A Muslim sympathizer killed fifty people in Florida. Enough is enough. Time to ban Muslims.
Also, James Wesley Howell of Indiana was arrested for driving to California with the intention of blowing up people celebrating gay pride. Far as I know, he’s Christian. So we’d better ban Christians, too. As a matter of fact, we need to build a wall around Indiana since they’re obviously dangerous.
But don’t ban guns. Mustn’t touch those.
PAD
Updated 8:47 on June 14: This. Right here.
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PAD: Let’s do the math. One billion Muslims. One percent of that is 10 million. The current size of the U.S. Active Duty Army: 475,000. If 1% of all Muslims wanted the destroy America, it would be. One tenth of one percent is 1 million. If one tenth of percent of the Muslims engaged in terrorist activities in the United States, the death toll would be in seven figures.
Well, first off, the US Active Duty military (not just the Army) is closer to 1.2 million, with a further 850,000 reservists we can call up.
But more importantly, one tenth of one percent of all Muslims don’t want to destroy America. Daesh’s membership is currently estimated at 200,000, tops. That’s worldwide. So, 1/50th of 1 percent.
And most importantly, you know what the only way that they can possibly raise their numbers is? By convincing Muslims that America is on a campaign of extermination against the Muslim faith, that we want to crush Islam as a religion, and that we will not rest until it is purged from America and the world.
You know, like Donald Trump keeps saying.
Please remember that Donald Trump is, quite literally, making Daesh recruiting speeches when he goes up to the podium. Not intentionally, but he could not be doing a better job of playing into their hands if they paid him.
2 billion Christians. One percent of that is 20 million. One 10th of 1 percent is 2 million. If one tenth of one percent of Christians wanted to kill gay people, they’d have been wiped out by now.
And yet, nothing anywhere close to either of our examples has come anywhere close to happening. Because when you’re making up doomsday predictions online, you can say anything, but eventually, it has to run up against reality.
We need to stop all Muslim immigration into America too. That will put an end to American born citizens going on shooting rampages in no time.
Let’s also repeal the First Amendment protection for Religion, since those who condemn the violent acts religious radicals are obviously lying and actually are fist-pumping.
Oh, and let’s ban violent video games, movies, TV shows, comics and music too. Mustn’t forget that
And the idiocy starts as of the third comment. Who had the third comment in the pool?
I’m sure that Trump and his ilk would dearly love to abandon the First Amendment. Anyone who wants to ban people based on their religion would certainly feel no need for it.
As for the rest of the typical gun lover bûllšhìŧ about, “Then we have to ban all these other things because they can cause death/contribute to it as well,” I shall say this once (more): Video games, movies, TV shows, comics and music, when used properly, entertain. Axes when used properly cut wood. Knives when used properly cut food. Baseball bats when used properly hit baseballs.
Guns, when used properly, kill.
Get it, dickweeds?
PAD
“I’m sure that Trump and his ilk would dearly love to abandon the First Amendment”
Trump has already made that threat. He’s flat stated he’ll sue and shut down press agencies that cover him negatively if he’s in office. And the people at his rallies cheer him when he says it.
So, in the world of Trump and the Trump supporters, the members of the press may only give praise and gratitude to the glorious leader of North Kore… I mean America once America is great again.
“Guns, when used properly, kill.”
Yes. However, to be the Devil’s advocate for a moment, Mr. David, those guns might be used to kill in order to feed you and your family. Historically, that is why most civilians would own guns, though not so much any more. I’m not arguing against reasonable gun control, but only making sure that we do not over-generalize. And no one needs an assault rifle for game hunting (or home defense).
I am agreeing more and more with the point of view that the Second Amendment needs to at least be modified and clarified, if not overturned.
“Yes. However, to be the Devil’s advocate for a moment, Mr. David, those guns might be used to kill in order to feed you and your family. Historically, that is why most civilians would own guns, though not so much any more.”
Actually, historically speaking, we’ve used weapons other than firearms for far longer.
I don’t use a gun to hunt. I’m a bow hunter. I also fish with rod and reel and bow.
You can trap rabbits and other small mammals easily. While illegal in some states, there’s a trap you can make with one long pole and a bunch of loops of metal wire. Lean it against a tree, leave it alone for a few hours, and then come get your squirrels for lunch.
The firearm was invented in China during the 13th century AD. It wasn’t a practical hunting tool for a long time after that. It also wasn’t embraced by all the various groups of man out there for quite some time.
Not really a required tool to feed a family.
Well, of course, Jerry, I am only referring to the last few centuries, and with full knowledge that there are many other hunting and trapping techniques–some of which have been in use for millennia. I was thinking of such examples as the early European colonists in the Americas and the later American pioneers. The main point was: If you didn’t kill, you often didn’t eat.
I was going to comment about that in the original article, but you beat me to it. One of the idiots even mentioned needing phasers (phased rifles), and I told him that he was full of it on that score.
At the very least, there needs to be action on gun control. What exactly is the need or purpose of private citizens owning automatic rifles? No one hunts deer or shoots at targets by spraying bullets by holding down a trigger. And why would someone who’d been investigated by the FBI still be allowed to buy such a weapon? The “argument” is that more laws won’t prevent all shootings — but limiting or restricting access to weapons virtually designed to spray bullets will certainly help. A LOT.
Only, there won’t be. After all, immediately after such a terrible tragedy is obviously not the time to have such a discussion, not when we can punt on it until some time after the next mass shooting, which will occur any hour now.
I particularly love the argument “Well, murder is illegal, and that doesn’t stop them.
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No, but we don’t have to make the weapons so EASILY AVAILABLE. If we make it more difficult to get the guns in the first place, we make it more difficult for them to be used in murders, shooting sprees, robbings, muggings, whatever.
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I don’t propose banning guns outright. But the ONLY reason to have semi-automatic (or automatic) rifles is to send out a lot of bullets at a quick pace. And why would you need to do that? 1) Defending yourself against the ebil gummint coming to take all your guns! (Which, uh. Has that happened when I wasn’t looking?) and 2) killing a lot of people in one go.
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You want a gun? Fine. Show you know how to use it, show you know how to keep it safe from random 5-year-olds wandering around the house, show you’re not so stupid as to be twirling it around with the safety off in public, show you’re not mentally ill or a terrorist, and get licensed. Done.
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Why is this so difficult?
I’m so mortified at how my above post was taken right now that it’s not even funny, not that it should be. My intent was not to display the idiocy that Trump and the Far Right Conservatives like him is displaying, but rather, I was taking the sarcasm contained in your original post, Peter, and augmenting it with my own point that those on the Far Right above would blame everyone and everything except the fact that a gun of a type that shouldn’t have been sold to civilians was sold to a civilian, as per usual rhetoric.
That was the point I was going for, but my clever sarcasm was too successful and so it came off as sincere idiocy. I’m sorry for offending everyone and that was not my plan. I may be a Republican, but I lean Left enough to know that Muslims weren’t to blame for Yesterday’s massacre, nor did those in the LGBT bring it on themselves. Rather it was an angry young man who bought into extremist rhetoric, bought a gun he shouldn’t have had access to, and killed 50 people at least. That’s the only person and thing at fault here. And I’m enough of a non-Dickweed to get that.
But again, I’m sorry that I buried my concurrence in so much sarcasm. Now I know what it means by the phrase “Victim of one’s own success” keenly after this experience, even with such a small “success”.
Respectfully and humbly,
Charles F. Waldo
You know, I WONDERED if you were just being sarcastic, but having just dealt with similar statements on a Facebook page by people who absolutely meant it, obviously I misinterpreted. Sorry about that.
PAD
And the winner of “Best Worst Timing Award” goes to… Me, apparently. Sigh
Anyway, it’s okay, Peter. I’ll just make sure next time to use a disclaimer in the future so that no one ends up inadvertently agreeing with me.
Though Hillary may want to use such a disclaimer after what she said about taking away all Constitutional rights for someone under FBI investigation. Given such a thing is such a slippery slope, especially if a person is under investigation by mistake, I think taking away their Second Amendment right would be enough.
Or using a really cool, but really obscure analogy, Hillary wants to do to those under Federal Investigation like Phoenix tried to do to Jahf in Uncanny X-Men #108. She tried to kill or incapacitate him with a big rock. What was suggested in the Rolling Stone Article and what I’m saying is just limit the access to guns whether by repealing the Second Amendment (I personally don’t think that it should go that far, though the writer makes good points. Just saying “Thou shalt not buy an Assault Weapon” would be enough. But to each their own) which is how Banshee dealt with Jahf…what he called a ‘finer touch’ a really tight and focused use of his mutant power.
Which approach worked? (Hint:It wasn’t Phoenix with the big rock, Hillary.)
*Disclaimer. The open remark to Senator Clinton was Sarcasm and Satire. The poster does not agree with Donald Trump despite being a Republican, he just wants the option other than Trump to not secretly sip Trump’s Kool-Aid.*
I’m going to state this up front, because I’m concerned the bulk of my statement here will be interpreted as some far-right tirade, and that is absolutely not the case. So I want to be clear: First, I absolutely believe that we should enact sweeping gun buying restrictions such that someone who is mentally ill, or someone who is on a terrorist watchlist, cannot just walk into a gun store or a gun show and legally buy whatever he wants. I think guns should be as carefully (or moreso) licensed and registered and policed as are automobiles. I think the entire “no restrictions ever” attitude is moronic and MUST change.
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Second, I wish, wholeheartedly, that I lived in a country where we could ban all guns and it would absolutely make us safer. Canada, Britain, Australia, so much of Europe . . . so many fewer deaths, so much less violence, because they’re not a nation of gun-crazy loons. I would absolutely support American disarmament.
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But it cannot happen.
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A lot of people debate and interpret the Second Amendment. Oh, it’s for law-abiding citizens, it’s to protect the rights of sportsmen, it only says militia members can have guns, the founding fathers never envisioned automatic weapons, etc, etc.
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This is all idiot speculation. The Federalist Papers, specifically #46 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._46 ), written by the James Madison, father of the Bill of Rights himself, clearly state the purpose of the 2nd, in no uncertain terms: should the military, at the behest of a corrupt government, be used upon the people, the armed populace would far outgun and outnumber them, and the government would be toppled and democracy restored. Which means the population MUST be armed, and at an equal OR SUPERIOR level, to the government, so that they can take down the military if they need to. He wrote this because the country had just fought a revolution against a country that had attempted to do this. Britain seized American property and restricted the population’s weapons so that we could not resist. And the founding fathers were adamant that this never happen again. Granted, they recognized the other tools of revolution, a free press and the right to speak and assemble against a corrupt government, were both more powerful and preferable (no one sane or intelligent advocates violence first), but they knew that when those fail, we need to be armed to prevent tyranny, especially from our government.
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And it’s not “the government coming to take our guns” we should be concerned about and fight against, it’s all the OTHER rights that we should be worried about.
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Now, to most rational, educated citizens, the idea that our government would ever turn its military on its people is preposterous and paranoid fear-mongering. It’s ludicrous. It’s conspiracy-level BS. It’s a punchline. We live in a democracy, for God’s sake!
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And yet we currently live in a society where we have a now official candidate for the highest office who has been repeatedly (and terrifyingly accurately) compared to Adolf Hitler, backed by a massive movement of zealots or complacent sheep who are likewise eerily reminiscent of the aforementioned dictator’s followers, who has literally proposed building internment camps, policing neighborhoods with military force, shutting down oppositional media sources, and has called on his people to physically assault people they perceive as threats . . . which they have done. And they are voting in record numbers.
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We live in a virtually unrestricted capitalism where mega-corporations flat-out buy elections and face no criminal penalties for their actions. We live in a country where, as has been demonstrated SO MANY TIMES in the last two years alone, the police that are supposed to protect us, are not just trained but ENCOURAGED to open fire and shoot to kill 30% of our population based on skin color, also without criminal penalties. We live in a country where 50% of the population are at risk of sexual assault, and their attackers face no greater criminal penalty than a six month . . . no, wait, make that THREE month jail sentence, because the perpetrator shouldn’t be traumatized and the victim shouldn’t be dressed like that (and for anyone thinking “that’s just an extreme case of miscarriage of justice, NO, it’s not, read – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States ). We live in a country where a religious fanatic bombing a public place can be praised as a HERO rather than a TERRORIST because he was Christian, and the target was, well, a Target, and they were letting “men” into the “wrong” bathroom. These are not errors in our system of government, they are FEATURES, and they are working exactly as intended.
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Ironically, all of these features are supported and embraced by the radical Right . . . the same Right that supports the absolute freedom interpretation of the Second Amendment. Ironic because it is that very amendment that protects the rights of the citizens to fight AGAINST this kind of corruption. The Left could do well to remember that. As a Liberal who opposes every last example on the above list, I am GRATEFUL that I have that right. And I will be ESPECIALLY grateful if Trump gets elected.
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And I would GLADLY give it up. If I lived in a country that had a populace and a government that was as mature and stable as those in Canada and Britain and Australia and most of Europe and so much of the rest of the world. Because those countries and those people have been around for centuries, and they have faced hardships and witnessed history and exposed themselves to the global community in a way that most in the US have never even bothered, and they have experienced so much more, and they have grown up. These countries have lived in a world where they are not “the greatest country on Earth,” and they have been humbled and wizened by that reality. And so they have worked harder to take care of their own.
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The US? We’re the new kids, the young, ignorant, self-absorbed children, and our government reflects that. We’re the best, we know everything, we’re in charge, we’ve got the money, no one can touch us, no one can tell us what to do. We’ve never learned that kind of humility (at least not to any degree that stuck), and we’ve never learned to take care of ourselves properly. Our government is akin to a 21-yr-old, sociopathic, misogynistic, heavily armed trust-fund brat. And there is now a real possibility he’s going to start taking orders from an apparent white supremacist . . . who is also a literal 70-yr-old, sociopathic, misogynistic trust-fund brat.
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I agree, absolutely, wholeheartedly, and unconditionally, that we should regulate guns better. No arguments from the Right matter, there should be common-sense restrictions and enforcement.
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I WISH we could get rid of them all.
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But especially now . . . I would be TERRIFIED of that prospect. Because I will NOT live in Nazi Germany. And no other country realistically wants me.
And because I still don’t think I was clear enough, emphasis:
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I do think we should and CAN at least do the regulation part. There is NO reason not to enact and enforce background checks. There is NO reason not to red-flag mental patients and FBI suspects and no-fliers. There is NO reason not to take a good, long look at conceal laws. There is NO reason not to require the registration of every legal firearm. These are all common sense laws that should have no opposition, other than “But it’ll make it easier fer the gubmint to TAKE UR GUNS!” And it’s a BS argument, and we should and can get it done.
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It’s only the ban idea that I believe simply cannot work. And that’s not because of some whiny “because it’s my RIGHT to have them!” selfish mentality. It’s because I think it would be bad for the general populace to lose that check on the government, in its current precarious state.
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But if we could grow up in the next decade or two, if we could mature as a nation, if we could get educated and civilized, if we could care about our fellow citizens more than we use them, and reform our government to a point that it’s not a top-heavy, gain-power-for-power’s-sake, eat-the-poor oligarchy, I’d love to see it happen then.
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Unrealistic. But I am an optimist.
I follow your logic, but I dare say that, unlike Free Speech and other rights, the Right to Bear Arms is fated to never be used for “good” in the US, at least in the context of automatic weapons.
As other people have said, the Right to Bear Arms amounts to nothing against a modern, hostile military. But that is not your main point, so let’s skip it.
Let’s imagine the Right to Bear Arms to help defend against Trump’s armed followers. Not happening, ever. Why? Because, if things get so bad that “Trumpism” has political and social power enough to have bands of armed thugs roving the streets, they also will have social power enough to demonize opponents that try fighting fire with fire.
It’s not just coincidence that Blacks, Communists, Gays, Feminists, and people like that have never benefited from the Right to Bear Arms in the USA, because if any of these groups had insisted and started a massive gun training campaign for self-defense, they would have been eradicated as “terrorists” and their weapons taken away “legimately”.
The American Left’s choice to avoid going this route is not only out of high-mindedness, but an awareness that a white dude with a gun is a patriot, a black dude with a gun is a suspect. It’s more effective to fight in other ways.
To make it short, I think the Right to Bear Arms is only ever exercised en masse in America by groups that are already socially hegemonic. It’s like handing a whip to the guy that is already the tallest and strongest person in the room.
I suppose because it’s extremely easy to demonize. White Christians are able to handle the demonizing, because they already are very powerful socially.
If other groups ever become socially powerful enough to be able to exercise it en masse, they will not NEED to exercise it anymore, and giving it to them will only make them more prone to become abusive of the right.
Rene wrote, “It’s not just coincidence that Blacks, Communists, Gays, Feminists, and people like that have never benefited from the Right to Bear Arms in the USA, because if any of these groups had insisted and started a massive gun training campaign for self-defense, they would have been eradicated as “terrorists” and their weapons taken away “legimately”.”
Yeah. All one has to do is look how the first major gun control policy was put into effect in California.
In 1967.
It was known as the Mulford Act and (per Wikipedia) it “was crafted in response to members of the Black Panther party conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods while conducting what would later be termed copwatching. They garnered national attention after the Black Panthers marched bearing arms upon the California State Capitol to protest the bill.”
Because WHITE Republicans were scared of Black men with guns.
I’m not sure if this fits the definition of “irony” but Gov Reagan was quoted that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”
Jay, the flaw in this line of argumentation is that a fascist he-man like Trump will probably have the support of the majority of gun nuts.
So I don’t see American-style gun rights as the armed general population being a check to oppressive government. I see it as giving a free private army to a demagogue strong man.
Because guns (and gun training) are not distributed randomly. It’s heavily concentrated in the hands of right-wingers.
That’s not a flaw, that’s the very point of the amendment. A dangerous, fascist lunatic who could take control of our government has an armed force at his disposal. The Second Amendment was created specifically to defend against THAT. And it is a CHOICE not to. Your argument is circular.
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To choose to see the Right to Bear Arms as “giving free troops to the crazies” is just like saying “I don’t vote because my vote doesn’t matter.” Yes, the people who say that are absolutely right, one vote doesn’t matter much, But NOT voting, by definition, CANNOT matter, and if everyone votes, suddenly they add up and those votes DO matter. Likewise, the idea that guns are bad, so the Left won’t use them, so only Right-wing crazies have guns, so guns are bad . . . well yes, if you choose not to act as a potential check on corruption, than you certainly aren’t going to be an effective check on corruption.
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Deciding the Second Amendment is bad, and subsequently not taking advantage of it, on the grounds that people who support the 2nd are gun nuts, based on some notion that “violence is always wrong, we can solve out problems diplomatically and democratically, we are more civilized, we don’t need guns,” is a very noble, mature, and optimistic position to have. And also an unwise one, particularly in the current political climate. And fortunately, an entirely reversible one.
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Just like voting booths, quality gun training is available to every law-abiding citizen of this country. And yes, like some of those polling places, some people who wish to subvert the exercise of those rights have made the facilities inconvenient to use, or far out of the way. But at the end of the day, it is still a CHOICE to not like or use guns and to let only the Right gun nuts have have them. Just like it’s a choice to dislike Hillary and thus not vote and maybe Trump gets elected. I would hope NO ONE around here is foolish enough to do that, but as PAD pointed out in two previous threads, there are a disturbingly large number of angry or complacent Liberals who are threatening to do so.
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Free Speech only works if you exercise it. Free Press only works if you bother to listen to it. Free Assembly is only effective if you actually try to get together with people. And yes, you have to CHOOSE to Bear Arms for it to function as intended. You would NEVER suggest “let’s abolish Free Speech, because the people who speak the loudest are all fringe lunatics.” You would never suggest “Let’s abolish the Free Press because Fox News is destroying journalism.” It would be unthinkable to say “The KKK has the Freedom to Assemble, so we should get rid of it.” No, in all those cases, you fight back, in kind.
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And no, I’m not talking some individual, vigilante “Bad guy/good guy with a gun” rhetoric . . . I mean a united, rational, armed populace, trained by experts and each other, standing together, working up a local defense plan in the face of a tyrannical enemy, and exercising the Second Amendment for the exact purpose it was intended. Yes, it’s work. It’s hard. And it should only be resorted to when the First Rights have failed. It’s uncivilized and thuggish.
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But bullies are not civilized. And sometimes you need to stand up to them. And that only works when you have the strength to actually stand.
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Which gets back to the ban point I was making. I wish we DIDN’T live in a nation where there are bullies who think resorting to violence and fascism and racism and homophobia and misogyny are acceptable. I wish we did live in a country where such a massive portion of the population didn’t think “ALL these people are lesser beings, and it’s ok to settle my differences by shooting them.” Other first-world societies have move past that childish bully mentality. Ours has not. And until we do, the civilized among us, the intelligent Left, need to remember that the only way to get to that point is to stand up to those bullies when they get out of line. And sometimes, that might just involve fighting fire with fire. That is VERY unpalatable. And I wish it wasn’t so.
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Just as a side note, I do think that proper training and respect for guns should ALSO be a mandatory requirement for gun use, just as it is for vehicle use. Again, that’s a law I think we can TOTALLY enact, and there’s no smart reason or argument not to.
“That’s not a flaw, that’s the very point of the amendment. A dangerous, fascist lunatic who could take control of our government has an armed force at his disposal. The Second Amendment was created specifically to defend against THAT.”
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And it was created when the average gun owner would have a black powder rifle that held one round at a time while the military had that and, when hauling out the big guns, a canon.
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First, it’s highly unlikely that the armed forces are going to turn on the American public because an idiot like trump gets elected and orders them to go after people he doesn’t like.
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Second, if that actually did happen the American people are- pardon my French -well and truly fûçkëd.
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The 2nd Amendment crew that keeps going on about defending our freedoms against the tyrannical US government and its corrupt military apparently don’t have many functional brain cells to put that argument forward. The military isn’t restricted to black powder rifles and a row of canons these days.
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They have full auto rifles. They have more ammo than you. They have missile launchers, tanks, helicopters, jets, unmanned drones, chemical weapons that can burn so hot you’ll die in unbelievable pain, but only a few seconds or so of it.
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Some of the idiots out there that seem to think Red Dawn is a documentary wouldn’t last two days if our military went bad and decided to remove them from this Earth.
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That argument might have merit as an “intent” argument, but it is pointless in every other possible way.
If one were to read the Federalist Papers, one would see that the intent was, in fact, to allow the populace to be armed AS WELL OR BETTER THAN the military, and the lesser training would be compensated for by MASSIVELY higher numbers on the populace side.
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The numbers differential still holds . . . our military personnel are about 1% of our population, and that’s world-wide. That the populace is neither as heavily armed or as well trained as the military is, again, a choice we have made over decades, and again, not a very wise one. Although, as I mentioned in an earlier post, and as you reiterated in yours, the idea of the US Military being turned on the populace is a fantasy on par with faking the Moon Landing. Or it was until this election cycle.
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That said, I DO agree that the Military would not stand for it. So that allays the concern of being well and truly fûçkëd.
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However, the aforementioned army of far-Right thugs amassing to Donald Trump’s call? I could see THEM becoming a threat all too easily. And that is something the rest of the populace should be prepared to deal with. Because as great as our military is, the National Guard takes time to respond. Especially if they have a Commander in Chief telling them to stand down. They probably won’t attack the populace directly if ordered to, but they might not be willing to face charges of treason because they disobeyed an order to stay put and NOT fight.
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And those Right thugs are only armed and trained better and in greater numbers if the rest of the people allow them to be.
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Yes, even if the specific threat of the actual US Military turned against the populace is a delusion, and only good for an “intent” debate, the threat of the government or the President attacking the populace in any other capacity, or with any other force, is NOT impossible. And again, with a candidate who has openly said he wants to send police forces into Muslim neighborhoods en masse, it’s not even unlikely.
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On a final, tangential note, I do hope those comments about functional brain cells and Red Dawn idiots were not directed personally. I can’t stress enough, I do totally support common sense gun regulations, and I would absolutely want a unilateral gun ban . . . if we didn’t have a country filled with people that find it acceptable to disregard the lives of all the others.
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And I do legitimately believe we should have the capability to defend against that.
“If one were to read the Federalist Papers, one would see that the intent was, in fact, to allow the populace to be armed AS WELL OR BETTER THAN the military, and the lesser training would be compensated for by MASSIVELY higher numbers on the populace side.”
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Which would require the citizenry to own and have access to weapons and vehicles they have no clue how to operate. Half of them would kill themselves before the military seriously tried.
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And that’s not me being flip. Better armed than the military? Not gonna happen. I could get a military strike on a city that would devastate large sections of its infrastructure, kill who knows how many people, and injure countless more. Would take less than a day with the proper air power.
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Higher numbers of the populace? Okay. But when you reference situations like the Trump deal, you realize that you’re essentially putting 40% to 45% of the populace on his side, right? You’re not going to be fighting the military then, you’ll be fighting your neighbor. Then, should there be a corrupt military behind him, they’ll come in and mop up the leftovers.
“Well, it looks like Trump was right”
Unfortunately, there are a great number of people who are sarcasm-proof.
Canadian newspaper chain (SUN) had an informal poll following the Orlando tragedy.
“Which candidate or potential U.S. presidential nominee would best combat extremism?”
The results?
Sanders – 9%
Clinton – 17%
May I have another option please? – 29%
Trump – 43%
A time to worry?
I wouldn’t worry. Canadians can’t vote for Trump.
PAD
Obviously. But not the point. I believe it is safe to assume that Canadians – on average – are more centrist/center-left than Americans – again, on average. If Canadians feel that relatively strongly about Trump, do you really want to bet Americans don’t either? Then consider how Bush Jr, arguably the worst president to date, should never have been re-elected in ’04 but was and it being seen as a time of crisis helped with that. Really certain that the same people who put him in office won’t look at Trump the same way? I wish I were, but I’m not.
The SUN chain is made up entirely of right-wing tabloids. This “informal” poll was of people already reading one of the papers’ websites… it does not represent a cross-section of Canadians.
“Updated 8:47 on June 14: This. Right here.”
Just don’t read the comments.
People really depress me sometimes.
Was it Heinlein who once wrote that every one was entitled to their *informed* opinion?
Huh? I don’t get it. What was updated?
Well, I have seen somebody say that Donald Trump is an internet comments section come to life…
Never Mind with my recent post above. It looks like I was sipping the wrong Kool-Aid. The Federalist website seemed to make the “Take-Away-Second-Amendment” argument sound like Hillary was going to take away all constitutional rights if she were elected President.
This has not been a good week for me, let me tell you. What’s worse, ruined a good analogy.
Websites need to be more careful with their headlines. Anyway, sorry to dig myself back into something.
The simple truth is, it doesn’t really matter who wins. Because WE THE PEOPLE will LOSE either way.
But on the bright side, Obama is FINALLY getting out of office.
Ok, I know this post won’t be popular here, but it needs to be said…
This guy picked a great target, full of sheep where he was the wolf. When I heard that there were 50 dead, I was waiting to hear how most of these were from the SWAT team storming the place. I mean, even with a ten round magazine in the rifle, that is at least five full mags of ammo!!! That doesn’t happen immediately. It means that no one in that crowd was effectively defending themselves. No one threw bottles or chairs, they didn’t rise up and rush him as a group, no one was armed. They ran or huddled up and waited to be killed.
Try this at a Trump rally, and you are dead before you change magazines!
Ðámņ… Really? And here I had my money on a full three days before someone would turn so scumbag stupid that they would insult the victims and blame them for their deaths.
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You don’t know šhìŧ about what the people in that club actually did or did not do in the opening moments of that shooting. And a ten round mag? You also apparently don’t know šhìŧ about guns.
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The AR-15 and the Sig Sauer MCX (It was actually a Sig Sauer MCX that was used in Orlando, but same caliber rounds and mag capacities.) have standard, easy to obtain mags that can hold 30 or 50 rounds. They’re designed to be easily swapped out when you need to change the mags as well. I could train you for half a day with either of those weapons and have you firing your last shot, dropping a mag, slapping in the next mag, and taking your next shot in under a second. Even if he only had 30 round mags with one in the gun and four in his pockets, that’s 151 rounds (one round in the chamber, the rest in the mags) he could have fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. If he had 50 round mags? 251 rounds of ammo. Plus he had a 9mm handgun with extra mags to transition to. An hour of training and you would have never noticed a break in the shots as he transitioned.
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And he’s had way more training than that.
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Plus- bonus round -he was firing .223 into a crowded area where many people were packed like sardines. Ever fired something that uses .223 rounds, CharlieE? I have. Used the AR-15 before. Grew up around hunting and guns. I’ve fired Remington .223 from a rifle when hunting before. I’ve seen .223 rounds go through- not just into, but through -a fully grown deer before, and that’s sometimes a longer, harder trip than it is going through your average human torso.
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If the shooter initially put himself in the right position, they weren’t going to be able to throw much of anything. The line of people closest to him, the ones who could throw the bottle or drink they likely weren’t all holding, would have been (from the sound of the shots fired on several videos) getting two to three rounds per second fired in their direction. A number of those rounds- anywhere from a third to half of them -were probably going through some part of the body of the first victim and hitting an additional victim behind them. So your first and second line of people closest to him weren’t in a great position to stand, aim, and throw stuff from the club floor while being shot.
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But you want to insult the dead and then play your little bûllšhìŧ bluster and macho card? Do the world a favor. Take whatever gun it is you obviously love more than you love having common sense, decency, or functional intelligence and go fûçk yourself with it.
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Oh, and for our moment of stupidity zen for the day-
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The Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle used to murder 49 people and wound 53 more in Orlando as well as other similar weapons have been given a very much sanitized name for gun enthusiasts and their advertisements. They’re “Modern Sporting Rifles” now. Yeah, if you’re into the sport of hunting humans.
AR-15? Sorry, no, just an M-16 (qualified Marksman way back in ’74…)
Ever used those hi-round mags? Have a bad habit of jamming because those springs are just too long to provide sufficient pressure…
And sorry, but I don’t happen to own any guns, never had. From the description that I heard (only heard one…) the shooter took a few shots, paused, walked around, took a few more shots, looked for more targets, took a few more shots. I understand the exits were jammed with people trying to escape, and some victims tried to ‘play dead’ as he went around and spent rounds on the wounded. Plenty of time for someone to rally a defense, if anyone had tried.
Also, if that gun was anything like the M-16, it rarely went ‘through’ anything. Once a round hit something halfway solid, it tumbled like crazy. Bad for the body it hit, but not bad for anyone on the other side.
Yes, he picked a good, safe target. If he had tried, he could probably have had a good exit strategy, but that wasn’t part of his plans.
“Ðámņ… Really? And here I had my money on a full three days before someone would turn so scumbag stupid that they would insult the victims and blame them for their deaths.”
Not even that long. The very evening of the day it happened …
I almost feel as though I ought to apologize for posting the following, but people need to know about such insane, sick sorts.
“Showing Islamic extremists don’t have sole ownership of hate, a Baptist preacher in northern California told his congregation Sunday night they shouldn’t be mourning the Orlando shooting and that “the tragedy is that more of them didn’t die.””
The rest of the article can be found at the following …
tinyurl.com/h35q8pf (Not for those with high blood pressure.)
“Not even that long. The very evening of the day it happened …”
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Yeah, Saw stuff like that all day. But I meant specifically here.
Oh, and this line?
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“Ok, I know this post won’t be popular here, but it needs to be said…“
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You need to learn the very real and the very fundamental differences between “needs to be said” and you wanted to display to other people in public what a second rate human being and ášš you are.
Or, maybe I want others to THINK about this type of situation, and what they should do. Should they be sheep, and cringe and hide and wait to be shot? Should they run for the exits (and know where they are AHEAD OF TIME!) or try and defend themselves?
LET’S ROLL!!!!!!
“Ever used those hi-round mags? Have a bad habit of jamming because those springs are just too long to provide sufficient pressure…”
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Ah, yes. My favorite bûllšhìŧ line from people like you and the the NRA fluffers.
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Ladies and gentlemen, those gosh darn high capacity mags are just so useless! They jam all the time! They’re faulty as hëll? The springs are just too long to get the job done! Why, have you ever even used one before?
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Why, yes, actually I have. As a matter of fact, I train regularly with an M4 and several of the guys I train with bring their AR-15s on days when we know we’ll have the extra time for them. I have range days where we’ve put well over 2,000 round through our weapons. We use 30 round mags as standard duty issue, but we have gotten some of the 50s as well.
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You know what has almost never happened with our mags until they’re older than hëll? They don’t jam. As a matter of fact, I’ve never had a 30 round mag jam up my weapon yet. We actually have to create an issue ourselves to for drills where clearing the weapon or transitioning to sidearm is involved.
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So either you have no clue what you’re talking about, or you’re big into exaggerating and lying.
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Of course, I love seeing this argument when the NRA fluffers bring it up. They’ll be the first to tell you that those mags are just so dámņëd unreliable and bad, just so prone to screwing up. They’re practically worthless you know.
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Of course, talk about restricting them or banning them and suddenly it’s a whole different tune. Then it’s all about how great they are, how much more convenient they are at the range VS having to swap lower capacity mags all the time, and how much danger you people who want high capacity mags restricted or banned are putting people in by making them use lower capacity mags.
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When you’re reading their comments on line, it makes you wonder if they’re just inherently dishonest people or if they’re so stupid that they believe each argument when they’re making it despite the two arguments directly opposing each other.
So, you have a lot more recent experience than I do. I lost shot a weapon back in ’78 or ’79, and that was just a handgun back in the forest of a friend of mine.
I know that my standard issue magazines in the M16 would jam up every so often, esp. when using blank cartridges in training. From what I had heard, the big mags had the same problem, but I have never shot them myself.
Regulate hi-cap mags? Sure, why not. It might help. I haven’t heard if the Orlando shooter had them, or not.
Charlie, let me say this as delicately as I can:
You’re an idiot.
Sorry, that was not subtle. Let me try again:
When someone starts firing a weapon, especially in a crowded place, fight-or-flight takes over. If the people are unarmed, then it’s flight. If they had been armed, believe it or not, the great likelihood is that in a crowded place with people running around, even more people would have died. Untrained (VERY likely) armed people wouldn’t have known where to shoot and would likely have just started spraying bullets in random directions because they would have been terrified. They’d just have aided the gunman in his work.
So you are sitting in judgment on people who were in a terrifying position, were responding in a manner of survival that is ingrained into human beings, and if they had been armed and tried to fight back, would have likely killed even more people.
Idiot.
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Fight or Flight? Sounds like two options…
Why did everyone chose just the one????
Also, that covers the first 30 seconds or so, then the forebrain should take over again, but NO ONE decided to fight back? It was a couple of hours before police came in, did nobody get organized in all that time?
To me, it doesn’t make much sense, maybe I am an idiot…
Weird thought of the day, was this a consequence of the ban on gays in the military????
No Charlie you dummy, it wasn’t. You’re nothing but a big homophobe.