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Photographer's JournalYour opinion on gun control doesn't matter
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/02/1456140/-Your-opinion-on-gun-control-doesn-t-matter?detail=emailCan we stop looking at gun rights as an ideological issue? This is no longer ideological. I don't care how you feel in theory: I care what is happening in practice. In practice, there have been 351 mass shootings in only 336 days. More people will die by guns than in car accidents this year. In practice, this is a public health crisis.
.....
To you, the deaths of these people are less important than your right to own a gun. You must know that people die daily from random violence at their workplace, at the store, in their car. You think that's unfortunate. Sad. Tragic, even. But not as tragic as stricter gun control would be. The deaths are an unnecessary accoutrement, scuffing your personal dogma. But they don't change anything.
"That's the price we pay for freedom," you shrug, although you've never actually had to pay the price. Even though there is no freedom in being scared to walk out of your house, scared to eat in the cafeteria, or go to the doctor—scared of any place with people.
As it stands, I am (surprisingly) less partisan about gun control than others. In many ways, I see (and even sometimes agree with) what anti-gun regulators are saying. I am (generally) clear on why this issue is complicated.
But here's my thing.
....
I'm watching a livestream of the local news, where a bewildered reporter tries to swallow his tears. It's raining outside, and clear across the country in California there are a dozen dead bodies, each end brought by bullets. Parents are calling frantic, hoping that their child is alive. At this moment right now, survivors are just embarking on a long journey of pain, guilt, trauma, regret, flashbacks. The loss is tangible. The pain is forever.
But you still have your guns! So It's all worth it to you. You have to remind yourself. Go ahead, say it out loud—"Those deaths are worth it to me." Days like today, you have to remind yourself that this is the cause you are (literally, chances are) willing to die for. Is it worth it?
<snip>
It's worth hitting the link and reading the whole thing.
“Fox & Friends”: Prayer is more effective than gun control, and if you disagree with that “you’re
“Fox & Friends”: Prayer is more effective than gun control, and if you disagree with that “you’re lining up with terrorists”
On Thursday, “Fox & Friends” took its cue from its network’s delightful coverage of the San Bernardino shooting last night and focused on what really matters — namely, that this might have been a terrorist attack and that prayer works, this possible terrorist attack notwithstanding.
The touchstone for all their conversations was the cover of today’s edition of the New York Daily News:
Co-host Steve Doocy had a copy of the paper and held it up, repeatedly, saying “if God won’t fix this, we need more [gun] laws.” GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina agreed, saying “it’s stunning to me — this is an example of how afraid the left-wing is of our values.”
Fiorina later argued that “it turns out that [South Carolina shooter] Dylan Roof should never have been sold a gun; it turns out that South Carolina has strict gun laws; and it turns out that all of the violence in Chicago is sitting in a city with the strictest gun control laws,” so what the national conversation should really be about “is calling crimes like this what it appears to be,” namely, terrorism. And, of course, prayer — which is what Fiorina claimed was the first thing she urged people to offer when she heard about the shooting.
Doocy and Hasselbeck agreed, with Doocy holding up the Daily News cover again and saying, “on the cover of the Daily News they have politicized this already. ‘Hey, Republicans,’ they’re saying, ‘God isn’t fixing this. As the latest batch of innocent Americans are left dying in pools of blood, cowards.’ Who [do] they picture right here? Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, all Republicans, [or] ‘cowards who could truly end gun scourge but continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.'”
More with video at http://www.salon.com/2015/12/03/fox_friends_prayer_is_more_effective_than_gun_control_and_if_you_disagree_with_that_youre_lining_up_with_terrorists/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Fischer (AFA): Planned Parenthood Shooter May Have Been 'Tanked Up On Pot'
On his radio program today, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer floated his own theory as to why Robert Lewis Dear killed three people and injured nine more during a shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado last week: Maybe he was "just tanked up on pot."
Insisting that there is no reliable evidence as to what motivated Dear to carry out the attack, Fischer suggested that perhaps the legality of marijuana in the state played a role because "we do know that since he moved to Colorado, [Dear] was a pot-smoking nutcase."
Fischer said that "we have seen one story after another" of people "getting doped up or tanked up or high on pot and going off a doing brutal things," especially after ingesting marijuana edibles. So obviously "there is no question that the kind of pot that is available in Colorado today can drive you into psychotic episodes," he stated.
"I'm going to be interested to see what he had in his system," Fischer said, "and if maybe this was a guy that was just tanked up on pot."
<snip>
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-planned-parenthood-shooter-may-have-been-tanked-pot#sthash.xi4cFO1y.dpuf
LOL! Right, dude. Blame it on anything but reality.
Maybe an avenue against gun violence that's already set up.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Brady organization is to create a safer America for all of us that will lead to a dramatic reduction in gun deaths and injuries.
Brady's Unique Approach
Of the 32,000 people who die from gun violence in this country each year, how many could be saved?
Brady has announced the bold goal to cut the number of U.S. gun deaths in half by 2025, based on an innovative and exciting strategy that centers on the idea of keeping guns out of the wrong hands through three impact-driven, broadly engaging campaigns: (1) a policy focus to "Finish the Job" so that life-saving Brady background checks are applied to all gun sales; (2) to "Stop 'Bad Apple' Gun Dealers" – the 5 percent of gun dealers that supply 90 percent of all crime guns; and (3) to lead a new national conversation and change social norms around the real dangers of guns in the home, to prevent the homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings that happen every day as a result.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/about-brady
How people view those who own bunches of guns and talk about them all the time:
We think you need help and want to stay the fuck away from you.
This also leads you to congregate only with like minded and end up thinking you are the majority.
We think you are just fucking paranoid, fearful borderline psychopaths.
Possible solution: Make pot mandatory for gun owners.
And assure they start smoking as soon as they awaken in the morning.
They will soon mellow out and trade their guns for all you can eat spaghetti bars or chips.
Just a thought.
On the flip side, many might try to use their guns as bongs...
(see the last Ash VS The Evil Dead)
A silent thread for the 12,235 gun deaths in America this year as of 12-3
2015 Toll of Gun Violence
Total Number of Incidents 48,366
Number of Deaths1 12,235
Number of Injuries1 24,753
Number of Children (age 0-11) Killed/Injured1 640
Number of Teens (age 12-17) Killed/Injured1 2,423
Mass Shooting2 309
Officer Involved Incident2 4,028
Home Invasion2 2,081
Defensive Use2 1,130
Accidental Shooting2 1,749
Gun violence incidents collected/validated from 1200+ sources daily – source links on each incident report.
1: Actual number of deaths and injuries
2: Number of INCIDENTS reported and verified
Numbers on this table reflect a subset of all information
collected and will not add to 100% of incidents.
www.gunviolencearchive.org
Data Validated: December 03, 2015
Another mass killing: "OMFG, I'm afraid! I need a (or more) Gun(s)!
I think this is the NRA's new marketing ploy. Keep as many guns as possible in as many different hands as possible without regard to the gun owner's ability to prudent gun usage...
And more gun sales occur because of a frightened populace.
It's no longer the household with a shotgun in the closet or a 38 in the underwear drawer. We have people with weapons that are more in line with a battlefield than home protection. No longer just a box of shells, many have cases... Thousands of rounds. Weapons that fire as fast as a person can twitch their index finger.
We have to stop the fear, we have to make access to weapons of war more difficult. We have to stand up to the fear mongers, the paranoids and the NRA's political power.
40 years ago I hunted ducks and doves.
And I ate them after cooking them. I lived in the country and it was a way of life for me. I had a 12 gauge Remington which I had purchased from Sears. I could also hit 100 out of 100 hand thrown skeet.
Then I grew up.
I decided I didn't like killing things. I sold the gun and never owned another.
A few years later, my life took me to manage a Woolworth's which had a sporting goods center where we sold everything except handguns. Mini-14's Old Mauser 8mm's a variety of 30-06's and shotguns. I learned a lot there.
The Mini-14's are .223 cal like the guns used in yesterday's violence. I learned that they weren't that good for hunting deer because the caliber was too small and would often just breeze through the target before bouncing around and destroying organs. They are pretty much designed to kill people. At the time, most of the Ruger Mini 14 customers were cops who would buy large clips and tape a couple together so they could flip it in a moment to increase the fire power. The guns would then reside in the officer's trunk and wait for a riot or something that the cops in Atlanta seemed to be expecting back in the early 70's there.
I also learned about straw buyers and killers when ATF came in tracking guns that were sold there before my arrival.
I guess this walk down my memory lane is cementing the fact that I feel I left guns behind is because "I grew up." Both physically and spiritually in the sense that I wanted to have as little to do as possible with the taking of life. I left Woolworth's after only a couple of years.
I also have to wonder after reading many pro gun posts how the hell I have lived so long without owning or carrying a gun. I have lived in inner cities, sketchy rural areas, even had guns pulled on me a couple of times. All that and never once was shot. None of the people I know or known have ever been shot or had to shoot someone in self defense.
I feel that many of the posts we read here today rallying around the gun and how it's necessary for self defense are pure bullshit. Those sorts of situations are scarce as hen's teeth but I'm sure someone will post articles about a convenience store operator scaring off or killing a robber.
The thing is, I don't want to kill a robber or anyone else. I can only speak from my personal experience in which I have lived without a gun with no repercussions from deciding to live in such a fashion. Chances are most people in America can fare as well.
Yes, Guns Do kill people. And no, just because there are so many of them doesn't mean there's
nothing that can be done about them.
To claim that guns don't kill people makes as much sense as saying cigarettes don't kill. They don't always kill but there are laws out there that restrict their use and they are used only a fraction of their use in the 50's.
It took a while to whittle down the use of tobacco to what it is today, but it's on its way out. If we took an approach similar to Australia's we could do the same with semi-auto weapons here as well. Just because there are so many of them out there does not mean we shouldn't try because of the canards like "then only criminals will have them" or "it'll open up a huge black market" or "there would be blood baths if they try to take our guns!"
It is up to us to do something. It is up to us to call out these stupid excuses. It is up to us to make America SAFE again. Maybe if we were safe, we could think about being great again.
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Member since: Sun Oct 4, 2015, 02:00 PMNumber of posts: 1,142