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1

I though I could do something particularly vulgar (so you don't have to) by proclaiming today, the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, as NRA Day.

Posted by elenchos | April 16, 2008 1:14 PM
2

mcardle is one of the stupidest bloggers on the internets.

Posted by brett | April 16, 2008 1:21 PM
3

Damn it. Why couldn't he have pulled the trigger then?

Posted by keshmeshi | April 16, 2008 1:37 PM
4

@3 - you beat me to it.

Posted by DanFan | April 16, 2008 1:38 PM
5

Great; happy to hear Crist signed the FL law. Coming soon to a state near you. And I have little doubt that, within the next week or so, the Supreme Court will hold that it is an individual right. So much for that tired old argument. Gun show bans? Feel-good legislation. Nobody's ever gone postal with a gun bought at a gun show. But I guess it's easier than doing something that might actually reduce crime.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 16, 2008 1:38 PM
6

My freedom of speech does not extend to telling my boss he’s a flaming jerk

Like hell it doesn't.

Posted by K | April 16, 2008 1:40 PM
7

@5, um, the Columbine guns were bought at a gun show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#Firearms

Posted by julia | April 16, 2008 1:44 PM
8

Florida. Tell me again why we didn't let them seceede?

Posted by catalina vel-duray | April 16, 2008 1:46 PM
9

Yeah, Julia, but not by the shooters. And the person who illegally transferred tge guns to Klebold and Harris got in a world of trouble for it.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 16, 2008 1:48 PM
10

@5

Thank God Obama finally came out and clarified he is for the individual right to bear arms, just like the NRA.

Now that in Florida employees can bring their guns into the workpace, the crime rate will go down, because, as we know, everywhere you have tons of guns all over the place, have have low crime rates. Like the old Tame, Tame West. And like downtown Miami, Chicago, Houston, Baltimore today.

Every nation with national gun control? Horribly unsafe, crime everywhere, people afraid to walk around at night. Like Tokyo, Ottowa, Madrid, Sydney. Awful, awful rivers of violence there.

Can't wait for Obama to take next logical step: "arms" includes tanks and nukes! So with every citizen able to have a tank or nukes, we will be so much safer.
It's "arms" in that amendment, isn't it? Not just "rifles" or "guns" or "numchuks" but "arms" -- everything you make war with. So Florida employers: don't you create any work rules saying employees can't bring nukes onto your property either!

Posted by unPC | April 16, 2008 2:00 PM
11

Every major shooting in America has happened at a gun free zone. If you were going to go shoot people, wouldn't you go somewhere where you knew people wouldn't have guns to stop you?

The gun show loophole is a bunch of malarkey. There is no gun show loophole. Go to a gun show, try to buy a gun without having a background check. It doesn't happen. You cannot buy from a dealer without a federal background check. Period. No dealer risks it because they would lose their livelihood. It's not a minor thing like a bar selling to a minor, it's a federal felony.

When are people going to realize that it's not guns that are the problem, it's crazy people. Crazy people do crazy things, it's not like guns magically make them kill people.

If someone had had a concealed carry license and was carrying in that Virginia classroom, maybe there would have only been one person shot.

Posted by Smegmalicious | April 16, 2008 2:04 PM
12

So if we shipped all our crazy people to say, Norway, it would start raining bullets in Oslo? Interesting theory.

Posted by Smade | April 16, 2008 2:08 PM
13

Add this to their shoot-first law and you've got a recipe for safety and security!

Posted by ben | April 16, 2008 2:11 PM
14

@11: ah yes, trotting out the old workhorse "If only there were MORE people firing guns in an enclosed space, lives could've been saved!"

Posted by brett | April 16, 2008 2:14 PM
15

@10

Do a ride along with the Seattle PD sometime and ask them what they think about people being able to carry guns here. They, you know the guys who actually deal with crime, believe that the crime rate is lower because of the ability of our populace to carry guns.

Australia and England have actually had rises in crime after banning firearms.

Criminals are not stupid. If they know you're likely to have a gun, they'll chose to attack someone they don't think has one.

Also, your argument that more guns = more crime is complete casuistry. The one place you're least likely to get shot is a gun show, the place with the most guns.

Posted by Smegmalicious | April 16, 2008 2:16 PM
16

@14

Yes, if more people had guns there, it would have been safer. Do you think it got less safe when the cops showed up with guns?

Believe me, I've shot with cops before and your average person who carries a gun shoots better than they do and practices more.

If you were in that room, would you have wanted to sit there and let him shoot you, or would you have wanted to be able to fire back and stop him?

Posted by Smegmalicious | April 16, 2008 2:20 PM
17

Amen to everything you said, smegmalicious, but especially the parts about the beat cops being strongly supportive of legal gun ownership and being lousy shots.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 16, 2008 2:25 PM
18

@15
Cite your sources re:Australia and England.

Posted by Smade | April 16, 2008 2:30 PM
19

@6,

Yes, but exercising your freedom of speech can still get you fired.


And I'm actually finding that picture of what's-his-face kind of funny. Ooh, I'm so intimidated by the sight of him holding a gun to his own head. It reminds me of the scene in Blazing Saddles when Bart holds himself hostage.

Posted by keshmeshi | April 16, 2008 2:32 PM
20

@16 ok got it. so more guns=safer classrooms.

so legal gun owners should be allowed to carry their firearms into classrooms...unless, of course, they're CRAZY legal gun owners like the VT shooter.

How do you suggest we tell them apart?

Posted by brett | April 16, 2008 2:57 PM
21

@18: I can't come up with the info on England, but I have it here somewhere, and he is not making that up. For Oz: British Journal of Criminology, "Gun Laws and Sudden Death" (Baker/McPhedran, 1996) would seem to be best.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 16, 2008 2:59 PM
22

@18

A BBC report about the spike in gun crime post gun ban:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm

Crime in Australia up after guns banned:
http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

That second link isn't as conclusive as the first, but the information is out there if you want to be educated.

One of the main problems with this debate is that people debate on emotion, not fact. There are facts out there and they're pretty clear that legislating guns away doesn't do anything to stop gun crime, and most of the time makes it worse.

Posted by Smegmalicious | April 16, 2008 3:03 PM
23

Hillary's position on gun control vs gun rights is "Vote for Me!"

Posted by elenchos | April 16, 2008 3:10 PM
24

Realistically, there isn't an ounce of difference between the two of them. They're both "pro-gun" now, when they need your vote. And both will do everything in their power to grab guns once they get ekected.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 16, 2008 3:17 PM
25

@16: Sure; gunman walks into classroom and begins shooting. Another gun-toting student in another classroom hears shots and runs into the hall, gun drawn. Three classrooms down, another student does the same.I'm sure they wouldn't immediately draw down on each other because--clearly--they're law-abiding and not crazy, right?

Phew! I feel safer just thinking about it!

Posted by ben | April 16, 2008 3:36 PM
26

Guns don't kill people, Republicans kill people. well, they would if they weren't just faux hawks who send the poor to do it or, better still, bankrupt the future and hire Blackwater to do it.

Posted by left coast | April 16, 2008 3:37 PM
27

VA Tech was a gun-free zone.

Posted by Chris | April 16, 2008 3:54 PM
28

Y'all should know better than to try to talk rationally about guns with these people. All they know, or want to know, is that guns are evil. Because they're like black, you know. And ugly. And they jump up all by themselves and start indiscriminately shooting people, and who could be in favor of that?

Posted by Elvis | April 16, 2008 4:20 PM
29

Which post is the rational one, Elvis? I want to re-read it.

Posted by elenchos | April 16, 2008 4:26 PM
30

@22
Fair enough. The challenge for England and Australia is certainly to get the illegal guns out of circulation as well as the legal ones. It's not a problem that can be solved in the short term and as shown leads to a temporary spike in gun violence. In the long term, though, I expect that a disappearing market for legal guns will reduce demand for the continued manufacture of guns and supply, even on the black market, will dry up eventually. Guns in existence will wear out or get lost and ammunition will be harder to come by because there will be no legitimate sales. In three or four generations the number of guns in circulation will be negligible and gun violence will drop sharply. A few will still get in because of smuggling, but ultimately the strategy will work.

Posted by Smade | April 16, 2008 4:50 PM
31

@30

Yeah, I'm sure that manufacturers will stop supplying wars around the world and military groups, and I'm sure that organized crime and and regular criminals will stop trying to get guns.

Of course if by some miracle guns are completely removed from civilians, then people will have to fight tyranny and oppressive governments or police forces with sticks and rocks and stuff.

Not to mention that removing guns won't remove violent crime. Husbands will still beat wives, big people will still beat up on small people, parents will still beat on kids. There will still be muggings and mass killings, they just won't be with guns, they'll be with knives, swords, sticks, bombs, fists and other weapons.

Also, counting on guns to just wear out is a fools bargain. There are tons of working guns from revolutionary times on up.

I don't know why you don't get it. The problem isn't guns, its whatever is in people that makes them want to hurt other people. You can't just legislate that away.

Posted by Smegmalicious | April 16, 2008 8:06 PM
32

I really, truly don't care if people have guns, as long as they don't use them on me or anyone I care about. I would personally prefer the everyone have the type of guns that are too big to hide on your body, but that's just me.

What I think so many people are missing in the whole discussion on mass shootings, etc, is the role pharmaceuticals play. It seems like all these shoots are done by young people, and they are all on some sort of anti-depressant or ADD drug or similar. But because drug companies pay for most of our news, that is never discussed.

Lastly, I suspect that most of the people who would prefer to be armed in public places are Barney Fifes who would make your average mass shooting into a circular firing squad.

Posted by catalina vel-duray | April 16, 2008 9:03 PM
33

What is with you people that only want PARTS of the constitution? You're the same people that complain about people only citing the parts of the bible that fit their agenda. Cars kill more people than guns do, but almost none of you want cars banned. Fuck all of you gun control fascists. Until we have a government we can trust gun ownership should be mandatory.

Posted by flash gordon | April 16, 2008 10:30 PM

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