7 dead, 7 wounded in Santa Barbara shooting rampage

I actually think it would be hilarious if we had just one day of legislating everything according to social media outrage.

 

Those numbers are about right, but keep in mind that more than 60% of firearm homicides are suicides (another 3% are accidents).

Even if the U.S. adopted Germany's strict controls -- which has never been (and likely never will be) seriously contemplated -- and the rate dropped to Germany's levels, that'd still be more than 3,400 firearm homicides a year.

The point being that "commonsense laws" blah, blah aren't really going to lead to tens of thousands of fewer dead Americans.

 

Sorry, I went back and subbed "firearm deaths" sted "firearm homicides."

Still, I think most reasonable people would say those controls are worth the drop in deaths.

It's not like people wouldn't still be able to own guns. And, granted, there's a certain amount of subjectivity and centralized power involved in Germany's laws, but the biggest difference is the licensure requirement on the perspective gun owner to prove necessity.

I'd take just that right now. But even that has no chance of passing here.

 

The only thing that would change gun laws in any significant way is a complete reinterpretation of the Second Amendment -- which would be the correct interpretation, as the "well regulated militia" part seems to have been dropped out of the conversation entirely over the last 50 years. But that is obviously never going to happen. So the answer is, there is no answer. There are just too many cowboys in the culture and too much lobbying money behind them, so we're just going to have to accept a certain amount of fear and randomness, because money talks.

It is sad and humorous, though, that a Cliven Bundy situation happens and these dumbasses actually believe they stood up and stared down the big bad gubmint, failing to understand that they all would have been vapor if the government so chose and that all their guns would mean nothing if this oppressive regime they are guarding against actually existed.

 

The solution is to have this argument every single time until slowly, inexorbaly the gun nuttery is filtered out of our society.

 

Yes. If we could ever actually talk about the persons pulling the triggers, we'd get much further along in solving this.

 

The same person pulled the trigger in all of them?

I bet it was a black guy.

 

If Joe the Plumber is "a very prominent" gun-rights person who's representative of that population, well ... Let's just say that I can't wait for the opportunity to bring to some other discussion some quotes from, say, Cynthia McKinney or Alan Grayson. All's fair, right?

 

If someone argues that left-wingers don't have an opinion that McKinney or Grayson have gone on record as having, yes, go for it.

 

He is comparing the right to own a gun to the right to report the news.More importantly, he is comparing the ability to kill with a gun to the ability to kill with reporting.

I'm sorry if you are too dense to grasp the concepts.

Edited for clarification.

 

Would you be wiling to accept the media's characterization of what someone says, or would you like to see evidence?

As is, there are all sorts of conspiracy theories and media blaming going on now. If you got what you wished for, we'd be hearing about even more media "coverups".