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33,000 Sign Online Petition Promoting Guns At Republican Convention (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "An online petition on Change.org claims that constitutional rights are being denied to those who want to bring a gun to the fight for the Republican Party's future," reports CNET. "Though Ohio is an open carry state, which allows for the open carry of guns, the hosting venue — the Quicken Loans Arena — strictly forbids the carry of firearms on their premises." Citing a quote from the National Rifle Association that gun-free zones are "the worst and most dangerous of all lies," the petition has already attracted more than 33,000 signatures, though CNET reports that the whole petition is a satire they're attributing to the Hyperationalist blog. The petition appears to have attracted its last 8,000 signatures within the last 18 hours, shortly after its URL appeared on a web site for young conservatives.

12 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How is this not win/win by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's gone both ways - I read some conservative news sites and between comments and columnists it's really common to see all democrats being labelled as treasonous. How about this sample of choice comments, taken from a Fox News article about non-discrimination law:
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    "Hopefully, when North Korea decides to actually strike the USA they target and hit San Francisco. Clean out some of that Rainbow Sludge...."
    "Instead of sending pedophiles to jail, send them to SF. Apparently, they are very tolerant of those with sexual problems and know best how to deal with these people. They will then be part of the LGBT community and the sanctuary city community."
    "Imagine... North Carolina believes the male corn hole is Exit Only, and San Francisco is completely intolerant of that. If everyone thought like this guy, we wouldn't have a country for much longer. "
    "Pretty sure this is just another hidden way liberals want to do away with certain laws so that they want to be demonized and labeled as child molesters because they want child molestation decriminalized so they start with the bathrooms to achieve their goal.. "
    "San Freakisco has been a sewer since the Gays discovered it"
    -----
    That wasn't from some crazy right-wing nutjob site like WND - that was from Fox News, the single highest-viewership news source in the US.

    American politics has turned hyper-polarised now - it's just two rabid factions who hate each other with an such intensity that all rational debate is impossible.

  2. Secret Service Says No by Elfich47 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Secret Service is not going to allow guns that close to the Republican nominee for president. All of the major front runners have some level of secret service protection at this time. The Secret Service is not going to take the risk that one of the "peaceful gun carriers" lied and is going to take shots at the nominee. Anything beyond that is hand waving.

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  3. Private property rights by istartedi · · Score: 5, Informative

    My private property rights trump your gun rights (no pun intended). If I want to keep you from carrying on my property, I can do that. I can even use a gun to keep you from carrying your gun on my property. IMHO, the 2A only comes into play when the government interferes with you being armed on public property, or your own property, or somebody else's property with their permission. Thus, the arena is fully within its rights to bar firearms. If they wanted to have the Great 2016 GOP Debate and Gun Show (TM), they should have rented the Cow Palace.

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  4. Re:Seen this before by nbauman · · Score: 5, Informative

    They've already done that. All the pro-gun state laws that I've seen have an exception for carrying guns in the state's own legislature. And all the courts have an exception for carrying guns in their own courtroom.

    Their argument is that they already have armed peace officers on their site so you don't have to protect yourself. But that doesn't make any sense.

  5. Full Text of 2nd Amendment by mx+b · · Score: 1, Informative

    They absolutely were. "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's the limit on government. They're ignoring the limit. It couldn't be any more obvious. You right to carry was infringed by coercive action of the federal government. How hard is that to figure out, really?

    The full text of the 2nd Amendment is as follows:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    So many people always forget the first half. The amendment specifically states "well-regulated", meaning it is within the powers of the federal government to regulate militias and arms. Taken in context in the 18th century, "well regulated" probably means something closer to "well trained", but still, it is obvious that arms are meant to be regulated and dispersed through trained militias, and not just any random jerk has a gun. Especially because today's guns can do substantially more damage than the guns did when the amendment was written.

    I'm all for a conversation on what the appropriate level of regulation and training is. I don't think anyone really argues that guns should entirely disappear. But we need reasonable limits, not a free-for-all on weaponry, and the amendment supports that as a federal power. Please stop spreading misunderstanding.

  6. Re: How is this not win/win by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    People who make these comparisons conveniently ignore the United States and its long list of militarist and fascist client regimes, which significantly increase the tally for the right.

    Also, Stalin was squarely in the right wing, unless you think Stalin was some sort of egalitarian who disbanded the USSR in favour of local democratic councils run by citizens. Same goes for Mao, Pol Pot and all other authoritarian dictators (authoritarianism being a right-wing ideology by definition, let's not forget). So you can tally their victims however you want, that still puts Right Wingers ahead of anti-war, anti-state, pro-democracy egalitarians by tens of millions of victims.

  7. The worst [Re:How is this not win/win] by XXongo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The worst anyone says about Hillary really is that she might have committed a felony with the whole email thing

    Actually, no. The worst thing that can be said about her is that she is a corrupt, serially lying manipulator...

    Actually, no. The worst you can say about her is that she is a reptilian from Zeta Andromedae who routinely dismembers, kills and eats small children and kittens, and who has explicitly stated an agenda of exterminating the human race, all except for the few kept to be eaten alive for food, of course. Oh, and that she secretly worships Satan. Wait, did I say secretly? Openly, I meant openly. Oh, and kicks puppies.

    This is, of course, absurd, but it's little more absurd than anything else said about her. There's no particular evidence that she's a "corrupt, serially lying manipulator" other than the intensive media campaign saying so being put forth by the Republican machine.

  8. Re:How is this not win/win by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't see anyone claiming Hillary is literally going to be Hitler. I don't see anyone saying that about Bernie either.

    Actually, lots of right-wing figures are saying it.

    Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker has said that Bernie Sanders is "going to be like Hitler". Not that Bakker is a reputable source by any stretch, but he's said it. Bakker said that Sanders’ support from young people proves that the U.S. is transforming into Nazi Germany.

    “One of the most popular politicians right now is a socialist,” Bakker said. “And who is his biggest following? The young people of America, from the colleges. Maybe you understand a little bit what it felt like to live when Hitler was reigning and the church had to sit by and keep watching it and watching until millions, tens of millions — they had to build factories to kill people. All it takes is a couple bombs and all of America will be dead within a year, less than a year, just months.”

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    Also, earlier this month, the conservative National Review’s Kevin Williamson drove a steamroller over this line in the sand. Williamson’s article, “Bernie’s Strange Brew of Nationalism and Socialism,” which was published two weeks ago but became available on the conservative magazine’s website on Monday, is not a model of clarity. It bounces between criticism of Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ trade policies and quotes from some of Sanders’ least thoughtful supporters. Yet, as the title of the article suggests, Williamson does come to a bold conclusion — Bernie Sanders is a literal Nazi who is leading a literal Nazi movement in the United States.

    Williamson lays this thesis out in one paragraph:
    "In the Bernieverse, there’s a whole lot of nationalism mixed up in the socialism. He is, in fact, leading a national-socialist movement, which is a queasy and uncomfortable thing to write about a man who is the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and whose family was murdered in the Holocaust. But there is no other way to characterize his views and his politics."

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    Conspiratorial right-wing radio host backing frontrunner Donald Trump’s campaign, Alex Jones, is comparing Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to Hitler and calling for violent attacks against his supporters. Alex Jones’ boosterism of Trump has turned to a violent obsession with one Democratic candidate and a determined campaign to smear “Creature Bernie Sanders.”

    “This is the most gang mentality, dumbed-down, it’s like, ‘We want to elect Hitler, he says he’ll invade France and give us free stuff,'” Jones ranted about the Sanders campaign last week.

    Jones has described Sanders as “a hardcore commie who wants to put me in a forced relocation camp like Mao Zedong”:

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    Jason Villalba, the Republican state representative from Texas’ 114th district in Dallas County, recently tweeted an image comparing Bernie Sanders‘ professed Democratic socialism to World War II-era Nazism. Accompanying the tweet’s text was an image comparing Sanders’ Democratic socialism to Adolft Hilter‘s Nazism. http://www.mediaite.com/online...

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    So yes, there are people saying "Bernie is the next Hitler". They may be cranks, but they are saying it and they're saying it loudly and proudly. They're not hinting about it, they're declaring it with certainty.

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  9. Re:All gun laws are anti constitutional. But... by dadelbunts · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except an office would be a private space. Your right to carry extends only to public spaces. You can just as easily ask no one bring firearms into your office and would be well within your right to do so.

  10. Re:How is this not win/win by AaronW · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to Politifact, Hillary lies about 28% of the time (counting Mostly False,False and Pants on Fire) and tells the truth 52% of the time (True and Mostly True)
    http://www.politifact.com/pers...

    By comparison, Bernie Sanders lies about 29% of the time and tells the truth 51% of the time
    http://www.politifact.com/pers...

    Ted Cruz lies 60% of the time and tells the truth 22% of the time
    http://www.politifact.com/pers...

    And Donald Trump lies 77% of the time and tells the truth 10% of the time
    http://www.politifact.com/pers...

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  11. Re:I wonder... by felrom · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't know, but I can give you a useful data point. My wife and I went to the annual NRA convention in Houston in 2013. Eighty-six thousand NRA members attended that year. Since concealed carry is legal in Texas, and since concealed carry could not legally be prohibited in the convention space (because it was owned by the city), and since it was in Texas (where gun ownership is high relative to most of the rest of the country), and since it was the NRA convention (so gun ownership among attendees was probably close to 99.99%), it probably represents the single largest non-military event in human history both in terms of number of guns carried by attendees and percentage of attendees carrying guns.

    And what happened?

    A whole lot of nothing. Three days of exhibits, conferences, speakers, events, etc. And a lack of people being shot.

    The RNC convention in 2012 was expected to have 50,000 attendees. Assume 2016 will be the same. Even then, the number of people and the % of people who want to carry guns at an RNC convention is going to me MUCH less than at the NRA convention.

    If they allowed it, even if they requested that people do it, it would be shocking if anything bad happened. In Texas, concealed carry license holders are more law-abiding than police officers according to the statistics that the Department of Public Safety is required to collect and publish as part of our carry laws.

    The liberal hand-wringing over "what if" and "might" and "blood in the streets" when it comes to carrying guns in public is so so tiring.

  12. Politifact is full of shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sad day when Politifact is cited as a 'credible' source and gets +5 Informative when they've been slobbering all over Hillary's knob. They shit all over Republican candidates when they get the chance, while giving Hilldog and Bernout free passes with 'Half True' or 'Mostly False'

    Proof:
    http://i.imgur.com/O7LGxYl.jpg

    Want more?:
    http://i.imgur.com/ORK5fDx.png

    Politifact is full of shit:
    http://www.funnyjunk.com/Politi+fact+is+full+of+shit/funny-pictures/5851249/