Often when people say something like “They make no sense to me”, what they really mean is that they disagree vehemently with someone (and often regarding underlying assumptions), rather than they are being inconsistent or nonsensical. But the recent San Bernardino shooting is making the right’s head all explodey.
Here’s the first thing I really don’t get. The usual ammosexual argument whenever a mass shooting occurs is that they person doing it was bonkers. Crazy people are gonna crazy. Not much you can do. But these shooters seem to be terrorist-influenced (it’s unclear if they were acting in a coordinated manner, or independently inspired). In other words, we make it very easy for terrorists to buy guns. How this is a compelling argument against gun control escapes me.
But this is the part that will really blow their minds–though it should be important to everyone (boldface mine):
One of the assailants, Tashfeen Malik, pledged allegiance to an Islamic State leader in a Facebook posting, officials said.
And her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, had contact with people from at least two terrorist organizations overseas, including the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria, a federal law enforcement official said.
It’s worth noting that a lot of conservatives and neo-cons, as well as our highly incompetent national security complex, supported arming Nursa to combat ISIL. So now our brilliant strategy of arming other violent religious groups to fight a particular violent religious group, ISIL, seems to have backfired.
This of course is a completely unique situation and was utterly unpredictable (Al-Queda [cough] [cough]).
It should blow the cons and neo-cons minds, but I’m betting they’ll just shut down at “Islam” and fail to think of anything else but bombing and hysteria.
Meanwhile, Colo Spgs has arraigned is self-radicalized religious terror… I mean lone-wolf who’s motive we can’t possibly know shooter for killing three and wounding 11.
> How this is a compelling argument against gun control escapes me.
As it’s been explained to me, when everybody packs heat then the good guys put down the bad guys. The good guys win the war of attrition. The ends justify the means.
I’ve heard a variation on this argument made in favor of arming teachers. Eventually the bad guys lose enough shootouts that they stop bothering with schools. My most recent counterargument to arming teachers is “Think of the teachers you know and have known. How many of them can you imagine them shooting a heavily-armed psychopath to death in order to defend their classroom? Does that seem plausible to you? Do you really believe that Ms. Frizzle has the skill or could be adequately trained to put a cap in his ass?” My thought being that when “Be civilized.” isn’t an effective argument then perhaps suggesting that competence with firearms matters would cause a light to go on. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to have any more traction than “Be civilized.” Their logic, such as it is, resides in the medulla.
Given the (somewhat distorted) 10,000 hours to become an ‘expert’ mantra, it probably would not take more than 2000 hours to make a teacher proficient enough to have a, if you will forgive the term, fighting chance against a mad attacker bursting into their classroom.
So let’s pull every teacher in the USA out of class for a year or so for weapons and combat training. Sound like a great idea to me. If nothing else, an armed, combat-trained teacher should do wonders for class discipline.
It might make some principals and superintendents a bit nervous though..
That would be the same Nusra that John McCain met with, considered confidants, and wanted us to arm?
I brought up the Texas state rep who was scared that Syrian refugees settling in Texas would be able to buy guns after receiving their federally issued ID, and therefore TERRIST! to a buddy of mine and he agreed that “something should be done” about preventing a TERRIST! from getting a gun, largely ignoring the fact that the rep is scared precisely because Texas has such lax gun laws to begin with. The idea that one would look at one’s own state laws, find a glaring problem, and only address the portion that continues to empower the predominantly white demographic was completely lost on him.
I always thought the scary thing about people who advocate concealed carry is that they want to shoot people.
Here’s how I have seen it, and argued with gun *ahem* enthusiasts.
Gun Guy: if lots of people carried a concealed weapon, nobody would know who had one, and attacks from criminals would be less likely.
Ok, let’s look at this. this assumes that the only time anyone ever uses a gun is when they make a rational decision to do it. No.
People get drunk. They get stupid. They get angry. What you really have is lots of dumb arguments that are far more likely to end in a dead person.
I note that I have never, ever heard the NRA or anyone else be willing to back up a law that says your gun license is invalid for X number of days if you’re found with a BAC level over 0.10 with a gun nearby. I do that in NYC in my car and I go to jail. Do it more than a couple of times and I never drive again. Yet nobody raises constitutional questions of the right to free movement between states.
The other thing is more serious. Guns will not make you a superhero. A lot of this is based on a comic-book understanding of crime and how and where it happens, and to whom. “Ah, little did you know, evil mugger, that I had a gun!” Um, right.
Cops carry weapons openly for a reason. By the logic of gun nuts every cop should be undercover, then crime would end.
My issue is that the only reason to carry a weapon without letting everyone else know (and thus deterring attack) is that you want really badly to surprise someone. You want to shoot. Because that’s the only reason one would hide the fact that one is deadly. It’s an aggressive stance by definition.
Look, if you want a gun so bad, fine. Be willing to pass the US military’s minimum requirements for that type of weapon. We don’t let just anyone buy a car and we have different license classifications for trucks, buses, school buses and cars. But the NRA has resisted all of that.
So I am convinced that they really, really want to kill people. They’re desperate to do it. That scares me.