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

[Classic-Xer]

(03-02-2018, 02:38 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: 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.

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.

I used cigarettes as an example of a product that is similar to guns. Similar in that it they have a legal age that is required and associated with their purchase. You're right, selling cigarettes, selling guns, selling alcohol, selling drugs, selling Bounty paper towel's and appliances are corporate decisions. However, the legal age that's required to legally purchase ISN'T a corporate decision.

Hypothetically. I'm 18 years old. I have the legal right to purchase a firearm (shotgun or rifle) as a legal adult according to the law. I am recognized and treated as a legal adult Is it legal for Walmart to raise the legal age and legal for them to enforce their decision? I don't think so. I don't recognize Walmart or Dicks as legal entities or as lawmakers who have the authority to change laws. What would I do if I was 18, I would try to buy an AR-15 and if they're dumb enough to refuse, I would get the legal authorities involved. Honestly, this is hard to believe.