A howitzer in every kitchen
Is it stupidity or corruption or both? Who knows, who cares, either way it’s appalling.
House Speaker Paul Ryan signaled Tuesday he isn’t supportive of the proposals to impose new restrictions on gun purchases, telling reporters “we shouldn’t be banning guns for law abiding citizens.”
During a weekly news conference in the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people, the Wisconsin Republican added, “we should be focusing on making sure that citizens who shouldn’t get guns in the first place don’t get those guns.”
As if anyone can know which citizens “should” get guns and which shouldn’t. As if anyone can know that every time, infallibly, at a glance. As if people who sell guns are experts in this new science of Knowing Who Should Have Guns.
And even more to the point, as if anyone “should” have a gun that tears organs apart on entry, a gun that is designed not to disable but to blow to pieces. Why not just cut to the chase and let everyone buy bombs? We’ve got the drones, now give us the bombs – just think of the possibilities!
Ryan also emphasized the failure by law enforcement to respond to reports about the shooter.
“We see a big breakdown in the system here,” he said. “In this particular case, there were a lot of breakdowns — from local law enforcement, to the FBI getting tips they didn’t follow up on, to you know, school resource officers, who are trained to protect kids in these schools and who didn’t do that. That, to me, is the most stunning one of them all.”
Nope. The most stunning one of them all – and the most blown-to-bits one as well – is the fact that the guy the system failed to stop was able to take an AR-15 into that school and blow huge holes through 17 people such that they died, and slightly less lethal holes in others (I can’t find a number for the injured – three are currently still in hospitals). If Cruz had not been able to take such a deadly gun into the school, the failure to do anything about him would not have been so “stunning.”
There is no reason to make it possible for enraged civilian men to have military weapons.
Pressed about whether Congress was doing enough as students from the Florida high school make the rounds on Capitol Hill to urge top leaders to take action, Ryan again pointed to the problems preventing the incident, saying there was “a colossal breakdown” at the local level.
“Of course we want to listen to these kids, but we also want to make sure that we protect people’s due process rights and legal constitutional rights while making sure that people who should not get guns don’t get them,” Ryan replied. “This kid was clearly one of those people.”
The Second Amendment to the Constitution predates assault rifles.
Seen on twitter yesterday:
Kid comes to the playground and starts whacking other kids with a stick. Do you:
1. Give sticks to everyone
2. Give sticks to certain kids who are adept with sticks
3. Take away the stick
James, quite.
One of the obvious problems and inconsistencies with Ryans response is that even a person with mental illness or a personality disorder is law-abiding right up until the moment they break the law in a significantly transgressive way. Ryan doesn’t acknowledge that and doesn’t say how he would change the law to address that matter. From what I’ve read, Cruz obtained his weapons legally and was in legal possession of them, despite everyone having concerns about his behaviour. So, What does Ryan actually propose other than deflection and obfuscation of the issues?
Ostrich like head in the sand?
Tax cuts for the rich, and slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security into nonexistence.
And another clueless politician doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t use hindsight in getting a realistic idea of what is possible with foresigth.
Actually, the best protection from a bad guy with a gun is not a good guy with a gun, but something like a Sherman tank. Note that I did not say ‘from a bad guy with a bazooka’.
Far away up there in the sky, there is possibly some planet with such vehicles crawling all over it, which might first appear to naive visitors to be alien living organisms in their own right, but which turn out to have the real aliens inside them, seeking protection from bad aliens with guns.
Well, that’s the Universe for you.
Dammit, I don’t have time to write all the plays you guys put into my head with your brilliant images. But if I do, Omar, I promise, I will dedicate it to you.
Aw shucks. ‘Tweren’t nothin’.
I dunno if I’d trust a Sherman against modern munitions… the armor’s pretty reliable against small arms but there might be a few weak points that modern tanks don’t have.
The NRA would like you to blame law enforcement for not “doing something” about Cruz, but the truth is that the NRA has steadfastly opposed laws to take guns from dangerous individuals
Anyway, let’s say that Ryan, Trump and Co did decide to take on the NRA and force through legislation that made it harder for the mad, sad and bad to get and keep guns even if they were nominally ‘law-abiding’. By any reasonable definition the likes of the oath Keepers, private militia and the extreme end of the gun-fondler lobby would fail as they are fetishists with severe anger management issues.
Under our legislation the chances of them getting and keeping guns would be slender (not non-existent to be sure).
” let’s say that Ryan, Trump and Co did decide to take on the NRA…”
Now there’s a counterfactual if I ever saw one. Good one! That would require a degree of coercion and blackmail that is unimaginable. Or the sudden discovery by them of some basic human empathy, again unimaginable.
Trump put his foot in it big time, and Stephen Colbert was onto him:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/feb/27/late-night-hosts-on-trumps-parkland-comments
Countries that actually HAVE ‘well regulated militias’ (e.g. Switzerland, Israel) don’t have uncontrolled weapon-hoarding by anarchist crazies. Nor do they seem to produce a steady stream of rage-killer. (Yes, Israel had ONE)
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1831178416900611/?type=3&theater
From the Ryan quote:
Rachel Maddow had a segment last week or so about the inadequate response of another flyover state senator, along those same lines. Before hurrying away from the mic, he stuttered about how “we have not done enough” to enable registers to keep weapons out of the hands of people officially deemed to be mentally unable to handle them.
Rachel pointed out that the very same old man, to the day one year prior, had been the principal sponsor of an Act, the single purpose of which was precisely to not allow reporting such cases to federal register. And that proscription was not exactly hidden on page 17 in a conglomerate of diverse “pork”, I believe is the term of the art, but that was the only thing the law was for.
What a spectacular failure.
Maybe the bribes will start to dwindle now that the NRA is becoming more of a liability to many corporations and that may reduce the influx of foreign money to launder?
Sorry, I’m too tired to dig the segment up again now, but it did stick in my mind. Such as it is.