Comments on: We don’t own the guns: the guns own us.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:45:36 +0000

My goodness.

The gun-induced stupid: it doesn’t quit.

I’m glad that no one who really shouldn’t have a gun found it. But this gun owner and apparent CCP holder doesn’t inspire much confidence among the population of local gun owners.

By: cgeye

cgeye — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 23:26:13 +0000

The denouement is as wacky as one would expect:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22434631/longmont-man-reports-he-found-his-missing-gun

“A man who told police he lost his .380 semiautomatic pistol while riding his motorized scooter through a north Longmont neighborhood on Jan. 16 told police he found the gun between some couch cushions in his home on Wednesday”

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:53:42 +0000

Thanks, Cloud. There’s an entire family (save the gunman) dead now in New Mexico because his parents kept a home arsenal and kept it in a “closet” rather than a gun safe.

I feel the same way you do about people carrying guns. It makes us all less safe.

By: Cloud

Cloud — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:25:19 +0000

Historiann, I mostly read and don’t comment here. But I wanted to say thank you for posting the link to that TPM essay. I’d missed it, and it does a great job of capturing some of my thoughts. I live in California, but grew up in Arizona, and go back to visit now and then. We were there over Christmas. Here is the post I wrote when stopping for milk on Christmas Day reminded me of the difference between the two states: http://www.wandering-scientist.com/2013/01/my-last-post-about-guns-here.html- I tried to express a lot of the same things Josh Marshall did, but nowhere near as eloquently.

So anyway, thanks, from a reader who is a lot more to the political center but appreciates what you write. (I read some people to the right of me, too… part of my “don’t live in an echo chamber” campaign.)

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:30:49 +0000

I saw that. Clearly, they’re idiots, but with this many guns in circulation, they’re obvs. in the hands of a lot of idiots.

By: Profane

Profane — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 04:37:41 +0000

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/01/20/five_injured_in_accidental_gun_show_shootings_on_gun_appreciation_day.html

By: koshembos

koshembos — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:23:14 +0000

We are not dealing with a “tribe” that needs/loves/lives with guns. Concealed weapons and automatic rifles actively threaten peaceful citizens.

No, with hundreds of millions of guns out, Obama cannot prevent multiple killings. Stopping the open threat of the concealers and sprayers from increasing and growing will do good in 2020 and on.

By: cgeye

cgeye — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 23:22:28 +0000

And this ain’t the only case — and I’m shocked that the right-leaning management of the Post let this columnist’s snark be so obvs

“A seventh grader went to see “The Hobbit” at a movie theater in Tillamook, Ore., last month.

He found a Beretta semi-automatic pistol under his seat. There was a bullet loaded in its chamber. Its safety was off. It was ready to fire.

It reportedly belonged to a man who had owned guns for forty years — 61-year-old Gary Quackenbush.

Quackenbush had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, which requires a firearms safety course to obtain. But he got bored during the movie, wiggled around in his seat, and the gun slipped out of his holster.”

By: Historiann

Historiann — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 22:38:46 +0000

I think that’s right, Profane, for the most part. I see less self-congratulation among gun control proponents than full-on conspiranoia by the gunnies. One side is threatening not to obey the law and rather to start another Civil War, and it ain’t the people at MAIG or the Brady Campaign–and this is before any actual legislation has passed and any laws have changed.

On whether or not Obama’s executive orders and calls for prospective legislation would have prevented Sandy Hook or not: I don’t think that’s the best test for good public policy. The important thing to remember is that recent mass-murderers were using guns that were legally purchased. Adam Lanza’s mother appears to have been a very law-abiding citizen, so I’d assume that she bought the semiautomatic weapon he used after the assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Had it not expired, Lanza’s rampage might have been less deadly.

I think we have to approach gun safety from a public health perspective of mitigating harm not preventing all attacks, which is probably impossible.

By: Profane

Profane — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 21:46:29 +0000

One of the most disturbing aspects of the events of the past week is that nothing that Obama proposed would have stopped the Sandy Hook shooting, and few of the proposals will make anyone safer. Despite this, the gun control lobby is in full self-congratulation mode and the gun lobby has entered into predictable vituperation. Semiautomatic weapons bans, required title for guns, or required liability insurance for gun owners would all have real impact. The rest is theatre.