Before I Leave for the Game
What Can We Do About Gun Laws?
There is only one remedy: Get power. If you are as fed up as I am, then register someone to vote or run for office yourself or donate money to someone running to replace these cowardly legislators with a majority for common-sense gun laws. This is about raw power, not persuasion. And the first chance we have to change the balance of power is the 2018 midterm elections. Forget about trying to get anything done before then. Don’t waste your breath.
Just get power. Start now.
From Thomas Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times
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If I could like this post I would. It’s long past time to get serious about this stuff. We have the power of right on our side. Let’s seize it.
1Regaining Congress and state legislatures is paramount to progress. It’s also imperative to gain control/frame the debate. Slap the nonsense of gun “control” out of conservatives’ mouths. Instead, insist on safety issues. Then, snap the alleged conservatives with an honest fiscal conservative challenge – who should pay for all their 2nd Amendment ‘rights’ gone astray?
Ask them. How many lives are enough? How much medical care should we pay for victims? How much? How long? Stop subsidizing the NRA and other gun humping enablers who want play to military without the paying the costs.
Personal responsibility and actual fiscal conservatism means paying for your mayhem, boys. Talking to you and others like you, Teddie Crooze.
Dumb ass: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=cruz+machine+gun+bacon+GIF&view=detail&mid=360D4CB059B6832D687F360D4CB059B6832D687F&FORM=VIRE
2I am too through with Democrats who do not vote in every D primary and every general, every year. We OUTNUMBER the opposition (especially when we can win over independents), and that’s totally worthless unless we OUTVOTE them to VOTE THEM OUT.
3In addition to voting, I also suggest a full court press of demonstrations at every NRA event and every gun show. Congressman who take NRA money should be confronted about it at every public event – don’t let them hide the blood on their hands. We need to show them we will hold them very publicly accountable for continuing to do nothing – and counter the NRA’s lobby power with people power!
4Rare minor quibble with one of Ms. JJ’s posts:
“the first chance we have to change the balance of power is the 2018 midterm elections. Forget about trying to get anything done before then. Don’t waste your breath”
This is one of the most frustrating differences, IMNSHO, between Dems & Rape-Public-Cons. They seem to have internalized, in a way we have yet to do, that elections happen locally too. And even the most seemingly “minor” of local elections still counts.
For them, it may all be the basis of a “long con”. For us, it SHOULD be the basis of a healthy, functioning government working to further the rights & interests of the people. Either way, as I’ve endlessly tried to convince anyone & everyone I can get to listen: elections happen EVERY year, TWICE a year (primaries & generals), and EVERY ONE IS IMPORTANT.
Given the potential benefits to us all of an improved society, a modicum of effort (really, not much) once each spring & again each fall shouldn’t be too big an ask. I’m actually sure that Ms. JJ is already aware of & in agreement with this, and I get that her remarks were aimed at a national focus for a solution to a national problem.
But it makes me bugnutty (obviously) how “our side” too often overlooks the fact that, in our system, the local affects the state affects the nation. “All politics is local” is a truism for a reason.
End rant. Thanks for your patience, and thanks as always especially to Ms. JJ for providing this salon.
5ETA: while I was laboriously pecking out my nice long rant, Zyxomma said, much more succinctly, what I was trying to get at. Well done!
6PR Stunt?
The National Rifle Association on Thursday called on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to review whether bump fire stocks – like the device used in this week’s Las Vegas shooting massacre – comply with current federal law.
“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and Executive Director Chris Cox added in a joint statement.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/05/nra-calls-for-federal-review-of-whether-bump-fire-stocks-comply-with-current-law-243500
7Hell, Canada and Australia have been offering us help for years on how to control guns. Course, our politicians wouldn’t take it. We are just so damn spe-shul.
8An excerpt from the book “After Trump” says that the biggest problem is that we’re now ruled by a minority. The GOP has gerrymandered enough states to give themselves a 16-seat advantage, about 2/3 of their House margin, and Dems have to win by over 7% just to break even. Worse, the federal government is so biased toward rural and sparsely-populated states that “if all 50 senators from the 25 smallest [population] states voted for a bill and Vice President Pence cast his lot with them, senators representing just 16 percent of Americans could overrule those representing 84 percent.” Increasing concentration of people, especially Dems, in cities will make this even worse.
So yes, keep up the anti-gun-fanatic pressure, but our system needs some major reforms if it’s going to return to being a majority-rule democracy. You think the current majority is going to help those reforms?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-majority-keeps-losing-on-guns/2017/10/04/edc5729a-a943-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html
9Sorry, got the title of the column’s source material wrong: ‘E.J. Dionne Jr., Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann are the authors of “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported”.’
10Rethugs are so indebeted to the NRA that even when shot, they still brown nose the NRA.
11The only real solution is, as previously stated, is to vote the bastards out! Start with every local, state election you can find. VOTE! Get you friends and neighbors out to VOTE! Make voting fun, vote and go to lunch. Vote and go to happy hour. Just get out and vote. The only way to stop gun violence is to elect officials who aren’t in the NRA”s pocket.
Seldom commenter, (if ever) but something else to work toward could be requiring insurance. And just allow the ins. to determine the cost of each firearm, and amount of ammo. And require the gun shop, or where ever, to require ins. to determine on the spot each price of each piece of hardware. And obviously, some people are more responsible than others, thereby getting a smaller bill. That way, we could free up the type of arms and such: “You want a tank, ok, for Mr. A, ins. could be twice the cost of the tank. But if you want any ammo, triple that. Then if you prove not to be quite so reliable, ins. might increase to an amount determined by the ins. co.
12I know, I know, blue skies and butterflies, but I can daydream, can’t I?
Safety issues.
1) Unlimited absolute liebility for all guns. No such thing as an accident ( when I learned about weapons the first thing was never carry a round under the hammer lot less “accidental” shots when gun bumped, dropped or jarred)
This includes if a gun is stolen or lost. The last owner is on the hook for anything that that weapon is involved.
2) Mandatory insurance. Good enough for cars good enough for guns
3) Mandatory prison sentences for any one who takes a gun where not allowed. Forget it in carry on at airport mandatory 2 years in jail $20,000 fine. Same for any place, public or private where guns are not welcome or allowed. Unless prominent posting stating that guns are welcomed it is illegal to have them. This includes associated parking lots etc. No prosecutorial discretion. No plea bargain. Mandatory mimiuim.
4) Any rounds going of is a crime. Felony. Mandatory sentence. No prosecutorial discretion. if so inept and irresponsible to let weapon go off on its own then too irresponsible to own one.
5) Mandatory mental and physical exams every 6 months or whenever a complaint/ concern is expressed. Weapon owner pays all costs.
With weed getting legalized there will be all those empty prisons lets fill them up with ammosexuals. Maybe a couple years in prison will teach these whack jobs that there is sex without guns. They will probably learn to enjoy it.
13@Martin Norred
I support liability insurance for shooters in the same way that drivers in most states must purchase liability insurance. The problem is no state of which I am aware requires insurance in order to purchase a motor vehicle. Insurance also doesn’t address the need to train, license, and restrict firearms to users based on their age and amount of firearms experience.
14Yeah still dreaming here, but don’t you think ins. people would take all that into account when they set the price, as in teen-agers in the household, even without drivers licenses? And the responsible ‘users’ would get discounts for keeping unloaded(all) guns in safes, including ammo. And I’m sure ins. cos. would think of more limits!
15Simple equation really: OWNERSHIP vs USE.
“Keep and bear arms” is an OWNERSHIP distinction.
Oh, so you want to USE them? Well, now…. Regulating the USE of guns does not disallow OWNERSHIP. I can OWN as many cars as I like without restriction, but… if I want to USE any of them, well…
The 2nd Amendment has it’s limits. And government already regulates USE. Ever hear of hunting licenses? Training, licensing, insurance is all a part of USE for cars and should be for guns.
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