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@Baldimo,

Anytime more than four people are shot in the same incident, it's a Mass Shooting. It doesn't matter where it takes place or why. This is based on the FBI definition of 'Mass Murder.'

So no, it's not a left-wing thing at all, sorry.

Also, it's 100% appropriate to bring up US gun laws and politics. Right now. Because this is the same thing that keeps right on happening and nobody has a plan to do anything about it but gun control proponents. At all. We bring this up during this time to remind people that those who fight against gun control literally don't care, and want this to keep happening year after year, so they can keep owning their toys.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Anytime more than four people are shot in the same incident, it's a Mass Shooting. It doesn't matter where it takes place or why. This is based on the FBI definition of 'Mass Murder.'

So no, it's not a left-wing thing at all, sorry.

You are using a very lose version of the meaning of "mass shooting" and you are doing it mainly for political purposes. See the last line where it says "alarmism in the media"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting

Quote:

A mass shooting is an incident involving multiple victims of firearms-related violence.[1] The United States' Congressional Research Service acknowledges that there is not a broadly accepted definition, and defines a "public mass shooting"[2] as one in which four or more people selected indiscriminately, not including the perpetrator, are killed, echoing the FBI definition[3][4] of the term "mass murder". Another unofficial definition of a mass shooting is an event involving the shooting (not necessarily resulting in death) of four or more people with no cooling-off period.[5] Related terms include school shooting and massacre. The lack of a single definition can lead to alarmism in the news media, with some reports conflating categories of crimes.[6]

Quote:

Also, it's 100% appropriate to bring up US gun laws and politics. Right now. Because this is the same thing that keeps right on happening and nobody has a plan to do anything about it but gun control proponents. At all. We bring this up during this time to remind people that those who fight against gun control literally don't care, and want this to keep happening year after year, so they can keep owning their toys.

Cycloptichorn

You, Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel all went to the schools of "You never let a serious crisis go to waste.? I would have thought we learned our lesson from post 9-11.

Rahm Emanuel Quotes.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

You literally don't have an answer to either thing I wrote, you simply criticize me for saying things you don't like. But you don't like them BECAUSE you don't have an answer! Also, because someone's talking about taking your toys away, and you don't like to think about that either.

Truth is that no gun proponent has a plan for stopping or even reducing the number of mass murders. I reject your criticism of the use of the term completely, as you have no substantial argument against it and merely dislike the implications. That's your problem, not a problem with the definition.

Now IS the time to discuss this. Right now. Not some time in the future when you and the NRA and other gun proponents hope everyone forgets about it long enough to keep any laws from being passed. That's why you don't want people talking about it now, right? You're afraid that laws you don't like will get passed, because people are actually focusing on and accepting the reality of a society in which gun proponents are the ones passing laws. This is that reality: mass murders all the time on our soil, innocent people dying, you bunch offering your 'hopes and prayers' while secretly doing everything you can to perpetuate the problem.

The experience of pretty much every other country on earth tells us that we can address and solve this problem with laws, but y'all won't let us. Why? Do you literally not care when people get murdered like this? Or, like, you claim to care, but not enough to change anything that inconveniences you at all?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

If there actually is "rising fascism" in the United States, it's coming from the right. The Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers. Events such as killer hurricanes, and killer lunatics are wonderful distractions which I'm sure they cherish. Blame the Puerto Ricans for their miseries and the Muslims for a rightwingnut shooter in Vegas. But don't look too closely at what government and politicians are really doing--pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Since the end of the second world war, crypto-fascism has been growing. Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex in his last state of the union, but apparently, no one was listening. When Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece and Hungary went fascist in the 1930s. they suckered people with promises to make their respective countries great again, and to bring back jobs. Sound familiar? Then they promptly got in bed with the capitalists--Hitler financed his rise to power by cozying up to the smokestack barons. But the money boys want to cut out the middleman now, they don't want favors from politicians, they want to own the politicians and the apparatus of government, and they are willing to spend the money to get them, too. The NRA spent $30,000,000--that's chump change these days. But every issue is up for sale, from assault rifles to war with North Korea.

And their biggest patsy to date is in the Oval Office, tweeting and stroking himself.

0 Replies

The carnage will continue

... Even if I could snap my fingers and change the law, there would still be an estimated 300 million guns in the United States — roughly one per person. Which means that the quotidian carnage would continue.

Assume Sunday was an average day. If the Las Vegas killings had not happened, nearly 100 people around the country would have been killed by firearms. About two-thirds of those deaths would have been suicides; nearly all the rest, homicides — about 12,000 a year. We have become emotionally and intellectually numb to this appalling toll.

A mass shooting or a terrorist rampage, on the other hand, rivets the nation. Television networks shift into continuous “breaking news” coverage. Newspapers rush to profile the shooter, then the victims. The president makes a statement expressing the nation’s grief. Gun-rights advocates pre-emptively declare that this is not the time to talk about gun control, accusing anyone who does of politicizing tragedy. Gun-control proponents ask: If not now, then when? Everyone agrees we should do something about mental health, but we end up doing nothing. A long series of funerals ends the ritual.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-carnage-will-continue/2017/10/02/59e51d62-a7ab-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Spot on. We used to refer to it as 'the recipe for baking nothing.'

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@Lash,

Lash wrote:

Hedges, Chomsky, Sanders and others have been right about the trajectory of America for a couple of decades.
Hedges is right again.
I hope people will listen, think, and act.

They aren't even close to being right. One of the downsides of being powerful is, a bunch of impotent pipsqueaks always predict your imminent doom.

Lash wrote:

The thesis:
The American empire is coming to an end.

People used to predict the imminent downfall of the Roman Empire. And sure enough, some 750 years later, down they went.

America actually isn't an empire to begin with. But we are the world's sole superpower. We are going to remain the world's sole superpower for quite some time.

Even when another superpower arises so that we are no longer the sole superpower, we'll still be one of the superpowers.

Lash wrote:

The empire will limp along, steadily losing influence until the dollar is dropped as the world’s reserve currency, plunging the United States into a crippling depression and instantly forcing a massive contraction of its military machine.

If the world were to switch away from the dollar as reserve currency, that would not harm the US economy in any way.

0 Replies

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:
...plunging the United States into a crippling depression and instantly forcing a massive contraction of its military machine.

I'm not sure this is such a terrible result. Might be time to retreat, vacate the "shining city on the hill" (which, in truth looks sort of glitzy and cheap), and give the job to someone else. Nothing lasts forever.

This is one of the reason why liberals are so horrible. They hate the US and wish that evil dictatorships would defeat us.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Today, the NRA and countless right wing politicos and pundits will say...

"This is no time to be pointing fingers and politicizing gun laws in America. But the left will do this, again, because they want to push their extremist anti-American ideology even while so many families are suffering so profoundly from the acts of a lone madman"

Liberals are indeed bad news.

0 Replies

@BillW,

BillW wrote:

hightor wrote:
Quote:
...plunging the United States into a crippling depression and instantly forcing a massive contraction of its military machine.

I'm not sure this is such a terrible result. Might be time to retreat, vacate the "shining city on the hill" (which, in truth looks sort of glitzy and cheap), and give the job to someone else. Nothing lasts forever.

Trouble is Russia is the only one vying for the job and tRump wants to give it to Putin.

From the perspective of liberals, that's perfect. They hate freedom and democracy and want evil dictatorships to defeat the West.

0 Replies

@snood,

snood wrote:

The shooter's brother said something I found telling: "I'd just like to know who sold him the machine gun."

A gun store?

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

How many times does this have to happen, before we wake up as a country and take control of our future?

We do have control. We choose to not allow you to violate our rights.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

For how long will we let the nuts loudly argue that their hobby and obsession is more important than innocent lives?

You have no choice but to let us express ourselves.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And, let's be honest: that's what resistance to strict gun control is about. It's a hobby for people. It's not about 'freedom' or some nebulous bullshit like that, it's about gun owners who want guns and they simply do not care how many people have to die in order for them to continue owning them.

The right to keep and bear arms is one of the core principles of freedom.

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

He carried it in. It's legal, yaknow, hobbyists and their need to hobby is more important than anyone's life right

If this was a legally-owned weapon, it'll be the first time that a full-auto legally owned by a civilian was ever used in a crime.

0 Replies

@snood,

snood wrote:

There's nothing crafty or underhanded or wrong about bringing up the limitation of access to assault rifles in the aftermath of another attack with assault rifles.

Oh yes there is. This was clearly a full-auto weapon. For the Democrats to propose limits on semi-auto weapons in response to this is quite disingenuous.

snood wrote:

What's wrong is making the unlimited access to military style assault rifles and large capacity magazines a sacrosanct thing, to be shielded from all scrutiny at all times.

Unless you can come up with a good reason why pistol grips on rifles should be banned, any such ban in unconstitutional.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

Not sure, but I think I read that full auto was outlawed in Nevada. Federal regulations are expensive, and I believe subject to local registration.

I admit to not having kept up. I couldn't afford to feed anything that was full automatic.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Also, it's 100% appropriate to bring up US gun laws and politics. Right now. Because this is the same thing that keeps right on happening and nobody has a plan to do anything about it but gun control proponents. At all. We bring this up during this time to remind people that those who fight against gun control literally don't care, and want this to keep happening year after year, so they can keep owning their toys.

There is nothing wrong with discussing it. But....

On behalf of America's gun rights advocates, I hereby deny your request for changes to our gun laws.

That pretty much exhausts the possibilities of any conversation I think.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Truth is that no gun proponent has a plan for stopping or even reducing the number of mass murders.

That's because gun availability is unrelated to mass murders.

No gun control advocate has a plan for reducing mass murders either. The only thing gun control advocates care about is violating people's civil rights for the fun of it.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Now IS the time to discuss this. Right now. Not some time in the future when you and the NRA and other gun proponents hope everyone forgets about it long enough to keep any laws from being passed. That's why you don't want people talking about it now, right?

Nothing wrong with talking. But there really isn't much to talk about. In my previous post I denied your request for new gun laws.

My denial is not subject to appeal.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

The experience of pretty much every other country on earth tells us that we can address and solve this problem with laws,

Laws are not the problem. Poverty in inner cities is the problem.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

but y'all won't let us. Why?

The reason why we will not allow you to pass gun control is because your proposed laws are blatantly unconstitutional violations of our civil rights.

0 Replies

@roger,

roger wrote:

Not sure, but I think I read that full auto was outlawed in Nevada. Federal regulations are expensive, and I believe subject to local registration.

I'll go look it up as soon as I proofread my posts and try to correct spelling errors. For some reason silly errors only pop out at me after I hit post.

roger wrote:

I couldn't afford to feed anything that was full automatic.

I saw a headline saying that the shooter was a multi-millionaire. I assume based on that headline that he was able to afford legal full autos.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

good post

0 Replies

Quote:

White American men are a bigger domestic terrorist threat than Muslim foreigners
Since Trump took office, more Americans have been killed by white American men with no connection to Islam than by Muslim terrorists or foreigners.

Vox
Just so we know who is actually dangerous.

0 Replies

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