Althouse: What kind of state governor would say about a 17-year-old "He didn't have the courage to commit suicide"?

May 19, 2018

What kind of state governor would say about a 17-year-old "He didn't have the courage to commit suicide"?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Whatever outrage you feel fired up or politically motivated to express, do not put that idea out there for young people to consume: Suicide is an act of courage.

404 comments:

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Ron Snyder said...: I'd rather he commit suicide than kill other people. Every damn day of the year.; 5/19/18, 11:54 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "Guys like ARM don’t drive trucks—they drive hybrids and other politically correct vehicles."

-- I don't own a car and take mass transit.; 5/19/18, 11:54 AM
gadfly said...: Nathalie Paton, a sociologists who analyzed online videos created by post-Columbine shooters, discovered that there are a set of common symbols used by the shooters:

“A moment where the killer points his gun at the camera, then at his own temple, and then spreads his arms wide with a gun in each hand; the closeup; the wave goodbye at the end.”

“This aspect underlines the fact that the boys actively take part in associating themselves to a group.”

Malcolm Gladwell, concluded his 2015 New Yorker piece, (cleverly hidden behind the paywall) “Thresholds of Violence: How school shootings catch on” with this jarring observation:

The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts.; 5/19/18, 11:56 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: I drive a large V8, on Saturdays.; 5/19/18, 11:57 AM
Darrell said...: A majority of citizens favor more gun control.

And Hillary has a 97% chance of taking the White House.; 5/19/18, 11:57 AM
Drago said...: ARM: "A majority of citizens favor more gun control"

See, logic fail.

You haven't "persuaded" anyone of anything. The left simply has been very successful in capturing all the key institutions and creating more leftists, which, in the end, was the easier path to go. Congrats.

Remember, for 70 years we were all told of the Soviet Economic miracle. A majority of analysts accepted and believed it.....and there you go.

You'll notice that ARM has not addressed the single most important point raised up: the previous Federal "Assault" Weapons ban did not reduce gun violence.

ARM didn't even attempt to address it.

Because he can't.

But what he can do, what the left can do, is make sure there is monolithically leftist thought in schools and the culture to ensure that lefty Received Wisdom is the order of the day.; 5/19/18, 11:57 AM
Quaestor said...: Law enforcement in this country has devolved more and more into a discretionary act, never more so than under Obama, who declined to enforce existing immigration laws and in some cases nullified ATF regulations entirely as in the infamous "Gun Walker" scandal which saw our own DoJ implementing a firearms smuggling operation.; 5/19/18, 11:58 AM
Rahula said...: ARM: We can't get gun control, because of the out of control 1st Amendment rights of the NRA and its members.

Its almost like this antiquated Bill of Rights operates in a nefarious inter-related way to prevent the "right side of history" elite from seizing absolute control of power.; 5/19/18, 11:59 AM
Darrell said...: I drive a large V8, on Saturdays.

Sounds like you know as much about cars as you do about guns.; 5/19/18, 11:59 AM
Quaestor said...: It seems Althouse wants to saddle Abbot with a share of culpability for some putative future outrage committed by a suicidal teenager. Killing yourself is the cool thing. I heard the governor say so. This is a rare instance of Althouse malarky. (I will not use the other term out of respect, and because it's quite possible she is only being provocative for the sake of the blog.)

It hardly matters that Abbot reported the shooter's own explanation to the press because suicide as an act of courage is already well established in the culture. So what kind of governor is Abbot? Representative, that's what kind. One of the casualties of the culture war is the notion of suicide as the act of a coward or a fool. Obviously, there is the example of the "divine wind" pilots from WWII.* Revisionist historians of the war always write respectfully of the Japanese who attacked our troops and warships with suicidal intent. Other examples are the various suicide bombers that have arisen from the interrelated conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world. In adherence to instructions from the Kremlin, the left sided with the Arabs against the Jews, and consequently, suicide attackers were universally hailed by leftwing spokesmen as heroic. One notorious example of such was the paean to the 9-11 criminals by Bill Mahr.

*In point of fact the term kamikaze was used only by the Japanese press as propaganda. In the ILN the tactic was euphemistically called "special attack", and applied only to pilots of conventional. There was also a suicide torpedo; its operators were simply known as Kaitan pilots. The manned cruise missile knows as the "Baka bomb" to the Allies was piloted by a member of the "Thunder Gods Corps". The IJA had its own suicide tactics which were known under a variety of names, none being kamikaze.

(reposted and edited for clarity); 5/19/18, 12:01 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: If a majority of people believe something then presumably they are persuaded by the arguments in favor of that thing. Are you arguing otherwise? If so how will this argument distinguish the way that you arrived at your own beliefs from the way these lesser people arrived at their beliefs?; 5/19/18, 12:01 PM
stevew said...: There is a well defined way, a process if you will, to enact much stronger, even confiscatory, gun control laws. Trolling on a blog is not a step in the process.

-sw; 5/19/18, 12:02 PM
Matt Sablan said...: Come on ARM, you're above basic fallacies.; 5/19/18, 12:03 PM
Darrell said...: George Soros called and said you are two "gun lobbys" short of collecting your $1 stipend. There is still time.; 5/19/18, 12:04 PM
Matt Sablan said...: (Unless you're just arguing people believe in something, and not that the belief is therefore more valid than not believing in something.); 5/19/18, 12:04 PM
William said...: I don't think it's possible to publicize a high school suicide in such a way that it doesn't magnetize the event for like minded individuals. The same problem exists with these school shootings. The shooter obviously doesn't get much favorable publicity, but he does get a lot of publicity. If your big problem is your insignificance, a school shooting is one way to remedy it.....That Columbine shooting inspired a lot of attention and the first reports about the shooters were not all negative. They got the Kurt Cobain treatment. The Columbine shooters have been aspirational figures for many subsequent shooters.........People here have been framing this as a 2nd Amendment issue, but perhaps the First Smendment should be more in play. How do we cover or rather not cover these school shootings in such a way that the next psycho isn't tempted to act out the same script.; 5/19/18, 12:09 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Mathew I am glad that you didn't try to argue that you weren't arguing in bad faith. You have learnt at least something over the years.; 5/19/18, 12:11 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: A majority of citizens favor more gun control.

I doubt that is really the case....however.....

The issue is not actually guns. Guns do not all by themselves find ways to kill people. Guns don't go off all on their own. Guns are tools that are useful in the right hands and dangerous in the wrong hands. Guns do not kill people anymore than automobiles kill people. People kill people.

The REAL issue is the people who are motivated to KILL other people. If they didn't have guns, they would use Vans, Screwdrivers, Pipe Bombs, Knives and anything that they can get their hands on.

People who are mentally ill.
People who have been know to be mentally ill or acting weirdly.
People who have been reported to the authorities as being dangerous.
People who have been ignored by the authorities because????

If you take away the ability for normal people to use the tools available to them to protect themselves, the mentally ill and evil doers will still have the means to do harm.

Fix the real problem. Not the incidental means.; 5/19/18, 12:12 PM
buwaya said...: But ARM, you are but one man. A single data point.

And in fact you may not belong to that ethnicity anymore, but some other.
These things are mutable. There is a suite of values and a shared base of knowledge that define a culture. Your value preferences may be seriously divergent. You no longer belong to that core.

Not belonging is a condition that takes getting used to. I know this extremely well, as I was born an outsider, my "native" culture is a very tiny one and is nearly gone.
But that means that you must learn to navigate, in as "native" a way as possible, various alien ones, keeping in mind that they really are alien.; 5/19/18, 12:13 PM
Matt Sablan said...: I'm obviously *not* arguing in bad faith; I've laid out several things I would support to reduce gun violence and pointed out why I don't support the two laws you recommended. Just because you insist something doesn't make it so.; 5/19/18, 12:13 PM
langford peel said...: It is time to do something. These school shootings have gotten out of control. There is one horrible common denominator. The answer is clear.

We need to abolish public schools.; 5/19/18, 12:15 PM
buwaya said...: People are rarely persuaded by arguments.
They usually absorb ideas through other means.
We like to rationalize a change of view, but its rarely rational.; 5/19/18, 12:15 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: People kill people all over the world, the problems with gun violence are unique to the US, at least amongst non-shithole countries.; 5/19/18, 12:15 PM
William said...: This school shooter made some pipe bombs. If he had killed some kids with pipe bombs instead of guns, would America be a safer, happier place........I think gun control would be about as effective as outlawing marijuana or abortion. People just aren't ready to give up their guns. It does seem to me that there must be some kind of way to minimize school shootings. Lots of high school kids are alienated and unhappy, but this concept of shooting up the school seems to be a recent phenomenon. What did we do to bring about this strange phenomenon, and what can we do to eradicate it?; 5/19/18, 12:17 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: You are quite obviously arguing in bad faith. For a grown man to suggest that he is persuadable at this late stage, after Sandy Hook and endless other atrocities, is ridiculous. It is just an empty and meaningless rhetorical pose. Good enough to idle away the time on a Saturday morning, useless for dealing with real world problems.; 5/19/18, 12:18 PM
Birkel said...: ARM pretends he is arguing about the Second Amendment but wishes to suppress the First Amendment freedoms of gun owners.

That recognition puts the LIE to ARM's point about the public agreeing.

ARM demands we give up the first two amendments so that he may exercise power over others. There is no other purpose.; 5/19/18, 12:18 PM
buwaya said...: If you correct for ethnicity (race) the rate of social violence (murder, etc.) in the US is comparable to that of white countries.

Guns are a means, not a cause.; 5/19/18, 12:19 PM
Matt Sablan said...: So do you not consider the things I'd support -- better mental health care, enforcing laws to prevent gun purchases by those that have been deemed dangerous; competent, complete reporting by responsible parties about violent crimes/threats; etc. as not good enough? Is the only "acceptable" solution an Australian-style confiscation or the death of thousands and government taking of their personal property to melt it down?

I mean -- I've been proposing compromises and potential solutions that don't involve government taking of property or waiting for a bunch of people to die or unconstitutional laws -- and you've been ignoring them. There's only one person acting in bad faith here.; 5/19/18, 12:21 PM
buwaya said...: To be persuaded by low-frequency atrocities is irrational.
These are rhetorical arguments, if you will.; 5/19/18, 12:21 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: buwaya said...
And in fact you may not belong to that ethnicity anymore

I am pretty clear on my ethnicity and who else belongs to it. They have not covered themselves in glory over the last forty years. It is not a source of joy for me.; 5/19/18, 12:21 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "To be persuaded by low-frequency atrocities is irrational.
These are rhetorical arguments, if you will."

-- Low-frequency atrocities call for targeted solutions; scalpels, not hacksaws.; 5/19/18, 12:22 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Matthew Sablan said...
I'd support -- enforcing laws to prevent gun purchases by those that have been deemed dangerous

Who would decide who is dangerous?; 5/19/18, 12:23 PM
Michael K said...: Boy ! More ARM craziness.

Time to go back to editing my book.

How many ARM comments in the 230 total ?

Somebody better get that truck/knife/ crowbar away from him.; 5/19/18, 12:23 PM
Drago said...: Matthew Sablan: "Come on ARM, you're above basic fallacies."

Actually, without basic fallacies the left would have nothing to say.

Remember, the lefties had a "majority" of people in the Soviet Union believing and stating that anyone desiring individual freedom was mentally ill.

ARM and his pals have been very successful to date creating a "Cultural Soviet" where only the most fashionable of lefty lies are appropriate public discussion topics and beliefs.

Vaclev Havel described this perfectly in his essays on "Living in Truth", "Power of the Powerless" (the Greengrocer's tale).

You'll note that ARM's push against the 2A is in parallel with the lefts general attack on the 1A through their specious "hate speech" lies, as well as their now fully exposed destruction of 4A and other protections.

When discussing the 2A with a leftist one must always be cognizant of the much wider battle the lefties are waging to tear the entire ediface of individual rights down.

To be successful ultimately, the lefties need you disarmed, silenced and with govt bureaucrats in control of your employment, food and health decisions.

Just as the lefties have done EVERYWHERE they gain critical mass in terms of political power. The key, as always for the left, is to boil the frog slowly....; 5/19/18, 12:25 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: There are several problems with banning “assault weapons”. The first is that a much better name for them is “modern sporting rifles” (MSRs). The reason for this is that the critical difference between MSRs and the types of firearms that the gun grabbers don’t want to, yet, ban is that they are modern. Imagine being limited to 1950s rotary telephones. 1950s computers, housed in glass rooms with white lab coated operators running them. That is the vintage of technology that ARM and other gun grabbers want to prohibit everyone outside the govt (and criminal gangs) from possessing. Since this continent was first settled by white men, civilians had been able to legally own comparable technology to that owned by the military. And, indeed, at times it was more advanced - e.g. at the Little Big Horn, the Indians had repeating rifles. Custer and his troops did not. Only really with the Clinton AWB were civilians limited to essentially obsolete technology in the firearms that they could own. Telling someone that they don’t need firearms more modern than maybe 1960, only the government does, should be answered that they don’t need phones more modern than the rotary phones of the 1950s, only the government does. Of course you don’t “need” a cell phone. Esp phones that include cameras, and can be used to send and receive email and text messages, browse the web, etc. Don't need such, but it sure is nice. The difference, of course, is that the right to keep and bear arms is an enumerated, fundamental, right. The right to send text or email on your telephone is neither fundamental nor enumerated as a right. Yet, the gun grabbing ARMs of this world want to limit the technology available for just the one to 1950s technology, the fundamental enumerated right.

Another part of the problem is that MSRs are highly modular (part of being “modern”). Which means that you only need to acquire the part of the firearm that requires a serial number (the lower receiver for an AR-15), and everything else can be bought over the counter or online. And the serialized parts tend to be simply pieces of metal, composit, or even plastic, with few, if any, moving parts. In the AR style of firearms, the serialized part, the lower receiver, is just a block of, most typically, a piece of metal. Eerything else is just bolted to it. Thing is that skilled machinists can fairly easily build them from scratch. Making things even easier, companies make 80% complete lower receivers, that can be fairly easily turned into operable lower receivers - that don’t require serial numbers. And, you can, for less than $2k, buy a box that turns an 80% complete lower receiver into a complete one at essentially the press of a button (1911s and Glocks are next). Currently, you can use high end 3D machines to make metal AR-15 receivers, or you can make one from plastic with a 3D printer that costs a couple hundred dollars. The only real problem is that recoil shock rapidly tears the plastic ones apart. But the technology is rapidly evolving in this area. Constructing “high capacity” magazines is, if anything, easier.

Another problem is that it is quite difficult to adequately legally define what an “assault weapon” is. You have to have 3 or more elements from a list? Just remove the bayonet lug, or front grip. They can be added later quite simply. Most MSRs, along with most modern semiautomatic handguns, come with rails that are provided to make adding and changing accessories fast and easy. Don’t like black? Just make them in pink, etc. Ban by model number? Change the firearm slightly, and change the model number. The basic problem is that the gun banners almost always have far less knowledge about the guns that they are trying to ban, than the people who would be avoiding or evading the ban.; 5/19/18, 12:26 PM
Drago said...: ARM: "I am pretty clear on my ethnicity and who else belongs to it."

LOL

The left now believes your ethnicity can be a social construct and you can choose what ethnicity you prefer to identify as...just like your gender.

The destruction of Truth is a key objective of the left.; 5/19/18, 12:26 PM
Matt Sablan said...: Currently, the system in place is qualified mental health professionals in most places. I'd like for there to be an appeals process as a check on that to ensure that people are not barred from purchasing weapons based on a bad diagnosis and simply because people have rights, among them the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances (of which restricting a right is a grievance). In addition, we already have laws that prevent certain violent criminals once released from acquiring weapons; while there's a push to restore felons' voting rights, I assume no one is going to push to restore their Second Amendment rights. Likewise, those who have made credible violent threats, or with restraining orders, are already usually barred from purchasing weapons.

That seems like an excellent middle ground at the moment, and probably does not require nearly as much large, sweeping legislation as confiscation or ineffectual federal assault weapons bans. And, as I've pointed out, my solution would have stopped Cruz, the VA Tech Shooter and the Boston Bomber.; 5/19/18, 12:27 PM
Rusty said...: Blogger Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
"Matthew Sablan said...
I'd support -- enforcing laws to prevent gun purchases by those that have been deemed dangerous

Who would decide who is dangerous?"

Well. Not you because you're a nazi.; 5/19/18, 12:27 PM
Quaestor said...: If a majority of people believe something then presumably they are persuaded by the arguments in favor of that thing. Are you arguing otherwise?

ARM's argument isn't with guns or gun laws. It's with the Constitution, and the wisdom gained from the example of the Athenian Republic, a short-lived polis which functioned as a majoritarian dictatorship until the unfortunate propensity of such institutions to civil discord fatally weakened Athens against the Hellenic League.

Unlike ARM, who dishonorably appropriates the image of Aristotle as his own, the Framers studied the classic closely and very wisely did not give us a constitution biddable to the whims of a majority.

Statists like AResonableMan would love to hasten our devolution to dependence because the next step after dependence is bondage..; 5/19/18, 12:28 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "The basic problem is that the gun banners almost always have far less knowledge about the guns that they are trying to ban, than the people who would be avoiding or evading the ban."

-- I mean, that's a general problem with the legislature in general.; 5/19/18, 12:28 PM
Quaestor said...: typo alert: ...the Framers studied the classics closely and very wisely did not give us a constitution biddable to the whims of a majority.; 5/19/18, 12:29 PM
Mid-Life Lawyer said...: Regardless of whatever conservative Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said, something(s) was going to be pulled out and taken out of context in order to try and paint him as wanting children to die. This is a great quote for both the intellectually dishonest advocates and the blind sheep, he is both advocating mass murder, as a standing member of the NRA, AND he is promoting youth suicide! Winner Winner!; 5/19/18, 12:29 PM
Drago said...: ARM: "They have not covered themselves in glory over the last forty years. It is not a source of joy for me."

Self-loathing is another key component of the psychological tools employed by the left to advance their agenda.

The last 40 years have seen the greatest explosion of technological and scientific breakthroughs which has the potential to raise billions of human beings out of squalor, death and destruction.

This ARM claims is nothing to be proud of.

Heinlein said it best, didn't he:

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.”; 5/19/18, 12:30 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Michael K craziness

Shit stain post.; 5/19/18, 12:31 PM
Drago said...: Quaestor: "typo alert: ...the Framers studied the classics closely and very wisely did not give us a constitution biddable to the whims of a majority"

Quite true.

Which is why the lefties like ARM are busy little beavers in tearing down the founders.

All to make it easier later on with mind-numbed robots to tear down the civil structures those founders gave us.

We see that in full swing today...; 5/19/18, 12:32 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Drago said...
The last 40 years have seen the greatest explosion of technological and scientific breakthroughs which has the potential to raise billions of human beings out of squalor,

How many of those were achieved by people owning a small arsenal of arms at home? This was largely achieved by the hated leftists in universities.; 5/19/18, 12:33 PM
Drago said...: To see a nice takedown of an ARM type by Christopher Hitchens, take a gander here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axHR8AOxxkc

"There you have it. You see how far the termites have spread."; 5/19/18, 12:34 PM
Quaestor said...: The left now believes your ethnicity can be a social construct and you can choose what ethnicity you prefer to identify as...just like your gender.

If only that were the extent of it. Even taxonomic classification is held by the destroyers of education to be a "social construct". If Quaestor insists he's a dragon, a dragon he is, and it's Trumpian fascism to contradict him.; 5/19/18, 12:36 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: I watched but he never mentioned my name. I was quite disappointed.; 5/19/18, 12:36 PM
Darrell said...: This was largely achieved by the hated leftists in universities.

Only the shitty breakthroughs. . .; 5/19/18, 12:37 PM
Drago said...: ARM: "How many of those were achieved by people owning a small arsenal of arms at home?"

It would be difficult to identify all the logical fallacies embedded in that statement.

How many of those achievements would have been possible without ALL the constitutional protections afforded us since our founding by our founders?

ARM, thank you for an absolutely perfect example of "history began this morning" and static analysis thinking.

Would America have been "America" without ALL of Rights? To have early on removed the 2A, or failed to include it in our Bill Of Rights, would other rights have survived?

If other rights did not survive, would the conditions by which we have created what has been created actually come about?

These are not thoughts or questions ANY leftist is capable of thinking of, much less address.; 5/19/18, 12:38 PM
Matt Sablan said...: Well, Al Gore gave us the Internet.; 5/19/18, 12:38 PM
langford peel said...: Somebody got their marching orders today.

Epic meltdown while trashing the First and Second Amendment.

If there was really the level of support for gun confiscation that the Reasonable Shit Stain claims then they could legislate it in a Democratic manner. But there is not that support and they cannot legislate it. Simple as that.

Their only recourse is non-democratic and unconstitutional means which is at the core of the progressive movement.; 5/19/18, 12:39 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: ARM. shall we talk about the Federal Assault Weapons Ban? It was literally a laundry list. A gun with only two features on the list was permitted; a gun with any three was prohibited. These included such things as a bayonet mount. Not an actual bayonet, just a place you might attach one.

If we were talking sense, we would either ban all said features, or else leave the whole thing alone (much my own preference). Instead, Sen. Feinstein gave us this unbelievable, wishy-washy compromise.

To Kevin's point above: he's right. Nothing the Left has proposed would have prevented this. Unless it be not merely locking your guns in a safe, but making sure your teenager has no way to get the combination.; 5/19/18, 12:40 PM
Darrell said...: Well, Al Gore gave us the Internet.

And rape to a feminist's mix tape. . .; 5/19/18, 12:41 PM
Darrell said...: Joe Biden gave us the edible butt plug.
But he has a shotgun at home that he fires through the door.; 5/19/18, 12:42 PM
Drago said...: ARM: "This was largely achieved by the hated leftists in universities."

LOL

Those "leftists" certainly got paid, didn't they?

Hilarious.

Those folks give you the impression of "leftism" which they want you to live by, but they have literally armies of lawyers, accountants and armed guards to protect THEIR profits!

Not to mention walled off estates, yachts, private planes etc.

Yeah, those are some cool leftists!!

No ARM, they've convinced you to "buy in" to the leftists and they pay their penance to sound like and give the appearance of leftism....but they were some of the most hard-nosed capitalists to come down the pike (including industrial espionage against competitors) since Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Vanderbilt, Mellon, etc.; 5/19/18, 12:42 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: I just skimmed this thread.

ARM appears to have a serious incontinence problem today.; 5/19/18, 12:45 PM
Drago said...: Samantha Bee is a big lefty who believes ALL the standard Lefty Received Wisdom...but she and her husband sure the hell don't want those poor kids to go to school with theirs on the upper west side.

Oh no.

Going to school with MS-13 members is okay for your kids...and demanded by the lefties...but not for their kids.

Lefties, first chance they get, live the most capitalistic and "monopoly-man" lifestyle then can get their grubby little mitts on...because that is human. And they "cover" their "transgressions" by becoming even more insistent that YOU live with their policy outcomes.

Too funny.

Extraordinarily predictably, just about 100% of the time. But only 100% of the time.; 5/19/18, 12:46 PM
Birkel said...: If you replace "shit stain comment" with "insert shit stain comment here" this thread makes perfect sense.; 5/19/18, 12:47 PM
Michael K said...: Whoooo.

Back to editing.

238 comments that have no purpose but ARM and his crazy.; 5/19/18, 12:49 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Darrell said...

Joe Biden gave us the edible butt plug.
But he has a shotgun at home that he fires through the door.

5/19/18, 12:42 PM

Now that the Dems have truly dropped their masks, at least we will be spared the sight of Democrat presidential candidates tramping around with a shotgun pretending they are duck hunting. Try to imagine Kamala Harris or Fauxahontas in blaze orange toting a 12 gauge.

They'll stick to stopping by Wendy's for photo ops with the little people.; 5/19/18, 12:51 PM
Quaestor said...: ARM wrote: Who would decide who is dangerous?

Like the proverbial hoist enginer ARM has lit the fuse to the bomb which will blow his argument, such as it is, to the moon. If he were as sharp as he would like to be I'll assume he already knows this, ergo I shall delay the explanation to give him a chance to shows us all how smart he is. Is 30 minutes enough time? Let's see...; 5/19/18, 12:54 PM
Bilwick said...: Someone earlier (I suspect the servile ARM) posted earlier, and seemingly approvingly, "Europe has expanded the state in a number of ways."

And if history shows us anything, when Europe downgrades liberty and expands the power of the State, only good things happen!; 5/19/18, 12:54 PM
Quaestor said...: William Chadwick has given you a vital clue, ARM. Come on, now. Your brain can do it.; 5/19/18, 12:57 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Another part of why a nationwide AWB is silly, is that it would be unenforceable. Millions out there already, and easy to build. But as importantly, much of the country would not go along. The Dems took both houses of the legislature, plus the governorship in CO several years ago, and passed some ridiculous gun laws. Two Dem State senators were immediately recalled, including the senate president, and a third one resigned before they could be recalled, flipping the senate back to the Republicans. But more importantly, maybe, was that the elected sheriffs of maybe 60 of the 63 counties announced that they didn’t have the resources to enforce the new gun laws. And probably wouldn’t even if the state gave them a lot of money to do so. So, the law is enforced in Denver and Boulder, at times, and ignored throughout probably 95% of the state geographically. Those sheriffs are elected by constituents who don’t like the laws, and have to live among them.

Which gets to my next point - the NRA is strong because it represents a very zealous constituency. This is the thing that the left doesn’t quite seem to understand. They are so used to top down organizations that engage in AstroTurf advocacy, that they mostly don’t understand that things are just the opposite on the right. Blumburg and Soros spend millions every year pretending that they have grass roots organizations. They aren’t. Nothing the least bit organic. Hogg and the other “survivors” weren’t paying for their own plane flights, or behind getting them booked on all those “news” shows. A bunch of “useful idiots”, far too young to understand the consequences of their advocacy. The NRA follows its constituents, and not the other way around. Whenever they try to appease the left and even discuss some facet of gun control, their membership sits up, notices, and starts asking for their blood, or at least resignations. Despite the attempts by Blumburg, Soros, etc to gin up excitement for gun control, the reality is that there is going to continue to be a significant enthusiasm gap between their followers (like ARM here) and the anti-gun control crowd on the other side.; 5/19/18, 1:04 PM
Loren W Laurent said...: "...do not put that idea out there for young people to consume: Suicide is an act of courage..."

There is a plethora of ideas put out there for young people to consume that are detrimental to them. Many of them are variations of how they have no individual agency: they are victims, with check-boxes of race and gender and tribal affiliation to check and be thus absolved of responsibility.

This is what is now called education.

As such, suicide is simply a more direct way of claiming victim status. Thus, we need to take strong measures to prevent victims from victimizing themselves. Yes, I am calling for stronger laws on Suicide Control.

Such measures should include:

• Making suicide extra-illegal to persons under the age of eighteen.

• Close all Suicide Show loopholes.

• Require the suicidal to register in a Federal Suicide-Risk Registry.

• Ban all suicide materials and suicide-related paraphernalia.

• Prosecute accomplices to suicide, such as Facebook.

• Promote Safe Suicide Practices, along with traditional Suicide Abstinence programs.

• Enact legislation to obtain equality in suicide victims, with special outreach to females and people of color.

• Provide government funding for suicide-reassignment resources, up to and including surgery.

Because sometimes it takes a pound of prevention to produce an ounce of cure.

LWL; 5/19/18, 1:11 PM
langford peel said...: Gun control is not supported by a majority of the American people. If it were there would be legislation to take away guns from law abiding Americans so only MS-13 members, Hamas and black criminals would have guns. You know the people the Democrats support and defend.

Not the normals.; 5/19/18, 1:12 PM
langford peel said...: Sadly it is analogous to abortion. The majority of Americans do not favor ending abortion regardless of what any bogus poll might say.

Face it. Americans always choose death.; 5/19/18, 1:14 PM
Jim at said...: If only more of them committed suicide instead of shooting up a school.

Not sure why anyone would oppose that or find it offensive.; 5/19/18, 1:15 PM
Quaestor said...: Tick-tock, tick-tock, ARM, time's a-wastin'.; 5/19/18, 1:21 PM
Jim at said...: Matthew is arguing in bad faith here. - ARM

Sometimes it's worth it to read all the comments. Because once in awhile, you'll bust a gut reading one.; 5/19/18, 1:29 PM
Quaestor said...: Loren W. Laurent wrote: There is a plethora of ideas put out there for young people to consume that are detrimental to them.

There is also the problem of suicide in a post-Christain society.

The West is at a crossroads (Yes, I know that is a miserably trite way to put it, worthy of the best staff writers at the New York Times, however, the imagery is nonetheless apt.) Orthodox Christianity is fading. We can either revive our traditional Judeo-Christain ethics, adopt the ethics and values of the Muslim barbarians who batter our gates and turn out the lights of the West, or we can revive our classical foundations, which includes the autonomy of the Self and all that implies — honorable suicide being one entailment.; 5/19/18, 1:34 PM
Fabi said...: I see our resident gun bed-wetter has relieved himself all over the thread.; 5/19/18, 1:40 PM
Quaestor said...: Times up!

Too bad, ARM, you lose. And to think you had the gist of it right in front of you. [tsk-tsk] You asked what you unwisely thought was a rhetorical question Who would decide who is dangerous? More intelligent men asked this question non-rhetorically and came up with an answer. The People decide who is dangerous, which is why we have the Second Amendment. History shows us indubitably that the greatest mass-murderers have done their acts of slaughter in the name of and sanctioned by the State.; 5/19/18, 1:41 PM
Fabi said...: "That the losers who continue to support it gradually die off and their relatives melt down their guns."

Suck it, pussy.; 5/19/18, 1:41 PM
Fabi said...: "A majority do agree with me that the extreme interpretations of the second amendment promulgated by the gun lobby are wrong."

Hurry up with an amendment to the Consitution, pussy -- it should be a piece of cake!; 5/19/18, 1:43 PM
Michael K said...: They are so used to top down organizations that engage in AstroTurf advocacy, that they mostly don’t understand that things are just the opposite on the right.

Good comment, Brice. As usual.

I don't know what is up with ARM the past two days.

Menstrual cramps ?; 5/19/18, 1:45 PM
Francisco D said...: ARM is really working today.

I wonder if his union pays him to troll. I wonder if they know what a piss poor job he does.

Shit stain. LOL!

He's venturing into Inga territory.; 5/19/18, 1:46 PM
Birches said...: Matthew Sablan for the win. Doing God's work.; 5/19/18, 1:50 PM
Fabi said...: "History shows us indubitably that the greatest mass-murderers have done their acts of slaughter in the name of and sanctioned by the State."

To the bed-wetting pussy's credit, he just wants us to die off, not to be killed off. ARM is a kinder, gentler crypto-fascist. But mostly a pussy.; 5/19/18, 1:54 PM
FIDO said...: Leonidas, Horatio on the Bridge, Cato, Samurai, monks burning themselves to protest oppression and corruption, Jesus Christ Himself.

Across many different cultures and religion, this is A Thing.

No greater love has a man than he gives his very life for another.

Suicide for the right reason IS an act of courage.

What a stupid womanly post this is. But that gives short shrift to Mothers, who HAPPILY tell doctors 'from it is the baby or I, save the baby.'

But when ones ideology begins and ends at 'ME', I can see why such a stance, which requires thoughts of others, is so anathema.; 5/19/18, 2:15 PM
Michael said...: ARM
How does the "gun lobby" have anything to do with this nutcase who killed with two non assault weapons, both lacking extended magazines, bump stocks, scary looking rails, or any of the other horrendous gadgets lefties think cause nutcases to go berserk? Could it be that the ascendant liberal secular world has changed, intentionally changed, the old values that notwithstanding the millions of guns In private hands somehow curtailed these mass murders? If you graphed these horrors against the rise of liberalism and the collapse of traditional religion and t.he relegation of judgmentalism to the trash heap you would find what even you already know what you would find. But blame it on the gun lobby whatever that is.; 5/19/18, 2:17 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: What kind of state governor would say....?

The kind who has a higher standard of accuracy and honesty than that of most any paid reporter.; 5/19/18, 2:19 PM
mockturtle said...: I guess Socrates drank his Hemlock...; 5/19/18, 2:21 PM
Michael said...: ARM. How many of those were achieved by people owning a small arsenal of arms at home? This was largely achieved by the hated leftists in universities.

Don't think the army of liberal arts professors had shit to do with the advancement of the technologies Drago mentioned. Not one.; 5/19/18, 2:23 PM
Howard said...: Blogger Michael K said...

Boy ! More ARM craziness.

Time to go back to editing my book.

How many ARM comments in the 230 total ?

Somebody better get that truck/knife/ crowbar away from him.

Bad diagnosis, doctor. The craziness is how ARM, spouting random trivial arguments, can trigger and capture the attention of Trumpionistas morning to early afternoon on a beauteous Saturday in May.; 5/19/18, 2:33 PM
Michael K said...: can trigger and capture the attention of Trumpionistas morning to early afternoon on a beauteous Saturday in May.

Howard, I am editing a book chapter in this book to correct typos. It requires concentration and I get to the point that I see double.

Then I come over to see what you loony lefties are up to.

Then I go back to work.; 5/19/18, 2:42 PM
Howard said...: What's the working title of the book, Mike?; 5/19/18, 2:43 PM
Howard said...: Drago: Thanks for the Hitch Clip. I miss that dude!; 5/19/18, 2:45 PM
tim in vermont said...: The ACLU interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right. - ACLU

So the American Civil Liberties Union cedes to the state what is an individual right. What’s next? Freedom of speech is a “collective right”? This is why I can’t abide the by any means necessary gun grabbers, they will destroy the constitution over a dubious attempt to concievably lower the murder rate by maybe one or two per 100,00 people.

In ARM’s dreams, in the future our grandkids will be melting down our guns to make bars for their cages. Change the Constitution if you can, don’t utterly destroy the balance between the citizenry and its government for the sake of a little perceived “safety.”; 5/19/18, 2:48 PM
PJ said...: I think we could achieve an effective solution through a sort of non-geographic federalism. Contrary to common claims, my observation has been that the people in our society who are keen to perserve their Second Amendment rights are not, in fact, the ones who are committing all the mass shootings. So what if we just prohibit private ownership/possession of guns by registered Democrats? Such a law would be practically self-enforcing, because Democrats largely advocate gun bans, and anyway Democrats are notorious law obeyers. Problematic attempts at enforcement against Second Amendment enthusiasts would not be required because so few of them are registered Democrats. And while I’m not aware of any statistical breakdown of mass shooters by Party affiliation, anecdotally it seems several of the recent ones have been Democrats. Strikes me as commonsense gun control, and the only thing to worry about would be whether someone would claim it was unconstitutional just to be annoying.; 5/19/18, 2:57 PM
langford peel said...: They can't change the Constitution because they American people do not favor gun confiscation which is their goal.

It is the same as gay rights. You start out tolerating their perversion and the next thing a chick with a dick is molesting your little girl in target.
You can't give an inch because progressives like ARM lie about their goals.; 5/19/18, 3:00 PM
heyboom said...: ARM said: Guns everywhere, making us safer.

Everywhere except places like schools, churches, malls, etc. You know, places that are the preferred target of choice for these mass shooters.

The answer is right there for you to see, if you would open your eyes and look.; 5/19/18, 3:08 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: PJ said...
Contrary to common claims, my observation has been that the people in our society who are keen to perserve their Second Amendment rights are not, in fact, the ones who are committing all the mass shootings.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis's father was a supporter of the NRA. The son got the guns from his father and learnt his personal ethics and philosophy from his father.; 5/19/18, 3:18 PM
Birkel said...: The FBI claims 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. That is 2.5 million crimes prevented.

Anybody espousing gun confiscation has to accept that many more crimes visited upon fellow citizens.; 5/19/18, 3:24 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: tim in vermont said...
don’t utterly destroy the balance between the citizenry and its government

Gun ownership has exactly no impact on the balance of power between the government and me. The idea that gun owners represent a coherent bloc who could conduct a coherent military operation is ridiculous. The only thing they have in common is their mistaken belief that guns are making them safer.; 5/19/18, 3:24 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Howard said...
What's the working title of the book, Mike?

Shit Stains for Dummies; 5/19/18, 3:29 PM
Birkel said...: Guns make no difference. -ARM

Police would not enter Cabrini Green Projects in Chicago, Illinois after dark, before it was razed.
Chicago effectively outlaws firearms.

Odd juxtaposition.; 5/19/18, 3:32 PM
tim in vermont said...: It does seem kind of weird that the second amendment to the US constitution, in a group called “The Bill of Rights”. would be written to guarantee that states themselves could be armed against each other and against their own citizens. It seems like this would go under “Powers granted to the states.”; 5/19/18, 3:32 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Michael said...
Don't think the army of liberal arts professors had shit to do with the advancement of the technologies Drago mentioned. Not one.

Did not argue this, self-evidently. Look at all the heads of tech companies, almost all quite liberal. Talk to people in an engineering department, not a lot of Trump supporters.

My people, my ethnic group, has gradually locked themselves out of a pathway to success by adopting a series of increasingly insane beliefs, not least of which is that guns are making us safer. Smart people don't want to put up with that shit. They want to live in neighborhoods with the minimum number of guns, and pit bulls.; 5/19/18, 3:34 PM
Michael said...: ARM and Howard

You might click on the link that Michael K provided to his book which has a title. Would love to read your books so give us a link. Oh, no books? My bad. You are sideline boys chirping away.; 5/19/18, 3:34 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Bruce Hayden said...
the NRA is strong because it represents a very zealous constituency

So did ISIS.; 5/19/18, 3:37 PM
Michael said...: ARM
Zuckerberg did not finish college. Gates did not finish college. . Steve Jobs did not finish college. Granted p, the current bureaucrats at the helm of most large tech companies tilt left. You are wrong about Engineers.; 5/19/18, 3:41 PM
Birkel said...: Safer by 2.5 million defensive gun uses - stopping 2.5 million crimes - according to the FBI.; 5/19/18, 3:42 PM
tim in vermont said...: Gun ownership has exactly no impact on the balance of power between the government and me

Well, it does, it means that the government has the power to deny you the right to have a weapon. It means that the government can declare that you have no serious right of self defense.

Here is an example from the Heller decision about the use of guns defensively, where the right of former slaves to be armed in order to protect themselves was upheld:

“in some parts of [South Carolina], armed parties are, without proper authority, engaged in seizing all fire arms found in the hands of the freemen. Such con duct is in clear and direct violation of their personal rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, which declares that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The freedmen of South Carolina have shown by their peaceful and orderly conduct that they can safely be trusted with fire-arms, and they need them to kill game for subsistence, and to protect their crops from destruction by birds and animals.” Joint Comm. on Reconstruction, H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, p. 229 (1866) (Proposed Circular of Briga dier General R. Saxton).

From one of the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights:

n 1825, William Rawle, a prominent lawyer who had been a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly that ratified the Bill of Rights, published an influential treatise, which analyzed the Second Amendment as follows:
“The first [principle] is a declaration that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent. . . .
“The corollary, from the first position is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
“The prohibition is general. No clause in the consti tution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people.

To which ARM says “Hold my beer.”

You can argue about whether that is true in practice, but I will leave you with the words of the Supreme Court on this.

Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amend ment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

It is so ordered.

It’s a democratic process to update the constitution to meet modern needs. Your idea of just pretending it says something different than what it does is the road to tyranny.; 5/19/18, 3:43 PM
Michael said...: Lefties look at NRA as an evil force to be destroyed. If it went out of business it would be replaced immediately with another member sponsored organization. Lefties have cause and effect backwards.; 5/19/18, 3:44 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: The fact that they didn't finish college doesn't seem particularly germane. They went to college and have/had quite liberal beliefs, even Gates who appeared to be something of an outlier originally.

Academic engineers are pretty liberal as a group. Not all but a substantial majority. This is because more liberal families are doing a better job raising children. Belief in equality for women by itself tends to improve your odds of having a successful child as well as an engaged and intelligent mother.; 5/19/18, 3:47 PM
tim in vermont said...: It’s just possible ARM, in fact I know it to be true, that there are large numbers of Americans who have a different idea of “success” than you do, and live this different life every day, quite happily. You want to take that lifestyle from them so that they can be “successful” in some manner that you condescend will be better for them.

Yeesh!; 5/19/18, 3:48 PM
Birkel said...: tim in vermont,
It is only and always about power for Leftist Collectivists. ARM wants to tell people what to do.; 5/19/18, 3:52 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded

These were the words of Scalia, not 'the court'. It was a 5 to 4 split. If Hillary had been elected we get a different result next time. If RBG lives another few years we will get a different result next time.; 5/19/18, 3:53 PM
tim in vermont said...: Academic engineers are pretty liberal as a group.

Well yeah, they work in a milieu where correct politics is required to get the job. I am not sure it is so true in the actual world of working engineers where results matter more than politics and the factory manager, for example, is more interested in maximizing profits than the politics of his or her employees. I have only known a couple of actual engineering degree engineers personally, and liberal was not a word to describe them.; 5/19/18, 3:53 PM
PJ said...: @Chiselface: I’ve been able to confirm that Dimitrios’s father likes Dana Loesch on Facebook. Is that what you’re going with? And I gather you’re, umm, inferring the philosophy and ethics stuff? Anyway, as I’m sure you’d be quick to point out in other circumstances, one data point doesn’t disprove an assertion about multiple others. Do you doubt that several recent mass shooters have been Democrats?; 5/19/18, 3:54 PM
Birkel said...: Odds that RBG lasts another six years only to see Nikki Haley elected in 2024?

I would prefer her replacement sooner but that would be delicious irony.; 5/19/18, 3:56 PM
Birkel said...: ARM thinks the majority opinion does not represent the Court. ARM is ignorant.; 5/19/18, 3:57 PM
Marcus said...: So was Althouse trolling or not? It appears that this murderer made a statement and a conservative governor repeated it and Althouse has a problem with the gov? Get a grip.; 5/19/18, 3:58 PM
Quaestor said...: The idea that gun owners represent a coherent bloc who could conduct a coherent military operation is ridiculous.

Said George III to Lord North.; 5/19/18, 3:59 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: tim in vermont said...
It’s just possible ARM, in fact I know it to be true, that there are large numbers of Americans who have a different idea of “success” than you do

I don't disagree with this, but they live in world where the Chinese and Germans think more like me. The people you identify with are becoming increasingly uncompetitive in the global labor marketplace, where wealth and value is focused on the cities and the highly educated. This has consequences. I am neutral on whether it is good or bad. I have done my time in the salt mines and will retire to the country when I get older. I could have been happy living the life of a buddhist monk in a pastoral monastery. Great nations are not built with people like that.; 5/19/18, 4:01 PM
Jim at said...: The idea that gun owners represent a coherent bloc who could conduct a coherent military operation is ridiculous. - ARM

You really need to get out more because there are many organizations who train for such events every weekend. They are current and former LEOs and military, as well as private citizens.

They aren't your stupid caricature of fat, redneck hillbillies swilling beer while wrapped in Confederate flags.

They are real people.

Mock and underestimate them at your peril.; 5/19/18, 4:01 PM
tim in vermont said...: See, you want to shred the constitution for some short term gain because you simply don’t think you can do it democratically.

The Court unanimously held that the Second Amendment confers an individual right,

https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/case_comment_intro122.pdf

5-4 was about the specific Heller case, so good luck on replacing 5 justices to roll back that unanimous opinion.; 5/19/18, 4:02 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Birkel is ignorant

Shit stain post.; 5/19/18, 4:04 PM
tim in vermont said...: don't disagree with this, but they live in world where the Chinese and Germans think more like me. The people you identify with are becoming increasingly uncompetitive in the global labor marketplace, where wealth and value is focused on the cities and the highly educated.

And yet these deplorable barnacles on the hull of the ship of state retain the right to vote! Oh, and by the way, we need to import millions of uneducated Mexican peasants to make these guys economic life even harder!

And you think Andrew Sullivan has the answer as to why people support Trump.; 5/19/18, 4:05 PM
Quaestor said...: So did ISIS.

Peurile. And fully worthy of ARM.; 5/19/18, 4:05 PM
Birkel said...: The FBI says guns make America safer by stopping 2.5 million crimes each year.; 5/19/18, 4:05 PM
Quaestor said...: The son got the guns from his father and learnt his personal ethics and philosophy from his father.

A half-truth is better than none, eh ARM?; 5/19/18, 4:06 PM
Michael K said...: More ARM nuttiness.

Back to editing.; 5/19/18, 4:06 PM
Unknown said...: Answer: a gun-besotted fanatic who will never see guns as anything but a means of answering a problem. It's not that guns were somehow the crucial enabler that made mass-murders possible. It's that the would be killers did not kill the right people. It is perfectly logical. The human mind is able to become captive of its absolutes. History is littered with the bloody wreckage of ideas, good in some context, that have lingered past the time of their contextual relevance or have been carried too far. Welcome to the 21st century.; 5/19/18, 4:07 PM
Birkel said...: I like that ARM calls his own silly post a shit stain comment. My comment, by implication, is admitted accurate.; 5/19/18, 4:09 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The guy's from Texas. He views all acts of violence as an unalloyed good. The more of it the better, they believe.; 5/19/18, 4:12 PM
Birkel said...: Shift change!; 5/19/18, 4:17 PM
langford peel said...: Common misunderstood phrases for $100 Alex.

Re-nig..

What do you call it when the shift changes at the car wash?; 5/19/18, 4:20 PM
langford peel said...: Of course now it doesn't make sense because only Mexicans work at the car wash.; 5/19/18, 4:21 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: So the American Civil Liberties Union cedes to the state what is an individual right. What’s next? Freedom of speech is a “collective right”? This is why I can’t abide the by any means necessary gun grabbers...

Not if speaking was a collective act that could only be done through a collective throat, with a collective mind. (Which might explain how right-wingers view thought and communication. But not normal people).

If you're a "by any means necessary" gun proliferator then why do you curtail an individual incarcerated citizen's right to own and carry? Can't he have a gun on his person in a prison cell? He's got the right to speak freely, last I heard - why not his "individual" right to be armed? You prefer his state-funded or overseen wardens own him?

Sounds stupid to think that a single gunman would have ensured "the security of a free State," but I guess that's how loopy right-wingers are in their frenzied thinking. As Shimon Peres said to Yasir Arafat amidst his protests about containing the violence of Hamas and other paramilitaries by pointing to "many parties" in Israel... "Many parties," he said. "But one gun."

Wingers prefer Americans to be at each other's throats and gunning down as many of each other as they can. That's the right-wing way. Even your kids aren't safe from these lunatics.; 5/19/18, 4:21 PM
tim in vermont said...: BTW, we have seen the movie before where the left describes large parts of the population as “useless eaters.” Useless eaters led by the useless tweeter. We get it, you wish they would all die, we would all die.; 5/19/18, 4:21 PM
tim in vermont said...: Langford Peel has to be a Moby here to discredit this blog by making racist comments. At least I hope he doesn’t genuinely believe the shit he writes, because if he does, I don’t understand what he sees in this blog.; 5/19/18, 4:23 PM
tim in vermont said...: The guy with the Beavis and Butthead avatar and the irrational and incoherent comments wants to join the conversation...; 5/19/18, 4:26 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: At least he's got a brain bigger than a turtle's.; 5/19/18, 4:27 PM
Patrick Henry said...: Just a quick note that the Boston City Marathon bombers didn't use guns. They used pressure cookers. London has banned knives. Lest anyone think this is really a gun problem, it's not. It's a social problem: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-happen-best-explanation/; 5/19/18, 4:28 PM
langford peel said...: Boy Tim you are one big pussy.

Maybe I should post a few more jokes so you will stroke out.

Why not chill and go to a WNBA game. I hear they are giving free abortions at half time.; 5/19/18, 4:30 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Just a quick note that the Boston City Marathon bombers didn't use guns.

They didn't use nuclear bombs, either. Did you want to make those available to them, dummy?; 5/19/18, 4:33 PM
Birkel said...: Yeah, I have assumed Moby status from Xer first comment. The shift change is noticeable.; 5/19/18, 4:35 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Clavin Birkel likes keeping tabs on who comments, and when. Makes it easier for him to avoid the content/message and to feign the threat he feels to his drunk, barstool yammering.; 5/19/18, 4:38 PM
mockturtle said...: Tim in Vermont writes re: Langford Peel: At least I hope he doesn’t genuinely believe the shit he writes, because if he does, I don’t understand what he sees in this blog.

I don't believe he does. I think he is trolling by hyperbole and opprobrious comment.; 5/19/18, 4:40 PM
Michael K said...: No loony thread is complete without Ritmo and I see he has arrived.; 5/19/18, 4:41 PM
Birkel said...: Let me know when content happens. One imagines it happens evwntually, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.; 5/19/18, 4:44 PM
Birkel said...: Is content more likely after your first coffee break but before you have a dinner break? Easier to follow if I know the schedule.; 5/19/18, 4:46 PM
Big Mike said...: I don't suppose Ritmo, Inga, Chuck, ARM, and others spewing their venom all over the Althouse blog are capable of processing the thought that as long as there are h8ers like them in the world the rest of us intend to keep our guns.; 5/19/18, 4:51 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Big Mike said...
as long as there are h8ers like them in the world

Pure, unadulterated projection.; 5/19/18, 5:05 PM
Loren W Laurent said...: School Shooters as the link between the Narcissism of Social Darwinism and the Lord Of The Flies:

From http://harunyahya.com:

"During the attack, Eric Harris wore a T shirt that made the origin of the violence he perpetrated perfectly clear. The T shirt read “natural selection.” In video recordings, the pair stated that they were influenced by the ideas of natural selection and the elimination of the weak in natural selection. Darrell Scott, who lost his 13-year-old daughter Rachel in the attack and only saved his son Craig with difficulty, said that he could not understand why the motivation of the killers was completely ignored:

“Harris wore a ‘Natural Selection’ T-shirt on the day of the killings. They made remarks on video about helping out the process of natural selection by eliminating the weak. They also professed that they had evolved to a higher level than their classmates.” [2]

Harris was so firmly convinced a Darwinist as to say that inoculating human beings and plants was an interference in nature’s process of eliminating weeds. He even said there should be no warnings on dangerous goods; “let natural selection take its course. All the fat, ugly, retarded, crippled dumbass, stupid … in the world would die … Maybe then the human race can actually be proud of itself.” [3] he said.

Barry Arrington, lawyer for a family who lost six children at Columbine, described how devoted to Darwinism Eric Harris was:

“I read through every single page of Eric Harris’s journals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes … It became evident to me that Harris consciously saw his actions as logically arising from what he had learnt about evolution. Darwinism served as his personal intellectual rationale for what he did. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshipper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles.” [4]"; 5/19/18, 5:16 PM
Unknown said...: If Abbott had said "He said he didn't have the courage to commit suicide" this AA post would be about grammar.; 5/19/18, 5:16 PM
Gahrie said...: where wealth and value is focused on the cities and the highly educated.

Which would be vastly different than the last 10,000 years of history when wealth and value were focused on the cities and the highly educated.

The whole reason cities were invented was to concentrate wealth and value.; 5/19/18, 5:30 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I don't suppose Ritmo, Inga, Chuck, ARM, and others spewing their venom all over the Althouse blog are capable of processing the thought that as long as there are h8ers like them in the world the rest of us intend to keep our guns.

And what a good thing that is! While unfortunate that the high gun proliferation rate you encourage contributes to moral atrocities and abominations like massacres (which we know you are too immoral to feel sympathetic about), the good news is that it also increases your own gun suicide likelihood/rate!

Pity you fools can't find ways to kill yourselves off sooner and with less spillover harm to all those innocent kids you don't mind seeing killed.

And also - (not that it matters) - just because someone "hates" you, (and not that that's the case, either - indifference is more the word) - doesn't mean they want to kill you. Your lack of social skills and neurological normalcy probably prevents you from seeing this, and your paranoia certainly does contribute to the deaths of many others, but just something to point out that you might want to know. Most people really just don't care about you either way. It's not like in the Army where they seek to frag you. That's the same paranoia talking that makes you a 2nd amendment absolutist and gun fetishist.; 5/19/18, 5:33 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: No loony thread is complete without Ritmo and I see he has arrived.

Thanks little boy! It's good you know to shut up now that your daddy's come home!; 5/19/18, 5:34 PM
Birkel said...: The FBI reports defensive gun usage caused 2.5 million crimes to be avoided.

Would it be atrocious or an abomination if those crimes happened?; 5/19/18, 5:35 PM
Birkel said...: 2.5 million per year.; 5/19/18, 5:38 PM
pacwest said...: "Lest anyone think this is really a gun problem, it's not. It's a social problem:"

Bingo!; 5/19/18, 5:38 PM
Loren W Laurent said...: From the description of "Groundhog Day 2: Columbine":

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are two troubled youths who commit horrific murder upon their fellow classmates. But the real nightmare begins when the two boys end up reliving the same day over and over again...

Initially disbelieving and fighting what is happening to them, Harris and Klebold eventually accept that this may be their fate for eternity. In time, they make use of the opportunity to acquire new skills - piano playing and ice carving among them...

However, even these moments cannot keep them from existential despair, as their shooting spree each day takes them from exhilaration to boredom to cynicism to questioning the very point of their existence...

LWL; 5/19/18, 5:39 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Is Clavin trying to engage in a socially relevant way, again?

It's so sad, and yet pathetically cute all the same. Sort of like when a dog whines at you or humps your leg for attention.

One day maybe Clavin will learn how to socialize appropriately with the humans he seems to keep wanting to self-identify as.; 5/19/18, 5:39 PM
pacwest said...: "Your lack of social skills and neurological normalcy"

Thanks for the chuckle PP. You might want to work on some self awareness skills.; 5/19/18, 5:44 PM
Bilwick said...: I see Pee Pee is still pretending outrage over massacres while remaining loyal to the homicidal maniacBig Brother. Apparently his sojourn in the "rest home" haven't given him time for more self-reflection, or at least reading a history book or two; 5/19/18, 5:52 PM
Birkel said...: 2.5 million extra crimes per year, according to the FBI, are avoided due to firearms.; 5/19/18, 5:53 PM
Paul said...: The little fuck had said he was gonna commit suicide Ann. And he chickened out after killing ten unarmed kids in an art class.

I hope he doesn't get the death penalty. See in Texas prisons the other prisoners they HATE CHILD KILLERS and child molesters. He will undoubtedly have every tooth punched out within the year (if they don't kill him first) and he will live in solitary confinement.

Every day he will have to watch his back least someone shiv him.

So how does that grab ya Ann?; 5/19/18, 6:00 PM
Paul said...: Birkel said...

"2.5 million extra crimes per year, according to the FBI, are avoided due to firearms."

Correct Birkel. The mere presence of guns have stopped quite a few crimes. I once held a burglar at bay with a Colt .38 revolver for the cops. Caught him breaking in my parents house.; 5/19/18, 6:01 PM
Birkel said...: As a 17 year old, this shooter does not qualify for the death penalty.

That is what our SCOTUS betters have decreed.; 5/19/18, 6:02 PM
Michael said...: 300,00,000 guns in the USA. Come grab them. Or make them illegal to buy or own. Or shut the fuck up.; 5/19/18, 6:04 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I see Pee Pee is still pretending outrage over massacres...

Well it seems "pretend" to you but that's because you're a sociopath who feels that school massacres should be normal things. You must not have any kids. What a relief. Darwinians everywhere thank you for contributing to a better future.; 5/19/18, 6:06 PM
Birkel said...: Sociopaths might wish for an extra 2.5 million crimes per year.

Maybe the FBI should investigate those who advocate for more crimes.; 5/19/18, 6:11 PM
Big Mike said...: @Michael, more like 450 million.; 5/19/18, 6:23 PM
Robert Cook said...: "...some of us prefer the risks of a free society."

Are these the same stalwart bravehearts who assert the necessity of our murderous and ruinously expensive wars abroad to protect us from stateless bands of terrorists on the other side of the world?; 5/19/18, 6:26 PM
Big Mike said...: Hey, ARM. How about you show good faith? Get already illegally owned guns out of inner cities. Accomplish that, and then let’s talk.; 5/19/18, 6:27 PM
Birkel said...: Robert Cook is here to change the subject.; 5/19/18, 6:31 PM
Birkel said...: Ruinously expensive? You mean LBJ's Great Society? Or Democrat-run states and localities that have promised more in pensions than they can reasonably be expected to pay? The scales aren't close.; 5/19/18, 6:34 PM
chickelit said...: Darwinism is passé in the modern world, except in a nihilistic way. People — especially those who concentrate in cities — are increasingly unwilling to role the genetic dice. They have confused inconsequential couplings with mating. The number of hook-ups became an ersatz measure of reproductive success. Even real reproduction is more complex than it used to be: Donald Trump required 3 young fertile women to create his family. Survival of the trumpiest.; 5/19/18, 6:37 PM
Michael said...: Big Mike
450,000,001. I just bought a new one. S&W model 10; 5/19/18, 6:39 PM
chickelit said...: “Every day he will have to watch his back least someone shiv him.”

Au contraire. He will receive marriage proposals and offers to carry his baby from female strangers. It happened to Tex Watson. Someone needs to explain the evolutionary usefulness of that female genetic quirk.; 5/19/18, 6:49 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Wow. Chickenlittle's understanding of metropolitan sexual lives is very impressive. He must be like a Casanova mixed with a June Cleaver or something.; 5/19/18, 6:56 PM
chickelit said...: I took a swing and apparently did not miss.; 5/19/18, 7:07 PM
Goldenpause said...: The perp, in addition to killing a number of innocent people, will now cost the good people of Texas a fortune to prosecute and incarcerate, even if he eventually is executed. And you wonder why the governor said what he said? This is an era where assisted suicide is celebrated by the left?; 5/19/18, 7:20 PM
Quaestor said...: You must not have any kids. What a relief. Darwinians everywhere thank you for contributing to a better future.

Ritmo's other interest is editing the Incel newsletter, The Weekly Jackoff.; 5/19/18, 7:26 PM
Francisco D said...: This sure seems like a wasted thread.

I wonder if that is Ritmo and ARMs strategy.; 5/19/18, 7:30 PM
HT said...: To the list of terrorists, mentally ill, leftists, weaponless teachers, doors, Darwin, and Democrats, we can now add lack of suicidality. Good job commenters!

ARM, of course you are right. A hundred percent. They are playing whack a mole. But it’s useless for us to comment here. Just watch the comments go by, and learn from them in order to be more effective in whatever you do to change the gun laws. You will never ever change minds on this blog. Never. You can only observe and learn.

They are not listening – of course, it is the guns. To say otherwise is to be stubbornly stupid. But do we listen? They are saying they did not have this problem growing up. I didn’t either – though I did lose two classmates who were accidentally shot by friends. So what is this vaunted difference between then and now? One, keep in mind that most of the commenters are talking about the 60s at the latest. Keep in mind also that most grew up in suburbia or rural areas of the Midwest. In other words, they grew up (probably) in pretty homogenous surrounds. Without great differences in wealth (again, I’m assuming). I can understand perfectly well how in such an environment there would be less violence of any kind. That is a world that has or is rapidly disappearing. But people’s mindsets are the last thing to go.

ARM you are of course, 100% correct. It's the guns.; 5/19/18, 7:44 PM
n.n said...: FBI, yes. Also, the CDC, for whatever reason, surveyed the use of guns, and commission of abortions and other crimes, and in self-defense.

CDC, in Surveys It Never Bothered Making Public, Provides More Evidence That Plenty of Americans Innocently Defend Themselves with Guns
CDC surveys in the 1990s, never publicly reported, indicate nearly 2.5 million defensive uses of guns a year.

That said, ban assault scalpels, assault vacuums, and other social justice-like weapons of mass abortion, too, which are primary causes for the death of nearly one million human lives annually in America, and tens of millions more globally. Stop the Planning. Stop the wicked solution, an unprecedented violation of human rights, corruption of science, and progressive debasement of human life.; 5/19/18, 7:48 PM
rsbsail said...: Well, the shooter was a coward. He attacked people who were unable to defend themselves.

I live just north of Santa Fe in Friendswood, Texas. I know a woman who is a teacher in that school district, and fortunately she was ok. Whether you call it courage or cowardice doesn't matter to me. I do wish he had killed himself.; 5/19/18, 7:59 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Ritmo's other interest is editing the Incel newsletter, The Weekly Jackoff.

Quaestor knows this because most weeks he's volunteering to serve as a receptacle for said activity.

Unfortunately, I usually have to turn him down, and this causes him no end of grief.; 5/19/18, 8:27 PM
Loren W Laurent said...: I suggest that Congress shows bipartisan cooperation and puts up for a vote a bill with only two components:

1. A ban on the sale of semi-automatic rifles, no exceptions.

2. A ban on abortion after twelve weeks, no exceptions.

Let's see the debate, and find out how much freedom one is willing to give up to get someone else to give up some of their freedom.

Or we just tilt at windmills with angry Tweets. Either way.

LWL; 5/19/18, 8:47 PM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: "ARM: "They have not covered themselves in glory over the last forty years. It is not a source of joy for me."

You should probably commit suicide then. Maybe some Republican Governor will say, well, at least he was courageous. Not with an icky gun though. How about just a nice tasty glass of bleach?; 5/19/18, 8:56 PM
Michael said...: HT
Then why don't you and ARM withhold support for any politician not willing to outlaw the sale and ownership of all guns? This latest nut job used a revolver and a shotgun. Go after them. Please. Your virtue signaling, your do-something-ism is nauseating.

Or do you just want to yap about it. Or limit the sale of semi automatic this or bump stock that or this magazine or that? Other than riding your high horse exactly what do you propose about the 450 million guns in circulation?; 5/19/18, 9:25 PM
buwaya said...: The idea of a constitutional trade is a good one.

Related to the purpose of the Second Amendment, such as an irrevocable crippling of the powers of the Federal Government. Or some more effective way to facilitate revolts or revolutions, which is after all the point of it.

There should be some trade possible.; 5/19/18, 9:36 PM
n.n said...: Yes, ban assault rifles, ban assault pickup trucks, then ban assault scalpels, vacuums, and other weapons of elective abortion. The only legal (other than the twilight amendment), ethical (other than feminist rites), and moral (other than the Pro-Choice religious/moral philosophy) justification to commit elective abortion of another human being is in self-defense.

It would help the argument if the aggressor was not wholly innocent.

Is banning elective abortion equal or "=" (i.e. congruent) to banning assault instruments, devices, medicines, and machines? Should we proscribe the instruments or the actions?

#BabyLivesMatter #Fetus(i.e. offspring)LivesMatter; 5/19/18, 10:25 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Gahrie said...
Which would be vastly different than the last 10,000 years of history when wealth and value were focused on the cities and the highly educated.
The whole reason cities were invented was to concentrate wealth and value.

For a long time the US had quite distributed wealth with pockets of serious money all over the country. This has changed significantly over the last forty years with increasing geographical concentration of wealth. This article argues why this might be.; 5/19/18, 10:35 PM
walter said...: HT said.ARM you are of course, 100% correct. It's the guns.
--
They have a way of firing, then jumping into unsuspecting palms..; 5/19/18, 10:38 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Santa Fe school had a shooting plan, armed officers, and practice. And still 10 people died.; 5/19/18, 10:44 PM
walter said...: ARM,
How do these reprehensible actions figure into murder stats % wise?; 5/19/18, 11:10 PM
Michael K said...: My God ! 400 comments of ARM !

Not an intelligent thought !; 5/19/18, 11:16 PM
walter said...: And given in this case, perp had a handgun and shotgun (no SCARY AR!)of parental ownership, what then?; 5/19/18, 11:17 PM
chickelit said...: “And given in this case, perp had a handgun and shotgun (no SCARY AR!)of parental ownership, what then?”

Isn’t it obvious? Disarm all parents (of boys)!; 5/20/18, 1:11 AM
Birkel said...: Wealth concentrated in cities? Sure, and DC is the worst case scenario. The richest counties in America and not a one produces anything.

Adam Smith could be explored. There might be lessons in there, if a person were curious. ARM is not that peraon.

HINT: Regulations have done what they were supposed to do.; 5/20/18, 6:52 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Michael K said...
Not an intelligent thought !

Shit stain post.; 5/20/18, 7:44 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: The weird thing about the Columbine shooting is how it loomed over my kid's life. It happened right after they moved down out of the mountains. They lived right next to the next HS due west of Columbine, and the private school they attended was 2-3 miles due north on the same street. My brothers and I had all attended HS in the same school district (JCPS) 20-35 years earlier. My kid knew several kids who went to Columbine 5-6 years after the shooting. It still loomed over the school, even though I think that it was also the HS in the southern part of the JCPS district with an IB program, and the highest number of AP classes, which means that my kids d would likely have gone there if they had gone to public school. Yet, the school will be remembered for its shooting, and not for academic excellence.

One of my pet peeves is that that school district had taken to building much bigger high schools. The one we attended in the north end of the district was older, and had maybe 1500 students. The new ones at the south end, like Columbine, were twice as big. And one big reason was to be competitive in football. My HS won the state title my junior and senior years, with 1500 students. They aren't even in the top league any more. And, it was apparently football players who were the biggest bullies of the two shooters at Columbine. The football players would apparently bounce the two guys off the lockers as they walked by, and the school administrators would look the other way.

I see little long term benefit to a big football program in high schools. We quite happily sent our kid d to a private school that didn't have a HS football team (but did have mandatory athletics). And when I went back to my 20th HS reunion, it was to find that most of those football players who had played on those two state championship football teams had done little with their lives since then. Got stuck listening to one of them who was also state champion in a track event, and a member of the state champion basketball team, crying in his beer. He had gone on scholarship to a neighboring state university, but didn't graduate because he was no longer the big fish in the small pond. HS was the high point in his life. Those of us who had studied instead of concentrating on sports were well along in our professional careers (though I was in the process of switching between computer software and patent law). Doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc. Seemingly much happier.; 5/20/18, 8:29 AM
HipsterVacuum said...: Ritmo: "He views all acts of violence as an unalloyed good."

Any act of violence against you would be a tremendous good and well-deserved.; 5/20/18, 9:58 AM