In other news...

[Pattern Ghost]

That's actually less specific. .

[Badger]

6 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Pretty much, yes. If you're going to attack the problem by regulating the tools used, that's how you'd do it. Five is fairly arbitrary, but we're talking long arms. Seems a reasonable level of compromise between hindering mass killers and still allowing for defensive use of long arms. Hit probability with rifles and shotguns at close range is astronomically higher than with handguns, and centerfire rifle and shotgun rounds are orders of magnitude more powerful than handguns. Call it ten rounds, whatever.

 

The point is, the left hasn't got the political will to actually do something that would curb the mass shootings. And even that proposal has holes in it.

 

 

 

 

I'm not advocating either position, just pointing out the hypocrisy and lack of will on both sides to address the issue.

 

We could also, for example, look into the role of the media in glamorizing these events and immortalizing the shooters. But the left likes the first amendment better than the second, so putting gag orders on the media is another approach that won't work.

 

 

 

 

Actually, I have been thinking.  I can see some desire to want to limit the amount of ammunition before reload.   But, I don't think the left has done themselves any favors over the last 10 years, when nearly every single such incident has had one of their pundits shamlessly plugging gun control, 5 seconds after it breaks.   CBS News was asking if America had grown numb to such incidents.  I haven't, but I have towards the left on gun control, to be honest.

 

And if they what they said was true, this isn't really your usual incident to point to.  As apparently if some idiot in the Air Force bureaucracy wasn't lazy on his paperwork, he wouldn't have been able to buy them legally. 

 

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

I haven't, but I have towards the left on gun control, to be honest.

 

I honestly doubt the sincerity of the politicians involved, or at least large chunks of them. Every "solution" I hear from the left strikes me as political rhetoric to satisfy their base. Both the left and the right , IMO, play fast and loose with facts, and career politicians on either side can't be trusted to come up with any kind of workable solution.

 

What I hear from the media after these events is just plain ignorance. Not in the pejorative sense of the word, but the literal: They simply don't ever seem to know what they're talking about. For example, after Vegas repeatedly stating that the bump fire stocks allow a weapon to legally operate similarly to an "illegal" full auto weapon. Full auto isn't illegal. It's controlled. There's a difference. But it's not particularly hard for a non criminal to get a tax stamp and get an NFA item. The only prohibition is the cost of said item, especially fully automatic weapons since they're no longer allowed to be manufactured for the civilian market. But to the media, they're banned items, full stop. So, we'll never hear anyone suggest adding semi-auto centerfire rifles too the NFA, which would make them more difficult to obtain but let them remain legal. We hear nonsense like "who needs a military weapon for self defense." (Again, that's just spitballing a better solution to limiting access, which is the left's stated goal, than the left is. I don't personally think you should. I'm just offended that so many proposed "solutions" are half-hearted and useless.) Another example is perpetuating the myth that you can simply order firearms on the internet without a background check to push universal background checks. That's nonsense and not how online purchases work. You can either advertise for a local private sale (not crossing state lines) or you can order from an FFL to ship to a local FFL, where you do the exact same paperwork as you would if you bought something from stock.

 

The right also has its share of nonsense, including a lot of contradictions. We'll hear that we don't need to regulate firearms because outside of these unusual incidents violent crime is generally down. But we need to have weapons to protect ourselves from the rampant crime! (I've seen posters on pro-gun boards I belong to express both sentiments in practically the same breath in some cases.) Or declare the mass shootings a mental health issue, but balk at laws that even temporarily let the government restrict access to people who may have mental health issues. Yes, those types of laws can be abused. Yes, gun "safety" laws are frequently poorly-worded so as to allow loose interpretation. On the other hand, the contradictions in some positions are obvious and create weak points in your position.

 

I don't really have faith in either side's political entities, whether elected officials or lobbying organizations. They almost all strike me as snakes in the grass, spreading disinformation like it's going out of style.

 

 

 

 

[Badger]

Yeah, no real disagreement on all that from me.

 

ANd yeah, the media seem to know less about guns than me (and that isn't exactly the highest bar to jump over)

[Christopher]

6 hours ago, Badger said:

Actually, I have been thinking.  I can see some desire to want to limit the amount of ammunition before reload.   But, I don't think the left has done themselves any favors over the last 10 years, when nearly every single such incident has had one of their pundits shamlessly plugging gun control, 5 seconds after it breaks.   CBS News was asking if America had grown numb to such incidents.  I haven't, but I have towards the left on gun control, to be honest.

 

And if they what they said was true, this isn't really your usual incident to point to.  As apparently if some idiot in the Air Force bureaucracy wasn't lazy on his paperwork, he wouldn't have been able to buy them legally.

If 5 seconds after it breaks is "not the right time" to talk about gun control, then when is the time?
Trump once said he considered a "Travel warning for Europe for 150 terror deaths in 2016". Somebobdy calculated that the US lost 150 people in 2 DAYS to gun violence. Europe also has a bigger population then the US, so the equivalency argument does not work out.

With that much gun violence, what lockout time would make it possible to talk about gun control?

[Ternaugh]

Mass shooting events, as defined as 4 or more injured or killed, now occur on average about once a day in the US. It's now to the point that the smaller events are considered local or regional news, not national. Larger death counts generally get the attention of national media and politicians, and they are also happening more frequently. It's always considered "too soon" to talk about any limits on guns by the Republicans, and it's always a reactionary "we need gun control now" response from the Democrats. This cycle could be easily fixed by just choosing a date to talk, but that's probably never going to happen so long as the NRA continues to pump free speech money into lobbying efforts.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/13/health/mass-shootings-in-america-in-charts-and-graphs-trnd/index.html

[Old Man]

8 hours ago, Badger said:

ANd yeah, the media seem to know less about guns than me (and that isn't exactly the highest bar to jump over)

 

That goes for anything scientific or technical.  Aviation, medicine, cybersecurity, finance, climate change.  It's like the guys who specialize in writing for aviation news or firearm news never get to write the headline news stories; when something big happens in those fields, it goes to the front-page writer who writes and thinks at a third grade level.

[Christopher]

1 minute ago, Old Man said:

 

That goes for anything scientific or technical.  Aviation, medicine, cybersecurity, finance, climate change.  It's like the guys who specialize in writing for aviation news or firearm news never get to write the headline news stories; when something big happens in those fields, it goes to the front-page writer who writes and thinks at a third grade level.

You have to write for your Consumer. Wich is by definition a larger target group then Technical Experts. Especially with headline stories.

 

Really, the whole concept of "for profit" News is inherently faulty:

Why TV News is a Waste of Human Effort: One Example Worth a Trillion Dollars — CGP Grey

 

 

[Old Man]

2 minutes ago, Christopher said:

You have to write for your Consumer. Wich is by definition a larger target group then Technical Experts. Especially with headline stories.

 

 

 

 

True, but that doesn't excuse failing to educate the reader or even getting the information flat out wrong.

 

As for for-profit news, I haven't seen John Oliver be wrong about anything yet.

[BoloOfEarth]

12 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I don't really have faith in either side's political entities, whether elected officials or lobbying organizations. They almost all strike me as snakes in the grass, spreading disinformation like it's going out of style.

 

The local VIPER Nest Leader objects to your comparing politicians and lobbyists to him.  It makes him feel... dirty.

[Tom Cowan]

4 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

The local VIPER Nest Leader objects to your comparing politicians and lobbyists to him.  It makes him feel... dirty.

The VIPER  is not the running some (or most) of the politicians and lobbyists? 

[Starlord]

Which VIPER applies?  I go with:

 

Politicians - Old incompetent, foolish VIPER

Lobbyists - New scary, menacing VIPER

[Cancer]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

That goes for anything scientific or technical.  Aviation, medicine, cybersecurity, finance, climate change.  It's like the guys who specialize in writing for aviation news or firearm news never get to write the headline news stories; when something big happens in those fields, it goes to the front-page writer who writes and thinks at a third grade level.

I have had a few cases of science news that made the popular press in which I had first-hand or very strong second-hand knowledge of the science in question.  Even including items in the New York Times, there have been exactly zero of those popular press items that didn't contain a conceptual or factual error.  I think the editors have more to do with that than the writers themselves; the problem is too pervasive for it to be only writers (since there's a pretty large number of those), and editorial teams touch every story that appears.

[Enforcer84]

I'm growing weary of sacrificing hundreds of innocent lives a week to angry little men who can't control the world so they try to shoot it up, just so that some people can have their pop pop pop toys.

 

[Christopher]

3 hours ago, Enforcer84 said:

I'm growing weary of sacrificing hundreds of innocent lives a week to angry little men who can't control the world so they try to shoot it up, just so that some people can have their pop pop pop toys.

 

Especially arguments makes no sense:

You buy a half-Automatic AR-15 legally.

The Bump-Stock to make it fully automatic costs 100$. And is legal.

You were not supposed to own a fully automatic weapon to begin with, but you just retrofitted it legally to fire fully automatic. And fully autoamtic for self defense? Every shoot you fire puts innocents at risk. If you failed to hit with a halfautomatic, giving you a automatic only puts more people at greater risk of being hit.

 

Another BS argument I keep hearing is "Weapons do not kill people, irresponsible users do". It is Bullshit because weapon laws aim at keeping guns out of the hands of those irresponsible users.

[Old Man]

I'd like to break in to point out that this discussion may need to be moved to the political thread, if it is not directly related to the mass-killing-du-jour.

 

edit: Also, in observance of the one-month anniversary of the Vegas shooting, bump stocks went back on sale last week.

[Cygnia]

Some happier (or, at the very least, less teeth-gnashing) news...

 

Restoration Of A Centuries-Old Oil Painting Will Blow Your Mind

[gewing]

23 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I honestly doubt the sincerity of the politicians involved, or at least large chunks of them. Every "solution" I hear from the left strikes me as political rhetoric to satisfy their base. Both the left and the right , IMO, play fast and loose with facts, and career politicians on either side can't be trusted to come up with any kind of workable solution.

 

What I hear from the media after these events is just plain ignorance. Not in the pejorative sense of the word, but the literal: They simply don't ever seem to know what they're talking about. For example, after Vegas repeatedly stating that the bump fire stocks allow a weapon to legally operate similarly to an "illegal" full auto weapon. Full auto isn't illegal. It's controlled. There's a difference. But it's not particularly hard for a non criminal to get a tax stamp and get an NFA item. The only prohibition is the cost of said item, especially fully automatic weapons since they're no longer allowed to be manufactured for the civilian market. But to the media, they're banned items, full stop. So, we'll never hear anyone suggest adding semi-auto centerfire rifles too the NFA, which would make them more difficult to obtain but let them remain legal. We hear nonsense like "who needs a military weapon for self defense." (Again, that's just spitballing a better solution to limiting access, which is the left's stated goal, than the left is. I don't personally think you should. I'm just offended that so many proposed "solutions" are half-hearted and useless.) Another example is perpetuating the myth that you can simply order firearms on the internet without a background check to push universal background checks. That's nonsense and not how online purchases work. You can either advertise for a local private sale (not crossing state lines) or you can order from an FFL to ship to a local FFL, where you do the exact same paperwork as you would if you bought something from stock.

 

The right also has its share of nonsense, including a lot of contradictions. We'll hear that we don't need to regulate firearms because outside of these unusual incidents violent crime is generally down. But we need to have weapons to protect ourselves from the rampant crime! (I've seen posters on pro-gun boards I belong to express both sentiments in practically the same breath in some cases.) Or declare the mass shootings a mental health issue, but balk at laws that even temporarily let the government restrict access to people who may have mental health issues. Yes, those types of laws can be abused. Yes, gun "safety" laws are frequently poorly-worded so as to allow loose interpretation. On the other hand, the contradictions in some positions are obvious and create weak points in your position.

 

I don't really have faith in either side's political entities, whether elected officials or lobbying organizations. They almost all strike me as snakes in the grass, spreading disinformation like it's going out of style.

 

 

 

 

I confess I felt the California was pretty strange by making it a loss of any firearms for five years on a 72-hour psychiatric watch, no matter what the result of the observation and evaluation was.  Guilty on suspicion...

[Badger]

22 hours ago, Christopher said:

If 5 seconds after it breaks is "not the right time" to talk about gun control, then when is the time?
Trump once said he considered a "Travel warning for Europe for 150 terror deaths in 2016". Somebobdy calculated that the US lost 150 people in 2 DAYS to gun violence. Europe also has a bigger population then the US, so the equivalency argument does not work out.

With that much gun violence, what lockout time would make it possible to talk about gun control?

 

It's exactly the wrong time, because you are running 100% on emotions, and 100% emotion makes for poor decision making.

 

ANd I firmly believe that applies to both sides by the way.

 

 

[Badger]

14 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

The local VIPER Nest Leader objects to your comparing politicians and lobbyists to him.  It makes him feel... dirty.

 

COuld that guy run for office?  I'd totally vote for him.

[Cancer]

I have the impression lots of VIPER nest leaders already are elected officials.

[Christopher]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

 

It's exactly the wrong time, because you are running 100% on emotions, and 100% emotion makes for poor decision making.

 

ANd I firmly believe that applies to both sides by the way.

 

 

Considering the US has around 7 mass Shootings a week, by definition you will never have "time to talk about it". Really, what is so controversial about not wanting people killed by Firearms?

People claim it is a "Partisan issue", but by that Logic the Republicans want as many Americans as possible shoot by guns? If so, that would be utterly detestable view of the people.

[Pattern Ghost]

10 hours ago, gewing said:

I confess I felt the California was pretty strange by making it a loss of any firearms for five years on a 72-hour psychiatric watch, no matter what the result of the observation and evaluation was.  Guilty on suspicion...

 

That sounds like a huge end run around due process, especially considering how 5150 holds work. Do you know the statute number/name?

[death tribble]

The BBC put this up. Fascinating

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41916738

[gewing]

9 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

That sounds like a huge end run around due process, especially considering how 5150 holds work. Do you know the statute number/name?

No, they passed it a couple years ago, proclaiming it a great improvement...