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

[pbrower2a]

(03-02-2018, 01:40 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-01-2018, 11:22 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(03-01-2018, 09:16 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-01-2018, 05:48 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good news indeed. Business is getting ahead of government on guns. It shows that some businessmen are able to come to their senses, and also reveals the abject failure so far of our government.

Business's are  ignoring the law and establishing their own law. I  didn't think Liberals would ever be willing to go for that and support it in any way.

Some are coming to the recognition that the guns that they may be selling profitably are the ones used in crimes that hurt business as a whole -- as in armed robberies.

If such retailers as Dick's Sporting Goods, Wal*Mart, and Kroger are doing something positive that government can't do or won't do, then I don't have a complaint with those corporate decisions.  Let us remember one of the basic rules of good business -- never hurt your ultimate customers. The gun that Wal*Mart or the Fred Meyer division of Kroger sells that kills or cripples a convenience-store clerk or even a welfare recipient may deprive Wal*Mart or Kroger of a desirable customer. Remember: Wal*Mart and Kroger get much revenue from TANF customers.

Are they going to stop selling cigarettes to 18 year old's too? Cigarettes kill way more people than AR-15's. Society would be much better served by banning access to them. Like I said, Columbine took place while the assault rifle ban was in place. How many mass shootings have taken place in schools or on campus's since Columbine was the first mass shooting to take place in a school? I'd say a lot and I'd say the liberal hype that followed each one provided the fuel and inspiration for the next one.

Non sequitur. This is a corporate decision. Cigarettes are not a part of the corporate decision. The harm that cancerweed products do to people is well known, and it is not part of the current debate.

The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is a tipping point on the debate about the rightful role of firearms in American life... or it isn't. It will result in the tighter regulation of firearms or it will establish the sanctity of the gun culture -- that the right to bear firearms is a basic right more than is the right to safety from a firearm-saturated society. If this mass shooting does not redefine the role of firearms in American life, then nothing will. The smart, well-educated, middle-class students (not to mention very intelligent teachers) who lost good friends to pointless  gun violence are making a case against troubled youth having guns as no others have yet. Sure, the news media hostile to the gun culture are cherry-picking the students that they interview and editing the footage of their interviews... but that is normal television journalism.

The kids interviewed would seem to be the best-and-brightest of the lot... kids between ages 15 and 17 with IQ ratings around 130 or above.  About 2.2% of the population has an IQ of 130 or higher, and such people stick out in a school population.


(IQ distribution)

A 17-year-old with an IQ of 130 has an intellectual age of about 22.4, which is typical of graduate students at good universities. They are usually highly-presentable unless they have serious autism or  affect bohemian ways; they are good communicators. A high-school principal can usually find those students easily, and those students that a school wants representing them will tell the news media exactly what is expected. Teachers? Just imagine what a bond a high-school teacher can have with the best-and-brightest in high school, and the rush that comes from encountering an intellectual peer still in the teens. I don't know what a cocaine rush is like, but the rush that one gets from getting to work with such kids and bring out their best has to be stronger. I have felt that rush on rare occasions, as I usually get assigned to upper-elementary or middle school (where my techniques are best suited as a sub because such is more critical and that substitute teachers suited for such teaching are harder to find).  Teachers compete ferociously for the opportunity to teach middle-class high-school students as at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Those are probably the cream of the crop, and they interviewed well, too. 

If you think of the last highly-publicized school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School as the best opportunity to wreck the gun culture and that nothing could top it and thus that the American gun culture is safe, then think again. Elementary students are far from the eloquency of the kids that you saw at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School.

Nikolas Cruz was a troubled young man with much trouble with the comparatively benign bureaucracy of a school. He had made a terrorist threat and he was involved with hate groups. Did he target victims for ethnicity, because they had reported him to school staff, or simply out of availability? Wait until the criminal trial to find out.

Quote:Now, I recognize their right to determine what they sell in their stores and I'd have no issue with them getting out of selling guns in their stores. However, I don't recognize their right to ignore the law and establish a law of their own. I didn't see any AR-15's at the local Walmart. The local Walmart doesn't have many guns. I don't know why they waste their space with the small amount of guns that they have for sale. I doubt they sell many based on their lack of advertising and I'm pretty sure they're not selling enough to cover the cost of the space.

Those retailers have a right to decide what merchandise they sell and what they don't sell within the limits of the law. Wise businesses do not sell things that hurt their customers, like spoiled food or flammable clothing, but I have never heard of a retailer complaining of having lost the right to sell tainted food or dangerous housewares. Indeed, Kellogg's Corporation took some financial lumps to ensure that managers and sales force that sold bad peanut butter to Kellogg's Corporation got prison time for doing so.

Businesses do not like to face lawsuits for liability. The retailer who sold the weapons and ammo to Nikolas Cruz could face some hefty legal costs. 17 deaths? It may be a bit low as an estimate, but the last that I know, the Armed Forces pay $250,000 to the loved ones of anyone who dies in military service -- training, combat, or official travel. That is good reason for people with responsibilities in command and training of soldiers  to act with caution. Because vehicle travel is one of the most likely circumstances in which a soldier will die, the US Marine Corps dedicates a full day of basic training to defensive driving. Seventeen deaths at $250K ls $4.25 million. And that is an underestimate, as you can expect the parents of the killed students to get very good lawyers to exact every penny possible from anyone legally culpable, and because costs of defending a company for such liability are far from trivial the cost will be phenomenal.

The companies in question need not act with charitable objectives to do the right thing. They may do some economic calculus and recognize that guns kill potential customers and that avoiding liability lawsuits is a good way to protect the Bottom Line. Remember -- the customers killed by gun violence are disproportionately likely to be customers on welfare. Sales on TANF are as lucrative as sales on American Express for a major retailer.

It is the usual norm that good business and the interest of customers as a norm coincide. That is why capitalism works to the extent that it does.