Fucking Guns

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  • The NRA tweet includes this line, "the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves."

    As if some of the NRA site's skewed statistics could offset the evidence doctors have seen first hand. Reading the "nice bloody summary," was so upsetting I had to quit halfway through.

    I smashed up my leg pretty bad a few years ago and was taken to Grant Medical Center in Columbus where the intern who greeted me said I was lucky because Grant was the hospital where, "all the gun shot victims" were taken so they had some of the very best orthopedic surgeons in the country.

    Think about it -- a medium/large city needs a huge five story hospital with gunshot wounds as their primary concern. My surgeon had a picture on his wall of a tiny three year old boy with his leg removed which I will never, ever forget. No NRA, the medical community doesn't need to consult anyone else, they've had to do things the rest of us can't bear to think about.

  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Word.
  • Mark Joseph Stern explains why gun control doesn't work in the United States.
    In 2016, California voters approved Proposition 63 by 63 percent of the vote. The law’s centerpiece outlawed high-capacity magazines, defined as any magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Such magazines were used in some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, including Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Pulse Nightclub, and—since the measure passed—Las Vegas and Thousand Oaks. Gun rights advocates, including the California arm of the National Rifle Association, promptly filed a lawsuit, alleging a violation of their Second Amendment rights.

    U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, blocked Proposition 63 in June 2017. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later declined to lift his injunction. In his ruling, Benitez declared that the law “is a poor fit as a means to eliminate the types of mass shooting events experienced in California.” He insisted that high-capacity magazines are “an incredibly rare danger to public safety.”

    I guess the short version could be either "because it's never allowed to let stand" or "because people keep (sort-of) electing Republicans to the presidency".
  • Look, high capacity magazines are stupid in a civilian context. Benitez is absolutely correct in that bit of the wording of his ruling, though.* Mass killings of that nature are a statistical blip. It is the everyday shootings that make much more a difference.
    That even such ludicrous things like high capacity magazines cannot be controlled does indicate that effective gun control mightn't be possible.

    *For likely the wrong motivation, of course and I still think the ruling wrong.
  • RooK wrote: »
    NRA yet to respond on awkward fact that good guys with guns are required to be white.

    Indeed. Just the other day, police responding to a shooting at a shopping mall killed a black man who was holding a gun, claiming that he was the shooter. Oops, guess what? He wasn't the shooter after all. He was a good guy with a gun.

    Of course, no one seems to have raised the question of why the man thought it necessary to bring his gun to the mall in the first place.

    Guns don't kill people. Cops kill people brandishing guns.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Yes guns don’t kill people neither do chemical weapons, People using them do.

  • Hugal wrote: »
    Yes guns don’t kill people neither do chemical weapons, People using them do.

    Yeeeeessss. But you know what? If you don't carry a gun you're much less likely to kill someone (try pointing at people you hate and shouting 'bang'). Or be killed yourself.

    Facts are scary aren't they?

    AFZ
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Yes I realise now the post comes across differently to how I intended. I meant it to mean that it doesn’t matter if it is guns or chemical weapons. They only harm when used by people so don’t let people use them, except in a controlled environment like a gun club or Olympic style shooting. Not just available anywhere. And of course no chemical weapons at all. Sorry for the mix up.
  • Is there scope for an Olympic event incorporating chemical weapons? The swimming might benefit if swimmers have to get away from some noxious substance which is released into one end of the pool when the starting gun is fired.
  • The Rogue wrote: »
    Is there scope for an Olympic event incorporating chemical weapons? The swimming might benefit if swimmers have to get away from some noxious substance which is released into one end of the pool when the starting gun is fired.

    Only if they weren't swimming laps. Which would make for a very short race.
  • This CNN headline reads like something the Onion would print,
    Shooter in deadly Illinois rampage was not supposed to own a gun

    He wasn't supposed to shoot people either. This is what's so naïve about the NRA saying we don't need to ban guns, we will just, "keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people." It will always be impossible to keep guns away from the "bad guys," even if we could predict who might be inclined to snap, because anyone angry enough or mentally ill enough to shoot masses of people wont stop because they "aren't supposed to" have a gun.

    So long as there are guns everywhere it will be only too easy to find or steal one before he/she has a chance to calm down. This young man's mother says he had recently been very stressed because he knew he was about to lose his job. If he had only had a few days to process it all tragedy could have been prevented, but his gun was right there, easily obtained even though he had a previous felony.

  • yup. More guns = more gun violence.
  • I just read about that shooting before I visited the Ship. I find it just so sad...tragic. I know you can never 100% stop all violence, but surely trying to by putting in appropriate measures and restrictions to gun ownership is a start.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I heard a bit of news that he was going to a meeting where he was going to be fired, and he'd figured that out. So...took steps.

    This is why many workplaces fire someone during the workday and have them escorted out by a guard. Then cancel their building access. If the person knows /suspects ahead of time, there's a chance they could use the time to do something everyone would regret.

    I once worked where they decided to close the local facility. Without warning, we were called into a meeting and told we were fired immediately. Guards with walkie-talkies escorted us out. Don't remember if they had weapons. I understand having guards there...but if they hadn't handled the firing so badly, they wouldn't have had much reason to worry about retaliation. (There wasn't any, AFAIK.)
  • Yes, I always worked in banks and they, too, always had guards walk out with anyone who was fired. I once saw one of the female loan officers go out hand cuffed between two guards. I couldn't help but be impressed. They weren't worried that we'd shoot anyone, just that we'd take some money along as self-severance pay. Simpler times.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Yeah, they were probably worried about thjeft and sabotage, more than guns. (BTW, they also shut us out of the computer system during the meeting.)

    However, workplace shootings had already happened in this area, though IIRC not all by an employee. E.g., the "One California Shooting". A guy was in the middle of a divorce, and went to his wife's attorney's law office, and shot it up. I know at least one person was killed, because her husband spoke before Congress on gun control. Don't remember how that turned out.
  • If people think they might be fired in Australia they bring along a union rep.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Lots of American workers aren't in unions. My guess is that most aren't.
  • It's nice to pre-traumatise children: Kids doing active-shooter drills.
  • It's nice to pre-traumatise children: Kids doing active-shooter drills.

    I think that is so wrong. The chances of a child being involved in school shooting is still very rare and the chance that practicing the drills will prove really helpful may be unlikely, but the chance of the child having bad dreams and anxiety from the drills? Probably pretty good.

    I heard one of the students from last year's Florida school shooting say that the gunshots set off the fire alarms, so the kids lined up as per their fire drills and walked out into the hall, straight into the line of fire.

  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    IIRC, the news at the time said the shooter purposely set off the alarms for just that reason.

    As to drills: mixed feelings; but school shootings keep happening, and students and staff might have a better chance of surviving one if they know what to do. And kids are likely to hear about shootings that have happened, whether by TV, radio, Internet, word of mouth, or even newspapers.

    They'll also have fire drills. And possibly duck and cover drills for tornadoes and hurricanes. When I was a kid, they were in case Russia/Cuba attacked.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Would it be enough to train the teacher and they could guide the kids.?
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I'm trying to think if I were, say, some grade in grade school, and I knew these bad things were happening, and I was scared and upset.

    I *think* maybe I'd want both the kids and teachers trained, and some of that being each class (or home room) trained together with its teacher. I'd know what to do, and so would the other kids, and so would the teacher. So, if anyone went "deer in headlights" or forgot, someone else could remind them. And remind a substitute teacher, if the regular teacher was absent.

    BTW: As an adult, I've also had duck and cover drills at work for earthquakes. (Hiding under an office desk is more comfortable than under a school desk!) California kids probably do similar drills at school

    FWIW, YMMV.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    California kids probably do similar drills at school.

    Poor California kids probably do earthquake drills, active shooter drills, forest fire drills, flood drills, mudslide drills, car runs out of gas in the desert drills...
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    I'm so ticked off about the knuckle headed idea that training teachers to use guns in the classroom will help. Good guys with guns is a horrible idea! So, what protects the teacher from law enforcement if they are the good guy with a gun in a school shooting incident? Especially if that teacher is a black male?

    I'm so very sick of the politicians and the NRA which owns them who think they can blithely throw this idea to all of us, and expect us to say, "Well then! That's alright!" I'm sick of the loony-tunes citizens that think this is a good idea.

    I count 44 mass shootings in the US so far this year. In my county alone, there have been several fake threats of shooting up local schools to the point that many students were afraid to go to school. I feel that the kids who made these threats could be the very ones who would perhaps carry through with them for real some day. Hopefully the serious consequences they face will force them to rethink their violent tendencies.

    Take away the darned guns!!!!!
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    (:notworthy:) O great Jedi.

    Some of those *might* be stupid pranks or trying to get out of class. Pulling the fire alarm used to be a thing. In the early '70s, bomb threats were a thing at my school. I think we had maybe 3 in several months in one year. We evacuated the building, appropriate fuss, etc. IIRC I and other kids and some grownups figured it was usually someone trying to get out of a test. Of course, that was an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" approach for whoever did it.

    These days, there's SWATting, too. (Calling the police and falsely saying there's an extreme threat at a particular place...causing the SWAT team to gear up and invade the place...which could be dangerous for the innocent person the caller was purposely targeting.) Maybe the incidents jedijudy cites are in that category.



  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Golden Key wrote: »
    ... In the early '70s, bomb threats were a thing at my school ...
    There was a bomb-scare at my school in the late 1970s, when IRA activity was at its height, and not restricted to Northern Ireland. A bloke in the year above me who came from Belfast had apparently phoned up the school claiming there was a bomb, and because of his accent, it was taken seriously.

    It turned out to be a hoax, but not before the school had been evacuated and an exam that was going on had been invalidated because those sitting it had to leave the exam hall.
  • Now we have shooting scares. Somebody will call the school and say a student is planning to bring a gun to school and shoot the place up. Which of course will have to be investigated.
  • Yeah we had a spate of bomb threats in my high school in or obout 1982. Turns out it was one of my classmates who was going through a shitty time at home.

    Jedi Judy, amen and amen.
  • jedijudy wrote: »
    I'm so ticked off about the knuckle headed idea that training teachers to use guns in the classroom will help. Good guys with guns is a horrible idea! So, what protects the teacher from law enforcement if they are the good guy with a gun in a school shooting incident? Especially if that teacher is a black male?

    Worse yet, think about how the police would react if some “concerned citizen” calls in a report that they saw a black man with a gun entering the local school. There doesn’t even need to be a (non-police) shooter for that situation to turn very ugly for a black male teacher.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Well done US House of Reps. Well, most of you.

    Though unlikely to pass the Senate according to the report.

    (I did ponder about me, a non-citizen, posting this: but I do think it a good thing)

  • It is a good thing! It also proves that some Republicans are capable of crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats on this. A very good thing.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    And fucking KNIVES. And fucking gutless copperin'.
  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    School shooting in Brazil right now. Fuck.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    I read that when I woke up. Bloody shocking. 6 students and 2 employees, the Beeb reported. 😥
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited March 2019
    'Blood everywhere' as shots fired at mosque in central Christchurch.

    Automatic weapon involved, according to reports.

    Shock in the office.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited March 2019
    In Christchurch! (And remembering Huia)
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    FUCK. THIS. SHIT.
    I guess we all knew this would happen sooner or later, even here in New Zealand.
    And it's two mosques - so far.
  • Sounds like Brazil and NZ need to tighten up their gun laws, shame they didn't do that already.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    romanlion--

    That's really insensitive. And if that's a swipe at other countries because of things some Shipmates have said about our country's gun problems...just stop it. Doesn't help anything.



  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    romanlion wrote: »
    [trolling]

    Quelle surprise.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    romanlion--

    That's really insensitive.

    Is it untrue?
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Romanlion you ignorant excuse for a human being, NZ has some of the toughest gun laws.


    no one on the Ship except you would seek to make some kind of political scoring over the deaths that occurred in Christchurch today. Fuckwit.
  • Huia wrote: »
    Romanlion you ignorant excuse for a human being, NZ has some of the toughest gun laws.


    no one on the Ship except you would seek to make some kind of political scoring over the deaths that occurred in Christchurch today. Fuckwit.

    What happened then?
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    romanlion--
    That's really insensitive.
    romanlion wrote: »
    Is it untrue?

    Perhaps you have misunderstood the basis of 'Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary?' The bar is three out of three, not one out of three.
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    My first thought on hearing about this was 'why Christchurch?' - it's not the city with the biggest Muslim population, or the easiest place to bring to a standstill, with multiple incidents.
    The answer may well turn out to be 'because the Bangladeshi national cricket team were in the city, and understood to be attending Friday prayers' (they were late, and had arrived at but not entered the mosque when the shooting began).
    The mind boggles.
  • anoesis wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    romanlion--
    That's really insensitive.
    romanlion wrote: »
    Is it untrue?

    Perhaps you have misunderstood the basis of 'Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary?' The bar is three out of three, not one out of three.

    Yeah that's not what I was going for at all.

    I just wish the victims had been Christians in Nigeria, or Egypt, or Chechnya...then we could have ignored it altogether.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    romanlion--

    Put the keyboard down. Go get some fresh air. If necessary, kick yourself in your compassion to jump-start it.
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    romanlion wrote: »
    Yeah that's not what I was going for at all.

    I just wish the victims had been Christians in Nigeria, or Egypt, or Chechnya...then we could have ignored it altogether.

    I call bullshit on that. Your original comment was about gun laws, not about the supposed failings of the so-called liberal media.

    Also, really? You wish there were some Christian shooting victims, right now, so that we could not talk about it, in order for you to score a point on a discussion board somewhere?

    As I've already said, the mind boggles.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    edited March 2019
    NZ shipmates are horrified at what's happened in their country, just as US shipmates were horrified when a people were shot at a Sikh temple on Wisconsin, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, at a church in Charleston.

    Why exactly do Americans need to wish Christians were shot in some other part of the world when Christians are shot and killed in the US every goddamned day? It's not in church every day, sure, but they're dying nevertheless.

    Go look up the deaths per capita due to guns in NZ and compare them to the US, romanlion, and then see if you can come up with anything more becoming of a human being, you feckless little snot-nosed toad.
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