I post this not to just piss Steve off, but because I can't quite rap my mind around this. We have had 20 school kids slaughtered and the NRA's best response is to say, let's just put an armed person in each building. That is their entire approach Hutchinson Recommends One Armed Person In Every School Building | TPM LiveWire
Well, not completely. They don't want to do universal background checks. They don't want any limitation on the people who like to play army on the weekends. Or who fantasize about Obama coming in a Black Helicopter to take away all their guns. Those people must be respected. Their paranoia isn't bad, it is a good thing for the NRA--and something that should be stoked and encouraged. Fear your government and get ready to die in a hail of bullets as you stand your ground and defend your castle. Or perhaps, you just shoot an innocent person or yourself in a fit of suicidal depression.
Either way, the NRA don't care.
Until Adam Lanza went into that school building shooting, he was the poster child for the gun culture (again, not responsible and sober gun owners). He had, as we now know, a virtual arsenal of guns and ammo (all helped by his mother, of course) and was ready for whatever came his way.
So Asa Hutchinson's response from the NRA is that we just need more armed people. It don't matter if they occasionally fire their weapon accidentally in school, or even if they leave their loaded weapon in the bathroom. No. More guns are better.
Of course, if we think about this, the absolute lack of response here is unbelievable. As I think John Oliver has quipped, one guy tried to blow up a plane with his shoe and we all have to take our shoes off. People shoot up schools, movie theaters and political rallies and our only response is to have more guns.
5 minutes. Reminds me of a great Gretchen Peters' song by the same name. "In just five minutes, your whole life can change." A shooter, possibly with body armor, and certainly armed with an arsenal (as they all are in these cases) moving quickly with purpose, and our response is one armed person--not in body armor, and not armed to the teeth. One magical gun will stop those shooters.
It better, because according to the NRA we aren't going to do one thing more to stop or prevent these shootings. Not one thing. No gun owner should ever be inconvenienced at all.
15 comments:
That article said the NRA wasn't saying that all schools should have an armed guard and it was up to individual districts to decide whether having a guard is something they want. This seems unreasonable to you?
We should have universal checks? This would have stopped Lanza, right? How would these checks work? Biden already said the .gov doesn't have the manpower or the money to prosecute the people that shouldn't have guns under the current system. Who is going to police the millions of gun sales and monitor them?
Adam Lanza is the poster child for gun owners? You have got to be kidding. That is like saying that Charles Manson is the poster child for California tourism. Show me any gun owner/gun rights person anywhere that has said anything positive about Lanzas gun ownership. The only things I can find are the people that are questioning how his mother could have been so irresponsible to have given him access.
Stay classy
Connecticut already had some of the most restrictive gun laws in this country. Places like Norway and the UK have very strict gun laws and have mass killings. Yep, it must work.
Lanza didn't have body armor, nor did any mass shooter in recent memory. I think the last ones were the North Hollywood bank robbers back in the mid 1990s, if you are interested in a factual discussion.
If you read my post, Steve, then you might not act like such an ass in response. What I said was that "Until Adam Lanza went into that school building shooting, he was the poster child for the gun culture." I know you can read. So show me that you will. I clearly identified that he was the poster child before he went on that rampage.
Tell me, Steve, and please keep the sarcasm to a minimum (if that is even possible on this topic) do you think badly of anyone who amasses as many guns and ammo as they want? Is there any question in your mind that perhaps, just perhaps, an individual doesn't need that much killing power?
I apologize on the body armor. I was mistaken. My point was actually in hypothetical. But thanks for your derision. It is always so welcome.
There is one other thing here that really bothers me. When we talk about background checks and limits on gun purchases, the response is always, "that won't help anything and wouldn't solve anything." But when I suggest that an armed person in CT wouldn't have been able to stop a very well armed and suicidal murderer, you just dismiss. If there is no proof that putting an armed person in those schools would help, why are we adding more guns to the mix.
And one more thing. I have tried and tried and tried and tried to differentiate between the responsible gun owners who take care of their guns, are concerned about safety and not about starting an armed revolution against Obama. I have made that point so many times that I have to believe your insistence on confusing and conflating the two is purposeful. You are smart enough to read what I have written. You are smart enough to know that I differentiate between the NRA's political leadership and people like you. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that and actually insist on taking personal offense.
At a certain point, that gets old. You know better. You seem to be looking for a reason to bash me. If you were consistent with others (people you know in person) I might respect you for it. But you aren't. You like to hammer me for my constitutional weakness, or be derisive and shitty about any single missed fact.
Not only do you piss me off each time, but you make it harder for me to respect gun owners. And by this time, I am beginning to believe that you don't give a shit about that.
Oh, and btw, but yeah, the NRA's only contribution is to say put more guns in schools. Sure, they didn't want to force districts--that is a completely meaningless point. But that is their only contribution. As TP pointed out this afternoon, they do want background checks on the armed people in the school.
No, of course, the NRA is so responsible. They are just a great addition to our culture. Oh, and btw, their board member Ted Nugent is out there talking about being armed for those Obama gangs coming after his guns.
I am saying that Lanza was never the actual or representative of the champion of gun ownership. He appears to have a troubled past and his mother appeared to be grossly negligent. I don't run into any gun owners that would believe he was the kind of person that should have a gun.
I don't know that an armed guard could have stopped him. Given that he killed himself when it was clear that he would face a police response, it it certainly possible that he may have been stopped if he faced some kind of resistance. That being said, there is no way to say.
As for background checks, I am skeptical that they will do jack shit. You deride gun owners and suggest that there is no way a "magical" gun could stop a shooter (despite the fact that it does happen). I have pointed to actual research that suggests that additional gun laws may not do anything, and you talk about the skepticism by saying that gun owners don't want to be inconvenienced. They don't, but it is less palatable when it is for no good reason.
The state Michigan has had universal background checks for ALL handgun purchases since 1927. Do you know how many criminals have been caught because of these checks. The state police could only find that a handful and could only name one in the last 10 years. Canada instituted a registration system a decade ago, but tossed it out when it became too expensive and didn't do what it was supposed to do.
I know you are an intelligent and well read person, but I don't think you understand the sheer number of laws and regulations that are already in place when it comes to buying, selling, or owning firearms.
Actually, I haven't derided gun owners. Not nearly as much as you have derided me.
I have pointed to actual research that suggests that weaker gun laws and more guns leads to more deaths. You dismiss out of hand. So, please, don't suggest--as you have so many times--that you are the only one who cares either about the constitution or rational argument. Several studies have shown that more regulations lead to less deaths--but I am sure you will dismiss those out of hand. God forbid anything inconvenience the NRA member. (How is that defense of Ted Nugent and Wayne LaPierre coming? Oh right, LaPierre is a rational and good person while Michael Moore is shit. Got ya.)
Hell, I know you are intelligent. You have yet to prove that you actually read my posts.
You haven't derided gun owners? I have a hard time recalling a post where you said anything even remotely positive about them. Mostly, they are dangerous people that play soldier and fantasize about using their magical +2 Colt 1911 to stop some bad guys.
I did comment on your study to say that I hadn't read it and couldn't say much about it. What else did you want me to say? As for Wayne and Ted's Excellent Adventure, I am not sure what else to say. Ted is an idiot. I didn't vote for him to be on some type of cerimonial board with 30 other people that has no real policy making power. I sent in my latest ballot a few weeks ago and still didn't vote for him I did vote for Willie from Duck Dynasty. He is a stitch.
What else do you want me to say about Wayne? You seem to think if you can bring up a few examples of behavior that you don't like it somehow is the responsibility of the grow ups to take back their group. I am sure I can find some kooks on the left, from celebrities to leadership. Does this invalidate every single position on the left? Are you responsible for every act of corruption or dishonesty? No, of course not.
"I have a hard time recalling a post where you said anything even remotely positive about them."
So I guess we will stick with the purposeful ignorance, then? Ok. Nice. You remind me of the Christian right, searching through culture for perceived insults, then crying foul.
Pot, meet kettle. Ignoring the question. I must not be the only person that does this.
"You seem to think if you can bring up a few examples of behavior that you don't like it somehow is the responsibility of the grow ups to take back their group."
Right. It isn't as if I bring up the actual leadership of your organization. It is only that I bring up crazy people like Ted Nugent. That must be it.
It isn't that I have said over and over how much I understand the good things that trainers and NRA mainstays do. Nope. I only talk about a "few" examples of NRA nutbaggery.
Yeah, that must be it. And it is absolutely wrong of me to point out what LaPierre or Hutchinson does. I should apologize to the poor NRA people who are tainted by....what their leadership does. And what their elected officials say and do.
Yep. I am so sorry. /sarcasm
Apology accepted.
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