Now if you think everyone that I quoted is a fucking liar, you may have a point.
Saying!=doing. Does this really need to be said in a discussion about politics? Also, none of those quotes are about taking people’s guns, simply restricting the sales of one category, as well as other things designed to reduce shooting deaths.
For a politician, saying is the is the first step towards doing. If they are not intent on passing new legislation perhaps they should drink a tall glass of shut the fuck up. As I see it, they are just as much to blame for any hysteria if they are running their mouths just for ill advised political points.
The AW Ban, (note that word… ban) restricts production and sales, thereby eliminating scores of weapons from future sales. While it may not be taking anything from anyone today, it is prohibiting someone from owning what they want tomorrow.
The first ban re-classified several shotguns as destructive devices. Those gun owners who owned them and lived in states where DD’s were not permitted for civilian ownership had their property legislated away. They were forced to destroy or sell to out of state interests their private property. That sounds like taking something away to me.
As you point out, though, the opposite is also true and you can slippery-slope your way into tolerating everything under the sun. Imposing this little restriction on news coverage should in theory reduce school shootings… until another school shooting occurs which proves we weren’t restrictive enough, which means we add just a little more restrictions to, in theory, reduce school shootings… until another school shooting occurs which proves we still weren’t restrictive enough… etc.
Frankly, replacing schoolchildren is a lot easier than replacing lost freedoms. Even if the link was proved (and we’re far far far from doing so), I think I’m mentally and morally prepared to take some random casualties as the price of freedom.
Which is why gun sales always go up when people are concerned new restrictions are coming; it’s a regular and predictable phenomenon and it’s been going on for the better part of a year. At the moment, nobody’s taken anything, and while a law has been brought up in public, I don’t think one is on the table or under any serious discussion. Even if it was on the table, do you think “they’re coming for your guns!” contributes to a rational discussion? I’m going to go way out on a limb and say that encouraging people to go nuts is probably not such a good thing.
While there is no specific bill on the table yet, POTUS, AG, SECSTATE, prominent members of the Senate and the Speaker of the House are all fanning the fires. Lower ranking members of the house are introducing bills that have no change of passing yet are still seen as a threat. No I don’t think that "they’re coming for your guns!"adds to any rational discussion about any topic. I also do not feel that unmuzzled congress critters and executive branch hacks are adding anything to a calm discussion when they take every spotlight moment that they have to discuss worthless, ineffective, once-ran, restrictions on constitutional amendments in order to shore up problems in a foreign country.
Pelosi and Reid had it right back in March. They were then too busy to seriously consider any new gun control legislation this session. She then decided to screw Harry and go out on her own to mention that something will be done. Not during a town hall meeting, or a hearing, but on ABC! Meanwhile there is a thread here attempting to assign some responsibility for the PA cop murders on Glen Beck, with nary a mention of those actively discussing gun bans from the party in charge and their shared responsibility.
While I think the ban is a bad idea, I don’t think discussing a piece of legislation is fanning the fires in the same way as actively telling people the government is coming for them.
I know, it’s weird. It’s almost like the guy in Pennsylvania shot some people and Pelosi didn’t.
Okay, I’m at work at the moment and can’t really respond to any points at the moment but I would be most appreciative if those posters who want to talk about gun laws took it to another thread. Thanks.
Sorry, Weston. Referring back to your OP:
This would appear to violate the First Amendment.
Constitutional issue aside, I think there’s an enormous problem with the government getting involved in deciding what’s news and what isn’t, who it’s relevant to, and so on. And any geographic ban would be a special problem in the case of college campuses. I’m sure there were a lot of Virginia Tech students whose families lived more than 50 miles from the school.
Such as? If you’re talking about things like network self-censorship, most of the restrictions are idiotic and pointless.
Right, but if they weren’t out there using the latest issues and tragedies to score points with the base anti-gun party members, Beck, et al, would have far less to work with. Right?
And I believe that Beck has a pretty airtight alibi as well. Yet he is being questioned for having some responsibility for whipping up a “they’re coming for your guns” fervor using direct quotes from the Pelosi and others. If the consensus is that the PA shooter was truly concerned about the .gov enacting some sort of legislation threatening his rights, the pol’s who can’t keep their mouth shut are just as much to blame as Beck is for quoting them.
Personally, I feel that there is one, and only one person to blame in PA or any of the other shootings of late, the asshole pulling the trigger. Beck is a talking parrot and Pelosi is no better.
Let’s take this to the other thread, okay? Weston’s right that these exact topics are being covered cover there.
“Everything not compulsory is forbidden.” :rolleyes:
What if the networks (and I include CNN, MSNBC, etc., in that) agreed to voluntarily dial back the coverage of such events, in the interests of not over-dramatizing them to the disturbed kids who might decide to play copycat? Not because the legislature decrees they must, but because they see it as a good idea? Much like not running the name of an underage victim of a sex crime – there’s no law prohibiting them from doing so; they don’t as a matter of journalistic ethics.
I grant that a school shooting is in fact newsworthy – but contemplate a drunk driver causing a multicar pileup with a dozen deaths. That’s not news 100 miles from where it happened – and its impact is just as large, in terms of those injured, traumatized, and/or killed by it, and who all it affects. It’s news because we perceive it as newsworthy, not the other way round – or there’d be just as much coverage of those accidents (ones of that magnitude), nationwide, as of school shootings.
Will do.
I definitely don’t think limitations on coverage should be legislated, but on the other hand, I do wish that media coverage would focus on the fact that the shooter was a total piece of shit rather than trying to “understand” him. I think that angle really plays to these guys fantasies. I saw a little bit of excoriation of the shooter in some of the coverage of recent events, so I am a bit encouraged.
P.S. TMZ clearly represents a clear and present danger to the United States, the public at large and kittens and puppies everywhere. The producers should be arrested, the hosts shot, the studio burned to the ground and the earth where it stood plowed with salt. 
I think media coverage definitely increases the incidence of these types of killing. People are attracted to the fame and notoriety.
But it’s not the government’s place to decide what is or isn’t acceptable for news reporting. It’s a clear violation of rights and you don’t even need a slippery slope to justify it as being wrong, it’s clearly wrong in itself.
To some extent, it would be nice if the media weren’t so sensationalist and didn’t love these things so much. If the media could realize the damage they cause (they probably do) and decide to try to reel it in, that’d be great.
But ultimately they’re giving us what we want. We love the violence porn. We love seeing grainy video from security cameras, the weeping family of victims, the whole deal. We won’t admit it but we do. So long as that’s what we’ll watch, it’s what media is going to give us.
Edit: I edited out a response to Captain Carrot’s threadshitting. Where’s this other thread being that’s being referred to?