You are the scum of the earth, a total waste of oxygen.
Dead kids, awesome, now we can take advantage of that to pass gun control legislation that we always wanted. Sure, that’s what we were thinking after Newtown.
Scum-sucking asshole. It’s taken months before I could finally think of Newtown without tearing up at the thought that that could just as easily have been a classroom with my kid in it, and how that would have felt like the end of the fucking world, and how I wished I could do something, anything, to lend those parents some measure of hope, when I knew that, in their shoes, I’d just want to have it be over for me too.
Yeah. Dead kids. Awesome.
Whether our cause is right or wrong, kindly give us credit for being motivated by grief and horror at the deaths that have happened, and a desire to do our best to prevent more of the same. Asshole.
I didn’t particularly want to argue guns tonight. And in fact, I’m not gonna. But being told that we gun-control types only gave a shit about dead kids because it gave new life to our cause - that’s fucking despicable.
You chopped out pretty important context of my quote. But anyway.
After the shootings went down, people ran to the threads on this board to gloat. To mock gun rights advocates, and say I told you so. Many sounded almost gleeful.
Do you seriously think this thought didn’t go through, say, Dianne Feinstein’s head? I’m not saying this is what went through the mind of every person that supported gun control. But to the people actually politically active and pushing for it? Of course. They’ll take any bit of support they can get for any reason. Public hysteria over these things is exactly what they want.
I likened this to the Patriot Act. Do you think Dick Cheney wasn’t licking his chops at the possibilities he could exploit when 9/11 went down? The Patriot act wasn’t created as a reasoned response to a terrorist act. It was a pre-written act with an agenda that they knew the public wouldn’t support under normal circumstances. So they waited for the hysteria, and exploited it, and then pushed the legislation through. And anyone who offered reasoned debate against the merits of the Patriot Act had “3000 PEOPLE JUST DIED AND YOU DON’T CARE!!!” flung in their face just like gun advocates exploit the deaths of those children to try to silence or shame their opposition into silence.
Contrary to what you seem to believe, gun control advocates are not motivated by the desire to make you unable to defend yourself against tyranny or take away your cool toys. If there weren’t any downsides to lax gun laws, there wouldn’t be any calls for stricter laws.
And hell no, I don’t think Dianne Feinstein thought Sandy Hook was awesome. It says unpleasant things about you that you’d think she would.
Incidentally, even if I am far more cynical about the nature of politicians, if I think they will use and exploit deaths in pursuit of their political goals, I’m not sure how I’m “…the scum of the earth, a total waste of oxygen.”
I’m not sure what harm I’m causing, or what other reason would justify such a declaration.
I’m curious about this comparison. Help me out with it a little bit.
In the least forgiving interpretation of events, the Bush Whitehouse supported the Patriot Act because it made it easier for them to accrue personal wealth, and to squelch political opposition across a broad range of issues.
In the least forgiving interpretation of events, Diane Feinstein supported the AWB because it made it easier for her to… what, exactly? What industry is Diane Feinstein involved in that would materially benefit from stricter gun control laws? What political power does she gain from this? She hasn’t faced a serious threat to her seat in close to twenty years, and she’s unlikely to ever run for a higher office. What ulterior motive do you think lurks behind her support for tighter gun control laws, that’s similar to the ulterior motives commonly attributed to Dick Cheney’s support for the Patriot Act?
You’re the one bringing in the assertion that the Patriot act benefited Bush and Cheney by allowing them to accrue personal wealth. I’ve never really seen that interpretation and I’m not sure where it’s coming from. Who in the world opposed the patriot act on the basis that it was designed to personally make Bush richer?
Bush and Cheney had an agenda. They wanted to attack Iraq all along, all throughout the 90s, for example. They wanted to increase government powers to spy on its own citizens and all sorts of other nasty stuff. But they knew they couldn’t pass such laws under a normal situation - there would be too little support, too much opposition.
So they waited for a time in which the public was hysterical, and they promised the public safety, and the gullable public bought it. People who had reasonable objections to the patriot act were called unamerican, and it was screamed at them that 3000 people just died, and we must take action. It was asserted that people who thought the particular response to 9/11 that they were proposing was out of line or counterproductive or what not just didn’t care enough about 3000 dead people. The dead were used as an argument in itself, to try to shame and silence the critics.
No ulterior motive is necesary, although one can be present. Bush and Cheney and all of their cronies may have thought the Patriot act was for the greater good, but that under normal circumstances the public just couldn’t see that it was in their best interest, so they needed to strike when the hysteria was rampant and they could push through their agenda.
The similarities here are that Feinstein and other gun control advocates have an agenda. They know public sentiment would never support the whole, or even the bulk of their agenda, under normal circumstances. So they wait for a crisis in which people are whipped up into a hysteria, so they can push through the agenda that they’ve had all along. No ulterior motive is necesary - they may well be doing what they think is best, and yet still clearly a crisis that provokes hysteria, public guillability, and the notion that We Must Do Something is exactly what benefits their agenda and position. That’s when they strike.
It’s really not far fetched, it’s actually quite analogous.
Yes, fine. It’s just as despicable as the frothing anti-gun crowd on this board saying that guns are only useful for killing people, or that gun owners buy guns because they intend to kill people, or that people are now buying AR-15s because they think the Newtown shooting made it “cool”, or various modifications on the theme of “guns are bad; gun owners are bad people.” Frankly, if the other side is going to make outrageous, hostile accusations about my motivations, I don’t mind doing the same thing to them.
And frankly, the fact that many politicians are using that shooting merely as a political prop to allow them to advance gun control laws that would not have done jack shit to prevent it or any other mass shooting suggests to me that, yeah, in fact, they were simply waiting for a sufficiently horrible tragedy to give them an excuse to push this agenda and a score a political “win” against the conservatives. If the country were having a rational debate about how to keep guns out of the hands of crazed nut jobs, that would be a different story. Instead, all the Democrats are doing is pushing the same old proposals that indiscriminately limit the rights of all law-abiding citizens for no logical reason other than “guns are bad, less guns = less bad” (here in Colorado we are about to get a ban on shotgun magazine capacity - when was the last time someone used a shotgun in a mass shooting?), and hoping that the deaths of 20 children will be enough to get them passed this time while the emotional impact is still strong. Why else would Michael Moore be advocating that photos of dead children from the Sandy Hook shooting be released to “finish off” the NRA? That sure sounds like exploiting this tragedy to score a political victory to me.
Okay, but why do you think they have that agenda? You’ve suggested that Dianne Feinstein is thrilled to hear of a new school shooting, because it lets her put her anti-gun agenda back into play. But why is she anti-gun, other than a concern that lax gun laws lead to things like school shootings? And if there is no other reason than that, why do you think she’s so excited to hear about another school shooting, when her opposition to guns is based on wanting to prevent exactly that sort of thing?
Now there’s an equivalence that’s beyond me. Because killing people (and animals, just to get that in there for completeness’ sake) is what guns are inherently useful for. The other useful aspects of guns, like scaring off intruders, are a consequence of guns’ usefulness in killing people.
That part was unnecessary hyperbole of the nature that fills the Pit, sure. Grant that.
But your cynicism about the nature of politicians is repugnant, and, more importantly, unfounded. It’s precisely this sort of demonizing of the opposition that makes it so hard to have a real discussion on the issues.
If you’re looking for an equivalence, don’t look so hard. It’s easy to make one. Pro-gun folks saw the Sandy Hook shooting and said, “Woohoo, gun control means hitting your target, nice one dude!”
Except of course they didn’t, because they’re not demons.
Again, I said nothing about a secret agenda. Plenty of evil is done by people who are well-meaning. I’m not granting that is the case here, but I think Cheney probably felt invading Iraq was good for the world too, and yet that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be thrilled that 9/11 happened and gave him a flimsy excuse to go after his agenda.
Just as with the assault weapons ban, attacking Iraq as a way of somehow making 9/11 right is misguided. It would be easier to take you guys seriously as being legitimately interested in reaching a compromise that prevents death while infringing upon the fewest rights if you didn’t immediately go back to your hardon for the same generic, discredited assault weapons bans. You’ve been around here enough to know that assault weapons bans are bullshit, and that Newton didn’t occur because the rifle was black or had a bayonette lug.
This is one of those partisan issues on the board in which outrage only gets directed at one side of the issue. We’ve got hundreds of posts in which gun owners - not even gun rights advocates - are told that they are guilty for this tragedy, that it’s on them, personally, that they are reprehensible and repugnant. All sorts of crazy, insulting shit got thrown around in the weeks after the shooting, and I don’t think anyone from the gun control side said “Okay, guys, hey, look, emotions are running hot, but reel it in.”
No, instead, it turned into big circle jerks which became more and more over the top. The perfect gloating opportunity. I told you so, you gun wielding savages! This is all your fault! You wanted this to happen! You are sick fucks!
My assertions are quite a bit milder on the personal attack front.
You could’ve fooled me, the reaction by a significant minority around here definitely painted gun owners in such a negative light.
Wel, as an example that I rememberd and could dig up immediately
This was in a thread about people buying up AR-15s because there was a ban for them on the table and they were trying to snag them up before they were banned.
I really don’t have time this morning to dig up more than that, I’m running late as it is. If you want more examples of gun control advocates gloating and blaming gun owners, I can dig it up later.