Clearly, they are responsible for their own slaughter.

...FUCK THE NRA - And anyone that supports them.

(Actually, I don't hate to say that)

Karma that comes along with such an evil statement of hatred. These people represent everything wrong with America. If "Chaz" was as tough as he pretends to be he would round up his friends and family and head over to the ME with their guns and fight ISIS.

Edit: No, they're dead because of the NRA's position on a political issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

are much more racist than the American public. Indeed, NRA leadership makes racist statements on a regular basis.

To this asshole, the statement is business as usual. The NRA is in the business of fear - shaping the fear of gun crime so that more people buy guns to 'protect' themselves, fear of (at least for the past 6+ years) a black man taking your (white peoples') guns away, leaving you defenseless against the hordes of black people he will then unleash against you, inventing new things to be afraid of that gets racists (not only, but very disproportionately so) whipped up to buy more guns.

Decency? The whole purpose of the organization is to use indecent tactics to get people to buy more guns. Decency doesn't get people to buy guns - it tends to do the opposite.

Has an agenda, to front for the arms cartels of America, to arm the general populace so that Law a enforcement must treat every encounter a potentially armed encounter, and therefore justify selling arms to the police, that are military grade, war zone quality. They want to make war on Americans. It mskes them $$$. It's a live terrorist organization.
The purpose is to make certain the police need to arm themselves against the people they are meant to serve and protect and the people against the police. They promote armed insurrection and anarchy by msking every Tom, Dick and Harry an armed vigilante. Nobody trusts the police to handle family problems anymore because if you call they may come in and shoot someody. It's life and death dangerous because of this war prophiteer sick bastard operation.

is that correct, Mr. Cotton?

Serious question. I have no idea. I always assumed the NRA was colorblind in it's goals, given that racial exclusion would leave nearly 30% of the market untapped.

would lead to a rational discussion.

.........and discarding emotion-based piffle!!

The problem is the will to kill. Once that will is combined with action, the number of methods by which a single person can kill many others is very high. All you need to do is spend five minutes considering how that might be done to see that the presence of the gun is the least significant element of the story. In terms of actual killing potential, the average household contains chemicals that with just a little bit of knowledge of chemistry could easily produce very high body counts, and with methods available that the perpetrator could, without too much difficulty, leave no leads behind for investigators.

Focusing on guns is a cop-out. The real problem with our culture is its strong trend towards Clockwork Orange "ultraviolence" - that is what needs to be dealt with to prevent future mass killings. Killing and violence permeates our culture - the endless wars we choose to engage in, the glorification/saturation of violence in movies and TV, the behavior or law enforcement.

right?

Anybody with an ounce of intelligence can do much more damage by other means, as so famously immortalized by The Police 30 years ago.

n/t

I despise corruption and oligarchy, and the evils produced by them, to the core of my soul. Slapping a D label on candidates who fit that mold is grossly offensive to me.

Boston Bomber
Oklahoma City terrorist attack
9/11
Bath Michigan, the largest terror attack in the history of the state 48 people murdered.

This is not to say that guns being readily available to almost anyone over 18 is not a problem. But, the bigger problem like you said is that people are willing to kill and that is a cultural thing that needs to change.

Might take Generations... Laws? not so long..

The phenomenal lengths that people who like guns are willing to go to in denial of the fact that extremely easy access to handguns and high-power rifles really, really increases the level of serious violence in a society never ceases to amaze me.

None of those events you described resulted in more deaths or injuries than our annual firearm death and injury toll. The plain and obvious fact is that it is really easy to kill people with guns, and escalation of arguments into very dangerous situations is made much more likely with guns being everywhere.

There will always be people who are willing to kill other people. Murder happens everywhere. It just happens a lot more in countries where there are lots and lots of guns.

ALL rifles, "high powered" low powered and everything in between, have a tiny amount of deaths annually that they are involved in.

So no, rifles do not "really really" increase the serious violence in society.

This is from 2011, but it makes the point just the same:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-20

in our country. I'm also impressed that so many Americans are able to compartmentalize discussions about gun violence so that, instead of addressing the main issue, they just find flawed elements of statements made by people in favor of greater (by that, of course, I mean 'any') regulation of firearms in our country and focus entirely on them.

You're one of those people, apparently. You took a flawed statement that really didn't matter with respect to the overall issue and spent time refuting it, without even touching on the main question.

"...a flawed statement that really didn't matter with respect to the overall issue..."

That's an opinion.

When people use "a flawed statement that really didn't matter with respect to the overall issue" to mislead, with an eye toward a ban, it really does matter. Note, I am not saying you're doing that...

I'm saying you were a victim of it. You made statements which contained factually wrong information, and unless they were deliberate on your part, you were a victim of misinformation, and were spreading it.

The post I responded to, didn't contain any questions. It contained statements, some of which were false.

How could I touch on a question that isn't there?

I didn't ask an explicit question. When issues such as 'should there be greater gun ownership regulations in the United States?' are discussed, the 'question' is simply implied by the nature of the issue. You knew the question - it's not complicated. There are nuances, certainly, but the 'main question' is simply yes or no, with, certainly, important details remaining, but if there is no consensus on the main question, there is no point even trying to address the remaining important details.

If your opinion is that there should not be, in general terms, tighter gun control regulations in this country, then your post, which dealt only with my inclusion of 'certain high powered rifles' in the category of weapons that should be more tightly regulated, was irrelevant and and attempt to distract. The other possibility is that you meant something like 'well, I do see the problem of handgun violence as something that should be addressed, potentially through greater regulation, but I don't agree that any high-powered rifles are really important in the discussion, as very few injuries and deaths, proportionately, are caused by fire from such weapons.' If that approximates your perspective, then I expect that you would not have singled out the 'high powered rifles' component of my statement to comment on, without saying anything else.

I wasn't misled, neither was I seeking to mislead. I do believe that some high-powered semi- and full-automatic rifles, with high-capacity magazines and available armor piercing ammo, have no place in general legal circulation of firearms. That's my belief, and there are reasons for it. However, it is true that the most destructive firearms in our country, in terms of injuries and deaths, are handguns.

So I will, this time, ask a simple question: do you believe that handgun violence is a serious enough problem in the United States that smarter and broader regulation of either handgun manufacturing or distribution, or both, should be pursued?

If you say no, then, again, my prior point stands. If you say yes, I will agree that I was mistaken. If you say nothing, then my prior point stands doubly.

No. Just no. Refuting falsehoods in the gun debate or any other, is NEVER irrelevant, no matter what opinion one holds. Truth and objective fact are REQUIRED to form an opinion on anything and everything under the sun IF one wants to hold an opinion of even minimal value to any given discussion.

Theres just no way around that. It is what it is, and it is how it is.



See, since I haven't given you anything to chew on, You're attempting to attribute to me, a stance for which I've given you no evidence of holding. Did you really think that would go unnoticed? Really?

That which can be asserted without evidence, can likewise be dismissed, without evidence, and thusly is.

(A word to the wise, whoever you are, that's one of the oldest tricks in the book, and you aren't going to fool anyone here with it.)



That's fine and good, and irrelevant. Because we aren't talking about your 'beliefs'. We are talking about you deliberately making claims which are false. That has nothing to do with your beliefs.



How did you come to the conclusion that any rifles at all "really, really increases the level of serious violence in a society"? Did you come to that conclusion completely on your own? Certainly you didn't trip and fall and hit the 'post bullshit anti-gun stat' key, right?

So where did it come from?

And the fact is, what you said DOES MISLEAD. Its still sitting up there UNEDITED, misleading people who read it and might not know better. That doesn't exactly speak well about your intent does it? So why is it still sitting there unedited?

Show me how you aren't "seeking to mislead", by removing 'rifles' from that misleading statement.



And of course, now you're asking the wrong question.

Why don't you ask me first, If I think that whatever degree of gun control the American people will tolerate, will be enough to make any significant impact on gun violence.

I know the answer to that question, and its not just no, its hell no. And that makes your 'gotcha' question, utterly pointless.

You went to great lengths to dodge the one question I asked. Which means, of course, that I asked precisely the correct question. It wasn't a 'gotcha' question - it was simply a direct question. In fact, you went so far as to tell me what question I should ask you instead, which makes absolutely no sense. Do you do that regularly in your personal life? Do you answer questions by telling the people who ask them that they should really have asked this?

Your various responses exemplify precisely my original point. There are a great many people who, on the subject of gun violence, will tell you that guns really have nothing to do with it. It's culture (without demonstrating the link between any particular sub-culture and gun violence), it's violence in movies, TV and video games (which I don't entirely disagree with, although serious violence in movies, television and even the existence of video games came well after we already had a huge gun violence problem), it's ethnic diversity (of course, it's natural that people of various ethnic backgrounds just want to go around shooting people of other ethnic backgrounds), it's this and that and NEVER, EVER about the single common element of all gun violence, guns. They're just tools, after all (never mind that a great many of them, especially handguns and genuine combat rifles are really made for shooting people - if you sell a tool that makes it really easy to loosen a rusty bolt, people will use it to loosen rusty bolts. If you sell a tool that make it really easy to put a piece of metal through people at high velocity, people will use it to shoot people.)

You used the dodge of 'whatever degree of gun control the American people will tolerate.' Telling phrase - using 'tolerate' instead of 'accept.'

I've had this conversation many times with many people who simply love having guns. I began including the 'high powered rifles' part about 6 years ago, as a test, and not once have I been disappointed. Since I started using it, it's always been the first dodge. Amazing.

"You went to great lengths to dodge the one question I asked. "

You no greater lengths than you're going to, in support of asking an irrelevant meaningless question.

When someone asks the wrong question? In fact, I do. It has something to do with the fact that I live in the real world where asking the right questions is important, and asking irrelevant questions is...well... irrelevant.



What is your objection to NFA firearms? Or did you mean firearms that just look like "genuine combat firearms" but don't function like them? Do you even know the difference?



That's a nice notion, but that's all it is, a notion. The facts are, that there are roughly 10 thousand firearm homicides in America. Gun owners in America number at 80+ million. Guns in private hands number over 300 million.

If what you say above had even a shred of truth to it, far far more than a tenth of a percent of gun owners would be using them as you've asserted. And more tellingly, far far more than 1/100 of a percent of guns would be used as you've asserted.

Your assertion fails the basic reality test, on both counts.




Again, I live in the real world. What makes you think that its about anything other than what the American people will tolerate when ANY legislation is concerned, be it about guns or anything else? Were you under the impression that Pols can just pass whatever laws they want and there are no consequences on election day?

Do you 'accept' the TPP? No? Well you're going to 'tolerate' it just the same, aren't you. Welcome to the party, pal.



Wait. Wait. You began deliberately including a falsehood to your statement 6 years ago, presumably have been told its false numerous times, and still consciously continue to include it, yet you say:




It seems to me you've admitted that misleading others is precisely what you intended to do. You can't claim you have no intent to mislead, while admitting to deliberately and repeatedly using misleading statement, in the face of presumably being told repeatedly (you did say its always the first dodge didn't you) that its a falsehood.

I believe what you're engaging in here, might be best described as 'too cute by half'.



How very interesting. I guess you're a long time gun control proponent then huh? Seeing as if you were saying it 6 years ago, you (presumably) weren't saying it here on DU:



Or were you?

Changing gun laws.. Well, not so long..Correct?

the statement of the NRA official basically saying that armed pastors is the way to reduce gun violence in churches? Such a statement focuses explicitly and exclusively on guns. More guns. Everywhere. Just asking.

always better when victims of a crime can defend themselves than not

but in the big picture the real story is that America solves its problems with violence on every scale, large and small - and until that changes we can expect continued acts of savagery and barbarism

Your statement that "focusing on guns is a cop-out" doesn't apply if an NRA official, in this case board member Charles Cotton, focuses entirely on guns when describing why people were murdered in Charleston?

I think I see what you are getting at - when the question is whether more people should carry around guns, you would agree that we should focus at least in part on guns in preventing gun violence, but when it is about whether it should be harder to get guns, you disagree that focusing on guns is useful in preventing gun violence.

In other words, you don't care one whit about reducing gun violence. You'll employ any argument that you can get away with to deflect the serious problem of gun violence in our country away from the subject of the guns themselves.

Your last post is a badly-tortured attempt to tailor my statements to your own preferences and does not reflect my opinion, nor does it reflect the content of my posts on the subject.

Do you agree with this statement made by Charles Cotton, NRA Board member:

"And he (pastor Clementa Pinckney, among the dead) voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead."

Simple question, no 'badly-tortured attempts' at anything. Just so we are on the same playing field, I find the statement appalling and absurd. Straight-up wrong - inaccurate and based on no reasonable assumptions.

If you can't answer yes or no then nothing else you have to say has any relevance on the subject. The title of this thread is "An NRA board member 'goes there' re: SC massacre" and the thread is explicitly about the statement I refer to. Yes or no?

Last edited Sat Jun 20, 2015, 09:46 AM - Edit history (2)

i am SO SICK OF THAT REASONING IT MAKES ME WANT TO vomit. on edit: the nra (correction: was abc)tried that situation using nerf guns . half of the group froze , half of the group died before they could even get their guns drawen. please dont ask me for links
thanks to beevul for the corrective information.

And I specifically remember them deliberately dressing the group in loose fitting/oversize clothing, and gloves, as a deliberate hindrance.

Hardly meaningful, unless one wishes to cite it as an example of people given a test and set up to fail.

Not to mention dangerous and deranged.

At Ft Hood, there were roughly 45,000 military personnel. If only one had been a good guy?

If 45,000 trained military people can't stop a massacre, it is assine to imagine arming a congreagtion will help.


If you want to see the pro-gun propaganda playbook from which they are playing ...

WARNING ! It is vomit-worthy; however, Goebbels would be so proud.


http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/748675/gun-violencemessaging-guide-pdf-1.pdf

In case its deleted or changed:

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/748675/gun-violencemessaging-guide-pdf-1.pdf

Another instance of what Don Kates aptly refers to as gun-aversive dyslexia!

It is filled with disingenuous arguments and is still pure propaganda, and any viewing otherwise is dyslexic. Just because it calls for an assualt wepoans ban does not make it worthy of being swallowed whole nor does it bring this document down on the side of right.

Can you point out where in that pdf a pro gun position was taken? Or are you calling that a false flag release?

Fort Hood is a 340 sq mile city within a city, patrolled by a police force at a density much like the surrounding town.

Alternately, look up the New Life Church shooting.

by surprise?

Heavily armed and trained soldiers make mistakes. Reasonable to assume untrained civilians would.

1st Gulf War: Friendly fire casualty rate - 23%

Invasion of Kiska, Aug 43. 100%. No enemy forces on the island

One of the Confederacy heroes, Stonewall Jackson, was killed by friendly fire.

I'm sure you'll find yourself many like minded people down there. Of course since you are white you are less likely to be shot and killed. Maybe your arteries will do the work for us.

Insincerely........

really.

Repulsive.

for this dipstick.

That the Murder of State Senator & Rev. Clementa Pinckney, along with the 8 other individuals in the church - might have been a PLANNED execution with the NRA has the backers.....

Jesus christ I better not be the only one ENRAGED about these motherfuckers

Anyone who advocates banning all guns puts too much faith in the stability of civilization. Even NASA, in a study, says all civilizations eventually decay and collapse, I do believe they put it. Once things fall apart, do you want to be a victim?

Besides, from the whites in South Africa to Nazi's in Germany, authoritarians always wanna ban gun ownership.

Don't be naieve.