At one level, the 'coastal elites' expressing similarity to non-Americans when it comes to guns, specifically, aversion to them, only strengthens the resolve of Americans in the middle of the country that the Coastals just aren't Americans.
This overstates the situation somewhat, but not completely. It also mischaracterizes it as coastal-middle. It's much more an urban-rural divide. And it's definitely the case that most urban and suburban dwellers don't hunt and don't have parents or grandparents who hunted. That said, no one hunts with AR-15s unless their goal is to leave dead animals for scavenging animals to eat.
If there's common ground to be found which gun non-owners and responsible gun owners could share, time to establish it, and FAR PAST TIME to ignore the gun fetishists and gun CONTROL absolutists who do poison any attempts at compromise. If serial incremental change is all that's possible, all-or-nothing types are a danger to society.
I think everyone sensible- from effusive gun enthusiasts to total gun abolitionists- would agree on a first, concrete step towards alleviating what is truly a crisis is to ban the AR-15. As you said, reasonable gun owners understand there is no purpose for it other than killing humans as fast as possible.
Gun control absolutists- abolitionists- aren’t poisoning compromise. In fact they’re desperate to get any kind of legislation or controls in place; they’re desperate for even incremental change.
It’s the “reasonable” gun owners (or rather, a significant portion of them) who buy into “slippery slope” arguments and who may support reform, but not loudly, and certainly not enough to vote out their “2A approved” representative.
Until they can find their voice and demand their congresscritter vote for gun control or throw them out if they won’t, nothing CAN change.
This is not a case of “extremes are dividing us”. It’s an apathetic middle who does nothing.
"I own no handguns or rifles, I have no desire to do so, and I’m mystified by the sine qua non significance often placed upon them in American discourse of rights."
My sentiments exactly, Ed. And I've lived here all my life.
I cannot imagine anymore the stress of having things in your professional inbox. Granted, my position at work is not managerial, so I'm not beholden like others that I work with are. That must truly be terrible to not have your grasp on.
And, I don't think JVL has once missed an email from me. A true mensch, you have my thanks for always being attentive.
I miss people all the time and feel guilty about it every time. So if any of you ever write to me and I don't get back to you, I'm sorry. I really do my best.
It means a lot. I dropped you a line in the early Bulwark days (and a couple times since) and you responded, and quickly. In addition to demonstrating righteous Inbox management, it shows respect. And it's good business. Cheers!
Question: Why don’t we levy a special on tax guns/ammo sales like cigarettes and gasoline, and allocate the revenue for mandatory training and background checks? Why don’t we require gun dealers and gun shows to have special licenses and carry liability insurance, like liquor stores and gas stations?
Admittedly, the need for liability insurance presupposes that the victims of gun violence can/will sue the sellers/manufacturers of guns and hence these entities will seek protection from their insurance carriers. Alternatively, it could be coupled with the requirements for obtaining a seller’s license - but each of these future possibilities will require a change to the current laws regarding gun sellers/manufacturers in the US. It took years to accomplish the same ends with the sellers/manufacturers of cigarettes and liquor, but it can be done.
Hannity's pet idea of hiring retired police officers and veterans to volunteer for armed guard duty at school is ridiculous. Did he not just see an entire town's police forces paralyzed by one 18-year old gunman?
Armed retirees are supposed to do a better job than the town's active police officers?
65 year old Ethel, the social studies teacher, is expected to handle a shooter better than the town's police officers? What's that say about how weak they think cops are?
And the town had a SWAT Team with military weapons! I hope every single member of their useless police force is fired and their salaries sent to the families of the victims.
Chris Hayes makes the salient point that the NRA worldview was tested at Uvalde and utterly failed (especially starting at the 9:40 point). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJv4ZzFOzw Meanwhile, at the NRA conference, they were still getting cheers with the failed good guy with a gun line. Gun people have steadfastly rejected all reasonable and commonsense gun safety regulations. At the site of the NRA conference, on one side of the street were protesters crying, “Shame, shame, murderers, murderers” in the wake of the Uvalde massacre just a couple days before, and on the other side of the street were other people, brandishing their AR-15s, laughing and mocking the protesters. This is how gun people are radicalizing Americans to give up on reasonable measures and instead favor drastic measures like repealing the 2nd amendment. If they lose the 2nd amendment entirely, it will be their own darn fault for expecting to have rights without responsibility or limits. The party of personal responsibility—not. Besides, for reasons explained in other comments, the 2nd Amendment should have been repealed 200 years ago. Chief Justice Warren Burger called it the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon Americans here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eya_k4P-iEo
Send the bill to Cruz and the other pols with big mouths who keep saying a good man with a gun will stop a bad man with one. I will lay odds that the police force had nothing worse to deal with then a privileged drunk they let sleep in a cell. What made the town think they needed a SWAT team anyway?
Nothing teaches kids about Liberty(tm) and Freedom!!!(tm) more than having their schools turned into heavily fortified camps and acclimatizing them to being surrounded by armed security and police forces.
Cruz's "solution"of only one door with an armed guard posted is tantamount to an assertion that the likelihood of being gunned down in school is greater than the likelihood of a fire. Besides, the moment the gunman shows up is the moment the armed guard is out back taking his smoke break.
Mental illness is prevalent in all societies from minor separation from reality to significant. The greater the separation from reality the greater propensity to get caught up in the tide of toxic culture that runs through our society. Ask yourself if you contribute to that toxicity.
Exactly. Use the same campaign used against smoking. Ban adds, ban using guns on TV. Ban guns in public areas. If you want to fondle your gun, go in the alley with the smokers. Oh, raise the price of ammo by jacking the taxes liked they did with cigarettes. Like smoking, people are going to use fewer bullets if they cost $5 a piece, unless you plan on killing yourself after shooting 10 people.
The argument the gun guys are already using is that making ammo prohibitively expensive is just a backdoor way to infringe on the 2nd amendment. Ironic they now understand backdoors to get around, say, civil rights laws.
Hmm. I don't know that Condon's equivocation of American gun violence and abortion is a sensible frame. Mass shootings are the work of mentally disturbed individuals, yes, but in the case of events like Buffalo are also explicit acts of domestic terrorism (violent acts carried out with the intent of causing political change through fear and intimidation; pretty textbook definition, seems to me). While one can quibble with the statistics - prenatal Americans aborted vs active Americans murdered by gunmen - this equivocation feels... icky? I feel there's an immorality in the equivocation, even as it reaches for a moral frame.
Religion is part of the problem. Check out the book, "Jesus and John Wayne". Okay, the sacralizing of guns is a thing. And many religions are complicit. Those entities should lose their tax exempt status. Now. Let's get serious here.
Bishop Flores was eloquent in this conversation. Thank you. Elevating the gun debate to “the good of the whole” and a need for our children to be less fearful & depressed. My military father loved his guns and hunting. He gave me a Winchester 22 at age 12. We went hunting and I was horrified to find that the squirrel I shot was pregnant. Then I received a 12 gauge shotgun and was very proud to go skeet shooting & bird hunting with my dad until I shot one. I even went on a deer hunt with Dad & friends. (Only 30 cal rifle) Of course I often heard the refrain that bad people will always get guns, so we need to have them. That was back in 1959. Believe me, we don’t need automatic war weapons to defend ourselves or to hunt. Our animals and other people need a safe ecosystem and world. For the few people that might confront a hungry bear 🐻 or moose a high powered rifle will suffice. I was trained in all aspects of gun safety by my father and at gun clubs. It seems to me that requiring people to have training before being able to buy a lethal weapon is a No-Brainer.
Are there any arguments in favor of having assault weapons available for purchase, besides some people think they're cool and there's a Second Amendment? Like is there an argument for why they should be available based on their utility for anything?
Short answer? No. Not a rational one anyway. All about the $$$. Always has been. Hunting was (and is) in a long steady decline, so ditto the sales of hunting and sporting firearms. Had to replace that revenue somehow, right? Not hard to do...just convince a lot of gullible and insecure folks to "Re-up your man card".
Seriously. That line is directly from an ad for an AR style weapon. And sadly, machismo sells. And sells a lot. And if you add in 'patriotism' and fear...CHA-CHING!!
Guess I'm just a wuss, and an unpatriotic one at that. Nary an AR or AK in my gun safe. Too stupid to be afraid of certain folks, I reckon. And never felt the need for a crutch for my manhood. And if called upon to be a 'patriot' and rebel against our tyrannical government, I always just sort of figured if I annoyed them too much taking potshots at 'em with my trusty AR, they'd just roll a Bradley or some such up my driveway and blow me straight to hell. So, not really worth the purchase price to me.
I heard a hallway interview with Senator Cassidy this past week in which he was asked that question, and he responded that he knows "several people who need them to hunt feral pigs." I used to have some shred of respect for that man, too.
The mainstream history books won't tell you this, but in the ones you get in Texas, you can read the truth. Before Jesus invented the AR15 and bestowed it upon man, humans were ruled by the feral pig. It was this singular gift from our lord and savior that led to our triumph over the feral pig, and subsequently, human civilization.
And that is the sort of liberal snark that our conservative friends find so endearing.
Well, to be candid, feral pigs go about in rather large herds and are very prolific and hugely destructive. My family has a ranch in South Texas brush country, and feral pigs are a big and so far intractable problem.
"Need" may not have been in his quote, but rather in the headlines of the subsequent media reports. So, clearly another example of MSM's "disinformation" agenda! (Actually, they got it just about right. Cassidy's words were just plain dumb no matter how you misquote them.)
I actually think I've heard the feral pig/boar justification before, since you mention it. "Need" may be an accurate characterization of what these folks say. But it just sounds ridiculous, and then we're bad people because we laugh at these folks for saying ridiculous things.
People need to speak this truth that guns are idols to many (not all) in this country. They are creeping more and more into some people's view of what God wants - thus poisoning it. If you frame it in the context of a choice between love and hate (not good and evil) it is easier to identify these days. Why would so many choose to hate people/ their neighbor - violating one of the "two greatest commandments" then justify it with the same religion. Hate is also a good warning sign of some mental illness and certainly of evil.
But when the authoritarian take over all the elected positions and they decide that's enough free elections, there supporters will be well armed and encouraged to attack any who disagrees with the new regime. Of course when the new authoritarian regime is well established, you can kiss your guns goodbye.
At one level, the 'coastal elites' expressing similarity to non-Americans when it comes to guns, specifically, aversion to them, only strengthens the resolve of Americans in the middle of the country that the Coastals just aren't Americans.
This overstates the situation somewhat, but not completely. It also mischaracterizes it as coastal-middle. It's much more an urban-rural divide. And it's definitely the case that most urban and suburban dwellers don't hunt and don't have parents or grandparents who hunted. That said, no one hunts with AR-15s unless their goal is to leave dead animals for scavenging animals to eat.
If there's common ground to be found which gun non-owners and responsible gun owners could share, time to establish it, and FAR PAST TIME to ignore the gun fetishists and gun CONTROL absolutists who do poison any attempts at compromise. If serial incremental change is all that's possible, all-or-nothing types are a danger to society.
I think everyone sensible- from effusive gun enthusiasts to total gun abolitionists- would agree on a first, concrete step towards alleviating what is truly a crisis is to ban the AR-15. As you said, reasonable gun owners understand there is no purpose for it other than killing humans as fast as possible.
Gun control absolutists- abolitionists- aren’t poisoning compromise. In fact they’re desperate to get any kind of legislation or controls in place; they’re desperate for even incremental change.
It’s the “reasonable” gun owners (or rather, a significant portion of them) who buy into “slippery slope” arguments and who may support reform, but not loudly, and certainly not enough to vote out their “2A approved” representative.
Until they can find their voice and demand their congresscritter vote for gun control or throw them out if they won’t, nothing CAN change.
This is not a case of “extremes are dividing us”. It’s an apathetic middle who does nothing.
"I own no handguns or rifles, I have no desire to do so, and I’m mystified by the sine qua non significance often placed upon them in American discourse of rights."
My sentiments exactly, Ed. And I've lived here all my life.
Smoky Bear: ‘Forest fires. What can you do? Can’t stop them.’
When you are in a World Series? Never comment on a World Series victory.
I cannot imagine anymore the stress of having things in your professional inbox. Granted, my position at work is not managerial, so I'm not beholden like others that I work with are. That must truly be terrible to not have your grasp on.
And, I don't think JVL has once missed an email from me. A true mensch, you have my thanks for always being attentive.
I miss people all the time and feel guilty about it every time. So if any of you ever write to me and I don't get back to you, I'm sorry. I really do my best.
It means a lot. I dropped you a line in the early Bulwark days (and a couple times since) and you responded, and quickly. In addition to demonstrating righteous Inbox management, it shows respect. And it's good business. Cheers!
It's always seemed like it to me, amigo. You're doing well.
Question: Why don’t we levy a special on tax guns/ammo sales like cigarettes and gasoline, and allocate the revenue for mandatory training and background checks? Why don’t we require gun dealers and gun shows to have special licenses and carry liability insurance, like liquor stores and gas stations?
As somebody pointed out to me, insurance policies will exclude these sorts of actions from coverage.
Admittedly, the need for liability insurance presupposes that the victims of gun violence can/will sue the sellers/manufacturers of guns and hence these entities will seek protection from their insurance carriers. Alternatively, it could be coupled with the requirements for obtaining a seller’s license - but each of these future possibilities will require a change to the current laws regarding gun sellers/manufacturers in the US. It took years to accomplish the same ends with the sellers/manufacturers of cigarettes and liquor, but it can be done.
Here's an idea. It's estimated there are anywhere from 5 to 10 million AR-15 rifles in the US. On average they cost $800.
For the low, low price of $8 billion we could purchase every single AR-15 and melt them down to slag.
This would be a much better use of Elon's money instead of [not] trying to buy Twitter. And it's a free-market solution!
Hannity's pet idea of hiring retired police officers and veterans to volunteer for armed guard duty at school is ridiculous. Did he not just see an entire town's police forces paralyzed by one 18-year old gunman?
Armed retirees are supposed to do a better job than the town's active police officers?
65 year old Ethel, the social studies teacher, is expected to handle a shooter better than the town's police officers? What's that say about how weak they think cops are?
And the town had a SWAT Team with military weapons! I hope every single member of their useless police force is fired and their salaries sent to the families of the victims.
Chris Hayes makes the salient point that the NRA worldview was tested at Uvalde and utterly failed (especially starting at the 9:40 point). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJv4ZzFOzw Meanwhile, at the NRA conference, they were still getting cheers with the failed good guy with a gun line. Gun people have steadfastly rejected all reasonable and commonsense gun safety regulations. At the site of the NRA conference, on one side of the street were protesters crying, “Shame, shame, murderers, murderers” in the wake of the Uvalde massacre just a couple days before, and on the other side of the street were other people, brandishing their AR-15s, laughing and mocking the protesters. This is how gun people are radicalizing Americans to give up on reasonable measures and instead favor drastic measures like repealing the 2nd amendment. If they lose the 2nd amendment entirely, it will be their own darn fault for expecting to have rights without responsibility or limits. The party of personal responsibility—not. Besides, for reasons explained in other comments, the 2nd Amendment should have been repealed 200 years ago. Chief Justice Warren Burger called it the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon Americans here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eya_k4P-iEo
Send the bill to Cruz and the other pols with big mouths who keep saying a good man with a gun will stop a bad man with one. I will lay odds that the police force had nothing worse to deal with then a privileged drunk they let sleep in a cell. What made the town think they needed a SWAT team anyway?
Some politicians are idiots
Change that to 99% of Rep politicians are idiots as well as hypocrites.
Nothing teaches kids about Liberty(tm) and Freedom!!!(tm) more than having their schools turned into heavily fortified camps and acclimatizing them to being surrounded by armed security and police forces.
Cruz's "solution"of only one door with an armed guard posted is tantamount to an assertion that the likelihood of being gunned down in school is greater than the likelihood of a fire. Besides, the moment the gunman shows up is the moment the armed guard is out back taking his smoke break.
Especially when you protect them against their neighbors.
Mental illness is prevalent in all societies from minor separation from reality to significant. The greater the separation from reality the greater propensity to get caught up in the tide of toxic culture that runs through our society. Ask yourself if you contribute to that toxicity.
Patchwork gun laws can be about as effective as non-smoking sections were on airplanes and in restaurants.
Exactly. Use the same campaign used against smoking. Ban adds, ban using guns on TV. Ban guns in public areas. If you want to fondle your gun, go in the alley with the smokers. Oh, raise the price of ammo by jacking the taxes liked they did with cigarettes. Like smoking, people are going to use fewer bullets if they cost $5 a piece, unless you plan on killing yourself after shooting 10 people.
The argument the gun guys are already using is that making ammo prohibitively expensive is just a backdoor way to infringe on the 2nd amendment. Ironic they now understand backdoors to get around, say, civil rights laws.
Hmm. I don't know that Condon's equivocation of American gun violence and abortion is a sensible frame. Mass shootings are the work of mentally disturbed individuals, yes, but in the case of events like Buffalo are also explicit acts of domestic terrorism (violent acts carried out with the intent of causing political change through fear and intimidation; pretty textbook definition, seems to me). While one can quibble with the statistics - prenatal Americans aborted vs active Americans murdered by gunmen - this equivocation feels... icky? I feel there's an immorality in the equivocation, even as it reaches for a moral frame.
I don't know. Good column apart from that.
Religion is part of the problem. Check out the book, "Jesus and John Wayne". Okay, the sacralizing of guns is a thing. And many religions are complicit. Those entities should lose their tax exempt status. Now. Let's get serious here.
Bishop Flores was eloquent in this conversation. Thank you. Elevating the gun debate to “the good of the whole” and a need for our children to be less fearful & depressed. My military father loved his guns and hunting. He gave me a Winchester 22 at age 12. We went hunting and I was horrified to find that the squirrel I shot was pregnant. Then I received a 12 gauge shotgun and was very proud to go skeet shooting & bird hunting with my dad until I shot one. I even went on a deer hunt with Dad & friends. (Only 30 cal rifle) Of course I often heard the refrain that bad people will always get guns, so we need to have them. That was back in 1959. Believe me, we don’t need automatic war weapons to defend ourselves or to hunt. Our animals and other people need a safe ecosystem and world. For the few people that might confront a hungry bear 🐻 or moose a high powered rifle will suffice. I was trained in all aspects of gun safety by my father and at gun clubs. It seems to me that requiring people to have training before being able to buy a lethal weapon is a No-Brainer.
I own firearms. Learned safe and responsible use starting at a young age. 'Training' absolutely, positively a No-Brainer!
The State of Texas does more to protect a fetus than our living, breathing children. What hypocrisy. Outlaw assault weapons now.
Over in right-wing cesspools, they looked at the pictures of the children who died and said, "Good, less people growing up to vote for Democrats."
Are there any arguments in favor of having assault weapons available for purchase, besides some people think they're cool and there's a Second Amendment? Like is there an argument for why they should be available based on their utility for anything?
Short answer? No. Not a rational one anyway. All about the $$$. Always has been. Hunting was (and is) in a long steady decline, so ditto the sales of hunting and sporting firearms. Had to replace that revenue somehow, right? Not hard to do...just convince a lot of gullible and insecure folks to "Re-up your man card".
Seriously. That line is directly from an ad for an AR style weapon. And sadly, machismo sells. And sells a lot. And if you add in 'patriotism' and fear...CHA-CHING!!
Guess I'm just a wuss, and an unpatriotic one at that. Nary an AR or AK in my gun safe. Too stupid to be afraid of certain folks, I reckon. And never felt the need for a crutch for my manhood. And if called upon to be a 'patriot' and rebel against our tyrannical government, I always just sort of figured if I annoyed them too much taking potshots at 'em with my trusty AR, they'd just roll a Bradley or some such up my driveway and blow me straight to hell. So, not really worth the purchase price to me.
I heard a hallway interview with Senator Cassidy this past week in which he was asked that question, and he responded that he knows "several people who need them to hunt feral pigs." I used to have some shred of respect for that man, too.
How did people ever handle feral pigs before the AR-15? Maybe a Rube Goldberg-esque man/pig door trap would do the trick.
The mainstream history books won't tell you this, but in the ones you get in Texas, you can read the truth. Before Jesus invented the AR15 and bestowed it upon man, humans were ruled by the feral pig. It was this singular gift from our lord and savior that led to our triumph over the feral pig, and subsequently, human civilization.
And that is the sort of liberal snark that our conservative friends find so endearing.
Praise be.
Yeah. I think "need" is a bit of a strong word. Unless feral pigs roll in gangs of 300.
Well, to be candid, feral pigs go about in rather large herds and are very prolific and hugely destructive. My family has a ranch in South Texas brush country, and feral pigs are a big and so far intractable problem.
"Need" may not have been in his quote, but rather in the headlines of the subsequent media reports. So, clearly another example of MSM's "disinformation" agenda! (Actually, they got it just about right. Cassidy's words were just plain dumb no matter how you misquote them.)
I actually think I've heard the feral pig/boar justification before, since you mention it. "Need" may be an accurate characterization of what these folks say. But it just sounds ridiculous, and then we're bad people because we laugh at these folks for saying ridiculous things.
Ah, Thermopylae! Maybe he was being sardonic, and I missed the sarcasm? I'll have to find that video clip and double-check it.
People need to speak this truth that guns are idols to many (not all) in this country. They are creeping more and more into some people's view of what God wants - thus poisoning it. If you frame it in the context of a choice between love and hate (not good and evil) it is easier to identify these days. Why would so many choose to hate people/ their neighbor - violating one of the "two greatest commandments" then justify it with the same religion. Hate is also a good warning sign of some mental illness and certainly of evil.
But when the authoritarian take over all the elected positions and they decide that's enough free elections, there supporters will be well armed and encouraged to attack any who disagrees with the new regime. Of course when the new authoritarian regime is well established, you can kiss your guns goodbye.