Texas Rep Bemoans Discussion About Guns After School Shooting When Rap Music And Video Games Are The Real Culprit
from the never-late dept
It feels somewhat strange to write this post today, short though it may be. We now live in the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school in Texas. It was only weeks ago that we were dealing with the aftermath of the racist attack on a Buffalo grocery store. In that aftermath, everyone began the usual practice of retreating to their political silos in order to blame whatever they already didn’t like for the shooting. Social media led the way, stupid as that is, followed by the equally dumb idea that somehow video games made a racist assbag murder a bunch of African Americans in cold blood. And now, after the Texas shooting, here we are again.
This is a train that’s never late. If there is a mass shooting, someone somewhere will try to blame culture in order to excuse the laughably easy access Americans, including teenagers, have to weapons designed to kill lots of people in a single sitting. Here’s Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, here to tell you that 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered the other day because of one particular genre of music and video games.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R–TX) baselessly blamed yesterday’s mass shooting of 21 people (19 young children, two teachers) not on guns, but on rap music and video games.
The mass shooting yesterday happened because “kids are exposed to all kinds of horrible stuff nowadays,” Jackson says. But he doesn’t mean the horrible weapons teens are constantly exposed to in every Republican candidate’s ad campaign — including assault weapons that they can easily buy over the counter. No, he’s talking about “the horrible stuff they hear when they listen to rap music, the video games.”
You can see the portion of the interview embedded below.
So, let’s begin with some obvious points. The most obvious of them is that gun ownership as a political issue in this country is one where opinions exist on a wide spectrum throughout the country. Fine. Another that should be obvious is that America does not have a monopoly on “rap music” and “video games.” Those cultural elements are present throughout the world, unlike the level of mass shootings we have in America. Nor does America have a monopoly on mental health issues, or social media, or fatherless children, or really any of the other scapegoats some elements like to trot out in the wake of mass shootings.
No, the outlier in America is gun ownership and our gun laws. That’s just the fact of the matter. If the gun owners of America believe that their rights to own guns trumps society’s right to not have to duck bullets in all kinds of public settings that should be safe, then I really wish they’d just say so. “I don’t care enough about these dead children in Texas to give up my AR-15” is at least a coherent, albeit morally abhorrent, position to take.
But instead you get scapegoating such as Rep. Jackson’s. Totally without logic or evidence, video games get blamed. And rap music. Why that particular genre of pop music enjoyed by millions should be singled out by a Texas politician is just a complete mystery to me (yes, that is sarcasm).
This scapegoating happens because we allow it to happen. It’s not true, Ronny Jackson knows it’s not true, but the law-abiding citizens that want to keep their toys parrot this bullshit because, well, they want their toys.
Filed Under: blame, gun control, guns, rap music, ronny jackson, texas, uvalde, video games
Comments on “Texas Rep Bemoans Discussion About Guns After School Shooting When Rap Music And Video Games Are The Real Culprit”
The common aspect in mass-shootings? Anything but guns
Strange, I wasn’t aware that the mass murders were done by throwing game discs at people and/or playing music at them, but since games and music are the cause of those murders and politicians are never wrong I guess it must be true.
That ol' boogeyman... again?
OBL: The killing of innocents is heinous. Apparently it’s ok to force women to carry a child to term, but once that child is born, good luck to them. Heinous. The US leads the world in mass shootings. That must stop.
Video games have been blamed for a rise in violence since the introduction of violent games in the 1970s. Even Atari’s tank battle game was not spared this ignominy. Study after study after study has debunked this myth, but every now and then some special interest group “funds” a study that says what they want. One study that doesn’t show causation is this one from last year (2021):
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2020.0049
Without getting into the politics of it all, there are those who would like to conflate everything with The Hand of Satan. You … wouldn’t… shake The Hand of Satan, now would you?
Reality wise, other than a flintlock or double-action Dirty-Harry style revolver… all pistols are semi-automatic. Other than shotguns most long guns are semi-automatic. Those who call for a ban on semi-automatic firearms should realize these have been around since 1851.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/
So, there’s the battle to prevent deaths. That’s awesome. There’s apparently a battle to convince people that some firearms are inherently evil.
We do need some better legislation. Third party transfer registry (like with motor vehicles)… potential crazy people denied the right to carry or possess, etc. We also need better healthcare, and I don’t just mean mental care.
We in the US have three different health programs for the military, and I hear tell the wait at the VA is 1-3 months for simple things. Civilians have a badly-gutted ACA (thanks, (R)s.) My state offers its program… and the wait there is 2-3 months. Congresscritters have their own program, no deductibles, no out of pocket, no wait. Perhaps if all citizens (residents?) of the US had the same program … the only crazies would have an (R) or a (MAGA) after their name.
SO
– heinous shootings shouldn’t require that we dumb down our language and pretend “semi-auto” is the same as “auto” and ignore all “semi-auto” firearms that aren’t an AR-15.
– assault rifle… just not a thing. The M-16 is a military infrantryman’s weapon. The AR-15 is a civilian non-automatic version of the same. (There’s no stigma to saying “non-automatic”… yet.)
– laws should be codified that eliminate loopholes. I can’t transfer a car to someone without at least one of us going to MVD/DMV or online. The same should be true of firearms and an FFL.
– healthcare for all so nobody is sitting there dreaming up how to kill people to get attention.
Note: The M-16 and its cousins use a 5.56mm round designed to not penetrate straight in and go straight out. Once it hits it “tumbles” which is a nice way of saying it rotates to hit the most amount of area, destroys organs. It won’t stop a truck… but it will make an organ transplant a requirement.
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To quote one of the great philosophers of our time: “If you’re pre-born, you’re fine; if you’re pre-school, you’re fucked!”
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Man, I’ve had a craving for some George Carlin for weeks.
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I could be mistaken, but I thought assault rifle was essentially a rifle capable of fully automatic (as in one pull of trigger will fire bullets until trigger released), like the selective fire weapons our military carries, and there are a ton of federal restrictions on obtaining one. But an assault weapon is technically not a thing, it’s just a regular semi automatic rifle with a few modifications or features like pistol grip, folding stock, flash muzzle ect, basically fairly arbitrary features that don’t actually make it more deadly, just more user friendly (user friendly is not a term that I would have ever thought could apply to guns lol). I agree that if you want to have a serious discussion that you need to know what you are talking about, especially the terminology. I can’t even describe how utterly infuriating it is to hear people try to discuss abortion who don’t know what they’re talking about (partial birth abortion is just as misunderstood as “silencers” are, and both evoke high emotions). Since my tween years I’ve been highly interested in women’s issues so I’m well informed. But I was born and raised in Delaware, which I think has the lowest gun ownership rate in the country, and I had zero exposure to guns until I met my husband. He was born and raised in Alaska, which has the highest rate of gun ownership (and for very utilitarian reasons, starting with bears!) I would ask him but guns (& abortion) are sore subjects at the moment.
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The current public and political defining factors for “Ultra-High Powered Automatic Military Assault Weapon” is, unfortunately “A scary black gun like I saw on TV once”… this is an unfortunate situation, because once you turn something so common into such a huge bogeyman you will be able to justify any action to yourself. (especially if you are justifying doing things to those other people, those unreliable OTHERS who can’t be trusted)
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You sure? There are plenty of bolt action rifles out there. And a few lever action and others, though those are probably a rounding error.
That’s a (relatively) good thing, especially in civilian type situations. If there’s a round fired, you want it to go into the target and stay there, because the alternative is that it goes through and hits who knows what or who on the other side. Caveats needed – I’m not saying it’s good for people to have access to this kind of weapon or that I’m happy about massive tissue damage. Just that in the situation where someone is getting shot, it’s better to avoid overpenetration. That’s the purpose of expanding (hollow point) and frangible rounds.
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“Just that in the situation where someone is getting shot, it’s better to avoid overpenetration. That’s the purpose of expanding (hollow point) and frangible rounds.”
The military uses full-metal jacket (FMJ) rounds thugh, not hollow-point.
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Because they are following the Hague Convention that bans hollow point use by the military, not because they’ve independently decided FMJ is best.
It’s all that christian music, going to a better place in heaven
Rep. Jackson
Still hard to reconcile that this guy was White House physician for both Obama and for Trump.
If no one had guns the risk of getting shot would be, um, considerably lessened.
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but then how would we stop tyranny?!?!?! /s
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It is really ironic that gun bunnies still trot out this canard, even though the greatest threat of tyranny in the last decade was a bunch of insurrectionists storming the capitol, not a few of whom were armed with various firearms.
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No, that was the third greatest thread. The second greatest threat of American tyranny in the last decade was the previous president doing everything he could—which includes inciting an insurrection—to nullify the results of a free and fair election. The greatest threat is how the political party that ultimately refused to play along with his plan in 2020 is now more than prepared to go all the way with his plan (regardless of whether he runs) in 2024.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tyranny or ... not
I think you’re conflating tyranny with something else — perhaps treason.
Tyranny is the government doing legal things that are illegal for citizens to do. What Trump and his scum gang tried to do wasn’t legal, so it’s not tyranny.
The CONUS definition of treason requires levying war, adhering to enemies, or giving them comfort. I think Manafort telling the Russians not to worry about sanctions because Trump will make them go away constitutes treason.
If you use a legal dictionary, and not the Constitution (sorry, Sammy A.) you’ll find it reads:
January 6th? Treason.
Re: Re: Re:3
Possibly, but I also hold to the idea that treason begets tyranny if the treason succeeds.
Republicans will likely try to steal the next presidential election under the guise of “protecting democracy” regardless of the natural outcome. They lacked a solid plan and willing accomplices in 2020; that won’t be a problem in 2024. (Hell, they might do a test run of their shit with the midterms this year.) That’s why the greatest threat of American tyranny is the one we know is already happening: The GOP holds enough power to ensure they can win elections even if that means killing American democracy.
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It’s not that ironic when you consider that the whole point of these guys is to LARP Call of Duty.
They’re banking on the fact that everyone else won’t have guns to get in their way.
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Pointless statement. Guns exist.
Getting to a point where NO ONE has guns isn’t even physically possible, much less feasible.
You want to have a discussion about what can be done to reduce the risk, reduce the quantity or type of guns owned, or reduce who can own what, fine. But invoking a fantasy contributes nothing.
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It’s also not an argument being made seriously by anyone.
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And yet the comment I replied to is the sixth time I’ve heard that statement today alone (I’ll leave the “seriousness” of the statements alone).
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Random one-line internet comments like that are not a legitimate part of the debate. There are no countries that ban guns outright so don’t waste your time thinking about it. Anyone who suggests it as a possibility, from either side, just shouldn’t be taken seriously.
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True. But you also can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. This country is not going to disarm voluntarily, and trying to do it would be bloody genocide. Black communities would be targeted first, there’s no way to convince me otherwise (because how quickly is the finger pointed at Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, cities, black on black crime whenever white guys and cops kill black people?) When the black people are disarmed, the remaining survivors will be at the mercy of the whites who will ultimately roll back those restrictions for “grandfathered” guns. Liberals will foolishly give up their guns voluntarily, because they want to do the right thing, and then they will lose all political power because the conservatives with guns will run the polling places and government how they see fit, by force. Frankly, I’m starting to wonder if that’s not the ultimate plan. Let white boys terrorize the people until society says enough and bans guns. But conservatives will never actually comply, and already heavily armed, present a resistance the cops won’t have any interest in trying to force.
Don’t get me wrong, access to guns is a significant part of the problem. But I think Canada is foolish for attempting to disarm themselves when they live next door to the US and there’s a dangerous amount of support lingering for a lunatic like Trump.
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That’s an utterly stupid statement to make since the vast majority of gun crimes is not committed out of love for guns but out of hate (or disregard) for people. Take away the gun, and the hate and disregard will express itself differently. And more likely than not, less lethally. When was the last time more than a dozen people were killed by someone rampant with a broadsword?
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Out of curiosity, who do you think will enforce gun bans, red flag laws? When “buy-back” plans inevitably fail to collect a substantial number of guns?
And who do you think enforcement will be targeted at first? I’ll give you a hint, the exact same folks that gun control laws were initially created to target. The same people who are subjected to disproportionate levels of enforcement for every crime.
There are no easy answers here, I’m not trying to trash anyone’s ideas. Let’s just not be naive and foolish, we must explore the ugly and very likely unintended consequences. Our entire police apparatus stems from rich white people who wanted their slaves back, and rich white people who didn’t want workers unionizing lest they might have to afford them some human dignity. The hate is exactly what I’m talking about. There are way too many people who believe that reverse racism is not just a thing, but as bad or worse than actual (and not fucking imaginary) real racism. There are too many nutjobs who think the replacement theory is real, that have fed into Q, who still think the election was stolen by communist Democrats! And those people are by and large gun owners. They are cops and elected politicians. They are in our military. They have money and resources. They blame everything but the guns and their fundamental hate. Considering their behavior during the pandemic it’s clear that they do not believe rules apply to them.
And prohibition of things never, ever, has worked. It has always resulted in more violence, death, profiteering and thus power to cartels, and industries of human suffering like prisons.
Cops kill people who let them know they have a gun to avoid getting shot. How do you think they will handle orders to seize the guns of a supposedly, but unverified, dangerous person? Duncan Lemp, who is white, check out his story. Surprise, he has an infant son that never got a chance to meet him.
Christ, the hate is exactly what I was talking about.
Re: Re: Re:2 Have the LEOs launder your illicit weapon...
I guess if by “remove firearms from those who would use them against others” … yes, total failure.
Buy-back programs in the US help addicts turn stolen weapons into fully laundered cash, provided by LEOs with no S/N check, no ID check, no records, no video, just the “gratitude” of simps eager to pretend to have an effect.
It’s the easiest money for an addict to make. No need to panhandle. The COPS will GIVE you CASH for a weapon. It’s that easy. That doesn’t even cover the part where a lot of the weapons were provided by the US Department of Justice (ha) in their Fast and Furious program.
Fast – how quickly they lost track of the weapons.
Furious – people getting killed in the US and Mexico by weapons provided by our government to “stop drugs.”
As you say,
Just say no to …um… that thing of the day we’re fighting. Because that thing we were fighting yesterday is still there, getting stronger every day, but the “no” votes didn’t hurt it.
Hey, mixtapes can kill. Why do you think the RIAA had all those ads with a cassette ‘skull’ and crossbones?
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“cassette ‘skull’ and crossbones”
That’s not the RIAA, that’s the Pirate Bay logo.
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Oh, sweet summer child that doesn’t know history. It’s actually the BPI, the British counterpart of the RIAA, that was a brain fart on my part, but they started doing that as part of their Home Taping is Killing Music campaign in the early 80s.
You can see it here
The best reaction was from The Dead Kennedys who released a cassette EP with a blank side and the message “Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help.”
Social media, rap (it’s not music), video games, guns… choose your poison; it’s your “silo” after all. The only culprit is the perpetrator.
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(Spoken in sarcasm…)
Don’t forget his upbringing, the broken home he came from, and all that. I refer of course to those facets that defense “expert” psychologists try to sell to juries, for reasons both known and abominable.
[/s]
I’m OK with even a heinous criminal getting the best defense possible, but attempting to deflect culpability by shifting the blame onto one’s parents….. that’s lower than whale shit on the bottom of the ocean.
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Well, I don’t know if it’s always wrong to assign some culpability to parents, considering the Crumbley case, the child given a handgun for an early Christmas present by parents aware of his disturbed mental state. That’s a case that I see falls rather significantly on the parents. The killer in Sandy Hook, parents completely failed him growing up, neglected his disorders for years to the point he was so reclusive that he only communicated with his mother, who he lived with by text; I don’t want to blame the victim, he did take the parents gun and kill her (the dad divorced or left the home years prior) before his rampage, but she knew how dire his mental state was and planned moving regardless of how it would impact him. Certainly didn’t bother to sell or store the rifles off the property. I think Virginia Tech killer had some religious fundamentalist type of upbringing, and tried to push more church over actual psychological treatment for his problems. (And despite a period of involuntary commitment due to his threatening behavior, nothing was reported to the NICS system to prevent legal purchase of the guns).
Things like absentee fathers/broken homes are associated with poverty, which increases the risk of violence is a worthy discussion when looking at reducing violence in a broad context. But those factors don’t really show causation when considering mass shootings. I think we gotta dig into what we know about all mass killers to find patterns. We talk about background checks all the time, but most killers got their guns legally. So there’s more avenues to explore.
could this absolute twat please explain how any video game actually murders people? i’d be very interested to see how that works!!
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Guns don’t kill people, people who spend all their lives in their mother’s basement playing video games kill people. Not sure why so many prospective victims are visiting basements to find murderers, though.
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No no, it’s the basements themselves that are assembling into a murderous machine.
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Not An Outlier
The Crime Prevention Research Center calculated back in 2015 that the U.S. ranked 11th out of 18 western countries from North America and Europe in terms of gun deaths by mass shootings per capita. And 64th out of 97 countries worldwide per capita. Despite having very relaxed ownership laws compared to other countries, the U.S. is in the middle of the pack, at best.
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Isn’t CPRC a pro-gun organization? Regardless, their report where built by actually removing some countries from it and using metrics that pushes US down the list. So using it as an argument shows that you didn’t actually reflect on the “flawed” methodology used to produce it.
Yay once more for blindly referring to something uncritically.
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Crime Prevention Research Center, founded by John Lott, whose research has been totally and completely debunked, even by other pro-gun folks?
JFC, Koby, this is embarrassing.
https://bfy.tw/T9ib
More quotes:
From https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/27/politics/ron-johnson-school-shooting-wokeness-comments/index.html :
So if you tell a white male that their predecessors have been unfairly privileged over people of different gender and looks, that leads to them buying assault rifles (which is a good thing and should be encouraged) and shooting up a whole lot of other people. Which presumably is less of a good thing even though it is what assault rifles are built for.
I mean, presumably they would also give you a chance at diverting a buffalo stampede from trampling you. Assuming you find buffalos anywhere, but at least the founders had a chance, so we better preserve the rights intended by them. Not that they had access to assault rifles but I digress.
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Different lunatic. Oops. Similar story.
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And he beat Russ Feingold not just once but twice! It’s because Ron Johnson always had the lucky rhythm of winning in good years for Gepublicans that this POS was able to hold statewide office at all and twice beat one of the nation’s best Senators.
Re: Woke?
Yep, Im woke.
Wish a few of the rep’s would wake up.
If the world aint what you like, then Shoot those making it bad?
Finger pointing does nothing but confuse people. And thats what is happening. We expect those we placed in charge to KNOW something, but that aint happening.
And its real fun, that I see republicans on TV more then I see the democrat’s.
Still love the idea that you Dont SAVE the Murderer, you Kill them so no one can ask questions.
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You can practically taste the dishonesty and refusal to admit to being wrong.
“It’s all that anti-asshole ideology being taught that’s the cause!”
“It’s been happening long before then.”
“Doesn’t matter, that just means it was sneaky before!”
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I would love to know exactly what “values” were being taught in schools when he was growing up, or really damn near the time I grew up since Columbine happened my senior year, that aren’t being taught today. I know I was taught a thoroughly whitewashed version of history, and was one of the first girls to participate in stage crew (which was unofficially a boys club since it involved tools and lifting and building shit) and we constantly harassed with accusations of being lesbians or sluts (or some how both).
I can’t help but think there’s a good possibility that the kind of values he’s talking about are ones of segregation, ones that turned a blind eye racially motivated murder. To control and stifling of women, where rape is really just boys being boys.
Of course I am pretty sure that he was raised with anti-soviet values, ones that would be counter to his pro-Russia stance.
This jackass doesn’t know the meaning of the words coming out of his mouth. I don’t know how Wisconsin looks itself in the mirror knowing they sent that moron to the Senate.
Out of these 3 things, which can you take away and potentially affect the outcome
So I’m oversimplifying, but out of Video Games, Rap and Guns, there’s only one you can remove that would have had an impact in this situation …
I’ll give you 3 guesses which it is
Re: Hobson's Choice
Frankly I don’t want to give up either video games or firearms. There’s also some good rap out there I don’t want to give up.
I’m not really sure where it became a REQUIRED TRADEOFF that we MUST GIVE UP something to have people stop being murderous pieces of crap. Is there really no solution without US ALL GIVING UP STUFF?
Oh yeah, congressional action to pass laws, hiring honest cops to ensure the laws are being followed, and removing those “few” “bad apples” who won’t. That’s not US giving up anything, it’s the pieces of crap in office who would have to give up their constant grifting, lying, stealing, and taking advantage of enormous resources (paid for by our taxes) to lord over us.
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No. We have to give up the right for anyone and everyone, including dangerously mentally ill people, domestic abusers, and people with violent pasts, to quickly and easily get semiautomatic weapons with little or no oversight and store them unsafely. Without giving that up, I don’t see how gun violence can be addressed. Why so many people are in favor of the current situation I cannot understand.
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Americans are fed a steady diet of stories about violence practically from the moment they can understand such things. They’re taught that the U.S. only exists because of violence against the British Empire, that violence was how we solved the “Nazi problem”, that violence is the be-all end-all solution to major problems.
We love violence in this country. We glorify those who use violence, especially violence done in the name of good and even if they’re fictional characters. We are a violent country because we’ve tied our origins, and conditioned our continued existence as a democracy, to violence. (How many times have you heard the “guns are the best defense against tyranny” argument?)
We fetishize guns in this country because they are the perfect ambassadors of violence. The gun is a tool meant to wound or kill as fast as possible. That tool makes no distinction between the innocent and the guilty. And we value ownership of that tool above even our own lives, to the point where gun ownership is considered a human right while healthcare is effectively a privilege for the rich. Hell, even toys can’t escape the fetishizing of guns—I mean, how many of us played with water pistols when we were kids?
Americans glorify violence because we are taught, damn near from birth, that violence is the American way of life. Those who truly believe in that idea will always defend/protect that idea…even if it means watching children die at the hands of a gun-wielding asshole.
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I’m not arguing against anything you said, but I think it’s important to note that guns haven’t just been to fight the tyranny of England and their taxes. They were also critical to the abolition and civil rights movements. When Black people defended themselves and families, when they fought for their rights, they used guns. Civil rights protests were never as peaceful as they are remembered. (Shit, the Boston Tea Party was essentially a riot, but republicans cry over chalk writing and broken windows)
The state of race relations as they currently stand, and the police being racist, violent, corrupt, inept, I worry about the risk of going from the random (and abhorrent) shootings to organized, even state sanctioned violence. We need to tread carefully, thoughtfully, and yes, quickly too.
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I worry about seeing another 19 kids killed in an elementary school because Republican lawmakers think owning an AR-15 is (and should always be) more important than public safety.
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As I said, I’m not disagreeing with you. I have a 4 year old who just started preschool, i was just there for her IEP and all those little faces, I don’t have the words.
I want effective legislation. Lets raise the age to buy guns, let’s provide safe storage at no cost, let’s prohibit guns to anyone who hurts/tortures small animals and pets (hunting pests/rodents/small game not included) until they reach age 35 at minimum. Let’s fund real social & psychological services in schools (and this won’t be as easy as it should be to get put into law because Republicans are so stupid they think addressing suicide and it’s causes some how increases probability of suicide. It’s dumb, but it’s part of the attacks on cultural sensitivity & inclusion for any and all minority groups that offends them so). There was a great study about the commonality among mass shooters, there’s an interview on Politico with the researcher,that can help identify these people before they act, we should use that data to craft the laws.
But let’s not give cops any new excuses to slaughter people. Let’s not create systems that essentially amount to swatting by allowing any angry Karen to send cops to raid a possible gun owner who has crossed her. Let’s remember that the republican/right wing folks are avid gun owners who aren’t giving any up voluntarily, and who think anyone who disagrees with them is evil, communist baby killers/eaters- don’t let them outpace gun ownership of the rest of us even more.
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How about gun ownership rules like those in Europe, guns and ammunition stored in separate safes. No carrying a loaded gun unless on the range or hunting ground. Transport unloaded an in a bag/case, and only to and from the range/hunting grounds, or gun smith.
This argument makes no sense, video games are popular in every country where they are avaidable, no other country has mass shootings every few weeks,
the problem is guns and automatic weapons rifles are easily avaidable in america to young people .
why are there no mass shootings in italy,france , ireland.
because those countrys have gun control laws ,
you cant go to your local supermarket and buy guns or rifles.
Re: Open-air markets have flies on the food
The lack of a selection in small European countries is a known thing. In my ultra-supermarket we have a doctor’s office including an ophthamologist and a hearing specialist (with booth) between the auto-repair shop and the firing range. Beyond all that is the $5.99 rotisserie chicken.
If you call/app ahead they’ll bring stuff out to your car and even load it up for free. I don’t think that applies to the doctors or the firing range stuff though.
I do love my Sam’s Club.
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Others love their cocaine. Which is something with the potential to kill yourself and consequently forbidden. Most guns in circulation have the explicit purpose of killing people and have ammunition tailored to it (you don’t see that kind of mass murder committed using birdshot or elephant cartridges or airgun pellets).
The tools for killing others, in contrast to those for killing yourself, are supposed to come without regulations.
That just does not make for an appropriate relationship.
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Correction: Every gun in circulation is built for the sole and explicit purpose of wounding/killing other living things.
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While I would mostly agree, I must remine you paintball guns are a thing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Many firearms were not made to kill things
Previous poster points out (paints out?) paint guns.
I’ll add competition firearms, commemorative firearms, replica firearms, and the kind that shoot water into a balloon that will never explode to win a prize that can’t be won at a carnival or circus midway.
But hey, if generalizations make it better, sure, all ‘gunz’ were made to ‘kill other(???) living things.’
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Fair point to you both.
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And I’ll repeat my original point that has by now been drowned out:
Re: Re: Re:2
“Correction: Every gun in circulation is built for the sole and explicit purpose of wounding/killing other living things.”
Correction to the correction: Every gun is designed to propel a bullet downrange. It’s the human that decides whether that’s to kill something or to make a hole in a piece of paper.
Re: Re: Re:3
Every sentence starting with “every” is inviting fallacies.
There are quite non-lethal guns for the purpose of making holes in paper: you’ll find them on many fairgrounds. The vast bulk of handguns is intended for making holes in humans. Rifles come in a larger variety of calibres and they as well as ammunition come in a larger variety of calibres and contents. Their principal function is to kill, but the primary purpose of a number of them is not for killing people but various kinds of animal.
Assault weapons are for killing people, period. You can train on paper targets, but the real purpose is killing people, and they are quite oversized for making holes in paper.
That’s like driving a racing car only up and down your driveway.
Re: Re: Re:4
🤔
Re: Re: Re:5
To prove the point, “Every green object is green,” is not remotely fallacious, nor can it be interpreted in a way to appear fallacious, so it does not invite fallacies.
Culture is to blame, but not like this. There’s a reason the US has far greater rates of gun crime than other nations with higher rates of per capita gun ownership, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the social media, rap music, and video games that are common in other nations as well. There’s not one easy culprit to blame – racism and white supremacist ideology play a role, as does the way the media and society at large make legends of these killers.
Be wary of anyone utterly convinced that one solution will be a Magic bullet for this problem. It took many convoluted and sometimes extremely poor decisions to get us to this point, and no as much as we might want to snap our fingers and make everything better, it is going to take a lot of work and different efforts coming together to make any lasting improvement.
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What it's Not
Well it ain’t about rappers and video games. But it ain’t about guns either. So both represented here are far far off the mark.
We can only hope that teachers start to arm themselves, all gun-free zones are removed forever, and only then will the rare school shootings (that make so much news but are anomalous) end.
Shoot back. No new laws or rules. Shoot back. Done.
Re:
You really are the most basic bitch ever.
How’s those ivermectin doses working bro?
Re:
Four people died in a shooting at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma today. Should we start arming doctors and nurses? And let’s not forget the supermarket shooting last month, too. Maybe we should arm customer service workers and shelf stockers? And what happens when a shooting begins and one of these “good guys with a gun” kills an innocent person while trying to stop the “bad guy”—does that count as murder, manslaughter, or a reason to extend qualified immunity to every other career in the country?
Fighting gun violence with more gun violence (especially if that violence has a greater chance of killing innocent people) won’t stop gun violence. Anyone who believes as much is a fool.
Re:
Well, that assumes that the teachers are prepared to shoot to kill, and are given the range time necessary to keep their shooting skills up. That also assumes that the teachers teach while armed, but that makes them an easy target for ambush and gaining their gun.
Looking at the latest news, Oklahoams Hospital Shooting are you going to suggest that Doctors and Nurses carry out their duties armed?
Only in Hollywood does the good guy with a gin in holster come out tops in every confrontation. In most real life situations, the attacker has the advantage in that they have committed to their attack before the attacked person even knows they are under attack.
Also, if everybody is armed, all someone of evil intent has to do is fire one shot and run away. In a crowd of strangers, with many waving guns, how do you decide who is the criminal, and who is intent of self defense, and defense of others.
Re: Re:
Also, if everybody is armed, all someone of evil intent has to do is fire one shot and run away. In a crowd of strangers, with many waving guns, how do you decide who is the criminal, and who is intent of self defense, and defense of others.
Nonsense, everyone knows that Good Guys With Guns not only have flawless accuracy but only ever shoot Bad Guys With Guns, a whole bunch of armed people in a crowd looking for someone who took a shot could never come to believe that the other Good Guys With Guns might be the shooter and gun down an innocent person, only to themselves cause a chain reaction as someone shoots them and so on.
Re:
This is such a selfish suggestion. They’re teachers FFS, nobody should expect them to also be competent as armed guards that want to make themselves a target.
We have a literal keyboard warrior here. Tell us about all the times you actually shot back.
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You trust them with a gun but not to recommend reading material for your kids?
Strange word this “trust”
Re:
We can only hope that teachers start to arm themselves
Teachers get paid jack-shit as it is. And now you want them to do the cops’ job too?
Re: Re:
and the cops didn’t even do their job.
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Re: Re: Re:
One mistake from jail, one bullet from death.
What did you want the cops to do? Give you woke morons more material to write another smear article?
Re: Re: Re:2
Save children’s lives.
Re: Re: Re:2
Try to rescue and recover children, rather than arrest distraught parents.
Re: Re: Re:2
To do their jobs with just a tiny bit of competency and courage.
Even setting aside whether or not they should shoot the armed gunman mowing down children and teachers (which I’ll get back to later), to assert that they should have done something a lot sooner to try to reduce the number of civilian casualties in no way contradicts past instances where a cop shooting a someone has led to criticism since trying to apprehend the guy would also suffice; it doesn’t necessarily mean killing someone.
Also, I’m pretty sure that someone actively committing mass murder with a firearm and who is still holding the firearm would be a pretty good justification for shooting a suspect. Contrast this with someone who is not clearly armed (or, even better, is clearly unarmed) or who has already been restrained, those who show no signs of presenting harm to anyone other than themselves at all, and those who have only committed a minor offense at most or are only transporting or using drugs and nothing else.
The “one mistake from jail, one bullet from death” line simply has nothing at all to do with this scenario. The police here arrived unprepared and waited way too long to enter the building to try to stop the shooter or evacuate people from the building at all, and once they were in the building, they appeared to act incompetently there as well. There is simply no excuse for this, especially where the policy and training for police departments in Texas is for them to enter the building immediately when there is an active shooter inside to try to stop them. I’m sorry, but this is inexcusable and absolutely not even remotely like any case where a police shooting has been condemned.
There is no hypocrisy or Catch-22 here.
Re: Re: Re:3
Hell, I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but given the fact that crossfire was heard in the building after the cops entered the building, the chances that the cops shot (or killed) at least one innocent child is at least 1%.
Re: Re: Re:3
You expected davec to have a single solitary shred of honesty?
Re: Re: Re:2
Quit, or actually save lives.
UK cops run towards trouble and stop machete-wielders at the cost of their own lives.
US cops are scared of melanin and pop-guns.
Gotta remember, Ronny-boy is the same assclown who said Trump is the healthiest humanoid ever to crawl the Earth, orange fat and all. Trump will live to be 200, Ronny-boy said, if only he’d slow down a little on the Big Macs and the Diet Coke. Ronny-boy makes Dr. Oz look like Hippocrates. And yet, idiots vote him into office, just as they voted for the fat orange asshole himself–and will do so again, to put him back into power (this time for life), in 2024. Has anyone looked into the lead in the U.S. water supply??
How to stop these idiots
The best way to stop these idiots from spewing their idiotic ideas is to stop giving them attention. The news media should either not give them any interviews or just flat out say they’re wrong.
Oh, you think mass shootings are caused by rap music? Reporters should say, prove it and show us some statistics. But they won’t, because they want to be seen as “fair and balanced” or “giving all sides to the story”.
So, instead, the nonsense of blaming everything except guns continues to distract people from making any kind of progress on gun control.
Non-automatic firearms
Teka wrote:
Very true, and I’ve grown tired of explaining that when the media and LEOs say “semi-automatic” followed by “300 rounds per minute” it conflates semi-auto with auto.
I now use the term Non-Automatic. It’s pretty clear to most that ‘non-something’ is the opposite of ‘something”
Language is always evolving. If enough people fight the Newspeak and create non-pejorative terms, that will at least better educate the public.
That having been said, I make no excuses for the heinous crimes recently in the news. We need better laws, including a firearm registry and FFL-notarized transfers — much like a car. We need better medical care so outliers, incels, magas, etc. can get help without stigma and without hesitation.
Re:
“Non-automatic” for an automatically reloading gun seems like a misnomer.
Re: Re: non-automatic gunzezez
Reloading ammunition is a thing but that’s not being discussed here.
Putting in another magazine to replace an empty one with one full of rounds by a human being removing a magazine and putting in another is not “automatic anything.”
Revolvers with “speed-loaders” are faster than popping out&in a 30-round 5.56mm magazine and pulling back the charge lever.
Seriously, lacking in knowledge is just a good reason to get educated, not fabricate absolutisms.
Nothing reloads a gun automatically.
A revolver rotates (revolves) after a shot to make the next chamber after a shot, available for the hammer to strike. No reloading there. One can put in 6 new rounds with a speed-loader faster than any rifle. Youtube videos abound.
The amount of disinformation and lies purposely spread to demonize weapons is astounding. It’s intellectual dishonesty at its best.
NOTHING auto reloads. Go back to Wikipedia, and go author your opinion as if it were fact, then quote
yourelf.
On the Internet nobody knows if you’re a dog, or know
jack squat about firearms (‘gunzezez’ in your speak) or
“auto reload” — not even a term of the art.
e
P.S. I am PRO more laws, PRO enforcement of those laws, CON corrupt LEOs, and CON any abuse or shooting of non combatants. I get people want to talk about “the gunman” shooting “innocent children.” TO ME anyone who harms others be it through firearms, rape, forced birth, etc. are all pieces of crap. Mitch and Sammy – talking to you.
Re: Re: Re:
The only thing I can think of that auto reloads is certain kinds of tanks, but thankfully we don’t have to worry about those in schools yet.
Re:
I’d say “auto-reloading” would be a better term. It specifically states what part is automatic (the reloading mechanism), which should mean that it wouldn’t be conflated with automatic weapons (which have automatic reloading and firing mechanisms). “Non-automatic” is not only not entirely correct, either (as there is an automatic mechanism in there, just not an automatic firing mechanism), it would also refer to weapons that are neither auto nor semi-auto (like a flintlock pistol or a standard shotgun), which would just add more confusion.
For the record, I think that there are valid reasons to be opposed to semi-automatics that don’t involve a misunderstanding of what a semi-automatic actually is, mostly around the fact that during a reload is one of the best times to stop a mass shooter (though I should note that “valid” here doesn’t necessarily say anything about whether I would agree or disagree with it). However, given the apparent confusion surrounding the term “semi-automatic” (one which I was once guilty of having myself), I am not opposed to changing that term to something less likely to confuse people. I just don’t think that “non-automatic” is that term, particularly in a case where the semi-automatic has been modified to behave like an automatic weapon.
So, what is your opinion on “auto-reloading” instead of “semi-automatic”? I’m not an expert on guns (far from it; I have little interest in it, and given how my hands tend to shake, I don’t think I’d be able to safely use a firearm), but I feel that this would alleviate misunderstandings from other gun nonexperts on this issue without sacrificing accuracy or specificity or creating additional confusion in the process (like with “non-automatic”).
Also, I don’t think that “semi-automatic” is either Newspeak or pejorative. I think it is inadequately descriptive and made too easy to conflate with automatic weapons, but I don’t think it falls under either of those categories. Again, I still agree with your larger point.
Re: Re:
Refer to Ehud Gavron’s comment above explaining that there is no such thing as an auto-reloading firearm. Let’s take the case of a semi-automatic handgun or rifle. Reloading is removing the empty magazine (typically, it doesn’t have to be empty) and inserting a full one. That is never done automatically. The automatic part of fully or semi automatic weapons is ejecting a spent round from the chamber and chambering a new round.
What does that have to do with being automatic or not? If you want more reloading, you should oppose high capacity magazines, not semi-automatics.
It wouldn’t, because they’re not auto-reloading. You could call them “auto-feed” or “auto-chambering” since they automatically feed a round into the firing chamber, but I doubt the public would understand those any better. I think some of the problem is that because fully automatic weapons are so rare outside military use that semi-automatic ones are sometimes referred to as “automatic”, thus further muddying the waters.
I’ve been waiting for a reporter to grow a pair when the next talking head says its video games, family break down, lack of religion in schools to directly ask how religion would make things better considering the sheer number of high profile scandals of religious leaders abusing children, how forcing children to watch mom being beat by dad b/c divorce is bad works out, how video games have anything to do with anything (although one has to admit PacMan might explain why so many of them are fat).
They keep blaming all of these things, but no ones ever asked directly where is a government study showing how this happens so we can understand and fix it and instead you react based on hunches and belief. You believe in an all seeing deity which means he silently watched as children were abused, women were raped and then want to claim god meant for it to happen rather than consider perhaps going lightly on men, pretending they can’t help themselves & well boys will be boys encourages this sort of horrid behavior in society.
These men claim to know whats best for women, but if her shirt is to low cut we can’t be sure he won’t rape her.
These men claim to know whats best and their policy ideas are to pretend rape isn’t real, because women can’t be trusted.
Someone demand actual solid scientific studies & stop letting them opine that well just let me decide because I have a strong opinion about this.
Video games didn’t cause this.
Gun advertising didn’t cause this.
The thing that caused this is these assholes we keep asking to tell us what the “real” problem is.
They promote the idea that the government, if its not the GQP, is going to overstep so we need to be armed to take the country back.
They promote the idea that if you aren’t armed robbers will break into your house and shoot you.
They promote the idea that they will be replaced unless they resist and these others are the biggest threat to them & not corporations cutting corners and poisoning babies.
The dial as been turned up, the idea that the ONLY solution will come from the barrel of a gun & then ‘Merica can be a god based white nation again.
Stop giving airtime to these assholes promoting conspiracy, if they say the election was stolen demand evidence don’t just let them blow the dog whistle into the air to rile people up over fantasy.
Americans actively hate other Americans.
Americans actively believe that equal treatment of other Americans somehow strips them of something.
And y’all blame video games & movies for putting these bad thoughts into kids heads instead of the bullshit you say to get a soundbite on TV that raises the temperature of the ‘they are coming to get you fight back’ narrative.
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to stop letting Ted Cruz claim its a good guy with a gun on the airwaves. Its a shitty opinion that shouldn’t be repeated on the airwaves… there were “good guys” with guns on the scene and they pussed out.
If the motherfuckers we PAY to protect us can’t stop a bad guy with a gun, what fucking hope does a school teacher have?
Let us spend BILLIONS, they keep claiming we don’t have, to turn schools into mini-prisons rather than have any sort of gun control & rebuild the mental health system… that will work out so well. Trapping all the children inside the locked down school with the gunman while the police stand outside & can’t/won’t breach the single door will TOTALLY lower the body count of children.
Congress is responsible, even as public support for some things they ignore that to keep pushing the but we have to be armed or the other side will kill us story.
How many more childrens caskets do people need to see before they start demanding the GQP come to the fucking table and do SOMETHING to actually help rather than blame everything other than their own inaction and campagin donations for making this insanity a common fucking occurrence in the nation.
Re: Make a monument to every terrorist, and publish their manifestors?
^^^That. If they can’t “get their word out” that reduces one more method they think is an avenue to be heard among the sea of crazies.
Along similar lines STOP CREATING MONUMENTS TO TERRORISM. Yeah, those Saudis took down the twin towers. In Israel there would have been yellow tape that day, plywood (OSB) the day after, and workers rebuilding as if there was no terrorism. No manifesto would have been aired, and no “monument” built to “celebrate” this event.
What do we do here? We built a monument to the terrorists. We tear down schools to the ground because “that Adam guy shot people.” How is this helpful? How does it help healing for survivors and families to see this?
When someone commits suicide, LEOs don’t release the details, so as “…not to give anyone any ideas…” but as soon as it’s a terrorist event or mass-shooting they publish the manifesto, provide endless details (mostly lies to make themselves look good until it’s discovered they are impostors hiding behind a thin blue line) and then either build a monument… or raze the building and put up a new one — ensure its name and the plaque in front reminds everyone of the event.
Glorifying terror is what other terrorists do. We should do better. Unfortunately “our representatives” are only “our representatives” until the vote is counted. After that they “represent” their best needs only. Some are traitors to their oath. Kyrsten Sinema – I’m looking at you.
Re: Re:
Quick yes-or-no question: Do you believe the children who lived through the Uvalde shooting (and are still young enough to attend the school where they watched their friends get shot, bleed out, and die) should be made to go back into that school?
Re: Re:
Commemorate, not celebrate.
The monument is to the victims, you nincompoop.
Re: Re: Re: Monuments and celebrations and victims...
First, Stephen Stone asked:
There are other elementary schools 1.4-3 miles away where nobody was [killed, bled out, etc.] Any kid or his/her parents should be able to move the kid. Similarly, kids from other school could go to Robb.
Nasch:
I think you missed this nincompoop’s point — that we should raze buildings and reduce them to a memorial plaque. We should teach in our culture that bad things do happen, and how we deal with them isn’t by putting up a plaque or saying “thoughts and prayers.”
The WTC towers were destroyed and could no longer be used. They could have been rebuilt. Now there’s just a monument that makes Saudis happy.
Robb Elementary was not destroyed, and it being the summer break, could reopen in September with kids who were not there.
At some point, as a society, we should teach our kids how to overcome adversity, not put up a sign that says “Go not furthere here for yet there be adversity.” That and better and honest politicians who will reflect the democratic will of their electorate and pass and enforce laws to prevent this from happening again.
Re: Re: Re:2
When young children watch their friends get shot, bleed out, and die in front of them and no one with power does a goddamn thing to stop the next massacre and the next massacre and the next 20 massacres after that because enough people in power believe gun ownership is more important that saving lives, what do you think that teaches kids?
If young children who know the school they’re going to attend was the site of a mass casualty shooting incident where children their age were gunned down and essentially left to die by the cops, what do you think that would teach kids?
If we were to put the idea of “we can’t raze this building where kids died because we can always patch the bullet holes and clean up all the blood and bits of internal organs” above the feelings and the psyches and the lives of young children, what the actual godforsaken fuck do you think that would teach kids?
Re: Re: Re:3
That they are truly living in the U.S.A. The land of the free and the home of the brave.
Re: Re: Re:2
That we should, or that we should not?
What would be so important about rebuilding them as they were?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_Center
Who cares how the Saudis feel about it? Are you saying they should have checked with the Saudis, and made sure that the monument/museum would piss them off before starting construction?
All the gun legislation in the world won’t fix this people problem. It will only cause an increase in the number of people driving cars into crowds of the people they hate.
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Might as well just repeal all the laws, because none of them fix the people problem.
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It turns out people are quite more successful getting guns into classrooms than cars. Part of the reason is that cars are not optimised for the purpose of killing people.
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“It will only cause an increase in the number of people driving cars into crowds of the people they hate.”
I look forward to legislation to protect the car makers from being sued even as they add spikes to the front of cars.
How about
How about you park your car in the public garage down the street.
And leave your kitchen knives in it.
How about that? Also duct tape your fingers together so you can use neither.
How about that?
Don’t run with scissors.
How about that,?
Rabbit holes
Sometimes these threads reach a conclusion. Sometimes they are rabbit holes to various other threads. This one appears to be the latter.
Choice #1: Stick to the original post.
Choice #2: Go with the flow even though we are no longer discussing anything about rap or gaming.
Bull wrote:
So… my hands shake when I’m not flying or relaxing. Doc says it’s stress. The key takeaway things are
1. If the Bad Guy™ was in front of you and you had a firearm… are YOU personally able to shoot them (whether or not you hit them)? Most civilians are not, would not fire, and the firearm is irrelevant. Ask yourself THAT and answer yourself before you put something in your hands that you will not use.
Figure out where you are. Act accordingly.
With all due respect to our military and our LEOs… I’ve never had to make that decision more than once.