesn't help yours, either.
FC Closer
The parent to this post disparages a political group, then claims that now is not the time for politics, plays the race card and waves the 'illegals' boogy man as a smoke screen for __________
Just goes to show, now is always the best time for politics.
you preach hate, you get hate. you preach violence, you get violence
a certain unnamed political movement is reaping what it sows
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There are reports on Twitter that the rightwing Free Republic website has crashed because of celebratory messages about the shooting from its contributors. It's hard to confirm this, but I couldn't get to the site about 10 minutes ago.
"What would men be without women? Scarce, sir. Mighty scarce."- Mark Twain
Not dead, but according to the New York Times report, it doesn't sound good. This is not a minor injury:
Dr. Steven Rayle, a former emergency room doctor who now works in a hospice, said that he had witnessed the shootings. He said the congresswoman was standing behind a table outside the Safeway greeting passersby when the gunman approached her from behind, held a gun about a foot from her head and began firing.
. “He must have got off 20 rounds,” he said. Ms. Giffords slumped to the ground and staff members immediately rushed to her aid, Dr. Rayle said.
Dr. Rayle said he performed CPR on some of the victims. He said one of the victims was a young child and appeared to be in critical condition with a gunshot wound.
link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09giffords.html
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No. That's the real difference between some people. Perhaps I'm being optimistic here, but I like to think that most people here value human life. I may disagree with the bulk of their politics, and I may think that they're being juvenile in congress, but I would be just as apalled if it were a Republican who had been shot. Violence is *not* the answer.
And there have been several attempted and successful assassinations of Republicans in the past. Were they cheering when Hinckley took a shot at Reagan?
Actually, pick a much more recent president, and a much more despised one... were people cheering and giving each other high-5's when Vladimir Arutyunian threw a hand grenade at Shrub?
I laugh at the "progressives" here ...
My insurance company?
You don't like the tax system, get off your teabagging ass and get people elected who support your stands, otherwise shut the fuck up.
Our representatives are not simply expected to vote as their constituents feel at the moment. If they were, we could shut down this whole elaborate structure of elections and simply run referenda on everything.
We expect them to vote for what is right and in our long-term interest. Sometimes that means something other than reading polls and being a weather vane. Many a politician has voted against his state's wishes and later been revered by those same voters for taking a stand that they themselves couldn't see. Many more have been voted out of office next time around, because them's the breaks.
There's a reason we call them (well, some of them) "leaders" rather than "followers."
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
You're making a lot of assumptions by claiming Republicans did this. Why not wait until you actually know something about what happened to make partisan comments that may very well be lies.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
It's just flamebait by nature.
You'll get some really far, far right wing nuts saying "good".
You'll get left wing nuts trying to instantly make political hay from it.
And you'll get the usual assortment of gun grabbers.
Then they'll all argue with each other.
How so? She's a minor member of a minority party.
Um, since the Democrats hold two out of three of the elective branches of the US government, I don't see how you can call them "a minority party."
She is also the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly, a member of the House committee on Science and Technology, and the chairwoman of the House subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics; so this is news of interest to anybody interested in science and technology.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You are a douchebag troll. If it was the other way around and someone had shot Palin, you'd be here supporting it.
FC Closer
Yeah, palin nuked her "kill these 20 democrats site." guess she got one.
A politician was shot at a public event. This wasn't, say, a carjacking gone bad. Yes, I'm implying assassination. Part of a conspiracy? I'm leaning between Mexican hitman (based on comments of her work against cartels) and a frothing Republican decided to follow all those hinted "second amendment solutions" from Beck and Palin and company.
Plus, I don't know if you noticed but there's a politics section here.
Gawker.com is reporting that the shooter was a clean-shaven, short-haired white male in his mid-to-late-twenties, wearing dark clothing, so where you get the notion that it was a hispanic male and why u mention it so prominently is left to be figured out by people who dont have an agenda, against progressives and hispanics I guess.
"This matters"
That in no way means it "matters" in a way that justifies posting it here.
There are many things that "matter", shall we forget the purpose of Slashdot and turn it into a generic news site? To what purpose?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If you ban guns in America then the people doing the daily killings in Juarez Mexico will spill over into New Mexico and nearby Arizona and start killing and robbing people like fish in a barrel, helpless to defend themselves.
Sure, guns can create violence if used in violent ways, and bad people do just that, but don't be so naive as to think that if we throw down our guns the rest of the world will follow suit.
I love how people on this very forum have had "Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo" at the bottom of every one of their posts for years. And when that shit actually blows up suddenly it "isn't the time for politics."
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
Umm.. No they wouldn't... Apart from people so far outside the realms of being normal humans that they think people dying is funny.. Those are the kind that need to be locked away anyway..
However much you disagree with what someone says, taking a weapon out on them means you lose the argument and whatever point you were trying to make. It's the resort of the unthinking and the incompetent.
No I will not do that
Because by participating in the political process I would be giving credence to a violent and immoral system.
That his twitter account info was given to the government.
He could have gone after twitter, but they just have to follow the law...
He could have gone after the DOJ, but again, they just follow orders...
He went after someone from Congress, the people who make the laws... sounds about right.
Far more incidents of this sort happen in the Middle East so why is this "a very american thing to do"?
How does similar events happening in the Middle East make it a less American thing to do? Overeating and watching TV is a "very American thing to do," yet people also overeat and watch TV in other countries.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Then move or shut up if you're not going to participate. Parasite.
You're quoting gawker, seriously?
Get on Target for Victory in November. Help Remove Gabrielle Giffords from Office. Shoot a Fully Automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2011/1/8/13371/41091/21#c21
This sounds an awful lot like incitement to commit murder. Is there any chance this tough guy will get charged?
I spent the last election cycle hearing about 2nd Amendment remedies and how we've got to keep the members of congress in our crosshairs.
Sorry for jumping to conclusions but, quite frankly the last election cycle made me a little you know, jumpy.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
She voted for the healthcare bill despite knowing that 67% of her constituents opposed it. She's no "representative." Just a political whackjob
...and yet she was reelected by those same constituents, so apparently they think she represented them well enough.
No matter how many votes you got to get in, it only takes one "vote" to take you out.
Shh.
Have you thought of moving to Somalia? You can pay as much tax as you want and own as many guns as you want and the government won't bother you.
She was also a strong supporter of gun rights. Ironic.
She is on the Science and Technology Committee and the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. Slashdot is not evolving into generic news. Slashdot has mixed in generic news from the beginning. Some its biggest stories were Columbine-related.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
I know, I was wondering where the tech angle was. Was she a voice in the pro or anti net neutrality camps? Did she have controvertial views on technology? Did her son do a computing degree? Anything.
From what I found out on her wikipedia page she supports renewable energies and is a member of the NRA. The renewable energies bit might classify it, but as no-one has brought it up until now, it's a bit outside /.s supposed remit.
Horrible situations are horrible situations, but let proper news agencies report on it, this is /., an international (though mainly american) technology news aggregate. I've only got /. on my feeds now because Digg has become even more crap. I hope /. doesn't go that way (any more)
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
So, when is the time for politics? The GOP has in recent years been playing with fire. It's going to be some time before we know what the motivation for this was, but the fact remains that the GOP has been using this sort of hateful motivation for political gain for years.
The GOP tends to say that whenever they get taken to task for their irresponsible politicking on people's fear and hatred.
Considering that one of the "related stories" on Gawker is how hot the incoming Congress is, you MIGHT want to pick a better news source than that.
No other news source is reporting any details on the suspect yet, but what is reported suggests that he's foreign, since he shouted something in a foreign language. That IS known.
So sack up or shut up.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This is purely political terrorism egged on by a political party that doesn't seem to have a human heart, in particular, Sarah Palin.
This may have earned the flamebait mod. Palin did include Giffords in a black list of people responsible for abortion laws, there is no evidence that this was the reason behind the shooting.
A tad be sensitive are we? It's a perfectly legitimate point that Sarah Palin has been engaged in hate and fear mongering and that she's in part to blame for anybody that takes her suggestion seriously.
The various white supremacist groups have been using tactics like that for quite a while to shield their leaders from the consequences of ordering contracts and to make it hard for the FBI to stop their plans.
As video games had in the Columbine High School shooting, and it should be given EXACTLY as much air-time and attention.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If the moose, wolves and bears want to take a crack at Sarah, I'm all for it. Fair is fair.
Yeah I know what you mean, man. It's all like...
Wait, what's that? Shit, someone's at the door. I can feel their scanners it in my nanoimplant. Oh shit the Reptili
I'm a conservative (NOT a neo-Republican!) and I am outraged that a duly-elected representative would be shot at a political meeting. You expect this kind of stuff in unstable third-world countries, not in the U. S. of A. If you don't like what a political leader is doing, vote the bum out or impeach them (if they are breaking the law). This isn't the Wild West where might is right.
Guns are fine, so long as the control laws we actually have are enforced and people are educated about gun safety.
In Arizona, it means hitting what you aim at. Lots of bumper stickers around here say so.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
You aren't supposed to even consider the last one until all others have thoroughly failed -- as in, to the point that you can't even exercise them anymore, so you don't have any alternative.
I'll lay even odds this moron shooter didn't even vote.
Shooting elected representatives isn't the way to express political opinion in a democracy.
So you would be a member of the now extremist (by their own definition) organization, the Tea Party?
535 assholes, by any chance?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
CNN reported on a live feed @ 1:40 PM PST that she is expected to get out of surgery (presumably alive).
While the story indicates that a motive has not yet been determined, it also states that she recently won a close and hotly contested race with a Tea Party candidate. Hopefully, it will not be found that the teenage shooter was not responding to the Tea Party rhetoric of if we can't win in the ballot box, we will win in the streets.
It is truly a shame, but something angered the shooter enough that he took it upon himself to "fix" a problem. I wonder if election campaigning were more civil and less mud slinging/hate mongering if this shooting would have occurred.
While many people on slashdot are of many different political views and seem to be able to discuss issues civilly (for the most part), there seem to be pockets of society in the US that are not able to do that. How does anyone expect to solve any of the issues in the US or world, when there isn't even enough respect of the human person to allow for differing opinions?
Whatever the cause of the shooting, it is truly a sad day.
I Secondly, the early reports are that the suspect is hispanic and shoutted something in another language (presumabbly spanish if they are hispanic) before the shooting.
Ahhh, the "some say" technique. Do you work for Fox News? Can you provide a link, I haven't heard this.
A representative is not supposed to be merely a voting conduit for the currently-polled state of her constituents. The whole point of electing representatives is to put someone in place who's actually familiar with the issues and exercises her judgement, because the vast majority of her constituents will likely not be as informed.
You can argue that any particular vote was the wrong one, but it's non-sensical to say "she voted against the polls for her district, therefore she's a whackjob", especially when she gets re-elected after casting an unpopular vote.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
No I wouldn't. I'm just baffled at how tremendously irresponsible that violent rethoric with gunsights and "targets" is. Nutjobs like the one in this case take this stuff literally and the GOP should know better. They are corresponsible.
Violence begets violence, it can only ever be advocated in a succinct and clean fashion, which minimizes suffering on all accounts.
Hey buddy, can i bum a karma? ~}CinderellaManson{~
Are the wolves going to jump on her from a helicopter? That sounds like a Family Guy episode.
She's also been a major contributor to the debate over the space program (given that her husband is an astronaut).
More importantly though, this has the potential to be a major political event for the US right now, depending on the motivations of the perpetrator. Slashdot normally covers major political events (congressional elections, repeal of DADT, etc.) that aren't primarily techy or nerdy, and this is no different.
Nerds are people too.
Sarah Palin just took down her USA Map with targets drawn over democratic leaders, one of them was for Gabrielle Giffords.
Bullshit. The gunman was tackled while running away, and immediate and verified reports were that he's white, twenties, and clean cut. The whole "La Raza" angle is defensive politics by the Tea Party and the GOP who know that this is a textbook case of violent rhetoric whipping up a mob, one of whom actually acts on it. Whether or not that's truly the case, the right wing knows they've got a perception problem and immediately dove into the political side on their own.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Im very sorry -
The fact that people are free to move to another place doesn't provide a compelling moral justification for the initiation of violence
I'd say that a public figure basically broadcasting their hit list to their followers should be grounds for hatred regardless of political affiliation.
Should everyone be afraid at every moment that their going to be shot by a gunman? Should everyone shoot first and ask questions later? Is one really free if he is afraid to go outside without getting shot?
You are a disgusting person.
FC Closer
I don't remember any liberals cheering when Reagan was shot.
Why are you bringing politics into this?
[Citation Needed]
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
I was born and raised in Tucson, this type of crime rarely happens. Most people usually hear about crime in Phoenix. Anyways, appears there were multiple suspects in the shooting. 4+ people dead, local sheriff reports that Giffords was gravely wounded, some reports that she's dead, others that she's in surgery. Local newspaper has story up now, http://tucsoncitizen.com/mark-evans/archives/389 No matter what your political affiliation, murder is still murder. I've heard one report that Giffords was shot point-blank in the head. I think it's time to really consider leaving the US before this sort to stupid political strife becomes a full blown civil war...
"The only constant in the universe is change." - Unknown author
There are many things that "matter", shall we forget the purpose of Slashdot and turn it into a generic news site? To what purpose?
Riiiight - so let it go back to discussing star wars and comic books.
(Most) things evolve.
So you're saying you don't really believe in democracy after all. How un-American.
lol... if i was the only disgusting person this world would be a better place.. ok.. i'll fuck off
Your hatred for anything conservative and Republican doesn't help yours, either.
I'm starting to feel like my hatred of the right is pretty damn justified right about now.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I was expecting a Hispanic or Muslim moniker. Guess I lost the bet.
Yes, might as well hand everyone a gun when they turn 16. That'll ensure total safety.
We are all God's parents.
That would be this one, complete with the gunsights. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/sarah-palins-pac-puts-gun_n_511433.html But true, no evidence yet that she or any of her followers were involved.
It's a shame? Cancelling Stargate Universe was a shame - this is more commonly known as a tragedy, but sadly we seem to hear of so many that we're getting dulled to it.
Fine, Dr. Steven Rayle (real guy in Tucson look him up), told ABC news this as well. He's the same guy that told Gawker. He was an eyewitness at the scene. Gawker sucks, but I think they can take down an eyewitness statement like anyone else. Where are people reading that he yelled something foreign? I haven't seen that anywhere but here.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-gabrielle-giffords-shot-grocery-store-event/story?id=12571452 [go.com]
"Eyewitness Steven Rayle told ABC News a man approached Giffords and shot her before turning his gun on other people randomly.
Rayle described the shooter as a Caucasian male in his 20s wearing dark clothes."
You'll notice "Ammo" is at the end of that list, and it usually comes with the admonishment, "In that order". Do you think that guy (or the people he represents, if any) went through any of the other steps, except maybe possibly the ballot box?
Politics (which I hate, by the way) encompasses the first three. The reason the fourth is there is both in order to point out that it's at the end of the list, and also to remind people that if it all really does go down shit creek, you shouldn't sit there and take it.
Yep.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080627143201AAUfXM3
You're never supposed to open the last fucking box. We tried it during the Civil War, concluded that it was a shitty way to solve our problems, and closed the damn thing up for good.
This here's the soap box. You stand on it and you speak to whomever listens. (Hello, NSA! :) But they're part of the public, and if you're going to stand on a soap box and howl into the wires, well, they've got as much right to read it as anyone else. That's how public anonymous/pseudonymous speech works. It's how it worked all the way back to before the Declaration of Independence.
The Ballot Box seems to be working pretty well. Sure, our candidates suck, but if there were really an Estabishment(tm) that selects our candidates for us, do you think it would have let Christine "Not a Witch" O'Donnell run? How 'bout Dennis Kucinich? The reason we get wacky candidates is because we, the people, can be pretty dumb ourselves. In the meanwhile, I ain't interested in smoking pot or marrying dudes, but those two things also seem to pop up on state initiatives every year.
The Jury Box is working fine, too. It's taken a few years, but MAFIAA's barratry isn't working as well as it used to, and states and municipalities everywhere are pulling their redlight/speed cameras in favor of real cops who might (a) actually change the offending behavior, and (b) keep the revenue in the community, rather than simply forking the profits over to Redflex. (Bonus points - if the driver's running a red light because he's, the cop who pulls him over can keep him off the road. A camera can't.)
The system works. It may not work quickly. It may not work well. It sure as hell doesn't work efficiently. But it beats the hell out of the alternative.
As of 2 PM PST:
11 patients
===
1 dead (9 year old girl)
5 in critical condition
5 in surgery
Giffords is one of the patients in critical condition; shot once in the head; surgeon optimistic regarding recovery; reported as lucid and following commands.
(LOL, I accidentally drunk :)
Her husband is also an Astronaut for NASA.
So.. conflict of interest, much?
-- Muskets NOT state of the art anymore -- 18 century ended 200 years ago --
If you want to rise against tyrants request some F16, Apaches and Panzers, good luck!
Uh, no, most people wouldn't do that, not Republicans, not Democrats, not anybody.
This happened because of you, and people like you, promoting the notion that one side and the other are totally different. Your belief that the Other Side aren't people is what creates this kind of thing. Not the biases you think other people have; the biases you have. As long as it's all about how you feel the other side has "double standards", you're the one with the double standard.
When you can react to something like this without using it as a chance for a pot shot at the other side, you will no longer be part of the problem.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
is called KGUN. wow.
New Economic Perspectives
sorta funny...
From the fox article: "Stupid gunman....it's the SENATE that needs fixing "
And u think u are the main democracy of the globe... hahahahahahahaha
Poor sheep people
U'r not human, u'r animals
What javascript needs to be whitelisted there in order to see the comments? I'm not blanketing the whole page, and enabled foxnews.com already, still no comments.
You know, it's funny.
We have a law against killing people, but sometimes people still do it.
You're telling me that, while they aren't going to follow our law against killing people, you think they'll follow the law against having guns?
Yeah, uhm. I don't think it works that way.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
fixed that for ya.
Reading the articles reporting on this sad event, I learned the Congresswoman Giffords is Jewish. I know everyone is assuming a Tea Party motivated attack, but there is a possibility of it being an anti-semitic attack. There is also the possibility that both of these are correct, as they do not appear to be mutually exclusive.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I think she is on the NASA subcommittee.
Why wouldn't he have?
Soap: someone willing to gun down people is probably going to have gone on a rant at some point.
Ballot: Who knows, seems reasonably likely though, since he seems to have some interest in politics.
Jury: You don't get a choice in that one, you can't decide "I'll be on a jury today" and do so.
So I see no reason to believe he hasn't worked his way down the list.
we are a republic for good reason.
The U.S. isn't, and hasn't been, a republic for some time. Corporate interests have maintained a stranglehold on our gov't for almost as long as we've had a gov't. The propaganda that constitutes history is often far from accurate.
Some time what the majority think they want is wrong
Regarding majority consensus, true direct democracies don't work for the same reason most people are dysfunctional. When given an option, people tend to choose the most self-serving option available, regardless of social or fiscal responsibilities.
I love how people on this very forum have had "Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo" at the bottom of every one of their posts for years. And when that shit actually blows up suddenly it "isn't the time for politics."
So do you think the gunman went through the recourses of "soap, ballot, and jury" before settling on ammo? They come in that order for a reason. It's also worth noting that the ballot worked pretty well last November. There's no rationalization nor incitement here for what happened.
It isn't just "crosshairs". People like Palin are continually exhorting their followers to "reload". Her facebook page even has crosshair symbols on a map and the names of politicians who didn't vote the way Palin wanted them to.
http://www.alan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sarahpac_0.jpg
And Gabrielle Giffords name is on that.
So, now that the alleged shooter has been identified, and lists Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto among his favorite books, and has a single video listed as his favorite video -- a video of the American flag begin burned, care to revise your statement?
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
I remember when Reagan was shot, there was speculation that the shooter was politically motivated. It turned out he was mentally ill with delusions.
At the present time, no one really knows the why of this. Thankfully, they caught someone so we may know more in time.
For right now, the main thing is to hope that those shot and still alive pull through and make full recoveries.
As an aside, Gifford's husband is an astronaut on the next shuttle crew and her brother in law is currently on the space station. This has to be weighing very heavily on them.
See cache here as the Kos revisionists are on the double.
"This type of story is news for everybody, including nerds."
Good thing Slashdot aired it or we'd never know it happened.
"Secondly, she serves or served on the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics which affects funding for one of Slashdot's favorite government programs called NASA. Her husband is also an Astronaut for NASA."
Trifles.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Her husband is an astronaut, as is her brother-in-law, who is currently aboard the ISS.
Her husband is Mark Kelly, who is commanding the next (and last) shuttle flight. His brother, Scott (Gifford's brother in law) is currently on the space station. Gifford is also on the house science and technology committee that sets funding for NASA.
That makes it news for nerds. And more importantly, it matters.
Apparent identity of the shooter is Jared Lee Loughner.
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Jared+Lee+Loughner
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=gabrielle+giffords
Youtube channel is still up and the videos are backed up.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10
You know someone is out of soap when they start lacing their arguments with the words "hater" or "hateful".
Aren't you actually confused with the Civilian National Defense Force" proposed by Pres. Obama? Its only political equivalent in modern times are the Brown Shirts or the Khmer Rouge.
Or, perhaps you had duck hunting in mind? That point of that video begins at about 4:15.
Both parties, and all their satellites, are mirror images of each other, and both are worthless as representatives of the people. Their common core is their love of corporate bribe money, a.k.a. "Campaign Contributions". That's how Pres Obama lost the health care "debate". He got one of the largest mandates in history to pass SIGNIFICANT health care reform, and he was given majorities in both houses to make sure he could do it. But, Dems couldn't keep their fingers out of the corporate cookie jars so a few million dollars nullified the votes of millions of voters. Now those Dems and their Rep clones can take their "campaign war chests" into retirement with them, along with their salaries, free health care with no caps or exemptions, and a 10% COL raise each year, all of which pass on to the spouse at their deaths, so they can live in the same luxury as the CEOs whose bribes they took.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
You left off the part where other people tell groups of potential crazies WHO TO KILL.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/dont-get-demoralized-get-organized-take-back-the-20/373854973434
Scroll to the bottom.
The read up on her rhetoric about reloading.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-10/-don-t-retreat-reload-palin-tells-republicans-in-new-orleans.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10
It seems he planned this 3 weeks ago.
Her staff should have been armed and ready to respond.
This is Arizona, I was under the impression that everyone and his dog in rural America walks around with guns. Bystanders apparently tackled the shooter without using guns. The only gun involved here was the murderer.
Most of Slashdotters are very Liberal, and the victim was both. Nobody likes own-side casualties, but politics is war and if you can't get your way peacefully there really is no reason not to escalate except inconvenience.
If someone had whacked a TeaPartista the response here would be more muted. It's OK to admit we take sides, have enemies, and cheer their misfortune (or just plain want them to FUCKING DIE!). Human nature, nothing to see here. We should expect those we disagree with to wish us death also. There is no victory without defeat.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yet USA has almost 6 times the murder rate (the same goes for all the scandinavian countries) Why?
Here is your reason, but you're not going to like it, and I'll probably be modded down, even though the following is 100% factual - anyone here can confirm it by just plugging the census data and crime statistics into Excel:
http://comfortabletruth.blogspot.com/2011/01/fun-chart-of-day.html
If you normalize for demographics, the USA is just as safe as Europe. It really is that straightforward. Don't hate me for pointing it out, I'm not biased, the facts are biased, I'm just the messenger. Like I said, anyone can confirm this with Excel and a few minutes of research. We can argue endlessly about the reasons for this incredibly strong correlation, sure, but we cannot deny the story the numbers tell us.
Quote The suspect fired indiscriminately from about four feet away, Michaels said. A congressional official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the gunman was using an automatic weapon. unquote Unless specifically registered by the ATF automatic weapons are illegal already.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
The problem with that rule is that we probably have at least one person somewhere in this thread tree who thinks they're sufficiently without sin to start casting stones.
Indeed, Gun Crime is much, much worse in those countries where guns are banned.
[citation needed]
To reply, first, by that logic this item belongs, & is widely available on, sites that do "news for everybody". Secondly, she's never made /. before for any of her science panel positions. For third, /. isn't running an "astronaut's wife shot" story here.
This is grotesquely upsetting, yes. But that's no excuse to mark "WTF /.?" posts as Troll -- it's a legitimate question here. I know I'm still trying to figure out why it's here. You post helps -- thank you -- because it shows many science types may have heard of her in science discussions. Also we've got a couple of posts that indicate maybe Palin had a webpage map with gunsights on Dems? (Really? Anyone found a cache?)
Soulskill clearly didn't know she had any science connection either. That, and any other actual /. hooks, badly needs to be added to the original submission. That'll help a lot.
Do you know what a militia is? The second ammendment does not mention self defense. It would allow laws to permit gun ownership for any reason, but only requires the law to permit it in order to maintain a militia.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
You mean Never A Straight Answer? Those guys who've covered up the reality of the universe for the last 60 years? That organization that was started by Ex-Nazi's?
Fuck you.
In principle I agree with you, but the thing is that a lot of people saw this sort of thing coming. There has been a lot of commentary and, at least in my own discussions, worry, about the winking incitement to violence that has been broadcast since Obama was elected.
Wrong, it started when Bush was elected. A lot of the strong anti-government movement started With Bush, pushed by people like you stating the government was a bunch of jackboot thugs.
So this is really reaping what you have sown, even though you wished for a different target at the time.
The shooter you see was a nut-case very much into government hatred, communism and flag burning. Not exactly the type to follow Palin or indeed any of the "America First" people. Just a crazy hater whose hatred was fueled long before Obama ever saw office.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's an interesting opinion. I personally find it to be either insane or trolling, but it's interesting regardless. You've used a gun crime as an example of why guns should be freely available--I think most people would go the opposite route and use this as an example of a need for stricter gun control laws.
"should be shot in the head"?
You, sir, are one sick person. To advocate that anyone in America should be shot because of their political views is INSANE! The person who did the shooting in Az also shot the 1st and 2nd Amendments, or what's left of them.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
A thousand bucks a piece.
I can make zip guns in bulk for $10 at most.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The shooter you was a nut-case very much into government hatred, communism and flag burning. Not exactly the type to follow Palin or indeed any of the "America First" people. Just a crazy hater whose hatred was fueled long before Obama ever saw office, by the same people that hated Bush so much... Kind of like the IRS plane guy, a lunatic pushed over the rbink of madness by those that hate the government, period.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I love how everyone talks about banning guns, yet nobody has a good plan about how to do so. For instance; I have 4 guns, 1 that I purchased for concealed carry when I was stationed in a terrible part of Virginia while in the Marine Corps, and 3 that were handed down to me from my father. My recent weapon is registered, and if they really wanted to they could come get it, its not worth going to jail over, but they don't know about the others and I wouldn't tell them. So, in the society with banned guns, I would have 3 guns instead of 4. The only change would be that I would be using an older firearm to defend myself and my family.
The shooter was a nut-case very much into government hatred, communism and flag burning. Not exactly the type to follow Palin or indeed any of the "America First" people. Just a crazy hater whose hatred was fueled long before Obama ever saw office.
That's what you get with jumping the gun to blame Palin; a whole lot of internet egg on your face.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I predict, based on the past dozen massacres/assassinations and whatnot high profile shootings, that it will be found that the shooter was/has been force addicted to a "prescribed, for his own good", psychoactive substance like ritalin. THIS is the common denominator with these sorts of shootings for the past 20 years or more. Whatever crazy political motivation is irrelevant at this time, it will be shown that this false "necessity" of over prescribing mind altering hard drugs to children is just not worth it and is too harmful, and will have been what pushed him over the edge. for what it is worth, it is effecting combat vets even worse, come back with ptsd, get prescribed a shitload of bad mojo drugs as the "cure", so they go nuts and then commit crtimes, some bad crimes. It's a big scandal now..
Ya, posting AC, but some of you will remember this little post in the weeks ahead.
Obviously Palin was only trying to elect someone else, not have her killed. It's only out of respect that she has taken these things down, and rightfully so - don't you think it would be in bad taste to leave them up?
Meanwhile we find the shooter was really some leftists anarchist nut - remember always that no-one left or right is advocating violence against the opposite party.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That IS known. Except the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, isn't foreign and didn't say anything in a foreign language. You got nothing right. Meanwhile, the good Doctor got it all right.
Probably because he was there. The shooter is white, early 20's and not foreign.
yes fight amongst your selves huahaha we elite win everytime. You know why evil triumphs? It is because good is dumb.
So political disputes are now to be resolved by private armed militia, supporting opposite factions?
If politics in the US turns into a streetfight, there aren't enough cops to issue everyone a bodyguard.
Armed gangs used to settle political disputes? Sort of like Weimar Germany?
Laws only restrain the lawful. Arm up and mobb deep.
What you are describing is a complete breakdown of civil society (think Somalia).
This is not the society we should be planning. This is not the world we should be creating
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
it was the right wing whoresons' scaremongering and provocation that caused that oafbrain to attack that congresswoman. is that it ?
Read radical news here
He sounds like your basic garden variety crazy of the anti-government persuasion. Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto are basically at the lunatic fringe opposites of the political spectrum - it seems this fellow is more interested in violence against the government then what the particular goal of said violence is.
Did you mean the "Left" in the USofA ... or in England?
The guy who made that movie is British.
According to his YouTube video" explaining his views.
So much for all the accusations by the Dems against Reps, Fox News and the Tea Party.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
apparently one of his crank causes is gold and silver backed currency: a classic right wing wackjob
http://www.businessinsider.com/jared-lee-loughner-2011-1
thank you right wing america, for all the hate mongering and fearmongering
you reap what you sow
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
which moron, and i reiterate, moron, modded down the above, FACT containing post, so that it had to be modded up to remain at +1 normal ?
im openly calling you a moron. come out and justify your morondom. that is, if you can. while youre at it, explain the domestic and friendly uses of a close-counters fucking smg apart from killing people.
Read radical news here
The US is not a democracy. The US is not even a representative republic any more. Soap, ballot, and jury are only effective if you have millions or billions of dollars to spend while bullets are cheap. Keep shooting! Revolution for Freedom!
How true that is, Nostrodamus.
Check out the guy's YouTube channel. All the major news sources are listing it. He's a total whack job.
Um, that movie that you're linking to is written and directed by a BRITISH guy.
England != The USofA
I agree...
My point was that the poster to whom I replied earlier had already decided that this was "political terrorism egged on by a political party that doesn't seem to have a human heart, in particular, Sarah Palin", which is bullshit.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
And the previous Slashdot's posting was about Digital Afterlife:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/08/1825239/Are-You-Ready-For-the-Digital-Afterlife
Talk about bad timing...
This is not just false equivalence, but false exactness.
You can lie to yourself, but there is both a qualitative and quantitative difference. Video games have fantasy violence in various settings, some more realistic than others. Palin "targeted" people by name, and one of those people have been shot.
I played the same games the Columbine perps played and I don't recall any High School maps where you shoot defenceless unarmed students and teachers.
Another big difference in the context; the Columbine shootings were not prefaced by non-stop radio and television rhetoric calling for use of the second amendment to resolve the problem of defenceless students and teachers at High Schools.
Stopping publication of rhetoric from the simple minded that may drive other simple minds to do stupid shit is not a solution either as this would be censorship but it does good to point out the possible connection between the words of dumb shits leading to actions by other dumb shits.
"Her staff should have been armed and ready to respond."
All this does is escalate violence. The crazies will just move to more spectacular means of harming others, such as using explosives.
The reported gunman in custody is one Jared Loughner.
Here is the youtube channel of a "Jared Lee Loughner" , self identified as a student at Pima Community College.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/u
Smells like a schizo-fruitbat to me.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
"This is not the society we should be planning. This is not the world we should be creating"
Being prepared is NOT the same thing as "hoping it will happen".
If it DOES happen, would you prefer to be on the losing side because you failed to prepare? Pacifism doesn't deter serious people.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes, armed and ready to respond to her being shot, by which point she's already been shot.
So how is it "bad taste" to have a graphic of crosshairs and the name of a person AFTER that person is shot ... but not BEFORE that person is shot?
It's not like this is the first time that graphic has been brought up. It was in the news when she posted it. And people were worried that it would lead to violence against the people named on it.
But it was okay then and not after one of the people named on it is shot? That's some pretty flexible "logic" you have there.
Jury: You don't get a choice in that one, you can't decide "I'll be on a jury today" and do so.
The jury part of that quote refers to using the judicial system, as in you can sue someone over the issue. Yes, serving on a jury would go towards that too but it's not the only action you can take.
Sapere aude!
This guy has a few screws loose:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10
"Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.”
--Gabrielle Gifford March 25, 2010, MSNBC Interview.
http://kateoplis.tumblr.com/post/2655554409/msnbc-talks-to-rep-gabrielle-gifford-about-the
I second the parent post!
It is too early to start blaming or trying to figure out why this happened and at our end of the information chain we should be the ones who withhold judgment until more information is known and presented. Speculation and guessing will only form the wrong ideas in our minds as to why this happened and our own thinking will be clouded with judgment and bias instead of facts. We will become swayed by our own personal prejudices and when the facts finally come out we'll be skeptical of them if they don't form up to our own derived conclusions.
"Why did he do this?"
The assailant who's in custody should be asked the most important question of all so that we can figure out his method of thinking and have a clearer understanding of the purpose behind his actions.
Like the posters above have mentioned, some attacks and assassinations are clearly politically motivated while others are just done by mentally ill people, or some are even perpetrated due to secret personal vendettas or retributions.
Representative was shot! So were some other people! We have no idea who else was shot, who did it, why, or what the condition of the representative is! We're at the scene with news outlets contradicting each other trying to be first to say anything-at-all to get their ratings up. Political trolls are drawing conclusions and throwing around blame with absolutely nothing to go on. *YAWN* Can't wait a day or 2 until we actually know anything, can we?
> Interesting, one of the by-standers, who helped hold the gunman down, said he was white and clean shaven.
> Where did you hear he was hispanic?
Crap. Who said that? I thought we had screened everyone on-site and they were supposed to say he was Hispanic and had a big beard.
Damage control? Who's doing damage control on this? Sarah-- can you send one of your tanning beds down to the jail?, we need to get some color on that boys cheeks before we have him shot in front of the cameras.
Sure she was on the Tea-Party's hit list, and the Federal Judge slaughtered today had numerous prior death threats, but it's a bit early to call this an assassination.
6 people have died, at least an additional 6 injured.
To me, that doesn't seem to be very targeted.
Is is possible for a young white male to be a terrorist? I forget the rules.
Performance must be inherent in every aspect of the system. It is not an afterthought, but always thought. - me
Political attacks in United States politics now require a fire fight?
Perhaps after the repeated threats from some citizens and violent rhetoric from certain media and political candidates against Giffords there should have been better security with people who are trained to handle both firearms and the dipshits who think politics require the second amendment for resolution when they don't get their way.
They were health care supporters, I see. In my country media put a stress on the abortion support...
Gun laws didn't stop Timmy McVeigh. They didn't even inconvenience him.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Palin and Coulter have no political views... i think they should be shot in the head so they are not allowed on TV anymore... not shot in the head to be killed.. just mutilate their stupid faces a little... they still can enjoy their freedom of speech as much as they want afterwards... :D
Most of Slashdotters are very Liberal, and the victim was both.
No, Rep. Gifford is not very liberal.
Nobody likes own-side casualties, but politics is war
No, it isn't. Politics is the process by which large organizations make decisions between various options. It's not fucking war!
If someone had whacked a TeaPartista the response here would be more muted.
I doubt this, but I have no way to prove it one way or the other.
It's OK to admit we take sides, have enemies, and cheer their misfortune (or just plain want them to FUCKING DIE!). Human nature, nothing to see here. We should expect those we disagree with to wish us death also. There is no victory without defeat.
What the hell is wrong with you?
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
The reason why the Second Amendment was included is for the same reason why the US Founders used guns to revolt against the British parliament. Without guns they would not have succeeded, and we'd still be the British colonies, or possibly a British Commonwealth country like Canada rather than independent like India.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Well it started when the US was founded, I would imagine. I was pretty uncomfortable at the hatred shown towards Clinton in the 90s. I noticed & didn't like the comparisons of Bush to Hitler and Bush republicans to nazis.
The root problem seems to be the fact that a lot of people on both sides talk past each other, don't trust each other, don't follow the wikipedia 'presume good intentions' rule any more. That's a collective problem that will eventually need to be solved. That doesn't change the fact that, since Obama was elected, the bulk of the crazy paranoid tripe has come from the tea party fringe, and a lot of that has (a) been broadcast on network tv or said by mainstream politicians (Palin), and (b) this time the tone (to me at least) seems more threatening, what with the crosshairs and urges for america to 'rearm'.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Can you say Sten gun? Probably not, but anyone with a basic lathe and hand tools can make them all day.
I agree with your point in general (that anyone with enough motivation can make their own gun), but doesn't a Sten (or any other rifle/carbine/pistol) essentially require a rifled barrel, and therefore either the rifling tool(s) or the ability to make those tools as well as the final product? Obviously a shotgun or other smooth-bored weapon is exempt from this. Maybe the Sten is a smooth-bored design, but a quick search didn't turn up anything indicating as much.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
You're absolutely right, it was bullshit. But it's hard to be rational when this is what you hear every day, day in and day out from those around you.
There's still a chance I could be right, initially, that this guy was a tea party wingnut, but the odds of it are slim.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I never understood very well what people call "hispanic" in America, but you can be 100% sure that the great majority of people from Spain are white.
A Spaniard
While I think they "buy" that crap because they WANT their party to be like that. And it's okay if my party is like that if the OTHER party is also like that.
grab your own nuts
House Speaker John Boehner condemned the attack. "An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve," he said in a statement. "Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."
I don't support this shooting, but let's be real here. The US government is so full of shit. Acts and threats of violence are an every day tool of the US government.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Not really -- his youtube videos make it pretty clear who he was.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
So posting crosshairs and names is okay ... until someone actually puts the person with that name in crosshairs ... and pulls the trigger?
Again, that's some very flexible logic you have there. Particularly since this has been brought up on the news when she first posted it.
Or Beck, or Faux News? I wonder if Mark Kelly, Rep. Giffords' husband, has a cause of action against Palin, who put Giffords district in a scope sight picture. Intentional infliction of emotional distress, interference with consortium, etc?
Should everyone be afraid at every moment that they're going to be stabbed by a kitchen knife? Is one really free if he is afraid to go outside without getting stabbed?
As someone that carries an FNH Five-saveN daily, I feel somewhat not antigun and her staff being armed has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. As a Congresswoman she cold have had armed staff regardless of normal firearms laws. I feel you are using this instance to move a pro gun agenda. This took place in a state with liberal gun laws, if it was where I live a dozen people in the crowd would have been legally armed and perhaps there would have been less carnage. I have no explanation as to why there were no armed civilians there. Someone did something there otherwise the suspect would have gotten away. I also agree this is not a gun issue, this is about a deranged individual taking a literal message from Palin and her kind. Guns are easy to come by regardless of any status or legal metric and time and again we see psycho's with knives and IED's. Do we live in a time where this is going to become common place? Maybe, but we are not all unarmed cattle or D&D players with a made in Pakistan 440c broadsword in our basement.
I do not play in the middle of the road
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
The problem with that rule is that we probably have at least one person somewhere in this thread tree who thinks they're sufficiently without sin to start casting stones.
"A great rabbit stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a speaker for the dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)
"The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there anyone here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'
"They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.'
"The rabbit says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'
"So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.
"Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, 'Which of you is without sin! Let him cast the first stone.'
"The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I'll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated.
"As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman's head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones.
"'Nor am I without sin,' he says to the people, 'But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it.'
"So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deliverance.
"The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him."
-Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the dead, p. 277-278
I haven't heard the gunman identifed yet, and the Pima County sheriff is not yet speculating on motive. to try and ascribe this to any political motive is premature and without evidence.
Children, you are. Or just fanning the fire. Pointless either way. Here in Arizona this seems to be the only thing to talk about today. Even the usual talk show hosts have come on on their weekend to run on about all this. Great. It's tragedy enough without piling on this crap.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Well if I read the page you linked I see that it also mentions Mein Kampf as a favorite read of the guy. That's not exactly leftist literature.
Everyone who has been screaming about how the ballot and soap boxes have let the United States down, here is the results of your rhetoric. Someone has resorted to the ammo box. Aren't you proud?
It's the plot of Machete all over again.
on his Facebook page. Sick dude...typical Tea-Bagger lunatic.
If only you and your people had some kind of an organized, trained and heavily equipped and armed group whose job and duty would be to defend you from foreign and domestic enemies.
Or some trained and armed group that would investigate and possibly prevent any such attack.
Or even organized and trained professionals who would patrol and control your countries borders.
Fuck son...
What kind of a poor excuse for a country do you live in, where you must be your own army, police and border guard?
What happens when you go to sleep? You get robbed and killed each night?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A lot of people are afraid to sit at home without getting shot.
qntm.org
Make hunting guns carry a single bullet that can only be loaded by hand, no catridge so it takes a while to reload. One gun person. It weight 30kg and is painted bright orange and beeps whenever in range of a GSM mast and reports its location constantly. The guns are kept at a secure station near their intended usage area, the owner remains responsible at all times for the usage of the gun taking the same punishment as the user of the gun.
Something tells me that this will see a lot less "full metal jacket heave machine guns, for rabbit hunting". I know real hunters, they don't need or want hand guns or automatic rifles. Single shotgun carried at all times in the open position is more then enough. What kind of rabbit does the US have that you hunt with an automatic pistol?
Likewise, who deserves to die more than someone engaging in the act of killing others (that would be the gunmen in this scenario)?
You know...
For contributions to society like all that being holier than though you're full of, that makes you so competent a judge on matters of who "deserves to die".
Shit like that makes you an automatic nominee in my book.
Fox and the right wing don't live in the real world they create their own relative reality as Karl Rove openly intended to do as a founding principle of his campaigning technique; I heard it myself over a decade ago. They want to not feel bad or at all responsible or guilty and one of many rationalizations and emotional escapes is to belittle and make less of the situation - and.... their popular technique of blaming the victim, used for many decades by their party as if it was part of the playbook (although I think its a sign of a deeper character trait common to them, as they have targeted certain demographics strongly and therefore have large numbers of certain types of people in their party-- resulting in the character of the organization to shift to reflect their changing makeup. Quite likely to the point where we can create profiles or brain scans to ID what is wrong with them-- its hard to filter out groups you can study like this and I think to some degree they've done all the hard work for researchers.)
Idiots they used to sucker with a few lines and slogans have taken it too far. It has gone out of their control, where some of those suckers are even getting elected believing the empty rhetoric that was never intended beyond getting some votes. The fanatics are so upset the instigators are getting boxed in by their own lies and deception - in a mob gone wild off of propaganda. It makes compromise more difficult and when global warming is impossible to ignore any longer they'll have their hands tied because they didn't think far enough ahead.... its already happened (different issues) to many republicans already. Bad times only make people more scared and unable to ignore problems - as times continue to get worse more scared angry people will surface. Emotional people don't think. Black and White takes less thinking-- the other party must be pure 100% evil, your politician must be 100% corrupt if they don't vote the way you want (you must be 100% correct and informed....) etc.
The only thing I find funny is just how accurately the assessment was a few years back: people are scared -- they cling to god, guns, and country(nationalism.) Bet this gunman had all 3.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Criticizing the government, protesting and even hating is not a problem. Violence and incitement to violence is the problem. I do not know a poster similar to the crosshair one against Bush. Surely not endorsed by a democrat governor (or VP candidate!). Nothing like this either: http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2011/1/8/13371/41091/21#c21
Really, the gun nuts have this mythical idea that they will have a shootout at the coral when the bandits attack. No, you won't. You either will be asleep and caught completely of guard, shoot your kid comin home thinking he is a burglar or be killed in your sleep by a criminal not taking any changes when he comes to rob you for the gun in the night stand you won't even have a change of finding in the dark.
You think you are John Wayne, yes you are, the real one who dodged the draft because he was to chicken to fight despite playing a though guy all the time. When the going gets though, the republicans hide under the covers.
Really, US crime rates are higher then other western nations but despite all the gun owner ship, the number of incidents where a victim succesfully defends him/herself are negliciable compared to the crimes that turned out far worse because the criminal decided to shoot first.
If you outlaw guns, outlaws won't need guns and not risk the death sentence for a simple burglary gone wrong.
That's your opinion. The problem is ... Palin doesn't seem to share it.
No. That's the problem. It is only "clear" to her existing fans.
Once her rhetoric was actualized, she immediately pulled the graphic because she was afraid that she'd lose popularity if people saw that graphic AFTER they heard the news of the shooting.
It was in bad taste to post it in the first place.
The bad taste was compounded every time they updated the site and did not take that graphic down.
Now she's backing away from it by pulling it when the "undecideds" might see it on the news.
If it was "innocuous" then it wouldn't be a problem after the shooting. And she wouldn't have pulled it. But she did. Because it wasn't "innocuous".
You're probably responding to something else because I never posted that. Try to stick to what I've posted, kthx.
I bet the Stormfronters out there would like to see some genetics showing how much Moor blood flows the veins of the average Spaniard.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Ever read the The Communist Manifesto? Mein Kemf? The "new pearl harbor" PNAC document of the late 90s?
They can be taken many many ways in many directions. Some people like things that help them hate.
It was reported that he shot her 1st and was about 1 ft away from her head.
Frickin' Aye!
And I'm not even an American....
Bad taste doesn't figure into this. If it's popular with her core supporters ... she'll do it.
Right up to the time that it becomes more of a liability with the "mainstream".
Which is the situation here. When she put it up, her supporters were happy with it. But now, people who are not her "base" might develop a negative opinion of her if they saw it on the news.
At which point, her speaking fees dry up because fewer people want to pay someone who hosts a graphic like that to speak at their functions.
Remember that being screamed out by some guy when McCain was talking about Obama's policies?
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D39843233193D0F3&playnext=1&v=jw3o3y77MaA
Did anyone else hear about this and then hear Kosh (Naranek) in his head saying "It has begun?"
I think I'll drink myself to sleep tonight. :P
for a very long time, and wants more. They continue to call for it, on the air, every day, at various events. They have some of the highest-paid political voices in the nation on their side, actively encouraging people to pick up arms and "defend" America from "socialists," which happen to be anyone that is not a far-right ideologue.
Whether or not this particular incident was driven by right-wing ideology, the Republican party and the Tea Party wanted this and wanted it bad, and they continue to want more. Or, the voices that they promote and that are supported by their rank-and-file are lying through their teeth on the air every day.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
are reasonable, because it has been water-cooler discussion for quite some time that Beck/Palin/Hannity/House Repubs et. al. continually call for political violence and subversive unrest rather than civil political activity.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
If you and all the other head in the sand Democrats don't think our side kills people have never dealt with union members up close and personal.
The media just doesn't report it the same.
Or for that matter looked at cheating in elections, which we Dems are experts at, to my dismay. i.e. IL, NY, etc.
And I am NOT a Republican, I just don't have my head in the sand.
I hate sigs, and refuse to have one.
People other than me dying is always funny. And no, taking a weapon out on your opponent generally means you win.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Bush woke up a lot of people into what has been going on. The hate is justified, the irrational directing of it is the problem. People should have been extremely upset before Bush even stole the election with the stuff Clinton did. More people are upset now, the ones who were upset long ago have been stewing for a long time. When I think of the WTO protests... and how it is twice (10x?) as bad as that today.... to the point where the libertarian/republican types are starting to get upset.... We haven't had too many people who were awake 15-40 years ago going violent, just these young ones unable to handle the spoonful they just got.
The parent's FTA says he liked Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha -- I don't see how people are bringing up Communism with him and not Fascism when that book is there as well---- and it would take a really messed up person to attack a democrat 1st if they are Marxist fanatics when there are extreme Corporatists all over government.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The shooter hardly seems like a clear leftist. In the article you point to they also favorited Mein Kampf, are against federal laws, and insists on the gold and silver standard. That's a good mix of hard right and hard left. I'd say they're just pure anarchist with a mix of pure crazy.
Cow Cube
"An eye for an eye" is a false maxim. The whole world only goes blind if you return the harm twice over.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
We're not exactly known for downright murdering our public officials. Other countries hold that 'honor'
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Your link to violent crime statistics don't indicate whether those figures are for raw totals or for per capita totals. A quick run down of the list shows that it mostly tracks with population size, so I would assume that the figures are not adjusted for per capita.
Thus, your conclusions about the top five states on that list are bunk. Here's a hint, the top 4 states on your list are also the most populous states. Try a new argument when you have per capita figures.
Ah - my openly despising an administration that allowed the largest terrorist attack in history months after suppressing FBI investigations into the Bin Laden family, which proceeded to use lies to justify invading a country that had no links to the attack, who speak to this day with pride about authorising warcrimes including waterboarding is of course exactly equivalent to the eliminationist rhetoric coming from the right wing establishment.
Against people that spoke with pride about authorising . . . heathcare for poor people and children.
I mean, other than the fact that the left never called for eliminating right wing politicians (Excepting some marginal comment down in a blog somewhere), that many people would not consider better healthcare morally inferior to, say, torturing people to death or going to war without cause, and . . . oh yeah . . . by odd coincidence despite your deep belief that we were all planning on it no left wing nut ever tried to take out the American Enterprise Institute nor has there been so much as a threat against a right wing politician . . . ever . . . these are completely identical.
Other than being completely different of course.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
yeah cuz we're all the same person posting. eat a dick.
Should everyone be afraid at every moment that their going to be shot by a gunman? Should everyone shoot first and ask questions later? Is one really free if he is afraid to go outside without getting shot?
I love how every time there is a shooting the anti gun people jump right in with their propaganda. The fact is criminals love gun control. They have no regard for the law and don't care if the gun they have is legal or not. Outlawing guns will allow them to perpetuate their crimes with impunity. So protect your local criminals and ban legal gun ownership. They need to practice their trade with some measure of safety.
were people cheering and giving each other high-5's when Vladimir Arutyunian threw a hand grenade at Shrub?
.45 at President Ford.
Why yes, yes they were. They same people who call him Bushitler, nice people like that. The sort of people who spent eight years burning him in effigy. The kind of people who did cheer when a crazy guy tried to kill Reagan, or when apocalyptic hippie Squeaky Fromme pointed a
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
My mother works in South Boston not far from the projects and there have been quite a few robberies and shootings. I urge her to carry a stun-gun, some pepper spray, and a rape whistle on her key chain just in case. Her keys also have a panic button. She never had to use it, and she usually forgets she has it, but it does kind of make you feel a little bit more secure walking through those neighborhoods. If there weren't so many shootings every year, then I don't think she would carry it. Carrying anything lethal like a gun doesn't make sense in this situation. But yeah, if the threat has a higher probability of taking place, then you should be prepared. These shootings at rallies in the United States are rare and I don't think you need to carry any kind of protection.
Leftists tend not to list "Mein Kampf" among their favorite books. Or anything written by Ayn Rand. Particularly not THAT book.
Unstable "gonna fix the guberment myself" gun-nuts on the other hand...
Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.
If anything, the list screams "I just want to be a kid!" and "I need a strong male role model" while questioning morality of the world order.
Also, videos are apparently a manifesto of a an anti-grammar-Nazi.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A Democrat congresswoman is shot, and a federal judge and 8 others are killed. This would be shocking, except that it's not. The congresswoman "beat back a tough challenge from a Tea Party-endorsed opponent."
So we have organization that promotes having its supporters brandish weapons at its rallies, has its most prominatent supporters openly talk about advocate armed rebellion, and armed secession, and other defunct 19th century extremist ideas, demonizing a duly elected political opponent, and now we have her shot, and 9 others killed.
I don't have a whole lot of respect for politicians or lawyers. If they actually mean what they say about SERVING THE PEOPLE then I don't think it is all that bad if a random segment of them die at a high enough frequency to deter many self-serving "ambulance chasers" from running for office.
Sure that sounds bad, but governments kill thousands of people each year (the USA does more like hundreds of thousands per year) so for a few politicians to die as collateral damage I think is worth the price of gaining the power an elected office affords them. Unfortunately, the most corrupt ones seem to do just fine.... (I'm not implying conspiracies, just observing.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Ranting in general and "getting on your soap box" (in other words, making your displeasure publicly known) are different. Ranting in general has absolutely no intent to change anything; public speaking is generally done to raise awareness, gather like-minded fellows, etc, and by doing so put pressure on the person in charge.
As the sibling comment points out, the power of the "jury box" means civil or criminal lawsuits. Those are only applicable to serious injustices (otherwise the law won't recognize your case), but if you're willing to kill someone, you probably think it's pretty serious.
but that means all guns if civilians don't have guns why would police or military need them? Unless to kill unarmed people.
I laugh at the "progressives" here who were waiting to jump on the GOP for this. First off, now isn't the time for politics.
Yeah, and when someone throws a shoe at Bush, it's the time for military action.
Fandroids hate facts.
It seems that he did go on a rant couple of months ago.
Except, it seems to have been a kind of a rant that would/should have attracted attention of a trained psychologist.
Too bad he just yelled at the emptiness of the internet, instead of at say... other humans.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So the story about the shooting only happened in my imagination?
I'm sure that Giffords would prefer it that way. But it isn't so. She was shot, in the head.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/08/arizona.judge.obit/index.html?hpt=T1
Apprently he ruled an immigratin law suit could continue. This is looking more like a political act to me than just a wacko. Watch the people who created a climate of fear and hate; such as Karl Rove, Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh; distance themselves from this ASAP. They will express "plausible deniability".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Palin's poster is vile and irresponsible regardless of whether it leads to violence. The violence is explicit in the poster itself. It is a hitlist.
Sure, somebody probably thought it was funny and cute to compare a hitlist to a political campaign list. Just because somebody thinks it's cute doesn't make it OK to draw a hitlist.
I hope it marks the low point of Republican propaganda and anti-intellectualism, but I'm probably wrong.
The people suddenly and only now demanding that we "keep politics out of this", are the very same people who always gleefully used other tragedies and incidents as a cudgel against the Dems, whenever they could.
The lunatic right fear that this may be a case of their own chickens coming home to roost.
You're using 'republicanism' as a defense of obamacare, really? Do you know what a republic even is?
Maybe you should re-read the post that you responded to. NeutronCowboy made a comparison between the comments on Huffpost and Fox News. He states, and my observations agree, that the posts on Fox were angry, bigoted, and generally disgusting, while the comments of Huffpost were useful. Then he extends that comparison to imply that the extreme wing of the Republicans espouse violence. NC does not at all encourage violence in his post. In fact he uses the suggestion of political violence a tool to smear the tea party types. Take a deep breath and relax, KingSkippus.
-- QED
I guess I wouldn't be considered "reasonable" either by someone who didn't think that Palin's poster was okay.
Meanwhile, if there really wasn't anything wrong with that poster, then why take it down after the shooting?
You are trading in the possibility of your own countrymen turning against for the certainty (clearly YOU are certain about that) of "them furners" killing you in your sleep?
How do you know that they don't have flamethrowers too?
Do you too have a youtube channel where you rant against the guberment trying to confuse you with "grammer" and about your plans to create your own currency?
Only with blackjack. And hookers.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The news was that a representative who wanted to be more available and hands-on for her constituents — a different kind of politician who takes time to make herself available in a less-scripted manner than "Town Halls" — gets gunned down for her trouble. And not only her, but her staff and others.
I don't think it's a 'guns' issue — biologicals or chemicals (ricin, sarin) could have done the same or worse. Or a simple suicide bomber could have made as much of a splash (though not as many frags, probably).
I think it's a political issue, and a damned shame that a probable real 'do-gooder' and maybe even 'honest politician' (hold the oxymoron comments!) gets herself and her staff shot up for trying to change the political landscape.
The representative was right: emails are impersonal; and imo Town Halls are scripted b.s.; but constituents ought to be able to communicate directly with their reps, and there ought to be more transparency in govt. Hell, maybe she ought to have used Skype; there SHOULD be a tech solution for honest govt reps to speak to voters on a personal level w/out citizens losing even more civil rights.
Jury: You don't get a choice in that one, you can't decide "I'll be on a jury today" and do so.
That's not what that one means. It's obvious to everyone, except you, that it refers to the courtroom in general. Since there's no such thing as a "court box," the rather obvious substitution of "jury box" (which nearly every courtroom has) ties the whole statement together into a nice little package.
You certainly can *sue* and ask for a jury trial, which would result in the jury box being present. Everyone else who has seen the little "soap, ballot, jury, ammo" thing understands that.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
1 anonymous person on yahoo answers (seriously?!) with a single upvote.
So, that's two. Any more evidence for this?
How did you even find that cite? Had it bookmarked since it happened for just such a debate?
As a pretty hefty lefty, I thought Bush was the worst thing that happened to the world in recent years, but killing him was absolutely not the thing to be done.
The correct term is "reticle" of the type called "crosshair" and they are not unique to guns.
The sights are the little metal parts on the gun above the barrel that you use to aim.
The reticle in a rifle scope (which the image appears to depict) are usually indicative of the aiming point of the weapon, yes. Then again, many laser range finders, golf scopes, binoculars, and other optical devices also have them for indicating aim or other purposes.
I do agree that using images reminiscent of the view through a rifle scope is a bit tasteless. Moreso now.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Plenty of people here claiming that the Republicans are at fault for inciting violence by using violent imagery.
I take it the next time there's a call to ban violent video games for inciting violence by using violent imagery (with much more pronounced impact thanks to participation in said imagery) you'll all stand up and cheer, then vote to arrest the entire Valve development team and others, yes?
You mean, on the one hand, the extreme that's packing heat so they can blow away people in Safeway parking lots, and on the other hand, the extreme that doesn't?
Or perhaps the extreme that sends swat teams to raid small farm coops to seize shipments of raw milk cheese? The extreme that sends swat teams into family homes on a faulty warrant for suspected marijuana possession and shoots homeowners in the middle of the night? The extreme that provides a personal security detail to the mistress of a certain city's mayor but won't let a corner newsstand owner in a bad crime district get a firearm permit? The extreme that pays out trillions of dollars to large bankers so they can pay their bonus checks after defrauding the country? The extreme that wages wars across the globe to "spread democracy" by the sword?
There is a lot of crazy going around. It does not matter whether it is tyranny of the individual of tyranny of the majority, both are tyranny. Government is intended to strike a balance, protecting us from both. Neither party is doing so very much.
But as far as I can tell so far, the guy who did this is just a nut and a rotten one--- an equal-opportunity hater.
You seem to have truncated the full quote for some reason. In full, it's "There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order."
This was the place for the soap box obviously. The last only exists for the same reason the second amendment does. America was founded on the principle that it's justified to take arms en mass (i.e. militia) against an oppressive government, so having an armed populace is to ensure a government fears its people.
Criticizing the government, protesting and even hating is not a problem. Violence and incitement to violence is the problem. I do not know a poster similar to the crosshair one against Bush. Surely not endorsed by a democrat governor (or VP candidate!). Nothing like this either: http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2011/1/8/13371/41091/21#c21
Yes, when left protested against Bush it was all very peaceful and civilized.
CNN already has a story up with quotes from the suspect's various online accounts
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/08/arizona.shootings.suspect.social/index.html
Interesting, the suspect has a youtube account and has 5 videos posted. They are here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/u/0/7uRjwPWaxiY
The videos are fairly strange, exhibiting a repeated use of arguments that beg the question (I use "beg the question" in the sense that I referring to the logical fallacy). Clearly they are not the product of a healthy mind. He seems to be stuck in some sort of rut. Common themes include a new currency, mind control, and confusion about the way we number our years.
-- QED
Clutching at straws to the last...
If you really care about your intellectual honest, I'd recommend some introspective study.
Okay, I'm not going to advocate terrorism, or violence -- but on some level, I think the government will be more apt to work "for the people" if they're afraid of getting shot. Hell, that's kind of the values America was founded on. Revolution. I dunno, I think it's best summed up like this:
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Clarie Wolfe
Maybe the hour is just later than many suppose for people on the extreme short end of the stick.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
couchslug is very disturbed. Read here: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1942286&cid=34807662
Something really rotten has evolved in the last 16 years of American politics. It started with the character assassination of Bill Clinton, followed by the character assassination of George W. Bush, and over that period of time the shouting across the divide between left and right has exploded, spilling out into hateful slogans on the backs of cars and in store windows. The problem appears to be that a geographic majority feels disenfranchised by a numeric majority, and they appear not to mind destroying a political process that represents to them the destroyer of their way of life. I believe it can be likened to a man who becomes irrational when his wife leaves him: it degrades into an ugly scene where nobody wins.
Anger is a poison that runs its course and can't really be treated. Every crackpot who puts his opinion on the back of his car incites another crackpot to do the same, and by this time it's no longer free speech, but rather the people being held hostage by free speech. Good luck with your country guys. I hope it works out for you.
That comes as a great surprise to me, as I used a semi-automatic weapon just this morning to kill some ducks. Oddly, that's the purpose the manufacturer (Remington) intended this model (SP-10) to be used for.
Let's not make semi-automatic weapons to be some kind of extra super-scary weapons that only murderers use - they're routinely used for hunting, for example. And it's not like banning them would really solve anything - this guy could have fired just as quickly and hit just as many people with a pair of revolvers.
You're getting it confused with the time we cheered and high-fived when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at him, one of the highest insults imaginable in Iraq. And even then, we only cheered and clapped because Bush's monkey reflexes allowed him to duck in time. The look on his face when the first shoe sailed toward him was priceless. Had one actually made contact with the President, no one would have laughed nearly as much.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Well, it's a good thing he didn't try to use a toner cartridge, at those can apparently blow up a whole airliner! Thankfully, those in charge of "protecting" us have banned them from checked luggage and cargo flights.
On a more serious note, this is a horrible blow against the accessibility of public officials, and a senseless attack against some very good people. But I fear it'll only get worse if the US is unable to reboot itsself.
Owning a fire extinguisher doesn't make me paranoid of fire, merely prepared if one should happen.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Not to mention the fact that having a whole bunch of people shooting at each other in a crowded grocery store is not necessarily an improvement over one guy shooting in a crowded grocery store. Did the GP ever stop to think that the good guys' bullets keep traveling? And said supporters would probably never mistake a guy reaching for his cellphone for a gunman, right?
Look, I'm a gun owner and I'm not in favor of taking away everyone's guns. But the idea that what we ought to do to be safer is have a whole bunch of random schmoes running around carrying pistols everywhere quite frankly terrifies me.
...if you ban crime, only criminals will use it.
couchslug is very disturbed. Read here: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1942286&cid=34807662
Ever hear of "fact checking?!"
I love how people on this very forum have had "Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo" at the bottom of every one of their posts for years. And when that shit actually blows up suddenly it "isn't the time for politics."
Believing in the Second Amendment does not mean agreeing with misuse of deadly force. Unilateral use of force is wrong. Lawful possession of firearms is one of the mechanisms we have for balancing the evil which exists in the world and it is a mechanism which the Congresswoman who was shot supported.
Gun control debates are generally not about whether or not guns will exist but about who controls them. Clearly crimes can be committed both by governments and individuals with guns. You cannot take guns away from both and I would argue it is difficult to successfully take them from either.
"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," the sheriff said. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
Very spot-on (and unexpected) insight from a "Law Man".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It turns out that this guy has posted stuff on the Internet about his political philosophy. He is a fan of "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf". He is also an avowed atheist. Everything I have seen about him (that is based on actual facts, not supposition) indicate that he is a complete nutjob who has more in common with the left than the right (although I want to repeat here that he is a complete nutjob, not representative of the left).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
When did "Jury" happen?
A 9 year old child lost to this.
So senseless.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
My condolences go to the families of the dead, and my best wishes to the wounded and traumatized.
Killing a person who was -elected- isn't a good thing, it's a slap in the face of the whole process. Though, I guess I have to say from my view most politicians are already that slap
Why gives the FUCK! Oh, I know, the fuckers who won't give fuck when homeless die or pedestrian or driver in accident. I guess it slow or no news at all new if it makes to SlashDot.
When Tom Flanagan suggested on free-to-air TV that Assange be killed (which he retracted the following day and said that the comment was not intended to be taken seriously), people said that he should be prosecuted for inciting harm to others.
Perhaps Sarah Palin's gun-sight graphics on her web site, as described in the article extract quoted below, qualifies her for similar investigation?
-- recherche
(Quoting from an ABC (Australia) news article:)
It has been revealed that Ms Giffords, who had previously been the target of threats and vandalism over her positions on healthcare and immigration, had been worried about a map on Sarah Palin's website.
Ms Giffords is one of 20 Democrats whose districts were lit up with gun sight icons on Ms Palin's campaign website last year because they had voted for US president Barack Obama's landmark health care bill.
The congresswoman worried at the time that the imagery might incite violence.
"The way that she (Palin) had it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district," Ms Giffords said.
"When people do that they've got to realise there's consequences to that action."
A few hours after the November 2 health bill vote, vandals broke windows at Ms Giffords' office.
After the shooting, Ms Palin, a former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate, removed the graphic from her website and offered her condolences on a posting on Facebook.
People, this guy was nuts. Watch his youtube videos. Any attempt to credit the tea party, ACORN, Beck, or Perez Hilton with this is just partisan crap. To a select few further up the comments, don't pretend the right or left has a monopoly on violence.
Will the shooter get jack rubyed?
Now, now, settle down. Guns don't kill people. Republican wingnuts do.
The shooter hardly seems like a clear leftist. In the article you point to they also favorited Mein Kampf, are against federal laws, and insists on the gold and silver standard. That's a good mix of hard right and hard left. I'd say they're just pure anarchist with a mix of pure crazy.
A gun in a safe is useless. Mine are loaded and kept in convenient locations where I can get them quickly.
Which means they are instantly accessible to anyone in your house. The intruder will have no more trouble finding them.
If I ever need a gun, and I sincerely hope I never do, I don't expect to have time to take it out of a safe and load it. I expect that seconds will count.
The "intruder" has the initiative.
He can find you lying in bed, more than half asleep, and blinded by the light.
Being quick on the trigger means you are only seconds away from making an unforgivable mistake. You stand a very good chance of shooting your wife, you kid, or the cat.
Both of them. They are both real. Neither are imaginary (as you had claimed).
The reason gun control laws don't work in the US is that if one city or state has strict gun control laws, anyone can simply go to the next town, buy a full automatic gun without having to show any kind of ID, and march right on back. If there were stricter gun control laws across the country it would be much more difficult for people to illegally obtain weapons.
what are you talking about?
Run away, run away....how about fixing our country instead of running away? Too much trouble for 'ya?
(1) By 2010, statistics solidly show that at least in the U.S., there is NO positive correlation between gun ownership and crime. This has been apparent for decades, but over those decades the conclusion has been further solidified and is now incontrovertible. Gun ownership per captita in the United States has been going steadily up, while during those same decades violent crime has been going steadily down. And not just a little, but significantly and pretty consistently. There are many individual instances of cities that show the same thing, but for most reasonable people it should be enough to show that it has been an undeniable trend throughout the United States. If you don't believe me, the Department of Justice publishes figures on its website. And there are other sources that show the same thing.
(2) If this person was crazy enough that some politician's talk caused him to start shooting people, then he was almost crazy enough to do it anyway. Who knows what else might have set him off?
(3) People need to stop "knee-jerk" blaming "the tea party" for this. For one thing, the people who started the tea party movement are not the same people who later took it over, nor are their politics the same. For another thing, "war" and "battle" metaphors have been used in all kinds of games and politics -- by ALL "sides" -- for centuries. The pot should stop calling the kettle black.
(4) This talk of one "side" being more "violent" than the other is garbage. It is true that "the right" has historically been more tolerant of war (and guns) than "the left". However, the left has had its own ways of doing damage to others, even if it hasn't always been overt violence. Take, just for example, the Obama Admistration's increase of illegal surveillance on civilians. This is a form of "violence", not just to individuals but to our Constitutional rights.
(5) Everybody take a deep breath, step back, and stop pointing fingers. Remember that this was pretty obviously a crazy person. The normal rules don't apply.
The bitch obviously deserved it. WTF is this doing on /. anyhow?
couchslug is very disturbed. Read here: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1942286&cid=34807662
Gun control is clearly to blame -- If she had been packing heat, she could have defended herself! But seriously folks... If any good comes of this, it will be in the form of a people's movement that calls for greater responsibility in political speech, to disagree rather than demonize each other. Here's hoping Jon Stewart picks this up and runs with it.
But I've never said that.
I won't even say "nice try at a strawman" because it wasn't. It's just you repeatedly posting and not even bothering to relate your posts to what you are replying to.
The point is that Palin's poster was in bad taste PRIOR to the shooting and only her followers defended it. As you are doing now.
*ouch*
Interesting reactions. I've been reading quite a few times on this very forum that politicians in general, politicians of a specific kind or politicial outlook, etc. should be shot. Now one has, and everyone is sorry for her? Come on people, where is our consistency?
I must admit I know nothing about this particular woman, so I won't judge. But I do know that I've been saying things like that a few times, and if one of the people I meant by it were indeed to be shot, I'd stand by my words that they had it coming. So if this is politically motivated (from what I've read we don't know, yet) then at least give the guy credit for actually following through instead of sitting on his couch complaining about the general evil of the world.
And where are the 2nd amendment defenders? Wasn't the right to bear arms specifically added so US citizens could rid themselves of a tyrannical government?
I'll remind you guys of this story next time you talk loudly.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
We're not exactly known for downright murdering our public officials.
Except for the fact of all the murdered public officials in American history. Yeah, we're pretty well known for this kind of thing.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Should everyone be afraid at every moment that they're going to be run over by a bicycle? Is one really free if he is afraid to go outside without getting run over?
so let it go back to discussing star wars and comic books.
Front page has already gone back to discussing Androids and iPhones. Apparently that's all there is these days. The site has become a bit of an aggregator. I see the same headlines on a lot of other sites. Sometimes in the same order. And summaries are rarely more than snippets from the article. Looks like the whole thing is becoming automated.
Comic books? Freak Brothers.. There is no other
Star Wars? Meh... Silent Running
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
From MSNBC
A young woman in Arizona, Catie Parker, claimed on her Twitter feed that she went to high school and college with the gunman, and was in a band with him. She described his politics in the past as "left wing, quite liberal, & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy." She also described him as having a lot of friends "until he got alcohol poisoning in '06" and dropped out of school. "Mainly loner very philosophical."
Parker described the gunman meeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords previously: "He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was 'stupid & unintelligent.'"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40980334/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
I think this guy skipped a step.
'In knowledge is power, in wisdom humility.'
This is a common misconception on Slashdot. "Insightful" != "Agrees with me"
That's what I said elsewhere -- he's an anarchist, not right-wing Palinbot.
The video isn't talking about gold & silver standards for money -- watch it all the way through if you can tolerate the ravings.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
before society has a right to take them off the streets as quickly as their rhetoric indicates they may be a potential problem? The shooting at the Washington holocaust museum, the incident in New York, the Tiller murder. This is becoming more of a pattern than "isolated incidents".
There needs to be a special form of banishment for politicians and talking heads who advocate and encourage the use of violence and routinely employ violent imagery to make their point, that is unless we all want to see this kind of thing escalate to a "bleeding Kansas" type situation.
There need to be laws that require people to pass some form of psychological test before they are allowed to buy a gun. Otherwise, we are just advocating crazies should be allowed to kill at will. It is also time to reverse the trend started by Ronald Reagan, who in his first official act as governor of California, closed many of the states mental hospitals and threw the patients out on to the streets. We need more mental health clinics not less, particularly as social and economic pressures are pushing many past the breaking point.
The first two victims of any conflict are the innocent and the truth. Just watch what happens to the laws, rights, and justice after this fiasco. My question is: Whose behind this?
Was it a conspiracy or a lone gunman ala L. H. Oswald?
What is gained and lost by this action?
What laws will be steamrolled through Congress?
Where is the new war front?
What will be the cost and who will pay?
I see absolutely no good coming from this.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Not only do we have more guns, but we also have more politicians encouraging people to use them against others when they don't get their way.
We also have a media culture that makes killing people with guns a form of entertainment to be profited from. Those who watch these kinds of programs and buy these kinds of games really need to reflect on the consequences.
The shooter was obsessed with Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. Look in your own party if you want to place blame. Just because you're intolerant and a bigot doesn't mean the people you hate are guilty of everything.
Perhaps you will feel differently when the victim is you.
If it wasn't in bad taste BEFORE the shooting then it wouldn't be in bad taste AFTER the shooting and it would still be posted on Palin's web site.
And since I haven't said that Palin was guilty of the shooting ... you're just going to keep making baseless statements until I get tired of replying to you, aren't you?
That's great. Nothing like having you demonstrate how vacuous your position is on your own.
Ok, and? Were you trying to make a point or something? Because if you are, no way in hell should we suppress the freedom of speech just because some mentally ill wackjob decides to go to war with civilians.
Life is not for the lazy.
I don't hate conservatism, in fact, I'm slightly right of center on certain fiscal issues and left of center on social issues. I don't think anyone (sane) is implying that Mrs. Palin was advocating the gunning down of Democratic representatives. I don't think in a million years she'd think it would happen. But to post such a map with the phrase "It's time to take a stand" using cross-hairs to mark these representatives is wildly irresponsible coming from the position of authority that she has. This woman is in the national spotlight, there are possible aspirations of a presidential run and people listen to her.
This increases quite considerably the chance that someone on the fringes will act in a extreme way, they see stuff like this and feel as though they've been given carte blanche to take matters into their own hands. So, do you blame her for this? Not directly, but her statements play a factor. The blame lies with the shooter, but there's going to be questions as to what pushed him over the edge.
Stupid is as stupid dies.
The woman came out to talk, to listen, probably to change her opinion. Put the table, a chair and a clear sign that it will be a discussion. He could argue with her openly, present his arguments and grievances.
Instead he hit her in the head. What a senseless stupid act of violence.
I hope that the people in the USA are smart enough not to let their great land, the land of the free, to plunge into a chaos because of these isolated provocations.
Suddenly the words "don't retreat, reload", "Kill him" etc. have such a heavy weight to them. What a senseless act, one cannot help but think that such vitrol and caustic rhetoric had some part to do with this heinous act. But who will bring the shock jocks, demagogues to justice? Who will take them to task and not let them hide behind "free speech" specious arguments?
"Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.”
--Gabrielle Gifford March 25, 2010, MSNBC Interview.
http://kateoplis.tumblr.com/post/2655554409/msnbc-talks-to-rep-gabrielle-gifford-about-the
w t f ...
I can see it now... "Oh.. but it was all 'jokes' ya know... for sure... nobody meant to shoot her. Its like crosshairs, like we joke about shootin a bear in Alaska!" -- Sarah Palin, predicted quote for future response to this event.
In theory guns are a great equalizer, but in practice they only help the party who is prepared to carry a weapon for the purpose of employing deadly force. This is more far more likely to be the attacker then the victim.
Actually, that's an over-generalization. Many criminals are not very good at using force, they are simply used to an asymmetrical situation--- bullies--- and do not expect a determined victim. Some criminals are actually trained and skilled (and therefore extremely dangerous) but, on the average, a victim with any skill and training is likely to be more skilled than the attacker if they can keep their heads. And quite a few people are very determined not to be victims; they should be given the choice of how to do it.
Then there is the fact that carrying a gun if you are NOT prepared to employ deadly force puts you in more danger then you would be without one (as the attacker will use it against you).
That I agree with wholeheartedly. You should not carry a gun unless you are willing to learn how to use it, when [not] to use it, and are determined to do so. You should thoroughly consider the moral implications of when to shoot before you pick one up. You also need situational awareness to ensure that it is not taken from you. I find that when I am armed, I am much more aware of what goes on around me because I am subconsciously keeping track of who is close to me and ensuring that my weapon is secure. That is probably something I should be doing when I am not armed as well, but psychology can be tricky that way.
Simply having a gun does not level the playing field. Pepper spray is far more suitable for self-defense against a more powerful attacker.
Not really. I have pepper spray and there are places and times I carry it instead of a gun. There are situations where I would use it in preference to a gun, but it is no substitute. For one thing, it will not stop a determined attacker who is carrying a gun faster than they can hurt you, especially at some range. Of the various options for self-defense, including no resistance, using a gun is the least likely to end with both you and the bad guy injured.
A gun also has a deterrent effect which pepper spray does not. If I pull a gun on a bad guy, 9 times out of 10, he will surrender or run. If I pull pepper spray, I will have to use it more likely than not. On the farm, if I confront an intruder or stranger, the fact that I am (visibly) armed also keeps things very polite. I do not have to threaten or brandish the gun, they just know it is there. If you keep a cool head, it keeps things cool; if you have a hot head, a gun will escalate things. There is no reason to be discourteous until and unless things turn deadly and then you have more important things to worry about.
A gun, like many things, is a tool. It has to be used and handled properly. A lot of people do not like seeing guns because they crystallize issues of justified force, violence, evil, and mortality we do not like to face, but we do face them just the same, usually just unprepared.
I think what he means is to stand up and defend the trust fund and right to profit from exploiting people and resources.
The most aggressive movements right now are telling people they don't need to get along to have a successful society. They're saying its a ME thing not a WE thing. I wish I knew of an anarchy to send them to so we can all be happy with where we are. I just can't believe so many people having benefit from WE, are now claiming self success and pointing at it as the only lifeline one can have. Have you a life that required nothing of others? How naive can a person be not to see how everything comes from others?
Does the way this it getting reported in the media remind anyone else of columbine. They already have the loner tag front and center. Next they will also discover his love of video games. There may not be a serious discussion about hate speech and the 1st amendment, which IMO is the real issue here.
no sig.
Well, to bastardize Carl Von Clousewitz ...."Violence is Politics by another means".
People discussing issues relating to this event in this discussion need to take a deep breath and that realise that politicians and ordinary people are being slaughtered elsewhere in similar ways with barely any notice. If this discussion were to be had a few months from now about this same event people wouldn't care as much and I bet there would be less hostility in everyone's comments. Then again, this is Slashdot in 2011... so it's a matter of how low can we go.
His father is Canadian, his mother Scottish. He has a heavy Scottish accent.
Indeed, let's make this a generic news site with an intelligent audience engaged in actual debate. Looking around other "news sites", none of them offer even a shadow of that, so yeah... good suggestion :P
What is this original purpose of Slashdot you are speaking of? Gagdets? Escapism? Hmmm... I always read "news for nerds, stuff that matters" not as "nerd stuff does matter", but as "here's some nerd news, plus some things that *actually* matter". Maybe that's just me though, and of course what "matters" is highly subjective..
If you think someone pointing out a mirror hates you, because the thing you see in the mirror is so. fucking. hideous., you're shooting yourself in the foot and that's all you're doing.
"the early reports are that the suspect is hispanic"
Uhm no, actually they are that he's white...
Also, that's not how you spell "handle", Mr. Brainiac.
You are a shameful jack ass. Go back to your basement and continue masturbating to your sister's granny panties. You sick fuck.
I see from your comment history that NO ONE thinks you have anything of value to say.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Anyone attributing this to a political cause is an utter idiot, especially if they still believe it after hearing about the shooter.
She was shot because he is crazy. Stop it with the Palin derangement, stop it with the anti-gun dogma, stop it with the 'climate of political hatred' bullshit. The shooter is a lunatic with no coherent beliefs and no sane reasoning. He has been described as a 'pot smoking loner' and a leftist by a former school-mate, so does that mean we need to blame the recent leniency towards cannabis use as the problem? No, not any more than all the other stupid ideas being shouted back and forth.
Jared Loughner is insane. Who are you going to blame for that?
Your kind is to blame, sonny, always pushing the propaganda networks, scumbag. Your time is coming.
So, is it time to start watching you for signs of violence? Or will you be upping the dose?
I've heard it said, "I carry a handgun because a police officer won't fit in my pocket." I'm shocked that any high-profile politician would not have a bodyguard, or at least a permit to carry a handgun themselves. Any half-competent armed civilian could easily have stopped the attacker before he was able to shoot 18 people! Too bad there weren't any around.
classic straw man raised by those who suffer from hoplophobia.
Damage control? Who's doing damage control on this? Sarah-- can you send one of your tanning beds down to the jail?, we need to get some color on that boys cheeks before we have him shot in front of the cameras.
Sarah? She was on a hit list for Kos
The media often casts shooters (or criminals in general) who are "hispanic" (from South/Central America) as "white" if there is the potential for a race-war inciting event.
Hell, they do it in general as a token gesture for political correctness. They have for decades. Many, many times I've seen "white male" does this or that, only to find out later that it was a Latino associated with a gang, or someone of mixed white/black ancestry.
Though, honestly, this has nothing to do with race, though. It's 110% culture - just as a "white American" today would be castigated and denigrated as a dirty dago or wop, or an Irish-American as a mick or paddy, today we're looking 180 degrees the other way, culturally. We're so afraid to "go there" that we're being racist be occlusion.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Hi, this is bollocks.
The way to defeat this is simple, to make gun control restrictive enough that criminals cannot source guns legally and to make the laws lax enough that the demand for a black market in firearms is unprofitable and therefore beyond the budget of your average criminal.
This is exactly what happened in Australia, the Asian and Lebanese gangs have to fight with knives which cant do a great deal of crowd damage, in fact it's very hard to do permanent damage to your opponent even if you get the jump on him. So I dont worry about gangs.
We have the odd armed robbery but shootings, fatal or otherwise are such rare occurrences that if it happens to anyone, it's considered nationwide news. Now only organised criminals in AU have guns, these are predominantly our biker gangs or "bikies" who typically run drugs. The brilliant part is that if I have nothing to do with a bikie, I have no fear of being shot or threatened by one.
I'm really sorry you live in a place that requires you to carry a gun to feel safe, I feel perfectly safe anywhere in my nation armed with fist, foot and common sense.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
How about now, now that we know that the shooter was a left-wing radical?
The only thing that is required to assist everyone, including one's Self, is Love.
Love, at its very core, is more than just an emotion, or feeling.
Love is an overwhelming Drive, an Energetic! It wants, it *needs* to have an outlet.
Love needs a place to grow, to plant itself, germinate, and become entwined
in the garden wherein it habitates.
Some people are of the touchiest of sorts, latching on to anything that gives them
a sense of 'framework,' or purpose.
Unfortunately, many of these types do so without understanding that
Love is the only thing that can make their efforts even moderately worthwhile.
The person--obviously departed from any aspect of being a Gentleman--who attacked
innocent supporters of, and including, Congresswoman Giffords, has not Love.
Please. Everyone. Before we continue to pursue any causes that affect the
General-Public-At-Large:
Before you do, make sure that you
Have Love!
Love In Our Minds
Love In Our Hearts
Love In Our Souls
Love In Our Lives.
Endeavors, done without Love First,
Fail First!
The person who shot all those people failed to Love.
Let's remember this, and Help each other.
Help Each Other By Learning To "Love First!"
Respectfully,
AC
Hey, I've got an idea! Let's ban all guns. Because it will be illegal to own them, all criminals will give them up, because, you know, it's illegal.
And then, you will not have to have a fear of being shot by anyone, right?
She was actually against gun control and for anyone being allowed to carry guns. I wonder if that will change now.
I wonder what the gun-nuts say who always claim that guns make you safer because the criminal will be gunned down by the honest citizen. Didn't happen in this case, did it?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If the attacker turns out to be a tea party paranoid type, then I honestly believe people like Beck hold indirect responsibility for the attack.
You obviously haven't spent much time getting to know Beck.
By "leaders of our country," Beck means people like Rep. Giffords. But here you are, holding someone "indirectly responsible for the attack" on Giffords, who in fact implores people to pray for her safety. You're a real, uninformed, piece of work. When you've promoted nonviolence 1% as much as Glenn Beck has -- which you never will in your lifetime, "chebucto" -- come back here and take some more cheap shots at him.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Here in the UK me and my friends and the vast majority of the population don't own guns, and we get by quite nicely without them. Screwdrivers are useful for fixing bicycles and lights, Hammers are useful for fixing pictures to the wall. Spades are useful for digging the vegetable patch. Lots of tools are useful.
But semi-automatic handguns? No, never found myself walking along the street and thinking "dang! what I need to make my life easier would be a semi-automatic handgun!".
Self-defence? I get the feeling in the USA quite a few people don't feel safe unless they have a gun at home. Here very few people would consider getting a gun to protect themselves at home. Different culture I think. We just don't really have many guns here. Even the majority of our police don't carry them.
Is this also true of going out in the evening? do lots of people in the USA feel unsafe about going out to the movies with friends, or going shopping unless they carry a gun?
Personally, I don't have a strong enough opinion on gun control to say much. Automatic weapons should be very difficult to obtain, but hand guns and hunting rifles--I dunno. I've never lived in a place with lots of violent crime so I can't really speak to guns as protection, and I don't hunt; nor have I been even distantly related to gun-related violence. My comment wasn't meant to necessarily imply I think this incident means we need tougher gun control, just that I imagine most people would use this situation as an example that gun control isn't strict enough.
""Off with their heads! Off with their heads!"
sound like a reasonable UK response to you?"
Over here in the UK we go for ironic humour a lot more. I think you might have missed the inherent joke being made by the students at this point. The quote was from Alice in Wonderland. Students know their European history as well so were alluding to the French Revolution and the guillotine. But the idea that you'd seriously cut royalty's heads off to effect political change would be laughed at here. It was clearly a joke. Even republicans who want to get rid of the monarchy would be happy for them just to be pensioned off to a small house in the countryside, we don't tend to go for death sentences as a legal response here.
Curiously, its interesting to note the undoubtedly armed police officers in the following vehicles didn't feel the need to present their weapons, let alone fire them, in this situation. I guess this shows how little threat they felt the royalty to be in. I suppose in the USA they'd be considering the likelihood of the protestors being armed and would have been more ready to act more aggressively?
Alright, but laws against murder don't prevent shoplifting either--they don't even inconvenience shoplifters. I don't see the difference between this sentence (which pretty clearly has no content) and your post. You seem to be trying to imply something, but I can't figure out what.... Maybe that gun laws are useless? That seems pretty clearly wrong--and even if not, it doesn't follow from what you've written.
I have to say, I'm imagining you playing an RTS or FPS while forming those opinions. You seem to value human life through the lens of the ability to respawn. Phrases like "own-side casualties" and "whacked a TeaPartista" make me think you see this as a game, with you in the role of strategic leader. Civil war (which is what you're advocating) is not a game, and when someone dies, they don't respawn. Without knowing more about you, I think "couch slug" is an appropriate handle.
Also, I do not wish you death even though I disagree with you, and if you wish me death for the same thing I strongly advise you to seek counseling. That level of hatred or disregard for human life is dangerous. It is also possible to have victory without defeat--when two sides work together for the same goal, neither has to be defeated.
Yes, hot-heads are everywhere, this is why the leaders should be very careful with words and discourage this instincts. Instead it seems that Palin caters to the worst impulses and gives these guys the idea that she would applaud violence. I do not find a similar behavior in the democratic party, do you?
I am questioning the leaders' behavior. Inciting the mobs is not ethical. Maybe they are careful with rhetorics and could claim that they never said "she/he should be dead" directly, but this is the message they pass to the followers.
White is a 'race' (ie, physical description).
Hispanic is a cultural group (sort of, not really, it's more like "not one of us" thing...).
See, if there was a law banning guns it wouldn't just say "Can't have guns. Period.".
Instead, it would describe in detail what KIND of guns, NUMBER of guns, right down to type and number of rounds of ammo you may have in your possession legally.
Then, as I imagine that this would be a brand new law and as such a part of a heavily promoted campaign - there would be collection locations where you could bring in your illegal guns and ammo for collection and later destruction, with full amnesty for possessing now illegal guns and ammo.
There would be a certain set date after which you would no longer be able to do that freely - there would be at least some kind of a fine for not doing that earlier.
But that would depend on the actual law.
Naturally, if it turns out your gun was used to commit a crime, you WOULD be questioned and possibly charged for that offense(s).
Then, after that date passes - police would get their lists of known owners of guns and start going door to door.
Don't worry, they would all have warrants to search your house, car, boat, log cabin etc. - as there is a strong probability that where there is one gun, there are also more guns.
Naturally, that would all go in as civilized way as possible - until some "from my cold dead hands" nut opens fire on police.
From then on, each search would probably be done with expectation of turning into a siege.
Also, you can forget about a fine at this point. Every single illegal piece of ammo would warrant the maximum penalty as described by law - if you decide to "duke it out" with the police.
After a while, the campaign would end, the lists of known and suspected gun owners would be all checked, and from that point on it would be just like it is today regarding illegal drugs.
With the difference that it would be far easier to purchase and posses illegal drugs than illegal guns and ammo - as drugs don't make a loud sound when used, they generally take up lot less space so they are easier to conceal AND it may prove difficult to flush an AK down the drain should someone knock on your door late at night.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
When government gets too big, this is the inevitable result.
Doesn't matter the reason; everyone's got theirs.
If it continues growing, it will self-destruct.
Which is EXACTLY what was said when she first posted it.
So it's okay to encourage shooting specific people BEFORE one of them is shot ... but it's in bad taste to remind everyone that you encouraged shooting specific people AFTER one of them is shot?
And what was the "change in context"? Crosshairs and a list of names.
If those could imply something bad AFTER the shooting then how could they not have implied that BEFORE the shooting?
But feel free to ignore that as you've ignored it all the other times its been posted.
Then you are going to have to link to a post of mine where I posted that she was. Otherwise you're lying. But that's what I'm demonstrating with this thread.
I would suggest you not use words that you do not understand. She did not pull the trigger. And you should not try to imply that I said she did. But, again, that's what this thread is about. I'm demonstrating that you have no idea what you're talking about.
So I'm the only person in the world who thought that the solution to oppresive governments under the US constitution would be:
1. Tell others about their action.
2. Vote against them.
3. Jury nullification of their laws.
4. Armed revolution.
It got to step 3 under prohibition after all, and that worked well enough.
Fine, I don't mind being ignorant of a foreign saying.
The "jury box" still makes no sense since if the you win the other side can and will (we are talking the government, right) just appeal (you aren't the government trying to convict someone of a crime) and now the decision is in the hands of the people the next step it to shoot.
...buy a full automatic gun without having to show any kind of ID...
Are you really that ignorant? Because that's very, very far from the truth.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Again, don't use words you don't understand. It isn't "libel" and you're a liar for saying that it is.
If Sarah didn't think there was anything wrong with it then she wouldn't have taken it down. It's as simple as that.
Don't use synonyms. That's an equivocation fallacy.
You might also want to brush up on your understanding of pronouns.
Did I say you said that? No. So your "red herring" is a strawman. And a pretty pathetic one at that.
What I said was that you were trying to imply that I had said that. Here's your direct quote:
Like I said, don't use words that you don't understand. I never posted that she actualized the shooting. That is you lying and claiming that I said that.
Then you're going to have to link to one of my posts where I said that because I haven't posted that. You're lying, again.
And yet she's pulled that poster after the shooting.
Thanks. It's always good to have a nutjob reveal himself in a thread.
Giffords supported gun ownership and owned a gun herself.
Because his identity is already known, and he is not. I guess somebody could suggest it, but they would simply, flat-out entirely incorrect. Oh, hi there...
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
That's a good mix of hard right and hard left. I'd say they're just pure anarchist with a mix of pure crazy.
You know, I see a lot of this language. "We can't put him in a box, he's obviously crazy."
I have a wide mix of left and right beliefs. I think that gun control means being able to hit your target, that abortions before a certain time should be legal, that immigrants who entered the country illegally need to leave and come back in legally if at all, and that any two people should be able to marry each other if they want to (and, c'mon, valuing your currency against a precious metal isn't exactly a crazy idea). Like "the crazy" in this story, I also live in AZ and own guns. So, am I crazy? Am I some "weird" outsider suitable for ignoring because my political views happen to come from both columns? Are you only a valid citizen if you can put either a D or R next to your name? Your comment stands at +5 insightful, so several people must agree with you, what's the deal?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I noticed a pattern forming regarding the reporting of this story. One I've seen before. The young man who did this had, as stated by the sheriff on the scene yesterday, sang like a bird regarding his political views. As of late yesterday the media began to report that there were no statements by the shooter. Suddenly, we don't get to know his views and thus why he had committed wanton mass murder. Today, his online ramblings have been removed.
It is within the corporatist interest to censor violence that may have a causal connection to the rhetoric the corporations put out, namely the demonizing of anything 'Liberal'. After all, does anyone know what Timothy McVeigh thought when he blew innocent people in Oklahoma to bits? No, because the media didn't print that. They didn't even interview him or print any statements he made. The story always comes down to the same, lame, narrative... he was a quiet seemly normal guy. Like the guy who opened fire in Penn. on three police officers because Glenn Beck was telling him, at the time, Obama was going to take his guns away. The guy who shot a doctor on the steps of the doctors church because Bill O'Reilly called that doctor a murderer over and over for weeks. There are many other cases but the corporations don't report why these people do these things. We are left to mourn and to guess and wonder as too why.
As the Sheriff in Arizona wisely said about what inspired the young shooter; 'it might be free speech but there are consequences.'
What you are describing is a complete breakdown of civil society (think Somalia).
This is not the society we should be planning. This is not the world we should be creating
Why? Why should a certain segment of society be forever pushed aside and taken advantage of and continue to have any respect for law and order? People need to grab their guns and take out the Sarah Palins, Glenn Becks, Bill O'Reillys, and their ilk. If that means massive civil war, then so be it. There is nothing in it for them to set on the side and allow them and theirs to be crushed by these selfish bastards.
Her husband is Mark Kelly, who is commanding the next (and last) shuttle flight. His brother, Scott (Gifford's brother in law) is currently on the space station. Gifford is also on the house science and technology committee that sets funding for NASA.
That makes it news for nerds. And more importantly, it matters.
And if she has a prostitute sister then what, Porn industry should go on strike??
Maybe her polls indicated that "the healthcare bill" polled poorly, but that everything actually contained in the bill did not. There is a stunning level of misconception out there on this issue, leading to overwhelming opposition to legislation that mostly, albeit with some flaws, does what people want.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I am one of her constituents.
I voted for her because her opposition was even whackier.
I ALSO voted for the proposition to exclude Arizona from the very same healthcare bill. A majority of Arizona voters agreed with me, and we are now excluded.
Gabby Giffords doesn't represent me, her district, or our best interests. We showed THAT through referendum.
I sure don't know everything about everything, but I *read* that bill before I voted for the Proposition to exclude Arizona. She admitted she did not.
It's not a republic. It's not a representative democracy. It's Demagoguery Gone Wild.
E
First, my apologies for my unduly harsh reply. I was a bit charged up from the story/discussion as a whole.
"Jury box" includes, of course, nullification. But it's not limited to that. Of course, there is an inherent risk in the other means of involving a jury, but if the law is truly that unpopular then the likelihood of getting a nullification when bringing up a lawsuit significantly increases.
If the law truly isn't that that unpopular, then being on a jury gains nothing, especially in a civil case where it only takes a majority of jury members to decide (in the U.S. anyway). Many states have criminal jury procedures that require only N-1 of members to convict, to avoid cases where one person is holding out to force a mistrial.
Saying that "jury box" only refers to being an actual jurer is rather limiting. It's like saying the "ammo box" part means that you run around swinging an ammo can at people. Instead, it means you put the ammo in a gun.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Erm, anarchists wouldn't like the Communist Manifesto *or* Mein Kampf!
True they don't like politicians or governments though.
I'm disgusted, but not surprised how Slashdotters accused Palin and the Tea Party before having any actual facts before them.
http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2011/01/09/breaking-democrats-plotted-to-blame-tea-party-for-slaughter/#more-214344
I don't care the affiliation of this murderer. He deserves to be tried and, hopefully executed, for his crimes.
Frankly for all their claims to peace and cooperation, Liberals have killed far more people than conservatives. Just look at the history of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Hitler (yes a SOCIALIST) and its really easy to do the math.
For sure, not personally as I am not that old but aware that the USA has its own culture. Your rights, your decisions. From over this side of the pond it seems an interesting anachronism, you needed them in 1776 but then your founding fathers also thought slaves were a good idea and you've got over that. So clearly as a country you have changed in some of your views over time. Just to put your mind at rest: we're not thinking of invading again, we kind of left that behind a couple of hundred years ago. Over here we just tend to get by without guns. Nobody really thinks about owning one apart from farmers and a very small number of hunters and hobby shooters.
I am still interested in a response to my question though, do you and your friends feel unsafe if you go out without weapons? Say to watch a movie or go shopping or similar?
I'll take "hyperbole" for $200! Yes sir, thank you.
In 1996, 35 people were shot dead and 21 were seriously injured by a lone gunman in the tourist village of Port Arthur, Tasmania (Australia).
The response by both State and Federal Governments was to introduce some of the toughest gun control laws in the world. Gun crime fell significantly and has stayed low ever since.
Yes, criminals still get guns, yes, the odd "archival" firearm turns up in a crime, but overall, Australia is a safer place to live now because guns are tightly restricted to police, military, sports shooting clubs and limited rural applications.
The snivel libertarians will say, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," but people with guns kill people more effectively than any other way and we're safer without them.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Only if you consider hunting to the be the sole legitimate use of guns. Self defense is a perfectly legitimate use of guns, and semi-auto handguns are generally the best option for self defense due to their size and maneuverability.
Furthermore, statistics about countries really don't show much. There are places with stricter gun control laws and which have higher gun crime, and places with lenient gun control laws with less crime and vice versa. If you pick and choose specific regions you can show a correlation in either direction. Either way socioeconomics almost always has a stronger correlation with gun crimes than the availability of guns.
I called him Bushitler. Doesn't mean I sympathized with hinckley or Fromme.
Instead of outright assassination, I wanted Bush to be dragged through the streets, tarred and feathered, then tried and executed for treason and/or war crimes.
Would I have complained if Bush was shot? No. He was a LOT more deserving than this congresswoman. Hell, Palin DEFINITELY is more worthy than this congresswoman. Bush directly screwed all of us with absolutely no remorse and removed a lot of the checks and balances that make it possible to settle the score without bullets and Obama is doing more of the same. Any one of us is now considered either a terrorist or a felon by some definition.
This woman from what I can tell certainly deserved nothing like this. She certainly doesn't seem like a tyrant.
Bush was a tyrant. Plain and simple. I can see why he had attempts on his life. They were warranted.
Obama has perpetuated the tyranny and added some of his own. I understand why he gets death threats.
What did THIS woman do that was remotely in the same class? This guy was a retard. And he's now a child murderer as well. I hope they botch his execution so it's extra painful.
"Go fuck yourself" -Dick Cheney
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
"Your comment stands at +5 insightful, so several people must agree with you, what's the deal?"
Ignoring the fact that mental illness has no relation to violent and certainly doesn't explain the cause any better than saying he was male or the sky was blue, I think it is just a way to "other" the person. If he is different then we don't have to really consider the reasons behind WHY he did what he did. We just assume the label is the reason and continue in our (blissful) ignorance.
"That's what I said elsewhere -- he's an anarchist, not right-wing Palinbot."
If we assume that is true, that doesn't really help your argument. Because that side has been spouting a signficant amount of anti-government rhetoric for a significant amount of time. Where exactly did he get the idea to take out this particular person? And why?
Based on your assumption you could make the case that extreme views of either spectrum could have pushed him to commit an act of political violence. But we don't have that situation at the present time.
This is Slashdot. We are the scientific, technical, and logical people of the world - let's be scientific. Let's do a benchmark, so to speak. We'll take a few states that want strong gun laws and give them those laws. We'll take a few states that DON'T want strong gun laws and weaken their laws. Then we can compare the results after a few years. Real people can put their opinion aside and try science.
Oh stop before you embarrass yourself. The guy's friends even say he's a leftist, if you can find a political motive (which I doubt you will -- I think he was just crazy, and she was the closest government type figure he could find) it will likely be that he was upset Congresswoman Gifford was so moderate.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
In fact there doesn't appear to be a correlation at all between them. There are places like Pakistan that have a high amount of gun ownership that are also very dangerous. There are places in Europe that also have a high amount of gun ownership but very low gun violence crimes. There are places like Japan which have very low gun ownership and tough restrictions and yet have very low gun violence crimes. There are places like Mexico that also have very tough gun ownership laws but gun crime is very high. Mexico is an interesting case where a lot of the crime and guns are probably due a neighbor....
In any event, what makes a place safe or dangerous appears to be the culture where neither ownership of guns or laws over guns seems to effect. If we want people to stop shooting each other in the US then I recommend we stop the aggressive attitude and hyper, reflexive response instead of arming or disarming people. Basically it doesn't matter if you give everyone a gun or take everyone's guns away if they are rude, cure and hate each other which kind of describes part of the political climate doesn't it?
I'm going to stand in front of your house with a megaphone, and tell anyone passing by your house for a year that someone should throw rocks through your window.
Then someone throws a rock through your window.
Then I'm going to say that the guy who did that is a crazy loner, and his actions have nothing to do with me and my megaphone for a year.
Thank you, Right Wing America, for your awesome sense of responsibility, and your awesome sense of integrity. Stay classy, Right Wing
pffffffffffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if i stand in front of your house for a year saying someone should throw a rock through your window, then someone does
are you going to let me get away with me saying i have nothing to do with it?
please try to apply the slightest bit of intellectual honesty in the bullshit you say next time, ok asshole?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, hot-heads are everywhere, this is why the leaders should be very careful with words and discourage this instincts. Instead it seems that Palin caters to the worst impulses and gives these guys the idea that she would applaud violence. I do not find a similar behavior in the democratic party, do you?
I am questioning the leaders' behavior. Inciting the mobs is not ethical. Maybe they are careful with rhetorics and could claim that they never said "she/he should be dead" directly, but this is the message they pass to the followers.
Yeah their presidential candidate applauds violence by saying thing like "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun". Their House candidate incite the mobs by running a campaign ad with his opponent in a crosshair. And most horrifyingly, they make US maps marked with "targets" for their followers to shoot up.
I would have to concede that it would be difficult for me to find Democrats doing similar stuff... oh wait.
Thank you for making my point.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The violent rhetoric in American society comes, almost exclusively, from the right-wing:
George Bush received about 8 death threats a day.
Barack Obama receives about 30 death threats a day.
Think about it.
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I didn't evaluate him as crazy because of those views. I evaluated him as crazy because he killed a group of people with no rational goal.
If he had a rational goal then he'd just be evil. I haven't heard of anything like that, so he must just be crazy/irrational.
If you believe, honestly and sincerely as many Republicans do, that the Healthcare Reform Law contains "death panels" and is going to "kill your grandmother" then you must believe that the "Soap, Ballot, and Jury" boxes have already failed. How could a person believe that a well functioning government that continues to serve the will of the people would pass such a law?
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
You're trolling, but I'll bite.
In my opinion the most important reason for guns is self defense. With a gun, a 90-pound woman is on equal footing with any attacker who has a gun, and has the advantage over any attacker without one -- provided that she knows how to use it properly and is willing to kill rather than be raped/murdered/whatever. I believe that the right to defend oneself is an inalienable right -- it's the life part of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness".
Do guns cause or exacerbate other problems? Yes. You have to take the bad with the good. People are free to use alcohol and this causes problems, too, but I don't think most people in the U.S. are in favor of prohibition of alcohol. I'm sure there are better examples that will occur to me after I press Submit.
A gun for self-defense is like insurance -- you hope you won't need it, but you want it there in the unfortunate case that you do. It is simply impossible for the police to protect everyone at all times. I'm sure there are plenty of guns=glory people out there, but I think they are the idiot minority.
That never happened.
Today mental health is the step child of the medical profession and even more so in the eyes of health insurance.
I can get someone to run a scope up my behind and look for colon cancer and all the treatment that might result from that... But not so for mental health.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Wikipedia admins like sucking vandal cock.
That makes sense.
Though using the court system tends to cost a fair amount of money compared with the other 3 items - guns and bullets aren't free either of course...
Case C: possession of a gun is a crime. Therefore when you're found with a gun and NOBODY was hurt, gun crime numbers increased.
Case D: child plays with daddy's gun, shoots mommy and himself
Case E: idiot gets drunk, has argument with wife, kills wife and self in remorse
Case ZZZZZZZ: Gun available, one shot can kill, multiple axe smashes can happen before submission takes place, meanwhile screams and fleeing occupants make fewer casualties than bang bang bang...
I wonder how Joe Manchin feels about his political ad where he shot the Cap and Trade bill with his rifle?
Now compare the length of that thread to Fox.
You have a much better chance of being killed in a car accident. Do you drive a car or allow yourself to be a passenger in a motor vehicle?
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
True enough. The courts have turned into a domain that only aristocrats have easy access to.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
violent video games cause gamers to kill people, movies depicting rape cause men to savage women, and the word nigger in books like Huckleberry Finn make readers racist...
You can't use logic to reason people out of a position they never reasoned them-self into in the first place.
If you truly believe that any party or its media machine is to more to blame for these than the other (or at all), you didn't use reason to arrive at your position.
... is one in which a gunman starts shooting people in a public place, and comes under fire from one or more "good guy" bystanders in the crowd. The argument from gun ownership proponents is that this situation would be better than the default (in which the gunman is the only one doing the shooting). My argument is that it would be worse, because of the likelihood of even more danger to innocent bystanders (plus: what the hell are responding law enforcement people supposed to do in this situation? Just shoot everyone?).
True but irrelevant. What you're saying is that most people aren't, in fact, running around carrying pistols in the hopes of defeating gunmen. My point is that if they did start doing that, we'd be worse off and not better.
Also true but irrelevant. Getting killed in a shootout in a grocery store is statistically fantastically improbable. I am, in fact, a lot more worried about dying in some form of a car wreck than I am about getting shot. But it's still true that having lots of people running around with guns makes me MORE likely to get shot, not less.
Woot! A new freak! And an idiot to boot!
"Bring a gun to a knife fight" is just a reference to bringing overwhelming force against opposition. If your opponent has a knife, you bring a knife and have roughly equal odds of survival. You bring a gun and remove all doubt. Your opponent spends $1 million on his campaign, you spend $100 million on yours. If you want to win, leave no doubt. Get it? Or did you really think Obama was talking about carrying a gun?
As for crosshairs? How about this? Personally, I can see the difference between the symbolism of marking someone with crosshairs as a target for "defeat" as opposed to one that needs to be shot. Some nuts, obviously, can't. While I don't believe that anyone was calling for anyone's death, I will point out that whoever releases these images should realize that they hold some accountability for how people will interpret them. Personal accountability has never been a strong part for politicians though.
Also, interestingly, your 3rd link at verumserum calls out the media for getting all worked up over Palin's crosshair. The EXACT SAME LOGIC could be applied to your chest-thumping about how some Democrats put bullseyes on maps. On top of that, those bullseyes were just on a map; they weren't crosshairs superimposed over an actual person's face.
And, finally, how many are dead now due to violence from the left?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
...is that Rep. Giffords hadn't even arrived at the hospital before one of her aids appeared on FOX and CNN blaming the Tea Party. Never mind that the whole POINT of the Tea Party is to work within the system, any excuse to vilify them, even a mass shooting of one's boss and innocent bystanders, must be used. What was that Democratic motto Beck was castigated for mentioning? Oh, yes, "Never let a good crises go to waste."
My sympathy to Rep. Giffords and the other victims of this tragedy. Now let us ALL learn the lesson, monsters are made, not born, and as a culture we continue to operate the monster factory. Can we drop the "Socialism at any cost" on one side and "Democrats are evil cockroaches" on the other? Please?
-1: Scary
--
And, finally, how many are dead now due to violence from the left?
Hopefully Giffords and others wounded will all make a successful recovery and it won't grow anymore than six.
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