Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Eric the Green]

Emma Gonzalez, a student at the Parkland, Florida high school where 17 people were left dead after a mass shooting, calls out President Trump and the NRA by name at an anti-gun rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.





Have the guns nuts finally stirred a hornet's nest? I hope so!

Some late wave millennials and early wave next-adaptives are showing their leadership potential now. Let's hope they continue and become the next RFK and MLK Jr.

At the end of the previous page, I linked to a couple of stories about conspiracy theories that Emma Gonzalez and student journalist David Hogg are being coached by Democrats as actors and plants. Even the leader of the Florida House and Florida Senator Rubio don't buy this bullshit. These gun nut liars are just saying these things because they are losing the debate to these students who are smarter and more articulate than them.

http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid35085

David Hogg has been doing a lot of interviews, so he has become the leading target of the conspiracy nuts. And some fools on you tube believe the lies, and knock David for his looks, rather than listen to his eyewitness account and his suggestions on stopping children from dying.

[Eric the Green]

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:

[Eric the Green]

Back when we were a sane nation, the Chief Justice said:

[pbrower2a]

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.

................................

A couple days ago I visited the pawn shop in town, one that deals largely in guns. I felt terribly out of place. Maybe I should have grown up in Canada, where guns are hard to get and not part of a paranoid culture.

[Bob Butler 54]

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

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.

[pbrower2a]

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/busin...sales.html

[Bob Butler 54]

(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/busin...sales.html

This would open the door to eco-politics.  If you are open to blue values, you do not do business with those who hold the red.  I remember in the 1960s the echo of one set.  Why did my hometown of Rockland MA have two hardware stores, two cloth stores, two butchers, etc...  There was a quiet agreement that the Protestants would use one set of stores, the Catholics the other.  It was a form of institutionalized prejudice, of keeping the communities separate.  The south had a similar set of paired stores for blacks and whites.

This separation by religion and race has been abandoned these days.  I do not approve of the attempt to reconstruct it.  If taken to the extreme, could such prejudice be outlawed?  Is separate but equal by politicized values a more acceptable form of prejudice than race or religion?  Should it be considered the equivalent of the jury nullification laws in the north before the Civil War.  It was impossible then, no matter the evidence, to return slaves to their rightful owners in the south as the Constitution said.  Under the theory of the times, juries were the People's way of telling the established government that their laws were unjust, and slavery was one such law that the People might choose to ignore.  The Establishment has of course tried to change the interpretation.

Gun laws today are similar.  Liberal and progressive have conflicting beliefs.  The blue wish to change the beliefs and behaviors without changing the base law.

[Bob Butler 54]

(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. 

 
The millennials grew up in the social media age.  They have a different view of the right to communicate, which includes the right to have a cell phone, to access their friends at any moment.  Boomers and other older generations simply do not understand.  For the most part this ability to communicate is a plus.  Their generation is the most connected of all time. 

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.

Perhaps this is a Millennial problem?  

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.

[Classic-Xer]

(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.

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?

[Eric the Green]

Sure, of course changing gun laws will help. The fallacy would be in attributing the problem to one cause alone. There are several leading causes of the excessive gun violence and other violence in the USA. The technology of social media may be one, but I doubt it. It enables loners like us to have some connection. So lonely millennials and homelunders have an advantage there, over Boomers, Xers, Silents, and GIs. Social media does reduce face to face in-person contact though, and increases distractions from real life, just as TV does.

Cliques certainly existed in the Silent and early Boomer youth culture, and the hippie culture broke some of them down for a time. When the 3T succeeded the 2T, separation culture returned as peace and love receded back into the normalcy of alienated American life and commerce. That endemic modern and especially American alienation has been studied by psychologists and sociologists for decades. Capitalism, which reduces all values to money, is a major factor in it, and the mobility that technology has brought is another. The extended family life of the 19th century and the cohesion brought by religion have eroded too in the 20th and 21st centuries. Greater individual freedom of a democratic market society brings many benefits, but it certainly decreases the power of traditions and the authority of the aristocratic class systems of the past, and this freedom increases loneliness. Many commentators have remarked about the increasing number of people going solo, but this is not something new in the millennial generation, which if anything is much more group-oriented than Xers and Boomers are.

The fact that this gun problem is a uniquely USA problem is a major clue to the fact that the USA gun culture and its Second Amendment is the main cause. The USA has the major portion of the guns of the entire world, and it's almost one per person. This unique dysfunction corresponds with the unique scale of gun violence in America. There can't be any doubt that guns and gun culture/2nd Amendment are in large part to blame. The violent gun culture of the USA is also promoted by TV and movies and by gangsta rap.

But part of the recent rise in mass shootings and gun violence is due to the pressures of Reaganomics. Inequality is rising due to this pall, and economic mobility is falling. Help from government social institutions has dried up-- replaced with gun-happy and fearful police whom libertarian gun lovers resent. Outsourcing and computer automation are economic pressures for which the Reaganomic free market offers no cure. Millennials in particular are subject to the constraints that libertarian economics has wrought, and so that would be a definite generational factor. Add to that the even-more recent phenomenon of a presidential candidate and president who deliberately stokes ethnic hatreds, which have played a role in many recent mass shootings, and you have a volatile mix.

[Bob Butler 54]

(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?

I don't mind background checks target at the insane.  I don't think prohibition would work.  Never has.  As stated above, the millennials have a clique social problem as a result of technology.  The result is for millennials to alienate millennials.  This might be addressed, but is easier (so they think) to pass laws.  No one wants to addresses the base cause, God forbid.

I do mind attempts at prohibition in conflict with the Constitution.  Yes we could likely agree on such a deal.  The liberals would continue to be stupid about it.

[pbrower2a]

(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.

I realize that there are people with more affection for their guns than some people have for family pets or even for their helpless children. For them, separation of beloved firearms from them would be cause for mourning. At that Jimmy Kimmel is indeed clueless. But I am clueless about some things that people do, like behavior destructive at first toward innocent people and then leading to disastrous consequences to the perpetrator.

On the other side I have no desire to understand a pervert like Larry Nasser, former disgraced physician to the US Olympic Gymnastic team who is now simply a jailbird. I have no desire to understand why a concentration camp official in the ultra-depraved Third Reich could decide that if the camp ran out of cyanide pellets as a batch of condemned children came that he could have those children cast directly into the crematoria to be incinerated alive. I have no desire to understand why Ernst Kaltenbrunner could initial one after another orders to commit horrific crimes in the closest thing to Hell that Humanity has ever known.

I understand human decency which depends on certain norms of behavior. Can those norms change? Sure. I used to think homosexuality absurd and inexcusable. After being gay-bashed, I had to accept that in a good world, people must accept homosexuality that they do not fully understand and reject homophobia. I came to accept that anything that promoted the acceptance of homosexuality so long as it does not involve something that I cannot justify on any moral ground (messing with children), I could be at peace with it because such makes my world, in which law and order is essential to giving meaning to rule of law and civil liberties, far surer.

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?

That is a good, and necessary start. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  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.  But this is someone who has no idea of what goes on in a public K-12 school, the norm for most American children but somehow inadequate for him as said his father by sending him off to private, if highly-expensive, private schools.

I'm not faulting those schools. Many who graduate from them become exemplary people. Donald Trump is a spectacular failure of that system.

[Bob Butler 54]

(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.

[pbrower2a]

(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. 

 
The millennials grew up in the social media age.  They have a different view of the right to communicate, which includes the right to have a cell phone, to access their friends at any moment.  Boomers and other older generations simply do not understand.  For the most part this ability to communicate is a plus.  Their generation is the most connected of all time.

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. 

[/quote]

[David Horn]

(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.

[David Horn]

(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!

[Bob Butler 54]

(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.

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.

[Bob Butler 54]

(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.

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.

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.

[David Horn]

(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.

Two points here:

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.

Are we placing life bets here? It's easy to Monday morning quarterback, but it's a lot harder to adjust from easy-breezy to OMG! Full-adrenaline is not the environment for making rational decisions.

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.

I know this sounds like values lock to you, but I know from some limited experience that chaos and mayhem are pretty well coordinated.  When I attended the Special Forces Training Center in Okinawa, one of the NCOs made damn sure we were aware that a trainee had been shot by accident just a week or two earlier.  We got the full lecture about training with live ammo, which we did the next day.  Even in a training environment, surprises happened that could have been deadly.  I saw accidental discharges up close and personal when I was in Vietnam, so there's that too.  None of that belongs in school.

Even seasoned soldiers in combat shoot one another occasionally.  If this is the way to avoid addressing the gun problem directly, it's a piss poor alternative.  How would you like to be the teacher who shot a student by accident?  How would you like to be the student?

So let me call you on your own values lock. If you've never been there, how do you know?

[David Horn]

(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.

I read Federalist Paper #46, which seems to be the only one that discusses this in any depth. Madison's argument was centered entirely on the ability of the States to resist the Federal government, which got resolved in blood in the 1860s, so it's hard to use that as guidance today. In fact, it's hard to see any modern application of original thinking in this regard -- as the dissenting opinion in Heller note.

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.

I assume that the Founders were wise in their time, but offer only limited guidance today. We are no longer an Agricultural Age society perched on the edge of a wilderness. In short, the 2nd Amendment is functionally moot. We have no need of or support for militias in this age. Ignoring the justification phrase to only read what you wish is not a viable alternative to keep it alive either. In fact, Justice Stephens made that point in his dissent.