Guns

[goldenvalley]

May 31, 2022 15:49:42 GMT LFC said:

Trump's performance at the NRA is beyond just his usual sick and twisted level of performance art. He just supplied another data point that he suffers from serious mental illness.

Former President Trump was met with backlash for his bizarre reading of the names of victims of the tragic Texas elementary school shooting during his speech at the NRA convention on Friday night — which concluded with a … dance.

Look at him up there trying to relive his glory days on the campaign trail in 2016. 

[goldenvalley]

May 31, 2022 16:01:46 GMT LFC said:

National Review published a piece that just came out and said it; so sad but it's the price we have to pay for gun access.

TPM Reader JT flagged this Uvalde/mass shooting editorial from The National Review. I found it notable for two very different reasons. The first is that the editorial states with a clarity, both horrifying and admirable, what we have been discussing over recent days: for pro-gun advocates child massacres are simply the very unfortunate price of being free. Here’s the key text: “We must reiterate that the Second Amendment protects a foundational individual right and that, however heartbreaking the behavior of their heinous criminals might be, free countries do not wantonly limit foundational individual rights that are, in well over 99 percent of cases, exercised by law-abiding citizens.”

The gun writing at National Review seems mostly under the influence of writer Charles Cooke, an immigrant from the UK who, if I’m remembering right, told me about a decade ago that it wasn’t that he was into guns personally but rather as an ideological and freedom thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any case, it’s nice to see the reality of the position stated so clearly.

But there’s something else I wanted to note about this editorial. It advocates raising the age at which people can buy AR-15s and all long guns from 18 to 21. This also appears to be a focus of discussion on Capitol Hill – though I’m not foolish enough to get my hopes up.

When I first saw this proposed I considered it yet another in that list of farcically marginal reforms. Certainly it is woefully inadequate to the challenge. But as I’ve read more about it and considered it more, there’s more to it than that. It’s worth doing.

A stunningly large number of mass shooters are between the ages of 18 and 21. Uvalde shooter, 18; Buffalo shooter 18; Newtown shooter, 20; Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter, 19. In addition to those in this three year age range many others are just above it. The shooter in the 2019 El Paso mass shooting was 23; the shooter in the AME Church mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina was 21. This isn’t random chance. There’s a lot we know about the teenage and young adult male brain that makes 18, 19 and 20 much higher risk for this stew of interlocking behaviors than men ten or twenty or for that matter even five years older. (Check out the actuarial tables that put a premium for auto insurance for men under the age of 25.) The shooters in Buffalo and Uvalde both appear to have waited until their 18th birthdays to purchase assault rifles to use in their massacres.

Of course young sociopaths can find other ways to get AR-15s. But getting them illegally is another way to get caught. You might say, “Well, they could still just buy a hand gun.” But in fact they can’t. Perversely, federal law requires purchasers of handguns to be 21. But you can buy rifles and shotguns (which includes all assault rifles) when you’re 18.

It’s not a huge change. But it’s a bigger one than it seems on the surface. Florida changed its state law to require purchasers of long guns to be at least 21 in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. Like The National Review, many conservatives who are open to this reform say it must be done at the state level for all the standard and nonsensical ‘federalism’ reasons. But that likely still leaves a substantial opening at the federal level.

It seems possible to do. It’s worth doing. We should try very hard to do it.

BTW they also play the "well there are so many guns now that there's nothing that can be done" card.

Very little of what Democrats have proposed as “common sense” measures has anything to do with what happened in Uvalde. Nothing that the president is pushing for would touch the 450 million firearms that are already in private hands.

I call bullshit. Register all guns. If an owner misuses or fails to secure their guns they get taken away. If caught with unregistered guns for any reason they get taken away and, like other felons, you lose the right to own or operate a firearm for the rest of your life. Let's implement FULL responsibility for owning a gun. Of course that would never fly with the all rights / no responsibilities crowd.

It's as if mass shootings are an act of nature like a tornado or earthquake.  Or perhaps the analogy is that gross one about rape..."might as well lie back and enjoy it."

[LFC]

May 31, 2022 16:07:27 GMT goldenvalley said:

Or perhaps the analogy is that gross one about rape..."might as well lie back and enjoy it."

"Might as well shoot back and enjoy it." Extra bonus because that sells more guns.

[pnwguy]

May 31, 2022 16:19:11 GMT LFC said:

"Might as well shoot back and enjoy it." Extra bonus because that sells more guns.

Sales pitch for ammo makers.  "An orgasm in every box!"

[pnwguy]

A great listen

www.thebulwark.com/podcast-episode/ryan-busse-the-nra-created-our-paranoid-conspiracy-culture/

[AnBr]

[LFC]

Studies show that more access to guns correlates with more firearms related deaths. Well, duh.

The US gun homicide rate is 26 times higher than that of other high-income countries, and its gun suicide rate is 12 times higher than that of other high-income countries.

More guns make people less safe, study after study has found. Access to firearms triples the risk of suicide and doubles the risk of homicide. States with higher rates of household firearm ownership had significantly higher homicide rates of men, women, and children, health experts at Harvard found in 2007. In 2015, another group of Harvard researchers found that states with the highest rates of gun ownership had rates of firearm assaults 6.8 times higher than states with the lowest rates of gun ownership.

In 2019, Columbia University health experts found that states with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings. Specifically, a 10 percent increase in state gun ownership was linked to a 35 percent higher rate of mass shootings. In 2021, researchers found that more gun dealers in an area were linked to increased homicides in subsequent years.

"The common thread in all of the country's revolting mass shootings is the absurdly easy access to guns," Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals wrote in an editorial Thursday. "The science is clear: Restrictions work, and it's likely that even more limitations would save thousands of lives."

A 2017 analysis in the journal Science found that gun violence could effectively be reduced by adopting add-on sentences for gun use in violent crime, bans on gun possession by those convicted of domestic violence, and restrictions on carrying concealed firearms in public.

A 2020 study by Johns Hopkins University health researchers concluded that gun-purchaser licensing laws coupled with comprehensive background check requirements were "consistently associated with lower firearm homicide and suicide rates." Specifically, when Connecticut adopted a handgun purchaser licensing law in 1995, the state saw an estimated 28 percent overall decrease in its firearm homicide rate and a 33 percent overall decrease in its firearm suicide rate. When Missouri repealed such a licensing law in 2007, it saw an estimated 47 percent overall increase in firearm homicides and a 23.5 percent increase in firearm suicide.

Also firearms are now the leading cause of death and injury, worse than car crashes.

[LFC]

The studies in this older article pretty much prove some fairly obvious stereotypes. More simply put, why yes, they do cling to their guns for emotional support.

From a survey of more than 1,500 Americans, sociologists at Texas’ Baylor University plumbed the demographics, characteristics, and opinions of 577 gun owners. As expected, gun owners held wildly different perspectives on their guns and gun control, the researchers report in Social Problems. In particular, there was a wide range in how “empowered” owners felt. That is, if they felt their guns made them some combination of safe, responsible, in control, valuable, respected, and/or patriotic.

Still, there were clear patterns.

Gun owners, on average, were more likely to be white, male, married, older, conservative, and from rural areas; they also tended to feel socially alienated, the authors report. Of the gun owners who didn’t feel very empowered by their guns, most were women, who also tended to be politically moderate. In general, the “least empowered” subsection of gun owners tended to clump into people who seemed to use guns simply for defense or as collectors’ items.

Those in the “most empowered” subgroup were most likely to be white men who reported feeling like they were in a financially precarious position. (Conversely, men of color were less likely to feel empowered by their firearms if they had money troubles.) The empowered white males were also more likely to strongly oppose gun control measures, such as bans on certain weapons, and less likely to support mental health screening for gun purchases. They were also the most likely to report that violence against the government might be necessary or justified.

In all, the authors conclude that white men use gun ownership to mitigate economic distress. In other words, “economic distress enhances the extent to which white men, specifically, come to rely on the semiotic power of a cultural symbol... [they] utilize guns as a foundational source of power and identity.”

Moreover, “because a vocal and passionate minority of gun owners continues to feel emotionally and morally dependent on guns,” the authors expect the notion of a “gun culture” to live on and gun control efforts to remain weak.

[LFC]

Democrats are speaking up. I doubt it will be enough but it's something. Come election time every Republican defending the status quo needs to be called a child killer. Their side coined "baby killer" so it's certainly fair play.

This happened in the House Judiciary Committee. The Republican's defense is beyond vile.

After a tense exchange during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on new gun legislation this Thursday, Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) challenged his Republican colleague, North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop, to mention a gun law that he would support.

"What do you support?" Jones asked Bishop.

"What are you willing to do to stop the epidemic of gun violence in this country?" Jones pressed. "Because you just referenced that, so I would love for you to articulate the efforts that you would be willing to undertake with your Democratic colleagues in this chamber today to stop the epidemic of gun violence in this country, sir."

"You look at what's happening, and then you actually do things that would address that," Bishop shot back.

"So you're not gonna answer the question because you don't actually have an approach other than to allow the status quo to remain?" Jones asked.

"Yeah -- I wouldn't let teachers prop doors open," Bishop said, referring to early news reports that said the Uvalde gunman entered the classroom through a door a teacher left open. "I would make sure that police are not discouraged from going in and saving children who are being assaulted while the assault is going on. I would not intimidate the police and tell them they ought to cease to exist."

Chuckles Gr-ass-ley was told by his own constituents to quit filibustering common sense gun laws.

Grassley noted that because "there are 400 million guns in the United States" and that "15 million of them are AR-15s... you’re still going to have AR-15s even if you stop selling them right now."

A woman sitting in the back of the room immediately shot that down.

“The answer is not to do nothing!” she exclaimed.

Grassley, however, reverted to his previous statement on the Senate's negotiations.

“The answer to your question is a process answer. Whatever we do through the Cornyn/Murphy cooperative effort to make schools safe and do what you can with guns, that probably would not get 60 votes," he said.

“Quit filibustering it then!” another person shouted, referring to Grassley personally blocking Murphy's unanimous consent request on universal background checks last December.

Gym Jordan went full metal "There's nothing we can do and what you want to do won't work!" in defense of unfettered gun access. Multiple Dems chewed him up for that. You can't blame him, of course. Doing nothing in the face of repeated criminal acts has been Gym's jam for a long time.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) was the first to fact check Jordan, saying comprehensive gun safety laws had been delayed for decades.

"The Democrats are not rushing anything," Cohen said. "The public is demanding we take action because they have seen what happened in Uvalde, Texas, they have seen what happened in Buffalo, they have seen what happened in Tulsa. It is happening all too often. It is deadly. Assault weapons were banned from 1994 to 2004, it was constitutionally permissible. It wasn't until 2008 and the Heller decision, when Justice [Antonin] Scalia said that people had a right based on the Second Amendment to protect their homes with reasonable weapons and said that that was not something that would prohibit government from having more restrictive laws on people with mental health problems or people who have criminal backgrounds or other possible changes in the law."

Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) went next, saying that Americans had failed the children killed in Uvalde, whom she identified by name, but she singled out Republican legislators for blame.

"One young man pulled the trigger, but we all have failed them," Garcia said. "America failed them and the other thousands of children who died as result of gun violence. Republicans are complicit in negligence and neglected to responsibly address comprehensive gun reform. Republicans are complicit in the shooting in Buffalo, for encouraging white supremacy and promoting replacement theory. The Republicans are complicit in the lives lost in Pulse [Nightclub] Florida for their homophobia and anti-human rights narrative. Republicans are complicit in El Paso for their anti-immigrant narrative and putting gun lobby interests over people's lives. House Democrats stand with the victims and the loved ones."

"We stand to act with the people, not gun interests," Garcia added. "We have been consistent, we are not rushing. We have already passed some bills. There are solutions, they are not premature. We have passed reforms and measures to ensure we are protecting our community, and most especially our little children, our angels."

Then Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) took his shots, reminding Jordan that guns were the leading cause of death for children and that more than 311,000 students had been exposed to gun violence since the Columbine massacre.
"Tell the parents who lost children, tell the family members who saw loved ones slaughtered that we are rushing," Cicilline said. "The real question is why has it taken us so long, and there is one reason: We don't have Republican colleagues in the fight with us. We passed two bills to strengthen criminal background checks. Our ranking member described those as radical attempts to take away the Second Amendment. That is a bill supported by 90 percent of the American people. Common sense, as well as closing the Charleston loophole. Enough with these bogus arguments about the Second Amendment. This is about fulfilling our responsibility to keep our constituents safe from gun violence."

And Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) put it right between their corrupt, beady little eyes. It prompted whining from that pathetic, stupid, worthless little shit Louie Gohmert. F*** you, Louie. Just f*** you.

During a hearing this Thursday, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) addressed his Republicans colleagues while mentioning the 19 students killed in the Uvalde school shooting, asking them, "Who are you here for?"

"Are you here for our kids, or are you here for the killers?" Swalwell said. "Because if you were here for the kids, you would do all you could to protect the next school shooting that's about to happen, and we know it's gonna happen in America."

"You would vote to raise the age on purchasing an assault rifle, you would vote to ban high-capacity magazines, you would vote to require safe storage, and you would vote to address ghost guns which are ravaging communities across America," Swalwell continued. "But if you're here for the killers, you would do everything to make it easier for the next school shooting to happen."

When Swalwell finished his comments, Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert angrily replied that he doesn't think it's very "effective for the children" for Democrats like Swalwell to accuse Republicans of "being complicit in murder, and that we put our right to kill over other's right to live -- to infer by supposed rhetorical questions, 'Who are you here for?' You must be here for the gunman,' is an outrage."

"How dare you!" Gohmert said, addressing Swalwell.

[LFC]

Other Republicans didn't just do the tap dance defense, they did the full-throated gun nut defense. This dipshit from Floriduh felt the need to wave his penis extension gun around to prove his manliness. If a non-gun nut tried to take a clip from another make/model of handgun and make a point that it didn't fit another handgun they'd be mocked by the gun nuts. This guy just proved he shouldn't be talking to anybody about firearms. His defiance in the face of somebody pointing out his irresponsibility with a loaded weapon proves he's not a "responsible gun owner."

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) on Thursday brandished a handgun before the camera while he was calling from his home to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on mass shootings.

During the hearing, Steube railed against Democrats for wanting to restrict the kinds of weapons Americans can buy in an effort to curb the prevalence of mass shootings in the United States.

At one point, he took out some of his own weapons and accused Democrats or wanting to ban it under proposed limits on the size of gun magazines.

"In front of me, I have a gun with a 21-round magazine," he said. "It would be banned. Here is a 12-round magazine, this magazine would be banned under the current bill. It doesn't fit because this gun was made for a 21 round magazine. This gun would be banned!"

RELATED: GOP Senator brags gun control ‘not gonna happen’ amid at least 60 separate shooting incidents in just one day

He then accused Democrats of wanting to ban the gun that he carries around with him "every day to protect myself, my family, my wife, my home."

At this point, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) interjected to say that she hoped Steube wasn't waving loaded guns around.

"I'm at my house!" he shot back. "I can do whatever I want with my guns!"

And here's Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a man almost as bad as Texass's other Senator, being blunt about obstruction.

Wednesday evening Americans learned of an active shooter situation at a Tulsa, Oklahoma hospital campus. Four people and the shooter died. But those who were keyed into social media soon learned there had been another shooting, at a high school in Los Angeles. And then horrifically, a third: at a Walmart in Pittson, Pennsylvania.

An NCRM investigation found at least 24 separate shooting incidents on Wednesday, based on published news reports, but the Gun Violence Archive, which also accesses police reports, documents 60 shootings on June 1.

As all of this was unfolding U.S. Senator John Cornyn tweeted, "Not gonna happen," in response to a far right-wing talk show host's claim that he is "open to making gun laws more restrictive."

Cornyn is the Texas Republican charged by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to make the GOP case in Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy's push to put together and pass gun control legislation after two mass shootings that got international attention recently.

Meanwhile, in Tulsa, four people had been shot dead and several others were injured. The gunman is believed to have killed himself. It is "the 233rd mass shooting of 2022."

[pnwguy]

Everyone knows you can't defend your home without a 100 round magazine. Those socialist antifa can surround your house in no time.

[LFC]

Republicans blame gun violence on everything but guns. Oh, yeah. And abortion. Of course abortion.

In the wake of three recent mass shootings in America in the last two weeks, Republicans are once again showing their collective ass, deploying a litany of talking points about random stuff to clog up the national discourse on gun violence with anything and everything but guns.

It’s all very pellucid — a distraction tactic to avoid engaging seriously on the issue of our nation’s unprecedentedly lax gun laws and the need for national — or even state level! — gun control reform. And Republican Rep. Billy Long (MO) just dangerously added a befuddling new culprit to the mix: abortion is to blame for mass shootings.

An auctioneer, somehow-turned congressman, Long is a pretty far-right Trump guy who announced his bid for the GOP nomination in Missouri’s crowded Senate primary race to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) on Tucker Carlson’s show. He recently voted against Ukraine aid and a baby formula bill in the House and is actively courting Trump for an endorsement ahead of the August primaries (but so are all of his opponents). Trump hasn’t done anything official on that front yet, but Long’s campaign has had some support from Trump-ally Kellyanne Conway leading up to the primaries.

That said, these latest remarks are not super surprising coming from someone like Long. During an interview with the Missouri radio station The Eagle 93.9 on Wednesday — just days after a gunman opened fire and murdered 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and on the same day that a gunman killed five at a medical facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma — Long suggested “an inanimate object” is not to blame for the mass shooting epidemic in this country.

Access to abortion, he said, is what’s made mass-casualty gun violence a uniquely American problem over the past several decades.

“When I was growing up in Springfield, you had one or two murders a year,” he said. “Now we have two, three, four a week in Springfield, Missouri.

“So something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was okay to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks,” he concluded.

They've now gone back to their usual programming and why shouldn't they be? They're base is more than fine with sacrificing tens of thousands over guns. FFS they were fine with over a million dying in two years over f***ing masks. Welcome to the cult of death.

In Kentucky today Mitch McConnell said there can only be a deal on guns if it doesn’t do anything on guns but rather focuses on the “real issues” of mental health and school safety. So it seems we’re getting to the end of the standard Republican cooling off period in which Republicans make sounds about moving on gun legislation until the initial shock of the latest child massacre has worn off and they can go back to “no.” But I wanted to address a question that has come up in many of your emails in recent days about a notional bipartisan Senate deal on guns.

The hypothetical goes like this. Say there’s a deal but it’s a deal over something really, really minor, even marginal. Maybe it’s a red flag law or a 21 year old age limit on certain gun purchases. Many of you have asked whether it’s worth it to allow Republicans some “credit” on the gun issue or take some of the pressure off them in exchange for something so minor. A number of you think it’s not.

There’s a real ethical question about whether we should look at legislation through such a prism. But I think we can set that aside. Because the premise here is just wrong. If Republicans allow a vote on some minor reform no one who cares about this issue is going to change their minds about the Republican role on the national gun issue. But even more important they’re not looking for credit! They don’t need it. The premise here is that Democrats somehow have Republicans on the ropes on the gun issue. Working with them on some minor reform will take the pressure off them and make deeper reforms less likely.

This is a fantasy.

Republicans aren’t under any pressure. They don’t care about the “credit” and they actually wouldn’t get much credit. As a strategic stance, Republicans are actually right to think that since there really isn’t much pressure, “no” is the best position. Once you agree to even minor reforms on an issue of such grave public concern you’ve validated that it’s a problem and that legislators can at least do somethings to address it, even if they’re not total solutions. It’s not like the dam would break if a few small reforms passed. But any trend would be in that direction more than the opposite.

Progress is progress. Don’t overthink it. Thinking that Democrats need to drive a hard bargain to give Republicans any “credit” is just a total misunderstanding of the political reality of the situation. Republicans aren’t hurting over this. They’re fine.

[LFC]

Ted Cruz has calculated that 19 kids dead, especially Hispanic kids, won't matter as much as licking the NRA's collective taint when his next election comes around. I'm sure he's right.

Not to brag or anything, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) knows better than to let a mass shooting in his state keep him from going to the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston three days later.

“I thought it was important to be there,” Cruz said during his podcast on Thursday. “I was disappointed to see so many others make the decision not to be there.”

The senator complained that the NRA was being treated unfairly in the wake of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 kids and two adults dead.

“The media and the Democrats, they want to label anyone who believes in the Second Amendment, anyone who defends the Second Amendment, as responsible for this horrific crime, and the NRA in particular is probably their favorite boogeyman,” he said.

[pnwguy]

Jun 3, 2022 0:37:36 GMT LFC said:

Ted Cruz has calculated that 19 kids dead, especially Hispanic kids, won't matter as much as licking the NRA's collective taint when his next election comes around. I'm sure he's right.

Not to brag or anything, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) knows better than to let a mass shooting in his state keep him from going to the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston three days later.

“I thought it was important to be there,” Cruz said during his podcast on Thursday. “I was disappointed to see so many others make the decision not to be there.”

The senator complained that the NRA was being treated unfairly in the wake of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 kids and two adults dead.

“The media and the Democrats, they want to label anyone who believes in the Second Amendment, anyone who defends the Second Amendment, as responsible for this horrific crime, and the NRA in particular is probably their favorite boogeyman,” he said.

www.theonion.com/wayne-lapierre-states-mass-shootings-can-be-perfectly-s-1848983158

[AnBr]

‘Ignore Guns, Talk Inflation’: Memos Show GOP Strategy After the Uvalde Massacre

Stay cool. Run out the clock. Scare some gun nuts while you can. But don’t worry: this moment will be over soon.

That’s the message the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and conservative leaders rapidly coalesced around after a series of mass shootings in recent weeks, including at one at a Texas elementary school.

Several strategy memos and private communications, prepared for a variety of conservative candidates and organizations, reviewed by Rolling Stone in the days following the Uvalde school massacre were clear: change the topic to literally anything else, and let this news cycle run its course.

“Ignore guns, talk inflation,” one such memo, written for a top-tier GOP Senate candidate, succinctly reads, citing polling data of voter concerns ahead of the critical 2022 midterm elections. Other documents predictably decried liberal desires for “gun-grabbing” and “gun confiscation,” and made whataboutism-type references to gun violence in Chicago.

Now repeat after me and keep saying it until November: "Republicans are baby killers!!!" Don't let anyone forget.

[jackd]

But Goehmert will object!

[AnBr]

[LFC]

AFAIC Sen. John Thune (R-SD) just admitted that he's unfit to own a firearm since he doesn't understand them.

FYI here's an actual round that's suitable for prairie dogs and a .223 round used in an AR-15. The .223 is sized for targets ranging roughly from coyotes (25-35 lbs out West, up to over 50 lbs in the East) to humans, so creatures 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than prairie dogs (just a few pounds).

[LFC]

They continue to market weapons of war to "men" who cling to childish hero fantasies. Daniel Defense is at it even after one of their firearms was used to slaughter children in Uvalde.

As with its other AR-15 style rifles, the company appeals to the civilian couch commando by noting that its original rifle rail was “developed for SOCOM.” Implied is that you do not need to be told that SOCOM stands for Special Operations Command; their customers are supposed to be in the know.

At least Daniel Defense has been upfront about selling what are essentially military weapons of war to civilians. One of its ads features a photo of prone figures in combat gear who have apparently just been helicoptered into battle and now are peering down the barrels of their rifles.

“USE WHAT THEY USE,” the ad says.

At least it's not quite as heinous as the one Remington was sued for, but it's damn close.

But Daniel Defense has also invoked its military connections to feed civilian fantasies that can turn deadly. In March, gun-maker Remington’s appeal to the same vein of violent imaginings—”FORCES OF OPPOSITION, BOW DOWN. YOU ARE SINGLE-HANDEDLY OUTNUMBERED”—resulted in a $78 million settlement with the families of the 20 children and six adults murdered with one of its AR-15s at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

A similar lawsuit is beginning to take shape in Uvalde, and Daniel Defense has already received a query from a survivor’s lawyer about its marketing. That would include a video on its website titled “The Next Generation Rifles DD4 RIII.”

The video begins with the click of a round being jacked into a chamber, followed by gunfire as a civilian in a plaid shirt blazes away with a Daniel Defense rifle on a range. A soundtrack somewhere between that of an action movie and a horror film continues playing as the video cuts to a man in a uniform such as a special forces operator or SWAT team cop might wear. He is sighting down a similar rifle, but is holding his fire as he steps deliberately forward. He proves to be just one of a squad of operators apartment advancing on an objective.

The video then cuts back to two other civilians, outdoorsy Alpha males carrying Daniel Defense rifles. They walk one behind the other and then side by side, bonded in the way of off-duty operators. One has a confident smile. The other is just supremely cool.

The pair then begins blazing away at the range. The cool one changes a magazine and resumes, just as the empty magazines indicate Ramos must have done while shooting youngsters in Uvalde.

The video then returns to the man in the plaid shirt seen at the beginning, firing as before. It closes with the man in the special operator/SWAT uniform, peering down the barrel of his Daniel Defense rifle. The last image is of him cradling the rifle, his hand in tactical gloves such as Ramos was wearing.

Children. F***ing children. Still, they are dangerous in their fantasies how much they are untethered from reality.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 8, 2022 17:46:49 GMT LFC said:

They continue to market weapons of war to "men" who cling to childish hero fantasies. Daniel Defense is at it even after one of their firearms was used to slaughter children in Uvalde.

As with its other AR-15 style rifles, the company appeals to the civilian couch commando by noting that its original rifle rail was “developed for SOCOM.” Implied is that you do not need to be told that SOCOM stands for Special Operations Command; their customers are supposed to be in the know.

At least Daniel Defense has been upfront about selling what are essentially military weapons of war to civilians. One of its ads features a photo of prone figures in combat gear who have apparently just been helicoptered into battle and now are peering down the barrels of their rifles.

“USE WHAT THEY USE,” the ad says.

At least it's not quite as heinous as the one Remington was sued for, but it's damn close.

But Daniel Defense has also invoked its military connections to feed civilian fantasies that can turn deadly. In March, gun-maker Remington’s appeal to the same vein of violent imaginings—”FORCES OF OPPOSITION, BOW DOWN. YOU ARE SINGLE-HANDEDLY OUTNUMBERED”—resulted in a $78 million settlement with the families of the 20 children and six adults murdered with one of its AR-15s at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

A similar lawsuit is beginning to take shape in Uvalde, and Daniel Defense has already received a query from a survivor’s lawyer about its marketing. That would include a video on its website titled “The Next Generation Rifles DD4 RIII.”

The video begins with the click of a round being jacked into a chamber, followed by gunfire as a civilian in a plaid shirt blazes away with a Daniel Defense rifle on a range. A soundtrack somewhere between that of an action movie and a horror film continues playing as the video cuts to a man in a uniform such as a special forces operator or SWAT team cop might wear. He is sighting down a similar rifle, but is holding his fire as he steps deliberately forward. He proves to be just one of a squad of operators apartment advancing on an objective.

The video then cuts back to two other civilians, outdoorsy Alpha males carrying Daniel Defense rifles. They walk one behind the other and then side by side, bonded in the way of off-duty operators. One has a confident smile. The other is just supremely cool.

The pair then begins blazing away at the range. The cool one changes a magazine and resumes, just as the empty magazines indicate Ramos must have done while shooting youngsters in Uvalde.

The video then returns to the man in the plaid shirt seen at the beginning, firing as before. It closes with the man in the special operator/SWAT uniform, peering down the barrel of his Daniel Defense rifle. The last image is of him cradling the rifle, his hand in tactical gloves such as Ramos was wearing.

Children. F***ing children. Still, they are dangerous in their fantasies how much they are untethered from reality.

Sometimes I think modern life is too soft for some people or somewhere they missed the maturing phase of life.  They lack a sense of themselves and seek it in pretend warfare...whether it's gaming or shooting off a lot of ammo at nothing in particular.

[LFC]

Jun 8, 2022 18:58:48 GMT goldenvalley said:

Sometimes I think modern life is too soft for some people or somewhere they missed the maturing phase of life.  They lack a sense of themselves and seek it in pretend warfare...whether it's gaming or shooting off a lot of ammo at nothing in particular.

Judging from how charismatic people have been able to incite people to violence throughout history I'm not convinced it's a particularly modern issue. I think we may have just been lucky to live through a nice stretch of sanity.

[AnBr]

States with the most gun violence share one trait

But there's one thing that is indisputable in the available data on gun violence -- and the data is limited since until recently the federal government was effectively barred from gathering it.

The indisputable fact is that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths.

This is true despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's attempt to explain away gun deaths at the elementary school in his state this week by comparing them to gun violence in Chicago.

"I hate to say this, but there are more people who were shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas," Abbott said on Wednesday, arguing stricter gun laws are not a solution.

There are indeed a horrific number of gun deaths in Chicago each year. CNN has covered the problem.

But there are more gun deaths in Texas, by far, than in any other state, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Texas suffered 4,164 gun deaths in 2020, the most recent year for which the CDC has published data.

That's a rate of 14.2 deaths per 100,000 Texans.

California, by comparison, saw 3,449 deaths, a gun death rate of 8.5.

Texas does not have the highest gun death rate, however. Far from it.

The top states by gun death rates are:

• Mississippi -- 28.6.
• Louisiana -- 26.3.
• Wyoming -- 25.9.
• Missouri -- 23.9.
• Alabama -- 23.6.
• Alaska -- 23.5

Here's where the lack of good federal data haunts us. It's hard to find solid gun ownership rates. The RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization, has tried and published data on average gun ownership by state between 2007 and 2016.

All of those states with the highest gun death rates are among the ones with the highest gun ownership rates.

• Mississippi -- 50% of adults live in a household with a gun.
• Louisiana -- 48%.
• Wyoming -- 59%.
• Missouri -- 48%.
• Alabama -- 50%.
• Alaska -- 59%.

Where there are fewer guns, there are fewer gun deaths. The states with the lowest gun death rates in 2020, per the CDC (alongside the percentage of homes with a gun in 2007-2016, per RAND) were:

• Hawaii -- 3.4 (8% of adults live in a household with a gun).
• Massachusetts -- 3.7 (10%).
• New Jersey -- 5 (8%).
• Rhode Island -- 5.1 (11%).
• New York -- 5.3 (14%).

[indy]

And, of course, what's funny is that while Chicago has become the right's go to city for scary urban areas, it isn't even close to being the worst city for gun violence. It's somewhere around 20th for all gun violence (fatal and non-fatal shootings) and around 12th for fatal shootings on a per-capita basis.

[LFC]

Republican gun control "debate" is a clown show. I can't even excerpt the multiple examples of stupidity and cluelessness. Add this one to the pile of stupid.

[LFC]

They absolutely refuse to do anything but encourage the purchase of more guns.

Responding to the increase in mass shootings Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday evening voted to raise the minimum age to buy semiautomatic weapons, like the popular AR-15 style assault rifle, from 18 to 21.

The measure passed 228-199, with all but ten Republicans voting against it. Two Democrats also opposed the bill.