And that ends any Bernie is a gun nut meme.

A combination of lack of creativity, lack of truthfulness, and desperation. They'll keep flinging shit all over the place. The only reason they haven't played the anti-Semitic card on DU is it will quickly get them a time out, but they've played it in their little website. Several posters got screen captures before they scrubbed the site and made sections off-limits to non-approved viewers.

There are a small handful of people accustomed to shouting over people, changing the subject, making counter-accusations, and so on. It's their milieu, and in the particular case I'm thinking of, the person tried changing the subject by starting an OP whose premise was an easily-debunked lie. That's what happens when one learns their craft at the dishonest feet of right wing media, and this sort of in-the-bubble thinking allows a run-Oof-the-mill IT guy like me to outpace them both in writing and in logic. Life is so much easier if you only have to deal in honesty and not in deceit.

So badly, some have to resort to outright lies.

Which has killed more people?

Z

it's guns here.

Knock it off.

Was there over 250,000 murders and suicides in this country? Life is hell for the innocents over there in the ME, with Hillary's help. And, let's not forget the vets coming home in boxes, in hospitals, in wheelchairs, or just broken. Fortunately, Bernie is helping to take care of them, did Hillary?

Z

Knock it off.

Guns are made to kill and hit targets.

We can prohibit certain kinds of guns, make their production and sale illegal and then go after their manufacturers.

But it is not the fault of the manufacturer if some angry or crazed person takes the manufacturer's product and uses it to kill an innocent person or a family member rather than a deer or an intruding animal.

We have public service and information programs about many issues. Two issues on which we need a lot more public programming are managing anger and raising children.

We have so much research, so much knowledge on both topics. We need federal funding for a program that will educate people in these two areas.

It would do a great deal to reduce our prison population.

The best way to chasten gun manufacturers is to change our culture. If we could change our culture just a little bit from our focus on violence as a solution to problems to teaching people how to solve differences and problems in a non-violent way, we would solve so, so many of our problems.

The gun issue is almost a distraction. The real issue is why people resort to using guns.

That's where the answers to our epidemic of gun deaths lies.

He doesn't go far enough in my opinion, but he goes a good distance. I get that GD_P is going to be cast in stark good-and-evil terms, my candidate is perfect and yours is garbage, but really, we all know there's a little nuance that can be gotten to once the fighting season is over. Sanders isn't perfect on guns (or F35's or Israel), but for a voter like me, he's far and away the best candidate, and he has no fatal-to-DiCA policy planks. He's the best candidate I've had to vote for in my adult life. And he's not the gun whackjob that a few people are trying to portray him as. And everyone in this forum already knows that.

somebody misuses their product to do harm to someone else?

What about baseball bats?

Household chemicals/poisons?

Cars?

etc.?

Is it really about "protecting gun manufacturers" or rather seeing the folly in starting down that slippery slope?

Just acknowledging the ugly reality that people misuse all kinds of things besides guns to do harm to others and you can't blame the manufacturers of everything when some individuals choose to misuse their products.

knife manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, baseball bat manufacturers, etc., from lawsuits when, for example, somebody drives their car into a crowd and kills or cripples somebody?

I'm actually surprised that a bill allowing or disallowing lawsuits against any manufacturer for the individual misuse of their products even made it to a vote in Congress.

Under product liability law, if the injury was the result of unforeseeable individual misuse, there is no liability against the manufacturer, any manufacturer. But if the misuse is foreseeable, and the manufacturer not only does nothing to prevent it but markets to encourage such misuse, like say selling AR-15s with 100-round magazines, that manufacturer is to be held accountable. Or at least they would be unless they are gun manufacturers, then the PLCAA lets them off the hook. So gun manufacturers keep marketing ridiculously inappropriate military equipment to unhinged civilians.

Do knife and automobile manufacturers do anything to prevent the clearly foreseeable potential for individual misuse of their products? If so, what? I doubt there is evidence to support the claim that any manufacturer of anything "markets to encourage such misuse."

None of this begins to address the "equal protection" issues that could arise from protecting or not protecting any given manufacturer whose products are misused by disturbed individuals.

A knife cannot be used to kill 20 6-year-olds in a matter of minutes.

So are you saying that because all other product manufacturers don't get the special immunities that the PLCAA gives to gun manufacturers, it is a violation of equal protection? So are you saying we should overturn the PLCAA because it violates equal protection? Interesting.

I really don't know anything about the PLCAA or Bernie's reasoning behind his vote. Maybe it was about equal protection or maybe there are gun manufacturers in Vermont that he was representing or something else.

Personally, I think the Second Amendment is one of biggest mistakes ever made by human beings. It should have been repealed or seriously limited around 200 years ago when a standing army assumed responsibility for the national defense and single-shot muskets became obsolete--rendering many of today's gun culture problems long outdated.

The Second Amendment was designed to preclude the need for a standing army by providing for "well regulated" citizen militias. Our founders feared a standing army in peacetime. But the Second Amendment failed almost as soon as it was passed. We never avoided a standing army. And yet it sat there in our Constitution until gun manufacturers and conservatives took over its carcass and in 2008 used it to enshrine private gun ownership in our Constitution via the 2008 Heller decision, overturning over 100 years of precedent.

They shouldn't be sued if one of their legally manufactured products is used illegally.

Bernie's positions on gun control are just fine with me.

With all due respect I trust Senator Sanders more.

Also, it's the vigilante mentality. Forget about rights and find someone to lynch. But lynching gun manufactures isn't addressing the problem. The problem is that we have a strong bully culture from the government down.

And the gun is the ultimate bully.

"He wasn't opposed to states having (waiting periods) if they wanted to. The Republicans wanted to repeal waiting periods in states that had them, and Bernie voted that down," Weaver said. "He said he would be against waiting periods, and he kept his word to the people of Vermont."

In April 1991, Sanders’ then-chief of staff Anthony Pollina echoed the idea that Sanders was simply representing the will of his constituents.

"Bernie’s response is that he doesn’t just represent liberals and progressives. He was sent to Washington to represent all of Vermont," Pollina said. "It’s not inappropriate for a congressman to support a majority position, particularly on something Vermonters have been very clear about."

The Green Mountain State, though left-leaning, has a high gun ownership rate and lax gun control laws (as well as a low homicide rate). That and Sanders’ own personal views are reflected in his overall voting record, experts told us.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/10/generation-forward-pac/did-bernie-sanders-vote-against-background-checks-/

waiting period.

That's the answer Bernie gave back then, ask him.

He announced his opposition to the Brady Bill before he got into Congress. Indeed, that appears to be what got him into Congress, with the NRA financing negative ads against Sanders' opponent. Funny, the few statements I've seen from him all invoked states' rights, claiming the feds should not tell states what to do, that states should decide what gun control laws to enforce.

I'd love to "ask him," but he doesn't like answering questions about this when asked by journalists, let alone us peons. He'd slink right off the stage like he did when BLM confronted him.

Try reading fr comprehension.

The NRA did not back Bernie because he voted against the unwritten Brady Bill.

The NRA backed Bernie because in the previous election, his opponent said he opposed banning semi-automatic weapons and then halfway through his first term co-sponsored a ban on semi-automatic weapons.

The old School House Rock show had an informative video called "I'm just a bill," you may need to check it out to understand how Congress works, or at least is supposed to.

As far as BLM he handled the situation perfectly, both on stage and later in meeting with them. He listened and agreed that they had a point and adopted their issues. He came to undersatand that it was more than economic justice that was a problem in the black community and has adopted their recommendations. That is what a good politician does.

As far as answering questions of journalists, he does do that unlike your chosen candidate. Thats really rich! Thanks for the laugh! Go have the last word, I am going to enjoy the rest of my weekend!

So you have a link for what you are saying?


And you can dispense with the insults. As any judge will tell you, it just shows your argument is weak.

In Printz, the NRA argued that the Brady Act was unconstitutional because its provisions requiring local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks was a violation of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution (Brief Amicus Curiae of the National Rifle Association of America in Support of Petitioners, Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 1997). Based on these grounds, the NRA told the Court "the whole Statute must be voided."

In its 1997 decision in the case, the Supreme Court ruled that the provision of the Brady Act that compelled state and local law enforcement officials to perform the background checks was unconstitutional on 10th amendment grounds. The Court determined that this provision violated both the concept of federalism and that of the unitary executive. However, the overall Brady statute was upheld and state and local law enforcement officials remained free to conduct background checks if they so chose. The vast majority continued to do so.[19] In 1998, background checks for firearm purchases became mostly a federally run activity when NICS came online, although many states continue to mandate state run background checks before a gun dealer may transfer a firearm to a buyer.

. . . .

From the inception of the NICS system in 1998 through 2014, more than 202 million Brady background checks have been conducted.[21] During this period approximately 1.2 million attempted firearm purchases were blocked by the Brady background check system, or about 0.5% percent.[22] The most common reason for denials are previous felony convictions.[22]

Prosecution and conviction of violators of the Brady Act, however, is extremely rare. During the first 17 months of the Act, only seven individuals were convicted. In the first year of the Act, 250 cases were referred for prosecution and 217 of them were rejected.[23]

Last edited Sun Oct 11, 2015, 05:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Don't suggest legislation is ineffectual when we have no significant legislation to combat gun violence. We have no laws against 100-round magazines. We have no laws against internet sales or gun shows on the national level. Keeping it at the state level, which is how Sanders rationalized his vote against the Brady Bill, is what makes the laws ineffectual. Someone can just cross state lines to a place like Vermont with almost no gun laws and get what they want.

Anger management education is always good. All countries have angry people. But no western countries have a gun violence problem as bad as the US, not even close.

Amazing to me that so many here in the Clinton Camp have been zealously harping on Bernie for being 'weak on guns' of late. Has everyone here already forgotten 2008 when Mrs. Clinton, having already been mathematically defeated, kept going after Obama, in trying to appeal to the racist white gun nuts, acting like she was Annie Oakly!?!?

Oh thats right, integrity and values be damned! Its just 'smart politics' baby!

He voted against the Brady Bill. Now THAT was smart politics--his professed opposition to the Brady Bill is what caused the NRA to spend money on negative ads against his opponent and got Sander into Congress.

What is amazing is watching progressives adopt NRA talking points to justify Sanders' Brady and PLCAA votes.

Like Sen. Clinton in 2008. Running around telling southern whites that scary black Obama guy was coming for em!

Hillary never said Obama is going to take away anyone's guns. And she sure never said "that scary black Obama guy was coming for em!" That is racist and offensive. You should delete that.

But I can see why you want to deflect from the offensive post that you jumped in to defend.

And not saying that black people are scary.

But I know how prone you Hillary supporters are to taking things out of context to try n score cheap political points. More power to ya.

Her '08 campaign was chalked full of blatant racist dog whistles. I'm just being real. If your so thin skinned and politically correct as to take offense to that then I'm sorry for you.

What's the big deal, amiright?

You sure are trying hard to change the subject of the thread.

I'm just setting the record straight, their racist dog whistles are a matter of record.

You are not setting the record straight. The poster essentially admitted the post was not true. Hillary is not responsible for increases in gun sales. And suggesting some statements can be construed as dog whistles is very different than saying she uttered that racist statement that poster attributed to her.

Calling garbage like that out is not "bullying." Indeed, you profess that is your mission here.

And you should have quit when you were behind this morning.

For the record, I enthusiastically supported candidate Obama to be our candidate in '08 from the get go. I was blown away after his 04 convention speech, and his leadership skills became evermore apparent thereafter.

Didnt hurt that he had the good judgement to see through the Iraq farce either, unlike some of the other candidates..

I registered voters, did street corner rallies, sometimes by myself, volunteered to work the phones, you name it.. In an area that is neanderthalic and lets just say a little stereotypical about black folks.
I heard it all when I'd go downtown with my pro-Obama and anti-republican signs n set up shop.

My point being, that well after it was obvious that Clinton wasn't going to win, she stuck around anyhow. Her campaign went all 'southern strategy' and started cranking out the racist dog whistles and Republic slime tactics left and right. Frankly, I found that disgusting and another one of a 1000 reasons as a progressive not to respect Mrs. Clinton.

If you want to twist yourself in knots trying to draw a conclusion out of that that I'm a racist, then suit yourself. But I've got more productive things to do.

Have a nice night!

What is absurd is your post #19. And yet you stick by it and refuse to delete it like it's the most wonderful thing you ever wrote.

Mrs. Clinton is a typical sleazoid politician.

So sorry that my opinion, which millions of people share, btw, so easily offends you.

I certainly haven't heard an apology from Clinton for her part in sending my friends and family to go pillage and plunder Iraq and the US Treasury, and all they've endured as a result. So you sure as hell won't get one from me either.

This hyper pc bs gets so tiresome.. I suggest growing some thicker skin.

That appears to be the bailiwick of some Sanders supporters. So enamored are they by their beloved, they are willing to sacrifice their progressive principles and adopt NRA talking points in a desperate attempt to defend his votes for the PLCAA and against the Brady Bill.

As opposed to any actual, you know, facts.

He campaigned on opposing a key plank of the Brady Bill, waiting periods. He then voted against the Brady Bill once he got in office.

And your post is exactly the sort of right wing tripe I now see from so-called progessives defending Sanders' PLCAA vote.

Last edited Sun Oct 11, 2015, 03:58 PM - Edit history (1)

A waiting period (as it is written in your quote, btw) is not a background check.

He wanted states to decide on waiting periods to honor his commitment to his constituency. He voted in favor of background checks in 93 and in 99.

Fixed it.

How does that make sense? Unless there is a uniform federal waiting period, gun nuts or a pissed off stalking estranged husband can just cross state lines and go into a state like Vermont with almost no gun laws and get what they want without waiting or cooling off.

Leaving it to the states is how to weaken gun laws, and civil rights laws for that matter.

Sanders voted for background checks. He voted against the waiting period, wanting states to set their own.

But voting against background checks sounds a lot better, right? Too bad your own article contradicted you.

I meant waiting periods, as I have in the text of my post (s).

The people sending financial ruin upon people already devastated by guns are the folks who voted for the PLCAA.

that now get to pay about $300k to the ammunition manufacturers they tried to sue. See, their son died in the Aurora theater shooting, and they agreed with you that lawsuits will totally bankrupt the global arms industry.

And now they have a very large legal bill.

And you want to repeat that over and over again, yet can't quite explain how the lawsuits would shut down every arms manufacturer on the planet.

These lawsuits would not shut down gun manufacturers. They would prevent then from selling AR-15s with 100-round magazines.

the AR-15 was not defective. The 100-round magazine is not defective. "I think they're too dangerous" is not grounds to win a lawsuit, especially when those aren't the most dangerous weapons. Handguns are. And you'd still have to overcome the problem of other products causing more injuries per year.

So you'd be victimizing gun victims a second time.

But let's pretend you manage to get US manufacturers to stop. Why would foreign manufacturers stop? How do you plan to collect on your judgement against China?

We need real gun control. Not fever dreams that would devastate families that have already been devastated.

It is utterly unreasonable for gun manufacturers and retailers to sell those things to consumers.

If they could get sued for selling them, retailers would not sell them, whether they're made in China or Massachusetts.

You are going to stand up in court and say killing 10 people in one decade is more dangerous than the weapons that have killed about 200,000 people over the same decade (handguns).

Were you wanting people to laugh at your argument?

Also, the people who make the AR-15 don't sell 100 round magazines for it. So who, exactly, were you going to sue? Or you gonna keep pretending weapon manufacturers are a single entity?

I almost can't bear to watch that person get pwned again.

Almost.

They're not just dangerous, they're unreasonably dangerous and serve no legitimate purpose in civilian hands. Sanders agrees with that. He supports an AWB. It appears you do not.

What's sad is we don't have a AWB, and Sanders voted for a law, the PLCAA, that prevents victims of those weapons from presenting a case to a jury. Those are not SLAPP lawsuits. They do not punish victims, they vindicate them and could prevent future horrors like what the victims suffered.

The Aurora victim's family knew those laws were on the books and wanted to try anyway, hoping to get around the law with creative arguments. They were devastated by the loss of their loved one and wanted to try to do something, despite the risks. You repeatedly blaming gun control advocates for "bankrupting" victims is an NRA talking point to deflect from who IS to blame: the people who wrote and voted for those heinous immunity laws and added the very un-American gun mfr attorneys fees awards provisions.

The claim that these victims' lawsuits are "SLAPP" suits has no basis in law. It is an NRA talking point.

Sad how many Sanders supporters have adopted bullshit NRA talking points.

The victims did not "know" they would fail. They knew it was a long shot, but they hoped creative arguments by their counsel would get around the law. I never said they were SLAPP suits. You did, repeating NRA talking points like a broken record.

A defect can be how the product is designed. Even if it works as designed, it can still be defective if the design was defective. A design can be shown to be defective if unreasonably dangerous. Reasonableness is weighed by the function the product serves, chances of misuse and ability to prevent that misuse. That is product liability law doctrine all product manufacturers are subject to except gun mfrs.

If those lawsuits were meritless before the PLCAA, gun manufacturers would not have made passing the the PLCAA their priority. There are already provisions on the books for frivolous lawsuits. There was no need for the PLCAA except to give gun manufacturers a free pass to continue selling unreasonably dangerous military equipment for the civilian market.

Even if the gun manufacturers do not counter-sue successfully, you still have to pay your own lawyers.

A successful countersuit just makes the economic devastation deeper.

The victims were not being "bankrupted" by their own lawyers, but rather by the rapacious gun manufacturers who insisted on their pound of flesh.

The victims are saying it's the gun companies' craven demand for $203 in attorneys fees from the victims that will bankrupt them, not the victims' own lawyers' fees.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28911793/family-jessica-ghawi-aurora-theater-shooting-victim-stuck

Again, what is forcing the gun companies to go after these victims for $203k? As the above link notes, the gun companies claim they are not even going to use the money to pay their own attorneys. They are just doing it to punish these victims for speaking out.

automobiles. That would be a very acceptable way to a) cause a person to stop and think about buying a gun because of the cost and problems of maintaining gun insurance and 2) obtain a registration of every gun in the country -- the proof of insurance.

Anyone without a gun registration automatically loses the gun.

Then we need a program to educate Americans about domestic violence, non-violent communication, non-violent disciplining of children, a program that provides alternatives to the violent response that Americans are taught every day in our culture.

I guess the NRA would approve.

The Brady Bill didn't come up for a vote until 1993. "The original legislation was introduced into the House of Representatives by Representative Charles E. Schumer [3] in March 1991,[1] but was never brought to a vote."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Handgun_Violence_Prevention_Act

Bernie was first elected to Congress in 1990, before the Brady Bill was written. And he won that first election in spite of the fact that he supported a ban on assault rifles. His opponent lost because his opponent told Vermonters he opposed the ban, and then co-sponsored the ban.

But don't let the facts get in your way...

"And it’s in Bernie’s own words dating back to the campaign where he was first elected to the U.S. House—in 1990—where he was endorsed by the NRA, even after Sanders told them that he would ban assault rifles. That year, Bernie faced Republican incumbent Peter Smith, who beat him by less than 4 percentage points in a three-way race two years before.

In that 1988 race, Bernie told Vermont sportsmen that he backed an assault weapons ban. Smith told the same sportsmen’s groups that he opposed it, but midway through his first term he changed his mind and co-sponsored an assault rifle ban—even bringing an AK-47 to his press conference. That about-face was seen as a betrayal and is the background to a June 1990 debate sponsored by the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/10/what_bernies_gun_control_critics_get_wrong_partner/

After he was elected, Sanders stuck to the assurances he had given gun rights groups. In 1991, he voted against a measure that would have required a seven-day waiting period to buy a gun. In 1993, Sanders voted against a broader version of the bill — named for James Brady, the White House press secretary who was shot in the 1981 attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life — that became law.

your words, exactly:

"his professed opposition to the Brady Bill is what caused the NRA to spend money on negative ads against his opponent and got Sander into Congress."

That is patently false.

The NRA backed him against his opponent in 1990, in spite of his support for semiautomatic weapons bans, because his opponent lied and betrayed them.

Bernie won in 1990.
The Brady Bill was written in 1991 after Bernie was already in Congress.

The bill wasn't voted on until 1993, 3 years after Bernie was in Congress.

Bernie voted against the Brady Bill in response to his contituents. Vermont did not have a waiting period for guns and didn't want one. Bernie had promised not to support a waiting period, and he honored that promise to his constituents.

He expressed his opposition to background checks, a key component of the Brady Bill.

You got pwned twice in this thread and now you're trying to do damage control.

Too late!

However, they appear to enjoy making up facts to refute. Not much I can do about that.