Who knew?Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve on the Minnesota shooting: "The sad thing is we can't sit here and tell them that help is on the way. Because we're not going to do a damn thing about it." pic.twitter.com/CBeQ8yLGSn
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 28, 2025
The National Guard raking leaves and picking up litter?Rep. Scott Fitzgerald: "What President Trump is doing in DC has now become very quickly a blueprint for what I think we should see in some of these other urban areas." pic.twitter.com/g8lvl9uTgS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 28, 2025
Karoline Leavitt: "I saw the comments of Ms. Psaki and frankly I think they're incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works." pic.twitter.com/oVL3I52MHe
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 28, 2025
Prayer and Kevlar. We dare not stop the guns, so Kevlar school uniforms, yeah?
Nothing in this country is more important than our guns.
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ReplyDeleteAside from the fact the law cited did nothing to address/prevent this situation, you mean? Telling me “gun control is hard” is little different than offering “thoughts and prayers.” Especially when the people repeating that phrase don’t have even the epistle of James in mind. They just want an empty phrase that sounds like a compassionate response in order to avoid doing anything at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd what would I propose? Taxing ammunition, heavily. Some insist on a “right to bear arms.” That doesn’t extend to a right to use them, else we couldn’t have the laws you cited. Which, as I said, clearly aren’t all that useful, anyway. You might as well have a statute denying possession of guns to dead people. The shooter in this case certainly is, now. It’s a little late for those statutes to apply to him. Why not add one more?
After a quarter of a century of not only nothing being done but the Supreme Court Republican-fascist majority making it easier for psychotics to get weapons with which to do what has happened under we know what that status quo guarantees AND IT IS MORE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS. It's clear that those who want not only the status quo which brings that but even loser control on guns that they approve of more school shootings. "V" here clearly does enough to have assimilated the gun industry-Republican-fascist talking points on it.
ReplyDeleteIf they didn't approve of continued school shootings they would have tried to do something about it, they have not only done nothing, they've intentionally made it worse certainly since Scalia (may he be roasting in hell as I type this) and his colleagues made things far worse than they were even then.
I think enforcement would be very difficult at this point. There is, quite simply, too much money ready and willing to subvert any laws we could pass. It's not impossible, though- it has to be worked up to- first, by taking the right of gun ownership away from people who have demonstrated they are a risk to other people *without* a gun. Domestic abusers would be a good place to start.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is identifying “those people.” The presumption is in favor of the property right (what TC is getting at). You have to prove the individual is both”” “mentally ill” and a “danger to others.” We used to do that rather freely, and ended up with asylums inspiring Ken Kesey to fly over the cuckoo’s nest. We shut those places down (they really weren’t far removed from “three generations of imbeciles is enough!”), but threw out the baby with the bath water.
DeleteAnd now guns are a constitutional right you can’t pry from my cold, dead hands. Public safety? Well, ya gotta make some sacrifices to protect the rights of others. Right. I mean, they got no right to use that gun, but they certainly have a right to keep and bear it. Right?
I’ll retire to bedlam…
The problem with the “mentally ill” argument is that the NRA won’t allow a ban on ownership UNTIL after the shooting, which is the only “proof” of mentally ill allowed.
ReplyDeleteAs for your prior argument about “Dems” having armed protection. Political assault/assassination is at least as old as Lincoln’s death. School shootings are slightly more recent, with a higher body count. Apples v kumquats.
Your escape clause is always “enforcement won’t be easy.” Yes, smoker reloaders are available. How many people will buy them, though? Yes, there’ll be a black market (there already is one for guns). So do we do all we can to make guns harder to use so freely? Or do we make the perfect the enemy of the good, and tell kids to wear armor (including helmets) and say there’s nothing else we can do?
You offer no answers, yet insist others satisfy you. The argument continues to turn, as yours does, on what cannot be done. We can’t prevent auto accidents, but we still prosecute DWI and reckless driving. Should we stop?
ReplyDeleteWe don’t prosecute many mass shooters because so many end up dead at their own hand, or “suicide by cop.” We are the only country on the planet plagued with this problem, and we are ceaselessly told government is helpless. As I said before, a fundamental problem is that gun ownership is seen as a property right, and our jurisprudence (even without the warping effect of the late 20th century NRA) prizes that right above almost all others. (It’s the basis for the Rehnquist and Roberts courts to roll back civil and voting rights. Basically, because they ain’t property rights, and the latter is all government should protect. Sez they, anyway.) Rather than prove you are minimally competent to operate a firearm (a minimum we set, however imperfectly, on operating a motor vehicle, with further requirements to operate a commercial one), we assume competence until proven otherwise. How’s that working out?
Dram shop liability has even returned for drunk drivers. Gun owners are uniquely responsible for their irresponsible actions with a gun. And as I say, by then the damage is usually done.
And telling the families “Well, it probably would have been a car crash instead,” is cold comfort indeed.