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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.
Whoa there. Guns are fine, so long as the control laws we actually have are enforced and people are educated about gun safety.
Living With a Nerd
Banning the possession of firearms by civilians will ensure that only tyrants and criminals will have them.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
This matters.
Indeed, Gun Crime is much, much worse in those countries where guns are banned.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
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.
Whoa there. Guns are fine, so long as the control laws we actually have are enforced and people are educated about gun safety.
That's right! If murderers knew that bullets can kill people they wouldn't fire them. As well all know, people only get shot because people firing the guns haven't been taught that it isn't a magic tickling stick.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. He already broke the laws already in place to control this sort of thing, starting with it being illegal to murder someone. So what makes you think banning guns would prevent this from happening?
On the other hand, if the folks around her all had guns, he wouldn't have been able to shoot so many people. He probably wouldn't have tried in the first place!!
The answer is MORE guns. Make it legal, by default, for people to carry concealed weapons (and prohibit selected people from doing so, like felons, mentally retarded, etc.). People don't even need to actually do so - just the possibility will deter crime. More guns is the answer.
Of course they wont ban them. When political figures can point the finger and say "Won't someone do something about this person?" Both sides need their zealots intact.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I know, right? It's mostly the same. Further proof that both extremes are just as crazy.
Living With a Nerd
This was an assassination, asshole. Education about gun safety had nothing to do with it.
"More civilized?" Really? The people who can't go a couple decades without having a genocide or two?
Please.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Fewer legal guns make it harder to come by guns illegally. Ban guns for people other than a few LEOs (most LEOs don't need a gun), destroy existing ones and put out a bounty: everybody who "finds" and hands in a gun to be destroyed gets a thousand bucks. European and American guns are used to kill people worldwide. I'm ashamed of being from a country that's one of the worlds biggest arms dealers. Obviously there's a lot of other things that need to be done to reduce violent crime.
All that said: free societies will never be able to stop a determined crazy person (or even a group of them) from doing harm, that's just one of the downsides we all have to live with. Worth it, though.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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?
Their only reason is to kill people. Just ban guns already.
Palm trees and 8
Mostly the same, really? I read the last three posted pages of comments at Fox News, and had to turn away. Gems like "It's Obama's fault for agitating" made me nauseous. I read about 40 comments on the HuffPo, and it was mostly updates on what was going on. The few partisan comments that were there were merely pointing to the history of violence that Giffords had been subjected to in the past.
There's only extreme wing of a political movement that is going as far as shooting representatives of a party.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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
Technically speaking, their role in killing people is exactly the reason for the 2nd Amendment. The amendment's purpose isn't to ensure the ability to hunt, it's to ensure the ability to engage in acts of war.
In short: everybody knows the purpose of guns is to kill people, your argument brings nothing new to the table.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
When you post a graphic with people's names and gunsight logos ... and you know that a fair number of the people looking at the graphic are vocal loons ... and then one of those people gets shot ... it's a reasonable speculation.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The article states that he was using an automatic weapon. They aren't clear on what type, but it's quite possible that the gun used in this incident was ALREADY illegal.
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.
They must be modding it heavily, then...I've been following Huffington Post's liveblog, mainly because they're posting stuff from multiple sources, and the initial comments were very similar to the ones seen on Fox.
Living With a Nerd
No, actually, it isn't. There are some loons, but there's a helluva lot more levelheadedness on HuffPo than there is on Fox. It's not even close.
No kidding. If some of her supporters were armed, instead of there being 12 injured people, there'd be just one: the gunman himself.
Yes, sure, because their reactions would be so fast that they'd see the attacker drawing, identify the situation, draw their own weapons and shoot the attacher before the attacker gets a round off. Or maybe this isn't the movies, and the stoormtrooper effect doesn't work in the real world.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Indeed, but given the sloppy language and the celebrity she's garnered by encouraging this sort of sentiment, she ought to be ashamed of herself for commenting on the issue. I'm just surprised that it took this long for somebody to decide that it was a good idea to go about shooting politicians.
Perhaps if the Republican party looked in the mirror and considered that perhaps encouraging violence for political gain isn't something that is moral or Christian and certainly not patriotic when it's a democratically elected offical.
It would not, however, be difficult to stab them, beat them with a blunt object, hit them with a car, poison them, set their house on fire, or even just go extra-savage and punch and kick them to death. It is true, guns make killing a whole lot easier (at least in terms of the mechanics of it), but America is not the only developed nation where a large fraction of the population has guns, yet we seem to have a much (by orders of magnitude) higher murder rate. There is more to the story than just the availability of guns and ammunition.
Palm trees and 8
The interesting thing is that gun crime doesn't seem to be correlated to gun ownership. The Swiss have one of the highest per-capita rates of gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest rates of gun crime. It seems that gun crime tells you more about the culture than about gun ownership.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
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
Ahhh... the gun control wankery begins.
As cliche as it sounds: Guns don't kill people. People kill people, and sometimes they use guns to do it.
If somebody had wanted these people dead badly enough, they would've done it through some other means if guns weren't available.
Also, let's look at our southern neighbors: Guns are very highly illegal in Mexico, yet gun violence there is much, much worse than it is in the US.
A word of advice to you gun haters: Don't like guns? That's fine. Don't own them.
What? Gun nuts produced far more FUD about banning guns? Or where the previous ten years before the ban there were 13 mass killings, and there were NONE in the ten years after?
I find it interesting that one of the local TV station's call letters in Tucson is "KGUN".
Too bad the Fox News crowd and other right wing paranoid freak tea baggers can't figure out that there are far more people killed in the United States by gun toting fools than any "terrorist" could ever hope to match. Since 9/11, there have been tens of thousands killed in gun violence in the United States (over 90,000 firearms related murders when extrapolated over nine and a half years). Maybe these idiots should recognize that gun violence needs far more attention than plane passengers X-rayed crotches. Seriously, there are third world countries that are far safer to live the United States. You are far less likely to die from a gun crime related death in Israel (even from terrorism... even from bombs... even surrounded by enemies) than you are in the United States. Idiots like you are the reason so many people die. You stick your head in the sand whenever the truth about firearms is mentioned.
If you want to protect your country from the government join the army... it is made up of normal citizens who are just as patriotic as anyone else, and who want the best for their country.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
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.
In the UK you have the wonderful example of students rioting in the streets, destroying public and private property over increases in tuition
And we managed it without anybody getting shot. Compare and contrast.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Further proof that both extremes are just as crazy.
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?
He did, in his own inimitable style.
I will do so in a different style.
USA has 90 guns per 100 residents, Sweden has 30 per 100.
Yet USA has almost 6 times the murder rate (the same goes for all the scandinavian countries)
Why?
Well, guns in Sweden are mostly hunting weapons. We don't have concealed semi-automatic weapons. Semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons generally have only one intended use, and that is to kill people (usually at short or medium range). Sprayfire weapons (MAC-10, Uzi and the like) are no good for ANYTHING except trying to injure or kill a crowd. That's what the "spray" in spray-fire stands for. The spray is powered by the recoil of 1000 rounds per minute powering out of the barrel of a snub-nosed weapon with little in the way of stabilization.
Semi-automatic handguns are similarly useless for any legitimate use. Well, handguns in general are useless.
Hunting weapons don't need to be semi-automatic or fully automatic for any hunting (I think Cthulhu hunting doesn't count, as that is in imaginaryland)
So, does that fill in the lines enough?
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.
Now if Sarah thought she did nothing wrong why would she do that......
Further proof that both extremes are just as crazy.
False equivalence let's one side keep getting away with moving the goal posts. When rational people don't pick a side and take a stand, then we all slide farther into the abyss.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
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?
Is this the comment you wanted me to see?
"Congresswoman Giffords was known for her desire to crack down on illegal aliens and secure the southern border, putting her at odds with Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress." I doubt anybody affiliated with Obama would do this, but can easily imagine ACORN or similar organization doing it. The other possibility is that it's just a nut, like the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building.
We'll just have to wait and see. Of course the Dems/MSNBC are already blaming people like me (tea partier) and I didn't have anything to do with it. BTW it was a citizen with a gun that killed the nutjob and restored peace. That's precisely what guns are for: To protect yourself, your family, and your neighbors from nutters.
They're blaming nutbag teatards like you because of things like GIffords being threatened for voting for the so-called "Obamacare" bill (Palin even went so far as to post a map with gun targets over her and other congresscritters who voted for it). And give up on the whole "ACORN" thing. It was a fucking bunch of community organizers, not some brownshirts. It's amazing how two corporate run and controlled parties can jockey for support by forcing wedge issues into the forefront while still steadily increasing the income and wage disparity to epic new levels.... your stupid teabagger "movement", as contrived and astroturfed by morons like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (and even that Rand Paul asshole), is just another way of shoring up more money for the wealthy. Societies are still judged by how they treat their least fortunate, and in that way, we fail. Epically.
No, actually, it isn't.
People waiving the flag of false equivalence are intellectually corrupt. Violent rhetoric is not coming from both sides of the political spectrum, it's coming from the Fox News right.
I think a lot of people buy that crap because they're too gutless to take a stand for what's right.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
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.
Arizona is an unrestricted state, meaning no permit is required to carry a handgun. Presumably, anyone who wanted to be armed at that event, could/would have been. So, permissive gun laws did not prevent/mitigate this shooting, i.e. by resulting in a sheepdog (armed civilian) taking down the gunman. Early reports say the gunman had an "automatic" weapon. It remains to be seen whether this means a semi-auto pistol (like those used at Virginia Tech, acquired legally), or a fully automatic "assault weapon". Chances are, it will turn out that the gunman used an illegal firearm, either acquired illegally or modified. So, it's unlikely that tighter gun laws would have prevented/mitigated it either. This is a failure of security (to protect the congresswoman, staff, and the public at the event) and possibly law enforcement (to prevent an illegal firearm from getting into the gunman's hands), though Arizona gun laws being as permissive as they are, it's possible the gunman's firearm will turn out to be completely legal.
It's a trade off really. Europeans statist instincts, that come from a long history of strongly class based societies made up of ruling nobles and subservient rabble, lead to more or less willing subjugation of the individual to the collective, which on the surface seems more civilized because there is less crime and seemingly more sense of community etc. Also, European countries are much more demographically homogeneous than the US which also produces less crime. Recently with more immigration there is more crime as well, even in Sweden. On the other hand, all that power and trust placed in the state is there just waiting for the right person and the right moment to be abused - just look at the bloody European history over the last couple of centuries. That is true even today, it's just a matter of time. In America, the collective tends to be mistrusted and individuals are expected to provide for themselves which means more people who are unable or unwilling to do that legally and turn to violence. It's nothing to do with number of guns per 100 residents.
Semi-automatic handguns are similarly useless for any legitimate use
What do you mean by legitimate use though? In the US, the right to bear arms is protected in the constitution explicitly so they can provide defense from a potentially tyrannical government (not so people can use them for hunting), so semi-automatic weapons are not useless at all.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
And there is no connection between the number of guns available in Mexico and the country with very lax gun laws to the north.
I hope you're being sarcastic. Because if not, you are espousing that if you don't like someone's viewpoint, just kill 'em.
Our republic was set up explicitly to avoid that, not encourage it. If you don't like Obama or your Congresscritter's stance on the issues, you vote against them. If your friends and neighbors disagree, that's too damn bad, suck it up. The ammo box, in fact, is not a choice, and anyone who chooses to use it needs to be removed from said society.
If you're one of those Second Amendment nuts, you really need to read your history book on why it was passed. Here's a hint: Contrary to popular Second Amendment nut mantra, it was to defend the United States against outsiders, not to attack the United States and its institutions yourself. Duh.
If you are being sarcastic, knock it off. It's too soon after a tragedy for those kinds of comments, and people will take you seriously.
I'd argue you know nothing about firearms or their defensive use.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
The article states that he was using an automatic weapon. They aren't clear on what type, but it's quite possible that the gun used in this incident was ALREADY illegal.
Your point would be valid if it really was an automatic weapon. However, I'm sure you've noticed the press is rarely accurate with these things and I'm sure we'll find out later it was just a regular semi-automatic handgun of no particular note.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Its insane just to think that you actually need a weapon at home.
Your naivete is almost endearing but the reality is this: it's insane to think that you are immune from the consequences of a home invasion.
Pray it never happens to you, because if it does, you'll wish you had a trigger to pull.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
And it's so much less tragic when someone is stabbed or beaten to death than when they are shot.
Switzerland has one gun per individual, issued by the government. But they also have compulsory military service and required firearms training.
See a difference from a country where "gun rights" morphed into "every two-bit thug can get a pistol and hold up a convenience store"?
So, here's a list of violent crime by state. Note the top 5 are: California, Florida, Texas, New York, and Illinois. So of the most violent states the highest has very middle of the road gun control laws (somewhat more strict than average), two have very lax gun control laws, and two have some of the most strict gun control laws in the country. Notice the strong correlation? Neither do I.
Frankly, if you're looking for causative factors for violent crime and murder, gun control laws are a red herring. There is little or no correlation demonstrated scientifically either regionally or nationally. Trying to fight violent crime with gun control laws is like trying to fight syphilis with prayer in public elementary schools. Everyone will have an opinion, get mad, and politicians will love it... but no matter what happens it's not going to help the problem significantly. Real solutions have worked other places though, reducing wealth disparity, social safety nets, decriminalizing narcotic use and personal possession, free addiction treatment programs, educational initiatives, socialized healthcare... all can be shown to have demonstrable effect in reducing violent crime. Of course they're also harder and expensive and not as easy of political targets.
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.
Fox News gets the same comment trolling that every other newspaper/cable news channel website gets. Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
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
I've yet to see someone drop a cement mixer truck at a political rally. Guns are used in the US a political scare tactic.
You have absolutely no idea about Europe, do you. If you did, you wouldn't say anything like subjugating to the collective, or homogeneous demography. All in the US tend to disagree with the government, but I see no action whatsoever in actually showing the gov that you disagree. You still sheepishly vote for Dems and Reps. I don't believe there's a country out there that throws country-wide strikes more than the French if they disagree. Overall strikes are pretty common in Europe. Also, I do not believe that there are countries with a more varied population than The Netherlands, France, Germany, Luxembourg...
Do some homework before you go out and sprout this misinformed BS.
P.S. Posted anonymously to prevent mods being cancelled. ~Xiph1980
You're also implying that without guns, people wouldn't find some other ways to kill each other. That's another fundamentally unsound assumption: guns make killing easier in some ways, but that's all.
I hear this bullshit all the time from Americans trying to justify widespread gun ownership and it's real crap. Guns don't make killing easier 'in some ways' - guns make killing easier period. It's the first killing weapon where you don't have to be within physical contact of your victim to kill them, and it's accurate
If someone wants you dead, he doesn't need a gun.
That's the wrong logic. If someone would like you dead and they don't have a gun then the obstacles are nearly always insurmountable and the feeling passes. With a gun you can do it any time you want, and that increases the temptation.
Exceptionally well from a combat standpoint, the problem is that we are trying to change the society so they don't support terrorism anymore. We are losing a propaganda war and winning a shooting one, but even when you kill a hundred of them for each of our guys it still adds up over the years, and its looking like our society doesn't have the resolve to wait it out.
From what you said, the logical conclusion is that the strict gun control laws are a response to the high homicide rates. To prove the reverse you must establish that an *increase* in gun availability in the general population deters homicides, which is not what you said.
Japanese-Americans may have a low homicide rate, but that may be due to the social economic-class rather than any real cultural phenomenon. It would be good to cross-tabulate the data to see what the results are but I am confident that Japanese-American would have a *similar* homicide rate to their mainstream peers in the same social-economic class (maybe with geographical adjustments as well).
In short - statistics, learn it.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Really? Coming from you that is a compliment. Here are some facts.
Any retard in America can own a firearm. That would include you.
In Israel you must be one of the following:
a. Part-time reservist (volunteer) for 3 years- may own 1 handgun
b. Such a reservist (volunteer) is a member of a gun club- may own 1rifle
c. Professional, licensed public transportation driver, transportinga minimum of 5 passengers- may own 1 handgun
d. Licensed animal control officer- may own 2 hunting rifles, *not*full automatic weapons, or semi-automatic weapons with a limited capacity magazine.
e. Full-time dealer of jewelry or large sums of cash or valuables-may own 1 handgun
West bank residents may carry a firearm IF:
1. A resident in a militarily strategic buffer zone, essential to thesecurity of the State of Israel- may own 1 handgun
2. A business owner in these geographic areas- may own 1 handgun
Every citizen of Israel must serve in the military at least a year, and everyone of military age must be in the military reserves. They are all trained and disciplined. And since they are all pretty well educated and informed (as opposed to many morons like yourself) I would trust them far more with a weapon than almost anyone in the U.S. Finally, maybe you haven't realized it yet but the American news like your favorite, Fox News, likes to show lots of guns even if the overwhelming majority of a population isn't walking around with one.
My point was that even in places that many consider a war zone where acts of terrorism are perceived to abound (but which in reality aren't), there are far less gun crimes than in the U.S. So how can morons like you try to tell us that guns reduce crime. Get your head out of your ass it's killing off your brain cells asshole. Americans are irresponsible in how they deal with firearms, since anyone can buy a pistol or assault rifle.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
However, in Israel, while I trust the 18-year old woman sitting next to me with my life, it isn't as if she's just toting around an Uzi for fun. She's a member of the armed forces; her weapon is officially issued to her for that time; all the ammo is logged and checked; unauthorized use, as far as I know, is next to unheard of, though there have been a few, minor incidents. Israel is safe because of the presence of arms, but also because those who hold them are serious, trained and disciplined-- and have a respect for life that is often overlooked from the outside.
A congresswoman gunned down in front of her constituents is an enormous tragedy-- but also one which reveals the moral failures of the United States. This young man should have never had a gun in his hand; someone should have noticed. Surely Israel can't insure that similar acts never happen-- but we come a lot close, and I like to think, despite all the internal conflicts, by occasionally putting principles above all.
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's the first killing weapon where you don't have to be within physical contact of your victim to kill them, and it's accurate."
Bow and arrow, spear, thrown dagger, rock.
"If someone would like you dead and they don't have a gun then the obstacles are nearly always insurmountable and the feeling passes."
Number one murder weapon - knife. You might wanna revamp your arguments.
I'll put it politely.
Palin put a crosshairs over the congresswoman's face in a political setting.
The congressman's opponent last time had a rally where they fired M-16's to show how they felt about his opposition.
You really shouldn't mix guns and politics unless you expect something like this to happen. It's just irresponsible. Our leaders (both sides) have become irresponsible. Lots of people are hurting while a tiny wealthy percentage is doing extremely well.
The government is giving Trillions ("T", plural now 2.1) to the wealthy and has tried multiple time to cut about 20 billion in benefits to keep people from falling into absolute poverty.
It's really not the time for Fox and the right wing republicans to be making jokes about shooting people.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Note that one of the other "targets" on Sarah Palin's map had his home's propane line cut.
Fortunately, no other damage occurred.
The problem isn't guns - it is a political movement that pursues eliminationist goals.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
There is no sane reason why anyone would need to live with a gun.
All I can say is, you're far too trusting, and whatever "safe" part of the world you live in, I strongly urge you to stay there.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
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.
I'd say the graphic is way more inappropriate in any situation than making a speculative connection between it and subsequent events.
Correlation != causation, anyone?
The cities with the most gun crime are obviously more likely to enact gun control laws; it's not necessarily true that the cities with the most gun control laws will spawn more gun crime.
Its kinda hard to have 'very strict gun control laws' if I can go off to the nearby state - buy a gun and bring it in.
Societies are still judged by how they treat their least fortunate, and in that way, we fail. Epically.
Ignoring the rest of your post and the politics therein and taking only this claim at issue I'd like to say that while I in no way think enough is being done by neighbors for neighbors ("neighbor" not to be taken literally) in our society I think you would find it far from an "epic fail" should you experience the work being done for the homeless and less fortunate here at home and then travel abroad to less fortunate countries and societies. It will give you a whole new outlook on what poor is. Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing more, the exact opposite of that, but neither do I think it's fair to go into self-loathing of our society either and dismiss all the efforts put forth to help the unfortunate as "epic fails".
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?
The knife has one thing going for it: it's silent. You fire a gun, your odds of your crime being noticed immediately are much higher.
They might have caught the guy who shot those people today, but someone has still died and many more may yet die. Personally, I don't think catching someone is worth people being dead.
Oh, and notice I said people - plural. How many people do you think he would have killed with a knife there?
Just so you know, he didn't make the flag-burning video, just favorite of his. The ones he did make definitely have a feeling of insanity, but there is a kernel of libertarianism to them (which, is some part of the tea party movement that the religious right hasn't co-opted). Only a kernel, though, as you point out the are other things that don't fit.
XML causes global warming.
More masturbation material for Janet Napolitano and the rest of the government to beat off to as they try to sell us on the whole "give up your liberties and we promise you security!" bullshit. And no, I'm not entirely being sarcastic. I wish I were, but we all know that our government or portions of it aren't beyond manufacturing incidents to promote initiatives.
Anyway, we can expect many days of the same old rhetoric about gun violence blah blah blah and politics blah blah blah and left this and right that yadda yadda yadda. We've gone through this too many times to count, before.
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
It displays no grasp of logic whatsoever. Criminals will always have guns. Those of us who don't want to be their victims, carry them for self-defense.
Criminals using guns to commit crimes are not using them for self defense, they're using them to break the law.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Yeah.... see, knife killings are NOT like the are shown in the movies. Hollywood LIED to you, son.
knife killings often take up to multiple dozens of stabs. People tend to voice their displeasure at all this stabbing...
Added to that, knife throwing is hard, accuracy is limited, and penetration depth is likewise limited. I HAVE practiced that, and it is not the easiest skill I tried to acquire.
Gun training is peanuts in comparison. I haven't shot from any large caliber handguns, only .22 long rifle guns (one step above a pellet gun, almost no recoil) and accuracy at a range of around 20 meters just isn't a big deal. Although in action you would probably be limited to around 10 meters unless you're pretty good.
That is a piece of metal, flung at speeds of around 350 m/s (1200 feet/second) with the only design specification of penetrating a human, flattening (or tumbling) and ripping through internal organs.
No, guns designed for killing people actually make killing people much, much easier.
Bang, bang bang bang bang bang
Reading that fast aloud is the time it takes to fire six rounds into a human being, easily at a range of ten meters. There is no other tool that does that, fits in a pocket, and has millimetre accuracy at that range.
Good point. Genocide doesn't count if it's inefficient.
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
So the criminal might "accidentally shoot someone", and that's your argument for banning guns?
I might "on purpose" defend myself with a gun, from a criminal with an axe -- or a gun, or a baseball bat.
And yes, criminals will always be able to get guns. In countries that have no gun culture it might be more difficult, but there will always be guns in the US. Discussing "banning" them is silly -- it can't happen, for a number of reasons, including the SCOTUS rulings in Heller V. DC and McDonald v. Chicago.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
And also her supporters would also know that the orginal gunman was the only "bad guy" and wouldn't start shooting each other mistaking those people for gunmen intent on harm. Also, they would have all been perfect shots as well, not missing and hitting the innocent bystanders right next to the gunman. Also, they definitely wouldn't misidentify someone reaching into his coat pocket to pull out a black camera to take a photo of the congresswoman, thinking he was pulling out a gun and deciding to "take him out" before he hurt anyone.
Yes, if everyone there been armed as well, the gunman *might* have shot less people had but other people might also have been shot/killed thanks to the other armed people at the rally who meant well.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
A 9 year old child lost to this.
So senseless.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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.
Are you for real? How about Canada, Australia, England? These countries have open press and the leaders of these countries regularly walk into crowds without fear of getting shot. The only time a US president would ever wade into a crown would be if the crowd was pre-screeened.
I would say the opposite - countries with little or no gun control laws typically also have freedom repressed. Look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan. Guns (a lot of guns) are readily available to any religious crazy that want them, and freedom itself is very limited. Kinda like a bunch of crazy fundamentalist Republicans.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
You make some good points while ignoring or missing others.
16 year old girls are not illegal. Buying / selling them is. There is nothing that could be done or proposed to eliminate their existence, so let's set that aside as an apples to motorcycles comparison, shall we?
Crank, coke, smack, etc. are all chemical substances. Many drugs can be created with little technical know-how, and in some cases, just the ability to cultivate plants. Others (Meth for example) can be created with easily obtained items that are not strictly controlled due to many and common other uses. Meth labs are dangerous, yes, but you make a good point that the fact that they're illegal and dangerous does not stop them from existing.
Guns on the other hand are not typically built in people's garages. They are mass produced in factories. In countries where they are illegal, their existance in the underground is largely made possible by border crossings where they are legal.
This is where you miss the biggest point. Yes, we have a porous border. But guns flow south out of the U.S. into Mexico, not the other way around.
Mexico has one gun store, which is run by the military. It's near impossibly to own a gun legally there. And that's why the same cartels that are smuggling drugs into the States are smuggling guns south so as not to waste a trip back.
The people that were at this meet and greet today presumably had the right to own guns. It didn't help them stave off this nut. Even if one of them had a gun, do you honestly think that would stop the 19 (or more) shots he managed to get off? It was a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. Assuming a magazine that holds 20 something rounds, he didn't have to reload. How long could it have taken? 5 seconds?
I am not saying that banning guns makes everything magically wonderful. I'm not even suggesting we should do it. But to say it shouldn't be on the table seems irrational.
If you limit the supply of guns, you will limit their availability. The only question in my mind is what about all the pre-existing guns? How many can you reasonably expect to recover? What mechanisms would lawfully allow existing guns to *be* recovered? It seems to me that if you ban guns, the existing guns will create a supply for the underground that will last for decades.
Addressing the other side of your argument, I don't believe that you should have the right to shoot someone unless you can prove they're threatening your life. Castle doctrine is bullshit. If someone wants to steal your TV, they're an asshole, and if they do so, they are a criminal. But if they get caught, they're not subject to the death penalty anywhere in the U.S.. Why should it be okay to kill them if you catch them in the act?
In many states, shop owners can have guns. And in many states where they can't, they do anyway. This doesn't stop liquor store or convenience store robberies because the owner might have a gun. Your idea that this is a cause for fewer "home invasions" (a bullshit politically loaded term if there ever was one) is completely without unsupported by any data. UCR data suggests that home robberies are more uniform within demographic areas regardless of gun laws. In other words, major metros with similar income levels and ethnic / educational distributions will have similar break-ins regardless if they are in Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan, or California.
Thieves don't pick businesses over homes because of fear of being shot. They do so because stores tend to be places where they think they can easily score cash. The average home is unlikely to net the thief much cash directly. He has to find something to rob and hope he or she can pawn it without being caught. They also can't as easily case the place out before hand. But any 7-11, you can walk into any time you please.
This is besides another point of fact: criminals don't commit crimes thinking ahead of time that they'll be caught. The average burger doesn't want
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
From the sounds of it, Loughner had no coherent political views at all.
The only political question here is how we could do a better job of identifying and treating insanity.
Because it wasn't the American Indian Wars, in combat the southeastern and plains Indians killed about 1 US soldier for ever 1.3 Indians lost. Compared to a small war like Vietnam, where the Viet Cong lost about 3 soldiers for every US soldier killed, the American Indian Wars were pretty even, the American Indians just didn't have the numbers or political unity to hold out.
So mass-eradication as a government policy is ok if the losing party put up a good fight?
And also remember that in places like the Northern Great Plains, there was as much inter-tribal violence as there was violence between the American Indians and United States.
So mass eradication as a government policy is ok if there's at least some internecine fighting going on in the target population?
And even now there are at least 2.5 million full blooded American Indian and Alaska Natives and 1.6 million tribal members who are mixed blood.
So mass eradication as a government policy is ok if it wasn't 100% successful?
Lets compare that to a modern genocide like Poland. In 1938 there were 3.1 million Jews in Poland, in 1946 there were 44,000.
So mass eradication as a government policy is ok if there ever was a more successful mass eradication program in history?
I'd like to see you advocate that position to some American Indians.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Annnnd? Was said CBS show promoting violence?
Look, you have to look forty fucking years ago to find a counter-example.
Look at thousands of cops being unable to defend a squad car from 200 protesters. A squad car left alone on a street corner for hours....almost like they were hoping it would be vandalized so they could whine about violent protesters...huh, interesting.
FTFY. Pajamas media, seriously? Okay, if we can start citing stuff from Korean Central Television. Feel free to stop pretending there's any equivalency here whatsoever.
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