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Post by nighttimer on Feb 28, 2018 23:19:53 GMT -5
Trump had a talk today with some Democrats and Republicans, and boy, did he go off-script. Some things you can only make a vague guess about and some things you can state with 100 percent certainty. Had Barack Obama said what Trump said today, every NRA member would be cleaning their weapons, checking their ammo, and barricading their homes from the ATF agents coming for their guns. Meanwhile Fox News would go on high alert, 24-hour wall-to-wall coverage sounding the alarm with Sean Hannity calling for armed insurrection. Bet that.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 28, 2018 17:22:54 GMT -5
Since we're playing the Hypothetical Game (ugh), let me lay this one on you. Let's pretend The Colline Gate is a physical office and everyone on this board works there. Suddenly, an armed and angry gunman (probably a pissed-off troll who got bannated) bursts through the front door and screams, "I'M GONNA KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!" and the flaring of the nostrils and bloodshot beady eyes are indicators, he's not going to be talked out of it. I'm former military. You gonna place your trust in me that I'm going to go down with guns blazing to spare your lives? I wouldn't take that bet if I were you. I know one thing, I sure as hell wouldn't hide behind nighttimer. If I did, I think he would duck. Fixed that for ya. I don't know if Petersen is cowardly, or if he made a rational assessment that entering without knowing where the shooter was might just put more kids in the line of fire. Or, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak - he froze in that instant, in the way no one can know they will or won't until they are in that situation. So I agree, scapegoating him is not productive. I agree. It's certainly possible that he "froze." I disagree with this, however. His "job" was not to take out heavily armed gunmen in a gunfight. It was, however, to protect the students. Then by your own words we should be in agreement Peterson failed. EPIC. FAIL.Unless you know a way to spin this into a secret success? By the way, his name is Scot ( one "t") Peterson ( not "Petersen). Sweat the little details, m'kay? Oh, NOW I get it. Peterson was like this guy: Yes, I know you fail to see how Peterson failed, but it's certainly not because no one has explained why he failed. That is an all-around failure on both your parts, but perhaps someone who was affected by Peterson's failing can help you out. Maybe you can look Mr. Guttenberg in the eye and explain to him he's a bad dude for stigmatizing Peterson. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to hear it.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 28, 2018 13:42:21 GMT -5
I'm not a fan of someone telling a teacher they have to be armed, have to get into a shootout. But there is a question that can be explored in terms of allowing it. I wouldn't want my 7th grade teacher, who could have gotten a gun permit like anyone else, bringing one to school as she would have been tempted to blow us all away if she didn't think we were praying hard enough. (I still have nightmares of when she outed me to the class that I was seeing a counselor.)
But what if a teacher was former military. I had a teacher who was once. Of course, he had trouble keeping control of the class so bad he was replaced so maybe he's not the best example. But someone who is trained. (In otherwords, not just someone with a permit). Would you be against them having the gun in school?
I don't think that's a solution, but it's a tidbit to think about.
Since we're playing the Hypothetical Game (ugh), let me lay this one on you. Let's pretend The Colline Gate is a physical office and everyone on this board works there. Suddenly, an armed and angry gunman (probably a pissed-off troll who got bannated) bursts through the front door and screams, "I'M GONNA KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!" and the flaring of the nostrils and bloodshot beady eyes are indicators, he's not going to be talked out of it. I'm former military. You gonna place your trust in me that I'm going to go down with guns blazing to spare your lives? I wouldn't take that bet if I were you.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 28, 2018 13:32:27 GMT -5
If one of the arguments about that cop going in with "guns blazing" is that he would have no idea what he was running into, then that is perhaps an argument for arming some teachers. They were already inside, knew what was happening, and could have had access to shooter. I'm not saying it's a good idea at this point, because I haven't thought about it enough, but we've got to be creative here. I'm sure there are teachers who are ex-military who could at least be a more reasonable starting point for this sort of thing. Let me get this straight. In this situation we have trained and armed law enforcement officers. We have a shooter who is shooting people. We have untrained and unarmed teachers and coaches. And your solution is for the teachers who are ex-military to get strapped, shoot the shooter while the cops chill out with a cup of java and a glazed doughnut? Where do you work, celawson? Do you have security personnel? Are they armed? Who do you trust most to be able to handle themselves if there are gunshots and screams in the hallway and coming closer? What's the protocol for an active aggressor attack? Run and hide? Duck and cover? Aim and shoot? Thoughts and prayers? The mind reels at the mere thought that the best solution conservatives can offer to shooting sprees is more guns. As if there aren't enough guns already. So here we go again. I would have to say that's not true, since several schools are doing this already, with the blessings of parents and students. Maybe some teachers would like the idea of a chance at defending THEMSELVES, too, against an armed shooter. Maybe some schools are too far away from law enforcement for a decent response time. Obviously, taking away AR-15s won't stop all future school shootings, so this needs to be attacked from different angles. Again, I'm not saying let's do this, I'm just trying to have a 'thoughtful political discussion' about it. In terms of the battlefield scenario - that's already present when someone is shooting up a school, is it not? So let's make schools armed encampments. Yeah, nothing can go wrong with that. President Pussygrabber is wild about the ideas of teachers squaring off with kill-crazed kids. ....History shows that a school shooting lasts, on average, 3 minutes. It takes police & first responders approximately 5 to 8 minutes to get to site of crime. Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT! — Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) February 22, 2018
There's a big problem with that...If a school can't get insurance to protect them from liability when 75-year-old Miss Jones pulls out her glock to stop Killer Kenny and misses and takes out Sweet Sally, who's gonna pick up the tab? Not Trump and the Republicans, so that leaves the schools and the school board and the tax-paying citizens on the hook for Miss Jones' shitty aim. Then there's the problem of how much danger Black and Latino students might be in around armed teachers. Finally, I can speak from personal experience here as the father of a daughter pursuing her degree in Early Childhood Education. She has zero interest in adding firearms training classes to her coursework. Going out on a limb here, but I'll hazard a guess most teachers would agree with my daughter. Arming teachers is a stupid idea. It's a moronic suggestion made by the Head Moron in the White Moron House. More than that, it's a diversion. It's a cop out for gutless wonders like Little Marco Rubio who don't want to actually DO anything about shooting sprees, but will gladly punt the problem to the teachers and say, " Hey, nobody's come into Congress shooting up OUR place. Here's some guns so you can defend yours. Good luck. Bye!" This is going to happen again and more kids and more teachers are going to die. It's only a question of when. More guns are not the solution. Less guns are, but nobody's got the balls to try that.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 28, 2018 11:10:37 GMT -5
I think that "Trump stops mugger" story is both suspect and irrelevant. But I also think that calling Petersen "cowardly" because he didn't rush in like a cowboy is unfair. If he had rushed in and opened fire on the shooter, then maybe killed another kid, the same people criticizing him now--and that includes Trump--would be all over him for not following proper procedures and waiting for backup. Using someone as a scapegoat in this manner doesn't demonstrate compassion for the real victims--the kids--at all, imo. It comes across as a petty attempt at self-aggrandizement, whether it'c coming from Trump, the Broward County sheriff, or anyone else. I really don't care what's "unfair" to Peterson and I really don't care if in your opinion the absence of any compassion for him means there is none for the real victims. I've made my case that Peterson froze and people died because of it. "Rushing in like a cowboy" is an off-base exaggeration to defend his non-response. Going in like a police officer is what he didn't do and if that doesn't make him a coward, it certainly means he didn't do his job. Your "IF" Peterson had rushed in and opened fire has another way to spin it. "IF" Peterson had rushed in and opened fire, then maybe he would have killed Cruz before he killed another kid and the same people who are criticizing now---and that includes Trump (and me)--would be celebrating him as a hero for not following proper procedures, waiting for backup and saving lives. The way this guy did.Sometimes you gotta go with your gut and not "the book" because it simply isn't going to cover or work in all situations. When a trained, armed police officer doesn't engage an active shooter, he or she may have their reasons and damn good ones why they didn't, but you and all the other attendees to the Peterson Pity Party are going to have to come up with a much better reason why he stood by and did nothing while kids were dying. Not for me. For those they left behind. The thing is, if we were to go back in time and ban this particular weapon, and assume the shooter didn't get it illegally, he'd still have had the ability to get a gun. Even a hand gun. If he walked in there with a glock, maybe 2 so when he's out of ammo instead of replacing the clip he just pulls another one ala The Matrix, wouldn't the same thing have happened? You can only blame so much on the weapon. You can blame quite a bit on this weapon. You can blame 173 dead people on this weapon. Perhaps you can find a good reason for military-style weaponry in the hands of civilians, Vince. You got one?
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 28, 2018 9:26:30 GMT -5
Obviously, none of us know how we'd respond in such a situation as the armed cop found himself in until we're actually in one. NPR actually had a fascinating piece recently analyzing what makes someone act heroic in these situations. I will see if I can find the link. And I do feel for the guard who waited outside. (obviously not more than I feel for the victims or their friends and families) He's got to be plagued with guilt, and with the piling on of social media, who knows, he could be driven to something drastic like suicide. Who knows? Who cares? While you're weeping big-ass buckets of tears for this cowardly ex-cop, have you ever stopped to think there may be some parents or children or wives who might also be contemplating suicide due to one-two punch of the actual tragedy followed by the dogpiling of right-wing media dismissing them as liberal dupes and conspiracy theory whack jobs calling them up and screaming their dead kids are "crisis actors?" Cool story. Don't mean shit. A man who won't give or share the umbrella with his wife or kid is too selfish to run waddle into a school under siege to rescue strangers.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 27, 2018 22:06:05 GMT -5
It is terrifying to face that down, but for the love of Christ, there were kid being slaughtered in there and this was the job you signed up for. There's training and tactics. The cops on scene weren't there to be human shields or to die, but you go in, you don't stay outside and tremble while children who are your responsibility to protect are dying. Do you (go in)? I wasn't there. I don't know that Petersen should have gone in. It's a big fucking school (over 3000 students). Does he rush in the nearest door, run around helter skelter, accomplish nothing, then find out the shooter exited as he went in and shot people outside the school? If kids are coming out of the school, does he take any time to make sure they head to safety? Are some injured kids emerging or getting injured in the rush to escape and does he check on them? He's one guy. He's not a SWAT team. Pillorying this guy for not playing lone ranger is ugly stuff, imo. He's not to blame for what happened here and the fact that people are jumping on him is one of the many, many things--related to the tragedy--that currently disgusts me. Be disgusted then. What Scot Peterson is going through is nothing-- absolutely NOTHING---compared to the families of the 17 victims of the shooting. Here's some real "ugly stuff" for ya. Being an unarmed geometry teacher like Scott Beigel killed when he attempted to usher kids back into the classroom. Being an unarmed assistant football coach like Aaron Feis who threw his body in front of students to save their lives, but lost his own. Being 15-year-old Peter Wang who could have fled, but stayed and held the door open so others could escape. He did not. That's some real "ugly stuff." Peterson was the school's resource officer. It was his fucking job to protect those students and those teachers and coaches and yes, if push came to shove, give up his life to save theirs. If you don't like the work, don't cash the checks, so goa ahead and roll up the excuses for this coward of a cop anyway you wanna, robeiae. The song remains the same: He failed. Totally, grossly, completely and horribly. Yeah, he was one guy. One armed guy. Something nobody inside the school was except the gunman. So go ahead and throw a pity party for the poor bastard. My sympathy is for the dead heroes and the victims, not for a cop who is hiding behind statements from his mouthpiece because he's still too goddamned gutless to come out and confess that he froze, he chickened out or flat-out fucked up. A man such as Ex-Officer Peterson is unworthy of my sympathy and not really much of a man at all. I wish him a most humiliating and unpleasant future. He brought it all on himself. Unlike the loved ones of Beigel, Feis, Wang and 14 others who will be asking themselves for a very long time, "Could Peterson have saved any of them?" He is being crucified based on optics, nothing else. Anyone with any tactical training knows the last thing you do is rush in guns blazing when you don't know what the hell is going on. Sure, there are shots being fired....by how many gunmen? One? Two? A dozen? Do they have hostages? Explosives? Where are they located? Charging in like Rambo (Thank you Hollywood derangement) only ends up with more people dead. The only real options he had (unless he had eyes on a shooter) were to reconnoiter the situation to advise the backup that arrives or, again if he has eyes on students, exfiltrate said students and ensure their safety. Kinda came up a bit short on that last part, wouldn't you say? Looks better than the optics of being a live coward.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 27, 2018 10:24:29 GMT -5
Trump is full of shit. He would have run in the opposite direction of a gunfight. And I'll wager that's what a good percentage of the population would have done, which--in my book--doesn't make them all cowards. Self preservation is a valid choice. One could of course argue that someone like a security guard/police officer has an express duty to not run the other way, and I think that's fair. But the shit this one guy--Petersen--is catching is total bullshit, imo. He's not to blame for what happened. It's not his fault. And to be fair, the person who started this particular shit storm is the Broward County sheriff, one Scott Israel, who immediately tossed Petersen under the bus to--imo--cover up his department's very clear past failures. Israel is a Dem (unsurprising in Broward County) and is catching heat from Repubs in Florida while Dems protect him. Imo, this is a huge "teachable moment." Trump and Israel are both saying the same sort of bullshit (Israel said it was Petersen's duty to go into the school and kill the shooter), yet political affiliation--for most elected leaders--seems to control the response. No, it's not about the political affiliation. It's about ass-covering and Sheriff Israel trying to cover his and his deputies by throwing one to the wolves. Which is understandable. Ass-covering is an honored and age-old practice. It's also about Donald Trump insisting he'd be braver than armed and trained law enforcement professionals and would attack a crazed gunman with nothing but his bare hands. Which is a foul, steaming pile. There is nothing in Trump's history and likely his DNA that points to performing selfless acts of personal courage. This does not make Trump a coward, but he can't abide not being seen as the hero. Not everyone runs from the sound of guns. Cops do it. Soldiers do it. But they have to be taught how to do it so that they do it the right way. Do it the wrong way and the wrong people can end up dead. Donald Trump would not have run waddled toward the sound of guns. He would have locked the door, hid in a closet or wedged his ass under a table until the hard men came to get him out. I don't fault Trump for being a coward. I fault him for being a braggart and a fool. Even when a situation has nothing to do with him, he can't resist in insinuating himself into the situation. " Well, if I had been there, I would have done so-and-so." It's real easy to be brave and ballsy when its not happening to you. Peterson resigned. He should have. Israel hasn't resigned or been fired. He should be. Trump should be showing moral leadership and helping to guide the country through yet another bloody trauma. He hasn't. He should resign too or be fired in 2020.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 26, 2018 21:01:48 GMT -5
Oh, will you please, please please STFU and stop talking!Let's take a moment and paint that picture. A fat, flabby, 71-year-old man with no muscle tone who claims bone spurs kept him out of serving his country during the Vietnam War claims he'd run waddle unarmed into a killzone and neutralize an angry and agitated 18-year-old gunman? If Trump really wanted to be helpful, he'd lead the fight to get assault weapons off the street and out of the hands of dipshits like Nickolas Cruz. But he won't because denying killers the weapons they need to commit mass murder is not how you make America great again.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 26, 2018 19:20:55 GMT -5
I'm getting tired of the hyperbole in some of the above posts. Nothing? Good Lord, yes it's low, but there must be millions of things lower. Yeah, but we're not discussing those things right now, are we? There's lower things to be sure. Kiddie porn, gang rape, the Bataan Death March, and the lynching of Emmet Till all score pretty low with me personally, but that's not what went down in Parkland, Florida. Just another case of mass murder, so if you really want to pitch a fit about those million of other things lower than a bunch of right-wing cowards, idiots, and hate-filled assholes attacking, smearing and mocking teenagers who watched their classmates get shot down like deer, I have three words of advice for you, celawson: START A THREAD. Marco Rubio is a gutless little turd who got his ass handed to him first by Donald Trump and then Chris Christie. Rubio is America's Leading Invertebrate U.S. Senator. Snails, squids, jellyfish, worms and Little Marco are all part of the same spineless species. Rubio got his ass handed to again at the CNN Town Hall by Cameron Kasky and he richly deserved the humiliation. The kids don't have to have the answers. It's important that they have the questions. Questions like why didn't the adults DO something after Virginia Tech and after Columbine and after Sandy Hook and after Orlando and after Las Vegas and in the case of Little Marco it's because the NRA gave him $3,303,355 reasons to DO nothing. As far as, " We all thought we could solve the world's problems when we were teens. Reality hits when we grow a little older and wiser and know more" that's such a crock. The reality is when we get a little older we get a lot more cautious and afraid to solve the world's problems as adults. We just ignore them and hope those problems keep happening to somebody else and don't personally touch us. If our generation had done its job this generation wouldn't be giving us shit for it. We didn't and those kids you're dismissing as being too young to know what's good for them shouldn't make the same mistake. They may not be old enough to drink, but they do know they're not too young to demand to know why slithering little chickenshits like Rubio care more about the NRA's blood money than their lives. Reality doesn't kick in simply because you have grown older. Trump is 71 years old and he's a damn fool. Growing up doesn't mean you've become wise. It only means you haven't died yet. Maybe because nobody's hunted you down with an AR-15. The Who said it a long time ago. The kids are alright. It's the adults who are fucked. Wow. If False Equivalency were an Olympic event, you'd win a gold medal. You seem to have forgotten something, celawson and that's despite the Republicans attempt to make it illegal, abortion is legal. Does Planned Parenthood enable abortion? Sure. Just as the NRA enables murder, which is decidedly illegal. Then there's fun fact about the NRA: Fake news? Nah. Cold as a corpse fact.The NRA gives virtually nothing to Democrats while lavishing thousands and millions upon individual members of Congress and they are getting their money's worth. Their mealy-mouthed "thoughts and prayers" and all talk no action in reaction to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is the evidence of it.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 25, 2018 23:55:04 GMT -5
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 25, 2018 17:41:08 GMT -5
Venting anger doesn't solve problems. Says you. When people cry and moan and groan, they don't change anything. They just sit there soaked in a puddle of tears. It's not until they get mad as hell at the inequities of the world that they get off their asses to change it. Being quiet and passive doesn't solve problems either. Who said anything about working with the NRA? Sitting down with the NRA to work out a deal on gun control would be as productive as sitting down with the KKK to end segregation. The NRA doesn't want solutions. They want guns and that's all they want. Why waste time trying to negotiate with someone who has decided there's nothing to be negotiated? As far as including every gun owner who happens to be an NRA member ( and most gun owners are not NRA members) in the responsibility for the deaths of children, that's certainly a possibility. What about it? The NRA hasn't killed a single person. Not directly. Indirectly, the NRA kills thousands every year. This is not to give a pass to the FBI which royally fucked up and President Pussygrabber has not fired anyone for doing so or directed the Justice Department to launch an investigation into why they fucked up. This is not to give a pass to local cops who royally fucked up. They deserve to be rebuked and scorned for their fucking up. And so does the NRA for making it so easy for 18-year-old killers to kill. Demonize. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Your suggestion the NRA would be more forthcoming and willing to work with gun control advocates if only they were nicer is naive and banal. The NRA isn't demonized. It's demonstrated itself to be a fringe and extremist organization which foisters extremist, fringe fears of evil government agents confiscating the guns of the citizenry to leave them helpless in the face of a socialistic takeover. It's utter horseshit, but for the paranoid, the fearful and the extremist fringe, they feed on the horseshit as if it were fine cuisine. Sure. Include everyone. Let's hug it out, hold hands and talk this thing out. Some real Kumbaya shit. That's worked so far, right? The NRA believes school shootings are acceptable as does anyone who suggests the solution to gun violence in schools is to arm teachers and hope like hell they don't kill themselves or students while shooting it out with a spree killer. It is a logical fallacy that the NRA and gun control groups want the same thing. They don't and they never have. There's a certain insanity to even suggest the wolves and the lambs need to work their problems out together. It presumes they're both acting out of a similar set of interests and they're really not. Oh, and the NRA? They're a little dicey on the whole race thang too. Sooooo, the NRA is not exactly populated with paragons of racial progress. Martin Luther King never attempted to have a conversation to include George Wallace, Lester Maddox, or Bull Connor. Probably because he recognized it would only be a complete waste of everyone's time to even try. Same thing here. Why should I want to sit down with a racist prick like Ted Nugent or a vile troll like Dana Loesch who smears the media with talk about crying Black mothers in Chicago and what has the NRA done about gun crime in Chicago? Not a damn thing. There's nothing to discuss with anyone who exploits the deaths of Black people to further their own political agenda.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 25, 2018 0:33:49 GMT -5
Gun control or not, I still hold the problem is more cultural than anything. Deaths by knife outnumber deaths by rifle by almost 5-1. Bottom line is Americans seem to love killing each other for some reason. Actually, the bottom line is you didn't provide a link to your "deaths-by-knife-outnumber-deaths-by-rifle-almost-five-to-one." That's both disingenuous and lazy. The bottom line is this thread is not about deaths by knives vs deaths by rifles and I should know. We're talking about mass shootings in the United States of Gun Crazy America. What you don't want to talk about are solutions. What you do want to talk about is you and Don don't have any but insist any other one is bad. The bottom line is Stephen Paddock can't carry off the deadliest shooting spree in this country's blood-drenched history where 58 people are killed and 851 wounded with 422 by gunshot without an AR-15. The biggest knife in the world can't kill like that. The bottom line is as Chris Rock quipped recently over the specious "knives-kill-more-than-guns" argument, "If 100 people ever got stabbed at the same time, in the same place, by the same person, you know what that would mean? Ninety-seven people deserve to die." A knife-wielding running man might be able to stab 100 people. An AR-15 wielding man can walk and kill them all. The problem, once again, is that everyone is shouting. One side demonizes the NRA, pro 2nd amendment folks, people who think the government doesn't enforce it's existing laws and just wants to play to a base and see itself doing something. The other side, calling kids who have been traumatized whiney for speaking their minds, (Ironically, people who would defend freedom of speech)saying they're just being used and a gullible little kids. Nobody wants to talk. The more you paint one side out to be heartless, the less that side is going to listen. That's basic. Also, why not talk about the fact that the government failed in every aspect in it's responsibilities here. The police went to this guys home 39 times. The FBI was called on him. Yet they did nothing. Also the armed school guard did nothing while these kids were being slaughtered. One of them, a 15 year old, shielded his classmates with his body. www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587496899/army-awards-medal-for-heroism-to-3-jrotc-cadets-killed-in-florida-shootingI feel like nobody want to talk about that. (Which, by the way, should derail the idea that arming teachers is a solution.) I've seen a lot of people on Twitter using the hashtag #BoycottNRA Really? Are a bunch of people in the NRA doing that? Or a bunch of people who hate guns talking about it. I'm emotional about this myself. I've got kids in college, 1 in high school, one in middle school. It terrifies me that they could be next. But I want workable solutions, not a lot of anger being vented. People should be angry and they should be allowed to vent it. Hell, if I were one of those Parkland parents I'd be asking why the hell shouldn't I be angry and why the hell aren't you? The National Rifle Association should be demonized. They're doing the devil's work in Making America Safe Again for Spree Killers. It's not dogging out the NRA to suggest they've sure done a lot to make it easy for fuckwits like Nick Cruz to get his dirty mitts on some serious artillery. It's false to suggest the NRA and the Parkland school shooting survivors occupy equal amounts of the moral high ground. Until a week ago, not one of those kids were thinking about the NRA. They were thinking about grades, crushes, the next party, and how soon will they get laid. The NRA made it easy for a sick little wank rag to kill. They deserve to be blamed for that since the NRA loves to brag about how they are protecting freedom by offering up the lives of innocents to feed the 2nd Amendment's vampiric thirst for yet more blood and sacrifice. Wayne LaPierre, Dana Loesch, and Ted Nugent can all go to hell and so can everyone else in the NRA who insists their divine right to possess as many guns as they should ever want is more essential to America's continued greatness than a child's right to simply live. Any country which places a higher value on a fucking gun than a human being's life isn't worthy of being considered a good, moral or great country. It is a nation of gangsters, thugs, and businessmen and should be scorned as nothing but a pit of greed, depravity and supreme selfishness.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 22, 2018 13:21:27 GMT -5
Oh, FFS. If Eric Garner had been a well-dressed white guy selling loosies on Fifth Avenue he would have never been hassled, let alone killed. The point was about selective law enforcement. If you choose not to see that, it's on you. But Eric Garner wasn't a well-dressed White guy selling loosies on Fifth Avenue was he? He was 6'2" and 300 lbs of big scary Black man and he was hassled and he was killed. You like your hypotheticals and mixed-up metaphors Garner's miserable fate doesn't have a fucking thing to do with Parkland or Columbine or Sandy Hook or any other school shooting, but they're all merely cannon fodder for your tiresome anti-governmental zealotry. If your point was about selective law enforcement, you made it poorly by farting out a total non sequitur. You also dragged a dead man into a discussion despite it having no correlation. You don't see that because you choose not to see that and that's ALL on you. I get what Don is saying. We have laws to deal with what happened here and the FBI seems to have failed. So we should address that. If we can't, then new laws are just being added to be seen as 'doing something' which doesn't usually end well. However, we've had enough of these where we should be able to have a discussion about what new laws or regulations can prevent this from happening. Or give more tools to combat it. They won't do any good if they're not enforced, but we can have that conversation. Eric Garner's death seems like a reach here, since he wasn't shot, and his death was at the hands of police. It's just unrelated to this. So while I get what Don was saying, I don't think Mr. Garner's death was the best way of saying it. It's not a reach. It's an irrelevance and a damned offensive one.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 22, 2018 7:44:37 GMT -5
Sorry, Don, can't agree. I know gun folks like their toys but enough is fucking enough. We don't need to fix everything in the world before considering if maybe, just maybe, it should be wee bit harder for civilians to lay hands on military weapons. Do you suppose these new laws will be applied as rigorously in the gated communities as in the inner cities? Do you suppose they will be applied with the same regard for the rights of innocents in the inner cities as in the gated communities? Or will they lead to more no-knock raids and more Eric Garners? If a car is rusting, spraying more paint over the rust won't help. You've got to deal with the rust first. When Eric Garner was killed by the NYPD in 2014, he was on the receiving end of a police-administered illegal chokehold, not a bullet fired from an AR-15.Bit of a difference between an act of police brutality and a vicious plot to slaughter schoolkids and teachers. If a comparison has nothing to do with the topic, it's probably a useless tangent. Don't drag Mr. Garner's murdered Black body into a pointless aside about your loathing for new gun laws. It's tasteless and its exploitative.
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