Shooting at CT Elementary School. WTF AMERICA?!

[Faust]

HOLY SHIT.

I've just had the CSI breakthrough of the year. I've cross examined evidence from every shooting in the US, there was a car present or within two miles maximum of every. last. murder.
We're not dealing with separate incidents at all, these were all perpetrated by a SINGLE individual. He is the single most dangerous serial killer this country has ever known. We call him: The driver.

[Don Coyote]

He makes a very strong point.
Without cars, all these shooters would have had to walk to where they killed people, and as we know, Americans are fat and lazy and hate walking.

[Pæs]

SCIENCE

[Pæs]

You can tell the guns are bad because the scientist made them the red one.

[Faust]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

[Pæs]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

To be fair, I don't think RWHN ever actually said that some deaths were acceptable.

[Faust]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

To be fair, I don't think RWHN ever actually said that some deaths were acceptable.

I'm fairly certain my last comment on transport was that it should all be public transport which would be awesome.

[Pæs]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

To be fair, I don't think RWHN ever actually said that some deaths were acceptable.

I'm fairly certain my last comment on transport was that it should all be public transport which would be awesome.

What are the figures looking like for death caused by illness spread through public transport?

[AFK]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

I haven't said that either. 

[Faust]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

To be fair, I don't think RWHN ever actually said that some deaths were acceptable.

I'm fairly certain my last comment on transport was that it should all be public transport which would be awesome.

What are the figures looking like for death caused by illness spread through public transport?

36-24-36

[Faust]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

I haven't said that either.

Whoops sorry.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

All I ever hear about is this spate of mass car massacres, it's literally non stop. So many people are doing it.
Wait did I say cars? I meant guns.

You mean the terrible multicar pile ups that happen? Or the constant death by auto that happen?

Oh that's right.

Deaths that accidental and one at a time are not as bad, even if there are more of them, than a whole bunch at once.

Dude I don't but that, roger posted the road death rate and the gun death rate, there was a 9% difference, that's insane, I couldn't believe gun deaths were so close to it.

Yes, and?

You are still stating that the death by auto are acceptable because they are stretched over the course of the year, or aren't a massacre. From my viewpoint, you are equating lots of death at once being worse the the same number or more deaths over the course of a year.

I NEVER said that. You have just confused me with RWHN, shame.

I haven't said that either.

Whoops sorry.

GO

TO

BED

[Cainad (dec.)]

See, I think there are a ton of ways we could make the country a safer and better place. Banning guns aren't even in my top ten, to tell the truth, even if I believed that there was a functional way to unring that bell and recall all the guns out there on the market, and prevent any more from coming in illegally.

Expanding light rail in order to minimize personal automobile use, largely eliminating the need for personal automobile ownership. How many lives would that save each year, in addition to the reduction in auto accidents? How much war could we avert?

A cost of living stipend for everyone, regardless of income.

Universal health care and free birth control for everyone.

Increased mental health care and greater support systems for mental health issues.

Increased regulations on corporate activities to ensure that their actions are beneficial to the populace.

Changes in farm subsidy policies so that we stop subsidizing largely worthless monoculture crops and corporate farms, and encourage small farmers to diversify their crops.

Tax the fuck out of the super-rich.

End corporate welfare.

Implement a fully subsidized educational system from preschool to PhD.

Shorten the work week to 30 hours.

Significantly increase paid sick time and parental leave.

Significantly increase vacation time, both paid and unpaid options.

If these were implemented, betcha anything that gun (and other types of) violence would become a minimal issue.

I agree wholeheartedly. I also think any two of those changes would be opposed almost as hard as gun restriction.

[Scribbly]

It is pretty difficult to argue that guns don't make it easier to kill quicker than other forms of weaponry. Recent years have proven that building bombs is a hell of a lot more difficult than people think, and knife attacks - whilst horrific - don't rack up the 20+ body counts.

But the fact remains that in the case of the United States, it is - like Nigel said - impossible to take it all back. Aside from being politically unpalatable, I'd imagine the costs of trying to cut down on gun ownership would be obscene.

On a completely different note, whilst rifles of various sorts are used for hunting... aren't pistols only practical for killing people? I'm genuinely curious on that because I believe that was the rhetoric used to justify banning pistols over here, whilst sporting rifles (even semi-automatic ones) and shotguns are still available with a license.

It's also interesting that gun crime in the UK has been rising significantly over the past few years, as cheap firearms have become more readily available. Mostly this has remained criminal-on-criminal, as the expectation is that people don't have guns so you don't need more than a knife to scare the piss out of a couple you are robbing, but there are notable exceptions.

[Cain]

Mark Ames finally has a piece up on the shooting.

Sort of.

As I suspected, he felt the shooting didn't fall into the typical school or workplace shootings he discussed, as Lanza was not a student or employee of the place he shot up.

He instead decides to talk about the history of the NRA, gun control, wealth disparities and society in general.

http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/newtown

So what's really going on here? Why the crazy? It's not exactly a revelation to learn that the NRA is run by hick fascist nutjobs, although we quickly forget just how toxic they are without constant reminding. But each time you peel off a layer, it's more shocking than you expected it be.

But what's the purpose, what are the deeper ideological politics of that sort of gun-cult fanaticism?

Looking back at Big Business' violent reaction against the New Deal and the political culture that it created: a more "collectivist" political culture, as the libertarians derisively call it, where people were more deeply involved with each other and their communities, and with that involvement in their politics and communities came greater trust in their communities. That political culture — where people were more involved in their politics and trusted government more than they trusted business — was a big problem, according to pollsters and PR experts hired by business lobby groups in the postwar era, groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce.

Much better is to pour arms unrestricted into the population, give them legal cover and political encouragement to take political matters into their own hands with laws like "Stand Your Ground". That way you wind up creating a political culture of atomized, fear-fueled citizens who think they're literally at war with each other, and their only way out is to fend for themselves and their family.

One of FDR's first and most powerful opponents in the 30s and 40s was a New York lobbyist and public relations heavyweight named Merwin K. Hart. He was the brains and organizing force behind far-right big business groups like the American Liberty League, the isolationist America First Committee, and the far-right National Economic Council, fighting labor unions and waging nonstop war on democracy, which Merwin Hart equated with Communism. He also served as PR flak for Spain's fascist dictator, publishing a fawning book on Franco in 1939 titled "America, Look At Spain" completely whitewashing the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards his client the Generalissimo had just finished slaughtering.

Robert Jackson — the Nuremberg Trials prosecutor and Supreme Court Justice — singled out Merwin K. Hart as one of America's most dangerous fascists on the eve of World War Two. After the war, Hart became a leading Holocaust denier. He also helped engineer Joe McCarthy's election victory, and helped spearhead relentless attacks on "collectivism" (in which act together in politics and the workplace, rather than "individually" which is how the bosses prefer it), and against democracy, which Hart claimed was an alien Communist idea subverting American liberty. He proposed "that every person who accepted any form of government help should be denied the right to vote." He also called for impeaching the entire Supreme Court, accusing the justices of being "dedicated to socialism."

In place of democracy and "collectivism" and community activism, Merwin K. Hart promoted "individualism" and fear.

And that naturally led Merwin K Hart into promoting the sort of fanatical gun-politics that shocked the public in his time, but today is accepted as part of the mainstream discourse, as if NRA gun-fanaticism was always in the air, rather than a political project with political ends in mind.

In a 1948 newsletter to his followers later read aloud to shocked House committee members, Hart made a "concrete suggestion" to his members, calling on the head of every American home to "possess himself of one or more guns, making sure they are in good condition, that he and other members of his family know how to use them, and that he has a reasonable supply of ammunition."

And just before he died in 1962, Merwin Hart organized fringe gun groups like the Minutemen -- a Southern California gun-cult that claimed to possess hundreds of automatic weapons and had "information" of an impending invasion by Chinese troops massing on the Mexican border. Together, they successfully killed a bill that would require handgun registration. Hart used language too extreme for that era's NRA: "Any congressman or senator who votes for the Anfoso [gun] bill knowing its real purpose would disqualify himself from ever again expecting to be called an American."

Because it's now so deeply ingrained that owning guns is a form of radical subversive politics, the people who still engage in real politics have the pick of the litter. That first became really clear in the depths of the 2008-9 collapse, when a lot of people who thought of themselves as radicals and anarchists made a lot of feckless noise about how they were arming and preparing for the collapse and revolution. They could've gone out and organized something and maybe built a politics of people power or even a politics of what they call revolution, a politics that actually changed things. But instead, they locked themselves in their homes and apartments with their guns and fancied themselves political revolutionaries just waiting to be swept up. But no one came. No one bothered or cared. And really, why would any plutocrat or evil government agency bother with the suckers, all harmlessly atomized and isolated and thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that their guns gave them, while you do the real work of plundering budgets, bribing politicians and writing laws even more in your favor?

So while everyone was hiding out in their homes armed and ready for Hollywood finales that never came, in the real world political power was concentrating at warp-speed with zero resistance.

From the oligarchy's perspective, the people were thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that guns gave them. Guns don't work in this country — they didn't work for the Black Panthers or the Whiskey Rebellion, and they won't work for you or me either.

Which I can't disagree with.  I know I've said, in this very thread, that gun control in the USA is untenable, for social reasons, and for reasons of basic supply and demand.  Too many guns are available, if they were outlawed a black market would easily flourish, in addition to the social unrest issues I've mentioned already.

But I've also said before that anyone who thinks having a gun is defending their rights is a moron, and that letting people own guns is a distraction from how they are taking it up the arse from plutocrats, because "they still have their guns" and so must be free, right?