Can we please just admit that maybe gun control is a good idea finally?

Both of the officers I knew (and I assume the rest of the officers posted at schools in my district) carried, since they did traffic-related duties with the general public after school hours (there was a neighborhood across from the middle school, so that officer acted as a crossing guard, and the high school officer did traffic stops mostly for teens peeling out of the parking lot after school... idiots).

We had at least one officer on campus much of the time in high school, and I know he carried. No idea how common that is.

It is very common. Since that Zero Tolerance/D.A.R.E. phase we went through as a nation, school administrators have pawned an increasing share of their duties off on police departments and the district attorney's office. Add to that a taskforce here and a special initiative there and the police presence in our high schools, and to a lesser extent elementary schools, becomes tremendous.

That is such a change from when I went to school 20 years ago. We only saw a police officer in school if they were there for some type of presentation.

Yes. In fact, the public school I worked at had integrated police response into something like the 3rd step of dealing with altercations, and this was a no-metal-detectors kind of place initially designed as a magnet school. Basically they terrorize you away from intervening personally based on McDonald's coffee level-understanding of liability, and then they convince the students that this is normal and what they should expect when they act like students being shoved through a penitentiary all day. I guess the concession to its relative safety was that they had a lot of discretion over whether to charge or even remove them from the premises as opposed to other schools where it's automatic.

Huh. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is headquartered in Newtown, CT.

The president of the NSSF's state of the industry address at the NSSF SHOT Show:

Eric, is there a summary for people who don't want to watch a 17-minute speech by a guy they've never heard of?

tl;dr Don't blame gun owners or our guns for the deeds of deranged shooters.

GunsgunsgunsgunsgunsgunsGUNSgunSGUnsGuns
"Guns Don't Kill People. People Kill People"
Guns, when used responsibly, are never bad, therefore guns are always good.
Don't blame good gun owners for the behavior of people who use guns illegally (IE to kill)

America's founding documents were created at a time when the founder's thinking was largely dominated by a schizophrenic relationship with old British institutions. At the same time, they were expecting "The Empire Strikes Back!" to appear on front pages any day soon. So they agreed to make a union of the thirteen colonies, hammered together a working document that basically recognized each colony as a state (country) unto itself, and promise to sort the rest of the shit out later. A lot of shit never got sorted, because some of the states wanted to make England but better; some floated more radical ideas that had cropped up in France; and the lower half wanted to remake Sparta with black people instead of Helots.

Okay. Do you agree with his speech? Do you think it's especially good? Why? Does he say anything unusual or unexpected for the head of a shooting group at this time?

Link dumps don't really do so much for conversation if you don't, like, engage and actually discuss them.

I love Broken Forum! In what other gaming forum can you see people get bitch-slapped in Latin?

Hardly a bitchslap, just a minor correction! Reductio actually has a long and productive history. In bengunn's case he's deploying it dishonestly: "Want to stop all murder? Ban guns and knives and clubs and TVs (someone dropped a TV on someone's head once) and;" in this case it's a fallacy because the initial premise (stop all murder) is wrong. On the other hand, Zeno deployed it quite nicely: I'm going to shoot an arrow at you, but in order for the arrow to get to you it has to get halfway to you, but to get halfway to you it has to get halfway to halfway to you, but to get halfway to halfway to you it has to get halfway to halfway to halfway to you and after a few more iterations we realize that you're never getting shot, no matter how good a shot I am and how still you stand. In this case reductio ad absurdum ends up revealing all sorts of totally awesome properties about the universe. Sadly, bengunn is no Zeno.

Yes for the most part. He was calm and reasonable (compared to other gun right advocates). There was no raising of his voice or cursing the left/progressives/socialists. He promoted safe firearms storage and is against those who misuse their firearms. I was disappointed for the lack of any mention of mandatory gun safety courses, which could (along with proper storage) reduce the number of accidental gun-related deaths.

I linked it because it was an interesting piece of news since the SHOT Show is taking place this week and that the NSSF is headquartered in Newtown, CT.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

The body of that text seems to all concern his thesis about why the wording is "state" and not "country." As opposed to offering a comprehensive alternative to the whole "18th and early 19th century revolutionaries entertained an exaggerated notion of the political value of bourgeois militias," phenomenon which was broader than the US and certainly broader than the South.

http://www.capradio.org/182469 (audio, about 16min 30sec)

This link leads to an interview done by our local public radio station with a University of California, Davis, law professor Carlton Larson about the original meaning and development of the Second Amendment. He goes through it bit by bit "A well regulated militia..." "being necessary to the security of a free state..." the right of the people...." "to bear..." "arms" "shall not be infringed" and also discusses the deleted second part about conscientious objectors (read: Quakers), discussing it in context of the English right to bear arms. One thing I heard for the first time was Geo. Washington's disdain for non-professional militias. Apparently the "Minute Men" were a legend in their own time and in point of fact rarely performed very well.

The professor appears to fall on the "well-regulated militia" side vs the "individual right" side, and dismisses the "resist our own government" argument. It's interesting IMO.

The quotes in that TruthOut thing don't seem to support his thesis at all.

It's like the Democratic version of landing a plane on an aircraft carrier.

Indeed, the militia myth explains the entirety of the second amendment, no further explanation necessary.

As in, the wealthier class protecting itself against an uprising from the less privileged classes?

Yeah, see, the hyper-pro gun-nuts are way ahead of you.

Today Brad Plumer posted a good roundup on the state of research into guns. Click through and read, but for the TL:DR crowd here is a list of questions that we currently do not have answers for, owing to the total lack of research on the topic:

Yes, it's exactly like that. Except it's not in support of an unnecessary war in which hundreds of thousands died. But still close.

You're new here and pretty much all of your posts are in the politics forums. What's more, the majority (of an admittedly small set) are just sort of contentless and not terribly witty snark like the above. For the purposes of my own attention conservation, can you let me know if, going forward, you plan on making substantive contributions and/or at least being witty when you snark, or if it's all going to be more of the same. Thanks!

Yes and remember for Jeffd a 'substantive contribution' can only be one that completely agrees with what he believes.

Yes because God knows I agree with Jethro and Aeon221 all the time.

God you are a fucking idiot.

And? Are either of those things inherent negatives, or against the rules of the forum? Honest question - if not, I'm missing what you're trying to say.

Admittedly, it wasn't a five paragraph sourced opinion piece (though I take issue with the insinuation that I've made zero substantive or serious posts), but snark seems to be the connective tissue in this subforum (as opposed to the other one). In fact, some threads are nothing *but* snark, right? I realize this takes a level of self-awareness that most people don't have, and I lose perspective myself, but generally speaking snark only comes off in a positive way if you agree with the underlying sentiment - otherwise it's grating, juvenile, etc.

I can't really quantify something as subjective as your tolerance for ideas you don't agree with made in a way you obviously find crude. Feel free to ignore me, I guess.

It was pretty fucking stupid considering that it being a Democratic president has nothing to do with it, just as being a Republican had nothing to do with how fucking ridiculous the aircraft carrier stunt was.

You're drawing a parallel to signing executive orders with some kids standing around from a giant MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign on an aircraft carrier and a speech about victory that came less than a month into a decade-long war.

And you quoted yourself. Tacky, dude, tacky.




It's like a Republican version of a Democratic version of an aircraft carrier LOLOLOLOLOLOOLOL

Fuck off.

Basically, having people around when signing shit is tradition. They also use like twenty fucking pens and give them out to people.

The Aircraft Carrier was dumb because it was celebrating far before the actual op was finished. It would have been just as stupid for the WW2 brass to throw a Victory Day party the day after D-Day. We mock the shit out the aircraft carrier because MISSION ACCOMPLISHED is a dumb thing to throw a press event about when we still had years of mission left to accomplish.

They have nothing to do with each other, at all. Obama didn't have a banner behind him saying "VIOLENT CRIME ENDED FOR GOOD" or some shit.

It's a gaming forum that happens to also have a couple politics subforums for the community to discuss those issues in.

As a general rule, people who show up and pretty much only participate in the politics subforums tend to just be at worst trolls or at best just looking to stir up trouble and are usually not particularly interested in an honest debate or arguing in good faith.

So nothing there is against the rules, but it's a definite red flag.

When the fact that you've already started draping yourself in the you're-just-mean-to-me-because-I-disagree-with-you martyrdom blanket gets added in to the mix, it's a giant fucking semaphore convention full of red flags.

ArtificialKid my tastes tend to run toward meaty posts, especially with, you know, thoughts and ideas in them. Snark is plenty fine too, so long as it's at least somewhat clever. Which you haven't been. Hence my question!

Also what nlanza said. The fact that you're not someone I've discussed games or TV or something with, combined with the fact that you're following a pretty common posting pattern definitely doesn't make a good impression.

Call it cynicism but the simplest way to spot a member who's not going to contribute to the community is to tally up his ratio of posts in the politics forum versus every other forum. If you primarily post to talk politics then you're most likely here for the wrong reasons.

It's not against the rules but it sure as hell is a giant warning sign that you're not worth engaging with.

The other sign is having brettmcd like one of your posts.

This, a thousand times this.

ArtificialKid, I want you to take a good, close look at brettmcd's posting history. As hilarious/depressing/terrifying as it may be, it's pretty much spot-on for how you we expect you NOT to act. Content-less posts, passive-aggressive accusations of trolling, constant false equivalencies, etc. etc. I don't think I need to point those things out. Brett's not dumb because he's conservative. He's dumb because he can't be arsed to mount a proper defense of his principals.

If you really want to be taken seriously, stake out your conservative spot and then defend it with intelligence, vigor, and equanimity.


This has been my third post instructing you in the ways of the forum, and as is appropriate, I must now weirdly threaten you. I mean, I'd hate to have to correct you again.

I'll conceed the latter, but the former is absolutely salient, considering both the left's critique of a unitary Executive during the Bush years, as well as then-Senator Obama's specific jabs at executive orders which either flout existing laws or circumvent the legislative process. Put in terms you might better identify with: it's ten pounds of horseshit in a five pound bag.

Both are ludicrous PR stunts and basically appeals to emotion, yes.

A few differences to note in the picture you linked: Bush signing an actual bill into law instead of just screaming YOLO and making a unilateral decision, people from the other side standing behind him because he worked with them.

Is this an example of "witty" snark then? *scribbles furiously on flashcards*

Related snark is totally cool. Dems say some stupid fucking shit. I only get irritated when the joke is basically "lol Obama, am I rite?" while completely missing that "lol Bush" stuff actually had reasons why it was funny/sad/whatever. The Carrier was a giant shining display of the mentality that going to war is a simple military action with no consequences. You blow shit up and get a win screen, DONE DEAL! The whole greeted as liberators bullshit and everything else, all summed up in a very simple picture.

I get annoyed because the link here seems to be "let's laugh at a picture of a president doing a press event" with no actual understanding of what the events are or why they are happening. Is it a bit stupid that gun control is a topic because THINK OF THE CHILDREN? Yes, absolutely, and it's worth an entire discussion about all the shit we shield with THINK OF THE CHILDREN like the sex offender registry and escalating penalties for election purposes. But that doesn't make these EOs bad, nor this debate bad. It makes them unfortunately related to a series of national tragedies, but said tragedies are also the only reason we're able to have this conversation at all.

Executive Orders are not unilateral decisions, they're most of the President's job. He's in charge of the Executive Branch, and Executive Orders instruct the Executive Branch on how to operate within the law. Please to be pointing out which of those EOs establishes new law, or overturns old law.

What you want to address if you want to make a salient point are Signing Statements which are what liberals hated from Bush, and Obama has used as well(and liberals got all bent out of shape about them as well), which IS the Executive altering or selectively ignoring Legislative actions.

But EOs are not alterations of law on their face. They're CEO instructions on the direction to take this year. They are only problematic if they contradict or attempt to establish laws. So please to be pointing out which of Obama's recent EOs do either of those.

But... but.... they were both Presidents! And they were in pictures! I mean, do you need a diagram or something?

By my count you've made it twelve posts before actually offering an idea, as opposed to just noise. But you've finally done it! Ladies and gents, we have signal!

Anyway: Can you identify which of the 23 executive orders the President signed flout existing laws and/or circumvent the legislative process? As opposed to being just run of the mill stuff that falls within the President's purview as head of the executive branch? From what I gathered most of them are pretty uncontroversial stuff. OTOH theories of executive power aren't really one of my areas of interest, so for all I know they do represent some legitimate overreach.