Shooting at Las Vegas casino

Rick, I hear you. I understand that statistically households with guns have significantly more gun accidents and suicides by gun.

When I was eight or nine, my cousin was playing with his father's .357 and shot his little brother in the head. He lived, but... he still got shot in the head, yanno?

I'm really not even waving the gun rights flag. I'm just saying that the reality as I see it is that a snowball on asphalt in August has a better chance than even a partial gun ban in the U.S.

As to "white man's fear", I grew up in Southwest Atlanta. If you can't get along with black people there, you'd best move. OTOH, I've had my house broken into and any number of things stolen, some of monetary value and some with nearly none, like the shadow box with my father's WWII medals and his old Army dress uniform, which I still mourn the loss of. I have no idea of the race of the burglar, and I really don't care.

My personal position is fairly flexible regarding better gun control or an outright ban. My considered judgement of a majority of the population in the Southeast, where (along with ten years in Texas) I have lived my life, is that it is simply not going to be passed or supported by elected officials from that area.

 

Responding to yours. AlMost exclusively gun deaths are suffered by ‘. ..fucking criminals with guns’

What does That make the fuvkng noncriminals without guns who are murdered, whoever they are

 

You should at least have to register your gun like you register your car, and acquire a license. Let's start there.

 

YF's point is that criminals would be pleased if law-abiding citizens didn't have guns. It would be open season!

With the exception of mass shootings which, yes, are a terrible problem, there is not an epidemic of marauding criminals foaming at the mouth to gun down law-abiding citizens.

Most of the people I think people are referring to as criminals shoot ... other criminals.

 

Not sure anything will be more intense than that one.

 

It doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing today. It might in 20 years if we keep it in the conversation. I refuse to let the conversation be framed as if personal gun ownership is desirable or not on the table to be banned.

 

And that's what it will require to make progress.

 

Hasn't worked an inch in decades.

 

True that, and I'm afraid that is symptomatic of a divide which is rapidly becoming a larger problem. Population numbers continue to be more and more concentrated in large urban areas. If the election plays out right this means that the popular vote is beaten out by electoral votes, and that the Senate votes of states with few voters like Montana or Alaska offset the Senators from New York and California representing a massively larger constituency.

As Typefitter noted upstream, when what the larger number of people vote for is not what wins, you no longer have a democracy. And please, spare me the "It's a republic" or the "It's a constitutional republic". I know that. Two of the last five presidential elections were won by candidates who did not get the most votes, though, and sooner or later this is going to cause real problems. Suppose the results of the last election were reversed, and Trump got more votes but lost. Given all his "Election Fraud" and "They're trying to steal your election" talk, what do you think the reaction would have been?

The urban versus rural divide is very real, and in some ways is even more intractable the the one between the parties.

 

‘The Punisher’ has canceled its Paris and New York Comic-Con events after Las Vegas

Marvel and Netflix decided to pull the panel from the upcoming Punisher series from Comic-Con events in New York and Paris because they thought it would be insensitive in the wake of the Las Vegas shootings. That panel probably would have included a new trailer or clips, which were sure to be loaded with gun violence. The series was expected to be released on Netflix some time before the end of 2017, but no date has been announced yet.

I'm still not sure if this is sensitive and conscientious or silly. Maybe a bit of both?

 

Some of both, mostly silly. It's Marvel comic book violence, and most people recognize the difference. That's corporate PR types counseling risk aversion.