The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

wtf "bald" is this a murderous characteristic

yes obviously it goes right along with everything else I said everyone becomes a twat when they turn 46, lose their melanin and start wearing black t-shirts

there but for the grace of god

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/supreme-court-allows-families-of-sandy-hook-shooting-victims-to-sue-gunmaker-remington/2019/11/12/7f6a3afe-055a-11ea-b17d-8b867891d39d_story.html

The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down an appeal from the gun industry intended to block a lawsuit from families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims.
The decision lets stand a groundbreaking ruling from the Connecticut Supreme Court that said the manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle can be sued and potentially held liable for the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn.

that's very good news. now if we can just luck out so the next few mass shootings are clustered around the same day or two, and at least one of them can involve an especially tragic group of victims, we might start to get some movement on this in congress as well

let's see, maybe an orphanage and a convent would do the trick, but only if the shooters were aiming for the world record.

this is slightly orwellian but slightly.... awesome?

https://www.shotspotter.com/technology/

Apparently this came into play at that party in Chicago.

What an innovative way to deal with the problem of too many guns! Granted, it does nothing to reduce the number of guns or shootings or victims or deaths or wounding, but it sure does solve that other major problem of figuring out where all that gunfire is coming from!

Yes too little too late probably.

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/feds-publish-info-on-arizona-lead-contamination-from-shooting-11438893

what a shitty fucking hobby. (there's also the noise pollution. I was out on an otherwise lovely hike by Prescott Saturday, marred only by the near constant sound of gunfire from an unofficial range on public land 5 miles away.)

hmm, interesting. the trump admin should issue a revised rule to exempt Table Mesa from lead contamination regulations. that would make the problem go away

I’m sure this can only turn out well.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/texas-unlicensed-handgun-carry-bill

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/05/california-assault-weapons-ban-overturned/

California’s longtime assault weapon ban overturned

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California said the ban was unconstitutional and warmly praised such firearms: “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.”

get me out of heeeeeeeeeere

the swiss army knife is a perfect combo of "home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment"?? what?! even before the AR-15 is mentioned, what? i have a swiss army knife - it is a perfect combo of NEITHER of those things.

god this country is creepy

perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment

They say the best defense is a good offense. Therefore, the ability to kill or maim a dozen or so people in less than a minute is a very good defense. But of course no one would ever do something like that unless they were defending the homela... uh, nvm.

the easy parallel between the home (property, the family) and the homeland (nation) is telling somehow. more or less explicitly saying who it’s for & who it’s against. the guns are literally the border(s) in this scenario

homeland defense, fucking insurrections dogwhistle

i do however think it would be great for this country if everyone concerned about "homeland defense" were to trade in their AR-15s for that equally perfect killing machine, the Swiss Army Knife.

The judge is clearly out of touch, presumably he meant “tactical leatherman” rather than Swiss Army Knife. You ever tried to get that little blade out in a moment of stress?

no, but that's because i drink tactical coffee to boost my perception so that i eliminate the stress threat before it approaches

Woke up this morning to the news that there was a car chase and shootout more or less right on my street at midnight last night. I totally slept through it, but when I mentioned it to my daughter her eyes lit up and she said "I saw it!" I was all, wait, what? And she said she was woken up around midnight by what she thought were fireworks - pop! pop pop! - and opened her blinds a little to see what was going on just in time to witness two cars zooming down the street, shooting at each other, muzzles flashing.

Most frightening of all, she seems totally unfazed. Though it is, of course, very disturbing, and the sort of random violence that often leads to random shootings. This is all related to and spillover from what appears to be a wave of car chases and shootouts on the highway, which is itself pretty insane.

Don’t you live in a relatively peaceful suburb too?

Yeah, but it's barely a suburb. It's literally right next to the west side of Chicago, so there is always nearby stuff. But this is happening all over the city, as I understand it. It's not a war zone or anything, but it's become pretty regular.

I never used to hear gunfire when I was hiking. Now I hear shooters popping off on just about every other hike.

I hope this happens more often:

Georgia gun laws are to blame for the cancellation of the 2022 Music Midtown festival in Atlanta, Georgia.

On Monday, Live Nation announced that the festival was canceled, stating only, “due to circumstances beyond our control, Music Midtown will no longer be taking place this year. We are looking forward to reuniting in September and hope we can get back to enjoying the festival together again soon.” The festival was set to take place in September with Jack White, Future, My Chemical Romance, and Fall Out Boy headlining. An estimated 50,000 people attended Music Midtown in 2021.

Though Live Nation did not officially give a reason for the cancellation, sources who worked with the festival confirmed to Rolling Stone that Georgia’s gun laws were to blame. Since 2011, Music Midtown has taken place at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, and parks are among the various public spaces in Georgia where guns are allowed to be carried. The festival, as a temporary user of the park, does not have the standing to supersede that law and enforce its own ban. (The festival’s website stated that “Weapons or explosives of any kind” are prohibited.)

I think a particular challenge is that a lot of artists have a "no weapons allowed" policy in their contract, which ... makes sense!

Yeah... looks at that ridiculous stuff that happened to Kid Cudi recently. Add guns.

Or, y'know Selena, Dimebag, that YouTuber that got shot in Orlando...

Not to mention some lunatic taking a gun to a crowded fest and just start shooting, period.

People were posting this in advance of Lollapalooza, can't vouch for its authenticity:

https://preview.redd.it/19nnbzlj3ie91.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a368b925ad77072a16ca9371cf3001747139ae04

Do we need a new thread specifically for people shot for knocking at the wrong door or pulling into a random driveway?

This damn country

So many people are worked up and armed to the teeth over potential home invasion scenarios. Is there any reason to believe this happens frequently enough to worry whatsoever?

Not to mention that having a gun is not going to make a situation like that any better.

home invasions typically don't happen with the perpetrator knocking first

“Even though he is doing well physically, he has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally,” she wrote in a GoFundMe appeal to raise money for medical bills and other expenses. By Monday afternoon the appeal had reached nearly $2m.

Increasingly my thoughts are to rush and donate to the victims and survivors and their families (tho this will only create new problems for some - and maybe the shooter gets rich out of it in some cases too). 2 million already tho, wow.

one would think the family is going to have a solid case in court to have those bills paid by the shooter…?

That fucking old white dude was allowed to go home without charges.

Authorities issued an arrest warrant for Andrew D. Lester, who was charged with felony assault and armed criminal action, one of which carries up to a life sentence if convicted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/17/ralph-yarl-shooting-kansas-city/

Yeah I know he was charged afterward. The prosecutor at least admitted the suspect's motives were racial.

"Stand Your Ground" laws are so so dangerous, they really do encourage people to just fucking shoot anyone who looks at them wrong. (And yes of course we all know who is likely to be given deference under these laws and who isn't.)

I had a really frustrating few minutes last night, our local county commission was debating a resolution calling for essentially a red flag law in Tennessee — which our useless governor tepidly endorsed last week but has not actually lifted a finger to make happen. I was there as a reporter but I got viscerally angry at some of the idiot misinformation from some of our commissioners. One tried to argue that "Well actually" guns aren't the leading cause of death for Americans under 18. Another trotted out the "states with tougher gun laws have more violence" line, which is provably, demonstrably, empirically untrue. I wrote an item today calling both of them out, for whatever good that does, but it's just offensive to me for elected officials to be so blithely unaware of the realities of the issue. So irresponsible. If you want to argue for more access to guns, you need to at least be honest that that almost inevitably means more gun deaths.

I think they probably are aware of these things, but are willfully misleading people because this is the outcome they wanted. The goal is to keep people living in fear, shut down public institutions, and to rule over everyone by outgunning them.

I mean ffs he shot the child when he was lying injured on the GROUND. there is no ground-standing there.

just the belief that one can do this under cover of law is enough to inspire such acts, even if the law doesn't eventually protect them.

we see how it played out in FL, it will continue to play out this way in all SYG states.

I think they probably are aware of these things, but are willfully misleading people because this is the outcome they wanted.

Sadly I don't think so. The lack of curiosity about things like "facts" and "data" is very much a hallmark. They don't need them, because they know in their bones that Guns Are Good and only good things come from guns (unless of course they fall into the hands of Bad People, especially ones who aren't white).

I had a sort of similar argument with a local lefty earlier this week, he was adamant that Tennessee Republicans know they're racist and their offense at being called racist is all a put-on. But that's not true. I talk to these people. They 100 percent truly and sincerely believe that they are definitely NOT racist. That's because their idea of what racism is is so cramped and narrow, granted, but they fervently believe it. They believe they are Good People, and obviously good people aren't racist, so therefore they're not racist. Same with guns — guns are good, therefore bad things that happen are not because of guns. There is no crack here for the light to get in, it's a closed belief system.

There is a crack in everything
that's how the right gets in

lol

btw here's what that Kansas City mayor said about Stand Your Ground:

“If Stand Your Ground really lets somebody just shoot somebody that rings a doorbell,” he said, “that put the life of every postal worker, every campaigner, every Amazon delivery person at risk in this country.”

in missouri i expect them to make it mandatory for postal workers, campaigners, and amazon delivery people to carry guns on the job to address this imbalance in power

I can buy that many people are simply stuck in a closed off ecosystem where they do not have the access or wherewithal to get factual information that would contradict their views, and maybe some of these low level politicians fall into that category as well, but the ecosystem itself did not come together by pure dumb luck, it's taken decades of directed effort to build this and the goals are very obvious: intimidation, domination, and the destruction of public institutions. There is no question in my mind that the push to funnel tax dollars to religious schools and homeschoolers while defunding public schools goes hand-in-hand with school shootings.

btw here's what that Kansas City mayor said about Stand Your Ground:

“If Stand Your Ground really lets somebody just shoot somebody that rings a doorbell,” he said, “that put the life of every postal worker, every campaigner, every Amazon delivery person at risk in this country.”

again, this is exactly the point, especially if those people happen to belong to any of the groups they do not like

I guarantee you there are plenty of Republican U.S. senators who are also legitimately ignorant about the negative consequences of guns. Knowing that "more guns = more deaths" and still just mindlessly promoting guns anyway is the kind of thing self-aware villains would do — villains who know they're being villains — and the vast majority of these people do not actually think they're villains. They think they're the good guys.

They think they are good guys because they are shaping the country in a Christian white nationalist image, and their policies have been extremely successful and effective in reaching that goal. They are well aware of the consequences, they simply do not see them as negative.

I think it's more a willful ignorance, same mentality people use to justify living insanely unhealthy lifestyles because they eat a salad now and then. any Republican U.S. senator who says anything bad about guns will not be a U.S. senator for long