(02-22-2018, 04:17 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Back when we were a sane nation, the Chief Justice said:

(02-22-2018, 04:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: opinion piece from the New York Times:


How Banks Could Control Gun Sales if Washington Won’t

For the past year, chief executives have often talked about the new sense of moral responsibility that corporations have to help their communities and confront social challenges even when Washington won’t.

In the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 students and staff members — and at a time when Washington shows little interest in limiting the sales of assault weapons — there’s a real opportunity for the business community to fill the void and prove that all that talk about moral responsibility isn’t hollow.

Here’s an idea.

What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?

Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand.

PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay announced years ago that they would not allow their services to be used for the sale of firearms.

“We do not believe permitting the sale of firearms on our platform is consistent with our values or in the best interests of our customers,” a spokesman for Square told me.

The big financial firms don’t even have to go that far.

For example, Visa, which published a 71-page paper in 2016 espousing its “corporate responsibility,” could easily change its terms of service to say that it won’t do business with retailers that sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which make semiautomatic rifles fire faster. (Even the National Rifle Association has said it would support tighter restrictions on bump stocks.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/business/banks-gun-sales.html

(02-22-2018, 12:09 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I just heard Wayne LaPierre at a televised speech at the American Conservative Political Conference -- or whatever the cult is called -- lashing out at every known living liberal (especially Barack Obama) and of course 'European Socialists' who fail to believe in unfettered capitalism as the truest expression of freedom. He even suggested a means of preventing school massacres -- armed guards. I presume lots of them, and that of course would require the sale of more firearms, the unstated but easily-discerned objective of the NRA --even more gun sales. How convenient!

Yeah, sure. Living in an armed camp in which the government has the means of enforcing the harshest manifestations of plutocracy (and he had effusive praise for President Trump)  is the definitive security and freedom. 

(02-22-2018, 03:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, we need to do something about mental illness. And Mr. Trump, if you don't want to do something, you are obviously mentally hill. Hey, can Jimmy Kimmel speak to you guys, Classic Xer?





I know there's not going to be a total ban, but it's a very good meme anyway:

(02-22-2018, 07:12 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: It didn't seem like Jimmy Kimmel knew that the shooter had passed a back ground check prior to purchasing the firearm that he used to slaughter the unarmed kids. He came across as clueless or uninformed to me. Jimmy Kimmel doesn't speak to me. Jimmy Kimmel largely speaks to blues in his audience and to blues abroad  for a living. Jimmy Kimmel could speak to me. I wouldn't automatically tune him out and dismiss him as being irrelevant like most blues.

I bet Bob (Whig) and I (independent Republican voter) could strike a deal that would ban bumper stocks, increase the age to purchase an AR-15 to 21 and limit the size/capacity of clips. I don't think we need background checks because we already have back ground checks. As I've told clueless blues many times, I haven't bought a gun without passing a background check prior to purchasing one  for over thirty years. It's pretty clear to me that the background checks that clueless blues promote as if they do not exist in today's world failed to prevent the slaughter that took place in that high school.

How far will a liberal meme like that one get you today?

(02-22-2018, 07:12 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-22-2018, 03:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, we need to do something about mental illness. And Mr. Trump, if you don't want to do something, you are obviously mentally hill. Hey, can Jimmy Kimmel speak to you guys, Classic Xer?





I know there's not going to be a total ban, but it's a very good meme anyway:

It didn't seem like Jimmy Kimmel knew that the shooter had passed a back ground check prior to purchasing the firearm that he used to slaughter the unarmed kids. He came across as clueless or uninformed to me. Jimmy Kimmel doesn't speak to me. Jimmy Kimmel largely speaks to blues in his audience and to blues abroad  for a living. Jimmy Kimmel could speak to me. I wouldn't automatically tune him out and dismiss him as being irrelevant like most blues.

Quote:I bet Bob (Whig) and I (independent Republican voter) could strike a deal that would ban bumper stocks, increase the age to purchase an AR-15 to 21 and limit the size/capacity of clips. I don't think we need background checks because we already have back ground checks. As I've told clueless blues many times, I haven't bought a gun without passing a background check prior to purchasing one  for over thirty years. It's pretty clear to me that the background checks that clueless blues promote as if they do not exist in today's world failed to prevent the slaughter that took place in that high school.

How far will a liberal meme like that one get you today?

(02-23-2018, 12:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: After all, our current President has endorsed the consummate folly of arming teachers, most of whom need a focus on education and not on a firearm. 

(02-22-2018, 05:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-22-2018, 12:09 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I just heard Wayne LaPierre at a televised speech at the American Conservative Political Conference -- or whatever the cult is called -- lashing out at every known living liberal (especially Barack Obama) and of course 'European Socialists' who fail to believe in unfettered capitalism as the truest expression of freedom. He even suggested a means of preventing school massacres -- armed guards. I presume lots of them, and that of course would require the sale of more firearms, the unstated but easily-discerned objective of the NRA --even more gun sales. How convenient!

Yeah, sure. Living in an armed camp in which the government has the means of enforcing the harshest manifestations of plutocracy (and he had effusive praise for President Trump)  is the definitive security and freedom. 

Quote:The GI generation grew up in an age of mass media that homogenized experiences -- books, feature films, and phonograph records. Publishing houses, record companies, and film studios could determine based on profitability alone what gets out and what does not. Maximal profits came from mass output of the same thing, so that people in San Francisco and Baltimore could read the same books, watch the same movies, and listen to the same music. So who was bigger -- Caruso or Pavarotti? Caruso -- because at one time he was the only tenor available on the gramophone. Then came radio about when the first GIs were reaching young adulthood and the last GIs were being born. Then there could be some regional differences for a short time, but by the 1930s radio started to have homogenizing networks.

Communications were heavily-capitalized businesses, and heavily-capitalized businesses in their infancy offer little variety.

Quote:It also enables clique behavior.  Those established in cliques can exclude the most abnormal or reclusive among them, can if they choose institute abuse.  The Second Amendment has always existed, though it has not always been honored.  The problem is in increasing the separation between the established cliques and the loners.  The loners are hitting back as they can.

The Internet allows me to play as if I owned a TV or radio station without spending the money  -- but without getting a revenue stream.  I can be an editorial writer, a DJ, or an artist. I can rotate my roles to fit a fantasy that I have influence over others. It can fit the quirks that make me an unpleasant person. If I lead you to a video of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, then my often-unpleasant personality goes into the background.

With smart phones and tablets, we get a device that is a still and video camera, a phone, and a computer terminal. Everyone can send messages and images as if he were CBS News in the centralizing era in which Walter Cronkite ended his news program with "And that's the way it is".

The Second Amendment exists. It is not written as a gun-rights amendment would have been written at any time after the 1860s with a non-discrimination clause. It does not, as does the 18th Amendment, give the states the right to prohibit people from importing firearms into those states in violation of the states' laws. People intent on committing crimes who find that their state will not be allowed to buy a firearm in a Wal-Mart in their state to travel 200 miles or so to a Wal-Mart in another state to buy one. Moving with a firearm? Get a permit that requires you to possess a firearm in both states. 

Quote:Perhaps this is a Millennial problem?  

It's also an opportunity. Every opportunity has its risks.

Quote:Red and blue are not agreeing on gun laws.  The problem of lone nuts, though, is real and not going away.  If the problem is within Millennial culture, changing the gun laws will not help, will not change the very human dynamic of the technology enhance ability to reject the one who doesn't fit.

This is a Crisis Era, and one side will make the other side irrelevant in the contest of ideas. The Red side has the power of wealth behind it. The Blue side has reason and creativity behind it. By 2030 we will have a consensus in which 95% of the people exist solely to enrich and pamper a Master Class nearly as exploitative as planters of the ante-bellum South, or in which we have a system in which everyone has a chance and does well unless he really screws up. If that seems too stark -- that is how things were to be decided in the West as a whole by 1950. Workers would have been serfs had the Axis won. 

(02-22-2018, 03:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Of course, he likely had been taught the Jim Crow interpretation in law school.  From the end of Reconstruction until the Standard Model scholarship, Jim Crow to our shame was by far the more dominant theory.  Today you have to use Eric's school of logic, and only read a paper if you know you agree with the conclusion.

(02-23-2018, 05:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 12:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: After all, our current President has endorsed the consummate folly of arming teachers, most of whom need a focus on education and not on a firearm. 

Not a folly.  If you aren't going to address the base cause, you have to confront shooters at the point of attack as soon as possible.

Now, I am no fan of Trump, but one has to look at the problem.

(02-23-2018, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-22-2018, 03:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Of course, he likely had been taught the Jim Crow interpretation in law school.  From the end of Reconstruction until the Standard Model scholarship, Jim Crow to our shame was by far the more dominant theory.  Today you have to use Eric's school of logic, and only read a paper if you know you agree with the conclusion.

The Heller decision was strained at best.  It required the five votes of a narrowly-conservative court -- a situation that may not be long lasting.  More to the point, Heller overturned earlier rulings of Federal courts in several jurisdictions, and, when done by the thinnest of margins, is susceptible to reexamination almost by definition.  Roe v. Wade, the most popular bugaboo on the right, was decided 7-2, and probably stands for that reason alone.

(02-23-2018, 01:25 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 05:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 12:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: After all, our current President has endorsed the consummate folly of arming teachers, most of whom need a focus on education and not on a firearm. 

Not a folly.  If you aren't going to address the base cause, you have to confront shooters at the point of attack as soon as possible.

Now, I am no fan of Trump, but one has to look at the problem.

Bob, I'm shocked you think this is acceptable.  There is nothing less reliable than an inexperienced active participant in a high stress situation.  If the PSO at Parkland felt he couldn't address the shooter, why would an armed teacher do any better?  More to the point, why expect this non-professional to use judgement under stress, selectively choose when and how to address a shooter and actually hit where he or she is aiming?  I would expect more collateral damage than good results.  For comparison, several highly-trained NYC cops shot and killed an armed nutbag outside the Empire State Building some time ago.  Nine innocent bystanders were injured either directly by their gun fire or by ricochet.  

It's a negative idea -- worse than doing nothing!

(02-23-2018, 03:01 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 01:25 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 05:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 12:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: After all, our current President has endorsed the consummate folly of arming teachers, most of whom need a focus on education and not on a firearm. 

Not a folly.  If you aren't going to address the base cause, you have to confront shooters at the point of attack as soon as possible.

Now, I am no fan of Trump, but one has to look at the problem.

Bob, I'm shocked you think this is acceptable.  There is nothing less reliable than an inexperienced active participant in a high stress situation.  If the PSO at Parkland felt he couldn't address the shooter, why would an armed teacher do any better?  More to the point, why expect this non-professional to use judgement under stress, selectively choose when and how to address a shooter and actually hit where he or she is aiming?  I would expect more collateral damage than good results.  For comparison, several highly-trained NYC cops shot and killed an armed nutbag outside the Empire State Building some time ago.  Nine innocent bystanders were injured either directly by their gun fire or by ricochet.  

It's a negative idea -- worse than doing nothing!

The PSO at Parkland was fired for not doing his job correctly.  Even CNN was harsh in their judgement of his choice.  People died as a result of his choice.

1. A 9mm is no match for an AR-15. He may have been the sacrificial lamb who saved a student or two, or he may have been just another statistic. He may have also shot a student or two himself.
   
2. Even the students and parents gave him a hand wave on this. He was there for roughly 4 minutes, and, if it was me, I would think first then act. He may have done that ... or not.

Bob Wrote:A lot of the spree shooters are cowards.  They suicide, surrender or retreat as soon as the situation is bad, and prefer no gun zones like schools, hospitals and military bases to stage their attacks.  It makes sense in the prevention of attacks as well as successfully resolving an attack for the good guys to have the tactical advantage.

Bob Wrote:The effectiveness of armed bystanders seems part of the red/blue values systems.  Red people say the chance to act proactively is positive, while the blue see the hazards of engagement.  These are parts of the world view, values lock is engaged, to the extent that one view can not be held without viewing the other as insane.  To me it seems the whole premise of the red world view is that an armed People are a deterrent or effective force in upholding the social contract, while the blue are unprepared to fill the role and count on others to assure of their safety.  There are fatal flaws in both perspectives, and common sense in both perspectives.

Often, though, the values locked cannot see the other guy's logic.

(02-23-2018, 02:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-23-2018, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-22-2018, 03:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Of course, he likely had been taught the Jim Crow interpretation in law school.  From the end of Reconstruction until the Standard Model scholarship, Jim Crow to our shame was by far the more dominant theory.  Today you have to use Eric's school of logic, and only read a paper if you know you agree with the conclusion.

The Heller decision was strained at best.  It required the five votes of a narrowly-conservative court -- a situation that may not be long lasting.  More to the point, Heller overturned earlier rulings of Federal courts in several jurisdictions, and, when done by the thinnest of margins, is susceptible to reexamination almost by definition.  Roe v. Wade, the most popular bugaboo on the right, was decided 7-2, and probably stands for that reason alone.

It is not strained if you look at the intent of the authors of the law, if you read and took seriously the founding father's opinions.  It is easy to see them saying yes to an armed society, but no to the 'right' to feminine health care, not an issue during their time.

Bob Wrote:Conservative values and law are much closer to the founding fathers.  Many look at the Constitution as a contract, and take amiss the blue habit of changing the contract whenever it suits their values.  Sure, if they had a supermajority.  They don't.

It would be harder to complain if the courts saw themselves as enforcers of a contract rather than legislatures out to follow a given time and place's values.  Many liberal justices do see otherwise.