We’ve been at this point over and over again in America: will this be the one that punches through the wall of money the NRA and the weapons industry it fronts for wraps around Republicans?
I personally think guns should be outright banned, but... Thom hit on something I started thinking about after one of the other big shootings. GUNS vs CARS. I think we all agree that cars are great to we should have the right to own and drive them. But cars can be dangerous when people that are reckless or incompetent drive them. Guns are much the same. So as a society we require cars to be registered and pass safety checks. Drivers must pass a test proving they know the rules and are competent to operate them safely just as car owners are responsible their cars. Drivers are also required to carry insurance. All this to protect other people. Guns are wide open to anyone except felons just like cars are wide open to everyone except reckless, incompetent or drunk drivers who lose their license. So we treat guns like cars. I suspect guns lovers and gun haters won't like this but it sounds like something that might move the ball forward.
Sometimes I find it helps to view this issue from the perspective of the morbidly rich (i.e., those who do things adverse to our rights and/or communities’ interests). In this case, these are the sociopaths that make America’s decisions on how we address guns and the horrible consequences of gun violence, and they pass their orders to their hirelings in Congress. If I were a gun oligarch, I would regard guns as one of the great wedge issues of all time because it’s a twofer. First, it can be used to frighten and enrage our poorly educated into voting for pro-gun whores, and second, it’s a remarkable profit generator as well. Another feature of guns is that when gun atrocities get reported, they can round up their marks for another NRA convention in a big city nearby, and sell a shitload more guns. If Congress ever passes “common sense” gun regulations, those who are the Congress’s rent boys and girls for the morbidly rich (e.g., The Kerr 50) will lose an important wedge issue in their quest to scare the morbidly stupid into getting them reelected. Therefore, if I were a gun plutocrat, I would ask myself, “should I allow my Congressional toadies to actually promote the general welfare of our fellow citizens and stop this insane gun violence or should I tell them to fuck it, avoid the media till things cool down, and distract the chumps with a fancy convention in Houston or Dallas?" Considering the countless lives lost up until yesterday, do you think that a gun oligarch would now start to give a shit about what happened?
Never mind the NaziRepublican Party for a moment, what about the leaderships of the Democracy Party?
Yes, 100% of the NaziRepublican Party politicians accept guns sales commissions (laundered into legal bribes by the NRA), but so do 60% of Democracy Party politicians.
The root cause of this problem is US citizens voting repeatedly for members of the US congress who ignore their constitutional sworn duty to implement laws that benefit the citizens, and focus entirely on increasing sales commissions (laundered into legal bribes) from war profiteers, insurance scams, and communications companies. Oh, and US gun sales, but killing children in the USA only represents a TINY sales commission compared to killing children overseas.
Gun violence is such a small income source, the politicians will easily give it up with the slightest provocation. Too bad that while almost all Americans agree with gun regulations that worked in the USA, very few Americans even know that this gun insanity is a relatively recent change, or care enough to call every politician and raise hello H.
No, why would they? For Conservatives, Republicans, sanctity of life is only for the unborn, after birth the sanctity of guns trump's the sanctity of the lives of born men, women, and children.
It's a congregation of GUN WORSHIPERS, for whom guns trump the commandment, Thou shalt not kill. It's a congregation of TRUMP WORSHIPERS, who devoutly believe their demi-god Donald Trump always speaks the truth and can do no wrong,
Even after 30,,000 lies and counting. These are not mentally well people.
THESE ARE PEOPLE FOR WHOM GUNS AND LIES TRUMP LIVES AND TRUTH.
This is a great analysis, and an awesome opportunity to overcome the collective positions about US gun policies: Get a million people and their neighbors to call their legislators to adopt San Jose's requirement that all gun owners must have a liability policy to pay for the damage caused by their guns. It should be expensive to inflict harm on other people. And questioning the bizarre ban on collecting gun related medical data should accompany the suggestion. It's a 'common sense' piece meal solution, for sure, but it may be a start. Our children and teachers should not have to live in a 'sick' environment every day they show up at school. Zero tolerance.
Mr. Hartman citation:
There are other commonsense solutions, like universal background checks, we could also put into law.
For example, back in the early years of the 20th century when cars had become so common they were regularly killing people in auto accidents, states hit on a simple formula to encourage safe driving and maintain clear lines of responsibility when things went wrong.
• *Every car was required to be registered every year with the state; if it was found out in public without registration it could be confiscated.
• *Every driver was required to prove knowledge of how to safely drive, with both a written and a real-life driving test.
• *And every driver was required to carry liability insurance, so if there was an accident the victims were covered, regardless of who was at fault.
For about 100 years drivers have lived with these three simple requirements, and they’ve worked. The liability insurance is particularly effective: as a “free market solution,” insurance companies now compile information on drivers’ safety records, including their history of violence, and set their rates accordingly.
Think about it: if Adam Lanza had murdered those kids at Sandy Hook by mowing them down in the street with his mom’s SUV, their families would have gotten $1 million each from Geico (for example). But because he killed them with a gun, they got nothing; even survivors of mass shootings and “accidents” get nothing for medical bills.
The only city in America who’s taken a cue from that century of insurance experience is San Jose, California which in 2021 put a liability insurance requirement into place for all gun owners in the city.
If you’ve committed gun-related crimes or your guns have killed people in the past, the “free market” for insurance will make it very expensive to own a gun; if you’re a gun owner who keeps your weapons in a gun safe and uses trigger guards, your rates will be nominal.
One of the main reasons fewer children are dying in car accidents now than a decade or two ago is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been compiling statistics for decades and has repeatedly identified safety flaws in particular vehicles or the way they’re used.
Gun safety advocates have, for years, called for a federal agency to compile gun injury and death statistics, but a bought-off member of Congress, Arkansas Republican Jay Dickey, attached the notorious “Dickey Amendment” to a must-pass omnibus spending bill in 1996.
In response to a growing number of research papers in the 1980s and early 1990s calling gun deaths a national health crisis and demanding federally funded science on the issue, his NRA-sponsored amendment banned any federal dollars from being used to research gun injuries or deaths in the US.
As The New England Journal of Medicine noted:
“Although substantial federal funding has been devoted to research on motor vehicle crashes, the firearm industry and gun-rights organizations, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), have been effective at keeping federal dollars from financing firearm-related research.”
I wonder if it will take another 20 years. The children growing up with active-shooter drills and the horrors of what we see when it isn't a drill will come into power. When they take over Congress and the Supreme Court, they will get gun ownership reform done. The David Hogg's of the world are not out of college yet, but I hope they run for office as soon as they can. No doubt they will want something better for their own kids.
As the mass killings have moved to the malls, concerts, churches, movie theaters, and grocery stores, more people know they are not safe anywhere. Now they need to know who their senators and representatives are in their state legislature and in Congress. We could do it tomorrow, not in 20 years.
You know how the gun lovers talk about how if everyone had been packing at each massacre that there wouldn’t be so many dead?
https://www.businessinsider.com/nra-conference-wont-allow-attendees-to-bring-their-guns-2022-5
I wonder if they can bring pies?
I personally think guns should be outright banned, but... Thom hit on something I started thinking about after one of the other big shootings. GUNS vs CARS. I think we all agree that cars are great to we should have the right to own and drive them. But cars can be dangerous when people that are reckless or incompetent drive them. Guns are much the same. So as a society we require cars to be registered and pass safety checks. Drivers must pass a test proving they know the rules and are competent to operate them safely just as car owners are responsible their cars. Drivers are also required to carry insurance. All this to protect other people. Guns are wide open to anyone except felons just like cars are wide open to everyone except reckless, incompetent or drunk drivers who lose their license. So we treat guns like cars. I suspect guns lovers and gun haters won't like this but it sounds like something that might move the ball forward.
Sometimes I find it helps to view this issue from the perspective of the morbidly rich (i.e., those who do things adverse to our rights and/or communities’ interests). In this case, these are the sociopaths that make America’s decisions on how we address guns and the horrible consequences of gun violence, and they pass their orders to their hirelings in Congress. If I were a gun oligarch, I would regard guns as one of the great wedge issues of all time because it’s a twofer. First, it can be used to frighten and enrage our poorly educated into voting for pro-gun whores, and second, it’s a remarkable profit generator as well. Another feature of guns is that when gun atrocities get reported, they can round up their marks for another NRA convention in a big city nearby, and sell a shitload more guns. If Congress ever passes “common sense” gun regulations, those who are the Congress’s rent boys and girls for the morbidly rich (e.g., The Kerr 50) will lose an important wedge issue in their quest to scare the morbidly stupid into getting them reelected. Therefore, if I were a gun plutocrat, I would ask myself, “should I allow my Congressional toadies to actually promote the general welfare of our fellow citizens and stop this insane gun violence or should I tell them to fuck it, avoid the media till things cool down, and distract the chumps with a fancy convention in Houston or Dallas?" Considering the countless lives lost up until yesterday, do you think that a gun oligarch would now start to give a shit about what happened?
Never mind the NaziRepublican Party for a moment, what about the leaderships of the Democracy Party?
Yes, 100% of the NaziRepublican Party politicians accept guns sales commissions (laundered into legal bribes by the NRA), but so do 60% of Democracy Party politicians.
The root cause of this problem is US citizens voting repeatedly for members of the US congress who ignore their constitutional sworn duty to implement laws that benefit the citizens, and focus entirely on increasing sales commissions (laundered into legal bribes) from war profiteers, insurance scams, and communications companies. Oh, and US gun sales, but killing children in the USA only represents a TINY sales commission compared to killing children overseas.
Gun violence is such a small income source, the politicians will easily give it up with the slightest provocation. Too bad that while almost all Americans agree with gun regulations that worked in the USA, very few Americans even know that this gun insanity is a relatively recent change, or care enough to call every politician and raise hello H.
No, why would they? For Conservatives, Republicans, sanctity of life is only for the unborn, after birth the sanctity of guns trump's the sanctity of the lives of born men, women, and children.
It's a congregation of GUN WORSHIPERS, for whom guns trump the commandment, Thou shalt not kill. It's a congregation of TRUMP WORSHIPERS, who devoutly believe their demi-god Donald Trump always speaks the truth and can do no wrong,
Even after 30,,000 lies and counting. These are not mentally well people.
THESE ARE PEOPLE FOR WHOM GUNS AND LIES TRUMP LIVES AND TRUTH.
Time to repeal the 2en amendment. Michael Moore pointed out; bullets hadn't even been invented when it was written.
This is a great analysis, and an awesome opportunity to overcome the collective positions about US gun policies: Get a million people and their neighbors to call their legislators to adopt San Jose's requirement that all gun owners must have a liability policy to pay for the damage caused by their guns. It should be expensive to inflict harm on other people. And questioning the bizarre ban on collecting gun related medical data should accompany the suggestion. It's a 'common sense' piece meal solution, for sure, but it may be a start. Our children and teachers should not have to live in a 'sick' environment every day they show up at school. Zero tolerance.
Mr. Hartman citation:
There are other commonsense solutions, like universal background checks, we could also put into law.
For example, back in the early years of the 20th century when cars had become so common they were regularly killing people in auto accidents, states hit on a simple formula to encourage safe driving and maintain clear lines of responsibility when things went wrong.
• *Every car was required to be registered every year with the state; if it was found out in public without registration it could be confiscated.
• *Every driver was required to prove knowledge of how to safely drive, with both a written and a real-life driving test.
• *And every driver was required to carry liability insurance, so if there was an accident the victims were covered, regardless of who was at fault.
For about 100 years drivers have lived with these three simple requirements, and they’ve worked. The liability insurance is particularly effective: as a “free market solution,” insurance companies now compile information on drivers’ safety records, including their history of violence, and set their rates accordingly.
Think about it: if Adam Lanza had murdered those kids at Sandy Hook by mowing them down in the street with his mom’s SUV, their families would have gotten $1 million each from Geico (for example). But because he killed them with a gun, they got nothing; even survivors of mass shootings and “accidents” get nothing for medical bills.
The only city in America who’s taken a cue from that century of insurance experience is San Jose, California which in 2021 put a liability insurance requirement into place for all gun owners in the city.
If you’ve committed gun-related crimes or your guns have killed people in the past, the “free market” for insurance will make it very expensive to own a gun; if you’re a gun owner who keeps your weapons in a gun safe and uses trigger guards, your rates will be nominal.
One of the main reasons fewer children are dying in car accidents now than a decade or two ago is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been compiling statistics for decades and has repeatedly identified safety flaws in particular vehicles or the way they’re used.
Gun safety advocates have, for years, called for a federal agency to compile gun injury and death statistics, but a bought-off member of Congress, Arkansas Republican Jay Dickey, attached the notorious “Dickey Amendment” to a must-pass omnibus spending bill in 1996.
In response to a growing number of research papers in the 1980s and early 1990s calling gun deaths a national health crisis and demanding federally funded science on the issue, his NRA-sponsored amendment banned any federal dollars from being used to research gun injuries or deaths in the US.
As The New England Journal of Medicine noted:
“Although substantial federal funding has been devoted to research on motor vehicle crashes, the firearm industry and gun-rights organizations, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), have been effective at keeping federal dollars from financing firearm-related research.”
I wonder if it will take another 20 years. The children growing up with active-shooter drills and the horrors of what we see when it isn't a drill will come into power. When they take over Congress and the Supreme Court, they will get gun ownership reform done. The David Hogg's of the world are not out of college yet, but I hope they run for office as soon as they can. No doubt they will want something better for their own kids.
As the mass killings have moved to the malls, concerts, churches, movie theaters, and grocery stores, more people know they are not safe anywhere. Now they need to know who their senators and representatives are in their state legislature and in Congress. We could do it tomorrow, not in 20 years.
Here is a radical but not so crazy solution to guns by Brynn Tannehill
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1529460976302624768.html