So Let’s Pass Some Laws and Make The World A Better Place
The Supreme Court is rumored to be considering overturning Roe.v.Wade after almost 50 years. (Burt had an excellent breakdown of the leak here.)
I’m sure you’re familiar with all of the reasons that this is considered awful.
For one, there’s all of the stuff that is involved with enforcing the law. (InMD wrote an excellent post on “The Return of the Bedroom Police“.) These things include (BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO):
Whether a woman should be arrested for getting an abortion.
Which crimes ought to be charged for getting an abortion.
How much law enforcement ought to be able to investigate whether an abortion took place.
Whether Child Protective Services currently provides a model to investigate whether someone is pregnant.
Back alley abortions will still take place.
And, of course, whether it’s absurd to even suggest any of the above.
A million years ago, I had a criticism of Conservatives that went thusly:
The number one problem that I see with Conservatives is that they want to pass laws that express sentiments. People shouldn’t do drugs. People shouldn’t have abortions. People shouldn’t be gay.
If you ask “well, if someone breaks this law, should the police kick down doors and start shooting dogs?” and, for the most part, the answer is not only “no” but “that’s an offensive question, this conversation is over”. They do *NOT* want women who have abortions to get arrested (Trump notwithstanding). They do not agree with the idea of the cops arresting two consenting adults who have sex with each other (Lawrence v Texas notwithstanding). Some of them approve of drug users being thrown in jail, but it’s far more likely that they think that *DEALERS* should go to jail and users should go to some sort of 12 Step Program where they can overcome their addiction to marijuana or whatever.
When pressed, they admit that the whole “rule of law” thing gets a bit fuzzy when it comes to making something illegal *BUT* they think it very important that we, as a society, pass a law signaling disapproval of socially bad things.
It’s with that in mind that I say that one of the biggest criticisms of the attempt to ban abortion is the simple pragmatic one: It won’t work. Let’s go with the big reasons why:
If any given state bans abortion, you can still go to the next state over and get one where it is still legal (or two states over, or fly to California or Canada).
People will still get abortions in their own home state because law enforcement isn’t particularly good at this sort of thing.
Back alley abortions.
And, of course, horse medication:
Misoprostol is relatively easy to acquire from veterinary sources, since in addition to medically inducing abortions, it's also used to treat ulcers in horses. https://t.co/nglKSGjXA0
— Motherboard (@motherboard) May 3, 2022
Whenever there is any sufficiently horrible mass shooting (usually one involving children), there is usually a call for some form of gun control. Making a particular category of gun used in the shooting illegal. Using a particular category of gun not used in the shooting illegal but still. Making particular gun accessories illegal. Making bullets really expensive.
Additionally, there are arguments that don’t take into account recent arguments that aren’t really compatible with the new arguments but the recent arguments aren’t 100% relevant, I suppose.
We need judges who are more willing to sign warrants.
We need more police with better equipment.
We need prosecutors who are more willing to put more people behind bars.
We need longer sentences for people who are found guilty of gun crimes.
And there’s also the argument that this needs to be done on a national scale, as if it’s left to individual states, it won’t matter how good the gun laws happen to be in Chicago or Los Angeles because guns will come over the border from Indiana or Nevada and, effectively, neuter the laws that would have worked otherwise.
Additionally, we need regulations for things that are not guns but could be used to *MAKE* guns. (You can get an 80% lower for under a hundred bucks. You can get the other parts for an AR-15 for ~$400. Some assembly required.) And that’s without mentioning 3D printing.
But there are some sentiments that are strong and are more about the sentiment than about efficacy. And, let’s face it, a sufficiently horrible shooting has very recently occurred.
So if we wanted to address mass shootings, we’d probably need to pass a law or two. These laws would need to address such things as the murder rate and, if the FBI’s murder stats are any indication of anything, we’d probably have to resign ourselves to what appears to be inequality when it comes to arrests (and attendant problems when it comes to increased police interactions).
But as horrible as the murders that follow increased police interactions are, they are less horrible than the murders of children in schools.
I suspect that we would not be willing to put up with what the laws would actually do in practice but I share the sentiment that we need to do something about these horrible, horrible shootings.
What laws would work? What policies would we need to enact? What price are we willing to pay?
I think step one is asking what you’re trying to achieve, is your approach likely to achieve it, and what other important interests/realities are in play that need to be accounted for. Our problem is that most of our proporsals revolve around scratching culture war itches for arbitrarily slapping people around,
or as you say, expressing sentiments. Just as importantly, doing something that might help requires backing down on the histrionics to which too many people have long since committed themselves.
To the question, I have my quibbles with some of the specifics (particularly the EU garbage they felt forced to implement) but the Czech Republic has what in my opinion is a framework that could actually be adapted. Like us they have a strong tradition of personal firearm ownership and do a good job protecting rights without allowing someone to buy a rifle off the rack on their 18th birthday, no questions asked, as TX seems to permit.
What’s critical though to their regime is the principle that people have a right to firearms, and the laws are designed around safe exercise of that right. Not deep down we don’t believe people should have weapons anyway and so we’re going to restrict as much as we can without rhyme or reason. Not we know these things piss off the people we don’t like so lets stick it to them wherever we can and have yahoos get in peoples’ faces about it.Report
1. Universal background checks for all purchases. All the time. No exceptions.
2. Five day holds on all long guns; 7 days on all handguns.
3. Proficiency testing with all the firearm types you own every 5 years, to be waived only for active duty military, employed police officers, and those no more then 5 years retired from these professions.
4. Mandatory $1 Million per firearm insurance riders for accidental discharge or malicious killing.
5. Mandatory trigger locks and safe storage requirements with stiff penalties. A requirement for submission of a notarized affidavit at the every 5 year qualifying event attesting to compliance.
Start there.Report
After that is done, pivot to the hard work of addressing the root causes of gun violence in America, not just mass shootings:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/opinions/surprising-solution-to-gun-violence-ludwig/index.htmlReport
I think you start good but then go on to prove Jaybird’s point. 1 and 2 seem obvious and really the fact that we even have to debate 1 is a total travesty. 3 I’m with you in principle, though differ on the details, provided the test is akin to a drivers license (i.e. healthy adults can easily pass with a little training and practice) as opposed to a sham process intended to deny/confiscate. 4 seems like just am F you cost with no rational relationship to the facts of gun deaths. 5 I agree with the sentiment on safe storage but I have no idea how you enforce it in a way that isn’t either way overly intrusive and ripe for abuse or completely ineffective. The trigger lock thing is another that to me just makes no rational sense. Like are you going to fine someone for storing in a biometric safe that actually works for safe storage and keeps the weapon usable for self defense? That’s silly and it’s also silly to say the only way you can have a weapon is for it to be rendered useless at all times.Report
If you own a gun you need basic training on how to use it. You need to show you know how to use it safely. Frankly if you can’t do that by type every five years – not by individual gun – you have no business owning. I’d imagine the penalty being akin to a bar on buying more of that type of gun until you demonstrate proficiency.
Four and 5 go together and are essentially on the honor system, until something bad happens. It makes people think about what they are doing with guns in their house. Because as a dad I’m almost as pissed off about toddlers killing themselves with loaded unsecure weapons as I am about school shootings. So, I put those on the table so people will know there’s a cost to not securing your firearms.Report
A government requirement that you have a government-issued Firearms License implies racial-equity issues, because if you’re going to charge user fees then you’re saying that black people and poor people shouldn’t be allowed the means to defend themselves against violent assault or home invasion.
Or these training centers could operate like the DMV, where the whole thing is run by the state. It’ll be amusing to see people explain why there are government-operated How To Kill People centers as a gun-control measure.Report
Per my link on the Czech Republic the licensing process runs equivalent to about 30 bucks. I would not see something similar as particularly burdensome and I’d be totally on board to do it DMV style. In fact it could possibly be the most America F— Yea thing we’ve ever done as a society.Report
If the point is not a punitive measure to stop Lowlife Crazy Scum from owning a firearm, then what is the point? Is this just, like, paying money into some kind of fund so that when another guy goes nuts and shoots up a school we can have enough mops to clean up afterwards?Report
The point is just to pay for the process administration. Like the DMV.Report
a token gift of earth and water, sort of thingReport
I’ll give you this – you do like interesting twists. What statistical evidence do you have that black and brown people are so much more susceptible to this that a requirement to demonstrate proficiency creates too much of a burden? for that matter, if black and brown people face this disproportionately, what are the root causes of that level of violence in their communities and how do we address those?Report
What statistical evidence do you have that black and brown people are so much more susceptible to this that a requirement to demonstrate proficiency creates too much of a burden?
I’d compare to driver’s licenses. I understand that there are many who cannot get driver’s licenses (or other official government identification) because it is an undue burden.
This is similar. (Or I’d need it explained how it’s not.)
for that matter, if black and brown people face this disproportionately, what are the root causes of that level of violence in their communities and how do we address those?
We probably need to hammer out whether it’s disproportionate.
If it is, then we have to look at potential root causes.
If it’s not disproportionate, any attempt to point to a root cause will be a mistake. I mean, it could be pointing out to something universal and thinking “this is notable” because of prejudice.
Once we establish “nope, this is actually different”, only then is it possible to note differences.Report
Evidence? The fact that voter ID is constantly resisted on the grounds that certain demographics can’t easily get an ID to exercise a right to vote.Report
That’s’ not the statistics I’m talking about though – DD was harping about the need for black and brown people to have easy access to firearms to defend themselves against certain violent crime types and I was asking for statistics supporting the claim they have a disproportionate need for that level of defense. Because most of the data I’ve seen in that regard is about fears white people have of black and brown people doing the home invading.Report
“What statistical evidence do you have that black and brown people are so much more susceptible to this”
I think everyone is susceptible to it in the same degree.
My argument here is the same one that is used against poll taxes and property-owning requirements for voting eligibility.Report
Fine, let’s complete the slide into urban distopia then and let everyone have all the guns they want for any reason at any time with no restrictions and no penalties.
Because what we have now is people dying needlessly because we are too stupid, too fearful and too unwilling to do anything else.
That about sum up your position?Report
That is a very odd way to describe Chicago (and other urban murder center) gun control laws.
For that matter, how many of your ideas has Chicago already tried?Report
The only people left in urban centers NOT carrying firearms are the ones who care about the law. Here in New York, if you get collared for an illegal handgun, you’re out in 24 hours and will likely get pleaded down to a misdemeanor or violation. No jail time. No incentive not to go out and get another illegal gun. Hate to break it to you, but the urban dystopia is already here.Report
If you own a gun you need basic training on how to use it. You need to show you know how to use it safely.
With the exception of military and police, of course.Report
My understanding is that the police can certify while still being hilariously under-trained and uh… accordingly under-competent with much less hilarious results.Report
Like I said, no problem in my book with periodic basic proficiency and safety training and tests provided the metrics are reasonable and they’re conducted fairly, and certainly not at all with your details and the proposed penalty.
I still can’t get on board with make a statement laws on storage and wouldn’t require the insurance, though safe storage should certainly be a point of emphasis in any safety instruction.Report
Given all the complaints about how lawmakers screw with the right to abortion or the right to vote, it’s interesting how no one seems concerned with how much the government would screw with the right to firearms?
PS this flows both ways.Report
what’s your concrete counter proposal?Report
There is a way to do red flag laws correctly. It’s very rare that these people go off without some kind of noticable build up (not that it never happens, only that it’s rare to come out of the blue).Report
Outlaw making spree mass murders celebs. His name doesn’t get reported. He doesn’t become famous. His agenda doesn’t get published.Report
Wouldn’t that violate the first amendment? Press freedoms and all that.Report
Just saw this. And yes, that is the problem.
The good news is outlawing making him a celeb is trying to control the law abiding and doesn’t suffer from the collective action issues.
The better news is it’s addressing the actual problem head on. The killers are doing this to become famous and successful. Don’t allow that.
The bad news is yes, there are Constitutional issues.Report
Universal background checks wouldn’t have mattered for this (or for Sandy Hook!) because the person who bought the guns was not the person who did the shooting.
“holds” on purchases are similarly meaningless because most mass-shooters collect guns for a long time before they decided to shoot anyone.
See below for “proficiency testing” requirements.
Firearm insurance does nothing for the dudes who decide that Today Is A Good Day To Die. “Oh, I owe fifty million dollars in liability payments? Tell them to sue my corpse.”
Trigger locks and safe storage requirements only matter if the weapons are stored off the property and require third-party verification to access. The Sandy Hook guy’s guns were locked in a safe. His mother had the key. First thing he did was kill her. After that the safe was meaningless.
“well so whadda YOU suggest” Massive empowerment of law enforcement to detain people based on suspicion of psychiatric instability? Massive increase of public surveillance infrastructure along with legal authority to grab people off the street based on They Was Actin’ Kinda Funny? I dunno. What sort of total re-concepting of the relationship of law enforcement to citizens are you comfortable with? “what the hell are you talking about, I just think we should ban guns to stop the murder” You can ban all the guns you want but then someone will grab a knife and start slitting throats, someone will build a backpack bomb and throw it down in a busy restaurant, someone will center a crowd in their windshield and hit the gas.Report
Notice I didn’t propose banning weapons. Though the 1994 Assault weapons ban – which was far from perfect as a law – did result in a measurable drop in the use of those weapons in violent crimes, including mass shootings.
Since you’ve told me all the things that you don’t think will work, what do you propose?Report
Notice I didn’t propose banning weapons.
Just to throw it out there I appreciate that aspect of your proposed approach and think we’d get a lot further in the debate if we took that off the table as a go-to.Report
“Notice I didn’t propose banning weapons.”
Oh, no no no, of course you didn’t, not at all!
Just…you say that would-be gun-owners have to have a license, and pay a fee, and buy insurance, and have training, and submit to inspections, and if they can’t do all those things then too bad they didn’t fulfill the entirely reasonable requirements that white wealthy neurotypical people with salaried employment and permanent addresses have no trouble covering, and they just don’t get to have a gun, and you get to tell yourself that it’s not a gun ban, it’s just those dumbasses’ own fault for being slackers.
“Since you’ve told me all the things that you don’t think will work, what do you propose?”
You’re the one who needs to answer that.
What do you actually want?
Why do you think we don’t already have it?
What are you willing to not have in order to get what you want?
I can’t tell you what the solution is until you tell me what solutions you’re willing to accept.
I can tell you that if what upsets you is “crazy people are violently killing children” then banning guns isn’t gonna stop that. And if you just want guns banned then say “I want guns banned” and don’t build a bailey from the corpses of infants.Report
I want fewer toddlers dead because their parents won’t secure their weapons.
I want my kids to go to school without the trauma of repeated mass shooter drills, so they can learn and grow.
I want young black men in Chicago to have alternatives to pulling a gun as a way to protect their economic livelihoods, much less their manly reputations.
I want rural farmers to be able to hunt wolves that attack their cattle.
I’m willing to submit to background checks every time I buy a gun to achieve that. I am willing to pay extra for insurance to achieve that. I’m willing to submit to a qualification test every 5 years to achieve that. I’m willing to be prevented from buying more guns if I fail that test to achieve that.
But I’m not willing to sit on my hands, waiving thoughts and prayers.
What do you want? What are you willing to do?Report
“But I’m not willing to sit on my hands, waiving thoughts and prayers.”
that’s an amusing typo
Are you okay with a government body conducting surveillance of every teenager’s Instagram page in case this is the day they post a picture of themselves sitting in front of a wall of weapons their grandmother bought them and a comment that says “kayleigh: stay home today, just wnated u 2 kno ;)” and then sending the cops to put that teenager to jail for the rest of his life? Because that’s what it would’ve taken, this time. “Well guns made it a lot easier for him!” yeah they did, but lack of them wouldn’t make it never happen, and you aren’t talking about “less”, you’re talking about “not”.
“I want my kids to go to school without the trauma of repeated mass shooter drills, so they can learn and grow.”
one would think that instead of subjecting children to the repeated terrifying thought of burning to death in a locked room, they could simply design schools not to catch on fire.
“I want young black men in Chicago to have alternatives to pulling a gun as a way to protect their economic livelihoods, much less their manly reputations.”
you might have wanted to think about that one a little harder before posting about “black men” and their “manly reputations”Report
That’s already legal in the US under the Patriot Act and it’s reauthorizations. That we choose to use that power for other things is not my call.
I’m just following the science:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/opinions/surprising-solution-to-gun-violence-ludwig/index.htmlReport
I’m looking at the research right now. I see…
“no evidence that ban had a significant effect on firearm homicides”
“There is no compelling evidence that [the ban] saved lives”
” the ban did not seem to affect gun crime rates”
Oh, here’s one. If we cherry pick areas in Mexico then they had an increase in violence when the ban stopped.
“inconclusive”
“insufficient evidence”
“no impact”
“no significant effect”
“state level assault weapons ban had no significant effect on gun related murder rates and federal ban was associated with a 19% increase in gun related murders”
Some outcomes that look like the author cherry picking subsets of data.
Oh, and Columbine happened during the ban using weapons illegal under the ban.Report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban#Overall_crimeReport
One thing that I thought “you should have added this part” as I was falling asleep was something to the effect of:
You have to assume that your plans include law enforcement as it exists and changes happen at the policy level… you can increase or decrease funding, but you can’t magically establish that the police department is *DIFFERENT*.
You can pass a law in a matter of days. You can establish a policy that police officers receive training on how to do house-to-house searches in a sensitive and inclusive manner.
You cannot assume that the house-to-house searches being done tomorrow will be done by any police other than the ones who are on the force today.Report
Critical Race Theory has heard your plea, and is here to save you.
Yes, the same racism that is woven into our laws, cultural mores and institutions cause virtually all efforts, whether anti-drug efforts, literacy efforts, anti-terrorism efforts or urban renewal efforts to all be carried out in ways that reinforce the existing racial caste system.
These efforts are all to be considered “Necessary but insufficient”.Report
It’s more that I consider the posturing to be expressing a sentiment and the expression of the sentiment should be assumed to be the goal.
Nothing wrong with expressing a sentiment, of course.Report
What posturing are you talking about?Report
The whole “DEFUND THE POLICE!” vs. “WE NEED HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCHES FOR GUNS!” thing.
It allows people to advocate for whatever the current thing happens to be, loudly communicating group membership but not, you know, actually changing anything.Report
Not sure what that has to do with your objection (that any law will be carried out by abusive police forces) or my response (that racism is indeed deeply engrained in all our institutions).Report
Well, in this case, I’m not sure we can both Defund *AND* do House-to-House searches.
We actually have to pick one and pick it wholeheartedly and abandon the other.Report
I can imagine doing both.
Transferring a lot of funding from police to mental health and crisis intervention teams who can red flag disturbed people and make home visits, and when necessary, confiscate weapons.
Just an example.
Another example is here in downtown LA, where the local Business Improvement Districts have created security teams of people who patrol the neighborhoods and act as eyes and ears and resolve all the low level petty brawls, belligerent drunks and shoplifters.
They also have mental health intervention and outreach, where they counsel and help place at-risk people in homes and jobs.
Not every problem needs to be solved by a gun.Report
“red flag disturbed people and make home visits, and when necessary, confiscate weapons.”
I guess I misunderstand what “house-to-house” means.
If all it means is the cops going to the homes of the red-flagged… would they need a warrant to pass the threshold or, in this case, we’d waive the requirements for police to have a warrant when it came to the people they deemed “disturbed”?Report
Sure, warrants are good.
The idea is we don’t ignore mentally ill people until the only tool is mops to handle the blood.
One of the benefits of regulations and licensure is that they help bring people in contact with authorities which can then set off tripwires and red flags allowing early intervention.
Like, a counselor makes a wellness check or has a scheduled interview to assist a person with job training, which allows them to spot signs of trouble or abuse.
I mentioned our local BID; Here is their page on their outreach program, where they initiate contact with street people and connect them to local charities and organizations:
https://downtownla.com/the-dcbid/safe-and-clean/district-outreach
I personally witnessed them intervene in the life of a young homeless person who was spirallying downward, and now he is living in an apartment with a job.
So again, not every problem needs the solution of a gun.Report
So “House-to-House” is no longer on the table, then.
Just defund (and, of course, “defund” doesn’t mean “defund”, just “reallocate to counselors”).Report
You want unarmed counselors going to the homes of mentally ill people to confiscate their guns?Report
No they call for assistance when needed.
But the point is, the contact with authorities is proactive, not after the catastrophe.Report
I wonder if making gun owner liable for whatever crime was committed while using the gun has been tried. If I was a gun owner and knew I’d be on the hook you better believe I’d be very careful with storage.Report
Okay. Five points, none of which are “ban guns”.
Good.
Let’s go through.
1. Okay. Let’s assume that I’m down with this. I’m not sure that this would have stopped this particular shooting. What are the red flags this guy had?
2. Okay. I might be fine with this as it would give a few days’ worth of “cool down”, for a lack of a better way to think about it, for crimes of passion. For this shooting, though, was it a crime of passion done on a whim?
3. I assume that this testing could be done at places like Dragon Man’s Gun Range in addition to the official shooting range that they’d have a couple of blocks away from City Hall.
If there’s a situation where “you must have an official proficiency test to own a gun” and “there is nowhere in our state where you can get a proficiency test”, you’re effectively banning guns without banning them. Which is clever, but transparent, and will have disparate impact.
4. Meh. Others have covered this one.
5. Meh. Others have covered this one.Report
1 and 2 are just sound policy and I don’t think the standard can be ‘would have stopped every shooting ever.’ Nothing is going to do that.
3 is really all about the details.Report
I’m not sure that I’m asking for “would have stopped every shooting ever” as much as noticing that these policies, no matter how good they are, wouldn’t have stopped this one (or the last one?) and, as such, I can’t help but think that they’re the equivalent of me suggesting that we need to legalize marijuana to help prevent these shootings.
Legalization of marijuana is all fine and good, of course. I’m a fan.
But if we want to prevent these types of shootings, we probably want laws/policies that will prevent these types of shootings instead of using it as an opportunity to advocate for policies we’ve been wanting for a while anyway.Report
I think trying to ever 100% stop it is a fool’s errand. But there’s some low hanging fruit that I don’t think there’s any good reason to oppose. If I’m understanding correctly this guy was able to buy his rifles right off the retail rack, day of, with no state level background checks (someone more familiar with TX can correct me if I’m wrong). Now maybe they implement changes to that and he does it all anyway. But I’m a bit of a firearm enthusiast and that being the (really lack of) rule strikes me as nuts.Report
Yeah, I think I’d be okay with 1, 2, and 3 on here.
I am not sure how effective they’d be but they seem that they’d be more effective than “nothing at all” and would not be particularly burdensome.
1, 2, and 3 are a fine, fine camel’s nose.Report
Better a camel’s nose in the tent than a MOTHERFUCKING ARMED MURDERER IN GODDAMN CLASSROOMS!
Jesus F Christ man… grow a goddamn heart.Report
Kazzy, I said I was okay with these policy changes.
I asked for ones that were more than merely loudly expressed sentiments and 1, 2, and 3 on Phillip’s list are fine and do more than nothing at all.
This has little to do with “heart”. “Heart” is the whole “loudly expressed sentiments” thing. I’m down with policy changes that will result in fewer shootings and remain in line with my thought that law enforcement is corrupt and captured and needs to be overhauled stem to stern.Report
“1, 2, and 3 are a fine, fine camel’s nose.”
That’s the opposite of saying you are okay with those policy changes.
Cut the bullshit. Kids are dead.Report
No, it’s not.
It understanding that these policy changes are a necessary start that won’t solve the problem (or bring us to an acceptable level of violence, anyway) but bigger policy changes aren’t really workable given the constraints of such things as a Republican party that opposes gun control on principle and, as previously mentioned, corrupt and captured law enforcement.Report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose
You know what you’re doing. You’re smarter than that. Either own your position or cut the crap.Report
Kazzy, I know that there are many things that need to be done and there are pre-reqs to the many things that need to be done and the easy things need to be done before the more difficult things become easier.
If we want the camel in the tent, we’re going to need to go slowly rather than quickly.Report
The idea of the camel being in the tent is a negative thing. Do you even know what that phrase means?Report
I know what the phrase means.
Would you have preferred “the slim end of the wedge”?
“Gun Control” is something that will need to go slowly and incrementally if it is to succeed.
The camel being in the tent is the goal, in this case. Or, at least, its ears.Report
“The camel’s nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.”
So, no, you don’t know what it means.
Saying you are on board with something while describing it as the camel’s nose paints the thing as a bad idea because bad things will come of it.
We’re arguing stupid f’ing semantics now because you can’t just say what you f’ing thing. Again, kids are dead and you want to play word games. If you support a policy, say so and own it. If you don’t, say that and own that. Or just go the f away.Report
If the obstacle to sensible laws is control by the Republican party, what possible things could voters do to change this?Report
Seems like “have different values” needs to be on the table.Report
Is “Stop voting for Republicans” on that same table?
Or possibly, and I’m spitballing here so bear with me, “Vote for Democrats”‽Report
That seems to have “have different values” as a pre-req.
I know, just being obviously Right isn’t enough. What a pain.Report
I’m actually agreeing that people should “have different values”.
I just think, as with religion, that it ends up manifesting as change in behavior otherwise whats the point?Report
Didn’t he use handguns for all the actual shooting? Reporting is a mess but one I read claimed that.Report
I thought I had read rifles but totally possible I’m wrong. Nevertheless…Report
Reporting is he had both.Report
What I read was “used handguns” but had rifles in his possession (because rifles need to be at fault somewhere)… but I’ll wait a day before looking into this.Report
I don’t think it really changes the analysis of this sub thread. Maybe it will turn out he committed the murders with illegally acquired handguns in which case I’m not sure what you can do about that. However if he bought them legally without waiting period or background check I’m fine with saying that’s just stupid policy. Again happy to be corrected by anyone with knowledge on TX I’m just going based on google.Report
He had two AR-15 pattern rifles, one was left in the truck he crashed.
He got in through a back door. Not sure if it was locked, or if he shot out the lock.Report
I was going to make that first observation myself. We can’t solve a complex problem with a single change in policy.
The good news is that the Founders built a system that doesn’t give in to panic, so we’re not likely to get the laws that get brought up after a tragedy. The bad news is that the people who understand guns don’t trust the policy people, and the policy people don’t understand guns. This is the kind of situation where a blue-ribbon commission might do some good.Report
Like the Blue Ribbon Commission on School Safety that President Trump created after Parkland? That Betsy Devos chaired? care to tell us what recommendations came out of that?Report
I said “might do some good”. There’s never a guarantee with them. For that matter, it may have had great recommendations that never got taken up.Report
It had a lot of recommendations – many of which have been around for a long time; some of which would have required new funding. Interestingly the report didn’t get WH signoff before he left office.
https://www2.ed.gov/documents/school-safety/school-safety-report.pdfReport
https://www2.ed.gov/documents/school-safety/school-safety-report.pdf
(page 61 of pdf, 59 of report)
the accused, via a social network, recorded a video bragging about how the massacre he planned would make him notorious: “when you see me on the news you’ll all know who I am.”3
Researchers have found that most shooters desire fame and wish to emulate other mass shooters.
The American Psychological Association released a study in 2016 that concluded that “the prevalence of mass shootings has risen in relation to the mass media coverage of them and the proliferation of social media sites that tend to glorify the shooters and downplay the victims.”9
“significant evidence that mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar events in the immediate past.”11 Researchers further hypothesize that television, radio, and other media exposure of one mass shooting could infect the next perpetrator.12Report
This response also goes to @Oscar’s comment above re:licensing and training but how you go into it is the key factor. One of the reasons I point to the Czech approach is because, while more restrictive than many US states, it’s clear to me they went in with the idea that the right is important and something to be preserved. On the other hand you can appoint some commission or licensing authority or whatever that operates under the (most likely unstated) presumption that really none of this should be allowed at all and have the kind of outcomes those who value gun rights fret about. Hence the trust issues.Report
The Swiss (IIRC) have something similar, where exercising the right involves effort, but the system is not designed to make that effort onerous.Report
I’m always a little more hesitant about using them as an example. I’m not an expert on it by any means but my understanding is that what the Swiss have is tied up in their model of conscription and unique history of neutrality and national defense.
Conversely my understanding of the Czechs is that their culture on guns is closer to our own. They have a long history of personal ownership that over time evolved into a connection to civil liberties particularly after being disarmed by the Nazis then the Soviets.Report
Personally, I’m fine with reasonable requirements for ownership, it’s just that no one seems able to agree on what constitutes reasonable.
The parallels to how people feel about the laws for guns & abortion never fail to interest me.Report
Concur. The dynamics in play are IMO close to identical.Report
https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/10/house-gun-legislation-background-checks-polling/
PEOPLE agree. Politicians don’t. Lay blame where it belongs.Report
I’m not opposed to it, I just want the system fixed. If all transfers need a BC, the system needs to be more robust, and ideally, it needs to be opened up so I don’t have to pay an FFL to run a BC.Report
Sure – make it a part of their FFLReport
Okay. I’d be fine with this part of it, then.
The fee would probably have to be somewhere around “trivial” (say, $25 or so) and I’d support that.
What happens if the testing starts to lapse?Report
At the individual level? You don’t get to buy more guns.
at the vendor level? You loose your FFL for a year.
Look – I put proposals on the table. We are spending a lot of pixels debating them – when do we get to everyone else’s ideas?Report
Hrm. I think I would be okay with both of those, then.
Now, my assumption is that this would be done at the federal, rather than the state, level. Correct? The BATFE would be in charge of it?Report
FFLs are a federal thing . . .Report
Indeed. So that would bypass any of the issues in recalcitrant states like Texas.
Would we have additional books to throw at criminals who get arrested for gun crime without having an up-to-date license?
Guy gets arrested for a robbery with a handgun and he never got the proficiency training. Can we turn his 5-7 into a 12-15?Report
civil penalties. lots of big fines. required community service treating gun shot victims in ERs. Because according to our few weak statistics, most of the persons committing that type of violence do so with illegal weapons, which we already plenty of laws to deal with.Report
Community service following the prison sentence?
It’d be a good on-ramp back into society, I suppose.Report
and done repeatedly for all sorts of other things.Report
You talked me into it.
(Not crazy about the fines but, hey. It’s a small price to pay.)Report
Whose FFL? Is a gun shop responsible for each purchaser’s regular recertification?Report
Gun shops have an FFL to sell weapons. As a condition of maintaining that FFL they would be required to offer and supervise the testing. Its still on the owner to comply. Of an owner lapses, then the background check database would be updated automatically to say they can’t buy that type of weapon again until they retest.
This is not technologically hard folks.Report
Would you really be ok with all those people having guns they’re no longer certified to use?Report
So if I have an aging relative who has a gun and I want to buy it because I don’t think he should have it any longer, can I?Report
You could always do a transfer via an FFL. I’ve bought several guns from my uncle that way (he is an FFL in a neighboring state so we have transferred through an FFL in Maryland, which is required and not particularly cumbersome). There was a small fee for the paperwork.
I really have never understood a legit reason to have off the books private transfers, but that’s just me.Report
The issue isn’t “legit reason”.
The issue is “will this law be followed or did we just turn lots of otherwise law abiding people into criminals”?
My dead grandfather was in WW2. Let’s say he’s got some boxes of stuff somewhere that we haven’t gone through yet, and there’s a gun in there.
Am I doing a few minutes of paperwork on line with instructions that are easily understood? Or am I into “spend hours of research and maybe hire a lawyer because the law insists information I don’t have be supplied”?
Keep in mind the local murder rate is zero and this is someone else’s virtue signaling that you’re trying to impose on me so the children of Chicago don’t shoot each other.Report
You’re really talking about 2 different things. One is process, which I agree, should not be particularly burdensome in that situation. You can always handle inheritance via estate administration.
Your hypo though was transferring of a firearm from a relative who may be losing the mental competency to possess it. I’m telling you I’ve gone through FFL transfers. It took me more time to drive to the FFL than to complete the paperwork (like 15-20 min of federal and state forms). I then politely shot the s— with them for awhile because I’m a nice guy like that then came back a week later when everything cleared to pick up my stuff. It’s a perfectly reasonable and worthwhile approach to minimizing the number of grey and black market firearms.Report
I have bought all my firearms as private party sales in places with no background check requirements. I have received others as gifts as have my children. I don’t think my purchases should be under the radar – and I get my background checked every 10 years by the FBI to remain employed.Report
I would just like to introduce some friction into the process to hopefully reduce the frequency and intensity of these types of events. Violations would range from tickeatable to 30 days in jail, and confiscation of the firearm for individuals. Million-dollar fines for companies.
We’ll start with universal background checks and the associated waiting period. Limit magazine sizes, I’d say 6 rounds but I am not an expert. Gun ownership requires a license, prove to the state you understand the basics of gun safety and usage. Each gun should be registered with the state, and owners would be required to maintain liability insurance.Report
someone on another website pointed out that it would be amusing to see all the liberals who got really upset about Kyle Rittenhouse crossing state lines to perform an illegal act figure out how to handle it when that’s how you get an abortion.Report
This liberal has no objection to laws against crossing a state line to commit an illegal act.
I mean, the Mann Act was around long before I was born.Report
That suggests that abortion has a commerce component to it aside from the privacy right component, and we have a commerce clause in the constitution that speaks to that. Which Alito studiously avoided in his draft Roe trashing . . . .Report
It’s worth looking at our peer nations like Australia and Scotland which reacted to mass shootings with legislation and how that turned out.
One of the more common objections is that no law can stop a determined and suicidal attacker. In theory this is reasonable. But empirical evidence shows that it actually does.
Our peer nations have just as many sociopaths, just as many organized criminal gangs, just as much poverty, just as many confused and deranged young men as we do, but somehow much lower levels of gun violence.Report
They are not our peer nations despite our common language and certain cultural affinities. Mexico or Brazil is much more of a peer nation on this kind of subject.Report
Plenty of other countries have managed to past gun control legislation that works. They have no mass shootings or school shootings or students doing active shooter drills. Now there is a pragmatic argument that there are already too many guns in circulation for gun control legislation to work but I don’t think that this proves gun control legislation can’t work.Report
Okay. So we pass the law. Which law?
Does it merely prevent future sales? Does it address current gun ownership?Report
Just as there are no examples of how we can prevent cops from killing about 3 people per day, there are no examples of how to reduce or nearly eliminate gun violence. It is a complete mystery. All one can do is shrug one’s shoulders in resignation.
Which reminds me, I need to finish the paperwork for my Italian passport.Report
However, when a couple people carry signs in front of a SCOTUS justice’s home, everyone and I do mean everyone just agrees that a new law is needed and can be passed in minutes.Report
At least we have our priorities straight: protecting the property values of our unelected rulers is the most important thing we can do.Report
Did that happen? Like, anywhere? I didn’t follow the story line because it was already illegal, but were there any laws passed to make it even more illegal? Did everyone support those laws, and were they passed in minutes?Report
Seriously? How hard do you work to avoid reading the news?
Google “Senate passes bill increasing security at judges homes”Report
It’s an issue I don’t care about, and it doesn’t look like the bill has made it into law.Report
Jaybird proves the infamous Onion headline. https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846494525
I can’t tell whether “gun control won’t work” is learned helplessness or a kind of argument you are using pre-emptively to shut down debate on an idea you oppose.Report
“Gun control” isn’t a magic bullet, Saul.Report
Except it seems to work in every other country. Your claiming this does not make it so. You just hate the idea of government doing anything positive or pro-active in general so your complaint is that it will not work. This just creates a bunch of sophistry and tautalogical arguments and games for you to play which are inherently unwinnable by anyone who disagrees with you. Can I claim that gun control laws will stop all mass shootings and gun violence? No, I’m not a psychic. But there is a good chance based upon looking at other countries that they will or at least will drastically reduce the number and that is worth trying in my opinion. But because an experiment does not guarantee success, it is not good for the pseudo-Socrates of the libertarian set.Report
You just hate the idea of naming a specific policy change because you don’t want to defend it. You just want to give the name of a category and then declare that it would solve the problem.Report
This is no longer a political problem, because there is no pathway to a political solution. We could throw out 22 GOP senators in November and whatever they pass would be immediately thrown out anyway.
Hell we are on a countdown of days to a massive expansion of gun access in this country, when the Court reports out on thile current docket.
Tolerate the deaths, they will keep coming, because we can do nothing with the law or politics.
Or don’t, but don’t kid yourself that politics is where you can make any gains.Report
Sister Elizabeth had a great point a few moments ago:
There may be a handful of political alleviations (I’ve agreed with a handful of Phillip H’s above) but if we want a solution, it’s going to have to be cultural.
And I don’t think we have the stomach for that conversation.
I don’t think we have the stomach to track the variables.Report
For a very smart person, this is a very silly view of how the Senate works and how change happens (very slowly and often with two steps forward and one step backward). But it fits your sophistry and constant need to bash Democrats so I guess you love it.Report
Before the passage of the PPACA, Nancy Pelosi had one hell of a line:
“We came here to do a job, not keep a job.”
If all this is about is making noises and expressing sentiments, I sympathize.
For what it’s worth, I share many of the sentiments.Report
“Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat and an outspoken gun control advocate, said he’s tired of reading Tweets from Republican colleagues, like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, expressing sympathy for the families of those killed in mass shootings.
“I mean, our job is not to send thoughts and prayers, our job is to pass laws,” Murphy, who witnessed Sandy Hook’s pain, told reporters at the Capitol. “So if you think the beginning and end of your responsibility after a mass shooting is to sympathize with the victims and the families, then you know, why are you in the Senate? Why ask for this job?””Report
Chris Murphy is great but the Senate is unfortunately nearly perfectly designed to prevent sweeping change. Elizabeth lives in solidly blue Maryland I believe so I can kind of see why she gets frustrated but it is a matter of getting Senators elected in states like Utah, Wyoming, Texas, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina Nebraska, etc who will vote for gun-control legislation and/or court packing. This is possible but not necessarily plausible except with a lot of patience and time. So voters in solidly blue states need to keep on voting as red states get turned purple or purple states blue at very slow levels of change.Report
I won’t opine on the laws, but if you haven’t looked at The Onion yet, please do so.
They’ve been publishing variations on that same article using the same headline every time a big one hits the news for years, with the only change being the particulars of that instance. This is not just great political commentary, this is a great callback/escalation of a running black joke.
I didn’t know they still had it in them; this rivals their 9/11 comeback.Report
Following on (and continuing to refrain from opining or debating on the laws) – anyone who doesn’t have kids in school today likely has no idea what it’s now like – schools barricaded like prisons with fences and gates and metal detectors and security/police on staff everywhere, and parents not permitted onto school property whatsoever except under extremely controlled/time-limited/monitored preplanned scenarios, and the kids running monthly-or-more Active Shooter Drills where they all have to cluster and hunker down and hide behind desks and tables in darkened rooms, being shushed so hopefully the Bad Man Won’t Find Them, getting yelled at if they were in the bathroom when the Drill was commenced because they need to assume The Terrified Hiding Position.
Yeah, yeah, I know for another generation it was Duck and Cover. I’m glad I missed that. I wish I’d missed this, because it is Deeply and Supremely Fished Up that as a nation and culture we’ve allowed it to get to this point.
Do I have an answer? No, I don’t.
But my sense is that someone’s going to try to find one, whether it works or not, whether it’s a good idea or not, whether it’s Constitutional or not, because parents will not – CAN not – take much more of this.Report
Well, this is part of the thing… my kids’ schools have all this. Your kids’ schools do. Do Texas schools? Did Florida schools?
I can’t get inside my sons’ schools without scanning my ID outside the door.
How’d this guy get in?Report
For all that we’ve made schools LIKE prisons, the only way to really truly stop a committed gunman from getting in would be to go full prison, with all the measures and guards that implies.
For all the security measures I named, I guarantee there’s ALWAYS a gate that is left unlocked somewhere or a door that doesn’t close all the way; or if all that fails, a teacher opening a keycard door that I could shoot in the back and then walk right in over their still-warm body.
It would take a maximum of maybe a week’s observation, at MOST, for me to plan a reliable route inside bypassing security, if I wanted to.
Could I show up unplanned on the spur of the moment and get in? Probably not. MAYBE not.
But my sense is that the kind of person that does this, plans it out to some degree. And schools aren’t ACTUAL prisons, they were never meant to be, and we can’t achieve that kind of security without MAKING them so.
(and hey Kaz, good to see ya, even under such a topic).Report
The thing that keeps coming back for me is the fact that the police who were there failed to go inside after the shooter. They believed he had body armor, apparently, and failed to risk themselves.
I’m glad the border control guy was there.Report
Why’d we spend all that time and money militarizing them, if they can’t scrounge up some body armor of their own and use it to get inside a building where some psycho is currently murdering children? THAT seems like a good use of all the military and SWAT gear we’ve provided them with over the years. More so than a drug bust.Report
Because despite all that, they have no duty to protect.Report
They use it to mitigate risks to themselves (some of which are illusory), not to take risks for others.Report
Gotta be alive to collect that pension, after all.Report
This is a great, great question.
We’ve talked about the “duty to protect” (a couple of times, even) before.
Police do not have one. Officially.
To be honest, I think it’s fair to ask “what in the hell are we paying you for?” after something like this. Goodness knows, it’s not to protect and serve elementary school children.Report
All entirely possible… though I do have to wonder what security steps were in place.
Which is not to say that the onus is on schools to make themselves impenetrable. But if we see states that A) make guns really easy to get AND B) have lax security standards in schools and C) pass laws about what teachers can/cannot say about gay people, we can start to connect the dots on how much that states’ leaders really care about the welfare of children.Report
It sounds like they had a bunch of security measures in place, including at least one armed cop on the campus. It does not sound like their measures and procedures were observed, though the video of him entering the school doesn’t show exactly how he got in, so maybe he used force? I assume we’ll find some of this stuff out at some point in the relatively near future.Report
Unfortunately whenever someone writes that X/we can’t take much more of this, the answer always that they seemingly take a lot more. Sandy Hook did not change anything, Parkland did not change anything. What is the event that will change anything? The issue is not what Jaybird thinks it is. The issue is unfortunately that support for progressive issues is often wide or wide-seeming but very shallow. Either people get cold feet when they hear the details of what change/reform means (healthcare) or it is just one of my concerns or reasons why they vote (abortion, gun control, etc.). The GOP will always have the single-issue voters for many issues. The Democrats, seemingly not as much.Report
In this case, the issue that I think it is involves a whipsaw between the fierce urgency of defunding if not abolishing the police and the fierce urgency of passing more laws and regulations and making sure that those laws are enforced.Report
I know you like to harp on the defund thing, but it seems there was plenty of funding in Uvalde (the school district has its own PD for Christ’s sake), and the result is nearly a couple dozen dead. Doesn’t seem like money well spent.Report
“Defund the police” or “abolish the police” is not a favorite expression of mine either because I think it invites itself to nut picking and it is clearly something opposed by a majority. Even in liberal San Francisco. It also invites these kind of discussions:
Person 1: Defund/abolish the police and prisons.
Person 2: What do you mean by defund the police? How will they investigate crimes and arrest people? What about the irredeemably violent? What about domestic abuse calls?
Person 1: I don’t mean it as a literal statement…goes off on long and winding statement about what they do mean.
Person 3: I mean it literally! Defund the police and abolish prisons!!
Person 1: Don’t listen to Person 3, he is an extreme minority.
Person 3: Abolish the police and ban prisons!!!Report
Has anyone of any seriousness used that expression since the summer of ’20?Report
We’ve got one or two.Report
Apparently none of us liberals are saying “Defund the police” so you need to do it on our behalf, then make that the fierce urgent issue to be addressed.Report
Your discomfort with the recent past doesn’t make it off-limits.Report
Indeed. The President himself talked about the need to *FUND* the police in the State of the Union address.
“Defund” still hangs around your neck like an albatross, though.
“We only argued that for one summer!” doesn’t do a whole lot for whatever the current fierce urgency is. It kinda undercuts it, actually.Report
For a movement whose system of belief is completely against the sins of one’s father carrying over this seems kind of disingenuous.Report
We’re not in “sins of the father” territory.
We’re in “this happened two freaking years ago in the middle of the coronavirus lockdown during the freaking mostly peaceful protests”.
If we were arguing this in 2040, maybe “sins of the father” would be an appropriate analogy.
It’s two years later. Not even.Report
Who is hanging defund, around whose neck?
Upthread, you asked about it, and I responded that we should transfer money from police to mental health counselors.
If that’s the albatross I’m happy to wear it.Report
I want to say that the defunders did it to themselves.
Saul has a handy explanation of the phenomenon above.Report
Are any of those people here?
Maybe you should argue with the people who are here, or go find the people you do want to argue with.Report
Yeah, one of them is. He still shows up from time to time.
And if you want to pretend that “Defund” isn’t going to be part of any argument involving the increased need for increased law enforcement, your head is in the sand.Report
That argument is happening right now in Los Angeles.
The race for city Mayor is between Karen Bass and Rick Caruso- He favors hiring more cops and Karen Bass favors- well here, I’ll show you :
“Bass will support – and fund – the community-based public safety practitioners who work day and night to prevent crime. Intervention workers – often men and women who were formerly gang involved – have deep ties to the community and are best equipped to bring peace to our neighborhoods. But they are constantly traumatized by what they see and do, and do not receive the support or respect from the city that they deserve.
https://karenbass.com/policies/crime-prevention/
This is the real world where the argument for “increased need for law enforcement” is being played out.
And it pretty much mirrors what I’m saying, that there is a need for increased crime intervention workers.
Maybe you could address that, instead of chasing after the guy who shows up from time to time.Report
I look forward to seeing what happens.
(Also, Chesa is up for recall in a couple of weeks on the 7th.)Report
This is where you always end up.
“Democrats are doing Bad Things!”
*Evidence that Democrats are in fact doing a good things*
“Good luck with that! Behold, the power of reactionism!”
When your accusations are disputed, you pivot to telling us how it doesn’t matter since people will vote Republican anyway.
Which we already know! But it completely contradicts your point.
If people are going to vote against Bass regardless of whether she is pushing “Defund” or something sensible, why harp on “Defund”?
It obviously is not moving anyone’s vote, you are telling us this yourself.
So why is it such a “issue of fierce urgency” for you?Report
I’m not sure that Chesa’s tenure should be seen as evidence of him doing good things.
As far as I can tell, he’s decreased the quality of life in San Francisco somewhat substantially. (I can find you essays about this, if you’d like.)
For what it’s worth, I am not particularly convinced that Democrats are, in fact, doing good things.
(Please don’t see that as an endorsement of Republicans.)
There are tradeoffs being made, costs being paid, and mistakes failing to be even acknowledged.
You know the thing where a celebrity says a slur or something and then gives a mealy-mouthed apology that says something like “I’m sorry that you people are so thin-skinned”?
If Democrats find themselves wondering why nobody is paying attention to any given new change in direction, it’s because that there have been changes in direction without acknowledgment that people made the mistakes (instead of something like “mistakes were made”).
And they’ll find themselves in a place where there’s a recall that goes 70-30 in the most progressive city in the country and people are arguing on behalf of the 30 and wondering why more people aren’t agreeing.
You’re likely to be wondering for a long time.Report
Wait, how did we move from “Defund-which-is-mentioned-by-a-random-commenter” to Chesa Boudin?
Isn’t Karen Bass doing exactly what you say you want, offering nuanced and sensible police and criminal reform efforts? Aren’t these “good things”?
Instead of the thing you say you hate, silly “Defund” talk.Report
We got there via the election for LA’s Mayor.
There’s another election, of a sort, in a couple of weeks in which a new and improved approach to crime will be voted upon.Report
Isn’t what Bass is doing, pretty much what you have urged us to do? Offer sensible popular and effective programs?
Aren’t these in fact, “Good things”?Report
Isn’t what Bass is doing, pretty much what you have urged us to do?
She’s promising pretty much what we want her to promise.Report
Would you expect any less from Mr. Goalpost himself?Report
I never take conservatives at face value because the stated objections are just window dressing concealing the real objection.
I” won’t vote Democrat because:”
They are weak on defense.
*Democrats nominate a wounded veteran hawk.*
Ah, nevertheless!
Because they are weak on crime.
*Democrats nominate a prosecutor*
Ah, nevertheless!
Because they are sexually licentious.
*Democrats nominate a faithful husband and churchgoing father.*
Ah, nevertheless!
Because they blow up the debt.
*Democrats reduce the debt*.
Ah, nevertheless!
It doesn’t matter what Democrats do, or say. For that matter, it doesn’t matter what the Republican does or says.
Mock the disabled? Doesn’t matter.
Say something unkind about coal miners? Doesn’t matter.
Remain faithful to your wife or grab every pu$$y?
It. Doesn’t. Matter.
They. Don’t. Care.
They’ve made it clear that it is the Democrats themselves, our identity that they reject.Report
Sounds like you might be able to beat them by providing an example that will embarrass the hell out of them.
Look, for example, to California.Report
The state with a spectacular budget surplus?
It. Doesn’t. Matter.
Texas has the electrical grid of a Third World country?
They. Don’t. Care.Report
You’d think that the budget surplus could address (insert example here).
And the electrical grid of California is one to be emulated?Report
You will need to work very hard to convince anyone that you or any other conservative would vote Democrat “if only they would do X”.Report
Chip, I’m not saying “this is what you need to do to get me”.
That one’s pretty easy. Legalizing weed and ending DST.
When it comes to other folks? They probably have opinions that need to be swayed by stuff like “wow, I wish my city/state were more like X”.
And this is where pointing to LA or San Fran or just California in general has bite.
“We have a budget surplus!” is a pretty good argument, not gonna lie. But I can see how it might not be sufficient for everybody.Report
No, that isn’t believable given all your other statements over the years.
You oppose almost every policy and value the Democrats have, and embrace all the talking points of the right.
It wold be easier to get Pinky.Report
I’ve been saying the same thing for a decade, Chip.
This isn’t like yelling “DEFUND!” one day and “WE NEED MORE LAW ENFORCEMENT ENFORCING MORE LAWS!” the next.Report
Maybe its more like yelling “LESS GOVERNMENT!” one day and “MORE BORDER ENFORCEMENT!” the next.Report
I’m one of the open borders guys (or close enough for jazz, I guess), Chip.
But I am glad that the Border Patrol guy was there.
God knows, the cops were outside for an hour.Report
Given your past comments critical of multiculturalism you seemed to favor border restriction.
But in any case, you are frequently critical of the protests and riots, and the videos of shoplifting people, and especially, those people who drove out the police and armed themselves in the CHAZ/CHOP.
This isn’t a charge of hypocrisy, its to point out that your veering erratically between anarchic freedom one moment (“Police cannot protect you!”) and authoritarian control on the other (Murders are OUTTACONTROL!”).
The idea of a collective entity like government and police which can maintain order effectively and justly is the middle you are working overtime to exclude.Report
you are frequently critical of the protests and riots, and the videos of shoplifting people, and especially, those people who drove out the police and armed themselves in the CHAZ/CHOP
Yeah, put me down as smack dab in the middle of the road on that one.
I believe that the police are corrupt and captured and need to be reformed.
I also believe that, if forced to choose between the police and the riots and shoplifting and the CHAZ/CHOP, I’d pick the police.
But I still think that they need to be reformed and find people who want to give them more power without reforming first to be incomprehensible.
I mean, they waited outside while children were being murdered.Report
The very essence of the Democratic Party and modern liberalism is that there can exist a government which administers state functions in a manner that is efficient, just, humane and responsive to the people’s desires.
Like, the government can administer old age health programs efficiently, or control crime and disorder with a mixture of armed and unarmed professionally trained agents using both preventative interventions and punishment.
Given your comment history, I really think you struggle with the very concept of this.
I referenced this once before about how the basic libertarian viewpoint doesn’t accept the idea of this third party being able to exercise its own agency and will.
That if the power is acknowledged, it is grudging and always with a degree of emnity.
For example, you say you want to reform the police.
But other than abolishing QI and police unions, you have never mentioned how such a reformed police force would be different than it is now.
Would they handle riots differently? Shoplifting? Murders? How?
Most police reformers point to social welfare type ideas such as drug and relationship counseling, job training, and values “nudging” to , well, frankly, make people behave better.
I get the sense you aren’t really on board with such heavy handed government stuff, because you view the government with skepticism bordering on hostility.
Its that middle, the modern effective liberal social welfare state that you just can’t seem to embrace which ultimately lands you in Republicanland.Report
I’m not opposed to the police *IN THEORY*.
I understand what they’re for *IN THEORY*.
I’m opposed to the whole “corrupt” thing. The whole “captured” thing.
And making appeals to how it should work IN THEORY instead of the whole “well, how does it actually work?” thing was well explored already in the 20th Century.
I’d rather a government that did what it said on the box. As it is, I’m stuck looking at what is actually done.Report
Like I said, you struggle with the concept.
Not a criticism actually, just explains why you don’t fit in with either of our parties, and have difficulty articulating a third alternative.Report
My third alternative is to vote for third alternatives and to push for stuff that I think will actually result in better lives.
Such as ending the drug war, reforming the police, that sort of thing.
Rather than voting for politicians who are recalled in short order. (Though, I’ll grant, I support the recalls.)Report
Make economic growth and job creation the priority.
This presumably means dumping the “burn the economy down” communist wing and/or the “end inequality by ending growth” wing.Report
The economy generally does better under a Democrat than a Republican.
Even at the state and local level, the best places to operate a business are places like the coastal cities.
And despite my best efforts as commandant of the Burn The Economy Down Communist Caucus Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti remain popular with the bourgeoisie.
*Shakes fist menacingly*Report
It’s a random walk on extremely thin data.
Worse, growth policies are going to lag their implementation.
So Bill Clinton passed a number of free trade agreements, and had a lot of economic growth, but one had little to do with the other.
Worse, a President Clinton 2 would probably have to act against those policies or at least pretend she would to get the Nod.
Far as I can tell, current Team Red doesn’t give a damn about growth.
On the other hand, current Team Blue wants to sacrifice growth to fight inequality and there are wings insisting true communism has never been tried.
If those are my options, then it has to be Red but I’m not happy.Report
A lifetime in this day and age.
Even leaving that aside, it sure does make a handy excuse for doing nothing, doesn’t it?Report
Well, I’m a big fan of running on specifics. “Abolish QI!” or “Break up Police Unions!” or similar.
Oscar wrote a nice little essay a couple of years ago called “Altering the Police Paradigm“.
I agreed with it then and agree with it still. (Well, I have a couple of quibbles but they’re the same quibbles as two years ago.)Report
That was an excellent article.Report
Kids at risk of learning gay people exist: LAW PASSED!
Kids at risk of seeing naked mice in ‘Maus’: EMERGENCY BOARD SESSION CALLED AND BOOK REMOVED FROM CURRICULUM
Kids at risk of getting medically supported therapy to support their gender identity development: LAW PASSED!
Kids at risk of being shot in classrooms: Well, what can be done?Report
Your examples on solutions were all “pass a law that the law abiding will follow”.
Their equiv would be banning guns in that school or outlawing murder.Report
That’s how every law works.
I’m pointing out that, when motivated, Republicans have shown an ability to act when it comes to their concerns about schools.
Given that Republicans have proposed and taken zero actions after each and every school shooting, I can’t help but assume they are unconcerned by them and therefore unmotivated to act.Report
We have already taken action. The things you want stopped have already been criminalized, exactly like with your examples.
The question now is how to show we care by virtue signaling because otherwise people will claim we don’t care.
Team Red normally goes with “hearts and prayers”. Team Blue’s previous assault weapons ban outlawed bayonet fixtures.Report
I’ve opined on this topic so many times…
Background Checks – Sure, but the system is full of holes. Government agencies that are supposed to report people to the system, both state & federal, often fail to do so, and there is no accountability to make sure the holes are plugged (sovereign immunity, doncha know). Or, if they do, the information is incomplete and it fails to ID someone (re: Dylan Roof). Finally, the process for removing yourself from the system in the event of a false positive, or the restoration of rights, is a massive clusterfish.
Before we expand the system, let’s figure out how to plug the obvious deficiencies.
Red Flags – Honestly, one of the smartest ideas out there, and only a handful of states that have them don’t leave them open as a vector for personal grudges. And I have a hard time believing that social media algorithms can’t flag a post for danger. They totally can, they just don’t want to, because it’s not profitable, or it’ll risk reduced engagement. And sure, future shooters could get smart and keep their mouths shut, but 95+% of them are not like the Mandalay Bay shooter, they couldn’t shut up if their life depended on it, because people like that are pretty effing stupid to begin with.
Anyway, Red Flag laws are simple, they are a civil intervention, not an excuse for PDs to confiscate guns and sell them at auction, or destroy them. And they can’t be requested by just anyone, it’s gotta be someone that interacts with the person on a regular basis, unless the person makes a clearly public statement (then anyone who sees the statement, like on social media, can request one). Once issued, guns are confiscated and held by the PD until the Red Flag order is resolved by the courts, and no new ones can legally be purchased. If the order is defeated, the firearms are returned. If it’s upheld, then the court has to decide on how the person can satisfy the order (complete counseling, etc.), then once the court is satisfied, the firearms are returned. A Red Flag is not a criminal conviction, it’s a civil order, it should not involve the permanent loss of property unless the person fails to act to resolve it. And if the request for a Red Flag is spurious (A acting out a grudge against B), then B can sue for damages.
As I’ve said on the culture front, the culture needs a lot of work, and I think training can help with that, as long as state & local lawmakers aren’t using it to discourage the exercise of the right. If it’s bad to reduce access to polling places, or places to get an ID, or an abortion, it’s just as bad to ban access to firearms training centers. So law makers at local or state levels can’t make it onerous to own & operate a range in or out of city limits. Range ownership already involves considerable costs on the environmental front (noise, lead abatements, safety, etc.), if we are going to require training, then these places need to be allowed to exist.
And finally, spending some serious research dollars on non-lethal or less than lethal self defense tools, and then making them widely legal, will also help. Stupid crap, like making nunchuks illegal because of Bruce Lee, is not helping.Report
Raise taxes to pay for effective systems, to pay bureaucrats well enough to actually do their jobs, and fire them when they don’t.Report
“pay bureaucrats well enough to actually do their jobs” They already are-least round here.
“fire them when they don’t.” The first rule of bureaucrats is to CYA. How quickly are gov’t employees fired for stuff that private sector folks get fired for instantly, or swiftly?Report
fire them when they don’t.
One of the pre-reqs for this is weakening public sector unions.
I assure you that that is a price that I am willing to pay.
May I assume that you’re down with it too?Report
Haven’t we had a Supreme Court decision that says law enforcement is not obligated to actually physically protect citizens?Report
Yes, we have.
Not sure why we let them have body armor and high end weapons if we don’t expect them to engage threats…Report
A couple, if I recall correctly.
DeShaney vs. Winnebago and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales.Report
At the federal level most employees are not covered by bargaining units. There are civil service rules in place to prevent politically motivated firings, but when applied they do work (I know of several cases in my agency).Report
Fair ’nuff.
I assume that the sticking point is the “but when applied” part.
We’d have to figure out how to make sure that they are not captured within a couple of years (my assumption is that they would be but I’m open to ideas).Report
Problem is, the people who fail to report, or make mistakes in reporting, aren’t federal.Report
they all work for organizations that get all sorts of federal block grants and such. And the grants regs have for decades said performance failures are a reason to not fund them.
There are ways to do this. There have always been ways to do this. People are just lazy.Report
Hey, that’s awesome, now we just need some politicians who are willing to make that happen, rather than simply mugging for the camera.Report
IIRC, the problem isn’t pay, it’s a lack of accountability (they don’t get fired & can’t be sued), and no federal reporting standard, so it’s often difficult to enter the information, because the fields don’t align. Is a federalism problem, right up there with why we have crap data on police violence, because the reporting requirements are crap.Report
The reporting requirements could easily be changed as a rider on something. Implementation would still require additional funds.Report
Oh, yes, very much so. Although I suspect the amount needed would be a rounding error in the federal budget.Report
And yet we have not yet found those coins in the couch cushionsReport
If the money is a rounding error then the problem is someone doesn’t want it to be done.
Natural enemy of accountability is bureaucracy, unionization, and various pollical groups.
Or it might be as simple as neither Red nor Blue are rewarded for making the gov work efficiently.Report
Beto might not win in November but he is acting like things matter outside of fundraising e-mails and willing to stand up for what he believes in a state where it will alienate a lot of people: https://www.axios.com/2022/05/25/beto-orourke-abbott-uvalde-texas-mass-shootingReport
You’ve got to be kidding. That was completely about raising his profile rather than raising issues. If he watned to raise issues he could have held his own press conference that he wouldn’t have been dragged out of. Instead he wanted to be a theater kid.Report
Beto won’t win, but if he somehow does, he’d be taking over a weak governorship, and dealing with a veto-proof majority of some of the worst people on the planet in the legislature. Even his ability to appoint the people to commissionerships (the true power of the Texas governor, and one which Abbott, and Perry before him, have wielded extremely effectively) would be limited, because they have 6 year terms, only some of which would expire in the first few years of his single term (and it’d be a single term). Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Abbott got all his commissioners to resign and appointed/reappointed all of them during his lame duck period, effectively eliminating even this power for Beto. He’d also be able to call special sessions of the legislature, and keep them in session until they did what he wanted, but that’d just mean the Texas legislature would become a full time legislature doing absolutely nothing half the time.
And there’s no hope that he’d be able to steer his party to even a veto-allowing minority of the legislature in his one term (or 2, for that matter), because the state is gerrymandered so heavily that there cannot be significant change in the makeup of the legislature until at least the next decennial census (and given that they’ve set themselves up for a supermajority until then, they’ll just do that again in 2031).
Definitely leaving this state.Report
But of course, this is silly hypothetical conjecturing anyway, because the Democrats we have can’t, and wouldn’t if they could, pass truly meaningful gun legislation. Anything that would actually make a dent will be thrown out by the courts, so the Democrats will, as they’ve all but admitted today, use it as a campaign issue rather than even making a hopeless effort.
More dead children it is then. More dead concert-goers, grocery store-shoppers, church/mosque/temple-goers, etc., etc., etc. it is then. More suicides, more spousal murders, more, more, more. So glad to live in a country where we have this otherwise pretty worthless freedom.Report
Hey Chris (and good to see ya too, although again this isn’t the topic I’d prefer to see ya under). Your second para reminds me of this piece , which I re-read every few years and probably linked more than once back when I was still a regular in these parts.
That it was written in response to Columbine, and here we are, is incredibly, unutterably sad to me. (And if you haven’t taken a look at The Onion’s front page today , give it a gander.)Report
Hey man, and that piece is great. I think you may have linked it here before, because it felt very familiar.
I used to post here and elsewhere that we are all responsible, in various ways, and perhaps to varying degrees (though the variations in degrees are probably pretty trivial, and themselves largely caused by the very things that we’re all responsible for), but I gave up doing that, and just rant it at home and to people with whom I share a great deal, politically. But we are all responsible: we didn’t built our society and culture — no one did — but all of us uphold them, further them, reinforce them, even strengthen them. Do most of us have much power to change the law, or push top-down cultural changes? Obviously not, but we live it, and we don’t reject it, or when we do, we reject it in ways that ultimately serve to reinforce it. We are guilty collectively, and there’s nothing Americans hate to hear than that something is collective.
I actually think I see signs of some of this changing, and more rapidly than I thought. One of the biggest issues here is, of course, patriarchy. I know word loses even more people, especially on this site, but I lack a better one for the way our culture does gender, and the way it distributes power between genders. Note, I don’t mean men are responsible, I mean patriarchy, a part of our culture that harms men as well as women, something that I think is implicit in the piece you linked. And, if what I’ve seen among young people, and I don’t merely mean high school and college kids, but middle school kids, and younger, is any indication, the deconstruction of gender is happening at a rapid speed. Perhaps it’s just a different version of 70s/80s gender-bending as a fashion, I don’t know, but I like to hope that what we’re seeing is the breakdown of the very foundation of patriarchy. I guess what I’m saying is, maybe there’s hope, after the reaction to the deconstruction of gender, and the reaction to the reaction. Maybe a society in which people, and especially boys and men, aren’t alienated by and within the violent soup of our culture, and can build healthy, or at least healthier, ways of coping and identity formation. Maybe 20, 30, 40 years from now, children will be going to school without metal detectors and barred windows and barbed wire fences. Maybe young folk will be able to go to a concert without, in the back of their minds, thinking about how to get out, without getting crushed, if they hear the tell-tale popping sounds of gunfire. I have hope, even if it’s constantly threated by the sheer magnitude of my cynicism.
Between now and then, though, what to do? I have a 2-year old. These are pressing questions. I do know we’re getting the hell out of Texas, though.
Also, ban guns.Report
Your thoughts on gender are fascinating and I will ponder that further. It hits home especially close because my youngest sibling very recently came out as trans, something none of us in her immediate family had the slightest inkling about (like none whatsoever).
My 80-year-old extremely conservative and religious parents have taken the news SHOCKINGLY well, and we will all be getting together in a couple weeks. My mom’s been providing my new sister with makeup and dress tips, some clothes, and even a new name – my sister had already picked out a name, but asked my mom if my mom had had a girl’s name picked out in case she had had a girl and my mom said she had, she’d always wanted a girl and never got one, and she had picked out a name that she thought was absolutely beautiful but never got to use it.
And my sister agreed that it WAS beautiful, and chose THAT name instead.
It’s a funny ol’ world isn’t it? It often goes in directions you never expected. But not all of those directions are bad, and I have to try to keep looking for and appreciating the positive, especially in the face of so much that’s not.Report
That is truly amazing, just beautiful to hear. I hope the meeting goes well and everyone comes out of this even closer.Report
It was also a reminder that for all we see religion so frequently being invoked to justify hateful behavior, it can just as easily be invoked to encourage people to behave better, to BE better, than they might on their own impetus and given their own upbringing and background and feelings.
My mom said something to me like, “Do I think it’s a ‘sin’? Yeah, probably. But all I can think about is how much pain she must have been in for all those years, how alone she must have felt, it makes me so sad; and my job is to love her like Jesus loves her, and that’s what’s important and that’s what I’m going to do.”
I was pretty proud of my folks and my other brother as well, since everyone’s immediate reaction on receiving the letter was to pick up the phone and call and reassure my sister that our love and support was unconditional and unchanged by this news – while we all did pre-emptively beg forgiveness for the many times we will undoubtedly mangle pronouns and names. We all have 40 years of applying a particular mental framework to our familial relationships and that’s a lot of habit to quickly break and rethink/reorient.
(Because of our age difference and working parents I even functioned as a bit of surrogate “parent” to her – changed her diapers and fed her, and in the past at times when I’ve been frustrated with her for one reason or another, I’ve nearly called her “son”. In fact I may have slipped once or twice and done just that, because that’s what the relationship sometimes felt like to me, less “sibling” and more “parent”.)Report
I genuinely believe that you and your family are making the world better with you level of empathy and respect. Being good makes it easier for the next person to be good, and so on. “Be the change you want to see in the world” has become a cliche, but I really think that’s how the world changes: we do better to make it easier for others to do the same, or still better.
I know, of course, that is not your motivation, but it’s still important.Report
“More dead children it is then. More dead concert-goers, grocery store-shoppers, church/mosque/temple-goers, etc., etc., etc. it is then. More suicides, more spousal murders, more, more, more. So glad to live in a country where we have this otherwise pretty worthless freedom.”
And from the side that has the gall to self-identify themselves as pro-life.Report
“Pro-life” has always just one example of that movement’s rank mendacity, but its absurdity definitely shines the brighter on days like yesterday and today.Report
The basic problem with reasonable gun control in the United States, beyond the 2nd Amendment, is that you have a minority that believes in the abstract principle of the right to bear arms over any actual societal good. They are willing to live with mass shootings and schools that have to engage in psychologically traumatic active shooter drills in order to keep their precious right to bear arms. The political system gives them a big stranglehold over the political desires of everybody else.Report
On the flip side is the minority that feels civilian ownership is essentially a privilege, not a right.Report
On the flip side, plenty of places manage to have strict gun control and keep nice and healthy democracies. The whole “keep government” in line motto is pure delusion that people tell themselves.Report
Oh, come on. You’re the guy who plays that certain card every chance you get, and you’re going with “trust the government to protect us”?Report
Cops were there.
They were *THERE*.
They knew he was armed.
They failed to go into the building while he was murdering children.
This idea that we should trust laws and law enforcement is impervious to freaking anything.Report
So what you are saying is the good guy with a gun thing is essentially a myth. Might as well make it harder for everybody to get a gun then. America tried everything but that most obvious of all solutions.Report
Sure. But then you have an additional problem:
“You cannot trust the police. Therefore you should be unarmed too, because others will also be unarmed after you get unarmed.”
This is a tough sell. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I wouldn’t buy it. I’d need you to explain to me how it’d work, given a corrupt/captured police force.
(Phil’s 1, 2, and 3 above seem to me to be attainable and somewhat resistant to a corrupt/captured police force.)Report
Were there armed teachers? That would be the equivalent of the good guy with a gun.Report
“You cannot trust the police so everyone should arm themselves”.
Also:
“Defund the police is a stupid thing that discredits anyone who says it.”Report
“Defund” is a stupid thing. Want evidence? Biden himself repudiated it in the State of the Union.
You know what you might have gotten away with? Well, Oscar wrote an essay a couple of years ago…Report
Two statements in quotes that I didn’t say contradict each other!Report
I do not think so based on the extensive reporting so far.Report
What is the latest on what the cops did? I’ve seen that the shooter was in the school for an hour? He had no body armor just the plate carrier. He was chased by the cops and drove his truck into a ditch.Report
I’m not sure the facts matter. Doubtlessly we can rest assured the entire thing was done by the book.Report
Not just by the book, but you can be sure medals will be handed out to everyone with a badge within 25 miles.Report
The latest on what the cops did is what I’ve shared already.
The cops did not go into the building.
The border patrol guy did. The border patrol guy killed the shooter.
While the cops were outside, refusing to go in.Report
Here’s something from the New York Times. Looks like the gunman was inside the school for about an hour.
Report
An hour. JFC.Report
I swear if we hear he was in there killing a kid every 5 minutes or something…Report
From what I read some cops were outside evacuating kids through windows.
No idea what was happening inside.Report
52% of Americans who support strict gun control is hardly a minority.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/25/why-cant-america-stop-mass-shootings-gun-controlReport
52% support stricter, not strict. One is a relative, the other an absolute.Report
Illinois just passed a law banning ghost guns made with 3D printers or online parts. Apparently the number of gun violence incidents involving ghost guns in the state is doubling every year and expected to continue. Owners have six months to get them serialized. I wonder how many will comply? How effective is regulation of gun transactions in a brave new world where everyone is a producer?Report
I wonder how many will comply?
My guess is somewhere between diddly and squat.
How effective is regulation of gun transactions in a brave new world where everyone is a producer?
We can’t get cops to go inside of a building where children are being murdered.Report
You know, ironically, this might might actually be an opportunity for Police Reform (rather than Gun Control).
Look at these cops. Behold.
We need to reform the police.Report
With this “World Wide Web” there is no way to restrict the flow of child pornography, since anyone can produce it and distribute it anonymously!Report
I have to admit, I’ve never heard this one from law and order types. Every time a raid goes sideways it seems the police have had no trouble finding a judge to sign the (usually somewhat free of facts) warrant.Report
As I recall one of the many Republican pushbacks initially on the FISA warrants undergirding Russiagate was the willingness of the FISA judges to sign allegedly fact free warrants.Report
What seems to be on the table:
Report
Ah great, this will definitely stop 1/10th of 1% of gun deaths, if not less, while denying what y’all consider a right absolutely necessary to basic human liberty to people who can’t afford to get out of it. This is almost as good as the “no fly list” proposal Democrats floated a few years ago.
I love this country.Report
Considering Manchin still can’t get his Manchin-Toomey background legislation past cloture I suspect this is back to performative politics.Report
I’m not sure what Red Flag laws are supposed to accomplish that existing mental health laws already provide. I was pointed to a David French piece this morning and it comes across as being more gun specific and a cynic might conclude its merely intended to provide an alternative path from gun control regulation.
Traditionally, a person could lose freedom and property if mental illness made one a danger to oneself or others. People shouldn’t be deterred from seeking mental health care by laws that fail to make that distinction.Report
Red Flag laws could be a solid start. They need to be aimed at anybody who commits DV/family violence of any sort. There is a solid connection between becoming a shooter and previous family violence. Most pro gun peeps i see tend to be fine with restricting gun ownership to people with restraining orders or something similar. Of course you need some form of background check to make these laws work.Report
Well, that would take guns out of the hands of a number of police officers.
This is not a criticism.Report
That would be fine with me. Lots of cops are abusive SOB’s to their families so take it all.Report
Given the amount of DV among cops, this is probably a good way to disarm them almost completely.Report
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback
How Australia bought back 650,000 guns and murder and suicide plummeted in the country.Report
650,000 is a lot easier than the hundreds of millions of guns in private circulation in the United States. There is something like one gun per person in the United States and the ownership is very concentrated.Report
An amazing law, it not only reduced the homicide rate in Australia by 42%, it also reduced it in the US by 36%, 45% in Italy (missing one year of data), 11% in Finland (again, one year missing), and pretty much everywhere else not in a war zone.Report
Just to emphasize your point because I think this is where we start leaving reality, it’s worth mentioning that there are in fact ‘mass shootings’ in other countries, including with way stricter gun laws. We just tend not to hear about them except for the absolute bloodiest or if Islamist terrorism is involved.
The real differentiator in death by gun numbers if we’re comparing ourselves to the small, rich social democracies of Europe and Asia is (i) people killing themselves differently and (ii) nothing comparable to the criminal violence in 10-15 US cities. But then if you compare us to pretty much every other country in the Americas whose history more closely resembles ours, save I guess Canada, we’re actually not that bad.Report
The homicide rates may have dropped throughout the world in the 1990’s, but the US is still absurdly high. But we have to be careful about what we’re talking about. Murder rates, mass shootings, gun violence, gun deaths, they’re all different and each of them may need to be addressed in multiple ways.Report
I don’t want to be glib about this or seem to suggest we should not be very open to ideas on how to improve our situation. However I think we also need to be realistic about what the benchmark is. Compared to a small, rich European or Asian nation-state it is really high. But compared to the post-colonial countries of the Americas? Not so much.
It’s why above I said to Chip that instead of thinking about Scotland or even Australia, which while post colonial, still has a very different history, we should be looking at other big countries in the western hemisphere when thinking about where we are but also what is possible.Report
Right.
So we should really consider America to be on par with Mexico or Kazahkstan or maybe Nigeria.
Perhaps one day our grandchildren may hope to live in a place equal to Canada or Australia but today is not that day.Report
There are parts of America that are like the Netherlands.
There are parts of America that are like El Salvador.Report
In my little corner of the world virtually all violent crime is within the communities of recent immigrants from central America, and as best as I can tell, has very little impact on anyone outside of it.
Now I doubt the area would exactly be the Netherlands otherwise but I think it’s also fair to say that this is just not a situation anyone in the Netherlands has to navigate, certainly not on remotely the same scale.Report
There are parts of the Netherlands that are like El Salvador.Report
Is it really though with respect to this issue? I mean, per google, the murder rate in El Salvador is like 105 per 100,000 and the Netherlands is .6. Ours for reference is 6 or 7 depending on where you look, and with significant variation for locality and sub populations.Report
I said the Americas, so Nigeria and Kazakhstan are out.
But really your reaction suggests to me that you don’t actually take the problem seriously. These incidents are terrible and up above I’ve endorsed some ideas in these comments that I hope would make them less likely. However most of the US is incredibly safe and our homicide rate is not what it is because of children being murdered in small towns and suburbs. It is what it is because of a number of seemingly intractable socio-economic problems afflicting 10-15 urban areas.
Now, would I love to have a crime rate of x western European country? Of course. But all of them have always had much less crime than we do in the post war era, independent of their policy decisions. So if we’re going to examine our problems in context of other places it makes sense to do it with countries with similar governments and histories of immigration. Asking why we can’t just be more like Europe is like asking why we can’t just solve all of the issues with our healthcare system by importing 10,000 Swedes to run HHS.Report
They aren’t intractible though – we just don’t want to take what works, nationalize it and then pay for it.Report
If it’s about a less stingy welfare state and some intelligent investment in those places you have my support.Report
These are cultural problems. Person X shoots person Z because Z stole X’s girlfriend.
What would work is for X (or anyone) to not have that culture.
We don’t know how to do that. Worse, any effort to do that is going to be labeled as “racist”.Report
When Mexicans want to immigrate here, it is a sh!thole country. When someone suggests we become more like Europe, then the excuse is that we’re more like Mexico.
This is adolescent excuse-making. Johnny is a stupid nerd and I’m superior to him, but i can’t get grades like Johnny because I’m more like Steve the stoner.
Its as Lee noted, a desperate search for some excuse to avoid doing what we already know works.Report
One has to have the ability to become more like Europe to actually be more like Europe. But hey if you know what would stop it then we need to elect you mayor of Baltimore post haste. Then St. Louis. Then Detroit. Then New Orleans.
But I have to warn you, they already take lots and lots and lots of guns off the streets in those places. And you’ll never believe it but the people that have them aren’t buying them from the nice sales clerk at Wal Mart or Bob’s gun shop with a license from the state.Report
“One has to have the ability to become more like Europe to actually be more like Europe.” We don’t have that ability? Chip I reckon is interested in statistics here, not architecture.Report
That. That exactly.
We are multi-cultural. We have most cultures as safe as the best of Europe. That includes most gun owners. We also have a sub-culture or three that have terrifyingly high levels of violence.
Disarming my zero-murder-rate zip-code will have no impact on the guns-already-illegal parts of Chicago and the other murder centers.Report
It’s almost impossible to have this conversation with someone unless they’ve read Black Rednecks and White Liberals.Report
What are the countries in the Americas whose history closely resembles ours, besides for Canada?Report
I’d say virtually all of them have more in common with us in that they started as colonies for resource extraction, developed social hierarchies based on that model, participated to varying degrees in the slave trade and accepted mass immigration from all over the place, and when they got free from European empires put into place presidential, federal systems of government. They’re also all operating more from a pre-nation state, pre-social democracy paradigm. It isn’t like Europe, where most countries are operating in their modern form from more of a post-feudal (and to some degree now also post imperial), 19th century, nationalist kind of structure.
When you think about it that way Canada is really the outlier. Just because their people are mostly white and they speak English (and some bad French) doesn’t mean they resemble us in the ways that are IMO important to understanding these issues.Report
I was thinking more in terms of developmental and economic history. Excluding a few small countries with economies based on oil or tourism, no other country in the Western hemisphere besides Canada is even half as wealthy as the United States.
Canada and the US are also basically the only countries that weren’t total basket cases for most of the past century.Report
On a macro level we are definitely really, really rich, which helps mitigate our situation considerably. But we also have higher levels of inequality, worse social welfare systems, and urban environments shaped by histories of (not to mention ongoing) immigration and racial/ethnic hierarchies. Those are the places where gun homicides leave their mark on the statistics. Nothing like it has ever existed in modern Europe which is why I don’t take seriously the argument that they’ve solved something we haven’t. They’ve never had the issues we do in the first place.Report
I don’t have the data at my fingertips, but I think almost every country in Europe is dealing with those kinds of enclaves thanks to refugees.Report
It’s totally possible they could be dealing with something like it in a generation or two if they don’t assimilate them and otherwise manage the situation well. And their voting populations absolutely understand that which is why accepting them has been so controversial.
Frankly I’ll take our immigration problems to theirs any day of the week.Report
And the Canadians don’t seem to have any qualms about shooting an armed person NEAR schools.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/26/world/toronto-police-shoot-man-firearm-near-schools/index.htmlReport
To me the real distinction with Canada is that it has a much more functional welfare state than we do. A happy consequence is fewer disenfranchised people and fewer incentives to turn to criminal trades where people settle their disputes with violence.Report
Very true and they also tax their citizens to create that much more functional welfare state.Report
The incentives we have to turn to criminal trades have little to do with the lack of a social net.Report
I do not understand why so many people want to live in a country or world so hopeless that we just have to let horrible things happen rather than find real solutions and make the world a better place. Will any solution be perfect? No, of course not. That doesn’t mean we can’t strive to be better and make what improvements we can.Report
Who doesn’t want solutions that work? I mean, other than that guy over there made of straw. I bet he doesn’t want solutions that work. He looks like the type.Report
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
John F. KennedyReport
The NRA is banning guns during Trump’s speech at their upcoming convention. Chickenhawks.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101181842/nra-trump-speech-guns-banned-houstonReport
Secret Service rules. Even sitting presidents have limited override.Report
Bull. The NRA has banned gunned at conventions where the Secret Service was nowhere to be found.Report
Is that true? I wouldn’t know either way, but the article you linked to indicates that it’s an unusual thing. The only previous incident they mentioned was when Pence was there, a person who also has Secret Service protection. I just did a quick Google search but all the stories are about this upcoming event.Report
I guess the Secret Service knows a little something about gun control that seems to elude the rest of us.Report
Right. They carry.Report
For what? No one around them will have a gun.Report
You said you could learn some lessons from them? Here’s one: the guy who wants to shoot someone might not be obeying the law.Report
That tree of liberty is like Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors.
FEED ME!Report
Audrey seems to have a particular fondness for the blood of innocents.Report
American 2022: Where we are too racist to enact laws that would reduce gun violence because the end result would be cops using those laws to further persecute innocent Black and Brown folks.Report
It looks like the cops were actively preventing parents from going into the school.
This is *AFTER* the cops rushed the school and removed their own children.
Your laws will be enforced by cops like these.Report
Out of curiosity do you have a link for that? Because if that’s what happened… I mean good lord. I’d have to think those guys are going to have to start being concerned for their own safety in a very different way.Report
Twitter has some footage from someone there at the time:
And here’s the police talking to a journalist. The “went in and got their own kids” happens at 1:20.
Report
If we’re talking “after the shooter was dead”, then it’s not a big deal.
Now what does look like a big deal is it took them an hour to go in and the parents in the parking lot were thinking they should arm up and go in themselves.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/texas-school-shooting-victims-identified-gunman-latest-b2087629.htmlReport
That has been consistently an issue going back to Columbine. The people theoretically trained and equipped to end the threat hesitate to confront a mass murderer. Of course they’re all gung ho to kick in the door of some two bit weed dealer.
And it does put you in a heck of a predicament. If I’m a parent in that parking lot I’m going in and I need the equipment to do it.Report
Which is what puts to bed their claims of “I shot because I was scared!”
No… we see what you do when you’re genuinely scared. You run and hide and cower.
You shot Philando Castile and Breonna Taylor because you had a rage boner and panicked.
Those are not the same thing.Report
Agreed. They can’t have it both ways.Report
As someone pointed out on Twitter, the effect of stricter gun laws won’t be “crackers gotta turn in their death dicks lolololol”, it’ll be “many many many more Philando Castiles and Breonna Taylors”.Report
Yrp, that is basically my point. I concede that — for now at least — stricter gun control would prevent very very very few mass shootings, very few other instances of gun violence, perhaps make a noticeable dent in suicides, and result in much, much, much, much, much more harassment of Black and Brown folks.
AMERICA!Report
Very possible and also not an excuse. Lots of us have been talking about fixing the cops. Cops need to be improved no matter what. Saying cops suck so we can’t change laws is a great reason to keep cops sucking.Report
Thanks to SCOTUS, police officers have no duty to protect. And they don’t.Report
“Waiting periods” and “background checks” are for gun control what “rape, incest, and the life of the mother” are for abortion restrictions.Report
If I may…
I would encourage our right-leaning/conservative/Republican/gun-rights-supporting/whatever posters to consider their immediate responses to our left-leaning/liberal/Democrat/gun-control-supporting/whatever posters (here and elsewhere) after tragedies like these.
So many of us are hurt or mad or scared or angry or heartbroken or despondent over these events. And maybe you are, too. But it tends not to show. When those of us who are parents or teachers (or both!) or people who just can’t stomach more news like this shout, “JESUS CHRIST CAN’T WE DO SOMETHING?!?!?!” just about the worst response is a “Well, actually…” followed by all the reasons why we can’t do something or why all the somethings won’t make it better or might make it worse or whatever.
Heck, many of us know all that. But we’re in places of such immense hurt and needs outlets to show that. Just as we’ve been encouraged to truly listen to the fears and concerns of Trump voters, I encourage you to take the time to just listen and hear the fears and concerns of those of us on this side of the issue. You don’t have to agree with us or support our ideas or even feel anger and fear and hurt yourself (though many of you are indeed feeling that already) but simply recognize that, for many of us (not all of us) these calls to “do something” are not actual policy proposals but expression of such indescribable anger and fear and hurt and despair.Report
“We’re in places of such immense hurt and needs outlets to show that.”
mmmhmm
baby I know I broke the dish but you just have to understand how upset I wasReport
Yes, because posting on the internet is tantamount to physical abuse and intimidation.
Thank you for acknowledging that words = violence.Report
Callin’ ’em like I see ’em. There is a certain kind of man who wants us to just accept that he’s going to rage and scream and yell, who wants us to not talk back, who wants us to not remember it because he’s so nice all the rest of the time.Report
Yes, people angry because 19 children were slaughtered are literal domestic abusers.
You’re a f’ing clown.Report
People slaughtering children: “Its complicated and no solution is possible.”
People wounding the feelings of conservatives: “Damn, this is intolerable!”Report
“People are struggling in the face of an unimaginable tragedy. Could we all be a little human?”
“That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.”Report
Maybe the left/liberal/Democratic side could stop saying “Eff your thoughts and prayers”. We’re hurting too. And we’ve wrestled with these issues, and did so because we hate these tragedies. We’ve come to different solutions than you, but we’re willing to listen to proposals. No one hangs out here because they hate people or want tragedies; we’re here because we want to see the best possible solutions.
I notice that the first article on the tragedy was more personal, and the second one more policy-oriented. That’s reasonable. We all want to express our hurt, then talk about how to make things better. But that first thread didn’t fill up with “I’m sad”, it filled up with “this is the right’s fault”. Where’s the coming together in sorrow there?Report
I’m not saying we need to come together in sorrow. I’m saying that “THIS IS THE RIGHT’S FAULT!” is often an expression of rage and anger and fear and sorrow and maybe just letting it linger instead of addressing it would be better for all involved.
Just like when poor whites blame Democrats for their taxes going up even though they’re wrong about that. We’re still supposed to listen, right?Report
I wouldn’t expect anyone to react to tax complaints the way he reacts to the death of children. That’s a crazy analogy. But it sounds like you want permission to attack your opponents in time of tragedy, and you don’t want your opponents to defend themselves. Well, we’re hurting too. Your pain doesn’t trump our pain just because you feel it. That’s not empathy, that’s the opposite!Report
It’s the reaction to the reaction.
Trumpers: “Dems raised our taxes!”
Dems: “Actually the GOP did.”
Others: “No no… just listen.”
Dems: “They killed those kids! Ban guns!”
GOPers: “Banning guns won’t work.”
Others: “Dems should listen.”Report
That’s not true though; you’re not addressing the others asking them for more courtesy, you’re addressing your opponents telling them that they should just take it because you’re hurting. It comes off as selfish.Report
That they should just take *what* exactly? I’m not saying you have to actually support any proposals or you just need to say “Thank you” if someone calls you a murderer.
But what I am saying is that if someone –in a moment of anger and fear and outrage — says something that sounds stupid and wrong… maybe you just let them being stupid and wrong for a little while.
No? We can’t do that? We can’t let people grieve the loss of innocent life? Cool.Report
Your way of grieving is to call me a murderer. My way of grieving and responding to being called a murderer is to say I’m not a murderer. Then you spend a day thinking about it and conclude that I was in the wrong for not respecting your feelings?Report
“Maybe the left/liberal/Democratic side could stop saying “Eff your thoughts and prayers”.”
No, see, “screw your thoughts and prayers” is just part of letting out the immense hurt that Kazzy feels, part of the abuse that we’re just supposed to sit quietly and accept while he blows his rage-load all over our faces, part of that thing we’re supposed to just understand is emotional rhetoric that comes out in a heated moment, part of the hurt and insult that we should just agree to pretend we forget and certainly never mention again.Report
Again, 19 children are dead. Children. And you want to compare that to your choosing to read online comments that criticize your worldview.
You’re a sick individual.Report
He didn’t do that at all, at least not in that comment.Report
His argument is that having to read someone say “Screw your thoughts and prayers” in the aftermath of 19 children being slaughtered is some sort of burden that just can’t reasonably be asked of anyone. On a day when 19 families will not see their children come home, I think saying ANYTHING involving words on a website is too much is inhumane.Report
I didn’t follow that last sentence, but are you saying that any restriction in such a circumstance is inhumane? Because your original “If I may” argues the opposite. It sounds like it’s only your opponents’ words that are inhumane, but yours are exempt because you’re grieving.Report
I don’t think I made my original point very clear… I’m still in a place of intense emotion on all of this.
I think EVERYONE should be allowed to grieve how they need to grieve and that includes expression of anger.
What I don’t think is helpful — to anyone — is interjecting into someone’s grief and trying to argue with them.
So if someone came on here and said, “WE NEED MORE COPS IN SCHOOLS!” I would hope that we could just let that person have that moment and wait a day or two or a week before we engage intellectually with an argument that was very much likely made emotioinally.
Likewise if someone said, “WE NEED TO BAN GUNS!”
I think we would ALL do better to recognize when and where folks are needing space to grieve and vent and resist the urge to turn those into policy debates.
I don’t hold myself up as an example of someone who is doing this right since I have certainly made this error myself countless times. It was in a moment of reflection that I realize we do nobody any favors by trying to have intellectual debates in highly charged emotional spaces while all that emotion is still raw.
I should not have made my initial comment so one-sided. It was an attempt to make “my side” better understood but obviously I failed in that endeavor.
Like, I don’t really support gun bans but fuck do I feel like I think I do when these news headlines hit.Report
What was your side grieving over last week that justified the name-calling and gave them the right to talk policy but didn’t give us the right to respond? Was it Roe? Or Elon Musk buying Twitter? Disney losing tax status? Next month, will your side’s grief over gas prices make me a Moloch-worshipping sexist who shouldn’t respond to policy proposals? I know I’m going hard on this point, but when you say you failed to make your point clear, I don’t think you did. I think you said exactly what your terms of engagement are. We don’t show emotion (being defined as agreeing with your policies) so we can be attacked as inhuman and certainly have no right to discuss policy.Report
Yes lets not lose sight of the real victims here.
Conservatives feeling bad about the consequences of their voting choices.Report
Kazzy was the one who wanted to talk about the site’s liberal victims. Take it up with him.Report
I don’t think I made my original point very clear… I’m still in a place of intense emotion on all of this.
I think EVERYONE should be allowed to grieve how they need to grieve and that includes expression of anger.
What I don’t think is helpful — to anyone — is interjecting into someone’s grief and trying to argue with them.
So if someone came on here and said, “WE NEED MORE COPS IN SCHOOLS!” I would hope that we could just let that person have that moment and wait a day or two or a week before we engage intellectually with an argument that was very much likely made emotioinally.
Likewise if someone said, “WE NEED TO BAN GUNS!”
I think we would ALL do better to recognize when and where folks are needing space to grieve and vent and resist the urge to turn those into policy debates.
I don’t hold myself up as an example of someone who is doing this right since I have certainly made this error myself countless times. It was in a moment of reflection that I realize we do nobody any favors by trying to have intellectual debates in highly charged emotional spaces while all that emotion is still raw.
I should not have made my initial comment so one-sided. It was an attempt to make “my side” better understood but obviously I failed in that endeavor.
Like, I don’t really support gun bans but man do I feel like I think I do when these news headlines hit.Report
My dad was a stiff-upper-lip guy. I don’t recall ever seeing him cry, but he carried a lot of sorrow. I respected that he mourned in his own way. I never told him how he should mourn.
I understand if Kazzy wants to lash out at the moment of tragedy. I notice that the lefties on this site feel they have the right to lash out at any time, though. And as for lecturing us about how we should be more forgiving when we’re being attacked, while we’re also grieving, that just comes off as entitlement. When Kazzy says to Chip that his side is being human and my side isn’t, that’s depersoning, but he thinks he’s the one who holds the high ground.Report
The offering of thoughts and prayers come off politically as a dodge, since it is generally followed by little to any legislative or policy action. It also comes off insincerely from a theology perspective since Christ reminded us repeatedly in His Gospels that as Children of God we have an obligation to act against evil in our world, and seek justice for the least of these our Brothers and Sisters.Report
If you were unpersuaded on the benefit of the unidentified policy, would it still come off as a dodge?Report
That’s a funny response right there. If they want to make a policy proposal I’d look at it and see if it could address one of the several cause we’ve collectively identified and if so Id take it seriously. They don’t make proposals while issuing thoughts and prayers. That’s the problem I’m pointing at.Report
“Can’t we do something” merits a suggestion on what we can do. Preventing these guys from becoming celebs counts.
If “something” has to mean “restrict gun rights in ways that wouldn’t have stopped this because it will make us feel better”, then no, I’m not going to respect your feelings. The proposals are serious. Their impact would be in the real world.
Similarly, we shouldn’t give credit to the anti-abortion’s movement’s feelings. They don’t get a pass because they think there’s a genocide going on when they make real world proposals.Report
I’m at the point where I just want the Moloch worshippers to come out and say that mass shootings are something we have to live with because the abstract gun right is incredibly more important.Report
A: This has been a great tragedy, we need to change the law!
B: But that wouldn’t have stopped this tragedy.
A: Doesn’t matter! It will make us feel better! Our virtue signaling is way more important than your rights. We need to pass a law that won’t be followed and will cause massive problems when it’s enforced.
Welcome to the anti-abortion movement sir.Report
What will we learn tomorrow?
Report
If you’ve ever daydreamt about house-to-house searches to confiscate guns, please note:
Report
You know, if I were inclined to believe in conspiracy theories, I’d think that this story has a lot of fodder for them.
Report
Yep, respect muh authoritah!Report
The issue is way more basic.
Law enforcement’s job of enforcing laws on the law abiding is easy and safe. That’s the parents.
Law enforcement’s job of enforcing laws on the law breaking is much harder and much more dangerous.
When we say “lets pass a law” to understand which group we’re targeting and whether it matters.Report
Again, thanks to SCOTUS, the police have no duty to protect.
Cowards. Snowflakes.Report
They hide behind their fear every chance they get.Report
What’s interesting is how much LE has bought into their own mythology. So much that they are the only ones allowed to be heroes (if the reports are true that they were stopping parents from trying to get in there with their own weapons).Report
There’s footage of several cops on top of a parent(?) who they’ve wrestled to the ground.Report
In a structurally racist society, “Blue Lives Matter” can be the other side of a dialectic if the thesis is “Black Lives Matter”.
They thought that “Blue Lives Matter” worked (or worked well enough) there that it’d work again against “Schoolchildren Lives Matter”.Report
If I was going to be uncharitable (& I am so inclined), it would be Brown School Children’s Lives Matter, because let’s face it, most of the kids killed were Hispanic.Report
I saw a big black pickup truck the other day with a giant sticker that said ‘No Lives Matter’ on the back. It’s a terrible message, but I appreciated the honesty.Report
The shooter himself throws a small wrench into that. I’m not sure at the demographics of the various officers outside of the building but the spokespersons I’ve seen so far have Hispanic last names (Olivarez, Escalon).
It’s not exactly clear cut for that part of it.
I mean, it *COULD* be. “White Hispanic” vs. “Black Hispanic” and all that.Report
Exactly the opposite of a wrench, it is confirmation.
In all repressive apartheid societies, the idea of some lives not mattering has always been so ingrained that when members of the Outclass murder each other, it is considered acceptable, even by many members of the Outclass themselves.
Modern police even have a nickname for the phenomenon, “No Human Involved”.Report
Well, I’m glad the Border Patrol guy was there.
Jacob Albarado is a damn hero.
Report
Wait, that was a *DIFFERENT* border patrol guy than the one who actually killed the shooter.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THEREReport
We’re still in the “fog of war” period. Any takes at this point should implicitly be considered preliminary and retractable at any time.Report
Seconded. I’d expect things to start getting clearer now, but any information from the first 48 hours should be discounted entirely.Report
The cynic in me who watched CPD circle the wagons in the McDonald case suspects the conference rooms at the Uvalde PD are pretty busy these days.Report
I don’t know if this is common knowledge or even accurate, but I just saw a reference to *dozens* of border patrol officers on scene.Report
The whole mythology on the subject is out of control and it has been for some time. What needs to happen but probably never will is the acceptance that the dialectic itself is based on a bunch of bad premises.
Which doesn’t mean we don’t need better cops. We absolutely do and we absolutely need them to be trained with a more selfless, public service minded ethos. That’s the only path to the honor they say they want. But even with that the only person you can 100% rely on is yourself. No public servant no matter how good can relieve us of our responsibilities. The idea that they can is one of several weak pillars in the dialectic at issue.Report
The other side of “Black Lives Matter” is the Wilhoit Principle, that there are to be two classes in society: One that the law protects but does not bind, and the other that the law binds but does not protect.
Uvalde was a good example.Report
Let’s take that as a given.
“More laws” is, at best, putting the cart before the horse.Report
If we accept that there are to be two classes in society, One that the law protects but does not bind, and the other that the law binds but does not protect, then changing the laws seem the least we can do to break down those barriers.Report
Especially since it is the laws that bind or protect.
Laws are the horse in this metaphor.Report
Chip, I have some bad news for you:
Laws are enforced only sporadically in this country.
Law Enforcement is not to be trusted.Report
This is drawing a line from something you don’t like to something else you don’t like and claiming they’re related.
Parkland, Florida (city of Stoneman Douglas HS shooting) is rich. Median household income $131,340
The police behavior there was the same or worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Officer_inactivityReport
Is there a stronger word than cowardly? Gutless? Heartless? I am shaken.Report
Chickensh*t?Report
That’s a good one.
And then there is the dissonance. What does the Venn Diagram look like with one circle being labeled “Cops” and the other circle being labeled “Gun Rights Advocates”? I could be naive but my hunch is that there is much more overlap between them than mutually exclusive area.
And yet… these cops were so terrified of a teenager with a handgun and a rifle that they ran and hid while school children were being slaughtered.Report
The flip side of this, of course, is the “you don’t need to own a gun for self-defense, you should rely on the police!” argument that used to be more popular a few years ago.Report
Or…
“You don’t need a gun for self defense because you live in a society in which your neighbors and coworkers are trusted not to shoot you.,”Report
I live in a neighborhood like that.
I’m sure you do too.
There are many who don’t.Report
Yes, I live at the edge of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles with homeless people on my doorstep.
We’ve gotten to know a few of them by name and when I walk thru the tent encampments I feel completely safe.Report
An assailant doesn’t need a gun to be at a threat level that merits having one. I mentioned my anecdote below about having to leave my wife and newborn son alone for the work day with a crazy person in the condo below ours. The whole situation sucked.Report
But you know that, statistically, your wife and child have more to fear from you and the gun you have for protection, right?
That the biggest threat to any family is the husband and father.
I know it’s emotionally hard to grasp but “I was in a plane that crash landed” doesn’t change the safety of airlines.Report
Citation neededReport
We all understand our own responsibilities differently. Mine include my own safety and their safety, and not just letting something bad happen that I can prevent. Not that I presume to tell others what to do. But I am pro-choice on the subject.Report
This is nonsense.
On average, you never need to deal with an aggressively insane person who has targeted you and your family.
Up until that point you can quote statistics on how your risk level is lower without a gun in the house.
After that has happened, your risk profile changes dramatically and he’s no longer “statistically safer without a gun” because he’s not the average person any more.Report
That’s what I said.
“I’m not an average person” doesn’t tell us much about what a gun does for the safety of the average person.
Jaybird’s assertion was that “you can’t rely on cops” with the implication that an average person should therefore protect themselves with a gun.
The average person is safer without a gun.Report
Jaybird’s assertion was that “you can’t rely on cops”
Would you like to know what I’m basing that on?
You might not believe the story because it’s really far-fetched, but it’s not, like, based on nothing at all.Report
I’m not disagreeing with the first part of your assertion.
It’s your insistent exclusion of the other alternative I’m challenging.Report
It’s not an insistent exclusion.
It saying “you know the argument that you don’t need a gun because you can trust the cops? Well, you can’t trust the cops.”
If you want to make an argument that someone shouldn’t arm themselves, great. Make it.
Just don’t use “you should trust the cops instead!” as your reason for why someone shouldn’t have a gun.
Maybe try something like “if we keep you from getting a gun, that means that we were successful at keeping bad people from getting them too.”Report
There’s something else I said that you’re insistently excluding.Report
Oh, “The average person is safer without a gun.”
Even if this is true, that means that this is not true for the below average person.
And this ain’t Lake Wobegon.Report
Since you’re trying very, very hard not to respond to what I wrote, I’ll post it again.
You don’t need a gun for self defense because you live in a society in which your neighbors and coworkers are trusted not to shoot you.
This true, not just for the average person, but the vast majority. Very few people are ever in a situation where deadly force is needed by either the police or themselves.Report
It’s always useful to look at what people actually do. Most people don’t own guns, for self-defense or any other reason. They obviously felt they haven’t needed them, and have been right so far. I own and have owned guns, probably longer than most people here have been alive, and I have never needed one, or felt the need for one, to defend myself. (My skills are so rusty, I’m not sure I’d be doing more harm than good if I used one. Maybe my sword would be a better bet.) And I live in the Bronx — the real Bronx, not Riverdale or Pelham. Some people have, and some more think they have, different needs, but most people have decided that they don’t need guns to protect themselves, and they seem to be right.Report
I haven’t either… but I’ve been right on the edge of deciding my risk profile had changed drastically and I’d be a lot safer if I had something.
I don’t want a firearm in the house right now because it would increase risk. However I do want the ability to be able to buy one in a reasonable time period if that changes.
If that does happen, the last thing I want to have to deal with is laws written for the “average” situation.Report
I fear coming to that same conclusion. At least since Columbine, Colorado police seem inclined to go in and stop the shooter. The state has also passed a number of laws that statistically should help: universal background checks, no guns for people guilty of certain violent misdemeanors, what seems to be a balanced red flag law, limits on magazine size. It’s been a long time since I owned a firearm — since I lost interest in hunting. I really don’t want to have to go buy a serious handgun and relearn the skills to use and maintain it.Report
It’s always useful to look at what people actually do.
You mean like stand outside of a school where someone is murdering children and instead of doing something to stop the murderer, they, instead, taze and handcuff parents?Report
Jaybird, you have made your feelings on the Uvalde cops crystal clear, multiple times. You don’t have to repeat them in response to comments that have nothing to do with that subject. Or maybe you do. For whatever reason.Report
Your reply was to someone who had been targeted by a nut for 18 months.
Your collective approach here, i.e. we’d be better off in a gun free society, is asking him to take one for the team.
I think it’s very reasonable for people to be able to evaluate their own risk and be able to select which risk they want to live with.Report
I look at the question a little bit differently, as less about what you should do and more about what you should be allowed to do.
You may be surprised to read this but I don’t totally disagree with you. I think people who sleep with a loaded gun in their nightstand ‘just in case’ but with nothing specific going on aren’t being very smart. I also look askance at people who feel the need to carry for a quick trip to the grocery store or something (you don’t see this where I live but you do in parts of neighoring states). It’s dumb and on balance is probably creating more risks than it’s mitigating.
But if you’re in a situation where there is something going on? The calculus changes. Not to over personalize but I always adhere to safe storage practices with the only variation being the period of time I was being woken up at 2 AM with someone shouting obscenities at me through the walls (and for the record I was still pretty careful). Since I removed myself from that situation I am back to the old and preferable protocol. Other people aren’t me but I don’t think my approach is super outside the norm either or that it was irrational under the circumstances.Report
I agree.
There will always be a category of people who have a legitimate need for a gun.
It’s funny how gun proponents are always using militaristic imagery and phrases and cosplaying soldier, when nowhere are guns more tightly restricted than the military.
Unless a soldier is in an actual combat situation, that is, with an actual need for a weapon, guns are normally off limits.Report
Or during training. Or certain guard duty.
But yes, normally the weapons are secured, although everyone knows where, and how to get there.
Also, everyone is trained to fight, so even if unarmed, they are all still dangerous to some degree.
IMHO, when it comes to personal defense, we have fundamentally skewed the incentives towards the most lethal means available.Report
Interestingly, cops as a class have long been advocates for restrictions on the types of guns people can own, for obvious reasons. Remember in the 80s when the cops’ fear of gang members with automatic weapons was so great it made it into half the cop movies (e.g., Lethal Weapon)? It’s one thing on which conservatives have flat-out ignored cops.Report
I was not aware of that and am happy to be corrected; curious why police and their unions aren’t more front-and-center on that issue.Report
They used to be very up front about it. I think politics have caused them to be less so over the last few years.Report
I am very happy to be wrong on this issue and hope I get to be wronger still if/when they become more vocal advocates.Report
So we are 360-ish comments in, and we basically have three proposals:
– My five points, centered on gun control
– Dark’s “Don’t Say The Shooters Name”
– Several vague “mental health” allusions with few specifics.
– Jaybird’s reform the police proposals (which aren’t all in one place)
Not a long list compared to the scope of the problem, and nothing new.Report
What I wanted was something that had a snowball’s chance of passing and a snowball’s chance of making things measurably (or noticably) better.
I’d say that three of your five points are pretty good. “Don’t say the shooter’s name” might work and, at least, couldn’t hurt.
And reforming the police is a pre-req. At the very least, you want a force that doesn’t appear to be colluding with the shooter to ensure as high a body count as would be reasonably plausibly deniable.Report
And, yeah, I don’t see how a stem-to-stern revamp of the cops isn’t a pre-req for freakin’ anything:
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I’ve always been a situational awareness guy. Just kind how I’m wired. As a kid I’d daydream, “What would I do if ninjas swung in through the windows? Ah, a fire extinguisher! I could use that!” But I’m weird like that.
My girlfriend is a longtime teacher who thinks it so weird I think that way. As we discussed the police response yesterday, she found herself saying things like, “I guess if that happened in my room I’d do X, Y, and Z.”
Despite all of the school shootings that have occurred during her career… some not far from us (we’ve driven through the town where Sandy Hook was)… some targeting the very age children she teaches (she was a K teacher when Sandy Hook happened)… she never found herself mentally preparing to resist a shooter in her room.
After this? Because of this? Now she is.Report
I preface this by saying I am not one that thinks ‘arm the teachers’ or turning the schools into fortresses is really a useful answer to this (obviously basic security makes sense). But I think your mentality is the one everyone needs to have. Not in some kind of make my day fantasy, hair trigger society way, but in a ‘we all take our responsibilities seriously’ kind of way.
I’ve mentioned previously at OT that when my son was first born we had an issue with a crazy neighbor constantly threatening us and who broke into our condo a couple times. We got peace orders and had him prosecuted for misdemeanors but there was only so much we could do. The first time it happened I had to physically eject him (thankfully I had friends over who helped) and it took the police 90 minutes to arrive. I think the fastest they were ever there was 15-20 minutes which was more than enough time for something bad to happen. It took us 18 months to get out of there and that time period was tense (I hated leaving my wife and son there every day during her maternity leave) but we changed our habits and took the measures we had to take.
Anyway I only mention it as a real eye opener about law enforcement and what can realistically be expected of them. We should demand good public services but they aren’t a substitute for doing the right things for ourselves.Report
Most teachers at this point have received some sort of training on what to do once an alert is given. Most of us have had cops walk around buildings and classrooms and point out where we should shelter in place. Most have participated in safety audits of some kind. Etc, etc, etc.
I agree that folks being prepared — and being supported in being and feeling prepared — is a good thing.
But I shared that anecdote because many of us teachers are feeling like we need to move beyond basic preparedness. The shelter-in-place drill is not meant to be a prolonged response to an active shooter situation. “I’ll lock the door, push a table in front of it, turn off the lights, and put the kids in this corner with me between them and the access points,” only works for so long. If we now need to adapt a mindset of, “I need to fend this guy off single-handedly,” we’ve moved beyond basic preparedness and taking responsibility to do the right thing by ourselves and our students.
And, again, I can’t help but draw us back to previous conversations where so many folks said, “Teachers can’t be trusted to talk about gay families with their students,” but now we’re saying, “Well, teachers should be ready to fend off active shooters.” Like… which is it… are we not even trusted to have the basic skill set most of us are trained for? Or are we superheroes who can transcend our roles and do what even the trained and armed cops won’t do?Report
Pretty sure after Columbine, all the police everywhere have assured the populace that the SOP was, going forward, the first officers on the scene will immediately engage the shooter.
Apparently, immediately means “sometime in the next hour”.Report
I read some lines of the transcript here and could not watch the footage.
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I sense some powerful CYA. Should have taken all of 10 seconds to confirm that kind of belief.Report
Last time I trained with an actual police officer was after Sandy Hook. The guy from our local, small town department (who had prior military and NYPD training/experience*) said that we could count on the basics of shelter-in-place (SIP) to protect us. Lock your door. Push something in front of it if you can. Get in your shelter place, which he helped us identify. Keep the kids quiet (lollypops were recommended). In these situations, he explained, the shooter tends to try a door and if it’s locked or obstructed, he’ll move on until he finds a soft(er) target. If notice is given in time (big if) all the classrooms can harden themselves enough and this will typically buy the cops enough time to be on site.
Well, all that goes out the window if the guy is left alone in the building for an hour.
* Like, he went as far as to explain the difference between conceal and cover. He knew his shit. He scared the crap out of everyone because his people skills were weak sauce but the guy definitely seemed to know what he was talking about.Report
Just looking for statistical information here. How many of you have been in an armed, civilian self-defense situation? (I’m not looking for professionals who might have to shoot people as part of the job.) Of those people who have, what kind of weapon did you use? Did you fire, or did flashing the weapon suffice? If you did fire, how many shots did you fire?Report
(I’m not looking for professionals who might have to shoot people as part of the job.)
Hey, looks like the Uvalde police officers are eligible.Report
Most cops never shoot anybody in the course of their careers. But since you’ve chimed in, what are your answers to my questions?Report
Oh, I’ve never been in an armed, civilian self-defense situation.
But neither am I a police officer.
Personally, I think that one of the cops outside of the school handcuffing parents should have been inside of the school in the armed self-defense situation on behalf of the children.
Instead of waiting for the border patrol guy.Report
Thanks for the answer. That’s the first sentence. The rest of your comment seems to be directed to someone else.Report
Out of curiosity, what would you say the lawyering equivalent is of what these police officers did?
And have you ever done anything in the ballpark of that?Report
Not directed at any of the lawyers here, but at least as I see it the SCOTUS is making it harder to claim that you were convicted (and may die) because your lawyer failed to do things a client or member of the public might expect a lawyer to do.Report
Not only fail to introduce evidence that might keep your client off of death row but actively prevent your co-counsel from introducing it.Report
SCOTUS wants the system to produce outcomes in less than 20 years. That means preventing the anti-death people from throwing sand in the gears everywhere possible.Report
This is the last part of the judicial system we need to be more efficient, given the number of exonerations we’ve seen.Report
The Supremes think exoneration is breathtakingly rare. Scalia said 0.027% in 2006.
More reasonably, 1.6% of defendants who had been sentenced to death were exonerated between 1973 and 2004.
There’s a study which claims it’s 4.1%
https://www.science.org/content/article/more-4-death-row-inmates-may-be-innocent
Which doesn’t change that the whole death penalty many decades after sentence is something of a farce.Report
I think the farce really comes from trying to maintain it in the face of a legal system that is both imperfect but also still founded on some basic principles of fairness. The system ties itself in knots to have it both ways when the reality is that the possibility of life in a supermax prison serves the same functional purpose just as well.Report
Legal system, and all human systems including the gov, have always been less than perfect.
Having the DP means we occasionally kill the wrong person. Just like engaging in war means we’re going to kill the wrong people and trash their economy.
Just like outlawing something (“loosies”, randomly breaking windows) means occasionally someone dies.Report
Sure. An understated or even totally unstated part of many policies is that at a certain point it might leave an innocent person dead/result in some totally disproportionate error or overkill. The question is whether it’s worth it. In the case of the death penalty that boils down to whether the benefits of the state being able to execute people outweighs the downside of every once in awhile executing an innocent person. With the kinds of incarceration options at our disposal I see no upside.Report
In 2003 Gov. Ryan of IL commuted all sentences of death row inmates, mostly to life. This came after about a dozen death row inmates were found to have been wrongly convicted.
I’m anti-death penalty myself, but if it’s a sentencing option the state better make damn sure it’s executing the right person. A quick trip to the chair precludes discovery of any exonerating evidence.Report
I haven’t thought about that, and don’t plan to put myself to the effort simply to satisfy your curiosity. If something comes to me, however, I’ll let you know.
I’m pretty sure, though, that whatever the equivalent might be, I have never done it. And I have made my fair share of mistakes in 40 years of practice.Report
Personally, I’d think that if a lawyer did something as bad as what these cops did, they should resign.
Like, I’d want to say “resign in disgrace” but I’d be okay with merely them never being a lawyer again, never practicing law again, never putting “esq” on anything again. I mean, maybe they should never be welcome in lawyer bars ever again but, hey, private establishments can do whatever they want, right?Report
Maybe they should, though if they were the type who would do whatever is the lawyer version of “as bad as what these cops did,” they might not see it that way. They might well get disbarred, though.
I’ve been looking for a “lawyer bar” for many years, but haven’t found one. Just have to drink with normal folks, I guess.Report
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd_XuG_uvsP/?igshid=NmZiMzY2Mjc=
Apparently not every cop has thought similarly.Report
That’s a good post.
One thing that I was wondering is “where are the cops talking about this?”
I mean, I’d expect at least one right-winger to show up and start talking about how “hey, if you’ve never been in an armed, civilian self-defense situation, you can’t judge the cops for standing outside for an hour while the shooter killed children” and, I dunno, maybe we’ll still get one of those but I expected at least one police officer-adjacent person to say “this was a complete and total failure” without any PR language (“dropped the ball”).
I’m relieved to find *ONE*.
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Andrew Sullivan included the below in his weekly links, I assume to balance the multiple critiques:
https://grahamfactor.substack.com/p/a-brief-note-for-keyboard-warriors
Warning: Only read it if you want to get angry.Report
Yeah, I made it three sentences in.
I think I will instead heat up some food, pour some wine, and start up a video game.Report
A single-player game, of course.
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Another:
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Thats one of a thousand. Or more. Not even the best one. Teacher social media is aflame.
Cop social media isn’t?
Well then.Report
I admit, I’m not too tied into cop twitter (high blood pressure, you know how it is) but some stuff does leak over from my various right-wing follows and it’s all “back the blue” and “thin blue line” normally.
Lotta silence this time around.Report
You know, I say that and then 15 minutes later Radley Balko tweets this thread out…
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Okay. They seem to have found a way through.
That’s a narrative that they can run with, if they can keep it. “We were just following orders until we weren’t, then we went in.”Report
Current timeline: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/uvalde-shooting-police-response-timeline/index.html
Things which stand out:
1) Multiple people saw this coming. He bragged about it. Unclear if he bragged about it to anyone who lived in that area since it was online.
2) He’s been plotting/talking about it since at least last September. Cooling off periods are worthless against this.
Similarly other news sources have reported he had no criminal record.
3) First person he killed was his grandma. Unclear if she had guns but if so then he could/would have killed her for her guns if he hadn’t had any.
4) If I’m reading the diagram and between the lines correctly, shooter was stuck in one classroom for a while and the shot his way into another while the police were outside waiting. Assuming that correct it’s highly likely children died because of that.Report