Connecticut school shooting

[Y2HH]

**Hmm. What's Y2HH getting all worked up about? I'll go read the post he's referring to.**

 

/irony

 

I'm not really worked up, just pointing out that when we re-post links to absurd stories on places like Facebook, or other popular social mediums, we often have the opposite effect of what we intended to have. While we want to point out how absurd something is, and hope people ignore that person from that point forward, all we really did was help sensationalize them and their opinions, generate revenue for that person, and help spread their name. I often believe that when people write things so absurd, that's exactly what they wanted.

[StrangeSox]

I'm not really worked up, just pointing out that when we re-post links to absurd stories on places like Facebook, or other popular social mediums, we often have the opposite effect of what we intended to have. While we want to point out how absurd something is, and hope people ignore that person from that point forward, all we really did was help sensationalize them and their opinions, generate revenue for that person, and help spread their name. I often believe that when people write things so absurd, that's exactly what they wanted.

 

On the other hand, Tina Brown was turning Newsweek into trolling link-bait. Even though people still linked to and mocked the articles, the magazine essentially died.

 

edit: I'm also going to push back against the idea that they're trolling. I think Allen and McArdle were trying to offer honest suggestions of what they believe to be good policy. Since their suggestions and analysis were so horrible, they should be dissected for everyone to see just how absurd they are. Dumb ideas presented in major publications need to be addressed, not ignored, lest they fester and spread.

Edited December 20, 2012 by StrangeSox

[LittleHurt05]

I'm not really worked up, just pointing out that when we re-post links to absurd stories on places like Facebook, or other popular social mediums, we often have the opposite effect of what we intended to have. While we want to point out how absurd something is, and hope people ignore that person from that point forward, all we really did was help sensationalize them and their opinions, generate revenue for that person, and help spread their name. I often believe that when people write things so absurd, that's exactly what they wanted.

 

See Bayless, Skip.

[Steve9347]

Really?

 

In a thread about a school shooting you write things like that?

 

Can't we have a little more dignity than actually wishing people harm?

I didn't say that I would harm her.

[MexSoxFan#1]

Well, we all thought it would be hard to top McArdle, but Charlotte Allen is now lapping the field

 

 

*False

**There were not 11 and 12 yo's

***It's K-4

****There are two male teachers on staff

*****There was a male janitor, though I'm not sure why you'd bring a bucket to a gun fight

 

Yeah, adult females are a bunch of feminized weaklings incapable of stopping a man with a gun, but "huskier 12-year-old boys" are known to be impervious to bullets!

 

Y2HH I know what you're saying, but these are people writing for somewhat major publications. Ignoring them won't make them go away. Ridicule and scorn for their terrible ideas might, or at least lets you vent. I'll point out that both Mex and I linked to people mocking them and not the original articles.

While Y2HH's point is valid, I agree with SS, ridicule these people for their idiocy. I purposely didn't post a link to her website, rather to another one to not give her more traffic.

 

[Y2HH]

While Y2HH's point is valid, I agree with SS, ridicule these people for their idiocy. I purposely didn't post a link to her website, rather to another one to not give her more traffic.

 

At least you did it right then!

[Balta1701]

Article from the Post on the "Search for a motive". going to highlight one part of the video game thing since I really don't like how it was written.

In the desperate search for motive where madness has prevailed, the Lanza case is more frustrating than most. For a young man who spent most of his waking hours at a computer, he appears to have left behind an astonishingly small online footprint — no Facebook page, no Twitter account.

 

The Connecticut State Police, assisted by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has poured everything it has into the Newtown shootings investigation, but “we don’t have any smoking gun to say this is why it occurred, at least not yet,” said Lt. J. Paul Vance, a department spokesman. “We are looking at several months before we really have our arms wrapped around this.”

 

Investigators have learned through interviews with friends of Lanza’s mother that he spent his days in the windowless basement of the family’s $600,000, 3,100-square-foot house, sitting in front of a screen, anonymously playing violent video games with people he did not know. Lanza’s devotion to the games, rather than to the people playing them, was so single-minded that, across dozens of online gaming sites, his disappearance after thousands of hours of play has left no ripples, no community of people asking what happened to their former competitor.

Club members said they would gather at one another’s houses to link their laptops and play games at LAN parties, named for the local area network that connected their computers. According to club members, Adam played “Star Craft” and “War Craft III: Reign of Chaos,” in which, as the manufacturer puts it, a dark “shadow has fallen over the world, threatening to extinguish all life — all hope.”

He developed impressive speed and moves on the arcade game “Dance Dance Revolution,” which he would play at a local game store, sometimes drawing a clot of onlookers. But if a stranger tried to join him in what is usually a two-person game, Adam would walk away from the machine and out of the store.

Really, Post? Warcraft 3 and Dance Dance revolution fit under your definition of "Violent video games"?

[StrangeSox]

DDR trains you to be a killer....on the dance floor

[NorthSideSox72]

Wasn't sure what thread to use for this, forgive me if it should have been elsewhere. I haven't been in the Buster in months...

 

Today, the US Senate rejected the background check amendment to the larger gun control bill. The amendment would have expanded background checks to gun shows, online purchases, and other currently exempted venues. It left exceptions for family transactions, and one-off private sales. It also specifically stated that no gun registry could be created.

 

Rejected. Why?

 

The NRA cannot give you a reason. Seriously, try to find it - they give literally no reason for opposing it. 80 to 90% of Americans favor it. It does not restrict ownership to anyone, other than those who might fail a background check, like violent felons. It does not create a registry. It does not effect familial transactions. The opponents are the small minority here, and cannot give you a single reason why they oppose it.

 

Still failed.

 

Now, people here who know my past posts on this topic know, I am opposed to registries. I am opposed to most or all new restrictions on types of guns. I am opposed to most new gun regs. But this, to me, is a no-brainer. No harm is done, and some harm will be prevented. How is this even controversial?

 

Will it solve everything? No one is saying that. Except the NRA's straw man.

 

I am disgusted. As if the Senate shouldn't already be embarrassed for a multitude of reasons, this one really stands out. The cowardly losers who voted against this should be ashamed of themselves.

 

That is all.

 

[Brian]

Embarrassing. All these guys should be voted out, but that won't happen.

[StrangeSox]

Wasn't sure what thread to use for this, forgive me if it should have been elsewhere. I haven't been in the Buster in months...

 

Today, the US Senate rejected the background check amendment to the larger gun control bill. The amendment would have expanded background checks to gun shows, online purchases, and other currently exempted venues. It left exceptions for family transactions, and one-off private sales. It also specifically stated that no gun registry could be created.

 

Rejected. Why?

 

The NRA cannot give you a reason. Seriously, try to find it - they give literally no reason for opposing it. 80 to 90% of Americans favor it. It does not restrict ownership to anyone, other than those who might fail a background check, like violent felons. It does not create a registry. It does not effect familial transactions. The opponents are the small minority here, and cannot give you a single reason why they oppose it.

 

Still failed.

 

Now, people here who know my past posts on this topic know, I am opposed to registries. I am opposed to most or all new restrictions on types of guns. I am opposed to most new gun regs. But this, to me, is a no-brainer. No harm is done, and some harm will be prevented. How is this even controversial?

 

Will it solve everything? No one is saying that. Except the NRA's straw man.

 

I am disgusted. As if the Senate shouldn't already be embarrassed for a multitude of reasons, this one really stands out. The cowardly losers who voted against this should be ashamed of themselves.

 

That is all.

 

Why?

 

Combine the Senate's anti-democratic heavy weighting in favor of rural states with their dumb procedural rules that Reid refused to revise.

[witesoxfan]

Even as very pro-gun, I had no problem with extra regisration. I compare owning and firing a gun to owning and driving a car. 99.9% of people use them properly, but there will be a small percentage who will abuse those powers (and in fact, when considering DUI arrests, more do so with cars). You should still have to go through a lengthy ordeal to get your license and regisration.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well isn't that the spirit of bipartisanship!

Give me a reason why you'd vote against it. Not a reason why it isn't the end-all solution... But an actual reason why it is bad. Just one will do.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Why?

 

Combine the Senate's anti-democratic heavy weighting in favor of rural states with their dumb procedural rules that Reid refused to revise.

Partly. But more so $$$$$$$$$. And also fear.

[Balta1701]

Give me a reason why you'd vote against it. Not a reason why it isn't the end-all solution... But an actual reason why it is bad. Just one will do.

It would have overridden state and local laws regarding transport of guns as well as removing restrictions on gun sales across state lines, both of which would make enforcing restrictions on gun smuggling much more difficult. It'd make selling guns to people who are smuggling them into Chicago legal.

 

(I'd still have voted for cloture, but just remember that...this bill would have made going into Indiana, buying guns on the street corner, and smuggling them into Chicago...legal).

[NorthSideSox72]

It would have overridden state and local laws regarding transport of guns as well as removing restrictions on gun sales across state lines, both of which would make enforcing restrictions on gun smuggling much more difficult. It'd make selling guns to people who are smuggling them into Chicago legal.

 

(I'd still have voted for cloture, but just remember that...this bill would have made going into Indiana, buying guns on the street corner, and smuggling them into Chicago...legal).

From what I have read, that is a different amendment - about interstate sales. Not the same.

 

But even if it was in that same amendment... I thought I was pretty clear in that I'm asking the pro-gun lobby my question. Not anti-gun.

 

[Balta1701]

From what I have read, that is a different amendment - about interstate sales. Not the same.

 

But even if it was in that same amendment... I thought I was pretty clear in that I'm asking the pro-gun lobby my question. Not anti-gun.

No, it was actually part of the compromise bill, not one of the amendments that was brought. Senator Cornyn also brought an amendment that would have allowed concealed carry across state lines (get a concealed carry permit in Tennessee, legal to carry the concealed weapon into New York City), but I don't believe that passed and it wouldn't have mattered since the full bill was filibustered anyway.

 

However, Senator Cornyn supposedly is prepared to push for passage of that amendment as a standalone law in the near future.

[StrangeSox]

People exercising their 1st amendment rights get background checked

 

“Shame on you!” Patricia Maisch and Lori Haas yelled in rapid succession at the 46 senators who had just voted to kill a compromise amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or online. The women were sitting in the gallery with a large group of gun violence victims as the Senate responded to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut by defeating the measure advocates and law enforcement officials consider crucial to keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

 

The pair has first-hand experience with the consequences of the broken system. In 2011, Maisch was hailed as a hero for disarming Tucson shooter Jared Loughner by preventing him from reloading a fresh magazine. Haas’ daughter Emily was shot twice during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and survived, leading her to become a proponent of stronger gun regulations. But on Wednesday afternoon, the two women faced tighter scrutiny for interrupting a Senate proceeding than many individuals seeking to purchase guns.

 

As they left the Senate gallery, a police officer approached and asked them to follow him. The three walked downstairs to a public hallway, where they were peppered with questions: “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “What are your Social Security numbers?” The officer left to run a background check on the women, who were instructed to sit on a bench. Another uniformed officer watched over them, even escorted Haas to the bathroom and told her she couldn’t lock the stall door.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/...ou-at-senators/

[witesoxfan]

Well that's a bit disgusting

[StrangeSox]

this was posted on Mitch Mcconnell's facebook

 

 

wow good joke

[pettie4sox]

Lobbyist are some powerful mofos.

[StrangeSox]

Honestly I think for a lot of them it's legitimate concerns about re-election. They know they'll get hammered from the right back home.

[mr_genius]

Lobbyist are some powerful mofos.

 

legal bribes. it's ruining our government.

[Balta1701]

Honestly I think for a lot of them it's legitimate concerns about re-election. They know they'll get hammered from the right back home.

And the only way this is going to change is if the Democratic party steps up and makes this issue a liability for anyone who opposes background checks.

[StrangeSox]

And the only way this is going to change is if the Democratic party steps up and makes this issue a liability for anyone who opposes background checks.

 

Unless that results in political liabilities for the conservative Democrats.

 

Not that the party shouldn't be doing this, just that it might come at legitimate political costs.