7 dead, 7 wounded in Santa Barbara shooting rampage

Big kids are talking.

 

Of course I do.

The Second Amendment is the one that protects all the others when you get down to it.

It's a lot easier to revoke the rights afforded by the First Amendment, if the citizenry is unarmed.

 

Man, you are desperate to support the NRA.

 

Anyone stupid enough to believe that household guns are some sort of check on government power ...

I don't have a good finisher to that thought. But they are pretty damn stupid.

 

I'm reluctant to post it, because the writer's name sends some here into a frenzy, and because I'm significantly to his left on this issue, but this is the best article I've read for the pro-gun position (I'll admit it's not a huge sample).

http://spectator.org/articles/34133/absence-guns

I've said here repeatedly, that guns and abortion are very similar in that proponents of each are so (rightly) scared that the other side is out to take away everything that they resist even common sense regulation which makes progress and compromise on either front difficult.

 

I think it's pretty dumb to believe that the old six-shooter's the only thing standing between my freedom and insensate evil. But I don't think it's dumb at all to hold the view that the historical underpinnings of the Second Amendment rest on that idea.

Probably bears repeating that I don't have a six-shooter, or any firearm for that matter, so I guess I am simply screwed when it comes to that whole "Liberteeee!" thing.

 

Historical underpinnings? Sure.

Relevance to modern society? Nope.

It's a curiosity, nothing more.

 

So you're certain -- <i>certain</i> -- that how it's reported has a bigger effect on future killers than the fact that it was reported at all? Really?

So when did that trend start? And what are the hallmarks of that reporting?

Remember, you're defending a talking point of a dude who told the father of a dead boy to go fuck himself. <i>That guy</i> has something right. So let's hear it. Maybe you can make a case.

 

Raging asshats can still be right.

 

OK, but in what way is he right? How'd the media report this so as to create yet-unknown copycat killers. How has the media done so in the past?

 

I posted all the studies and expert testimony and crap the last time we had one of these threads. I'm being lazy tonight, in a way that I would probably criticize from anyone else.

But being a lazy hypocrite doesn't preclude me from being right.

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/rush-ties-killings-to-hunger-games-107136.html

Trashy movie franchise heralded as art.