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Guns in America


MichaelWeston

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/05/16/the-story-behind-the-viral-photo-of-a-kent-state-graduate-posing-with-her-cap-and-a-rifle/?utm_term=.ecb58f21e79b

 

The college graduate shared the pictures at a time when conservatives in Congress have pushed legislation to allow those with concealed-carry permits in one state to carry their concealed weapons in all 50 states. The president and other Republicans have also talked about arming teachers following the Parkland school massacre.

Bennett, who was raised by a Republican family in Zanesville, Ohio, knew her photo would provoke backlash. She’d found herself at the center of controversy on campus plenty of times before. Just three weeks ago, she co-organized an open-carry demonstration that invited nearby residents to bring their firearms to the university. (Kent State University bans students, staff and faculty from carrying “deadly weapons,” according to its website. State law allows graduates and visitors to openly carry weapons on campus, but only outdoors, according to university spokesman Eric Mansfield.)

But Bennett never imagined the photo would spread so rapidly across the country. In the photo, Bennett is wearing a white dress and wedge heels. Her brother’s AR-10 rifle, equipped with a scope, is slung over her shoulder. In her hand is her black graduation cap, marked with the rifle cutout and the words “COME AND TAKE IT.” The historic slogan dates back to the Revolutionary War and the Texas Revolution against Mexico, she said, when Texan rebels fashioned a flag with the phrase over the image of a cannon as a sign of their defiance.

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18 minutes ago, Cat said:

Nobody posted this yet? This is in my neck of the woods - TDub knows where this is too...

 

http://abc13.com/at-least-8-dead-and-officer-injured-following-santa-fe-hs-shooting-/3491480/

 

I don't just know where it is, I went there myself.  The old HS is now the JHS so I've never been in the building & I'm sure all my old teachers have retired by now but yeah.. I am wondering if anyone I knew has kids there. It's a weird little bedroom community of Houston/Galveston known for the occasional hate crime.  Former "sundown town" & all that.

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6 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

I don't just know where it is, I went there myself.  The old HS is now the JHS so I've never been in the building & I'm sure all my old teachers have retired by now but yeah.. I am wondering if anyone I knew has kids there. It's a weird little bedroom community of Houston/Galveston known for the occasional hate crime.  Former "sundown town" & all that.

It used to be a bedroom community - it's really blown up in size over the last 10 years or so. Good friend of mine's daughter goes there. Daughter is ok, but 3 of her friends are dead.

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3 minutes ago, Cat said:

It used to be a bedroom community - it's really blown up in size over the last 10 years or so. Good friend of mine's daughter goes there. Daughter is ok, but 3 of her friends are dead.

 

Reading that their graduation was tonight or tomorrow?  Such a vindictive thing..  I'm also reading they have two in custody.

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On 5/16/2018 at 12:08 PM, USN Bengal said:

What about "He's a lying disgusting piece of shit" don't you understand?

Obama was a fucking idiot as well...

 

As far as "comparing twitter accounts" or comparing ANYTHING... what's the use of comparing shit against shit?

 

You guys go right ahead and say just how much more terrible the current fuck up is over the past fuck ups... 

 

The bottom line is that they are all fuck ups who care nothing about us.

Why was Obama an idiot? There is no comparison to the current guy. None. This guy is awful by any measure and the people who voted him in are complicit. 

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It's the guns. It's clearly the guns. If you care more about your recreation than people's lives you are an a hole. If you are so paranoid you think you need all these guns for your protection you need to move and/or seek mental health treatment. It is not your right to own any gun you wish and have it where ever you wish. That's not what the amendment says. That interpretation has changed over time and can change. The argument that criminals don't follow laws make no sense. That's an argument against all laws. This stuff works in other countries. 

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On 5/17/2018 at 2:08 PM, T-Dub said:

 

Too bad we don't have a "none of the above" or no confidence type of option.

 

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Nevada has that option, and I used it on more than one occasion. It also caused a revote a couple of times. 

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1 hour ago, MichaelWeston said:

It's the guns. It's clearly the guns. If you care more about your recreation than people's lives you are an a hole. If you are so paranoid you think you need all these guns for your protection you need to move and/or seek mental health treatment. It is not your right to own any gun you wish and have it where ever you wish. That's not what the amendment says. That interpretation has changed over time and can change. The argument that criminals don't follow laws make no sense. That's an argument against all laws. This stuff works in other countries. 

 

That amendment should be repealed...

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46 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

Hey, why not repeal all of them?

 

Let's reenact the 18th while we're at it! :rolleyes:

 

The founders built in a mechanism to remove amendments that became useless or harmful over time, and gave the citizenry the right to choose. The second isn't fucking sacred. If it were they would have exempted it. 

 

You're usually so even keel and logical about things, but this issue makes you as irrational as an anti abortion protestor. 

 

But whatever. I don't know why I even let myself get sucked into this argument. Not my circus, not my monkeys... 

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6 minutes ago, Elflocko said:

 

Let's reenact the 18th while we're at it! :rolleyes:

 

The founders built in a mechanism to remove amendments that became useless or harmful over time, and gave the citizenry the right to choose. The second isn't fucking sacred. If it were they would have exempted it. 

 

You're usually so even keel and logical about things, but this issue makes you as irrational as an anti abortion protestor. 

 

But whatever. I don't know why I even let myself get sucked into this argument. Not my circus, not my monkeys... 

 

Emotion > logic everywhere in this thread, from my perspective.  Lately it's a fixation on "assault rifles" even though no one seems to be able to define what those are when pressed.  

 

Consider that we've had widespread private ownership of firearms since before this was a nation. Like I mentioned, I went to this HS and many, many of my friends owned or had easy access to guns. For being near a major city it is (or was) a fairly rural sort of area.  Lots of duck hunters & such. I even had a few kinda weird, loner friends that were often bullied.  One of those kids is probably working for NASA or JPL now, he got really into rocketry and impressed some sponsors of a club at the nearby NASA JSC (bka as Mission Control as in "Houston we have a problem".)  He was on his way to becoming an amateur gunsmith at 16.  We played paintball in the woods & all that jazz.  Still, the idea of shooting a bunch of our classmates - even the dickish ones - was unthinkable.  It never even crossed our minds as something people would do.

 

Mass shootings have only become commonplace in the last 10-20 years. It's clearly not because of the guns.

 

Maybe I only seem logical and even-keeled because we usually agree on things? I don't think I've said anything outlandish here, or anything that wasn't based in reality.  I do see a lot of calls for action that are obviously things that are never going to happen.  When we start talking about realistic changes the conversation stalls.  Maybe people just want to vent? That's understandable, but I don't think challenging misconceptions or questioning the efficacy of knee-jerk legislation based on fear & misinformation makes me some kind of "gun nut".  Frankly if people want to see new gun laws passed they need to stop demonizing gun owners.  Otherwise it just amounts to a bunch of virtue-signaling & finger-pointing. 

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2 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

I don't see much logic in the things being discussed here.  There's this fixation on "assault rifles" even though no one seems to be able to define that.  

 

Consider that we've had widespread private ownership of firearms since before this was a nation.  Mass shootings have only become commonplace in the last 10-20 years.  It's clearly not the guns.

 

My opinion differs from many here in that I don't think you should be allowed to own any weapon without a written test, physical aptitude test, and a psychological evaluation. "Assault" weapon or not. And I think you are in denial if you think the ridiculous availability of weapons doesn't influence and exacerbate the recent pattern of mass shootings. 

 

That said, the underlying issue is that the US is deeply damaged psychologically in regard to violence and the fetishization (is that a word? No? Fuck it) of firearms.

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4 minutes ago, Elflocko said:

 

My opinion differs from many here in that I don't think you should be allowed to own any weapon without a written test, physical aptitude test, and a psychological evaluation. "Assault" weapon or not. And I think you are in denial if you think the ridiculous availability of weapons doesn't influence and exacerbate the recent pattern of mass shootings. 

 

That said, the underlying issue is that the US is deeply damaged psychologically in regard to violence and the fetishization (is that a word? No? Fuck it) of firearms.

 

Well I went back and added to that post but specifically:

 

Quote

I think you are in denial if you think the ridiculous availability of weapons doesn't influence and exacerbate the recent pattern of mass shootings. 

 

The mass shootings were a rarity during a time period in which we had fewer gun laws.   Those laws have gotten stricter, but the problem has gotten worse.  It seems obvious to me we aren't going to legislate our way out of the issue.

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36 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

Emotion > logic everywhere in this thread, from my perspective.  Lately it's a fixation on "assault rifles" even though no one seems to be able to define what those are when pressed.  

 

Consider that we've had widespread private ownership of firearms since before this was a nation. Like I mentioned, I went to this HS and many, many of my friends owned or had easy access to guns. For being near a major city it is (or was) a fairly rural sort of area.  Lots of duck hunters & such. I even had a few kinda weird, loner friends that were often bullied.  One of those kids is probably working for NASA or JPL now, he got really into rocketry and impressed some sponsors of a club at the nearby NASA JSC (bka as Mission Control as in "Houston we have a problem".)  He was on his way to becoming an amateur gunsmith at 16.  We played paintball in the woods & all that jazz.  Still, the idea of shooting a bunch of our classmates - even the dickish ones - was unthinkable.  It never even crossed our minds as something people would do.

 

Mass shootings have only become commonplace in the last 10-20 years. It's clearly not because of the guns.

 

Maybe I only seem logical and even-keeled because we usually agree on things? I don't think I've said anything outlandish here, or anything that wasn't based in reality.  I do see a lot of calls for action that are obviously things that are never going to happen.  When we start talking about realistic changes the conversation stalls.  Maybe people just want to vent? That's understandable, but I don't think challenging misconceptions or questioning the efficacy of knee-jerk legislation based on fear & misinformation makes me some kind of "gun nut".  Frankly if people want to see new gun laws passed they need to stop demonizing gun owners.  Otherwise it just amounts to a bunch of virtue-signaling & finger-pointing. 

Gun ownership has sky rocketed in the last 10-20 years. Nearly tripled. 

 

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462017461/guns-in-america-by-the-numbers

 

 

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22 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

Well I went back and added to that post but specifically:

 

 

The mass shootings were a rarity during a time period in which we had fewer gun laws.   Those laws have gotten stricter, but the problem has gotten worse.  It seems obvious to me we aren't going to legislate our way out of the issue.

Laws have gotten stricter? Not at all. 

 

What if you can have a handgun in your home for your safety. Then you can have a bigger gun at some club that you go to under lock and key so you can go and clean it, and polish it, take selfies with it etc.. Would that work?  The people with the gun fetish should be the ones coming up with the plan in all actuality. They have the desire. Why does normal society have to come up with a plan for them to engage in their activities?

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22 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

Well I went back and added to that post but specifically:

 

 

The mass shootings were a rarity during a time period in which we had fewer gun laws.   Those laws have gotten stricter, but the problem has gotten worse.  It seems obvious to me we aren't going to legislate our way out of the issue.

Laws have gotten stricter? Not at all. 

 

What if you can have a handgun in your home for your safety. Then you can have a bigger gun at some club that you go to under lock and key so you can go and clean it, and polish it, take selfies with it etc.. Would that work?  The people with the gun fetish should be the ones coming up with the plan in all actuality. They have the desire. Why does normal society have to come up with a plan for them to engage in their activities?

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2 hours ago, MichaelWeston said:

The people with the gun fetish... Normal society...

 

 

See, you can fuck right off with that nonsense.  Go find some boots to lick.  That is, whenever NPR tells you it's safe to come out from under the bed.  

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2 hours ago, MichaelWeston said:

Gun ownership has sky rocketed in the last 10-20 years. Nearly tripled. 

 

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462017461/guns-in-america-by-the-numbers

 

 

 

 

Did you actually read that?  I can't find anything backing up your claim.  I see an increase in sales & manufacturing over the last 3-5 years. One coinciding with efforts to ban "fully semi-automatic assault pistols" or whatever-the-fuck.  I see ownership has actually declined since 2014.  

 

Please point me to where it says ownership has tripled over the last 10-20 years, because I'm not finding it.

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