What a classy Christmas

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

It's curious how a good number of 2nd Amendment advocates now don't seem to have any problem with being prepared to stomp on the 1st Amendment by furiously petitioning for the deportation of a British CNN anchor. His major transgression? Having stated his opinion about gun control - an opinion that some people hated in their guns guts.

I guess the best way to summarize this is: STAY CLASSY, AMERICA.

Get him out! Petition to deport Piers Morgan from US over gun control remarks attracts 59,000 signatures
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/piers-morgan-petition-calling-for-tv-1504776

"The CNN host provoked the fury of gun rights activists when he interviewed Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt"

He called Mr Pratt "stupid, dangerous, idiot". Apparently, this warrants him being deported like a common criminal. You know, offending someone is now on par with drug trafficking.

Meanwhile, yet another madman (in the town of.... "Greece"!?) was having quite a busy Christmas, devising an elaborate trap to lure a team of volunteer firefighters to a burning house that he set on fire, in order to ambush them and start shooting at them. Eventually killing 2 and injuring another 2. I'm sure the fact that he was a felon previously convicted for murder, didn't pose any problem for the law-abiding gun salesperson who had sold him the assault rifle and the other weapons that the guy used to shoot at the firefighters - because they were supposedly in their right to sell it to him - by law. (By the way, that was the same type of rifle like in the Newtown massacre). Well, even more curiously, but not surprisingly, turns out he was actually not allowed to own a gun. But who'd've known that?

But it gets even more interesting. It could be the wine around the holidays, or maybe the excessive amounts of spare time, but at this rate of mass shootings these days, plus the previously stated sentiment (not only here) that there should be a certain "no comment" period of time after such incidents, turns out in practice the issue should NEVER be discussed. (Not that we haven't beaten it to death around here, anyway).

On the other hand, it could all be just an elaborate Obama conspiracy. For all I know, someone might've been using a cutting-edge technology, probably a mind-control weapon that triggers certain subjects (who've forgotten to wear their tinfoil hats today), to prompt them to start acting like mindless drones - all with this one purpose of making guns look bad. Or some other such grand conspiracy. Btw if you thought this is a poor attempt at sarcasm, or a clumsy strawman, actually some of these theories have already become pretty mainstream among the gun-worshiping circles: some NRA-associated "experts in the field" actually came up with a specific deadline for the RL-implementation of Obama's plan. 2016, apparently. No sooner, no later. So you should all be getting prepared for the coming dystopian tyranny!

Merry holidays anyway! This is one of those ever increasing number of times when I'm glad like hell that I'm nowhere near the US shores.

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that guy was such a badass fighter for freedom!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

"You must love this country more than I love a cold beer on a hot Christmas morning."

Homer Simpson

(thanks to Johnny for this morning lol ;)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Hey, have you been trying to tell me how everything sucks? But I'm here with my family, celebrating it (my family), and there ain't no shootings down here!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

That's because you've relinquished your freedom and have become slaves to safety.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

in the town of.... "Greece"!?

Upstate New York has a lot of towns like that, Egypt, Macedonia, ...

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

So that's what someone here recently meant when they said that the US is like a condensed copy of the whole world? You could travel around upstate New York within a day, and you'll have made a real round-the-world trip? That's cooool dude!

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Imagine if there were a sufficient number of courageous passers-by, carrying concealed weapons, while that shooter was shooting at the firefighters. They'd pull out their weapons and start shooting back at him, and they'd have stopped him from killing those 2 firefighters whom he had already killed before committing suicide.

OH WAIT...

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

It could be the wine around the holidays

Excuse me, but wine is a totally un-American drink.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Good point. It doesn't go very well with freedom fries.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Talking about guns on Christmas day? You're a bad person and you should feel bad about it. Also, you should probably be deported/banned from entering America, ever.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I grabbed any old t-shirt out of the drawer for christmas lunch yesterday. Got to the Aunties and someone gasped.

It says "Kids have guns now, don't shoot them (no seriously)" with a picture of a 50s esque all american good boy stroking a rifle on it.

Apparently it's too soon...

[comeonyouspurs.livejournal.com]

On a completed unrelated note, is anybody here on karagarga?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Dunno, but "karagarga" sounds like a combination of the Turkish word for "black" and the Bulgarian word for "crow".

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Piers is an arsehole most of the time, but that doesn't mean he isn't occasionally correct.

I'm waiting for someone to inform us all that the Amendments to the Constitution are not in any order of hierarchical significance, merely date order.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

broken clock are right twice a day?

hell, i recall agreeing with glenn beck on rare occassions....

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

just to be fair, 59000 signatures out of 300,000,000 aint didly. hell as i recall half that many people signec a petition on whitehouse.gov to ask obama to build a literal death star (ya know that thing from, episode IV:a new hope)

so forgive me for not caring about 60,000 yahoos throughout this land

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

You have a point. There are all sorts of yahoos out there.

I'm just curious, at which particular number do yahoos start to become sufficiently significant for you to begin caring about it?

[korean-guy-01.livejournal.com]

Is he a US citizen? If not, then he has no 1st Amendment rights.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Really? Since when are people being deported for calling someone an idiot on TV?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Did this man have the right to call an idiot an idiot? Um, well, yeah! One can not be selective about what rights they support and what rights they conveniently ignore, when making a political point.

UPside to all this talk about guns: I'm thinking about selling my 'assault rifle' and the 30 round clips, scope and 2000 rounds of ammo.

Why? Because I invested at a good price a few years ago and bought it strictly as an investment. My .40 cal is adequate self defense for my needs. I don't need the thing.

With all this focus on gun control, folk in the South tend to open their wallets faster than they do their minds. Last weekends gun show had people clamoring for mini-14's like mine.

Oh, I'm not wearing a '2nd amendment' tag any more than I do a 'liberal' or 'wingnut' tag. I will allow that there are knee-jerkers out there on both sides of vitriolic issues poking hot buttons for lulz.

I don't own guns because I have a 'right' to them. I own guns because it is legal to own them. Most of them have never been fired, but they are ready if needed.

How is this a threat to the children and fire men?

I do have some ideas on how to control the negative impact people who abuse their weapons, but most structures are built around the concepts of 'rights' vs 'privileges', so the 'right' seems to trump the discussion.

SCOTUS has upheld private gun ownership under the Constitution. Deal with it.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

The question is not about the right of people to own guns. The question is about supervision of who get access to guns, as the current system quite obviously doesn't work. This is quite simple, which some people are obviously still refusing to understand. This stubborn unwillingness to even listen to what the debate really is, is staggering.

[american-geist.livejournal.com]

Piers is a Murdoch phone-hacking super hack, and is generally terrible, but come on people.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

"Let's put your argument aside for a while and talk about what a horrible person you are. Once we've established that, the wrongness of your argument comes naturally".
(From the list of most annoying pseudo-arguments (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1632770.html)).

Well done.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's Piers Morgan. Wouldn't be a huge loss for America if he were deported.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Ditto: Rupert Murdoch. Let's deport him too.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Morgan is an idiot, but being an idiot is hardly an offense worthy of deportation.

If it were we would have give the city of New York back to the dutch.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

But he offended Americans' freedoms! That's so unpatriotic! (Well, technically he ain't no 'Merican so we can't expect him to be patriotic anyway, but...) ANYWAY! A FOREIGNER OPPOSING GUN RIGHTS IS EQUAL TO FLAG BURNING! EXPELL THE MOTHAFUCKA!!!1

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Can we deport people merely by popular demand?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

What you're pointing out (the signature gathering) is nutty behavior that, thanks to the quirks of instant electronic communication, are now being known. Far, far worse behavior has happened in our past (and in the past of other countries) without so much as a blip in the history books.

Likewise, I can't help thinking that if one went back in our history, one would find exactly as many shoot-em-ups by the temporarily or permanently insane as one finds today, if not more. Seriously. When I was a kid, for example, someone walked into a Jr. High and started popping, killing a couple and wounding more, before getting tackled by the principal. They didn't even let school out. Business as usual. (A former coworker was there, watching a friend of his fall shot on top of him as he kept low. Friend not killed, FWIW.)

Ah, but with the amplifying power of 24/7 news and the need to make it pay the bills (by keeping people watching through commercials) we have created a scandal-filled world the likes of which has never been seen before . . . except that it has actually probably gotten safer.

I'm actually less interested in random shootings than in the feedback effect of coverage that prevents people from learning important things (like the fact that the so-called "fiscal cliff" is non-sense, and that the economics department at most universities teach outright lies) because of the need to never, ever air anything with even a whiff of boring.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

There was a great piece on RTL (I think, German TV, but English language) that was about how school shootings come in groups. They presented a convincing argument that the thing most likely to cause a school shooting was 24/7 media coverage of a school shooting, so they are covering them differently now. They won't be lead stories, they won't advertise the number of dead, they won't go into the shooter's life in minuscule detail, etc.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Sorry for double comments, but I also found another reason to be either skeptical or not over shootings; it turns out studying the negative effects of firearms on health was outlawed (http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1487470), or at least defunded:

. . . [I]n 1996, pro-gun members of Congress mounted an all-out effort to eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although they failed to defund the center, the House of Representatives removed $2.6 million from the CDC's budget—precisely the amount the agency had spent on firearm injury research the previous year. Funding was restored in joint conference committee, but the money was earmarked for traumatic brain injury. The effect was sharply reduced support for firearm injury research.

To ensure that the CDC and its grantees got the message, the following language was added to the final appropriation: “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

Precisely what was or was not permitted under the clause was unclear. But no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency's funding to find out. Extramural support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up. Even today, 17 years after this legislative action, the CDC's website lacks specific links to information about preventing firearm-related violence.

So not only do we not know how much more or less gun injuries and death impact our country, we are not allowed to go and find out using the best minds with the best resources available. The NRA starting a deportation petition? Whatever. They can do quite a bit more in way of enforcing their particular fetish, and have.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I am paraphrasing a quote about the English language I heard a long time ago...

There are times when I think giving free speech and guns to Americans is like giving sex to children. They know it is important, but they haven't the slightest idea what to do with it."

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Did you know NBC's host of Meet the Press, David Gregory, is now under investigation (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/david-gregory-police-investigation_n_2364637.html), and faces charges for showing a magazine on the Sunday interview with the head of the NRA? The irony of course is that conservative right wingers were the ones pushing for it.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the fact that he was a felon previously convicted for murder, didn't pose any problem for the law-abiding gun salesperson who had sold him the assault rifle and the other weapons that the guy used to shoot at the firefighters - because they were supposedly in their right to sell it to him - by law.

Where have you heard how he got the gun? Last I heard (from CNN), 6 hours ago, they had no idea how he got it and weren't even saying what type of gun he used. So, do you have a legit source, or are you making it up?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Excuse me, but you're not even making the tiniest effort to read what you're responding to.

weren't even saying what type of gun he used

I even gave you a link (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2253019/William-Spengler-Sister-gunman-missing-shooting-firemen-Webster-New-York.html?ito=feeds-newsxml) in the OP, FFS.

Where have you heard how he got the gun?

I haven't. How did you decide that I've heard something? Are you not able to read nuance? Having the hyper-intellect that you have, and all?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

For once, I agree - the petition is ridiculous. You can't claim to value the Constitution when you're willing to trade one amendment for another. It's all or nothing. It's shit like this that sometimes pisses me off about Republicans or the right-wing in general, but not enough for me to turn left.

It's not that more shootings are happening, it's that the media is putting a laser focus on anything having to do with guns.

Speaking of anything having to do with guns, the other thing that's pissing me off is this attack against the NRA. Does anyone have any proof that either Nancy Lanza or this asshole in Greece had anything to do with the NRA? Until they do, people should just shut the fuck up about it. This is one of the problems with exposure to a 24 hour media cycle - the wrong information is being broadcast. It's mostly filler and very little fact no matter which channel you're watching.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Question. Which amount of bullshit from right-wing Republicans would (hypothetically) be enough for you to turn away from the GOP (and I'm not even saying to turn left, just away)?

Oh, so shootings were happening at this stunning rate even before, but only now the public has started paying attention to them? What does that tell you about the culture of a society where shootings turn out to be an almost daily occurrence?

The NRA is doing just fine, IMO. It's so powerful and influential, and it's got so many canals for spreading its message (which is obviously working just fine), that the reaction to that (which you call an attack) is the least of my concerns.

Why should anyone be proving that these shooters had anything to do with the NRA? The thing here is that the NRA hasn't been late to come to the scene and get thoroughly involved in the debate even without being asked to - that's what people are responding to. Or do you expect the NRA's constant involvement to remain unchallenged, because they're somehow being persecuted?

I don't believe people shutting the fuck up would solve anything - do you genuinely think the problem would just go away if they do?

As for facts, I'm all ears. I'm sure that, once you've established that the info we're getting is wrong, you'll respectively be prepared to substitute it with the "correct" one. Or are we just blowing hot air too?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Freedom of speech and the absoluteness of it are only applicable when the expression stated is one approved of by white male conservatives. Otherwise it's to the Gulag with you for daring to impugn their rights to treat weapons as a tribal religious fetish.

[404.livejournal.com]

This type of argument should have been included in the Most annoying "arguments" (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1632770.html#comments) entry earlier posted.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

And this is exactly why we are not a pure democracy, you can't just petition someone into exile

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Which pure democracy can petition someone into exile?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Petition to UK Government: Stop Piers Morgan from being deported back to the UK from America

We got rid of him once and why should we have to suffer again. The Americans wanted him so they should put up with him. We washed our hands of him a long time ago. (https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/uk-government-stop-piers-morgan-from-being-deported-back-to-the-uk-from-america)

Well played UK, Full marks. :D

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Maybe Canada could have him this time!

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Piers Morgan's First Amendment rights have not been trampled on anymore than criticizing a person for owning firearms is trampling on their Second Amendment rights.

Cool your jets already.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I'm amused by the fact that a bunch of conservative guys are even entertaining the notion that one amendment can possibly trump another one. The only thing even more amusing is that there's a whole other bunch of conservatives who'd do all sort of mental twists and bends to find an excuse for the first bunch. Amusements never end.