Guns

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Living in gun-lovers’ fantasy land

It’s bad enough that some conservatives are trying to pretend this latest attack had nothing to do with racism when the shooter himself told everyone before and during the attack that it was all about racism. It’s bad enough that people in South Carolina are pretending like this has nothing to do with a culture that rewards racism while flying the Confederate flag over the state capitol.

But we are once again getting the asinine argument that this all could have been stopped if only everyone had a gun.

Yes, that’s right — the solution to too many guns is more guns. gun nuts

In this weird alternate fantasy reality, gun nuts are convinced that more guns will solve everything and if we have more guns, there will be less gun violence.

This runs counter to every single fact you can find on the subject. States that have placed restrictions on guns (like Connecticut) have found that gun deaths have dropped by huge amounts. States that weakened gun laws (like Missouri) have found that their gun deaths have increased by huge amounts.  Countries that had problems like ours that put into place strict gun laws (such as Australia) also saw their gun deaths fall by huge amounts.

The numbers don’t lie — the NRA does though, all the time.

Somehow the idea that “An armed society is a polite society” appeals to these people. Think about it — these people believe that you need to be afraid of dying in order to be a polite person. What does that say about them?

This fantasy that “if we all had guns we could have stopped the bad guy” is also not supported by any facts. Oh sure, you can find that one-in-a-hundred example where that happened, but in the vast majority of cases, both sides having guns only escalated the matter and caused more deaths and injuries. Even trained police have been hurt and have hurt innocent bystanders in shoot-outs, so imagine what havoc untrained Billy Bob can cause.

Despite the facts, the gun nuts believe that if everyone had a gun, the good guys would always hit, the bad guys would always miss, no one would ever get hurt, and then the hero will walk away, put on a pair of sunglasses, and make a witty comment. That’s how it works in the movies, right?

This is the same mentality that believes torture is successful at getting information even though every single study ever done in the history of the world has found the opposite. But it works on “24”!

The inability to distinguish fiction from reality puts many people in secure hospitals. However, it is a requirement for being an NRA leader.

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It’s time we started profiling conservative white men

Let’s face facts, people. Other than 9/11, the greatest terrorist attacks in America have been predominately from conservative, Christian white males. You are far more likely to die from a Christian attack than a Muslim one here.  It’s time we got rid of our political correctness and admit that these people all want us dead!

Who blew up a building in Kansas City? Conservative white guys. Who flew that plane into the IRS building? o-CHARLESTON-CHURCH-SHOOTING-570A conservative white guy. Who shot up the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin? Who murdered people in that church in Knoxville? Who blew up a bomb at the Olympic park in Atlanta? Who shot up the Holocaust Museum? And who, today, killed children in a church in South Carolina?

Hint: It wasn’t Muslims.

Those are only some of the examples. Clearly, we must start treating all conservative Christian white men as terrorists. Perhaps we should start deporting them all, regardless of whether we have evidence against them or not. And it’s not like we need to worry about rights like habeas corpus — these are terrorists we’re talking about. Simply being a conservative Christian white male is enough to be a suspect.

This policy of profiling and saying that every conservative white male is a potential terrorist and therefore deserves no rights should be quite popular among the people who have for years argued against giving rights to suspected terrorists: Conservative white males.

Oh, and we also need to start profiling babies. Last year, more people in America were killed by toddlers handling guns than by Muslims committing acts of terror. Clearly, babies cannot be trusted — our only solution is to profile them all and place restrictions on where babies can be taken. (I mean, duh, we’re not going to restrict guns, are we? They have rights, you know!)

* If you can’t see the point I am making here, please refrain from the angry responses.

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Tired of the Gun Control Shuffle

Whenever there was another mass shooting, I used to post about the “Gun Control Shuffle”:

1. Have a mass shooting.

2. Bury the dead and cry.

3. Politicians talk about the need for gun control so this never happens again.gun-deaths-us-other-countries-chart

4. Gun manufacturers, through their lobby group the NRA, warns that the government is out to take everyone’s guns.

5. Gun lovers buy lots of guns because they believe the NRA and the right-wing media.

6. Gun manufacturers’ income skyrockets.

7. Gun manufacturers use this money to bribe politicians through their lobby group, the NRA.

8. Despite overwhelming public support, no gun control passes.

9. Another mass shooting occurs.

Repeat every few months.

However, I found that instead of repeating the Shuffle post every few months, I was doing it every few weeks.  And lately, it seems like I would have to be doing it every few days.

Have you noticed?  Have you noticed how we’ve become so used to it that it hardly even makes the news? That everyone just says “Well, that’s it. There’s another shooting” and then walks away, as if there’s not a damn thing we can do about it?

I guess we as a society have decided that lives just aren’t as important to us as guns are; that there is no number of deaths that will make us do anything about the problem; that we just are giving up and letting the small percentage of gun nuts bully us all into letting them have their way.

 

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Yes, it is your fault

gun nuts“The people who do these mass shootings are crazy!” the NRA says.  “It’s not the fault of the guns!  It’s not our fault!”  

Yes, if only there were some way to try to prevent crazy people from having access to guns.  Some sort of, I dunno, background check system.  Oh, really?  That has been proposed?  Well, gee, who would be against something as sensible as that?

The NRA?  They’re the ones who are against that?

Clearly I am missing something.  Tell me again how this isn’t at least partially their fault?

Editorial cartoon: Our new flag

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Talk about stupid

People who post this meme are stupid:

stupid

This is what is known as a “straw man” argument. You create a straw man of your own and then knock it down, and then prance around pretending you made some great accomplishment. Instead, you just look stupid — or worse, dishonest.

Nobody is saying that. No one thinks that stronger gun laws will be obeyed by criminals, any more than laws against murder have stopped all murders. Using the logic of this meme, all laws are bad because criminals will ignore them. Might as well not have any laws at all, hm?

It’s almost as stupid as the people who laugh at “gun free zones” as if they are so much smarter than the politicians who created such laws. Those laws do not create a magic zone protecting everyone inside. They say that if you have a gun in that zone, your punishment will be harsher. It’s like signs saying that you have to slow down in a construction zone. It doesn’t prevent speeders, but those speeders who get caught pay a harsher penalty.

Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what laws are supposed to do — to encourage actions that benefit society and discourage actions that don’t? What in the world is stupid about that?

“But criminals won’t obey them anyway!” they say. There are two responses to this:

First, many gun deaths do not come from “criminals.” They come from guns in the home. These guns cause accidents (there’s at least one case per week where some kid shoots his brother with a gun in the house). They cause suicides. They are available for people to use in anger against their spouse. More guns means more gun deaths. (Duh)

Second, where gun control has been in place, gun deaths go down. This is another duh. States with gun control have less gun deaths per capita. The US has more gun deaths than any other advanced civilized country. States that have lessened gun control have seen their gun deaths skyrocket. Gun laws may not stop gun deaths completely, but they work.

We can do something about all these Americans who are dying on our streets. We can do something to reduce our outrageous number of gun deaths. Laws work.

And if you can’t acknowledge all that, you must be some special kind of stupid.

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Right to be Threatening > Right to Not Get Shot

How did we ever get to the point where the right to carry firearms is greater than the right to not be shot?

The guys carrying the guns may falsely believe they are safer with their guns around (I say “falsely” because statistics show that having a gun increases your chance of being murdered) but what about the rest of us?  Don’t we have a right to go to public places without seeing someone carrying a gun and having to worry whether that person is a law-abiding citizen or some deranged madman just about to commit another mass shooting?  Places can say “no shirt, no shoes, no service” but not “no guns”?  Give me a break.

Good old Joe the Plumber (who isn’t named Joe and is not a plumber) sees it differently. “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights,” he says, which of course calmly reassures those who lost their children.   What a nice guy!  Oh, wait.  I’m sorry.  I meant “asshole.”  What an asshole!   joeplumber

A long standing exception to the 1st Amendment is called “Time, Place, and Manner.”  The 1st Amendment clearly says Congress shall pass no law regulating speech, but of course they do.  Your speech can be limited in a number of reasonable ways.    You can’t stand in the middle of a courtroom during a trial and give a speech about taxation.  You can’t have a rally at 3 am using loudspeakers.  You can’t disrupt a military funeral claiming that “God hates fags.”  The time, place, and manner of your speech can be regulated.

The 2nd Amendment is not as clearly written as the 1st, and even includes the words “well regulated” which appears nowhere else in the Constitution.  So for people to say that the right to carry a gun cannot be regulated in the same way speech is doesn’t make any sense.  Of course it can.  If they can keep you from getting up in the middle of Chipotles and giving a speech, then they can keep you from bringing a gun in there.   And this does not infringe on your right to own a gun, but only limits where you can take it.

(Do not be distracted by what Joe was responding to.  The murder’s father rant blaming the NRA was ridiculous — he’s the father; he holds more  responsibility for his son’s actions than anyone else.)

 

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The Gun Control Shuffle

There was another mass shooting today, so that can only mean that it’s time once again for America’s favorite pastime! It’s the Gun Control Shuffle!

1. Have a mass shooting.

2. Bury the dead and cry.

3. Politicians talk about the need for gun control so this never happens again.

4. Gun manufacturers, through their lobby group the NRA, warns that the government is out to take everyone’s guns.

5. Gun lovers buy lots of guns because they believe the NRA and the right-wing media.SHOOTING-master675

6. Gun manufacturers’ income skyrockets.

7. Gun manufacturers use this money to bribe politicians through their lobby group, the NRA.

8. Despite overwhelming public support, no gun control passes.

9. Another mass shooting occurs.

Repeat every few months.

Note:  This is the fourth Gun Control Shuffle in the past ten months, so we’re right on schedule.

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Gun nuts shocked that people don’t want guns everywhere

A Texas gun rights group has called upon its more extreme members to stop the “going into Chipotle with huge guns and scaring all the kids” campaign.  Surprisingly, it hasn’t been very well received.

Responsible gun owners around the country (yes, there are some) spoke out against this stupid idea, and, I am happy to report, the nuts listened. chipotle-guns

“We must once again adjust in a way that shines a positive light on our efforts, our members, and our respective organizations,” they said. “We have decided the prudent path, to further our goals, is to immediately cease taking long guns into corporate businesses unless invited.”

Yeah, who would have ever seen that coming, huh?

These gun lovers have this movie-inspired vision that if a bad guy were to show up, their swift actions with their own guns would save the day — and just like in the movies, all the bad guys would miss, the good guys would never be hurt, and no innocent bystanders would ever be in danger.   Just like in the old west (where, by the way, the laws all prohibited bringing guns into any public place).

Ask any officer trained in how to deal with exactly this situation what the chances of that are, and then find out how many shoot-outs with actual, real, trained SWAT teams end up in the exact way they want them to.  Now imagine a bunch of Texans drinking margeritas in Chipotle and tell me what you think the result will be.

But for now, let’s at least be thankful that a few more sensible minds have taken hold in Texas.  (Never thought I’d type that sentence.)

Editorial cartoon: Don’t hold your breath