Gun control

That really does hit the nail square on the head.
 
COMMENTARY • Opinion • ISSUE 49•16 • Apr 18, 2013
By Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President Of The National Rifle Association

I won.

After months of debate, the Senate met yesterday and rejected a minor provision to expand background checks on firearm purchases, the last remaining piece of a proposed gun control package vigorously opposed by the National Rifle Association and myself. Now the bill is entirely dead, and I’ve won. I won, and those of you who are against me and what I stand for lost. Big time.

For those of you who are keeping score, it’s Wayne LaPierre: 1. Gun control proponents: 0.

I’ve succeeded in keeping Congress under my control, protecting the interests of my financial backers, and, most importantly, ensuring that deadly firearms remain abundantly available to anyone who wants them for the foreseeable future. So, once again, in case you were wondering who won and who lost this week, we—Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, and firearms industry—are the clear-cut victors. You—folks who think the Second Amendment is outdated, the families of various shooting victims, and the President of the United States—are the losers. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I absolutely fecking walloped you.

Now, I’ll admit, winning was very fun. It was fun for two reasons. 1) I got exactly what I wanted—every single little bit. Hell, even one measure that would have strengthened gun trafficking laws, for Christ’s sakes, died on the vine. And 2) winning means I got to watch other people lose—people I admittedly have no respect for and really enjoy watching get upset.

To the victor go the spoils, I suppose.

And not only that, the process of winning was fun. It was also pretty easy. Surprisingly so! All I had to do was make sure legislators knew that if they dared vote for any gun bill that might run contrary to the interests of the country’s weapons manufacturers, they would lose funding from the NRA, and we would make sure their pro-gun constituents would vote them out of office the next chance they got. It’s what I always do, and it’s been working for years, so I did it again, and it paid off, and I won.

God, it feels good to win. It just feels really, really good.

Now, even though you got absolutely annihilated here, I bet you actually thought you had a pretty good chance this time around. Four months ago, after 20 children were senselessly gunned down in the one place they should have been safe, you said to yourself, “Enough is enough. We’re going to get to work and make some serious changes to the gun laws in this country so that this kind of thing never happens again.” I could tell you all really wanted to win, but I knew you would lose.

The truth is, you never had a fecking chance. I had Congress in my back pocket the entire time, and so when that big gun control proposal reared its ugly head, we gradually chipped away at it, snipping away provisions for an assault rifle ban and restrictions on high-capacity magazines until all that was left was the idea of expanding background checks to keep military-grade killing implements from falling into the hands of criminals and the mentally unhinged, a relatively innocuous measure supported by 90 percent of Americans.

And, because I was winning by such a large margin at that point and was on my way to a blowout victory, even that tiny little provision didn’t stand a chance at being passed into law. In fact, it couldn’t even clear a minor procedural hurdle. Hell, legislators from both sides of the aisle came together yesterday and crushed it right out of the gate, making me, and the groups that finance me, very, very happy.

Take a look at this face. This is the face of a winner. If that makes you angry, look in the mirror because that’s the face of a loser. A huge, unequivocal loser.

I bet you’re not ready to give up, though. I bet you’re still willing to get out there and lose all over again. Maybe you think you can pressure your elected officials to follow their consciences and actually listen to their constituents instead of immediately bowing to special interest groups that don’t give a shit about the thousands of people who die every year in acts of gun violence. Maybe you think you can rally the majority behind a common cause and effect some real change in Washington that makes us all safer so that the people of this country don’t have to live in constant fear.

You can’t. I certainly invite you to try—because I enjoy winning—but trust me, nothing you do is going to change anything. What’s going to happen is I’m going to keep on winning, and you’re going to keep on losing. That’s just how it’s going to be from here on out. Because that’s how it’s always been.

I won. You lost. Bye.
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David Simon:

Dead children and monied politicians.

What is left to say?

A sane man’s contempt for the United States Senate must now be certain and complete. Given the inertia on even the most modest legislative response to the mass murder of schoolchildren, those still credulous enough to believe that our governance is representative of popular will are either Barnum-sized suckers, or worse, tacit participants in tragedies soon to come. An entrenched collection of careerist incumbents, chosen and retained through their singular ability to gather cash from money troughs over six-year intervals — and the unrestrained ability of capital to keep those troughs constantly full — none of this is worthy of any intelligent citizen’s respect or allegiance.

Never mind that the higher house of our bicameral farce is one in which 40 percent of the American population choses 60 percent of the representation; that millions of New Yorker or Texans, say, are represented and served to the same degree as thousands of Montanans. And never mind that the lower house has now been gerrymandered to a point where a majority of American votes are guaranteed to achieve a minority of the representation — ignore, for the sake of argument, the ridiculous and antiquated structural impediments to popular will ever achieving a popular outcome. Don’t worry that mess. Just focus on the fecking money.


Our elections — and therefore our governance — have been purchased. Instead of publicly funded elections, instead of level playing fields, instead of processes in which the power of actual ideas prevails over the size of the bankroll, we have given our democratic birthright over to capital itself. A gun manufacturer’s opinion can be thousands of times louder than the voice of any grieving Connecticut parent. And the damage that might come to political careers from individual Americans who wish to have gun laws require as much responsibility of gun owners as, say, motor vehicle laws? It pales when compared to the damage that can come to political careers from a lobbying group backed to hilt by those who will profit directly from the fear and violence in our culture.

Measured against profit and political security, dead children mean nothing. Common sense is easily dispatched. Truth itself is expendable in any circumstance. Only cash still has meaning to those who claim to represent us. And the cash will always be there, more with every election cycle. Unsatisfied with the profits that can be achieved within the context of actual representative government, capital has instead succeeded in buying the remnants of democracy at wholesale prices, so that profit can always be maximized and any other societal need or priority can be ignored.

That corporations are people was not the great effrontery of the U.S. Supreme Court’s evisceration of democratic principle. No, for all of its ugly tenor, that statement has long been true under the law; corporations have long existed as a concept by which business interests could have the legal standing of individuals. Corporations-are-people got the righteous ink, but the venal sin at the heart of Citizens United lies in the appalling equivocation that declares money to be speech.

One man, one vote? And may the best ideas prevail in an open and discerning marketplace of ideas? Please. When career politicians are obliged to contemplate the cash available for dishonorable votes, or the cash that will be delivered to opponents in the wake of honorable ones, how can any actual idea matter? Every day, there is less of this republic to respect, but in the United States Senate, there is little to nothing that remains. True, popular sentiment can’t be as easily be undone in a national contest of wide scope in which both parties are equally monied and mobilized, but it isn’t the American presidency that’s broken. No, it’s the legislative branch; cash money has wrecked Congress, and in doing that much, it has paralyzed American governance beyond all practical hope.

Only fools play a rigged game forever, and governments that elevate money and firearms over human life, that treat its people and their will with such indifference — such governments eventually lose not only honor, but credibility. People lose the reason to believe. Eventually, a deep and abiding apathy prevails. Either that, or someone picks up a brick.
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http://davidsimon.com/dead-children-and-monied-politicians/
(I originally got it fromhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/18/senate-gun-control-fail-david-simon)

More of a broadside on Congress in general, but its stark clarity in the wake of the gun control votes is something else.
 
Not really surprising.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/politics/congress-gun-laws/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Reid sets aside Senate gun legislation for now

Washington (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put proposed gun legislation on pause Thursday, setting it aside for now after the defeat a day earlier of major provisions sought by President Barack Obama and Democrats in the aftermath of the Newtown school massacre.
The move emphasized the solid victory for the National Rifle Association and its conservative Republican allies in what Obama called "round one" of the fight for tougher gun laws.
It also shifted the gun debate from details of particular proposals to political sniping by both sides in an attempt to generate public support on the divisive issue.
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Bulletproof-backpacks-008.jpg


US schools weigh bulletproof uniforms: 'It's no different than a seatbelt in a car'

As gun control legislation grinds to halt in Washington, parents & teachers take matters into their own hands:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/26/us-bulletproof-uniforms-gun-control
 
Just bought a Walther P4 for $450. It's ex-West German police issue and is in great nick. Came with the original leather holster. Trouble is, 9mm rounds are getting very hard to come by so I won't be doing much target practice for a while.
 
Boy, 5, Shoots And Kills 2-Year-Old Sister, Police Say

A 5-year old boy accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister in rural southern Kentucky with a rifle he had received a present last year, the local coroner said.

Police said the boy shot his sister with a .22-caliber rifle on Tuesday afternoon just moments after his mother stepped out onto the porch.

Their mother claims she had been gone for “no more than three minutes” when the incident transpired, Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told WKYT-TV.

The girl was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.

White told local newspaper the Lexington Herald-Leader, that the boy had received the rifle as a gift. It was usually kept in a corner of the house, and no one realized a shell had been left inside.

"It's a Crickett," White said in reference to the rifle. "It's a little rifle for a kid….The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

"Just one of those crazy accidents," he continued.

State police said the shooting occurred when the boy was “playing” with the rifle, but provided no further information.

It remains unclear if any charges will be filed, Kentucky State Police spokesman Trooper Billy Gregory said.

Keystone Sporting Arms, manufacturers the Crickett and an assortment of other products geared towards children.

The company’s slogan is “my first rifle” and its website boasts a “Kids Corner” section, which depicts young boys and girls at shooting ranges and on bird and deer hunts.
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http://rt.com/usa/boy-fatally-shoots-sister-686/
 
Parental negligence, should be charged but seeing as the mother has lost a child I figure no charges will be filed.

But ffs, why would a parent a) give a 5-year old a rifle, and b) not check for live ammo before allowing the child to play with it around others?



On a separate note, it's apparently 3x more likely for a resident in a household to be killed if there is a firearm maintained in the same household. Funny NRA and the media never bring this alarming statistic up.
 
Maybe on the planet that senator comes from he was winning, whereas to many people he was being smug and seizing upon a terrorist attack to 'make a joke at the expense of the left'.

He genuinely didn't seem to grasp that he was coming across like an utter asshole.
 
HALFWAY -- Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire.

Someone figured out in a few seconds that the bullets were not drawing blood because they were blanks and the exercise was a drill, designed to test Pine Eagle's preparation for an assault by "active shooters" who were, in reality, members of the school staff. But those few seconds left everybody plenty scared.

Principal Cammie DeCastro said it became clear very quickly just how many of the school's 15 teachers would have survived. The answer: "Not many," she said.

Elementary teacher Morgan Gover, 31, said only two teachers would have lived to tell the tale. She admitted being scared, and also acknowledged she would have been among the casualties, having taken several fake direct hits from the shooters.

"I'll tell you, the whole situation was horrible," she said. "I got a couple in the front and a couple in the back."

The surprised staff had received training from the Union County Sheriff's Office on active shooter scenarios. They had been told they had some options, such as not rushing out of their classrooms when gunfire erupted, and locking and barricading their doors.

They weren't expecting a drill like this, and they were caught by surprise when the two men entered and began firing.

"There was some commotion," DeCastro said.

The goal of the drill was to learn how people would react, so better emergency plans could be made, she said.

It was a wake-up for many of the teachers.

"It was shocking," said elementary teacher Dollie Beck, 54.

Surprisingly, the drill made Beck aware that she would not have recognized the sounds of gunfire. "I would have blown it off as kids' sounds in the hall," she said.

The drill has since prompted her to keep her classroom door locked and to think of windows as escape routes, she said. But the biggest insight for her was the reminder that she is in charge of the youngsters in her classroom, and would have to remain calm in an emergency.

"Emotion begets emotion," she said.

Gover said before the drill, she was comfortable she had a plan to deal with such a situation. What she learned was, her plan wasn't much good. "It heightened my awareness about what's around me," she said.

Halfway, population 288, is the eastern Oregon ranching town that became world-famous 13 years ago as the globe's first "Internet city." The city council changed Halfway's name to Half.com in return for $73,000 from a Philadelphia-based Internet bazaar of the same name that sold books, CDs, movies and the like on-line at half price.

The town got its old name back a year later when the on-line bazaar was sold to eBay. Now Halfway is back in the real world, where people sometimes enter schools and open fire.

DeCastro has heard some criticisms of the drill from townsfolk, but is convinced it was valuable. "For us not to know how we were going to respond is leaving us open," she said.

Beck and Gover agree.

"I'm in charge of a pile of kids," said Gover. "It made me analyze as a teacher what my role is for these babies."

The district's Safety Committee and the School Board now will critically evaluate policies and procedures and decide what to do next, said DeCastro.

Armed teachers is one possible outcome, she said. Or the district may get armed and trained volunteers from the community to watch over the school in shifts, she said. Tougher doors and better locks are other options.

Gover said the teachers tend to favor having one or two armed teachers in the building at all times.

"We are so remote," Gover said, "we are going to have to take care of ourselves."

But thinking about active shooter scenarios is hard, she said.

"We are tender-hearted people who give hugs all day. We don't think like that."

-- Richard Cockle
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http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/04/gunfire_and_moments_of_fear_as.html
:wenger:
 
Surprisingly, the drill made Beck aware that she would not have recognized the sounds of gunfire. "I would have blown it off as kids' sounds in the hall," she said.
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The most interesting thing for me. One problem with gun control as it stands is that its advocates would rather people were totally ignorant of everything to do with guns. That doesn't promote a culture of safety. Knowledge is power.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Come on Dwayne, that doesn't make any sense. Failing to recognise the sound of gunfire in a completely incongruous situation has nothing to with ignorance. It's just the way your brain processes any sensory stimuli. Heavily influenced by context and expectation.
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Perhaps but the sentiment applies to a lot of situations with firearms. You know, when people don't know how to use them properly and do something stupid, like pointing one at somebody (first mistake) and pulling the trigger (second mistake) without checking to make sure the chamber is empty (third and often deadly mistake).

As for the teacher, well gunfire is pretty loud indoors. There isn't alot that could happen in a school at that volume that wouldn't be an emergency situation.
 
Too real for comfort at the time i imagine.

However we saw at Sandy Hook that the teachers were some of the heroes on that day and in a remote community their responsibilities must be greater still, not being in a comparable situation myself i would hold back from being too harsh on their methods.

The saddest thing is that it is felt to be necessary, strides could be made in gun controls tomorrow and thsi would still be a long road to travel [the NRA and the culture won't just mellow out overni9ght].
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The saddest thing is that it is felt to be necessary, strides could be made in gun controls tomorrow and thsi would still be a long road to travel [the NRA and the culture won't just mellow out overni9ght].
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That's the thing. Again, I feel like a lot of gun control advocates have the perception that if we ban guns the problem will simply go away. At times it seems a bit head in the sand and while this can equally be applied to the pro-gun stance, I think it's a bit more dangerous as it involves an abdication of responsibility. Promoting a culture of responsibility like Connecticut has done recently with laws regarding safe storage and regulating ammunition purchases will do a lot to prevent accidental deaths and suicides by firearm.
 
Some guns are specifically marketed to children. We banned them doing that with cigarettes years ago, why not this? I doubt any sane Senator/Congressperson would oppose that kind of gun control regulation.
 
Grinner said:
Some guns are specifically marketed to children. We banned them doing that with cigarettes years ago, why not this? I doubt any sane Senator/Congressperson would oppose that kind of gun control regulation.
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Guns should not be made for children, I wont even let mine have a toy gun.
That is my personal choice, I dont like them.
 
Grinner said:
Some guns are specifically marketed to children. We banned them doing that with cigarettes years ago, why not this? I doubt any sane Senator/Congressperson would oppose that kind of gun control regulation.
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Pretty sure that already exists, it's not like an 8 year old can walk into a gun shop and buy one.

Kids succumb to the glamour and grown-up-ness of guns easily. Many want to shoot because mom or dad do...having kid specific firearms in the marketplace is probably safer from a useage perspective as a full sized rifle can be difficult to wield safely.

I'm not keen on the idea but it's a personal choice if you want to get your daughter a pink camo .22lr rifle that's scaled down to fit her better. Unfortunately the fact remains that the parents must ensure their kid knows how dangerous they are and how to handle them responsibly. Also the kids must only handle the gun under (responsible) adult supervision and it absolutely has to be kept locked up, preferably with a trigger lock on it so no one gets hurt. Anything less is grossly negligent.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Pretty sure that already exists, it's not like an 8 year old can walk into a gun shop and buy one.

Kids succumb to the glamour and grown-up-ness of guns easily. Many want to shoot because mom or dad do...having kid specific firearms in the marketplace is probably safer from a useage perspective as a full sized rifle can be difficult to wield safely.

I'm not keen on the idea but it's a personal choice if you want to get your daughter a pink camo .22lr rifle that's scaled down to fit her better. Unfortunately the fact remains that the parents must ensure their kid knows how dangerous they are and how to handle them responsibly. Also the kids must only handle the gun under (responsible) adult supervision and it absolutely has to be kept locked up, preferably with a trigger lock on it so no one gets hurt. Anything less is grossly negligent.
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But why?

To conform to a gun-culture from an early age?
 
Exactly. I know why guns are marketed to kids but I think it's better to stop that and hope to change attitudes slowly by doing so.
 
verminater said:
But why?

To conform to a gun-culture from an early age?
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Not everyone shares your opinion, I guess?

Certainly in rural areas people have a different attitude toward guns. Film, televison, gaming all contribute to the 'culture' you speak of as well. When I was young we all wanted guns so our parents made us take a firearm safety/hunter education course. Smart thinking on their part but granted we were considerably older than 5 or 8.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Not everyone shares your opinion, I guess?

Certainly in rural areas people have a different attitude toward guns. Film, televison, gaming all contribute to the 'culture' you speak of as well. When I was young we all wanted guns so our parents made us take a firearm safety/hunter education course. Smart thinking on their part but granted we were considerably older than 5 or 8.
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No need to guess. I am fully aware of differing opinions.

Why don't we put kids in cars?
Get them jobs?
Supply them with alcohol?

If all it is, is conditioning them for adulthood....

Indeed, your alcohol laws are more stringent in the US than the UK, is that better? Maybe.
Why not the same attitude to guns?

I can only comment from my point of view, bearing in mind, I grew up in a different society.

I fail to see the logic though.
 
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