Imagine if we treated guns like cars
Shooter’s ed at 15
Beginner’s license
Full license at 16
Renewed every 4 yesrs
Insurance required
Carry one’s “shooter"s license” when toting a firearm.
7 Likes
Just curious if his wife used a heel to leave that knot on his head.
1 Like
Yup “license, registration and proof of insurance please?”.
5 Likes
I keep wondering what would happen if Tuck ran for POTUS 2024?
And you still don’t. You see the same kind of semi-automatic weapons have have been in civilian hands since at least the first decade of the 20th century, when Winchester was producing this:
Everything beyond the mechanics is all about fetishization of the military, insecure people feeling like they have no control over their lives, semi-pro victimhood, and marketing fear to drive sales.
I get it. I do. I was delivering a pizza one night in '97, real late, to a couple of stoners in a basement apartment, entrance in the back of the lot. I’m halfway around the house when the back door of the main part of the house opens up and a very angry guy in a banana hammock comes out, ratchets the slide on his shotgun, and points it right at my face demanding (of the person standing there in a domino’s shirt and hat, with a pizza box) ‘What’re you doing here?’ When I replied that I was delivering a pizza, he got even angrier and said ‘No you’re not’. To which, I agreed, went back to my car, and drove to the store. We made the stoners come get the pie so we could close, and never delivered to that house again.
I don’t know why he was so mad. Maybe he was on the downstroke with his wife and saw someone crossing the dark lawn and was just freaked and afraid. But I can still see that gun, big as the Lincoln Tunnel, less than a foot from my nose.
So, yeah, the whack-a-doos in camo being all tacti-cool and shit, compensating for their insecurities? I’m right there with you. It’s bullshit, born of predatory manipulation by right-wing politicians and the gun lobby.
But you know, I’ve made no secret that I grew up on-base. I grew up around Marines, among other folks. A lot of my friends over the years have been sailors, soldier, Marines… not so much in the airmen department. And I’ve known my share of libertarian nutjobs with literal filing cabinets where the drawers were filled with piles of pistols (for the record: 1. I have known 1. And I consider that the full measure of my fair share, and then some!).
The biggest takeaway I’ve had from all those years around firearms is… no, the guns being used in mass shootings are not military weapons. They are civilian weapons cosplaying as military weapons, just like the jackasses using them. Take the AR-15 in any of these situations away and replace it with an M-16, or an M4. Replace it with a G3, or an actual AK-47/74/AKR… body count would soar.
The absolute worst thing we can do with all of this is to let ourselves think ‘it’s these military-style weapons that are the problem’, because it doesn’t matter if they’re using an AR-15 or a Ruger Mini. 1 pull, 1 bullet, same number of corpses. In school shootings, they never need to reload during a room, only between, so a pair of revolvers or pistols would work just as well. And you don’t even want to consider the carnage that could be wrought in those sorts of close-quarters with a normal, pump-action shotgun.
All guns are deadly weapons. It’s what they’re for. But so are a lot of things, and there are legitimate use-cases for hunting tools, which is also what they’re for. I mean, that’s the whole point of hunting, right? Go out and use deadly force on something. Then maybe eat it.
By now, you guys should all know about where I stand on this, but just in case… I’d prefer, ideally, to get rid of semi-automatic weapons entirely. You wanna hunt, go get a spear or a bow. They make some really nice compound bows these days that are a lot quieter than a gun and make a deer just as dead. You wanna defend your home, learn to use a sword, or better, a cellphone to call the cops.
But we’re not gonna get that. We’re just not. And even if we did, 3D printing means that kind of ban is really pointless. Ultimately, it behooves us to address the root causes, and that goes way beyond ‘mental health’, right on to our half-century-long national epidemic, of which gun violence is a symptom.
We’re a nation that’s been infected with fear. The right-wing is always telling people to be afraid, always highlighting how ‘those people’ are coming for them. Ever since the 60s, they’ve been actively stoking the fears of rural whites, and that’s just snowballed as those frightened victims have perpetuated things. The big tipping point was 2010, when the Tea Party demonstrated that the con men had given way to the True Believers they’d been conning.
That is what we have to address if we want to get anything done on gun violence… and it’s gonna take decades of constant effort to make any headway at all.
Steve Scalise experienced an incident and because he’d spent decades steeped in fear, the attack only validated his fears.
6 Likes
Joe the Plumber is dead at 49, yet Trump still
3 Likes
There’s no Right to drive a car. Actually, if they had been around back then, there probably would be one, though.
In a more serious world where both sides were negotiating in good faith, you probably could end up with some graduated licensing system based on caliber and type of weapon, with increasing age and other restrictions for the deadliest. Something that doesn’t conflict with the 2A.
But neither side is interested in serious discussion, it’s both sides firmly dug into “ban it all” vs “no restrictions”, and about zero chance of that changing anytime soon.
1 Like
Sure, but bolt-action isn’t that much slower to fire, especially if you’re facing a bunch of panicked, untrained civilians, and the point about it being a Patriot is: bolt-actions != fixed mag.
1 Like
It’s also tan suit day. We forget about how petty the press corps were about that press conference when substantive issues were being discussed. You can see how they led to the rabbit hole of Trump.
5 Likes
Yeah, we’ve been here before:
Not only that, but we know it can work. This is from 2019:
I crunched some numbers back when that came out, and my back-of-the-envelope showed that a smaller price hike than Rock proposed had a stronger suppressant effect on a wider class of crimes than he predicted.
Chris Rock is another one of those people who I’d say is “just” a comedian.
cc: @eaharrison
4 Likes
Never said such a thing. I learned to shoot on a bolt action rifle with a detachable box magazine; a Savage in .22LR 
. Never heard of anyone using one of those for a mass shooting
Are we sure this isn’t Stallone?
3 Likes
Back in the '90s, there was Run C&W—made up of the four Burns Brothers (non-identical quadruplets including Rug Burns (Russell Smith of the Amazing Rhythm Aces) Crashen Burns (Bernie Leadon of the Eagles and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) Wash Burns (Jim Photoglo) and Side Burns (Vince Melamed) Their “father” was Dad Burns and their “mother” was Augusta “Au” Burns.
They recorded classic R&B and Soul songs in bluegrass/country arrangements. Two albums.
Russell Smith was an old friend of mine—as were the res of the Aces— from before The Amazing Rhythm Aces were born out of another band called Fatback. Sadly, in his last few years before he died, he became a Trumper, and none of us could figure it out. He was the lead vocalist.
2 Likes
Will Trump also organize a fundraise for this SOB?
5 Likes
Apparently real life Japanese actor Kunie Tanaka. Seems like all the admirals are based on real Japanese actors.
1 Like
It’s Republicans that seem to love living on the eve of destruction.
2 Likes
Samuel Joseph “Your-dead-child-doesn’t-trump-my-constitutional-rights” Wurzelbacher , rest in hell.
2 Likes
So what’s your back up plan, Pete? 30 seconds after they throw that garbage defense out the door you’ll be reduced 5A or spilling your guts. Choose.
4 Likes
My two cents on gunz
I am very much pro firearms, as far as normal cowboy and hunting stuff goes. I am not at all savvy with gun-nutz jargon or feverish 2A spew, and I don’t know all the rules and laws. Just an avg. knowledge about guns and gun safety…not an activist either way on the laws or politics of it.
There has to be some honor paid to legacy gun owners, even weapons we might not agree with. If they were legal at the time of purchase and the owners followed the rules and laws. Also must give a nod to reality…there are a lot of guns out there and THOSE people/weapons threaten me by their existence. I am not going to go weaponless.
I believe at a minimum, all background checks need to be very robust for all gun purchases. Fully comprehensive. I believe people need to be permitted and renewed. I believe 21 is a perfectly fine cutoff for age. I also think we need to look hard at different laws until someone is 25. Don’t know how that would work, but if there is any group of people who buy mass-killing capable weapons and go out and commit mass-killings…that age group has the worst track record.
All laws that touch upon gun ownership must be strictly enforced. Enrollment of weapons you possess. Red flags, restraining orders, convictions, and other ‘triggers’ have to have rigorous compliance. Magazine size limits/restrictions and other hardware bans…especially on all new sales is fine by me.
2 Likes
Of course not. But that’s because mass shootings tend to be conducted with… wait for it… the same gun that most of everything else is done with.
That’s why the AR-15 gets used so much. Not because it’s better for the purpose (again, the HK 417 A2’d be much better, between its more compact, easier-to-maneuver frame and more powerful cartridge w/the availability of frangible versions), but because the AR-15 is the most popular firearm in general, because of the military fetishist that started that cycle in the 1980s.
It’s like noting that when reporting on mass shootings, reporters tend to speak in English, and use Arabic numerals. Because, you know… that’s the most common combo of language and numbers where the shootings happen.
1 Like