Och. Those numbers at the end of their names are so tiny.

This is not the thread to get back into the hunting argument, but I think you're dead wrong Reed.

I know that you think that, but your arguments in the past have not been persuasive.

Anyway, I'm not trying to make a defense of hunting here, just to explain how it fits into all of this. I'm fairly ambivalent about it. I don't have much interest in killing animals for sport, but it is better than factory farmed meat and I don't see any realistic superior alternative to managing wildlife other than shooting a lot of it and allowing managed hunting is a cost effective way of doing that.

And there is absolutely zero chance of banning meat or hunting in this country in my life time. None whatsoever. So the best we can hope for is that it's managed in the most environmentally sustainable way possible.

This is informative.

deadspin.com/5968775/former-espn-outdoor...lshit-theyre-selling

The comments on that deadpsin piece are scary. I only got through 3 before I had to give up.

The dailyKos one that Jimmy posted yesterday is a brilliant piece of sustained ranting.

(PS Come on Reed, "banning meat"? when have I ever called for that? You're just trying to be deliberately provocative now)

Very sorry. I'm not suggesting that's your position, just that, given that we're stuck with meat for the foreseeable future, we need to think about what is the most ethical way to practically obtain it. Is that really arguable?

I put that in there because this mention of hunting made me think of our old discussions on animal rights and then that made me think of Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which happen in a future where killing or even owning an animal is illegal. I really don't know how that contributes, or if it does.


Don't read the comments on Deadspin (or any website) under articles about anything that actually matters. Even the comments on a Mother Jones article on this issue - which is very good, btw - include a fair bit of "owning guns is fundamental to our democracy, blah, blah America, fuck yeah!) Motherfucking Jones!! The trolls are everywhere.

Reed John wrote:

No, but that's never been the place where we've disagreed on hunting.

Anyway, let's get back to prising guns out of the cold dead hands of a bunch of cunts.

I thought that was it. I don't think it's ok to say I'm "dead wrong" and not provide any reasons why you think that. Without context, it's just an insult.

This is worth a read

Reed John wrote:


The 2nd comment essentially says "you need a gun to protect yourself from a government who will try to force healthcare down your neck".

Where do you even start?

That's probably just a troll, but if not, there's a high likelihood that individual will end up - ironically - living off of the taxpayers' generosity in prison someday. I don't know what else to add.

The irony is, of course, that the same people who say they're arming themselves against the government never vote to reduce the size of the military. How do they expect their little "militia" to stand up against a military that spends $20,000 a second?


There is some justification to the idea that we need a check against government power, but the solution isn't to give a gun to every Tom Dick and Harry - which isn't ever going to stop tyranny anyway - but to install political checks and balances and proper civilian control over the military, police, and the National Guard. I believe that is what the framers had in mind with a "well-regulated militia." Unfortunately, the majority of the Supreme Court ignored that part when they decided that the second amendment protects an individual right to own a gun (although they did state that it is not an unlimited right). I don't see how that makes any sense.

The best solution would be, of course, to just repeal the second amendment and remind people that it referred to militias carrying muskets and was written by a bunch of slave owners, many of whom hoped to make money by acquiring real estate in "the Indian Country."

That's a political non-starter, unfortunately.

Nefertiti2 wrote:


That's why I don't want kids.

Are violent tendencies usually so apparent from a young age?
Are there any countries who do mental health "well?"

Reed John wrote:


As someone pointed out on Twitter - no-one stepped in to defend against tyranny when the election was stolen in 2000. We all know why, of course, but it makes the argument particularly hollow.

This cartoon (from 2010) sums it up pretty well: twitter.com/_BrownEyedGirl/status/280238504007585792/photo/1

That's great.

I want to mention the whole urban vs rural debate. Because this has thrown a spanner in the works, of my views on guns.

I have friends who moved in rural southern Indiana, in a part of the state that is heavily wooded and because glaciation never happened there, full of hills and a massive state Forest. Unlike the rest of the Midwest, anyway, it looks like Maine or Vermont.

Anyway, about 2 years ago two disaffected drug addled teens, broke into a house and went full "Clockwork Orange" on a couple a few miles away from my friends house. The husband was killed and the womans throat slashed after they had their way with her, but she lived.

Which is why my friends now own firearms, since they can't rely on contacting the police, even then the response rate is in the 20 minute mark. Theres only a few policemen patrolling an area about the size of Rhode Island overnight

So I can definitely see why people in rural areas in the US overwhelmingly "cling" to their guns as Obama would say. They're surrounded my meth heads and pill poppers and no effective way for local law enforcement to patrol everything.

My friends are upper-middle class (One is the towns pharmacist, the other is teacher), suburban bred, shop at farmers markets and organic co-ops, have an espresso machine and love their Mad Men.
But yet they have a glock and a coyote rifle in .223, although it's not an AR...not that it doesn't do basically fire the same round.

Since the husband is a pharmacists, he knows almost exactly how many tweakers there are in that part of the state. Which is a lot, since so many different states are within a few hours drives of each other. They can get around the weekly limit each state has on buying pseudo-ephedrine.

It's basically a mini-Appalachia.

I have no problem with people wanting to protect themselves when they live in areas like radmonkey describes, but when you have a child (like the one in the article Reed linked to) who is a time-bomb waiting to go off, you really should think about the potential repercussion. If you have a child like that, you keep the knives in a Tupperware container, like Michael's mom does--you certainly wouldn't keep guns anywhere that your child could gain access to them.

I have a friend who adopted a child who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. He was violent that way and she told me that she lived in fear of him. Eventually, she and her husband divorced and the son went with the husband. She avoided ever having contact with him because she felt that she was a trigger and that it was best for everyone if she stayed away. He recently passed away (complications of AIDS, as it happens--not because of violence), and while she was sad about it, I could feel her sense of relief that he was no longer in torment (and that everyone around him was now safer).

My nephew is an Aspie, and I've seen flashes of anger from him that have made me feel frightened--not personally, but for the horrible ultimate potential of that anger. I don't think he's ever threatened to kill anyone, but all it takes is one time. I pray that never happens (and am glad that my sister doesn't keep guns).

OK, all you US OTFers, just leave, get over here now and leave the place to the nutjobs

So it looks like the killer's mom got her guns for survivalist reasons "for when the economy collapses." Would be interesting to know when they were purchased, and if it correlated with, oh, say, the election of a certain president.

And you missed one, Bored.

Any word from John Lott yet? Some clown on the Telegraph linked to some article he wrote a couple of years ago, when he did a "look at all these mass shootings in Europe, with their strict gun control".

It wasn't quite so impressive if you took out Finland and Switzerland who don't have very strict controls. Seriously, this guy is the intellectual head of the gun lobby?