More ammo for gun control!

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

The compassion for the dead is missing when they are callously dismissed by "in our thoughts and prayers" without any consideration of who they were, what they did, how their families are affected, or any show of any kind of interest other than moving on after saying something nice about thoughts and prayers. That's just code language for "we don't want to talk about it now, because people's emotions might lead to some real compassion that would generate action which would upset our political agenda. So let's wait until things pipe down, and the victims can just be nameless and faceless numbers to have any meaningful discussion on resolving the problem."

Such an argument is sheer and blatant hypocrisy. I didn't see this kind of "respect for the dead," or a "waiting period" for discussion of the politics surrounding mass shootings after the incidents in Paris or London. The outcry and political discussion happened before the bodies were taken to the morgue. If this guy had been a Syrian refugee who hollered "allah akbar" before opening fire, you can bet the political discussion, and actions, would be immediate and severe, without a shred of concern or regard for the "respect for the dead."

Seeing politicians like Mitch McConnell standing around with their hands in their pockets, giving flimsy excuses for not engaging in a political discussion while the emotion of an event like this runs high just tells any potential Islamic terrorist (or North Korean dictator for that matter) that gathering these kinds of weapons, and launching this kind of attack might be a whole lot easier than hijacking planes to fly into skyscrapers, or trying to figure out how to get a nuclear warhead onto a missile that would reach the US.

[KeithE]

[Jon Estes]

Keith,

You do not have to answer any of my questions. Let me say this... There are reasons I do not answer questions about the UAE. Mostly because I do not know and refuse to say anything false or disrespectful about the country which welcomes me.

I have said, prior to your question that I was going to ask some of my members about their native lands and cultures. Please understand, when we get together once a week, I am not thinking about the conversations on this forum.

New gun laws will not stop the madness because we cannot legislate morality.

None of the things you want to see as law will not stop the madness. The use of burglaries is poor. In the comparison, the burglary would match the murder. The tools used to break in or is used to commit the crime would match the gun.

Oh, murder is ready illegal... just in case you didn't know.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Keith, I know you are a great guy, generous and caring. I just wish you had better instincts that showed it in a way that didn't convey to others their moral inferiority. No need to get in a snit about it and go to the forum rules. We know each other here well enough to know the flaws we all have. If I'm not hostile it can't be hostility. Your brilliance doesn't include knowing my state of mind or emotions. The closest you can come is to tell me you read it as hostile. I informed you otherwise.

Gotta run. There's a telephone pole outside my house that wants a conversation.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Thanks...but I'll pass on instructions from you.

You're close...I sometimes get "ticked" but never "pricked" by moralizing and virtue signaling.

Your friend William, the lean mean opinion machine who is sometimes passive aggressive but never hostile

[Jon Estes]

[KeithE]

[Jon Estes]

[KeithE]

It is true that laws will not legislate away any behavior. But just because they do not do so perfectly, does not mean we should not have that law on the books to limit that behavior (particularly when there are victims involved).

Gun laws will not eliminate murder, but properly stated and executed they are likely to limit mass murder in occurrence or in magnitude of the carnage. It is past time we try that as a nation and maybe we can stop having the highest death by gun rates among the “high income” countries of the world.

This says we had 10.2 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2010.

Wikipedia gives stats on the incidence of “intentional murders” by country and we rank 126th out 216 countries in terms of having the lowest “international murders per 100,000”. The US had 4.88 per 100,000 “intentional murders” in 2015.

Many low income counties have higher intentional murder rates - like El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, and South Africa (if that be a low income country)

The difference between the 10.2 "gun deaths” in Table above and 4.88 “intentional murders” in Wikipedia (both per 100,000), is mostly due to suicides. Read ~2 suicides for every murder.

[Sandy]

Well, looking at Keith's chart, and following some of the reasoning in this discussion, we can conclude that virtually every country on that list is more moral than the United States.

We keep hearing the same arguments.

1. The liberals just want to take guns away from law abiding citizens, and when that happens, only the criminals will have them.
2. The laws you propose wouldn't have stopped this shooter.
3. You can't stop people from doing this if they want to, so why bother?

So, there are some answers.

1. There's not a single piece of proposed legislation related to gun control that would take guns away from law abiding citizens. All of the proposed legislation is aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of those who intend to use them to do harm. There are examples in dozens of countries that show such laws to be successful, and times in the US when the same kinds of laws have done the same.
2. Assault weapons bans, extended background checks, limits on how many weapons one person can own, all would have prevented this guy from having what he did. Basically, he brought an arsenal of weapons into two hotels, including one in Downtown Las Vegas a week earlier where there was another music festival, set up a barricaded nest, and killed or injured over 500 people. How that happened without detection is a question that needs to be answered. This guy basically showed any middle eastern terrorist group how easy it was.
3. You can't stop them all, but it seems that there might at least be some effort to make vulnerable targets, schools for example, safer. It's hard to take pro-life advocates seriously when they're not willing to lift a finger to protect the kids who have been born while they're attending class.

[Jon Estes]

[Jon Estes]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

Jon's response more or less proved my point.

The arsenal that Paddock collected had nothing to do with a collection, big game hunting, etc. and laws aren't because of one evil man. The scope of those who have used assault weapons is far more than just "one evil man." That's a laughable argument. It was clear, from the type of weapons he "collected," and the modifications he purchased for them, that the only "big game" he was after were human beings. Individual rights in this country are balanced by law, and as the availability of weapons capable of murdering large numbers of people in a short amoung of time increases, the government's obligation to protect its citizens outweights an individual's desire to own automatic weapons or "collect" an arsenal.

I've not seen a single proposal that would take away the opportunity for a lower income family to purchase, due to higher costs, etc. Guns aren't terribly expensive as it is, the profit margins are pretty high. If there's a genuine concern that lower income people won't be able to own a few, for their own protection, or for their big game hunting excursions, maybe a few gun owners would be unselfish enough to make the prices a little lower.

Sanctuary cities have nothing to do with this issue. It's a matter of will, and of belief in the sanctity of human life. That's only a convenient line for political purposes. If it really was a conviction and a belief, the value of the lives of those who have been victims of mass shooting and gun violence would matter to conservatives. Obviously, what matters more to conservatives is the availability of cheap firearms, and the rights of an individual to modify semi-automatic weapons in order to commit mass murder.

[Stephen Fox]

Today on NPR Fresh Air

I'm listening now.

The leadership of the NRA is the Face of Evil in America today in network with the cabal Hillary Clinton explained On NPR Fresh Air Monday a week ago. Easy Googles both for those who really want to know the Truth.

Read framed by Marilyn Robinson's essay Memory in the Givenness of Things at your Local Barnes and Noble.

Deeper, more substantive than the pontifications ofand Trey Gowdy and Bammer senator Richard Shelby, a LEGEND of the Nick Saban University.

Gorsuch is a Tool of the NRA

[Jim]

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

Hard to tell in that post, David, what's yours. I'm guessing the color distinguishes your words, and maybe its my screen, but it took a while to figure out.

If you're interested in providing any kind of citation of facts at all to prove your assertions, it would make for interesting reading. Otherwise, to coin a phrase that's popular here, and one which I like, your rant is baloney cheese.

The Daily Wire, by the way, has been provably wrong in its assertions since it's been published, so is not a credible source.

http://www.snopes.com/carson-hud-accounting-errors/

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

They're still dead and David's numbers are right?

We just had a misleading graph that used percentages.