If I'm not mistaken, weren't all of the shooters law abiding citizens up until the point they pulled the trigger?

What do we make of this angle?

Http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/01/is-it…

Dangerous Rx may be part of the problem. I'm thinking about it.

I make a great deal of it, NotSean. But God forbid you should suggest that banning guns isn't he solution to all of the country's problems around here.

@2: The angle of the tinfoil hats there is about 30 degrees. The angle of 5280s fear/anger-mix boner is 78 degrees.

For a federal ban on large-capacity magazines to be effective, it would have to be a ban on possession, not merely on manufacture and sale. Modification of existing large-cap mags would have to be prohibited, too. Any plug you can put in is a plug you can take out.

And, for this to work with a minimum of outrage, any new regs should have a buy-back provision. A lot of people spent a lot of money on large-cap mags. Giving them their money back would take care of at least some of the sore-headedness.

@2: Seems difficult to say that anti-psychotic medication had a major role in these events, when the people who are on such medications already suffer from diseases which can cause increases in violence and violent thoughts.

Extremely difficult to control and isolate the variables...I suppose one would have to look at if there is a comparatively small number of unmedicated people suffering from mental illnesses who engage in such actions. But of course, if such people are unmedicated, there is a good chance their illness was never diagnosed.

the topic of this slog post is not SSRI red herrings.

nor is it the "slog liberals want to ban all guns" red herring.

the topic is the assholes in the NRA who have nothing constructive to contribute.

fuck the NRA and their tautologies.

@5 You could also require that all high capacity magazines, including existing ones, be plugged at some smaller amount. (That's done in California and similar states currently.) The plug devices are relatively cheap - they could potentially be provided for free, and if you require them to be epoxied or welded in place, they could be mostly-permanent.

If you make it a felony, with mandatory sentencing, to own a high cap magazine, you'll probably get a good percentage of the existing ones.

@8 - http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2…

Yes, Max, we get it. The topic is to piss on the NRA. You don't care whether it reduces violence in this country or not. Well, piss on you, too.

@10: i do care whether it reduces violence in this country. i assert that the NRA does not, or their rhetoric would not be patently absurd, nor would their legislative agenda be the liberalizing of existing restrictions on guns.

please name the slog poster who seriously wants to ban all guns in america, and thinks its even possible.

Well, Cthulhu for one, though there are plenty of others if you've been paying attention.

@1

No. Here.

We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.

I thought this was a good response from the NRA.

Responsible people who like to smoke pot don't want to be lumped in with criminals who smoke pot and then commit crimes. If a bunch of pot smoking criminals went out and massacred people and the community decided pot was the cause and the problem, I guarantee you that responsible pot smokers would throw a fit.

There are responsible gun owners and irresponsible gun owners. Stop lumping them all together as a single group.

Fifty-Two-Eighty, instead of whining about what others are talking about, why don't you talk about what you want to talk about?

You've said the real problem is a race problem. That black and brown people are violent thugs. One solution you've proposed to that problem is that non-brown, non-blacks need high powered assault rifles to bring down these minorities when they charge whites in packs. As they do. Or when, like bull elephants, they don't drop with a single shot from a puny .38. That's why you need a 30 round magazine. Because they're not like us.

Am I mischaracterizing your position? If not, please elaborate on your solution to the gun, er I mean violence, er I mean race problem. Not guns. Not violence. Race. Is that right?

It's easy for you to piss and moan, but it takes guts to stand up and tell us what's to be done.

But banning guns IS the solution.
Now the only thing left to agree on is WHAT is it the solution to.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it.
If the staff at The Stranger was really interested in this subject (more than just grief porn) then they would have a column on all the shootings (whether anyone was hit or not) that happen in Seattle.
Including as many details on those shootings as possible.
Who, specifically, is shooting what at whom and why.
Updated daily.

But that won't happen because real facts don't bring as many advertising hits as grief porn does.
And the real facts might just show that your grief porn assumptions are wrong.

@15

The NRA is standing in the way of mandating safe storage of guns. And mandating training. Mandating anything. Even closing the gun show loophole.

It's easy for you to talk about "responsible gun owners" but when they are the very people who are helping the loons and the incompetents, it falls apart. The NRA is the criminal's best friend.

A responsible gun owner is one who tells the NRA to go to hell.

@16,
Simply stating the fact that gun violence is greater among blacks is not a sign of racism.

It IS a fact. That doesn't mean blacks are somehow more violent or aggressive... but it DOES mean we should find out what the cause is. Is it the community they typically grow up in? Different social/peer pressures? More access to cheap guns? I don't know what it is, but it's pretty obvious that something is going on.

Simply dismissing it and saying "that's racist!" would be a step backwards in figuring out solutions to these problems.

@17, and God knows grief is a stupid emotion. Only silly sissies care about children being shot in school. Fuckin' women, amirite, dude? Thank God people like you are here to keep us focused on the real problem -- the existence of black people. Oh, God, I need a hug so bad right now -- where's my AR-15? Hold me, sweet flash suppressor; I've never needed you more than right now.

Your legal hobby feeds weapons to those street criminals and gang shooters. Not mine. And you have no answers for that crime except to deflect the blame. Just more and more and more guns and more and more and more violence.

@19

Here is 5280's non-racist explanation for why we (whites*) need assault rifles. He says he is no more racist than Massad Ayoob, and nobody disputes that.

All I'm saying is that when people like 5280 censor themselves and tie one hand behind their backs, the discussion devolves into confusion. They're not telling us what they really think. In the rare moments when they come clean, like saying that Massad Ayoob's essay is an intelligent and reasonable argument, we achieve clarity.

Fifty-two-eighty has lots of ideas how to solve the race problem. He's said again and again it's not a gun problem and not a violence problem. It's a race problem. And he has the answers. He should share his wisdom.

* And Koreans too. i guess Koreans are OK.

@20
Who was the last brown person shot in Seattle?
You don't know, do you?
Judging by the coverage in The Stranger, there hasn't been a single shooting in Seattle so far this year.

"Only silly sissies care about children being shot in school."

No.
But it takes a special kind of person to wallow in the grief porn of dead children he cannot name, has never met and could not pick out of a crowd.

"Thank God people like you are here to keep us focused on the real problem -- the existence of black people."

Who was the first brown person wounded or killed by a gun in Seattle in 2013?
If you don't know, why don't you know?
Why do you know more about the criminal in a shooting on the other side of the nation than you do about brown people being shot in this city?

Grief porn.

@22

Brilliant rhetoric. You're so going to win.

The hundreds of parents who rushed to their children's school in Taft, California yesterday thought they were sick with worry, but they just need you to tell them they're victims of this "grief porn".

Next time a parent gets a call their school is on lockdown, they might panic for a moment, but then they'll remember your reassuring words and they'll not for one second feel like they're in a living hell. They'll feel just fine.

You go with that. Oh, and the racial shit. That stuff works great. It's why Hillary Clinton defeated Obama. Er, it's why Romney defeated Obama. Er, well, that racial shit plays well regardless of, you know, facts. Keep playing that song.

@22: You really miss Gay Dude for Romney, huh?

So far there have been two posts but neither can name the first (or latest) brown person wounded or killed in Seattle in 2013.
And judging by the coverage in The Stranger, there hasn't been any.
Yet there will be stories posted about shootings across the nation.

Who is shooting whom with what and why?

The problem w/ the gun lobby, as 5280 demonstrates w/ every post, is that it's like trying to talk to a pre-teen on a sugar high.

Adult: I think there are steps that America can take that will reduce gun violence.

5280, et al: OMG! YOU WANT TO CONFISCATE EVERY GUN IN THE COUNTRY! HOW DARE YOU!

Adult: Well, that's not really an issue here...

5280, et al: OF COURSE IT IS! IT'S THE 2ND AMENDMENT! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA! YOU'RE A LOUSY COMMIE LIBERAL AND WE DESERVE GUNS SO WE CAN SHOOT PEOPLE LIKE YOU!

Adult: We're trying to have an adult conversation on an important issue, and you seem to be committed to hijacking the conversation by bringing up straw man arguments, non sequitors, and generally displaying an extreme level of paranoia. Don't you see how that very approach is making reasonable people wary about your position?

Well, you know their response to *that*. More of the same: shouting, pouting, crazy conspiracy theory, paranoia, projection, false equivalency, ad nauseum. When your side is represented by extremists, by fanatics, doesn't that give you pause to your convictions?

Eh. Let's see how far you get with your "new and improved" gun control measures before passing judgment on that.

My guess will be "not very far."

@9 I have tools, and know how to use them. Epoxy? You don't even need tools for that. Pop your metal magazine in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour. Epoxy, gone. Tack welds? Pshaw! A mototool and a cutting wheel. Rivets? Drill.

Nope, you need to collect them all, take them all out of private hands. Besides, you want to be able to tell at a glance if it's an illegal magazine, not have to start taking it apart. As a side benefit, you'd also be taking away something which is a mass-murder/war-situation fantasy-fetish object for some folk.

So, four posts and still no one can name the first (or latest) brown person wounded or killed in Seattle in 2013.
And judging by the coverage in The Stranger, there hasn't been any.
Yet there will be stories posted about shootings across the nation.

Who is shooting whom with what and why?

@2 Continued...

I know this conversation moved past my minor tangent (apologies to @7) but, if only to be polite, I want to conclude what I had started.

After thinking about the Rx angle a bit today, I think one good reason we aren't (yet) dragging drug companies into this conversation may be that we already have created the mechanisms for dealing with that part (if any) of the problem.

We have an FDA that can review meds and approve or ban them for uses. Of those meds which are approved, we have medical professionals tasked with evaluating whether the med is appropriate for each specific patient.

If we should look at our mass-killing incidents and then suspect that bad Rx is a part, we already have the tools with which we can take action. We can ratchet up the restrictions, at will. and very quickly. No new task force or commission necessary.

...er, something like that.

@28, If you have a choice between a bill failing because no one is going to fund the repurchase of several million magazines (probably a lot more, actually), and modifying the existing magazines, I'd have to go with modification, even if it is imperfect.

You will never pass a law that involves confiscating all the (currently legal) magazines. So you're either going to have to buy them back or modify them. Buying them back is going to cost $10-20 a piece, modifying them about $2. And even if you do that, there will still be hundreds of thousands, if not more, in circulation.

You make it a mandatory 1 year jail sentence (no ifs, ands, buts) for possession you might collect more. But only if the law is actually enforced.

For example, there have been a few publicized 'stings' where police departments bought firearms from citizens even after telling the seller that they couldn't pass a background check (this is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison!). The people that still sold them, got paid and not a single fucking thing happened to them! Can you imagine if a police department did a series of drug buys and then just let the sellers walk?

@31 Just remember. Whenever somebody buys something in the consumer market, it's stimulative of the economy. If the government buys 20 million magazines at $50 each (some people paid much more for "old law" AR15 magazines during the ban), that's a billion dollars worth of stimulus. That money will all get spent to buy something or other. It might be smaller magazines, or beer, or flowers, or movie tickets, or more ammo, but it's going to reenter the economy, someone's going to profit, and the government will get taxes.

As for modifying them, there's no way to do that so they can't be un-modified by someone planning an attack. Best to just "bite the bullet" and buy them all up. There's a separate issue with several 9mm pistol magazines. As the entire magazine fits inside the grip, it would be easier to conceal an illegal magazine. But I'm pretty sure a couple of the manufacturers make limited-capacity mags that can't be modified to take more.