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Post by onlyMark on Nov 6, 2017 20:35:39 GMT
"The person that took the shooter out must have saved many lives." Probably. It wasn't a fatal shot though as he ended up shooting himself as far as I know.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 6, 2017 23:18:08 GMT
The person that took the shooter out must have saved many lives. If they didn’t have such easy access to guns it’s likely that no lives would have been lost. That's it exactly. If every yahoo and his brother didn't have a damned gun, there would be no perceived "need" for the citizenry to be armed.
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Post by questa on Nov 6, 2017 23:18:53 GMT
Psycho toad = 10/10
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Post by Kimby on Nov 7, 2017 0:11:29 GMT
The civilians who pulled out guns in the (Denver?) incident complicated the issue as the authorities couldn’t tell who the bad guys were.
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Post by rikita on Nov 7, 2017 0:18:03 GMT
i recently read an article about how for the US now it is too late, stricter gun laws should have been made long ago, now there are too many guns in circulation already that would not just disappear. but i suppose even if the effect of stricter laws would only really be there in many years, the people that otherwise might get shot those many years in the future might be thankful for stricter laws now ...
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Post by whatagain on Nov 7, 2017 1:50:13 GMT
I so agree with you Rikita. Saying it is too late is just an excuse to do nothing.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 7, 2017 4:33:39 GMT
If children were not taught that the 2nd amendment is a wonderful thing, there could be improvement... in a generation.
Apparently, cash rewards, no questions asked, for turning in guns has always been the best way to get rid of a lot of guns.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 7, 2017 4:54:58 GMT
If they didn’t have such easy access to guns it’s likely that no lives would have been lost. Except for all the millions of guns that are already out there. How do you put that genie back into the bottle? (Missed the page break and all the similar replies. )
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 7, 2017 8:45:00 GMT
If they didn’t have such easy access to guns it’s likely that no lives would have been lost. Except for all the millions of guns that are already out there. How do you put that genie back into the bottle? (Missed the page break and all the similar replies. ) Indeed.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 20, 2018 6:51:01 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 20, 2018 17:00:15 GMT
That march will be stirring and is already spawning local marches in support of its goals all around the country. I remain sadly unconvinced that it will be able to change anything the number of mass murders -- including of primary school children -- that the US has seen hasn't been able to change. The election of Donald Trump was a major victory for the NRA. On the eve of his 100th day in office, Trump addressed the NRA’s annual conference, the first sitting president to do so since Ronald Reagan in 1983. “You came through for me, and I am going to come through for you,” Trump told the cheering crowd.
“I am here to deliver you good news: the eight-year assault on your second amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end.” sourceEven though I'm quoting the source above, I feel it's a frustratingly inadequate article to answer the question it poses (Why is the NRA so Powerful). The reporter did a great deal of research & includes it all whether or not it's pertinent. I fail to understand the comparisons between the auto industry and revenue earned by the gun industry.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 20, 2018 17:33:05 GMT
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Post by whatagain on Feb 22, 2018 8:04:20 GMT
I actually love guns and have 3 at home. Without ammunition. I fired a lot air rifles when I was a kid and l am good shooter. I was labelled a sharpshooter in the army. Yet I didn't fire a gun in the last 39 years and cannot understand the hunters. I have hopes about demonstrations in the US. Trump was forced to make a small gesture and will probably stop there but pressure us building.
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Post by questa on Feb 22, 2018 9:35:47 GMT
In my teens I lived on a farm. Rabbits were a constant problem so we kept 2 rifles for hunting. There was a Remington .22 and a Winchester .22. and I learned how to use and care for them, and gun safety. This was typical of all the farms and stations in Australia. After The Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, our federal govt started on a 'buy back' and thousands of guns were handed in to be destroyed. There have not been any shootings since, except in persons known to each other.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 22, 2018 18:41:22 GMT
Trump has the solution : give guns to the teachers. When a teacher starts a mass shooting, I guess, he'll say to give guns to students. Then to the dogs, then the cats and rats. After that, problem solved.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 22, 2018 18:55:07 GMT
Give guns to teachers and what do they do with them? Wear a holster? How many cops have been shot by guns pulled from their own holster? And the kids would be so distracted and curious about a firearm in the classroom. Teachers have a hard enough time protecting their purse or wallet from curious students, so how would they keep kids from getting their hands on a classroom firearm?
I guess they could do it like fire axes: put it in a glass case on the wall that you have to break into to get at the gun. And make sure the case sets off an alarm any time it’s opened.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 22, 2018 19:48:36 GMT
It’s beyond ridiculous.
Hope so many kids across the US get involved that they can’t be ignored and patronised.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 23, 2018 14:58:53 GMT
Hundreds of young people from all three Missoula high schools walked out over the noon hour on Wednedsay to protest in support of the Parkland victims and survivors. Administrators are not pursuing disciplinary actions though the parents of every missing student was to be sent a standard notice of absence. The student who pulled a fire alarm switch to begin the walkout at one high school WILL be charged if he/she can be identified.
Schools have to walk a fine line between protecting First Amendment rights and encouraging or discouraging acts of civil disobedience. I suspect many teachers are proud of their activist charges.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 23, 2018 16:14:23 GMT
I have hope for this new student movement. I was one of the organisers of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee in 1969. The first action date was October 15, 1969. Demonstrations were organised all over the country and it was requested that the country go on strike on that day. Supporters were asked to contribute -- if possible -- the amount of their salary that day to support the movement. While we did not receive many huge cheques, quite a bit of money came flowing in. I was one of the people opening the envelopes, and I can also say that we received some envelopes containing shit. Most opponents were not so extreme, but we were still told that we were destroying the country and helping to kill "our boys" in Vietnam.
The first demonstrations were a success -- at least we thought so. I was in Los Angeles and there were 50,000 people at our demonstration. The right wing television channel (KTLA 5) reported that there were barely 5,000 dirty hippies. Other cities had even more people.
Unfortunately, the creators of the VMC had a rather grandiose plan that the "moratorium" would increase by one day every month. So the second event was November 15-16. Actually, the demonstrations were still quite impressive, but there was no way that people would stop work for 2 days, much less contribute their salaries. So after November, it must be admitted that the movement petered out, although there were still actions against the Vietnam war. It all reignited on May 4, 1970 with the Kent State shootings when my university and hundreds of others went on strike for the rest of the year. Although my university was considered to be mostly right wing, it was the dean of USC (my place) who proposed the plan that was adopted across the country: to validate the school year with the grades received up to the point of the strike. Otherwise, we all would have been up shit creek.
Obviously, we did not end the Vietnam war, but I still feel that we helped to shorten it.
Anyway, this is just to say that I think the same thing might be happening again at last (49 years later!) -- a youth movement that will not be cowed by the authorities in place. They have my full support.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 23, 2018 16:54:02 GMT
Are you an old hippy then K2?
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 23, 2018 17:00:18 GMT
I did have long hair, but I don't think I was really a hippie.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2018 18:19:47 GMT
Hundreds of young people from all three Missoula high schools walked out over the noon hour on wWednedsay to protest in support of the Parkland victims and survivors. That was so wonderful to read, Kimby, especially with the detail that the school is giving them tacit approval. I've passed on your good news to people who will be as thrilled as I to read it.
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Post by questa on Feb 23, 2018 23:42:05 GMT
Moratorium Marches. I was working in a large hospital and was the "Rep" for the movement there. Most of the clinical staff were anti-war but a surprising factor was that many of the domestic staff were immigrants from Communist countries and were afraid of the so-called "domino effect". Our marches were timed to match in with the USA marches so when the TV news showed the thousands of marchers it showed the international links between us all. Adelaide was a small conservative city then, but the great marches in Melbourne became part of Australian history. Now, when I see the young people uniting, speaking out for themselves, planning and executing action, being responsible and not a rabble, driven by passion to make changes I feel the urge to "Storm the barricades" again, but all I can do now is remember this.
The Times They Are A Changing Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan & The Band
Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'. Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin'. For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'. Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'. Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin'. The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is Rapidly fadin'. And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin'.
Songwriters: Bob Dylan
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 24, 2018 9:14:15 GMT
Great memories questa indeed.
I see it is gaining momentum as big business is distancing itself from the NRA.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 24, 2018 15:47:21 GMT
Whatagain, there is a great difference between being a hunter in Belgium and a hunter somewhere in the wilderness. But being a hunter is no excuse for not having a licence and registration. Driving a car requires both of those, and test on safe handling. So does a lot of other potentially dangerous equipment. And those things aren't designed to kill. I've never hunted (I have fished, and caught a doré the first time!) but I have eaten caribou shot by Indigenous people I know in northern Québec. I feel far less bad about that than eating meat from huge commercial slaughterhouses. I'm very inspired by the kids. I was a young activist myself, by the age of 13. It was great decades later seeing the students from both ends of the Americas out against first of all tuition fee hikes but really for - and against - a host of issues, in 2012,here in Québec and down in Chile. A leader of the Chilean movement was invited to an assembly about ours. The women's movement intersects far more with the movement against endemic violence (against women, but also against everybody, in South and Central America, and in Mexico, but Indigenous women and girls are certainly leading a similar meeting up here, and I suspect African-American women are beginning to do so in the USA. niunamenos.com.ar/Questa, while I certainly understand the fears of people whose countries were occupied by the USSR, the worldwide youth movement in 1968 certainly included what was then Czechoslovakia. At the time the protesters weren't against the idea of socialism, but against bureaucracy, repression and dicatorship, and what remained domination by the Soviet Union. I'm just imagining what Trump is swearing about young Ms Gonzalez...
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Post by fumobici on Feb 24, 2018 17:04:49 GMT
Does gun nuttery qualify as a religion, albeit an evil and twisted one? The millenarian denouement happening when all the faithful bring down the world government tyrant's forces issuing from their black helicopters in an orgasmic hail of sear pin modded full-auto gunfire. It certainly ticks some of the boxes. And would the altar be made of AR15s or dead children's' bones? Maybe both.
I think the NRA is becoming politically toxic in a way it never has before. It's increasingly being seen as a insane cult or terrorist organization, where before it still carried some gravitas and credibility. I don't think they can manage this change in perceptions either because their ideology and rhetoric is so incredibly rigidly fixed that they cannot make prudent and necessary corrections, even in terms of tone or style, and also keep their base. Ten or twenty years from now they will only exist on the ineffectual political fringe.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 24, 2018 18:28:33 GMT
Fumo, sorry but I don’t understand the first paragraph.
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Post by mich64 on Feb 24, 2018 18:39:20 GMT
Well said Fumobici. I was surprised (and pleased) to read reports last night and this morning of multiple corporations ending their relationship with the NRA, I never thought that would ever happen publicly. The NRA has gone beyond controversial. I think people have had enough of their rhetoric and do find they have changed drastically in the past say 10 years. The speeches and behaviour of their spokespeople at the CPAC convention was outrageous/dramatical and I think the average person sees they are grasping with outlandish theories, they showed extreme paranoia actually.
Their desperate claims and fear tactic that the Democrats will eliminate the 2nd Amendment has become a pathetic argument/defense, their base may believe them but the majority of people are beginning to realize that changes have to be considered and debated to find solutions that will help save lives while protect the right for citizens to own guns.
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Post by fumobici on Feb 24, 2018 18:46:42 GMT
Fumo, sorry but I don’t understand the first paragraph. You'd probably have to live in the US to understand the disconcerting near-religiosity of the gun nut tribe. There is a cult-like faith dynamic at play that is stubbornly resistant to any contradictory facts that is usually the realm of religious fundamentalism.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 24, 2018 23:36:38 GMT
Lagatta you are so tight. We Belgians have no 'excuse' for being hunters. We have no wilderness left. Hunters are people who just kill animals by 'sport'. Soemthing I completely condemn. My reasoning is : you kill rabbits, you can kill Jews. Or Blacks. Or women. Or worse, me ...
However I can understand the fascination for guns. I mean, for people with small brains. And smaller dicks. It makes them feel important. Men mostly. Feeling important and capable of killing makes them feel like near-Gods. When they are just proving being total losers.
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