Congressman Steve Scalise Among 5 Shot at Baseball Field (nytimes.com)

From a New York Times report: A lone gunman opened fire on Republican members of the congressional baseball team at a practice field in a Washington suburb Wednesday, using a rifle to shower the field with bullets that struck five people, including Steve Scalise, the majority whip of the House of Representatives. Two members of Mr. Scalise's protective police detail were wounded as they exchanged gunfire with the shooter in what other lawmakers described as a chaotic, terror-filled ten minutes that turned the baseball practice into an early-morning nightmare. Police said a total of five people were shot, two critically. Standing at second base, Mr. Scalise was struck, in the hip, according to witnesses, and collapsed as the shots rang out, one after another, from behind a chain-link fence near the third-base dugout. Witnesses said Mr. Scalise, of Louisiana, "army crawled" his way toward taller grass as the shooting continued. Alternative source: NBC News, CNN, BBC, NPR, WashingtonPost, and WSJ.

Update: 06/14 15:40 GMT: In remarks at the White House, President Trump said the Alexandria shooting suspect has died from injuries.

Comments

Re:Right to bear arms

[Archangel Michael]

Gun Free Zones work!

Re:Right to bear arms

[computational super]

That's a good point. Anybody who's planning to commit mass murder will surely stop when he finds out gun ownership is illegal.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[Anonymous Coward]

>50-100 shots

>only hit 5 people

more than likely.

Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[bobbied]

This is getting out of hand... WAY out of hand. The specific targeting of the right needs to end. I'm not talking about the nut jobs with guns, but those who engage in irresponsible verbal targeting that encourage the nut jobs with guns and provide them targeting.

Come on folks, all this hateful rhetoric needs to come to a full and final stop. Those on the other side of the isle are NOT (in general) trying to do harm to others or the country and it's way past time we stop trying to claim they are. Attach the principles, argue about what the country should do, discuss the issues, but leave the personal attacks and outlandish claims alone.

This shooting illustrates just one of the reasons why this is important..

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[WrongMonkey]

Trump suggested using the 2nd ammendment as a threat against Hillary if she won.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politic...

Reap what you sow.

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[bobbied]

You're right. It should start with the President and his "Second Amendment solutions".

Right, how is supporting the NRA even close to this? I've never heard the NRA advocate the shooting of it's political opponents, have you? I haven't.

You see, it's THIS very kind of irresponsible rhetoric from folks like you that I'm calling out here..

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[Ksevio]

No, he said "nothing you can do folks, although the 2nd amendment people maybe there is, I don't know" in regards to picking judges if Hillary wins. You give him a lot more credit than he deserves.

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[sjbe]

Which every sane person understood as a commentary on the power of the NRA, not as an invitation to assassination.

Bullshit. It was and is easily interpreted as an incitement to violence (which Trump never bothered to deny) plenty of perfectly sane people. If he wanted to comment on the power of the NRA you don't do it in such a way that it can be interpreted otherwise.

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[Baron_Yam]

Despite his denial, it is obvious from the quote that he was suggesting someone shoot his opponent for him. Yes, he was probably joking but he was doing so from a position of influence in a context in which such jokes should never be made.

OK, so I'm OK with 'live by the sword, die by the sword', and therefore I'd find it to be hypocritical if Trump were to do anything but offer a presidential pardon to anyone trying to shoot HIM. But not random politicians or cops, thank you very much.

Only people who have advocated violence as a solution to political issues should be considered to have consented to being on the wrong end of such violence.

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[hey!]

Ever hear off the Kolmogorov 0-1 law? Given a sufficiently large number of trials the probability of any particular outcome converges to either 0 or 1; it's either impossible or inevitable.

Bernie Sanders won 13.2 million votes in the Democratic primary. If one in a million were homicidal crackpots, that's 13 homicidal crackpots, and all you need is one. It doesn't make them representative of Sanders supporters. This guy was one of a small fringe of "Bernie or Busters" who urged people to vote for Jill Stein. That doesn't make him representative of Stein voters either.

Likewise while Trump may have had a lock on the neonazi vote in the election, I make it a habit of doing Trump voters the courtesy of not automatically assuming they're fascists, sexists, or Russia apologists.

Now I was a Sanders supporter in the primaries, and voted for Clinton in the generals. I detest the politics of Steve Scalise, but I don't wish him any harm. I wish him a speedy and full recovery, after which I will likely continue to detest his politics.

Re:Sanders supporting liberal socalist

[WrongMonkey]

Look what happens on the college campuses - no one gets arrested for the violence

False. http://www.dailycal.org/2017/0...

https://www.insidehighered.com...

http://komonews.com/news/local...

Liberal media pretty much ignoring the violent left protests

Also false. See prior links.

Politicians regularly using heated rhetoric

Like how Trump endorsed violence throughout his campaign?

This was the last option, not the first

[Baron_Yam]

Soap box, ballot box, ammo box. There's nothing happening in the USA right now that can't be fixed by judicious use of the second after some campaigning with the first.

I am curious as to the shooter's personal politics and motivations. Hopefully they're more nuanced than "He's just nuts", because random violence is less predictable and thus less preventable and more frightening than predictable violence.

Re:This was the last option, not the first

[ScentCone]

Do you understand how the Constitution actually structures the country? It's a republic, made up of fifty states. It's not mob rule. Are you saying that Obama ran and won twice by winning the electoral vote and losing the popular vote? That this "keeps" happening? Have you considered actually coming to terms with the fact that millions of two-time Obama voters opted, out of disgust, not to support the Democrats in November because the Clinton machine, the DNC, and Hillary herself displayed nothing but contempt for their own taken-for-granted demographic?

We don't fill congressional seats or governor's desks or the White House with "record setting protests." We do it by routinely holding elections and going through the peaceful transfer of power. When millions of Democrats shrug their shoulders and refuse to give the Clintons back the power they so desperately craved, why do you think that's some sort of failure of the constitution, rather that a failure on the part of her, her party, and the majority of the media? They so breathlessly presumed her coronation that she didn't feel the need to set foot, even once, in places like Wisconsin ... and then pretended shocked that she lost, and blames the lack of money, misogyny, and Russians in no particular order.

And your implication is that this guy from Illinois was maybe on the right track, and that shooting the people who won the election (and HAVE been winning elections - under Obama, the Democrats have lost nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court fight, and millions of disgusted D voters) is the proper solution? Rather than, say, figuring out why they've alienated so many millions of people? Could it be because they chose a lying, corrupt candidate who called millions of the women in the country irredeemably deplorable racists?

At what point should the first two options be exhausted? When someone in power demonstrably violates the constitution and the other checks and balances (like, elections) cannot replace that person. And since that hasn't happened, it seems we're just fine letting things like elections do what they're supposed to. If the Democrats can't trouble themselves to field a candidate that most of the states actually like well enough to vote for, then they really can't complain.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[cayenne8]

Yup....it seems this may be a disgruntled person on the left that is once again resorting to violence....

Early reports say he first walked up to there, unarmed asking "Hey, are these republicans or democrats?"...

Apparently once he found out they were republicans, he came back armed and shooting.

What's the deal with this? It seems as if there is a Left Leaning Fascist group growing out there...using all methods including violence to shut down and shout down anyone that isn't in perfect lockstep with their groupthink of what the world has to be.

Re:Right to bear arms

[chuckugly]

We could just cut out the middleman and declare murder illegal. I'm shocked it hasn't been suggested before now actually.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[nucrash]

Indeed. Having to own this is sad, but yes he was a hate filled Bernie Supporter. Now that I have apologized for that, will the GOP all of the violent acts committed by their party?

Media hate campaign

[Kohath]

This is what you get when you engage in hate campaigns. Is it what you wanted? If not, then find something to believe in besides hating people. Find something to talk about besides how much you hate [whomever] and how much your hate is justified because [reasons].

Re:Media hate campaign

[Kohath]

No you won't.

Re:Media hate campaign

[Gravis Zero]

This is what you get when you engage in hate campaigns. Is it what you wanted? If not, then find something to believe in besides hating people.

Where was this outrage when Senator Gabby Giffords was shot? Where was this outrage when a some guy shot up an abortion clinic because of "baby parts"? I find it disappointing that so many republicans only care when it's something that interferes with their own agenda.

Re:Media hate campaign

[Gravis Zero]

What's your point? You're cool with hate campaigns as long as the hate is consistent? No one should oppose organized hatred who didn't also say specific words at some arbitrary time in the past?

No, my point is that your outrage is inconsistent. I'm calling you a hypocrite.

You're responding to a call to cool off the hate campaigns with ad hominems?

No, I'm responding to you specifically saying it's a problem with "the left" when you have neo-nazis among your rank.

Re:Boo

[GLMDesigns]

Exactly. A Left-Wing wacko purposely hunts down Republicans and the answer is "abolish guns."

I used to decry the statement "leftism is a mental disorder" but you know what? Maybe there is something there.

A person hunts down people who disagrees with (whether it's Republicans or Democrats, Christians or Muslims, Gays or Straights, Men or Women) your outrage ought to be at the person and those who promote such cause (Trump being killed and beheaded) as opposed to the availability of an inanimate object.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[DogDude]

"Libtard"? Hey kid, do your parents know you're on the Internet?

Re:Thoughts and prayers

[Anonymous Coward]

Thoughts and prayers? So nothing, really. You're doing nothing. Bravo.

Re:Right to bear arms

[linuxguy]

"Anybody who's planning to commit mass murder will surely stop when he finds out gun ownership is illegal."

Murder is illegal. Though it does not stop all murders. By your argument, we should make it perfectly legal. After all, murders are still happening at an alarming rate. If making murder illegal is not stopping murders, then what is the point?

Re:Hate filled libtard

[Applehu Akbar]

Own it.

Clearly, antifa tactics are moving to a new level.
But For the sake of the environment, Hodgkinson did use steel ammunition, rather than lead.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[Kierthos]

Early reports are wrong. It was not the shooter who asked if the players were Republican or Democrats.

Re: Hate filled libtard

[cayenne8]

The deal is that people with mental issues, sociopaths, and old-fashioned assholes exist in nearly every group regardless of political position. Many of them only get influence by being very loud. Others are only have influence because they make for easy strawmen for lazy members of an opposing group, so they get held up as an example despite not being representative at all.

The thing is...this isn't just an isolated nut job here and there acting alone. Just look at the large, violent mobs in past year or so at college universities trying to extinguish any speakers or thoughts that are not in lockstep with their hive mind....mobs of people beating people, destroying property, shouting down any opinions differing from theirs and suppression anyone they see as different.

You saw this for days in the streets after Trump won...

Peaceful protest is one thing, I'm all for it..but this is mob rule violence and destruction trying to intimidate and suppress thought.

It sounds vaguely familiar to groups doing the same things just before WW2.

It just now is left instead of right, and the uniforms have changed.

Ban all cars

[mi]

I hope they quit supporting the idea of every nut job having a gun.

Only if every auto accident is an argument to ban automobiles...

Re:Ban all cars

[cayenne8]

1. Guns kill more people in the US every year than car accidents.

It looks like the CDC has them virtually neck and neck. I would dare say, if you removed the suicide gun deaths, and justified shootings where it was a "bad guy" that died.... I would guess the numbers would be a good bit lower than traffic deaths.

Re:Ban all cars

[gantzm]

2015 vehicle deaths: 35,092.

2015 gun deaths: 13,485 ( Not including suicides. )

Your data seems inaccurate.

Including suicides puts them just about event.

Re:Ban all cars

[mi]

1. Guns kill more people in the US every year than car accidents.

False — already rebutted by cayenne8. And irrelevant anyway.

2. Cars have productive uses. Guns don't.

?? Of course, weapons have very productive uses — indeed, one such use was demonstrated by the police this very morning!

Two false statements out of two... But nice try, anyway.

Re:Ban all cars

[cayenne8]

Which is about 99% of car use, so this is just being pedantic for the sake of deflection.

And...most guns are used on perfectly legal ranges, private grounds, etc.....so, no problem there.

Criminal use of a car or a gun is criminal use. A criminal that wants to use a car to mow through a group of people doesn't worry about having a valid driver license beforehand....just steal a car and go.

Re:Ban all cars

[dpidcoe]

Nearly all gun control advocates only want more sensible restrictions on gun ownership and usage, ironically similar to what we have for automobiles (although admittedly more strict than we have for automobiles).

There's a big problem with your statement here though. They don't want "sensible" restrictions, they want restrictions so strict and nonsensical that they effectively do ban guns. I could show you a plethora of gun laws (particularly in california) that make no sense whatsoever, and are clearly there just to make things annoying for law abiding gun owners. And I've talked to plenty of gun control advocates who will freely admit that if there was a law that banned usage of pink guns only on the 3rd tuesday of each month they'd be all for it, even though it does nothing to improve gun safety or reduce deaths.

If you want more concrete examples, look at californias handgun safety certificate. It started out as something you'd probably have been all for (and even something I don't have an issue with in theory): In order to purchase a handgun you had to pass a written test and then demonstrate knowledge of safe handling to an instructor. Once that was done, you paid a small fee to cover the administrative costs and received a lifetime card allowing you to buy a handgun in the state of california.

That lasted about 5 years, at which point the anti-gun lobby neutered the safe handling requirements, dumbed down the test, raised the fee by a lot, and made it expire after 5 years. So now what used to be a safety thing has been effectivly turned into a taxfee that I need to pay every 5 years if I want to continue to participate in my hobby. And don't get me started on the whole background checks for ammo thing that just happened. As long as gun control advocates such as yourself ignore abuses like this, you'll never make any headway in convincing gun owners to agree with "sensible" regulation.

Re:Ban all cars

[ranton]

That lasted about 5 years, at which point the anti-gun lobby neutered the safe handling requirements, dumbed down the test, raised the fee by a lot, and made it expire after 5 years.

I don't know the specifics of this law, but it is odd that the anti-gun lobby reduced safe handling requirements and dumbed down the test. What sounds more likely is the pro-gun lobby reduced safe handling requirements and dumbed down the test while the anti-gun lobby raised the fee and made it expire after 5 years. I could be wrong though but through Google I can't find any details on when and how the certificate test was dumbed down and what lobbyist groups were behind it (I didn't look for long though).

Re:Ban all cars

[swillden]

I don't...if you are wanting to take yourself out, you'll take yourself out, doesn't matter the method.

The thing is, most of them don't want to. It's a cry for help./p>

Most of them who don't wan't to die choose a method that has a greater chance of being stopped, I think. I'm not a mental health professional, but I unfortunately have some direct experience.

I have a daughter who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, and like many BPD sufferers has tried many times to kill herself. For a few years there, we were at the ER at least three or four times per year, except when she was institutionalized. When she was institutionalized we also got the chance to be sometime-parents to a bunch of other girls with similar problems, and we became friends and have kept in touch since, so my experience is broader than just her.

I own many guns, and because of her disorder I've been careful to always keep them locked up... except one time. I'd been teaching a shooting class so I had a couple of .22 pistols in my truck, and I was in a hurry when I got home and didn't get them locked up right away. She took one, with the intention of killing herself with it (all previous attempts had been with pills). When I went out to get the guns I realized immediately what had happened and called the police (who knew her well). They, and we, began searching intensively for her.

When we found her, she had the gun, but had carefully unloaded it and thrown the ammunition into a swampy area. She told me that she had realized that she didn't actually want to die, and that if she used the gun no one would be able to intervene to keep her from dying.

I'm not going to claim that there aren't some people who kill themselves with a gun who wouldn't kill themselves if they didn't have a gun. But I think that most people who choose a gun choose it specifically because they aren't crying for help and really just want to end it. If they were crying for help, they'd do something more like what my daughter usually did: Take a bunch of pills then make sure she was with people who would notice and act to save her. Those who really want to die and don't have access to a gun can jump in front of a bus or a train, or off a tall building, or run a hose from their tailpipe when they're certain no one will be around all day, or any of a hundred other methods with just as high a probability of "success".

(Aside: My daughter is doing much better. It's been over three years since she attempted suicide. She still struggles with her disorder but is doing much better at building a life in spite of it. She sees a therapist weekly -- her own choice, which is important. We made her go to therapy for years, but it's dramatically less effective than when the person actually wants the help.)

Re:Ban all cars

[swillden]

case in point: It was *my* fault I was upset at her for cheating on me because if I hadn't checked her email I wouldn't have known.

I cannot imagine a more on-point and succinct description of BPD. That's exactly the sort of thing BPD sufferers do.

How did you handle it? How did you guide your child towards the help they needed or did you have to go with the "I'm your parent and I said so" route? because with BPDs forceful coercion doesn't really do squat (at least with adults).

Coercion, basically, and no, it didn't really accomplish much to help her get better. The main things it did were (a) keep her alive, because while she was institutionalized she was under a level of supervision that made killing herself all but impossible, a level of supervision that no parents could ever provide in a home setting and (b) force her to learn a set of tools that she could use to manage her BPD, if she chose to.

Even that was not remotely without cost. In fact, at one point it looked seriously possible that I might go to prison. We had her in a day treatment facility, and while there she convinced the therapist that her issues were all our fault, that we were verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically abusive (but that there were no marks because we were careful while she was in treatment and we were under scrutiny). She stopped just short of accusing me of sexual abuse, and actually did accuse her older brother, which led to some seriously unpleasant interactions with the police and child and family services. To this day I'm not sure why she didn't make the allegation against me; it would have been so easy for her. She's a very bright girl (woman, now), charming, personable and convincing, and she had that therapist wrapped around her finger.

The day treatment therapist believed her to the extent that he ordered us to put her into residential treatment. If we didn't, he'd write an affidavit for the police, attesting to all of our abuse. So, we put her in residential treatment. There, the therapist was wiser and she had less room for twisting the truth. The program she was in wasn't specific for BPD, it was structured for troubled teens generally, with a specific focus on substance abuse but with a recognition that substance abuse in kids is almost always a symptom as much as a problem itself. But it did include a pretty deep focus on identifying base truth and eliminating self-deception, and the therapist and staff were quite good at recognizing what was truth and what was not (calling on us as needed). The program also taught a lot of excellent strategies for self-management and even included a little bit of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, though not Dialectical Behavior Therapy (the variant of CBT that has proven most effective for BPD). The program taught, and she learned... but she didn't actually apply it until much later.

Here's another BPDism: when we put her in residential treatment, she was convinced that we had done it to "get rid of her". Never mind that the program required heavy parental and family involvement, to the point that we were at the facility seven days per week, and her treatment pretty much took over our entire lives (to the detriment of our other kids, unfortunately). Not to mention the money. Her facility was actually incredibly cheap as such things go, but it was still almost $10,000 per month. Luckily we had good insurance that covered most of it. When the massive commitment of time and resources we'd made was pointed out to her, she just argued that we only did that so we'd look good to family and neighbors. The level of brain-twisting required to follow BPD logic is enormous.

When she finally "graduated" from the treatment, after more than a year, she was actually quite improved, but still extremely hard to live with. Eventually, though, she tried to kill herself again and went back in. She was there a total of three times. By the third, they didn't keep her long because they re

Re:Right to bear arms

[Nidi62]

What we do know though... is that a couple of good guys with a gun, stopped a bad guy with a gun.

No, police stopped a bad guy with a gun. There's a difference. If there stronger gun control, the bad guy might not have had a gun but those police still would have. Of course, it will be spun exactly as you did in order to fight gun control. And I say this as a person who owns multiple firearms, including one that would be classified as an "assault weapon". We do need more gun control, even if it is nothing more than a mandatory, government funded and provided class before you can get a permit that covers gun safety, gun laws, and basic handling/marksmanship.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[Nidi62]

Now that I have apologized for that, will the GOP all of the violent acts committed by their party?

What violent acts by the GOP in any form of recent history?

Even the Tea Party high levels of activity, were quite peaceful at rallies....

I seem to remember a recently elected Congressman from the Midwest pleading guilty to bodyslamming a reporter. Or by "recent" do you mean only within the last few days?

Mirror says ugly

[Texmaize]

When I read and post on these forums, I am disparaged for being conservative. I am called ignorant, racist, and violent...because I disagree with the Bay Area take on tax policy and the way to achieve human dignity. But yet again, here we are with yet another news story where someone from the left is using violence to silence others.

At some point, don't you guys have to look in the mirror and notice there is something wrong with you? ALL these shootings, all violent political protest are coming from your ideology. How quickly you forget shootings like Senator Gabby Giffords came from a leftist. You claim tolerance, but in actuality practice none. Do you not think that those "cute" photos showing the beheading of Trump have an effect on society? Do you not see how all this talk of people who disagree with you as evil, inhuman, and beneath contempt doesn't translate to this?

In these forums, the stench of this ignorance runs rampant. If you post any hate few spew about the president, a republican, or a conservative, it will be modded up. The more dehumanizing, the higher the mod. None of these posts are ever backed with links, or logical arguments. It is enough to hate.

And when the hate is expressed in the inevitable outcome of murder, you will pretend you had nothing to do with it. Instead of preaching calm or making reasoned arguments, you will conveniently forget how you fed the hate machine. The blood of these killings in partly on your hands, and my guess is that most of you are too chicken shit to look in the mirror and ask why is my so called ideology of peace and tolerance producing so much violence?

Re:Thoughts and prayers

[Anonymous Coward]

Thoughts and prayers? So nothing, really. You're doing nothing. Bravo.

No, I'm also changing my facebook picture....

Re:Gun Control

[Nite_Hawk]

While I don't enjoy envoking godwin, promoting gun control only for your political opponents feels a lot like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Here's my counter proposal:

1) Let's respect the 2nd amendment for all of our law-abiding citizens.
2) Let's avoid demonizing political opponents based on the actions of a single individual.
3) Let's try to understand the motivations of the killer.
4) Let's try to think rationally about our policy as a country rather than having knee-jerk reactions based on fear.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[sycodon]

I bet he was shooting it sideways like in the movies.

Re:Hate filled libtard

[MobyDisk]

Early reports say he first walked up to there, unarmed asking "Hey, are these republicans or democrats?"...

That quote is waay to politically charged to go uncited. So here it is: Rep. Ron DeSantis said he was asked, “Are those Republicans or Democrats out there practicing?”

Re:Thoughts and prayers

[ganjadude]

gun violence is down and has been going down for decades now.....

Re:Hate filled libtard

[Anonymous Coward]

Jared Laughner shot a democratic congresswoman in the face. There have been numerous shootings and bombings at abortion clinics, at least 5 major incidents. Some of these are attributed to the Army of God, which also bombed some gay night clubs. The bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was carried out by Eric Rudolph who wanted to fight against abortion and the "homosexual agenda." There's the Phineas Priesthood responsible for plotting and sometimes succeeding in blowing up gay night clubs, FBI buildings, abortion clinics, etc. Let's not forget the unabomber's reign of terror. Let's not forget the Oklahoma City bombing. Or the Charleston Church shooting. Or the Sihk temple shooting.

Of course I understand that a few nutcases with right leaning ideology doesn't mean all of those with right leaning ideology are unable to differentiate right from wrong. Surely you know that not everybody on the left is about to start taking pot shots at those on the right, don't you?

Re:Hate filled libtard

[Nidi62]

2. Was a skinhead, tied to KKK group. KKK founded by Democrats to destroy Republican reconstruction efforts in the south. KKK = Democrats. 3. Dylan Roof prop of choice was Confederate flag. History lesson: Confederate flag = Democrats. Northern states (the Union) led by Republicans.

Mid 1800s Democrats=modern day Republicans in terms of political leanings. Your argument is disingenuous at best.

Re:Right to bear arms

[Oswald McWeany]

By definition, this is not a mass shooting. A mass shooting, by government definition, is 4 or more killed.

So if the people shot end up dying from the wounds then it is a mass shooting, but if they survive it's not?

That sounds a flakey definition. Surely a mass shooting should be based on how many people get hit, not how many people get killed.

If 100 people get shot but only one died it wouldn't be a mass shooting by that definition.

Re:And gun violence in the USA is up...

[Tailhook]

Almost every place in the world has seen gun violence go down in the last 20-30 years. Almost... the USA is the exception as usual

Allow me to inject a little reality using a source you doubtless regard as truth incarnate: Washington Post, 2015: We’ve had a Massive Decline in gun violence in the United States. Here’s why

This decline in gun violence is part of an overall decline in violent crime. According to the FBI's data, the national rate of violent crime has decreased 49 percent since its apex in 1991. Even as a certain type of mass shooting is apparently becoming more frequent, America has become a much less violent place.

You're worldview is fictional. You've been inculcated with fictional nonsense about the US and you're regurgitating it all over the interwebs.

You'll note that wapo at no point credited gun control for the "massive decline." You'll then dismiss that as it fails to align with the fictions you prefer to indulge. The massive decline corresponds to a period in which firearm ownership and concealed carry in the US have both grown at phenomenal rates. There is no correlation between the growth of firearms and gun violence; exactly the opposite. Another reality you'll need to subsume under your preferred bullshit narrative.

Re:Right to bear arms

[Nidi62]

when did police stop being people??

Where did I say they did? I said "good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun" as an argument against gun control doesn't work with police as the good guy because even with gun control in the US police would remain armed. Unless you are arguing that the US would full on ban all guns and disarm most police at the same time, which any reasonable person would agree would not happen.

Re: Thoughts and prayers

[dcw3]

Because THATS worked so well for the starving, homeless, indigent, etc in the world. Don't push your religion on me.

Nobody was proselytizing to you. Just because you have a chip on your shoulder, doesn't mean the rest of us have to pay any attention to your childishness.

Strange description

[CODiNE]

the Alexandria shooting suspect has died from injuries.

I understand why arrested people are called "suspected ____" as they are considered innocent until proven guilty but this grammar is so odd to me logically.

There's never media reports of a "suspected shooter" on the loose... nobody at the field considered him a "suspect" and he was caught red handed, then immediately when caught it became LESS definitive that he shot anyone.

I guess the scenario defines the terminology.

False equivalency

[sjbe]

Only if every auto accident is an argument to ban automobiles...

You're comparing an accident with a transportation device with an attempted homicide with a purpose built weapon. Automobiles have plenty of uses besides killing something. Firearms are purpose built weapons. Comparing the two is a false equivalency.

Re:False equivalency

[werepants]

It doesn't make a lick of difference what they're designed to do. It doesn't matter if I run you over with a car, drown you in a bathtub, shoot you with a gun, or beat you to death with a wooden spoon; you're still just equally dead.

Wrong. The purpose matters because cars provide immeasurable benefit to society in terms of increased productivity, boosts to the economy, lives saved because of rapid transport... cars are transportation technology that happen to cause occasional harm. A huge portion of their continued development is focused on reducing the injuries and harm that they cause. Guns are a technology designed to cause injury, and any other benefits they have are secondary. Which technology, if removed from our society, would cause more economic, social, and personal harm?

Re: Hate filled libtard

[Jhon]

"You saw this for days in the streets after Trump won..."

You also saw a LOT of news about Trump supporters attacking, beating, vandalizing or intimidating people of various ethnicities or ideologies. Of course, they either couldn't be verified or turned out to be out-right fakes by folks on the "other side" who felt they needed to lie or stage fake hate because... TRUMP. Not out of any rational fear based on reality -- just irrational fear of living in their own echo-chambers for so long.

Re:Thoughts and prayers

[PoisOnouS]

I understand your reasons for posting something like this anonymously. Really, you're no different than the Antifa twats running around in masks and perpetrating violence on people with whom they disagree. The average conservative sees the progressive liberal as nutty, in need of help and a drain on resources but rarely do they wish death upon you. I see progressives wishing death and violence on conservatives daily. The violence has been breaking out in gun free zones and liberal enclaves. It's going to be different when you start dipping your toes into areas where we still have 2nd amendment rights. I promise you that I will never initiate violence against any American who isn't a direct threat to me or my family. The moment you become a direct threat, you will be ended. Do you understand?

Re: Didn't any of them have a gun?

[cryptizard]

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but not even people that support gun control are advocating that the police shouldn't have guns. Virginia is an open carry state and no private citizen heroes helped take him down.

Re:Thoughts and prayers

[cayenne8]

Put a boat in a creek that moves at walking pace. Sprint to a spot 100 feet ahead of it and try to hit it repeatedly. You might be surprised at how hard it is to hit. For additional fun let it get ahead of you and then run and gun along the shoreline trying to keep up.

Hmm...last time I tried this exercise...the boat passengers got REALLY pissed at me....

;)

Re:And gun violence in the USA is up...

[Nite_Hawk]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The US has seen a massive decline in violent crime in general, along with a decline in teen pregnancies. There is no correlation between increased gun-ownership, increased conceal-and-carry, and increased violent crime.

While it's only a theory and correlation does not strictly imply causation, I cautiously subscribe to the lead-crime hypothesis:

"Second, this correlation holds true with no exceptions. Every country studied has shown this same strong correlation between leaded gasoline and violent crime rates. Within the United States, you can see the data at the state level. Where lead concentrations declined quickly, crime declined quickly. Where it declined slowly, crime declined slowly. The data even holds true at the neighborhood level - high lead concentrations correlate so well that you can overlay maps of crime rates over maps of lead concentrations and get an almost perfect fit.

Third, and probably most important, the data goes beyond just these models. As Drum himself points out, "if econometric studies were all there were to the story of lead, you'd be justified in remaining skeptical no matter how good the statistics look." But the chemistry and neuroscience of lead gives us good reason to believe the connection. Decades of research has shown that lead poisoning causes significant and probably irreversible damage to the brain. Not only does lead degrade cognitive abilities and lower intelligence, it also degrades a person's ability to make decisions by damaging areas of the brain responsible for "emotional regulation, impulse control, attention, verbal reasoning, and mental flexibility."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/a...
http://www.motherjones.com/env...
  http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

Re: Hate filled libtard

[WrongMonkey]

In the leftist world view, property is a collective agreement. Ownership of property can only exist within the structure of a well-functioning society. In Mad Max anarchy, you have no right to property beyond what you can personally defend. You might be able to personally defend your own small homestead, but property beyond that is yours only by virtue of the state that you live in. So, to the leftist, the question is not about who "deserves their property" or not, its about allocation of resources to maintain and sustain the social order that make ownership of property possible in the first place.

Re:And gun violence in the USA is up...

[Nite_Hawk]

"Second, this correlation holds true with no exceptions. Every country studied has shown this same strong correlation between leaded gasoline and violent crime rates.

So I take it South Africa wasn't included in the study?

That's a fair point. A quick google for violent crime rates in South Africa shows a (murder) trend that increases rapidly and peaks in the early 90s, then falls:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The difference is that leaded gas was still widely used there after the peak. I did find an article talking generally about violent crime in South Africa:

http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews...

The political climate I think is the big thing. Negotiations regarding ending Apartheid started in 1990 and ended with the election in 1994. That violent crime increased up to those negotiations and then decreased to 1970s levels afterward doesn't seem to me to be a coincidence. I imagine that's overshadowing everything else, including whatever effects leaded gasolline are having on their (still very high!) violent crime rates.