All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Joker]

1st of all, we have amendments. In 1971 we added one that allowed "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". We didn't have that right before 1971. We can change it.

[Jack Dracula]

Political push-back against gun regulation is only one of the symptoms of the major disease afflicting our government: Money and the influence that goes with it.
Campaign finance reform and tigher restrictions on lobbying practices is the cure.
Many of the serious poblems our society currently suffers from could be permanently solved once we level the playing field between big donors and average people - freeing most politicians to vote with their conscience.

[Tazirai]

Responsible gun ownership didn't do Philando Castile much good.

Unless you want to go full on Huey P. Newton and assume White Civil Society itself is what you are arming yourself against.

Say it again Sam...

[Mister Mets]

Well I don’t have the raw data in front of me; but in terms of public health concerns, I’m sure gun death outweigh death by grandpa. So the NRA interference has far deadlier consequences for all of us, no?

This gets a bit messy, since we don't really know what percentage of gun homicides can be attributed to the NRA.

For all the talk about how assault rifles used in mass shootings should be banned, a majority of homicides are done with handguns and there isn't as much talk about banning those.

http://money.cnn.com/interactive/new...gun-homicides/

If they are so powerful, why does the GOP have no problem attacking Social Security and Medicare. The AARP fought hard against the abdominal tax cut, yet it passed.
Tell me how the AARP has the power of the NRA again?

Your GOP talking points are getting weaker and weaker.

The AARP spends about 80 times more on lobbying than the NRA does.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-tha...obby-in-the-US

When Republicans talk about Social Security and Medicare, it's usually not about current beneficiaries, but about changing things in the future. And they rarely end up doing anything because it's so politically toxic, even though entitlements are such a tremendous portion of the budget, so that anyone who really wants to cut the deficit has to cut those as well (with people living longer, medicare is also a growing part of the budget; from my understanding, Social Security is currently solvent because current employees pay into it at a significant enough rate.)

This gets to an odd aspect of the AARP, in that the elderly are an unusual demographic group in that everyone who lives long enough is going to join it.

The NRA VS AARP thing isn't a GOP talking point because the GOP doesn't want to be seen as being on the wrong side of the AARP.

[aja_christopher]

"Accused Parkland Shooter Nikolas Cruz Was a Member of White Supremacist Group"

"The leader of a white nationalist militia says Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz was a member of his group and participated in paramilitary drills in Tallahassee.

Jordan Jereb told The Associated Press on Thursday that his group wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state. He said his group holds “spontaneous random demonstrations” and tries not to participate in the modern world.

Jereb said he didn’t know Cruz personally and that “he acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he’s solely responsible for what he just did.”

He also said he had “trouble with a girl” and he believed the timing of the attack, carried out on Valentine’s Day, wasn’t a coincidence.

Nineteen-year-old Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the shooting."

http://time.com/5160819/parkland-sho...emacist-group/

-------

"Cruz, 19, is accused of opening fire inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Prior to the shooting, he trained with the Republic of Florida, the group’s captain Jordan Jereb said (as first reported by the Anti-Defamation League). The RoF seeks to create a “white ethnostate” in Florida, according to its website, a view that Cruz supposedly shared.

“I don’t know precisely what he believes,” Jereb said. “I know he knew full well he was joining a white separatist paramilitary proto-fascist organization.”

Cruz “seemed like just a normal, disenfranchised, young white man,” Jereb said.

While no motive has been described by police, Jereb speculated that Cruz may have allegedly committed the massacre out of hatred for Jews or women.

“There’s a very real sense of feminism being a cancer. That could’ve played into what he did, but we have female members of RoF,” Jereb said, adding that “we’re not a big fan of Jews. I think there were a lot of Jews at the school that might have been messing with him.”

Jereb said Cruz belonged to a RoF “cell” from Clearwater and drove up with members to Tallahassee to do paramilitary training. RoF was recently operating in Tallahassee and attempting to court new members, according to a local news report from last year. The group posts videos of training montages on the internet with members in fatigues brandishing weapons.

“I’m not trying to glorify it, but he was pretty efficient in what he did,” Jereb said. “He probably used that training to do what he did yesterday. Nobody I know told him to do that, he just freaked out.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikola...p-leader-says/

------

http://www.newsweek.com/far-right-al...er-hate-628829

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7894271.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN15G5VO

http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...-wing-violence

[Kirby101]

This gets a bit messy, since we don't really know what percentage of gun homicides can be attributed to the NRA.

For all the talk about how assault rifles used in mass shootings should be banned, a majority of homicides are done with handguns and there isn't as much talk about banning those.

http://money.cnn.com/interactive/new...gun-homicides/

The AARP spends about 80 times more on lobbying than the NRA does.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-tha...obby-in-the-US

When Republicans talk about Social Security and Medicare, it's usually not about current beneficiaries, but about changing things in the future. And they rarely end up doing anything because it's so politically toxic, even though entitlements are such a tremendous portion of the budget, so that anyone who really wants to cut the deficit has to cut those as well (with people living longer, medicare is also a growing part of the budget; from my understanding, Social Security is currently solvent because current employees pay into it.)

This gets to an odd aspect of the AARP, in that the elderly are an unusual demographic group in that everyone who lives long enough is going to join it.

The NRA VS AARP thing isn't a GOP talking point because the GOP doesn't want to be seen as being on the wrong side of the AARP.

Looking at lobbying alone for the NRAs power misses the picture.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ntrol-congress

[Dalak]

For all the talk about how assault rifles used in mass shootings should be banned, a majority of homicides are done with handguns and there isn't as much talk about banning those.

Because they did ban handguns in DC, and it was struck down by the SCOTUS. Part of that ruling included Scalia saying that the 2nd Amendment doesn't allow access to any potential weapon to everyone. On the other hand the assault weapons ban just was allowed to expire.

[BeastieRunner]

The bipartisan group trying to bring you the Wall.



The bipartisan Dreamers bill: path to citizenship for 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants, $25 billion for the POTUS' border wall, and no parent path to citizenship for the Dreamers who would be legalized.

[JBatmanFan05]

Interesting piece on Heller and Scalia's majority opinion in it:
Even Justice Scalia Thought There Was No Need For An AK-15 Assault Type Weapon

The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an ardent supporter of gun rights and the Second Amendment. Scalia penned the most important opinion to the future of the law in 2008 when the High Court ruled 5-4 in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court reversed a long-held position and ruled that the Second Amendment did give Americans an individual right to own firearms.

The court said the District’s ban on handguns in private homes went too far, but that regulation of gun ownership was compatible with the Second Amendment.

Here is Justice Scalia’s majority opinion on Heller:

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. ‘Miller’ said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ 307 U.S., at 179, 59 S.Ct. 816. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’”

...
So rather than saying “assault weapons,” in the future perhaps we should say “the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as ‘dangerous and unusual’ and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.”

[PaulBullion]

That is not a good example, Japan has one of the highest suicides rates, they even hav a forest where people go and kill themselves

Exactly my point.
Huge mental health issues.
But the people with mental health issues don't go off killing other people. They quietly pass away in a forest. Sounds pretty damn good compared to the carnage in the US that you keep defending.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The bipartisan group trying to bring you the Wall.



The bipartisan Dreamers bill: path to citizenship for 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants, $25 billion for the POTUS' border wall, and no parent path to citizenship for the Dreamers who would be legalized.

Fuck the goddamn wall. It won’t keep out animals like Cruz because they’re already here, and there’s lots more homegrown time bombs like him out there, ticking down to the inevitable explosion that ends in tragedies like yesterday.

[Joker]

For all the talk about how assault rifles used in mass shootings should be banned, a majority of homicides are done with handguns and there isn't as much talk about banning those.

You have to start somewhere. Banning an extremely dangerous weapon no one needs to own is a pretty good place to start.

The likelihood of banning all small firearms in America? Well, less likely.

[mojotastic]

Exactly my point.
Huge mental health issues.
But the people with mental health issues don't go off killing other people. They quietly pass away in a forest. Sounds pretty damn good compared to the carnage in the US that you keep defending.

The thing is there are different reasons for someone to commit suicide, in Japan you have presion from the parent or not being able to achieve goals in the US you have radicalization by an ideology which bring ruin to other aroud that person and make things like this happen.

[PaulBullion]

The thing is there are different reasons for someone to commit suicide, in Japan you have presion from the parent or not being able to achieve goals in the US you have radicalization by an ideology which bring ruin to other aroud that person and make things like this happen.

Why do you keep bringing up the suicides as some kind of imaginary counterpoint to gun control working in Japan?

People are not being murdered there. Because gun control. Deal with it and stop deflecting by bringing up an issue that, if anything, weakens your case even further.

[Dalak]

The thing is there are different reasons for someone to commit suicide, in Japan you have presion from the parent or not being able to achieve goals in the US you have radicalization by an ideology which bring ruin to other aroud that person and make things like this happen.

How does better gun training stop this? Or the Las Vegas shooting?

Wouldn't better training make the killers more efficient and increase the body counts?