In other news from Hell

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Gob wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 9:27 am
Another cretin weighs in on the debate...
I see that said cretin is still scheduled to appear at the NRA Convention, which is being held in Houston, less than 300 miles away from the latest bloodbath.  I've got an idea...

Would anyone like to provide me with a ticket to said gathering, transportation there, and a couple of AR-15s?  I'm sure these ammosexuals wouldn't deny me my God-given right to keep and openly bear arms, especially at an assembly of people supposedly dedicated to this bit of sacred scripture.

And then, once I'm inside, if there should happen to be an inadvertent discharge of said weapon which devastates the speakers' platform...   Well, that's why they call them accidents, right?
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Scooter
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Scooter »

The NRA convention at which speakers have been railing against gun-free zones ...

... is itself a gun-free zone.

You couldn't make this shit up.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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BoSoxGal
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by BoSoxGal »

2079286D-8E12-4EDA-9F0F-27280902BCCA.jpeg
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Methuselah
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Methuselah »

Another Mystery Solved
How can loser high-school dropout 18-year-old mass murderers afford to buy several thousand dollars’ worth of high-tech weapons, ammo, protective gear, computer with Internet hookup, etc.? I hope their parents are asked this question. There was an article that said one of them charged these things with a credit card. The lender must have blocked it quickly, but the damage had been done by them. I hope the lender can block the payment to the gun sellers so they lose money on this deal. Sadly, these incidents likely made sales go up on these items, for wanna-be’s and speculators buying them before sales are cut off.

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Bicycle Bill »

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Burning Petard
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Burning Petard »

But former savior of the world, Donald Trump, has explained that if we just let law abiding Americans buy all the guns they can, we will all be safe.

Law abiding Americans. You know, like this high-school drop out in Texas, before he shot his Grandmother.

Snailate

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BoSoxGal
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Re: In other news from Hell

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Here’s the thing about guns. They are not a consumable product. They are generally very well made and last for many generations if well maintained. Yet the American firearms industry wants to have sales that mirror those of consumable goods, so they market aggressively playing on the fears of others, of crime, of the government coming to take our guns - and they’re selling them like hotcakes. So we have 400,000,000 guns in the hands of private owners and those guns aren’t going to expire and how many more will we have after another five or ten or twenty years of this insanity?

I wish I was still young enough to leave here.
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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Excellent point. The counter-propaganda very much plays on the "you ain't gonna take ma guns" crowd when sensible proposals are not aimed at "taking away" anything (not even "ma rats to own gurnz"). The purpose is to regulate future sales and make it more difficult for maniacs, malcontents and asshats to get a gun legally.

Yes yes yes, Charlton. . . they can "always" get one illegally but the point is to halt the legal proliferation. Or at least retard it.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Sue U
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Sue U »

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Tue May 31, 2022 2:18 am
the point is to halt the legal proliferation. Or at least retard it.
The point should be not only to curb proliferation, but also to encourage overall reduction of the number of guns in circulation, particularly in the hands of those unwilling or unable to be responsible gun owners. Specifically, universal background checks with red-flag disqualifications; mandatory training in use and safety, with periodic recertification; licensing with periodic renewal; registration for each gun with periodic renewal; liability insurance; limitation on the number of purchases per month. We should also renew the "assault weapons ban" and further limit the types of weapons available and their capacity.

Once again, the problem is too many guns too readily available to too many people. A rational and effective approach has to address all three.
MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Tue May 31, 2022 2:18 am
The counter-propaganda very much plays on the "you ain't gonna take ma guns" crowd when sensible proposals are not aimed at "taking away" anything (not even "ma rats to own gurnz").
People will believe whatever idiocy they want if it means they don't have to change what they're doing, no matter how harmful to both themselves and to society at large. I don't know what can actually be done about that, except to ignore them as the lunatic fringe that they are.
GAH!

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Sue U wrote:
Tue May 31, 2022 3:21 pm
People will believe whatever idiocy they want if it means they don't have to change what they're doing, no matter how harmful to both themselves and to society at large.  I don't know what can actually be done about that, except to ignore them as the lunatic fringe that they are.
How's that old saying go again... "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups", or something like that?  And then there's something about "better the enemy you know than the one you don't."

Just as ignoring storm warnings because "it's not supposed to come anywhere close to us" leads to tragedies, we ignore those on the lunatic fringe at our own peril.
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Re: In other news from Hell

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Re: In other news from Hell

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Sharing this piece in full for those who don’t have access to NYT or have exhausted free articles.
We Clerked for Justices Scalia and Stevens. America Is Getting Heller Wrong.

May 31, 2022

Milovan Zrnic/iStock, via Getty Images
By Kate Shaw and John Bash

Ms. Shaw is a professor of law at Cardozo Law School. Mr. Bash is an attorney in private practice in Austin, Texas.

In the summer of 2008, the Supreme Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to gun ownership. We were law clerks to Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, and Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the lead dissent.

Justices Scalia and Stevens clashed over the meaning of the Second Amendment. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion held that the amendment protected an individual right to keep a usable handgun at home, which meant the District of Columbia law prohibiting such possession was unconstitutional. Justice Stevens argued that those protections extended only to firearm ownership in conjunction with service in a “well-regulated militia,” in the words of the Second Amendment.

We each assisted a boss we revered in drafting his opinion, and we’re able to acknowledge that work without breaching any confidences. Justice Scalia had a practice of signing one opinion for a clerk each term, which permitted the clerk to disclose having worked on that case, and for John, that was Heller; Justice Stevens noted in his 2019 autobiography, “The Making of a Justice,” that Kate was the Heller clerk in his chambers.

We continue to hold very different views about both gun regulation and how the Constitution should be interpreted. Kate believes in a robust set of gun safety measures to reduce the unconscionable number of shootings in this country. John is skeptical of laws that would make criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens who believe that firearm ownership is essential to protecting their families, and he is not convinced that new measures like bans on widely owned firearms would stop people who are willing to commit murder from obtaining guns.

Kate believes that Justice Stevens’s dissent in Heller provided a better account of both the text and history of the Second Amendment and that in any event, the method of historical inquiry the majority prescribes should lead to the court upholding most gun safety measures, including the New York law pending before the Supreme Court. John believes that Heller correctly construed the original meaning of the Second Amendment and is one of the most important decisions in U.S. history. We disagree about whether Heller should be extended to protect citizens who wish to carry firearms outside the home for self-defense and, if so, how states may regulate that activity — issues that the Supreme Court is set to decide in the New York case in the next month or so.

But despite our fundamental disagreements, we are both concerned that Heller has been misused in important policy debates about our nation’s gun laws. In the 14 years since the Heller decision, Congress has not enacted significant new laws regulating firearms, despite progressives’ calls for such measures in the wake of mass shootings. Many politicians cite Heller as the reason. But they are wrong.

Heller does not totally disable government from passing laws that seek to prevent the kind of atrocities we saw in Uvalde, Texas. And we believe that politicians on both sides of the aisle have (intentionally or not) misconstrued Heller. Some progressives, for example, have blamed the Second Amendment, Heller or the Supreme Court for mass shootings. And some conservatives have justified contested policy positions merely by pointing to Heller, as if the opinion resolved the issues.

Neither is fair. Rather, we think it’s clear that every member of the court on which we clerked joined an opinion, either majority or dissent, that agreed that the Constitution leaves elected officials an array of policy options when it comes to gun regulation.

Justice Scalia — the foremost proponent of originalism, who throughout his tenure stressed the limited role of courts in difficult policy debates — could not have been clearer in the closing passage of Heller that “the problem of handgun violence in this country” is serious and that the Constitution leaves the government with “a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” Heller merely established the constitutional baseline that the government may not disarm citizens in their homes. The opinion expressly recognized “presumptively lawful” regulations such as “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” as well as bans on carrying weapons in “sensitive places,” like schools, and it noted with approval the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” Heller also recognized the immense public interest in “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.”

Nothing in Heller casts doubt on the permissibility of background check laws or requires the so-called Charleston loophole, which allows individuals to purchase firearms even without completed background checks. Nor does Heller prohibit giving law enforcement officers more effective tools and greater resources to disarm people who have proved themselves to be violent or mentally ill, as long as due process is observed. Heller also gives the government at least some leeway to restrict the kinds of firearms that can be purchased — few would claim a constitutional right to own a grenade launcher, for example — although where that line could be constitutionally drawn is a matter of disagreement, including between us. Indeed, President Donald Trump banned bump stocks in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Most of the obstacles to gun regulations are political and policy based, not legal; it’s laws that never get enacted, rather than ones that are struck down, because of an unduly expansive reading of Heller. We are aware of no evidence that any perpetrator of a mass shooting was able to obtain a firearm because of a law struck down under Heller. But Heller looms over most debates about gun regulation, and it often serves as a useful foil for those who would like to deflect responsibility — either for their policy choice to oppose a particular gun regulation proposal or for their failure to convince their fellow legislators and citizens that the proposal should be enacted.

The closest we’ve come to major new federal gun regulation in recent years came in the post-Sandy Hook effort to create expanded background checks. The most common reason offered by opponents of that legislation? That it would violate the Second Amendment. But that’s just not supported by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the amendment in Heller. If opponents of background checks for firearm sales believe that such requirements are unlikely to reduce violence while imposing unwarranted burdens on lawful gun owners, they should make that case openly, not rest on a mistaken view of Heller.

Justices don’t control the way their writings are interpreted by later courts and other institutions; certainly law clerks don’t. So we’re not asserting that our views on Heller are in any way authoritative. But we know the opinions in the case inside and out.

As the nation enters yet another agonizing conversation about gun regulation in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, all sides should focus on the value judgments and empirical assumptions at the heart of the policy debate, and they should take moral ownership of their positions. The genius of our Constitution is that it leaves many of the hardest questions to the democratic process.

Kate Shaw is a professor of law at Cardozo Law School and a host of the Supreme Court podcast “Strict Scrutiny.” She served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens from 2007 to 2008. John Bash is an attorney in private practice in Austin, Texas. He served in the Department of Justice, including as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2017 to 2020, and as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia from 2007 to 2008.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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BoSoxGal
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Re: In other news from Hell

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Just read this story from the Globe’s free news site.

They were just driving down the road on the way to dinner. This country is SICK SICK SICK! Fucking ammosexuals everywhere, too many of them sick in the head.
Officials identify N.H. 3rd grade student killed in random shooting in South Carolina

Authorities say a 40-year-old man randomly shot at vehicles passing by his home.

updated on May 31, 2022 | 1:05 PM

An 8-year-old boy who attended school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, died after he was shot in a “random shooting” on Saturday during a family trip to South Carolina, school officials said.

The boy was identified Tuesday by the Florence County Coroner’s Office as Quarius Naqua Dunham.

Officials said in a statement Quarius sustained a gunshot wound to his neck as Charles Montgomery Allen, 40, of Florence, allegedly shot at passing vehicles outside his home on Saturday.

Quarius died after he was removed from life support on Sunday, according to the coroner’s office. An autopsy is scheduled for Friday.

His father, who was driving the vehicle the two were traveling in, was also shot but is expected to survive, officials said.

Quarius was a third-grade student at Little Harbour School, Portsmouth Superintendent of Schools Stephen Zadravec said in a statement to families, obtained by Boston.com.

“It is with the heaviest of hearts that I share the sad news that one of our third grade students at LHS was killed this weekend,” Zadravec said. “His family was on vacation and were victims of a random shooting in South Carolina. An event like this touches our community as a whole. Our hearts are with the family as we support each other through this unbelievable tragedy.”

Florence County Sheriff T.J. Joye told ABC 15 News that Allen shot at cars passing his home on Old River Road on Saturday afternoon and hit three vehicles with gunfire. Authorities said it appears Allen fired over 100 rounds, according to the news station.

Allen was taken into custody by a SWAT team following “a brief standoff, according to the Florence County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities arrested Allen on Saturday and upgraded the charges against him on Tuesday.

Allen faces charges of one count of murder; two counts of attempted murder; one count of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime; and four counts of discharging a firearm into a vehicle, according to the sheriff’s office.

Additional charges are possible, as the investigation continues, officials said.

Allen was ordered held without bond during a hearing on Sunday morning, ABC 15 reports.

Calvin Cade, a man whose car was also struck by Allen’s alleged gunfire, said at the hearing he was on his way home when he heard a bullet hit the top of his car, the news station reports.

“I noticed the gentleman was taking aim and I said, ‘He’s going to shoot again.’ So I ducked and stepped on the accelerator to get past him and he shot again,” Cade said.

The bullet struck one of his headlights, he added.

“It came through the vehicle,” Cade said.

A motive for the shooting remained unclear on Tuesday. Allen was familiar to law enforcement, according to ABC 15.

Relatives of Quarius told the outlet the boy and his parents used to live in the PeeDee, an area about 13 miles east of Florence, and were visiting while a family member graduated from high school. The family was on their way to a barbeque restaurant when the shots rang out, the news station reports.

“There really are no words to express the shock and sadness with which we receive this terrible news,” Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern said Tuesday in a statement published by the Porstmouth Herald.

McEachern highlighted how the city gathered “just last week” for a vigil to mourn the children and teachers killed in the mass shooting that unfolded at a Texas elementary school.

“We tried to imagine how those parents felt, how we would feel. Now that darkness has crept into Portsmouth and taken the life of one of our own,” McEachern said. “Portsmouth stands with the family, friends and classmates in grief at this dark hour. Counseling is available through the schools. If you have trouble accessing assistance, please reach out directly to me.”

Increased counseling will be available at the student’s school on Tuesday, Zadravec said.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Econoline
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Re: In other news from Hell

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More hammers.jpg
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Re: In other news from Hell

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22218251_10154907750681723_4462324171030898706_o.jpg
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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BoSoxGal
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Re: In other news from Hell

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Gob wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:05 am
22218251_10154907750681723_4462324171030898706_o.jpg
I read that and was initially confused by wondering if they’d just tacked on a stock photo of violence for effect - then I saw the date and realized, oh, that’s from another mass shooting, the one in Las Vegas where over 800 people were injured and over 400 of them were shot with almost 70 killed.

And then as I’m writing those words I’m thinking what INSANITY we live in - how did we JUST MOVE ON from a slaughter like that?!?! Or any of them?!?!

We have a mental illness problem in the USA. We are ALL mentally ill. We are all in an abusive relationship with a political party owned by a special interest group whose PAC accepts Russian dark money and firearms industry money and uses it to destabilize society and our political system via extremist fear mongering and meanwhile enabling the wholesale slaughter of our citizens. And we keep tolerating it. We just won’t leave. We just won’t kick the monster to the curb.

I don’t think this is the home of the free anymore. We are all being held hostage.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Sue U
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Sue U »

Don't know how to make this appear as a video here, but worth a click, even tho Facebook; it's also on the Twitter.

https://www.facebook.com/timothy.john.b ... 3754002670
GAH!

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BoSoxGal
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by BoSoxGal »

This is a very good piece about student victims of school shootings over the last 40+ years:

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22878 ... tal-health
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Econoline
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Re: In other news from Hell

Post by Econoline »

Image
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
God @The Tweet of God

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BoSoxGal
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Re: In other news from Hell

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FBA56D56-41DF-4147-A2D0-0E32E87B60FC.jpeg
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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