Guns

[Kelt]

I'm aware of that, but if the guy is prepared to risk his career, and a federal firearms felony to carry his blued-steel dick everywhere his paranoia demands, he certainly doesn't care about being caught with a hidey-hole in the Jeep.

I agree.. I was more pointing out the somewhat unbelievable fact that having a gap, space, or hole somewhere in your car can be considered an offense.

Cars, by the very nature of engineering, is full of gaps, and now it's feasible that a cop could ticket/arrest you because, hey, you could have had a gun inside your spare tire.

But, yeah, someone who feels his life depends on carrying a gun is probably not giving a flying fuck about being caught in possession of a gun, let alone being caught in possession of a hole.

[wr250]

I agree.. I was more pointing out the somewhat unbelievable fact that having a gap, space, or hole somewhere in your car can be considered an offense.

Cars, by the very nature of engineering, is full of gaps, and now it's feasible that a cop could ticket/arrest you because, hey, you could have had a gun inside your spare tire.

But, yeah, someone who feels his life depends on carrying a gun is probably not giving a flying fuck about being caught in possession of a gun, let alone being caught in possession of a hole.

goatse comment not written

[VtaGeezer]

It used to be the family would take care of these issues.  Now we've convinced ourselves we need a nanny government to take care of us.

This is a red herring on both sides.  Few need worry about the doddering geezer neighbor with a dusty arsenal. The threat is the self-entitled pushiness of the NRA-led gun fetishists, who regardless of horrors like Sandy Hook, or 240 years of pre-Scalia legal sanity on weapons, now perceive the 2nd Amendment as an absolute.  In truth, the 2nd Amendment has, with persistent political manipulation by the NRA under La Pierre, morphed into a cultural malignancy.  We haven't yet been presented with the butcher bill for the gun-selling orgy of the past decade; Sandy Hook was merely a precursor.

[Jackstar]

Sandy Hook was merely a precursor.

Staged.


Also: how is calling upon the local constabulary to enforce safety and civil order not "a mechanism?" That's what they are for. What do we need, a gun-confiscating robot that runs on paperwork and EBT? Pffft.

[Little Hater]

This is a red herring on both sides.  Few need worry about the doddering geezer neighbor with a dusty arsenal. The threat is the self-entitled pushiness of the NRA-led gun fetishists, who regardless of horrors like Sandy Hook, or 240 years of pre-Scalia legal sanity on weapons, now perceive the 2nd Amendment as an absolute.  In truth, the 2nd Amendment has, with persistent political manipulation by the NRA under La Pierre, morphed into a cultural malignancy.  We haven't yet been presented with the butcher bill for the gun-selling orgy of the past decade; Sandy Hook was merely a precursor.

Like the bloodbath that you folks insisted would result from state after state liberalizing it's concealed carry laws? People with concealed weapons permits (called CPL - Concealed Pistol License - here in Michigan) are statistically the most law-abiding people in the country. Let me know when that 'butcher bill' is presented.

[Kelt]

Staged.


Also: how is calling upon the local constabulary to enforce safety and civil order not "a mechanism?" That's what they are for. What do we need, a gun-confiscating robot that runs on paperwork and EBT? Pffft.

Doing something ad hoc, for example calling the cops, is not a mechanism.

Where are the established regulations that you call the cops, rather than your local gun shop, or your local dementia support group and have them deal with it, or that you go and try to disarm the guy in the middle of the night by breaking in through a downstairs window and rifling through his shit until you find his gun... or simply initiate a firefight between your two houses until someone is killed?

Randomly deciding to call cops, who may or may not have jurisdiction over potential mental health issues, and who may or may not take you seriously, and who may or may not come round to his house, and who may or may not illegally or legally (who knows) confiscate his weapon... that's not a mechanism.

A mechanism would be, say, a routine mental and physical health assessment that allows one to legally wield a firearm.

I've a buddy who had a stroke a few years back.. he's mentally competent, working at a high level of local government, but he shakes like a motherfucker at random times.  A gun in his hands is going to be pointed everywhere but at the target.  He could probably go buy a rifle, though, because he has no criminal record.

Now him I WOULD be nervous around if he were holding a gun, and not because he's a sociopath, suffering dementia, or likely to lose his shit and randomly start blasting away, but because physically he's incompetent.

[NowhereInTime]

Staged.

If that's just jokes, fine.  Not funny, but fine.   If you are a Sandy hook Hoaxer than you are filth of the lowest order. 
I lived there 4 years; my brother 12 and counting.  I have friends who live within 200 yards of the firehouse; my brother is off Riverside about a mile away.
The devastation was (is) real.  The families are real.  Lanza was real.   How anyone can call this a hoax or "staged" is beyond reason or rationale.

[Yorkshire pud]

If that's just jokes, fine.  Not funny, but fine.   If you are a Sandy hook Hoaxer than you are filth of the lowest order. 
I lived there 4 years; my brother 12 and counting.  I have friends who live within 200 yards of the firehouse; my brother is off Riverside about a mile away.
The devastation was (is) real.  The families are real.  Lanza was real.   How anyone can call this a hoax or "staged" is beyond reason or rationale.

Because the filth that say it was a hoax say it because they feel important, relevant, and smug. That they've never been in such a situation speaks volumes as they dribble down their vest. It's great when such trolls are tracked down, for some reason they can't repeat the bile they find so easy to type.

[missing transmission]

Yeah? There aren't many of us..Far from me?

In frozen Geordie Land!

---

And for our USAians colleagues this means some of us talk like this

Geordie Comedy From The Late 1970s - Part One

[VtaGeezer]

   How anyone can call this a hoax or "staged" is beyond reason or rationale.

It's mass delusional hysteria like before seen only in religion, with the Internet linking the previously isolated wobbly minds so they may feed their paranoia into their conspiracy blog echo chambers, where every rational counterargument is immediately dismissed as yet another part of the Great Conspiracy that only they may clearly perceive. 

[Catsmile]

American men will soon need to treat each other like strange dogs; avoid eye contact, no quick moves, do nothing that may be viewed as provocative. 

We called that respect when I was a kid.
Most everyone was nice and helpful to everyone else, not fearful.
Don't go around staring at people acting like an ass, or else said ass might get kicked, or worse.
Barring lack of respect, a little fear makes for a polite society.

Part of the problem today is the way the legal system is so eager to make a criminal out of it's citizens, and how litigious Americans have become.
Around here 40-60 years ago when someone was acting up, or out of line someone would be quick to point it out to the person, rarely when it came to blows so be it. Lesson learned early... IF the cops did show up, most of the time they would not take anyone to jail, or charge them. Nor did you have to worry about being sued. As ad hoc/crude as it may seem, it worked most of the time. Now out of fear of getting a record, or being sued, people look the other way when people act like jerks. Reporting jerks to the law, gets a reply of... "There is no law against being a jerk, Sir/Mama."  When people get away with acting like jerks some will just get worse and worse. Until someone snaps, and out comes the guns. Assuming your parents failed to teach you how to behave in public. Getting your ass chewed out, or beat if it came to that. Would teach all but the most dense to behave when you were out and about.

Boiled down the decent people feel repressed by all the rude people around them, meanwhile the rude people go uncorrected and get worse. Then shit gets serious and instead of a argument, or a fistfight here and there, people snap. Out comes the big guns literally.
Although sometimes it's just two out of control jerks whos egos collide. Being that they have had few if any face to face, or hand to hand confrontations. They go pussy, then out comes the guns. A perfect storm of *fagotry is created. And the police/media are eager to come in after the fact and decree that guns are wicked in society.

Everyone had guns when I was a kid, just like today. Some carried rifles/shotguns around in a gun rack visible in the back glass of their trucks. Never worried about them being stolen, even left the truck unlocked, windows down. Guns were almost treated like a common commodity, like water in the rainforest unworthy of being stolen. Wish I could say that was true today.

Cars, knives, guns, matches, computers, rope, are inanimate objects, so far the law has never charged any of those objects. Just the individuals that use those tools to do harm against the public/person get charged. As it should be.

There shouldn't have to be an official mechanism to take care of everything in life. Ad hoc as crude as it sounds can do as good, or better job than official means ever could. See my above post. No one has to get shot if said ad hoc is handled correctly.

Common sense, decency, and caring seem to be as rare as hens teeth in America today. This makes me sad.
Thatz all I got to say about that.

*Fagotry: An irritating psychological state of discomfort brought on by life experiences or oftentimes specific individuals in life with the sole purpose of annoying, frustrating or otherwise hindering us from our desired course of action...
SEE: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fagotry&defid=1595951

[Jackstar]

Lanza was real. How anyone can call this a hoax or "staged" is beyond reason or rationale.

The sinking of the Lusitania caused untold devastation to a large number of families. And it was a real event. And, it was staged. Frankly, it is hard for me to take your distress over the event at face value, with this cognitive dissonance rearing its inane head.

http://touch.courant.com/#story/hc-sandy-hook-fbi-files-20140424/

Of the 175 pages released in response to a Courant Freedom of Information request, 64 were completely redacted and most of the other 111 pages were heavily redacted.

Nothing says "totally legitimate" with more emphasis than "completely redacted." Rolleyes. Seriously.

Doing something ad hoc, for example calling the cops, is not a mechanism. [...] A mechanism would be, say, a routine mental and physical health assessment that allows one to legally wield a firearm.

Agree to disagree.

Now him I WOULD be nervous around if he were holding a gun, and not because he's a sociopath, suffering dementia, or likely to lose his shit and randomly start blasting away, but because physically he's incompetent.

There's no law against inadvertently making someone nervous. If he comes to your house waving his gun around, trying to do his William Tell trick? Fine. I'm on board. Confiscate his arms. But if it is just you, peering between the front window's slats, imagining the horrors that The Others might bring upon you? Man, that's just too totally tough. My sympathy is boundless.

[Jackstar]

American men will soon need to treat each other like strange dogs; avoid eye contact, no quick moves, do nothing that may be viewed as provocative.

We called that respect when I was a kid.

We call it that right now.

I'm sitting here giggling, as I am imagining a world in which some guy strolls up to me, makes a lot of eye contact, does a lot of quick moves, and does lots of things that would be viewed as provocative.

Sounds like Capitol Hill on a Saturday night, frankly. So I guess the takeaway here is, citizens ought not have guns, so people are more free to be annoying and freaky? I do not see that working out as intended, truly.

[Jackstar]

every rational counterargument is immediately dismissed

Every one, huh? Wow. That's a lot of arguments. Here, let me help you with that brush--it seems a little broad for you, what with your head firmly wedged up your own ostrich's cloaca, and all.

[RealCool Daddio]

In frozen Geordie Land!

Not sure of your age, but you might remember these guys:


http://youtu.be/OcFSahf0KM8

Or these guys:


http://youtu.be/EKFqNWkPxuI

[Catsmile]

We called that respect when I was a kid.

We call it that right now.

I'm sitting here giggling, as I am imagining a world in which some guy strolls up to me, makes a lot of eye contact, does a lot of quick moves, and does lots of things that would be viewed as provocative.

Sounds like Capitol Hill on a Saturday night, frankly. So I guess the takeaway here is, citizens ought not have guns, so people are more free to be annoying and freaky? I do not see that working out as intended, truly.

As my jaw drops in amazement. I agree, Jackstar.
I was just playing along with VtaGeezers scenario.
Don't want to live there.

Keep that Gom jabbar away from me, Alia!
I'm wise to that trick, you pre-born Atreides hussy.

[Jackstar]

Keep that Gom jabbar away from me, Alia!
I'm wise to that trick, you pre-born Atreides hussy.

You can put your hand in my box.

[NowhereInTime]

Nothing says "totally legitimate" with more emphasis than "completely redacted." Rolleyes. Seriously.

Oh, so you read an article from the Courant and presume to know the facts?  Truth is, everyone around here is pissed at the proprietary way the State Police have handled crime scene evidence.  They used undisclosed photos and other evidence in conferences around the country even though they won't honor a freedom of information request here in CT. They've written papers on the subject using non-disclosed information.
The Staties even browbeat our wishy washy legislature to actually pass a law specifically  to protect SH families that, frankly, won't pass FIA muster in the courts. 
Even our scumbag governor publicly challenged the late and heavily redacted "final" report.  Sure enough, details about Lanza started to leak out such as his aversion to being touched (his own mother couldn't hug him), his obsession with mass killers and his collection of child pornography.
You can roll this up into your "trying to take my guns" truther movement but don't call it a staged event.

[Juan]

If you right-wingers would just admit that the whole thing is because of your penis-size issues, this thread will grind to a halt.

NIT - I've been reading about the Martha Moxley murder case, and it seems Connecticut has some unusual laws about who controls evidence in murder cases and who decides what can be released to whom.

[VtaGeezer]

Everyone had guns when I was a kid, just like today. Some carried rifles/shotguns around in a gun rack visible in the back glass of their trucks. Never worried about them being stolen, even left the truck unlocked, windows down. Guns were almost treated like a common commodity, like water in the rainforest unworthy of being stolen. Wish I could say that was true today.

This "old days" bullshit is past its shelf life.  Yeah, I had a bolt action .22 in my closet when I was 11;  big f'ing deal.  Times and people are different now. You're talking about an era of Archie comics, Fess Parker, Four Seasons hits, My Three Sons, and 99% of guns bought for sport.  People actually "sporterized" ex-military rifles...actually removing the macho combat stocks and fittings to make them more convenient for hunting or target shooting.  Semi-auto rifles were almost unheard of, and the .38 S&W revolver was the standard for self-defense.

I'm talking about a new era where most guns in America are made, bought and savored for their high efficiency in killing and maiming people.  Where pay-per-view gets $50 for televising two guys (or girls) in cage beating the living shit out of each other. Where Dads and boys don't play catch before dinner, they play "Killzone" on the big screen TV.  Where you now need a reservation at the pistol range.  Where flabby graybeards who shunned military service now pay huge for "close combat training" and act out their fantasies of getting that mystical head shot.  America has become more confrontational, more insular, more selfish...and deeply paranoid.  And the gun culture has fully kept apace.

Get it?  Nancy Lanza didn't buy her deeply disturbed son a bolt-action .22.  She bought him a fucking .223 Bushmaster and range training.

35,000 dead from guns per year and rising.  Shrug.

[NowhereInTime]

If you right-wingers would just admit that the whole thing is because of your penis-size issues, this thread will grind to a halt.

NIT - I've been reading about the Martha Moxley murder case, and it seems Connecticut has some unusual laws about who controls evidence in murder cases and who decides what can be released to whom.

Juan - the amount of bizarre rules and ancient crap in Connecticut's State Statutes not only dwarfs War & Peace but would make your head spin.  And not in the good way.
Not that it matters, but I think Skakel should have been tried as a juvenile for the crime and then, if convicted, tried as an adult for interstate filght to avoid prosecution.  If it could be done.

[Kelt]

I hadn't realised that there was such a large conspiracy-vortex swirling around the Sandy Hook shooting, interesting some of the things that are being said.

Some people allege the shooter was too weedy to carry all the weaponry, some that the school was destroyed to "hide the evidence", I've even just read a piece that questioned whether the shooter was even a real person... it all sounds like horseshit to me personally.

While I see no compelling or persuasive evidence that Sandy Hook was anything more than a nut going nuts I balance that with the belief that if our governments, regardless of whether American, British, Chinese, Russian, or Iranian, if our governments required the brutal slaying of a thousand small children in order to effect policy that said government considered 'important' they wouldn't hesitate for one fucking second to pull the trigger.

EDIT: I do mean our government's own children, rather than foreign/brown children.  We can easily demonstrate what our governments reckon to the value of brown children's lives by picking over the corpses of the countless children we've liberated in the Middle East recently.

[Jackstar]

Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.

35,000 dead from guns per year and rising.  Shrug.

Let me know when it rises by another 1,000,000 children. That's children, mind you--not suburban soccer teen teams. If you're going to wake me from my nap, I don't want to hear about 10,000 gangbangers in Detroit offing each other's innocent bystanding cousins while they're standing in line at McDonalds.

First-World problems. Jesus. In the meantime, if you really don't like living on the continent with a gun behind every blade of grass, why are you still here? It's the steaks, right? Tell me it's the beef.

[Jackstar]

don't call it a staged event.

Fine. Managed. So, do you know Adam's father? Because he came out of the whole situation pretty conveniently, didn't he? Let's get him drunk, in private, and record him on tape, and ask him how he felt about his wife.

Oh, excuse me--former ex-wife. I wonder where he's rolling over all that money he was paying into alimony and support; my understanding is that it was a massive amount of monthly cash, and I'm wondering, how about now? Gold? Silver? Palladium? Inquiring minds, want to know!

I imagine that conversation already happened, sans alcohol, with redaction. Sixty-six pages blacked out. How do you reconcile that fact? Xanax?

Truth is, everyone around here is pissed at the proprietary way the State Police have handled crime scene evidence.

I mean, besides the misplaced anger and rage. Is it a hypnotic? Tell me it's a hypnotic.

[missing transmission]

Not sure of your age, but you might remember these guys:


http://youtu.be/OcFSahf0KM8

Or these guys:


http://youtu.be/EKFqNWkPxuI

I'm aware of the work of both of these groups... Tygers of Pan Tang are from even closer to my neck of the woods... heck I even met Conrad/Cronos from Venom once or twice.

BUT back on topic I appreciate Kelt's even handed response to my apprehension about guns/gun users even if it doesn't do much to allay my fears.

It's all too easy to read the books and media that tells you what you want to hear and be surprised/horrified when you might someone with a completely different perspective. A very left wing friend of mine makes it a point to read mainstream right-wing newspapers as well as his fave blogs and alt media sources so he can get a better picture of the world, even if he doesn't like what he sees.

The American Spring organisers honestly believed that they were rallying millions of like minded people but never peeked outside their select media bubble to see that it was never going to happen.

Would it be fair to argue that the same is true for the majority of pro-gun/libertarian types?

[Jackstar]

BUT back on topic I appreciate Kelt's even handed response to my apprehension PHOBIA about guns/gun users even if it doesn't do much to allay my fears PHOBIA.

Outed. Don't worry, it's cool, I don't judge, and I'm not going to shoot you... with bullets.

[Jackstar]

The American Spring organisers honestly believed that they were rallying millions of like minded people

Honestly, I do not believe that for one bleeding second.

[VtaGeezer]

...Would it be fair to argue that the same is true for the majority of pro-gun/libertarian types?

Yes, it would.  There are about 243 million people over age 16 in the US.  The NRA has 5 million members.  That's barely 2%.
There are far more UFO believers in the USD than NRA members.

[NowhereInTime]

Fine. Managed. So, do you know Adam's father? Because he came out of the whole situation pretty conveniently, didn't he? Let's get him drunk, in private, and record him on tape, and ask him how he felt about his wife.

Oh, excuse me--former ex-wife. I wonder where he's rolling over all that money he was paying into alimony and support; my understanding is that it was a massive amount of monthly cash, and I'm wondering, how about now? Gold? Silver? Palladium? Inquiring minds, want to know!

I imagine that conversation already happened, sans alcohol, with redaction. Sixty-six pages blacked out. How do you reconcile that fact? Xanax?

I mean, besides the misplaced anger and rage. Is it a hypnotic? Tell me it's a hypnotic.

No. Never met the Lanza family.  My brother was friends with Nancy but readily admits she barely mentioned her children in conversation.  Or her ex-husband, much.
I've already commented on how information about this case has been dispensed.  The prevailing opinion in town is to protect the families from further grief, but even some families want the information shown so people don't wrap this up neatly into some package (like you're doing) and throw it away.
I going to go under the presumption that you are trying to be snarky; I get it.  I whiff on it too, sometimes.

[Jackstar]

Why can't it be both? The whole thing was a psy-op from conception to finish, and I'm feeling snarky about it. Hey, at least those kids didn't starve to death.

What? Too soon? Yeah yeah yeah. In the meantime, I'm reasonably okay with the grief of the families being considered, because for whatever reason, this particular psy-op shooting didn't have quite the effect that such an event might have intended. They can't all go over like Dallas '63, now can they?

I am sure that Adam's father would be simply grief-stricken if it turned out that he actually had his wife and son murdered in this way as part of an over-arching, diabolical plot and somehow some evidence of that escaped the redactive instruments. And really, who would be helped by the revelation of such a horrendous truth?

I mean, you know, besides everyone else. Besides them, cui bono?