Political & Elections

Please pass along my sympathy.

Tell him to look on the bright side: if he's lucky, and Bidens no goofier than usual on the 13th, he might be able to say he heard live a new Top Ten bidenism.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/joebiden/a/bidenisms.htm

-- Edited by catahoula on Saturday 13th of April 2013 01:13:59 PM

Biden is commencement speaker this May 13th at my son's university (his class). The irony.  I am so thoroughly disgusted.

-- Edited by hope on Friday 12th of April 2013 08:19:03 PM

And Texas puts out the welcome map for "responsible gun owners tired of living in New York".

Glad to have them but they really ought to sign a pledge to never again participate in electing the same kind of idiots they're fleeing.

The Mad Hatter is a little off her rocker, so that is understandable.

I'm not sure it was anything other than a temporary glitch, since it didn't show this time.

Last few posts, the page wouldn't show you logged in when you went to whatever forum but the post would still be accepted.

Nothing is explainable on Mondays.

Doesn't look coincidental and they likely realize they no longer fit in, but just found themselves too gentrified to emigrate out to the boonies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/nyregion/gun-makers-based-in-connecticut-form-a-potent-lobby.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/11/kth-exposing-newtown-conspiracy-theory/?hpt=ac_mid

Must have been a really hard hitting zine to break, the law.

I saw this photo on FB.

There was a lede within the last day or so, the president saying something along the lines of "if it saves one child's life, it's worth it."

Now, that's profound. Not that it's a new thought, because its same that's pulled out for just about every regulatory tightening that adds to the cost of living or doing business, but that it's a promise about as empty as my middle child's head typically is.

I've hopes for him, being he's just late teens, but not for anyone swayed by that.

Liberal thinking on gun control is inconsistent with one of its own most fundamental, most strongly held, beliefs.



For example, (use of the following quote is not meant to demean liberalism, it's just one that easily comes to mind. I'm certain similar sentiments were expressed by Rawls, Rousseau, Marx, etc.) liberalism tends to believe, as Mr. Spock said in Star Trek, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Liberalism tends to take what it sees as the higher road of "the greater good."

Liberals interpret this to mean that some amount of sacrifice on the part of a few individuals, say, the rich, for example, is worth the cost if that sacrifice benefits "the greater good" or "the general will" or promotes "the general welfare" of the population as a whole.

Or, for another example, the general belief among liberals is that the French Revolution was, in the grand scheme of things, a good thing. The fact that it brought genocide and The Reign of Terror (aka The Terror) to the French people was simply part of the price to be paid by "the few" in the name of the greater good of "the many." A person who posted on the College Confidential discussion board, a couple of years back when I still read that thing, said as much in almost so many words. And still, even today, the Socialst government of France tried to raise the income tax rate of "the few" rich to 70%.

Following that logic, then, liberalism should be a staunch defender of the right of "the many" to keep and bear arms at the risk of the death of a "few" innocents from time to time.









-- Edited by winchester on Thursday 10th of January 2013 08:07:31 AM

From what's on the Drudge Report, the push for a sensible solution to the mentally ill having gun access is well underway.

- Kudo's to our village idiot for being just fine with 'executive ordering" away what's generally been, up till now, a constitutional right for people that color within the lines.

- Also, to Governor Cuomo, for making the real problem #5 on his to-do list:

Number 1: Enact the toughest assault weapon ban in the nation, period!” he shouted, before ticking off his other new gun control proposals. “Number two, close the private sale loophole by requiring federal background checks. Number three, ban high-capacity magazines. Number four, enact tougher penalties for illegal gun use, guns in school grounds and violent gangs. Number five, keep guns from people who are mentally ill. Number six, ban direct internet sales of ammunition in New York. Number seven, create a state [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] check on all ammunition purchases.”

Truth be told, i'm with the guy that said (loosely, since I didn't look to find the quote) that: "It ain't politically correct to bring up the real reason for the 2nd amendment. Here's a hint -- it wasn't to keep deer hunting as a life skill alive."

Longprime, tell that to Brian Terry. A lot more to this story than just illegal monitoring of legal gun purchases.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Friday 4th of January 2013 08:10:11 PM

FBI was illegally monitoring legal gun purchases. Which is at the root issue of gun registration and gun control. 

the same federal government that was apparently funneling guns to Mexican cartels...

That's an interesting take on the merits of originalism. You've got to assume there's a bunch of b.s. in there, somewhere, but I'm afraid I can't put my finger on much of it. The drawback of a substandard education, I suppose. But, for instance: did Jefferson really preach that a constitution shouldn't outlive it's founders generation? If so, did he mean it should have been amended till unrecognizable by then, or simply scrapped?

The "screw the 2nd amendment in the name of social justice" law prof seems a little easier to critique:

Gun rights defenders argue that gun laws don’t reduce violence, noting that many cities with high gun violence already have strict gun laws. But this ignores the ease with which urban residents can evade local laws by obtaining guns from dealers outside their cities or states. Effective gun regulation requires a nationally coordinated response.

An interesting admission for a lawyer to make, that those he's appointed himself counsel for are determined and most likely incorrigable criminals at heart.

Wonder if he's ever read any on how successful the War on Drugs has been? Considered that the same federal government he trusts to dry up the supply of guns for his plaintiffs was one of the combatants? That it can't even dry up the flow of things large and conspicuous, like ambulatory bodies, that streams across the Rio Grande?

-- Edited by catahoula on Thursday 3rd of January 2013 07:16:50 AM

the media only cares about upper (ish) class white people... well documented. They also generally only publicize missing persons that are attractive white females.

Georgetown Law must've told its professors to be heard. We had this one a few days ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html

-- Edited by soccerguy315 on Wednesday 2nd of January 2013 07:49:47 PM

The NYT's ran this today, a piece from a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown. A cynic might suspect invoking the social justice theme is just part of whatever regulatory push that's coming but that doesn't mean it isn't topical right here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/opinion/who-pays-for-the-right-to-bear-arms.html?_r=1&

-- Edited by catahoula on Wednesday 2nd of January 2013 03:32:47 PM

As someone who has worked with students in a school for many, many years....actually many schools, K12, the idea of putting an armed police officer is the best idea I have ever heard. Not just a resource officer, but a cop. I would feel a lot better about my workplace safety. This has worked in many a schools. There was a situation about a decade ago near San Diego involving an armed cop stopping a shooting.

I lived in DC in late 80's. i used to walk by a sign with number of murders in the city. It hovered in the same range as Chicago's. guess what is banned there, too?

catahoula wrote:

---

Anway, the NRA has some people in it whose beliefs you disapprove of, disapprove of so strongly that you'll put their kids and the kids of all NRA members up as deserving of spree shooting. By extension, this would mean... what? That any positions taken by the NRA must be wrong?

Help me out here, because if you're trying to somehow work around to the idea that because the NRA opposes the kind of feel-good idiocy Feinstein's come up with, you might just consider the possibillity that they honestly believe it to be just... idiotic.

 

---

 I never said NRA members are deserving of a spee shooting.  I have said several times that no one's children should be murdered by someone with assault weapons.  That's why they should be banned.  

I would not say every position of the NRA is wrong.  I don't know every NRA position.  What I do know is that the solution of the NRA to the Newtown shooting, namely putting armed guards in schools, is plainly stupid and shows how vacuous is the organization.  What I do know is that the position of the NRA supporting ownership of AR15 etc. is harmful to our nation and causes innocent people to die simply to appease their sense of being macho.

If you want to raise the race card, let go for it.  Washington DC has been trying forever to limit guns so that young african americans and everyone else in D.C stop shooting each other.  What is the NRA position?  Not fewer guns -- more guns.  Does the NRA simply want more black people killed?  

Hard to read your post as anything other than "more deserving" or "first in line", either of which would qualify, but it's good to know it isn't what you really meant, razor.

I don't belong to the NRA but think putting law enforcement in schools is actually a good idea. Besides being just the sort of full-employment measure the adminstration has tended to reach for over the last four years, it'd be one that would do some public good. Wouldn't stop school shootings but would make it very hard to reach the kind of body counts that Feinstein's willing to stomp on everyone's rights to avoid. Hey - how about firing a TSA agent for every retired cop assigned to an elementary school!? That's the kind of two-fer that could gather some real, bi-partisan support!

As far as the race card goes, I can't see why anyone would bring it up, if they were argueing for more control - it's not that DC's been trying to limit guns to solve a problem but that they've made a swing at it and and didn't hit much of anyone but those with little intention of grudge killing or murder for profit. There's a bunch of perfectly well-intentioned people that can't tell the difference between the horse and the cart, bright as they seem to believe they are.

-- Edited by catahoula on Tuesday 1st of January 2013 06:22:22 PM

Hmm... the Barrett light .50, not being a gun of choice for spree shooters, seems... irrelevant.... to whatever good you think reduced magazine capacity might do, which isn't much of anything. Rather, a lot of nothing, and I know that for a fact because I haven't observed it doing any good. Maybe there are some studies, though, that contradict my observing. Studies from someone without a history of funding and association with the "gun ownership as an epidemiological problem of public health" movement that got started way back when:

In 1974, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society formed the National Coalition to Ban Handguns,^[1] a group of thirty religious, labor, and nonprofit organizations with the goal of addressing "the high rates of gun-related crime and death in American society" by licensing gun owners, registering firearms, and banning private ownership of handguns with "reasonable limited exceptions" for “police, military, licensed security guards, antique dealers who have guns in unfireable condition, and licensed pistol clubs where firearms are kept on the premises.”

(Being that nothing resists dissolution like a non-profit with otherwise unemployable officers to provide a living for, you probably won't be surprised, at all, to find that the keepers of that website you directed us to is one of the two lineal descendents of National Coalition to Ban Handguns.)

Anway, the NRA has some people in it whose beliefs you disapprove of, disapprove of so strongly that you'll put their kids and the kids of all NRA members up as deserving of spree shooting. By extension, this would mean... what? That any positions taken by the NRA must be wrong?

Help me out here, because if you're trying to somehow work around to the idea that because the NRA opposes the kind of feel-good idiocy Feinstein's come up with, you might just consider the possibillity that they honestly believe it to be just... idiotic.

-- Edited by catahoula on Tuesday 1st of January 2013 04:54:51 PM