http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/02/09/at-least-one-obama-showed-up Comments On: At Least One Obama Showed Up by Chicago Fan en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sat, 18 May 2013 18:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Because criminals follow the law amirite?

Also you are saying that millions of Americans be criminalized overnight, be deprived of their property and that every structure in America be systematically searched for all fire arms and ammunition to make sure that a criminal would not be able to get his hands on a firearm.
Posted by Cascadian Bacon]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:22:19 -0800 The Stranger Posted by j_smith89]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:00:07 -0800 The Stranger
I'd also like to point out that one of the shooters that are being charged for Hadiya's murder is currently on two year probation for an aggravated weapons (firearm) charge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/us/may…

All the laws we can come up with are not going to do a damn thing if they aren't enforced. Here's a quote from the linked article:

" Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney, said that gun offenders here sometimes get one-year sentences and may serve only about half of their sentences or even less.

Mr. Ward, who was charged with murder and attempted murder in the shooting that left Ms. Pendleton dead in a park not far from Mr. Obama’s Chicago home on Jan. 29, in 2012 received a sentence of two years’ probation, Superintendent McCarthy said, after being charged with unlawful use of a weapon. A mandatory prison sentence, the superintendent said, could have changed everything. "

You get put in prison for multiple years for a few ounces of pot, but a firearm offense gets you a slap on the wrist??
Posted by randoma]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:55:02 -0800 The Stranger
That's not fair, Sgt Doom's paranoid ramblings are much more imaginative than Randoma's posts.

BTW if your honor demands satisfaction, because of something somebody said about you on a Slog comment thread is there a way you can challenge the poster to a World of Warcraft duel?
Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2013 12:11:45 -0800 The Stranger
@82 - Very much so. He's got the blustery righteousness of SB with the "I'm pretending I'm a rational voter just like you except we share no interests" BS of Mister G.

I enjoy using the traits of old trolls to categorize the new ones.
Posted by Pridge Wessea]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:44:56 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Patricia Kayden]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:18:08 -0800 The Stranger
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?…

Keep in mind, their data on "assault weapons" is faulty. Basically they refer to all rifles, of any caliber, automatic, semi-automatic, bolt-action or otherwise as "assault weapons." (They probably have Dr. Awesome disease where you just make shit up.)

For example, in the Amish School Shooting they attribute an "assault weapon" to a bolt action rifle (not an "assault" anything). In the shopping center spree killing they refer to a Ruger Mini-14 as an "assault weapon" even though it has never been available as a fully automatic weapon and was not included in the original AWB. Lockheed Martin - also a Ruger Mini-14, not an "assault weapon" and a .22 rifle not even close to an "assault weapon".

The actual number for "assault weapons" should be closer to 20 and the number of incidences with "assault weapons" should be about 15, or less (I didn't research every single one) out of 62.

However, the actual incidents are all real and they provide links and names so you can do your own research.
Posted by randoma]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 21:03:38 -0800 The Stranger
Let's take a look at the homicide rate for the top 5 states/firearm ownership:

Wyoming: 47th for firearm homicides @ 0.59/capita
Alaska: 26th for firearm homicides @ 2.58/capita
Montana: 29th for firearm homicides @ 2.31/capita
South Dakota: 43rd for firearm @ 0.74/capita
West Virginia: 31st for firearm homicides @ 1.9/capita
Average of 1.62/capita

Now, let's compare them with the 5 lowest states for firearm ownership:
Hawaii: 48th for firearm homicides @ 0.51/capita
New Jersey: 25th for firearm homicides @ 2.65/capita
Massachusetts: 33rd for firearm homicides @ 1.53/capita
Rhode Island: 34th for firearm homicides, @ 1.48/capita
Connecticut: 37th for firearm homicides @ 1.4/capita
Average of 1.5/capita

Do you see a big difference in homicide rates? Because I sure don’t.

@54, Once again, a gun-control-nut has to, as Ph’nglui puts it, "piece together all sorts of disparate clues, pick out certain statistics while ignoring others, and make a huge deal out of well-chosen outliers." Sorry, but the Newtown shooter's mother is a poster child for outliers.
Posted by randoma]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:05:25 -0800 The Stranger
@46, You do realize that the highest fatality of any mass shooting was the Virginia Tech shooting, right? Which was done with handguns. You also realize that both the Newtown shooting and the Aurora shootings would have been just as deadly with handguns? It isn’t “some” mass murders that are committed with handguns, it is MOST. I understand that “assault weapons” are very scary looking, but they are simply not more deadly at close range (most mass shootings have been at close range) than a semi-automatic handgun. An “assault rifle” is very simply a scary looking (to you) semi-automatic rifle. The exact details have been covered ad nauseum in other threads so I won’t rehash them here.

Additionally, do you realize that, at least in 2000, which is the only year I’ve found data for, the Smith and Wesson .38 revolver was the number 1 gun used for crime? For criminal use, huge magazines aren’t the most important feature. Cost and availability are.

As far as “assault rifles” being weapons that “serve no good purpose at all”, perhaps not to you. However, there are millions of law-abiding owners that would disagree with you.

I actually don’t think the mass shootings that we’ve seen in the last 20-30 years have been fully preventable. And they certainly would not have been prevented by any gun control legislation that has been discussed so far. If you have some data on how any specific legislation (proposed or not) could have prevented a majority, or even a large minority of the 30-40 mass shootings that have occurred in the last 3 decades, please let us know as I seem to have missed it. I’ll give you a couple hints though - most were done with handguns and nearly all of them were perpetrated by people that most of us would consider bat-shit-crazy.
Posted by randoma]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:01:31 -0800 The Stranger I like your thinking. Unfortunately, I kind of remember ignoring both Mister G and Seattle Blues for the most part. They did like to yabber on and on the I AM RIGHT philosophy, no?
Posted by dnt trust me]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:33:49 -0800 The Stranger "FWIW while I don't think my opinion is particularly relevant, it seems clear to me that owning a gun does not help anyone effect political change ..."

So our Revolutionary War was fought with words?
Was World War I also fought with words?
World War II?

Or are you only talking about political activities AFTER a stable Democracy has been achieved?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_A…

Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:23:45 -0800 The Stranger not help anyone effect political change and I suspect that @58 knows this and therefore left his gun at home. But rather than simply assuming this, I figured I'd ask him.
Posted by thene]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:15:16 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Pridge Wessea]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:14:37 -0800 The Stranger "Uh, what I wanted to know was whether @58 was making use of his gun when he fought for his rights, or whether he left it at home."

So you believe that someone can only effect political change with a gun?
And you want someone else to do that on your behalf with regards to laws you do not like?
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:00:21 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:59:47 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Boring Dad is Boring]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:49:04 -0800 The Stranger
As we all know, what a troll wants is attention. Every time you reply, the troll wins.
Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:44:18 -0800 The Stranger
Pretending that the only option is to somehow magically make psychopaths and 300 million guns disappear is not a serious position and I hope that people holding that position feel dirty and ashamed when the next asshole who wants to be the most famous guy in the world breaks into your local "GUN FREE ZONE" sitting duck elementary school.


Posted by Boring Dad is Boring]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:42:33 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:32:58 -0800 The Stranger
So yeah, there's a whole lot you can do to stop a lunatic who is determined to kill children. Disarming and pretending these people don't exist (Norway, anyone?) appears to maybe not be a winning strategy.

We're now in a position where people are literally dismissing the idea of bolstering protection against the next copycat, for reasons of political posturing. It disgusts me.
Posted by Boring Dad is Boring]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:18:11 -0800 The Stranger
I'm specifically not denying polls. People can get whipped into frenzies to support lots of stupid shit. That's a far cry from legislation that threatens politicians' jobs, and they have a not-so-far-in-the-past lesson on how this works.

Meanwhile, you (and by 'you,' I mean 'you' as a representative of a large group who vocalizes similar mindless garbage) are doing zero about the actual issues.

Posted by Boring Dad is Boring]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:10:08 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:09:40 -0800 The Stranger
Yeah, because literally tens of people read what I post on Slog. And the course of history will change because I gave about six gun owners a big sad.

Delusional, and a poll denialist to boot. Boring.
Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:18:10 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Boring Dad is Boring]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:06:41 -0800 The Stranger
You are not only losing the current political fight, you're endangering the rest of your agenda, and even putting some Team Red seats in Congress in play, all while doing absolutely nothing to address suicides, violent crime, or the next Adam Lanza. I don't get it.
Posted by Boring Dad is Boring]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:04:31 -0800 The Stranger