October 1st 2018, before the recent spate of shootings.
Try this more recent one instead.
Orthisone
Finally, the gun nuts’ strategy has backfired. For too long, they’ve spewed platitudes like “thoughts and prayers” and “now is not the time for politics”.
It’s a dark mark on our society that it took so many deaths, but the weight of all that suffering is finally reaching a turning point. If the democrats do well during the next election cycle, we’ll get much harsher gun control than ever would have been possible in the past.
If, on the other hand, the Republicans gerrymander their way to victory again, they’ll hold things off a few more years… But when the pendulum does swing the other way, it’s going to swing HARD.
Good to know that the right to massacre one’s fellow citizens is Constitutionally protected.
It’s not, but I’m pretty sure you already knew that. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, however, is.
I’m less interested in the question of whether it’s right or wrong for people to be allowed to own “assault weapons”, and more interested in how exactly a ban on their ownership would actually play out “on the ground”, as it were. Not just their sale and manufacture, but also their ownership, which is the type of ban that O’Rourke has implied with his remarks. I get that the government would offer to buy them back. How many owners would actually turn them in and take the reward? For all of those who don’t, how is the government going to enforce the ban? Are they going to go through the sale receipts of all the gun stores for purchases of AR/AK type rifles and go track down the people who bought them? Are they going to have cops go knocking on doors? Kicking down doors?
Did it matter? After Sandy Hook, after the slaughter of 20 first-graders, the pro-slaughter party wouldn’t even go along with closing the background check loopholes.
What did we lose? Not a damned thing. What did we gain? The first major public statement of something that’s transparently obvious: there are too many AR-15s and the like out there to stop the massacres just by banning their future sales.
This is a setback for the pro-slaughter faction in America.
Is “Francis” supposed to be a girly-sounding name, or something? It was obvious why Obamaphobes leaned on the “Hussein,” but I’m having a tougher time understanding the pejorative value of this one.
I think you’re right. Also, a lot of Republicans (e.g., the death-threatening Rep. Briscoe Cain III and Sen. Rafael Edward Cruz) make a point of calling O’Rourke “Robert Francis” rather than his lifelong nickname of “Beto” in order to suggest that he’s somehow “faking” being Latino or something.
But yeah, I think emphasizing the “Francis” is supposed to denigrate his maleness by suggesting the girl’s name “Frances”, as well as presumably the effete land of France, abomination of red-blooded patriotic conservatives throughout the land.
The latter. No civilian has any legitimate use for an automatic or semi-automatic rifle. That’s much more firepower than you’ll ever need for home defense, and it would be unsporting to use such a weapon to hunt.
And, when you think about it, nobody really has any use for more than one gun. A single hunting rifle or shotgun will do for your home-defense needs. But some people stockpile arsenals – why?! Antique-gun collectors I can understand, it’s a hobby, makes for a nice display in your den; but for actual use, well, you can’t fire more than one gun at a time, can you?
N.B.: I am here assuming, and I hope all here will agree, that home defense and hunting are the only legitimate uses for firearms. Resisting public authorities is not.
Well, he knows he won’t get the nomination, and he is almost certainly planning in the future to run for senator from or governor of Texas.
Nonsense. There are lots of legitimate uses for them. Your ignorance of that fact does not alter it.
No, we don’t all agree. For starters, do you recognize the legitimacy of self defense away from one’s home, out in public?
:dubious: “As such?” Quite a nonsequitur. Marijuana is the third-most (after alcohol and tobacco) popular drug in America. That does not make it constitutionally protected.
Anyway, I think handguns are far, far more popular than AR-15s, going by the numbers in private hands (and the numbers involved in firearms-related deaths). And if we’re speaking of rifles alone, I think AR-15s are probably less popular than non-automatic rifles – which are you likelier to encounter in a deer camp?
I pretty much equate that with “home defense.” Also, the need to go armed away from home can be obviated by avoiding certain neighborhoods, unless you happen to live in one. And even then, you don’t need an automatic rifle. Only soldiers and sometimes cops need automatic rifles.
Do you understand that people usually choose very different types of firearms for concealed carry vs home defense? A rifle such as an AR-15 is a poor fit for the former but an excellent choice for the latter.
Why would you ever need an automatic rifle for home defense? Just the noise of cocking your shotgun should suffice to scare off a home intruder.
I didn’t say anyone “need[s] an automatic rifle”, I said a semi-automatic one, such as an AR-15 is an excellent choice for home defense, but a poor one for concealed-carry duties. Were you aware of that prior to posting “… when you think about it, nobody really has any use for more than one gun.”?
You need the range of an ar-15 to shoot across your living room? Or do you sit up in a guard tower waiting for someone to trespass onto your compound?
Do you think the AR-15 platform rifle that is typically owned by millions of Americans is automatic? I’m trying to prove the depth or your ignorance. Basically everything you’ve opined relating to firearms has been mistaken or wrong in some fashion.