You actually make it happen. And you’re a douchebag.
Oh btw, fuck you. And you still didn’t answer my question. I’m assuming it is because you can’t .
Firstly I dispute the premise that this is something that Democrats “use”.
We’re at the point now where the general sentiment is anger and hopelessness, and the phrase “nothing ever changes” repeatedly being uttered. I think, if we’re just talking about voting calculus (as you insist we must) Democrats should be using these events more.
However, and staying in this cynical strategizing, they should be more on the offensive about Republicans, about the money they receive from the NRA and the laws they passed that made it easier for this to happen. Notsomuch about protecting children. I know politics shouldn’t be like this, but it’s probably where they need to be right now in America.
Secondly I still don’t know why you cannot criticize any republican, the NRA, FOX etc at all for this. Forget about who will win in the midterms for a moment. Aren’t you disgusted with what they’ve passed in recent years and their response to this tragedy?
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I don’t do recreational outrage, which I think is what you’re asking about.
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I’ve said I don’t vote for Republicans, I’ve called out how they have made our gun situation even worse by removing licensure for concealed carry in something like 26 States, etc etc. You seem to be wanting me to make a bunch of empty posts talking about how much I dislike the modern GOP, which is something I have mentioned many, many times on these boards–but in the context of a larger discussion. I simply don’t post in a way where I am going to regularly post (at least when talking politics) about how much I dislike one side as the only purposes of my post. A lot of my comments on Democrats ands Republicans is also criticism, there is no meaningful reason to criticize Republican strategy on these forums. This is an almost overwhelmingly Democrat or Democrat-supporting board, and no one would be interested in my ideas on how the GOP could “improve their political efforts”–and frankly I am not interested in putting much mind share into that. I want to see the Democrats improve to weaken and hopefully eventually change the GOP back into a party that doesn’t reject the basic tenets of democracy.
The irony and the cynicism is that using these events to motivate the public to get behind universal background checks for all gun transfers will probably lower the overall gun violence in our country, but will be unlikely to prevent mass shootings like this one.
But you take what you can get.
Who gives a flying fuck? Our history and constitution also enshrined the “liberty” to own other human beings. How is this even an argument?
I strongly believe we need to protect other rights enshrined in the constitution, but my argument for “why do we need a first amendment” would NEVER be “bEcAuSe OuR hIsToRy AnD cOnStItUtIoN eNsHrInE iT”, any more than I would say “because chimps say whatever we want and so did pur ancestors”.
This was you, right, complaining about someone else “posting a silly ad hominem attack.”?
fuck you
“I also firmly want it understood—I am 100% willing to trade more deaths for gun rights.”
I’m a usual suspect? How, exactly, am I a usual suspect?
Seriously, tell me, I have no idea how I could be considered a usual suspect in this thread?
Also the money the NRA receives from Russian sources, as well as the strong connections between Republicans and Russians.
In the first place, it was in fact you who postulated the black-and-white hypothetical, back in post #90:
Nobody was in fact “forcing” you to make a choice in the unrealistic hypothetical of trading off all gun ownership against all homicides.
Secondly, what is shocking many posters here, including myself, is that even in that hypothetical with a guarantee that giving up guns would result in there never being another gun murder again, ever, you still wouldn’t consent to it.
That’s kind of appalling. It ought to be a no-brainer for ethical people that if we really could save lives to that extent, we should do so. As I remarked to SenorBeef in post #282, the alcohol users here AFAICT are agreed that if we could similarly accomplish the guaranteed elimination of all alcohol-related deaths forever by giving up alcohol, that would be the right thing to do.
I don’t fault any gun-rights advocate for pointing out that any such hypothetical is impossibly unrealistic and we have to stick to figuring out more realistic trade-offs between restrictions and rights. But I do fault someone for asserting that even in that hypothetical with the impossible magical permanent guarantee, the guns should still be preferred to the lives.
Your “history” of unfettered and absolutist gun rights started in the 1970’s with the NRA becoming a political action committee funded by gun manufacturers and later on by Russians.
It’s about money, politics and power, not some “holy enshrined right”. You’ve been played, and now excel in the role of useful idiot for industry and foreign agents.
If you still find it easier to argue against what you wish I had said than it is to argue against what I actually did say (see below), then – by all means – be my guest.
But it makes you look like an intellectually dishonest douchebag:
Exactly right. Russia has a deeply vested interest in destabilizing western democracies in general and the US in particular. It’s why they engaged in election meddling in 2016 to support Trump, and why they support the NRA. Gun nuts like @Martin_Hyde and @SenorBeef and others who’ve been brainwashed into promulgating gun violence in the name of “liberty” play right into their hands and are contributing to the steady rise of gun violence, mass murders, and the unraveling of American society.
Martin has said he supports stricter gun regulation, including the generally popular proposals of increased background checks, stopping unlicensed concealed carry, and so forth; not sure about Sr. Beef. AFAICT, Martin’s position is pretty close to that of the average American. Exactly how anti-gun does someone have to be to not be a “gun nut” in your mind?
Tell yourself all you need to to sleep at night.
Fact is that you are killing your children in numbers making Putin hard.
If pointing that out makes me idiotic: so be it.
It is damn easy to “support” such measures when you know that Republicans and gun fetishists will block such measures.
I disagree with @Ludovic only in that I prefer the word stupid. As in really fucking stupid, as in stupider than an episode of Picard stupid.
The ones killing children and making Putin hard are the ones who want guns, guns, guns. But you’re aiming your inane derision at those who want fewer guns?
@Martin_Hyde and @SenorBeef may lack morals, but you lack even the slightest lick of common sense.
Still, tbf, ex-Republicans such as Martin_Hyde are at least acting on their advocacy for increased gun regulation by no longer voting for Republicans.
I mean, much more needs to be done by everyone in order to actually overcome Republicans’ murderous intransigent resistance to better gun regulation, but it’s a start.
At least sufficiently anti-gun to rearrange their priorities; those priorities wherein they explicitly say that they are absolutely willing to see children die to preserve their “liberty” to shoot beer cans off fence posts, or whatever the fuck it is they do with their guns. At least sufficiently anti-gun to support truly effective gun control that seriously limits what gun owners can do with their deadly weapons and how and when they can do it, not just weak half-measures which will accomplish very little and will later be trotted out as evidence that “gun control doesn’t work”.
Tell me what am I doing? Use small words as I am stupid. Also explain specifically what I should be doing differently as an individual so as to not be considered stupid and a baby killer in your view.
Ok baby killer.
Not being American , I guess.
The point is, that for an outsider the way America is dealing with this and the problem itself are so far from our daily experiences that we look at it and we are baffled. Not your fault, simply a matter of frames of reference barely touching, at least that’s the impression I get.
The entire idea of NOT banning AR-type weapons for good after let’s say Columbine is very confusing for me, and I think I’m not alone.
What confuses me even more is that somehow making this personal is inherently insulting. I could have phrased my remark less directly, but the shocked reactions and the modnote baffled me, tbh. If someone argues that he cares less about people dying than about his god-given right to carry a murder weapon, I think I’m allowed to get personal. Because those are dangerous ideas. They’re killing people. Not wishing them dead, but killing them. And it’s as if you’re kind of avoiding to let that sink in. How horrible that is. And that’s what shocks me, tbh. And instead, go off on how rude it is to use such language, instead of how inhuman it is to allow children to die in their classrooms, being pulverized by another kid with a horrible killing machine. It’s like…unreal.
And I think that’s what @The_Librarian was trying to convey, in fewer words.