Someone has shot four firefighters, killing two of them, in the suburbs of Rochester NY, right on Lake Ontario. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/24/firefighters-shot-rocheste...
Tragedy in Connecticut
Mon, 2012-12-24 12:22
#152
Mon, 2012-12-24 12:25
#153
Boom Boom
On CNN right now: "The Republican party is not jumping aboard the NRA plan". 
Mon, 2012-12-24 12:26
#154
Boom Boom
Wow, lagatta - the craziness just never stops. 
Mon, 2012-12-24 12:27
#155
The gun lobby is pushing to have CNN Piers Morgan deported because he eviserated a gun lobbyist earlier this week.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1306579--piers-morgan-deportat...
Again, I can't seem to insert links the way I did yesterday.
Mon, 2012-12-24 13:21
#156
alan smithee
That's really fucked-up. Shame on the [i]New York Post[/i] and [i]Daily News[/i].
Seriously?
KUDOS to the Post and Daily News!
Mon, 2012-12-24 14:35
#157
When the Murdoch Post calls a right-winger crazy, you know he is.
Mon, 2012-12-24 15:08
#158
That's really fucked-up. Shame on the [i]New York Post[/i] and [i]Daily News[/i].
Seriously?
KUDOS to the Post and Daily News!
Yes, kudos. 'Cause disablist language is just how we like to 'keep it real' here at babble.
Mon, 2012-12-24 15:19
#159
"Nut" and "crazy" are not words I would use to describe someone with a mental disorder. It is like "moron" or "idiot" - those used to be actual classifications of people with intellectual handicaps, but they are antiquated in that sense.
Mon, 2012-12-24 15:28
#160
alan smithee
Lapierre and the NRA are gun nuts and they are crazy..saying so does not demean those who are mentally ill.
And when the right wingg Post comes out and says such a thing about the NRA,it says alot.
Mon, 2012-12-24 15:42
#161
"Nut" and "crazy" are not words I would use to describe someone with a mental disorder.
Maybe they're not words [i]you[/i] would use, lagatta, but they are the words that many people still use - even self-described progressives. We've had this discussion many times on babble. The mods have consistently told people to stop with the disablist language. But for some reason these are words that some people simply refuse to discard.
Mon, 2012-12-24 15:45
#162
Lapierre and the NRA are gun nuts and they are crazy..saying so does not demean those who are mentally ill.And when the right wingg Post comes out and says such a thing about the NRA,it says alot.
It says a lot when you find yourself defending journalism's equivalent of a frat house.
Mon, 2012-12-24 16:09
#163
alan smithee
Lapierre and the NRA are gun nuts and they are crazy..saying so does not demean those who are mentally ill.And when the right wingg Post comes out and says such a thing about the NRA,it says alot.
It says a lot when you find yourself defending journalism's equivalent of a frat house.
Again,I applaud the Post and Daily News....Maybe they should have used the words 'zealot' and 'idiot' but they didn't..We'll have to agree to disagree.
Mon, 2012-12-24 16:30
#164
Boom Boom
I'm a bit astonished that some are focusing more on the words of a couple of right-wing newspapers than the Newtown shooting and the outrageous NRA plan.
Mon, 2012-12-24 16:38
#165
Boom Boom
From a FB friend:
Mon, 2012-12-24 17:21
#166
Someone has shot four firefighters, killing two of them, in the suburbs of Rochester NY, right on Lake Ontario. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/24/firefighters-shot-rocheste...
N.R.A. solution:: AN ARMED GUARD FOR EVERY FIRE TRUCK IN AMERICA!
Mon, 2012-12-24 17:27
#167
We will have Harper control no gun control eventually.
Mon, 2012-12-24 17:49
#168
I'm a bit astonished that some are focusing more on the words of a couple of right-wing newspapers than the Newtown shooting and the outrageous NRA plan.
Who's doing [i]that[/i]? I've already posted earlier in this thread. What counts as a legitimate way to engage in this thread? Repeatedly opining that the NRA is a terrorist organization? I'm sorry that I didn't preface my gentle reminder about the use of disablist and oppressive language on babble with my position on the shooting (I was against it), but I didn't think it was necessary to state the obvious. School shootings - terrible. NRA - assholes.
Never mind that you posted those headlines in the first place; what I find astonishing is that I would have to justify an anti-disablist analysis to you.
Wed, 2012-12-26 15:19
#169
Boom Boom
Wed, 2012-12-26 21:38
#170
[url=http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/26/gun-database-draws-... by social media, thousands complained about published list of people who own guns[/url]
Thousands of people have taken to their computers and phones in rage after The Journal News posted an online database of local gun-permit holders. [...]Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government and an expert on the state's Freedom of Information law, has said all government records and data are presumed public unless a specific statute bars their release. Names and addresses are specifically deemed public records, he said.
This is not the first time The Journal News has been criticized for publishing information about gun permits. A similar article in 2006 received similar responses, although social media did not play as large a part in the spread of the article or of the complaints.
"We knew publication of the database would be controversial, but we felt sharing as much information as we could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings," said CynDee Royle, editor and vice president/news.
And here's an interactive map showing exactly who has gun permits.
Wed, 2012-12-26 22:32
#171
My guess is people won't be going after those permit holders with pitchforks and a barrel of tar.
The paper's intent in publishing that information is clear enough. I can certainly see the reaction cutting a number of ways though. I wouldn't say they are entirely helping their cause.
Thu, 2012-12-27 00:10
#172
Bec.De.Corbin
My guess is people won't be going after those permit holders with pitchforks and a barrel of tar.
That would probably end badly for some of the people with pichforks...
At least now the local burglars know which homes have guns to steal or to avoid if people are home. The permit is to OWN a pistol (handgun) not carry it around when your outside your house; that takes a special permit and training in most states. Also the map does not include people who own shotguns, rifles, and the deaded semi-automatic rifles. You do not need a permit to own those so there is no way to track them like the pistols.
Thu, 2012-12-27 09:30
#173
If people are to remain consistant in their argument that they don't want just anyone to have guns, then publishing a map to where just anyone can break in and get themselves an untraceable gun seems counter productive. While it was "public knowlege", the information that was used to make the map came via a freedom of information request. Not something every wacko is about to do. Or was about to do.
Amoung the firearms found in Webster, NY, where two firemen were shot dead and two critically wounded was a Bushmaster, equiped with flash supresion, the same type of weapon used at Sandy Hook.
Thu, 2012-12-27 09:56
#174
That, plus the NRA - the lobby which has been pushing all this lax gun stuff in the U.S. - has been doing a great job up until now isolating themselves even from many gun owners.
Publishing a list like this says to readers that the people you need to suspect, blame and be afraid of are these private citizens who had nothing to do with the shooting and just woke up one morning to find their names published in connection with a mass murder.
I know I'd be pretty outraged if it happened to me here. In the U.S., where things run on fear in a way we can't really appreciate, I can imagine it would be that much more of a red flag to people on both sides of the debate.
Not to mention that it takes what up until now has been a fairly clear discussion, and fucks it up completely. It might be different if there was some point to publishing that information, but I see no reason for names and addresses other than shock and blame.
Thu, 2012-12-27 10:38
#175
If people are to remain consistant in their argument that they don't want just anyone to have guns, then publishing a map to where just anyone can break in and get themselves an untraceable gun seems counter productive.
"People" didn't publish the map - it was the Journal News, and they explained their motivation [url=http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012312230056]in their article[/url]. Apparently some readers, in the wake of a local murder, thought they'd like to know whether their neighbours have arsenals or not.
As for enabling gun thefts... that seems a bit odd. Are house burglars more or less likely to target the 4% of adults in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam who are licensed to own handguns? You would have to at least think through that scenario (and I'm sure neither of us are burglars, so it might be difficult) before answering the question.
And what's an "untraceable gun" vs. a "traceable gun"? Which handguns in the U.S. are "traceable" after being stolen? How exactly do they differ from the handgun in my neighbour's bedside drawer?
ETA: Just to be perfectly clear, one U.S. newspaper used freedom of information to obtain and publish this list. I don't advocate public listing of handgun owners and addresses. I advocate taking them away. No one needs a handgun.
Thu, 2012-12-27 11:07
#176
If people are to remain consistant in their argument that they don't want just anyone to have guns, then publishing a map to where just anyone can break in and get themselves an untraceable gun seems counter productive. While it was "public knowlege", the information that was used to make the map came via a freedom of information request. Not something every wacko is about to do. Or was about to do.
Well said.
Now if someone wants to go on a shooting rampage they don't even need to go through the hassel of applying for a licence and buying it themselves, they have a shopping list at the click of a finger.
Want a pistol but not legally allowed to buy one because of your violent past? I hear ERNIE PARKER at 7 Padanaram Road, Danbury, CT, 06811, has a couple of them.
Thu, 2012-12-27 11:16
#177
Arsenals?
Clearly that is the intent of the article (since it quotes people talking about whether or not they want to live there), but the database is actually about handgun permits.
I think the lengths to which that piece goes is highly manipulative, and doesn't do anything at all to wrestle with the real problem - because clearly just moving away is no solution.
Again, if we were applying this to other groups of people - publishing the names and addresses of people convicted of crime, for instance - I think there would rightly be cries of outrage over it.
As for this list. I wonder how someone who got a permit for work, or because he or she felt threatened would feel to be identified in connection with mass murder this way. The article makes no distinction, and no attempt to counter the perception of survivalists with piles of guns and hair-trigger tempers.
Going by the lede - someone randomly shot in the back of the head by a mentally disturbed person with a huge cache of guns - that is exactly the fear they are trying to instill.
And no, I don't think people need handguns either, but I don't think this article does much to help solve that problem.
Thu, 2012-12-27 11:18
#178
Nice to see the growing unity here in defence of the privacy of Americans with handgun permits. This newspaper publishes a diversionary article, and the diversions begin. And, like the NRA, all the arguments focus on protecting the law-abiding citizens from the "criminals", who of course are the real problem.
Sorry for reprinting that article. It was a bit of a babble experiment. I did caution you that I supported, not publication, but confiscation. I'll try to behave from now on.
Thu, 2012-12-27 11:31
#179
Boom Boom
TThe NRA president (David Keene) is on CNN right now defending the NRA's plan to place an armed guard in every school in the USA. He's obviously doing some PR work to fix some of the damage done by the VP.
First, he says it's every school district, and only after school boards, parents, and police sit down to discuss security needs for their schools. And the NRA will help in any way they can.
It's still an awful plan, and made worse by having an idiot spokesman (the NRA VP) deliver it.
Thu, 2012-12-27 11:31
#180
This newspaper publishes a diversionary article, and the diversions begin.
Exactly. Although I think I said quite clearly that that was the danger of publishing a manipulative article that does nothing to deal wiht the problem.
And yes, I support privacy rights (though it's not strictly that, since it is public information). And like any rights, you don't get to pick and choose who it applies to and who isn't worthy.
Next thing you know these potential criminals will be expecting warrants.
(edit)
Thing is, even the right wing media, including Fox News, has called bullshit on the NRA, and that is where this battle is really going to be fought, because they are the centre of the gun lobby. Publishing a scare piece like this is nothing but a step backwards.
Thu, 2012-12-27 11:39
#181
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/12/26/far-right-website-newsmax-shoots...
Though I'm not sure what one has to do to get labelled "far right".
Thu, 2012-12-27 12:00
#182
This newspaper publishes a diversionary article, and the diversions begin.
Exactly. Although I think I said quite clearly that that was the danger of publishing a manipulative article that does nothing to deal wiht the problem.
I may have missed it, but I have seen no idea or musing from you about how to "deal with the problem", whether in Canada or the U.S. - nor, in fact, any view as to what "the problem" is. You have devoted a fair amount of text to criticizing the proposals of others, on the other hand - or to seizing on a word (like "arsenal") to ignore the rest of a post.
And by the way (at the risk of you seizing on this paragraph to the detriment of my previous one), to use the words "DANGER" and "MANIPULATIVE" in connection with the Journal News article - while ignoring the raving reaction of the gun fetishists - is pretty much an over-the-top reaction in today's dangerous and manipulative world, don't you think?
As for Tommy and Serviam6, I'll be waiting to see the stats on the explosion in house burglaries in Westchester et al, now that the newspaper has provided an easy road map to free untraceable guns.
Am I still on babble here?
Thu, 2012-12-27 12:13
#183
Yes, I think you missed it, repeatedly.
Unionist, I think I have been pretty clear all along that I support a firearms registry, and that I thought it was a mistake to cancel it. You asked me again about that just a day or so ago. Your charge is completely uncalled for.
But no, I don't agree with your position that people in cities should not be allowed to own any firearms, that building armouries for storage is a recipe for safety, nor the assertion by several people in these threads that gun ownership is inherenly wrong.
And this demonizing is not only baseless, it does more to harm the cause of establishing a new registry than it does to help, IMO. Likewise in the U.S., all it seems to have done is taken some of the heat off the NRA, and generated more of the fear that causes people to buy these guns in the first place.
After all, I'm not sure where these people think they are going to move to get away from the gun fetishists who are all just waiting to shoot them in the back of the head.
Thu, 2012-12-27 12:43
#184
And speaking of those raving reactions, how about an analysis of the piece:
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/als-morning-meeting/199218/where-the-...
I like it when journalists take heat for an explosive, necessary, courageous investigation that exposes important wrongdoing. There is journalistic purpose and careful decision-making supporting those stories. But The News Journal is taking heat for starting a gunfight just because it could.
I think it is more appropriate to focus on the actions of the media than members of the public. After all, they are supposed to be the professionals, and they have the means to do a lot more damage with their words.
Thu, 2012-12-27 13:06
#185
I don't remember you being so argumentative, Unionist.
Anyway, yes it is diversionary. Already the argument shifts back and forth-- now some are saying there were abused women on that list in hiding that have now been "outed".
I did, after mentioning this, bring it back to the assault rifle.
What I think should be done, and what I think might be accomplishable in U.S. politics are two different things. I'm for an outright ban and removal of the assault weapons, including those handguns with insane clip sizes.
But I don't think that's accomplishable. It seems like they will resurect the Fienstein ban on assault weapons, which will not address the weapons already out there, which will probably be "grandfathered" in.
Perhaps workable would be a ban, with a buy back program. A lot of guns have already been removed from society by buy back programs in San Francisco and New Jersey. However, looking at the photos of guns turned in, they looked to be mostly hunting rifles-- but a good many handguns were in the pile.
Thu, 2012-12-27 13:45
#186
Tommy, what's an "untraceable" gun?
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:00
#187
Boom Boom
Perhaps workable would be a ban, with a buy back program. A lot of guns have already been removed from society by buy back programs in San Francisco and New Jersey. However, looking at the photos of guns turned in, they looked to be mostly hunting rifles-- but a good many handguns were in the pile.
Thousands Of L.A. Citizens Choose Groceries Over Handguns
They are indeed getting a variety, including this:
Many came bearing more than one gun. They pulled 22 pistols from the trunk of one white Honda, a haul that earned the driver $1,000.
Two men in a pickup truck with two children in the back seat handed over a rifle, a pistol and a MAC-12, altered with a silencer.
While the majority of the guns retrieved were handguns and other small-scale weapons, at least “a few dozen” assault weapons were taken off the streets as well. One of the first guns purchased in the buyback was a Bushmaster rifle of the same model as those used in the Conneticut shooting and a planned attack in New York where two firefighters were targeted and killed.
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:08
#188
How very U.S. of them! Use public funds to buy back guns from people who don't plan to use them and who need money! The free market at its finest. Shouldn't be long before the gun problem in the U.S. is a thing of the past. As well as poverty.
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:22
#189
Boom Boom
For Unionist: Rocket launcher among items hauled in by L.A. police dept.'s Gun Buyback Program (May 2012) 
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:34
#190
Correction to my post #187:
It's apparently not "public funds" being used in L.A. From Boom Boom's link: "A local supermarket chain donated $200,000 in gift cards to give out in exchange for the guns."
That makes it an even better model of liberty. No government funding. "Food for guns!" Only in America.
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:40
#191
I'm sorry... what is your ultimate goal here - disarmament, or disarmament that is sufficiently punitive by making sure there is no incentive or compensation for people handing over their property for the good of society?
I suppose they should hold onto their death machines until they are sufficiently pure-of-heart that they turn them over for the right reason. It's an outrage that they might get a free meal out of it.
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:48
#192
I'm sorry... what is your ultimate goal here - disarmament, or disarmament that is sufficiently punitive by making sure there is no incentive or compensation for people handing over their property for the good of society?
I was wondering the same.
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:55
#193
Oh yes, of course, I'm mocking this pathetic buyback program because I want people to keep their guns until they give them up for the right reasons.
There's a bit of a zany chorus developing here.
Whatever happened to making logic courses mandatory in elementary school?
Let me try out that kind of "logic" here:
So according to you guys, only the well-off should be armed in the U.S. You know, the ones that don't need food stamps. Can't trust poor folk with firearms. Might get ideas.
How am I doing? Is that NRA-worthy?
Thu, 2012-12-27 14:57
#194
Oh yes, of course, I'm mocking this pathetic buyback program because I want people to keep their guns until they give them up for the right reasons.
There's a bit of a zany chorus developing here.
Whatever happened to making logic courses mandatory in elementary school?
Let me try out that kind of "logic" here:
So according to you guys, only the well-off should be armed in the U.S. You know, the ones that don't need food stamps. Can't trust poor folk with firearms. Might get ideas.How am I doing? Is that NRA-worthy?
You're doing great! Your post wasn't condisending at all.
Thu, 2012-12-27 15:59
#195
Well sorry Unionist, but it is kind of hard to tell.
We have posts about a program that actually gets some guns off the streets (though I have also seen posts about some programs in which guns are resold) and it just becomes an excuse for mocking U.S. stereotypes?
Why shouldn't someone get paid or get food for turning in something which they presumably bought?
Again, I see your reasoning, even if I don't agree with all of it. But I really think your position is more ideology rather than finding solutions to a problem. I don't agree that gun ownership is inherently wrong, and I don't see any reason for a ban on ownership in cities. And I think both those positions stand in the way of building a consensus for any new firearms registry.
(edit)
Though I think the law already provides for municipalities to make some of their own laws. I know that includes discharging firearms - not sure if it includes a ban. If they want to try to pass and enforce something like that in Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver, be my guest. But I think that kind of step would mean the ultimate death of any new national registry if it were included as part of it.
Thu, 2012-12-27 16:16
#196
I don't agree that gun ownership is inherently wrong, and I don't see any reason for a ban on ownership in cities. And I think both those positions stand in the way of building a consensus for any new firearms registry.(edit)
Though I think the law already provides for municipalities to make some of their own laws. I know that includes discharging firearms - not sure if it includes a ban. If they want to try to pass and enforce something like that in Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver, be my guest. But I think that kind of step would mean the ultimate death of any new national registry if it were included as part of it.
So that's how your thinking has evolved in the past year? Must be my annoying anti-gun propaganda:
I have put forward my views on this issue here for years - primarily, that individual gun ownership should be banned, that no firearms should be permitted within appropriately defined radius of a municipal area, that firearms should be rented/leased for purposes such as hunting and sport, with exceptions for indigenous peoples who have hereditary rights in this regard, etc. The registry was the Liberal Party's minimal gesture in response to the Polytechnique massacre.
Yes, that is clear. Many people disagree with that.
Absolutely. It would be unworkable in many parts of this country. And I could care less about sports. I am far more concerned about having the means to kill animals quickly and humanely when you need to.
I think the Liberals are as much to blame for this as Harper, because they crafted such a shitty piece of legislation, and put in charge of it a man who made that very same argument. It wasn't just a response. It was an opportunity to rub people's noses in it.
I should say though, that banning guns from cities is a great idea.
I guess at that time we didn't realize that guns could be exchanged for groceries?
[/quote]
Thu, 2012-12-27 17:47
#197
That must have taken some digging, Unionist. If you really pored over a year's worth of posts I hope you also heppend to run across some of the posts in which I said the registry was a good way to "deal with the problem"?
As I just said, if someone wants to try to ban all firearms within a certain municipality, fine.
On the other hand, I don't think the proof is there that such a measure would be needed in addition to the storage requirements that are already there - especially if we are talking about a grand scheme to build armouries out of city limits to store everyone's guns. It sounds like a good iidea in theory, but whether it is necessary and possible are the real questions.
And if I am a bit more insistent about that point now than I was a year ago, perhaps some of the misconceptions and stereotypes of gun users I have read in the past little while, as well as discussing the nuts and bolts of how a such a ban might be implemented, has fine-tuned my position a little bit.
And most importantly, I think anyone who is serious about re-establising a firearms registry in Canada might want to think twice about rolling an urban ban into it.
Thu, 2012-12-27 17:49
#198
the police going to be doing initial and on going house sweeps and room by room searches in the reality where guns are banned in cities? or are they going to pay for high tech data imagining of every house?
just need to get my head around the incidentals before i can weigh in......
Thu, 2012-12-27 18:01
#199
the police going to be doing initial and on going house sweeps and room by room searches in the reality where guns are banned in cities? or are they going to pay for high tech data imagining of every house?
just need to get my head around the incidentals before i can weigh in......
Not sure what you're on about. You do realize that we have laws in Canada banning all kinds of things - [url=http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/prohibited-prohibe-eng.htm]like certain guns[/url], for instance. Somehow we manage to enact those laws without the cops searching every room in every house and doing high-tech imaging.
Likewise, since last year, snow tires are mandatory in Québec starting Dec. 15 of each winter. And use of hand-held devices while driving has been banned for several years. And your seat belts had better be functioning, or else.
Somehow, we manage to have those laws - and many (not all) people abide by them - without having to pull over ever vehicle on a daily basis.
Let me know if you have any difficulty getting your head around those incidentals. After that, let me know if you think people living in cities should have guns in their homes. Once we agree on that, maybe we can discuss difficulties of enforcement.
Thu, 2012-12-27 18:18
#200
pretty agressive unionist might wanna dial back a bit!
....seems to me most shootings i hear about here in Canada are hand guns in public places and having a hand gun in a public place is against the law in Canada. the bans on hand guns doesn't seem to be stopping hand gun shootings so i don't think a ban on a already banned weapon in order to stop murders by guns is going to work unless ya get down to every nook and cranny.
Thu, 2012-12-27 18:32
#201
Funny you should mention snow tires.
THey had a fellow from Quebec on a recent call in show, and he pointed out that bringing in mandatory snow tires probably wouldn't work here right now. When they brought it in in Quebec there was already 70 to 80 percent compliance. He didn't think it could be implemented immediately in a jurisdiction where snowtire use was half that.
So it's not quite as simiple as willing something and having it done.
Also, I have lived in or near jurisdictions where there was an alcohol or a bar ban (like there was here on one side of the river back in the 80s, and still is in Steinbach, MB, I believe). Funny how easy it is to just go over the line, especially when those lines are right in the middle of cities.
Say there was a total firearms ban in Vancouver. What effect might that have on Musqueam? Burnaby? or whatever jurisdiction happened to be at the edge of the ban?
I remember being surprised, while riding around with a cop one night, to find out how much of the City of Winnipeg was actually the RM of Springfield.