A confession

by liberal japonicus
I'm a fast reader. Too fast sometimes, and when I drop into ObWi, it's often more to see that people aren't reenacting Lord of the Flies. So when the Count started to post single names, my eyes went right over them. Janie joined in. I didn't notice until an offlist email from Janie, saying that she was grateful that he did that. I assumed it would be a long list of names and looked thru the comments for something like that. I had to write back to ask and Janie pointed me to the first one, here.

I also see that Russell had picked up on it, pointing out that one name was from just down the road from him.

I googled each name, it's just started, so there are still more to come. I went back and using the admin powers, I added a link to each person's name, ideally something from a local paper/news site. It's like the opposite of a treasure hunt, you aren't looking to find some treasure, you search around to find something you've lost and will never recover.

If the Count and Janie object, I'll go back and delete the links. But if they don't mind, I would like to keep doing it, possibly as a bit of penance, possibly as a way to support the Count and Janie, perhaps as a way of trying to do something that doesn't involve screaming and getting in arguments.

Comments

[JanieM]

lj, far from objecting -- thank you for adding links. I hope the Count doesn't mind that we're weaving more into his good idea.

I am hoping to expand beyond Las Vegas, but that hope will probably come into conflict with my nerdy wish to be orderly rather than random. And as I've said, I've got visitors for a few days so will only be dropping in for brief moments.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Count don't mind.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Jack Beaton

[Girl from the North Country]

Like wonkie, I feel very sad about these people whose lives were cut off too soon, and whose loved ones may never recover.

But I feel hopeless too: somebody on twitter linked to some stats from the NYT a couple of days ago showing that more people have died from gun violence in the US since 1966 than the total number of American soldiers who have ever died in any and all wars (also unacceptable, of course, in a better world), I think the numbers were 1.6m to 1.3m.

I'm with cleek: all guns in the US should be banned from private ownership, with very few and very strict exceptions indeed for hunting, and I think he came up with a good and detailed plan for how to do it and how to finance it on the other thread. The 2nd Amendment should be repealed, as a historical anachronism.

I realise not everybody, even here, agrees, but there it is: that's what I think.

[wj]

I wouldn't go as far as cleek or GftNC.

But I definitely agree that we need a LOT more controls over who owns guns, what kinds of guns, how many guns, and how they are required to be secured.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I can't begin to think what's wrong:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/politicians-holding-guns-photos/317920/

Maybe Americans as a class of humans really are different. Something between angel and beast, an intermediate species of a different caste.

The Gunimal.

[wonkie]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/two-strangers-bond-over-country-music-and-beer-then-the-shots-started/2017/10/03/d5d4541a-a846-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html?utm_term=.1b5dbe78d4ca

[wonkie]

That's not how pick-ups are supposed to end.

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

That's not how pick-ups are supposed to end.

the second amendment allows that they can.

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

more importantly, the second amendment requires that gunfire is a possibility in every situation; likewise it requires that being shot is also a possibility in every situation.

the second amendment mandates this.

and people fight to maintain these possibilities. they get very upset, very indignant when anyone tries to say "no, gunfire will not be a possibility in this situation." they start yelling and screaming and waving their guns, when people try to create situations where gunfire is not a possibility. they are deeply committed to making sure that in every situation in the US that one can find oneself in, gunfire a possibility.

very smart, we are not.

[Pro Bono]

I think the USA is unsuited to gun controls. What it likes is tort. Make gun owners carry third-party insurance in case anyone gets hurt by their gun (including if the gun has been stolen). Make gun manufacturers liable for sudden unintended discharge incidents.

I can't see anything in the second amendment which would stop you.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

they get very upset, very indignant when anyone tries to say "no, gunfire will not be a possibility in this situation."

Except in GOP presidential debates and nominating convention.

Each and every attendee should have been issued with a fully auto, fully loaded AR-15 at the door. America deserves, and NEEDS no less, amirite?

[Pollo de muerte]

@ Pro Bono ...

I like the idea, but as I understand it the reach (and therefore the premiums) of insurance carried by gun owners would be limited by the intentional act exclusion.

In other words, the carrier would only be underwriting for accidental deaths/injuries resulting from gun ownership. That's actually a small (but tragic) percentage compared to intentional deaths/injuries.

Then you have laws like Florida's § 626.9541(1)(g)(4)(a):

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0626/Sections/0626.9541.html

which keeps insurers from charging gun owners extra beyond what is actuarily justified.

[McKinneyTexas]

more importantly, the second amendment requires that gunfire is a possibility in every situation; likewise it requires that being shot is also a possibility in every situation.

the second amendment mandates this.

This is probably not a widely held view and is accurate only in the sense that every moment a person is alive mandates the possibility of sexual assault or some other heinous crime.

The number of guns in the hands of private citizens has more than doubled in my life time, even while the number of gun crimes has fallen. So, more guns, less crime, despite how others bend the stats. Does the presence of more guns reduce gun crime? I'm agnostic on that. Crime in general is falling for reasons that are hard to identify.

Gun statistics are widely abused. There are way more children killed in swimming pools than accidentally by guns. The vast majority of non-suicide shootings are inner city minority youths, mostly African American.

Tort liability for gun accidents bears no relationship to mass shootings. I'm a tort lawyer. I've done maybe 20 gun cases over the last 37 years, mostly product liability cases in search of a deep pocket with a small number being accidents or suicide. Actually, most of the product liability cases were negligent handling and in once case, suicide.

It is not uncommon here to have someone say there is a better chance of X (some remote contingency) than being killed in a terrorist attack before going off on how we overreact to Islamic terrorism (an unpersuasive argument in my mind, but it's still fairly common here and elsewhere on the left). If you are not a young, male African American living in a depressed inner city neighborhood, or not profoundly depressed, your odds of death or injury by firearm are quite remote, much less than operating a car in an urban environment.

Cleek and a few others are honest enough to declare their agenda and their hostility to one part of the Constitution. At least those of us who see things different know where they stand.

Somewhat related is the ongoing debate over what the 2d means. Pretty much every constitutional scholar who has looked at it agrees that it confers a personal right, i.e. the right of the people. Where the breakdown comes is "a well regulated militia being necessary to a free state." Historically, in Texas anyway, the militia was drawn from the armed population. If the Comanches raided Victoria (they did), the militia (everyone who had a gun) was called out (a whole bunch of folks showed up) and when the two got together, a big battle ensued.

The point is, back in the day, even if there was a state (there was not when the Comanches raided Victoria), it was so remote that the militia was a purely local operation, with very mixed notions of organization and whatnot. The Texans at the Alamo were militia in the sense they were armed citizens who showed up to fight under the command of three self-appointed colonels who were not entirely in agreement as to who was boss.

So, first you have your armed citizens and then you have your militia, if needed. You can't have a militia, as understood back in the day, if you didn't have the underlying armed citizens.

Is all of that business an anachronism today? Under most reasonably foreseeable conditions, yes. Might there be local, short term conditions where civil order breaks down to the point that responsible, armed citizens are deputized to act? Possible. Hopefully it never happens, but it's not impossible.

[Girl from the North Country]

Ah, McKinney, excellent to see you - I was just thinking about you today when I saw the latest stuff exempting any employer, "regardless of whether they are religious, to refuse to include the coverage [of contraception] in their health insurance plans for moral reasons". You told me recently, when I was loosely characterising the aims of "the left" versus "the right", that it was not a project of the right to aid employers in avoiding having to cover contraception in their employees' health coverage, just a view that people should not have to act (or pay for things) contrary to their conscience. Tell me, would you still say this? And if so, what would the wording/effect have to be before you agreed that this seems to be their aim?

[Girl from the North Country]

Sorry, a) OT and b) bad grammar, typos etc. Hopefully the sense is clear though...

[McKinneyTexas]

You told me recently, when I was loosely characterising the aims of "the left" versus "the right", that it was not a project of the right to aid employers in avoiding having to cover contraception in their employees' health coverage, just a view that people should not have to act (or pay for things) contrary to their conscience. Tell me, would you still say this?

I recall the conversation but like a lot of other things at my age, the recollection isn't particularly precise. I don't speak for righties but am loosely associated with that side of the divide. I think it is clear that there is no consensus on the right to outlaw or limit access to birth control. For myself, I support an exception to employer-mandated health policies for birth control if there is a bona fide religious objection by the funding employer. The idea that any employer can opt out of BC coverage for any "moral" reason is well beyond my view. To me, it's analogous to being a conscientious objector. US law respects CO's but the burden is on the objector to establish his/her status.

[Girl from the North Country]

I don't speak for righties but am loosely associated with that side of the divide.

Hmm, I hope you will grant us all the same exemption, i.e. that we don't speak for the left! However, interesting (and good) to hear that you think it is clear that there is no consensus on the right to outlaw or limit access to birth control., but if so it is certainly strange that attempts to limit such access seem to surface so often from your side of the divide.

Again, apologies to everyone for going OT in this way.

[wj]

it is clear that there is no consensus on the right to outlaw or limit access to birth control.

This is indeed true. But while a majority of Republicans are in favor of access to birth control (including the access that the administration has just acted to limit), somehow it is always Republican legislators who are pushing for limiting access. Which definitely gives the entirely understandable impression that the right opposes allowing birth control.

It may be only a subset of the right, consisting of the religious fundamentalist right. But it still looks the same.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"...somehow it is always Republican legislators who are pushing for limiting access. [to BC]"

When the GOP 'big tent' covers theocrats, Nazis, Klansmen and Russian-suborned traitors, that tent is too damned big.

Not my job to fix it, though. Unless by 'fix it', you mean 'burn it down'.

[sapient]

When the GOP 'big tent' covers theocrats, Nazis, Klansmen and Russian-suborned traitors, that tent is too damned big.

When the chips are down, Snarki, your snark is just so ... so ... Yeah, that's why I'm not you.

[sapient]

Yeah, that's why I'm not you.

I meant that in a good way! Keep it going, Snarki.

[russell]

Pretty much every constitutional scholar who has looked at it agrees that it confers a personal right, i.e. the right of the people.

meh.

also, too: we're no longer back in the day.

last but not least: when the 2nd A was drafted, TX didn't exist.

when the constitution was under discussion, states were leery of surrendering sovereignty to the feds. among other things, they did not want the feds to be able to impose it's will on them through military force.

so they insisted on retaining the institution of of the citizen militia, operating under the control of local civil government, per the direction of congress.

what that looked like, exactly, was codified in the militia acts of 1792. able bodied men of suitable age were not only permitted, but were in fact required, to equip themselves with a firearm, ammunition, and powder, and participate in a local, organized militia.

by 'organized' the statute meant under the direction and authority of local civil government.

that institution was basically mothballed by the dick act, because as a system of national defense it was utter bollocks. to the degree that it persists, it persists as the national guard.

if we want to go back to what the founders intended, we need to get rid of a professional standing army, replace it with citizen militia with almost universal participation, and everyone between the ages of 18 and 50 or 60 needs to roll out of bed on weekend mornings and haul their asses down to the local training ground for drills.

we don't do that. so what the founders intended by the 2nd A is kind of a dead letter.

i recognize that the US has an entrenched gun culture, and that's fine with me. not my thing, personally, but different strokes. there are many legitimate reasons to have a gun, including no particular reason other than you like to shoot and they are interesting to you. most folks that own guns use them responsibly.

want a gun? have a gun. have ten. just don't be an idiot, and don't hurt yourself or anyone else.

but what the 2nd A was talking about no longer exists.

[russell]

oh yeah, wait, one other thing...

i seriously want to sign up for the thing where we can claim to be exempt from federal regulations and requirements because of religious, moral, or ethical beliefs.

i got a list as long as your arm. i want in.

if anyone gets to play by those rules, we all get to play. otherwise we are in establishment of religion territory.

i want in on that one. sign me up.

[Marty]

"i got a list as long as your arm. i want in."

Well there are two places this plays and I think you can play.

From a government standpoint you can convince a majority if congresspeople that your tax dollars should not be spent on anything on your list. Or taxes period.

As a private person or entity you can refuse to pay for pretty much anything you decide not to pay for.

The discussion starts when government requires a private entity to pay for something that isn't a tax or fee, in fact it is a payment from one person or company to another company or person. Not to mention when the government requires you to provide your labor to another person or company.

Then, I guess, you get to object on moral grounds.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Just get rid of the income tax on wages, jack up the rate on capital gains, and tax stock transactions (at the exchange level). Moral objectors can avoid all that stuff with ease.

And stop pretending that the US government can't make as many "money-bits" as they want.

[Tony P.]

responsible, armed citizens

"Responsible" motorized citizens register their automobiles, obtain driver's licenses, and carry insurance -- by guvmint mandate in most places.

A person who refuses to do the above is not considered a "responsible" citizen.

But "responsible" means something different when it comes to firearms. It seems to mean "any citizen with cash or credit", to many people.

And I'm still waiting for "responsible, armed citizens" to even brandish their weapons in defense of anyone's rights but their own. I don't remember "responsible, armed citizens" rising up to oppose Jim Crow, or Japanese internment, or minority voter suppression.

"We need to keep and bear arms to defend our right to keep and bear arms" is airtight logic, though.

As for McKinney's "bending the stats" comment: yeah, crime has been going down since the Baby Boom aged out of its rambunctious late teens and early twenties. It has been going down in NYC, where guns are rare, and it has been going down in rural TX, where I take it they are not. For all I know, Texans would be killing each other a lot more if they had fewer guns, and New Yorkers would be killing each other more if they didn't have so few. Statistics, bah!

Traffic deaths have been going down, too. Safety mandates like requiring motorized citizens to pay automobile makers for seat belts, airbags, crumple zones and such may have something to do with that. But so what? Here in America, owning a gun is a Constitutional right; driving is merely a privilege. Safety mandates can't "infringe" a mere privilege.

One last question: if The People have the right to vote in elections, do individual persons have the individual right to vote, e.g. whether there's an election on or not? This is a question for the Consitutional scholars here. In 18th-century American English, when literate, articulate persons like our revered Founders referred to "persons" in some cases and to "the people" in others, were they making some sort of distinction or just alternating for the sake of variety?

--TP

[Snarki, child of Loki]

IIRC, Marty's previously stated policy preferences WRT firearms are sensible and rational. So the people with which we have a big argument *aren't here*.

It does require some effort to move past Cleek's Law to get to the 'rational' stuff, though.

[CharlesWT]

I don't remember "responsible, armed citizens" rising up to oppose Jim Crow, or Japanese internment, or minority voter suppression.

No "rising up," but there is this:

"I'm alive today because of the Second Amendment and the natural right to keep and bear arms," declared John R. Salter Jr., the civil rights leader who helped to organize the famous sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Jackson, Mississippi. "Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine," Salter recalled. "The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay."
How the Second Amendment Helped Civil Rights Activists Resist Jim Crow: A response to New York Times columnist Bret Stephens and his call to “repeal the Second Amendment.”

[Nigel]

This is probably not a widely held view and is accurate only in the sense that every moment a person is alive mandates the possibility of sexual assault or some other heinous crime...

That seems pretty specious too.
You're honestly making a comparison with the cost/benefits of being alive, and having guns - whose only function is to shoot lumps of metal at lethal speeds ?

Cleek's formulation seems pretty accurate to me.

[Pollo de muerte]

My thoughts on guns …

You can have anything short of a tactical nuke to defend your home, but you need a hell of lot more training than most states require for a carry permit.

Hyperbole aside, I think urban areas should be allowed to restrict weapons/ammo based on how close people live next to one another. When we had a crime spree in our downtown neighborhood (daylight smash and grabs), my wife wanted a gun (when she isn’t traveling for work, she’s home alone working). We restricted our choices to guns/ammo that would pose less potential harm if a stray shot went through a window.

For several years, I have volunteered at an elementary school in an economically distressed part of town (almost exclusively black and Hispanic). I teach 5th graders the basic rights guaranteed under the Constitution. As distrust of the police increases, the desire to exercise 2nd Amendment rights increases in this population. It’s sky high these days. I volunteer at a rural, economically poor, white school with the same Constitutional rights program. Support for the second amendment is unsurprisingly high there as well.

I feel like some of my well-off liberal white friends occasionally demonstrate a lack of empathy when it comes to firearm ownership.

Not that I’m an NRA supporter; far from it. On a truth-in-advertising level, they are an industry lobby masquerading as a champion of individual rights. On a public policy level, Florida’s legislature is deeper in the NRA tank than any other state that I know of (even TX). The combination of “stand your ground”, “shall issue”, no duty to inform, “take your gun to work” and permissive concealed carry is toxic.

I have no problem with registration. I have no problem with ending unregulated private sales and gun show sales. I think that the level of “proficiency” needed for a carry license should be *much* higher than a quick NRA class; periodic practical training should be required. “Stand your ground” should burn in fire … I’m a big believer in the castle doctrine, but when you step off your property, your rights vis a vis others should change considerably.

With all rights afforded by the Constitution, my exercise of freedom is limited by its impact on others (e.g., I have freedom of speech, but can't falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theater). Somewhere along the line, this natural limiting factor has almost been erased when it comes to gun ownership. My right to own and carry a gun should not unduly impact someone else's desire not to own a gun or not to be exposed to someone carrying a gun in public with minimal training.

[Marty]

Check out @nxthompson’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/nxthompson/status/916436542377381889?s=09

If I had skills I would tag each bullet with a link.

[Countme-a-Demon]

"I feel like some of my well-off liberal white friends occasionally demonstrate a lack of empathy when it comes to firearm ownership.

Not that I’m an NRA supporter; far from it. On a truth-in-advertising level, they are an industry lobby masquerading as a champion of individual rights. On a public policy level, Florida’s legislature is deeper in the NRA tank than any other state that I know of (even TX). The combination of “stand your ground”, “shall issue”, no duty to inform, “take your gun to work” and permissive concealed carry is toxic."

Reverse the order of those two paragraphs, with the first now becoming the consequence of the second and some sense would be made of the growing lack of empathy for firearm ownership and the Second Amendment.

[Countme-a-Demon]

As to Jim Crow, please.

I might be convinced of the efficacy of widespread gun ownership by the black population if we could read in today's history books that entire state and local governments throughout the United States, perhaps even the federal government had been violently overthrown by highly organized and armed black militias (the Klan and their local Klan police forces butchered in their beds) as Reconstruction went "south" so to speak and as Jim Crow unfolded.

And then of course the requisite "it's too soon to talk about it waiting period" of decades before Civil Rights legislation guaranteeing all of the other rights in the Constitution could get through the hard heads of the armed Democratic and Republican Parties.

And now backsliding on that, even as blacks may own weapons.

Meanwhile, three to five days, is it, has been the maximum it's too soon to talk about it waiting period for taking possession of the guaranteed Second Amendment right to possessing a weapon, or the ones waiting might just have to shoot us.

We could test this gun ownership secures all of the other rights thesis, I suppose, by issuing firearms to 800,000 Dreamers.

The current killer f*cks in charge would be happy to deport corpses and confiscate their weapons.

I suppose too the same lesson that Salter and company (and good on them) learned has gone unlearned to this day as unarmed blacks are shot in the back by law enforcement.

I didn't see any fewer bullets piercing the armed flesh of the Black Panthers and in the end, Malcolm X, in the 1960s, than I saw taking out Martin Luther King, little black kids in churches, and civil rights demonstrators.

Armed or not, they were fucked.

I'd like to see much fewer weapons in the hands of law enforcement too, including the ATF.

I grew up around guns and have fired them after training and with supervision.

Target only. I've never hunted.

I have been known to go long periods without locking the doors to my castle let alone setting up machine gun nests to protect it.

Nothing has happened. Yet that is proof of nothing.

I could, at this point in my anger about this issue, learn to appreciate gun ownership again, but it wouldn't be for personal defensive reasons.

Happily, thus far my intense dislike for firearms, especially the weapons of war, has vetoed my political and ideological demons.

And strangling those who need it takes too long.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Keri Galvan

[Pollo de muerte]

"Reverse the order of those two paragraphs, with the first now becoming the consequence of the second and some sense would be made of the growing lack of empathy for firearm ownership and the Second Amendment."

Poor urban blacks are not the target demo for the NRA.

NRA ≠ all gun owners.

[russell]

The discussion starts when government requires a private entity to pay for something that isn't a tax or fee

that's a good point, and noted.

i still got a very long list.

I feel like some of my well-off liberal white friends occasionally demonstrate a lack of empathy when it comes to firearm ownership.

hey, i guess that's me!

i have no problem with people owning firearms for personal self defense.

and, I have no problem with communities setting the bar for the conditions under which folks can and can't carry a firearm around with them in public.

i don't care if people have guns per se. i care about idiots, paranoids, and violent assholes having guns.

as should we all.

[russell]

Somewhere along the line, this natural limiting factor has almost been erased when it comes to gun ownership.

this. thank you.

NRA ≠ all gun owners.

yes, but they are the public face of all gun owners.

if "all gun owners" don't want that to be so, they need to start speaking up. loudly, early and often. not just on a blog post.

you say "advocate for gun ownership", i think wayne lapierre and dana loesch. there is no conversation available to me to have with them. i don't like them very much. in fact, i despise them.

if "responsible gun owners" feel like they are being unfairly characterized as blood thirsty nutjobs, maybe they need to give the rest of us someone else to talk to.

the problem here is not all of us non-gun-owners. we don't care if you hunt, or shoot target, or keep a gun in the house for self-defense.

we aren't the problem. the people that keep shooting other people, or themselves for that matter, are the problem.

and responding to people like lapierre and loesch as if they are freaking insane death zombies is not unreasonable.

[Pollo de muerte]

russell-

I don't have anything to say to Lapierre or Loesch either. You can add Marion Hammer to the list as well.

I'm fine with acknowledging that responsible gun owners need to speak out against NRA-gun industry craziness if you'll acknowledge that not every non-gun owner is willing to stop at not caring if we "hunt, or shoot target, or keep a gun in the house for self-defense".

Slippery slope arguments are generally lazy extrapolations, except when one side admits that they are trying to create a slippery slope.

[formerly known as cleek]

I feel like some of my well-off liberal white friends occasionally demonstrate a lack of empathy when it comes to firearm ownership.

sorry. the ever-present state of fear in which i'm required to live has worn my empathy center down to a tiny .22-sized nub (and then scooped-out its center, just for maximum ka-blooey!).

if only i wasn't always so busy wondering if i'm going to get shot by a formerly-responsible gun owner! alas.

i'm sure you can empathize.

[formerly known as cleek]

I'm fine with acknowledging that responsible gun owners need to speak out against NRA-gun industry craziness

in general, all gun owners are responsible gun owners, right up until the second that they do the deed that brings their last-known grainy photo into our lives.

until you can guarantee that a responsible gun owner will always be a responsible gun owner, the label says much less than you want it to. pointing out that that this particular responsible gun owner hasn't murdered a dozen strangers is just a reminder of the potential; there's always a silent "yet" at the end of the statement.

this responsible gun owner hasn't murdered a dozen strangers yet.

until then, we all have to wonder if he's going to snap at the next traffic stop, at work, in a hotel, in an elementary school, at a night club, a party, an overpass, from the truck of his car, etc..

guarantee me that responsibility is immutable and i'll start worrying about the feelings of gun owners.

[Pollo de muerte]

Actually I can empathize as is evident from the rest of my post above, but if the snark makes you feel better then go right ahead.

[formerly known as cleek]

Actually I can empathize...

and yet you say i'm just being snarky.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"and yet you say i'm just being snarky."

Everybody here just keeps horning into my gig, SHEESH!

[Girl from the North Country]

True situation as yet unclear, but it seems a car has driven into pedestrians outside the Natural History Museum in London. Motor vehicles now seem the weapon of choice for terrorist attacks in Europe....

[Marty]

Well you know what they say, everone is a little bit Snarki.