Absolutely. They think guns are a worthwhile replacement for spines and brains.
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Indeed. There was only one time (that I’m aware of) when the NRA called for restrictive regulations on firearms:
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The cartridge might not be high powered. Like a full size rifle cartridge. But that 30-round box magazine means that an AR-15 or an AK weapon has an obscene amount firepower overall.
Nobody needs 30 bullets to go out hunting. If you do, then you should really put the gun down and reconsider going to the optometrist or getting checked for parkinsons or something, because you’re a terrible shot.
I don’t understand why full auto firearms are so heavily regulated, but an AR that lets you fire as fast as you can pull the trigger just has to have a barrel at least 18 inches long, and no restrictions on magazine size.
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I was at Mandalay Bay on a business trip fairly recently, actually. The concert venue in question is across the street, sort of. It’s not specially protected from the wide flat multi-lane streets leading to it.
In the end, the guy did it this way because he decided to do it this way. He used these tools and not other ones because that’s the choice he made, not because it was the only possible way, or even because it was the easiest way.
I imagine within a few weeks we’ll understand more about why he made the choice he did, but right now we’re still in the ritualized response stage of this.
Post edited to take out unnecessary reference to mental health.
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My mistake SHARE is still in play, having passed the House but moved no further. The NRA (a really good source of what legislation is ongoing) is exhorting its followers to lobby for it.
The “Hearing Protection Act” (introduced by Rep. Orwell, maybe) has been signed into law. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/367
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Florida.
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Ever have a team of 20+ armed people storm your residence? It makes thirty rounds seem marginally adequate.
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But would have no effect on Misters McVeigh and Nichols method of parking and then bombing.
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A friend of my best friend in Vegas is a club promoter, he had a group of 4 of his pals at that concert. Three of them were wounded and one died. While i don’t know who they were it definitely still hits me hard, no one deserves to die that way.
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I’m no Constitutional scholar, but the literal interpretation of the 2nd amendment would look a lot more like Switzerland than Vegas.
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If your doctor tells you to quit smoking every time you get sick and you ignore them every time, are they giving a ritualised response or does it just mean you should have listened the first time?
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You know. Repeating hat a truth is “technically” true as if somehow that negates the validity of the truth is just. Well. I can’t say it any better than Alan can…
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I fired m16 a1’s and a2’s. You’d be surprised how Letha those still are. They were beast rifles able to handle a beating. The SAW is absolutely far superior but those two were still scary.
Let me first set aside the insult i feel, as an insane person, whenever mass violence is conflated with insanity, rather than predictable extremes of human behavior*.
“Insanities” are not magical random thought generators suddenly implanted in peoples’ brains. They are culturally conditioned. As @orenwolf said above, there are other countries with large numbers of guns per capita, but no others with close to the level of death (of all kinds) from guns. There seems to be something in the American psyche, some effect of one of our national mythos, that magnifies the power and importance of these damn bang-sticks. We need to confront that. The first step is large amounts of regulation.
* The designation of humans as “rational animals” is one of our most pernicious myths. We are rationalizing animals.
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I think @nungesser is talking less about the constitution and more about the national zeitgeist.
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You have my apologies, and my thanks for the link.
I could not possibly agree more!
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On the upside, though, at least he didn’t blame “many sides” for the violence, or “assume there were good people” in the hotel room.
Progress? Yay?
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True! I mean, the 2nd Amendment desperately needs a dose of clarification for the 21st century, but it’s woven into our culture so tightly that it’s incredibly difficult to change.
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Restrict gun manufacture would definitely make a dent and is a good idea. But if it proved unconstitutional, we could try what I’ve been hankering on about for years-marketing, including in Hollywood. Just like they went and did for tobacco, which once upon a time was the big evil lobby we were helpless to prevail against. Then healthcare lobby whupped tobacco, but I digress, and may well be filling in blanks rather than reporting historical facts anyway.
But back to how mom and dad in family movies used to smoke, and there used to be candy cigarettes and all the advertising to kids and teens and during prime time tv that has been regulated out of existence. If we could just prohibit the (patently bonkers) personal defense marketing narrative-including the jazillions of tv and movie stories where the gal gets raped or almost, then gets a gun and goes to the range and later prevents a second attack by the same dude by shooting him in the last five minutes, we could put a dent in the glory delirium that endangers us all.
*true that women are likely to be revictimized by the same man-usually a partner or ex, or other family member, but supposedly gun ownership has not proved useful in those situations.
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