NBC: Gun Rights Massively Expanding(Powder Keg?)

[seemslikeadream]

ok let's start over ...why do you own guns? I thought you did to protect yourself

btw I couldn't be continuing to insult you because that was the one and only time I mentioned fear( I NEVER have insulted you before...I never said I wanted to take your guns away) because I thought you had guns to protect yourself...which means ...to me that you fear something is going to happen to you so you have to be prepared to protect yourself

you just seem to me as being very defensive about all this...like I said I don't care if you have guns ..I just don't have them and never will ..and that's just my way of life...I don't fear death...I don't fear illness (I have never bought health insurance)

[82_28]

There isn't "another side of the story". Gun people typically fetishize their guns but 90% of "responsible" gun owners leave their guns at home. All rational people must see this as stupid and retarded, but also dangerous as a precedent. What is so hard about this? Own your guns. Just don't bring them to public places if we indeed seek to see a more peaceful and sane public.

[seemslikeadream]

if your black you can't even carry a toy gun around in Walmart


can you imagine what would happen if this occurred again?

[MayDay]

This is very frightening news. I live in central Texas, a place where very few black people still live, so it all feels kind of distant to me. The areas in my town where black folk used to live have been overun with house flipping southern California types who've made a fortune forcing the natives out of their homes as the former ghettos become more gentrified. Granny can't afford the property tax any more, so all her stuff's out on the corner, mixed in with her grandkids belongings.

I googled this topic on a whim just now- here''s the top result:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/us/au ... -says.html

When Natalie Madeira Cofield walks among the local boutiques and cafes in her South Congress Avenue neighborhood in Austin, she likes to take note of the other African-Americans she sees.

“If I get past 10, I’m like, ‘Wow, there are a lot of black people out today,’ ” said Ms. Cofield, 32, who moved to Austin three years ago from Washington to become head of what is now the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce.

Practically every young and white Austinite I talk too is happy about the gentrifaction, and I can see why. Newly gentrified urban spaces are historically some of the coolest places in any town, for a while, at least, and only for the privileged. You really get the feeling of being white in the ghetto with all of the privilege and none of the risk. Ten years down the road, all the quirky, run-down touches that you used to love are gone, there are no more $2 breakfast tacos, and everyone smells like they're wearing too much perfume. The hippest and artsiest of the current lot will all move to whatever other liberal weirdo town is trending (again, due to gentrifiaction) at the moment. (Is it still Knoxville, Tn? Pretty sure it''s not Asheville any more???

I'm painfuly aware right now, more so than I have ever been in my adult life, of the reality/ consequences of white privilege, institutional (structural) racism, and intergenerational poverty.

Related: The ALEC goes marching us ever on toward the cliff...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/a ... ws-trayvon

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive alliance of big businesses and largely Republican state legislators who co-operate to push a right-wing political agenda in the American hinterland, is continuing to wield outsized influence over gun laws across the US despite its promise in the wake of the Trayvon Martin furore to stop operating in this area.

[Wombaticus Rex]

90% of "responsible" gun owners leave their guns at home. All rational people must see this as stupid and retarded, but also dangerous as a precedent.

Mostly with you there. I agree carrying in Walgreens is not exactly "responsible gun ownership" -- in fact, it's quite stupid. (Do you agree that there is no legislative or regulatory solution for stupidity?)

That said, the last dozen times I've gone out for breakfast, there were people open carrying and it didn't faze me because I grew up around that. I don't think those gentlemen were exactly Leading Authorities in Their Respective Fields, but I don't think they were "stupid and retarded," either. A few of them were off-duty cops, in fact. I don't know how that affects my point; that's something of an inkblot, depending on your experiences with that notoriously violent profession.

Edit: I grew up surrounded by guns. I have long since sold mine (gotta pay for rap!) and don't see the need to buy more, mostly since I am having so much fun getting to actual fights this year...it's a lost art! I am still surrounded by guns, though. So I often feel obligated to pipe up when gun owners are reduced to atavistic racist sub-tarded caricatures with penis issues. I recently had an entire table of people at a local coffee shop all yelling at me at once because I didn't think it was insane to have a 9 year old (of either gender, thank you very fucking much) on a firing range. I was learning to shoot far younger than that.

We talk about Egypt here, but I really pay attention when Alice pipes up. So when you folks are discussing guns, I feel obligated to pipe up. I was raised in Gun Show culture, over the counter sales, weird racist propaganda and photocopied conspiracy theory tracts. American gun culture is ultimately too diffuse and diverse for easy generalization -- like so many other problems, too distributed for uniform solutions, or even uniform understanding.

[seemslikeadream]

not everyone in America lives in your idyllic peaceful town where people can go around carrying their guns ...god a black guy in Walmart can't even be holding a toy gun without getting shot to death ....tell me how does one tell if someone out of a dozen people with open carry guns in a store is a bad guy or good guy ....are they required to wear a sign?

[Wombaticus Rex]

not everyone in America lives in your idyllic peaceful town where people can go around carrying their guns ...god a black guy in Walmart can't even be holding a toy gun without getting shot to death ....tell me how does one tell if someone out of a dozen people with open carry guns in a store is a bad guy or good guy ....are they required to wear a sign?

Is there a point contained here?

You appear to be asking me to answer for the fact that reality is complicated.

Sorry: reality is complicated.

[seemslikeadream]

but you act like everyone lives in this perfect place where no one shoots anyone else..yes it is complicated we all don't live in your peaceful Vermont

[Wombaticus Rex]

but you act like everyone lives in this perfect place where no one shoots anyone else

I don't, at all. In fact, I've explicitly stated that Vermont is far from a perfect place here in this thread several times. People get shot in Vermont, I know a lot of people who've been shot here. (All of them lived, many of 'em regrettably so.)

We're doing a lot better than Baltimore or Detroit, though!

Your point about the Black Panthers is very astute and very relevant to Ferguson and the West Coast / Four Corners white supremacist gun culture of open carrying AR-15's as "exercising second amendment rights." Where do we take that, though? Is the problem guns or systemic racism? Is the problem guns or communities designed to fast track their citizens into the nearest correction center? Is the problem guns or communities being patrolled by LEOs who don't live there and view their jobs as animal control?

How will changing the "guns" parameter change anything else? I understand you're heartbroken by the ongoing warfare in Chicago that kills children every weekend. How would you change Illinois gun laws to prevent a single one of those deaths?

I don't expect you to answer these questions, but that is precisely why I bring them up: nobody has answers.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Well, nobody except Shaun King. I dig this: https://www.change.org/p/president-bara ... misconduct

[seemslikeadream]

but you act like everyone lives in this perfect place where no one shoots anyone else

I don't, at all. In fact, I've explicitly stated that Vermont is far from a perfect place here in this thread several times. People get shot in Vermont, I know a lot of people who've been shot here. (All of them lived, many of 'em regrettably so.)

We're doing a lot better than Baltimore or Detroit, though!

Your point about the Black Panthers is very astute and very relevant to Ferguson and the West Coast / Four Corners white supremacist gun culture of open carrying AR-15's as "exercising second amendment rights." Where do we take that, though? Is the problem guns or systemic racism? Is the problem guns or communities designed to fast track their citizens into the nearest correction center? Is the problem guns or communities being patrolled by LEOs who don't live there and view their jobs as animal control?

How will changing the "guns" parameter change anything else? I understand you're heartbroken by the ongoing warfare in Chicago that kills children every weekend. How would you change Illinois gun laws to prevent a single one of those deaths?

I don't expect you to answer these questions, but that is precisely why I bring them up: nobody has answers.

yes the answer to racism is more guns!...and moving to Vermont

[8bitagent]

I still feel "they" are trying to set up a powder keg race war type thing, knowing how many conservative leaning whites have bought firearms post Obama...and seeing the power of anger over tragedies like Trayvon and Fergusson...
that I still feel they may try and do some sort of lone wolf neo nazi attack to utilize black rage to an LA riot like level and egg on the tea party types to respond. Again a theory, but the theory that the "government wants to take away guns" is ludicrous. if anything I believe the powers that be want to FLOOD America with firearms and pit everyone against eachother and cause chaos.

[seemslikeadream]

I still feel "they" are trying to set up a powder keg race war type thing, knowing how many conservative leaning whites have bought firearms post Obama...and seeing the power of anger over tragedies like Trayvon and Fergusson...
that I still feel they may try and do some sort of lone wolf neo nazi attack to utilize black rage to an LA riot like level and egg on the tea party types to respond. Again a theory, but the theory that the "government wants to take away guns" is ludicrous. if anything I believe the powers that be want to FLOOD America with firearms and pit everyone against eachother and cause chaos.

ABSOLUTELY

Old rich white men want us to have enough guns to kill each other off when things get really bad....they of course will be in their safe rooms

just watch when black men start walking around in public with real rifles ....

[seemslikeadream]

In 30 states, a child can still legally own a rifle or shotgun

[operator kos]

There isn't "another side of the story".

Ok, I'm done here.