Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

Baby steps, baby steps . . .

Customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA. As a result, First National Bank of Omaha will not renew its contract with the National Rifle Association to issue the NRA Visa Card.

— First National Bank (@FNBOmaha) February 22, 2018

kevin sorry, i see now that i misread your post. i saw m@tt's post and agree with it btw! but i do think there is something about individual responsibility here that is worth thinking through. drivers are held individually responsible for their actions on the road. but they're not allowed to drive a formula 1 car on the interstate. there is a cut-off point at which we as a society feel comfortable in saying, it is simply impossible for any person (x) to handle (y) responsibility in a way that doesn't endanger others. you want to drive an F1 car on a racetrack after passing a certain license regime? fine. you want to shoot an uzi in a controlled environment after passing a battery of tests? fine. but it is on YOU to achieve that level of responsibility. it's on US as a society to draw those lines. which are fairly uncontroversial when it comes to almost any other form of death-dealing machine i.e. cars, heavy equipment etc

an "NRA Visa Card"? Really, that exists? It's so far beyond parody.

Baby steps indeed though.

how can you be against gun control because it restricts our FREEDOM but be in favor of involuntarily committing to a mental hospital anyone who a cop/doc/whomever deems a threat or w/e

kevin sorry, i see now that i misread your post. i saw m@tt's post and agree with it btw! but i do think there is something about individual responsibility here that is worth thinking through. drivers are held individually responsible for their actions on the road. but they're not allowed to drive a formula 1 car on the interstate. there is a cut-off point at which we as a society feel comfortable in saying, it is simply impossible for any person (x) to handle (y) responsibility in a way that doesn't endanger others. you want to drive an F1 car on a racetrack after passing a certain license regime? fine. you want to shoot an uzi in a controlled environment after passing a battery of tests? fine. but it is on YOU to achieve that level of responsibility. it's on US as a society to draw those lines. which are fairly uncontroversial when it comes to almost any other form of death-dealing machine i.e. cars, heavy equipment etc

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, February 22, 2018 3:55 PM (nine minutes ago)

sure, this is something for society to wrestle with, and I would of course argue the bar should be set very high (if we grant the right to own and use firearms at all). this is essentially what the discussions about gun control measures is all about

my larger point was that, given that the rules governing gun ownership are currently a joke, it is not much use to talk about the personal responsibility of individual mass murderers, when clearly the failing is on the part of society for allowing access to guns in the first place. excessive focus on the failings of individual mass murderers also, imo, plays into the hands of gun nuts (who want the discussion to be about bad apples rather than the guns themselves), and, in the very common event that the mass murderer turns out to be mentally ill, pointless

the way i have been framing that in pointless facebork arguments lately is that the gun right itself entails responsibilities, of members of society to one another, and it seems like especially those who are concerned to exercise the right shoulder more of a burden to see that the common good is served by our recognition and exercise of a right when that right burdens or creates a risk for others who do not care to exercise it (or cannot, in the case of children).

similarly, legalized alcohol doesn't just enable individual people to drink and saddle them with individual responsibilities not to drink in certain ways; it creates a whole web of obligations about how we do many other things, incumbent upon non-drinkers and drinkers even when not drinking.

this is all elementary but rights talk is construed in an especially insidiously individualistic way in discussions like this, and it needs an appropriate antidote framed in terms of the social good served by the recognition of rights.

But the courts or Constitution have recognized no right, fundamental or otherwise, to purchase or consume alcohol whereas SCOTUS has for possessing (with exceptions) firearms.

which is why a repeal of the Second Amendment, however chimerical, should be the long range goal much like breaking the back of separate but equal was for the NAACP in the 1930s and 1940s cases.

An armed school resource deputy who was assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has resigned after being suspended, Broward county sheriff says.

The deputy took up position but “never went in” to the building, according to the sheriff.

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 22, 2018

mediocre guy with a gun

now if he had only been a *teacher*....

probably wishful thinking and not a huge deal on its own, but this seems like it's not going anywhere

First National Bank ends relationship with NRA https://t.co/1Sz6C3m9kh

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) February 22, 2018

Think it was mentioned on the us politics thread. What fucked up universe ever allowed an "NRA visa card" in the first place? What country are you when you have banks entangled in the weapon industry? Rhetorical stuff I know etc, but c'mon.

America has turned into Bizarro America and the world outside America is only noticing how dire it really is.

i know this has been said by just about everyone but the arming the teachers idea is just soooooooooooooo embarrassingly stupid

What country are you when you have banks entangled in the weapon industry?

lol is this really shocking to you

Countries and weapon industries mixed? Not shocking. Countries where you can have an "NRA Visa card"? Def shocking. It's ludicrous to have gun "culture" ingrained in a country's DNA like this. America is a ludicrous country. I knew this, it's not "shocking", and yet it's way more severe than I could even imagine.

isn't entanglement in industries like the definition of banking

i know this has been said by just about everyone but the arming the teachers idea is just soooooooooooooo embarrassingly stupid

― i remember the corned beef of my childhood (Karl Malone), Thursday, February 22, 2018 6:54 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I've had to resist posting about this all day. It got even harder when I saw Trump is simultaneously advocating for teachers walking around with guns while criticizing violent video games and movies

Probably. Banks entangled in the pigeon-flying industry, or bio-med industry, or *any* industry is better than being involved in the gun industry though. xp

lmao problem solved

I understand why people don't like the armed teachers idea. But if I'm a teacher and I have reason to believe the cops won't intervene in a school shooting, I might want to be armed.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) February 22, 2018

Countries where you can have an "NRA Visa card"?

you can get visa cards featuring puppies, the sierra club, your favorite sports team, etc. it's like putting a bumper sticker on your car

Puppies, Sierra club, fave sports team all more understandable than a gun club. Same goes for bumper stickers. It's not normal to propagate a club of gun loving lunatics. Well, it shouldn't be, but it is.

you can probably get a reddit visa card

But if I'm a teacher and I have reason to believe the cops won't intervene in a school shooting, I might want to be armed.

god, sometimes goldberg gets so close to a rational insight, yet so far. the uncertainty about who is a cop and who is a shooter is one of the most important reasons that it's a bad idea to arm teachers! in a split second a teacher is supposed to decide whether or not the person entering the room with a gun is friendly or an enemy? that video of the SWAT team entering the classroom at stoneman while all the students gasped in terror is a perfect example of how tense and confusing that would be. it's almost like adding even more guns to a situation with multiple parties with guns is a bad idea

you can get visa cards featuring puppies, the sierra club, your favorite sports team, etc. it's like putting a bumper sticker on your car

Well if teachers are wearing their uniforms to ensure proper identification of their task orders and edupods, mistaken id is,like, impossible. Xp

Also AARP and other interest orgs have cards like crayzy.

The one guy who was actually armed at the high school and one would assumed train to handle this situation laid back in a defensive posture and did not go to meet the active shooter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/22/armed-sheriffs-deputy-stayed-outside-florida-school-while-mass-killing-took-place/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_pn-fladeputy-625pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.7ae8b6c6d4f4

Was just listening to a FL kid break down in tears on Chris Hayes just imagining the scenario of teachers carrying weapons to protect themselves from their students. Or his specific scenario of a teacher and a kid having an argument, a kid reaching into a his bag, and a teacher gunning him down.

even tho we live in a dystopian hellscape, i really dont think the talk about teachers carrying guns (or even "hardening" schools more than they are) will really come to fruition -- in public schools. as i think has been mentioned elsewhere, i do think that there will be at least a small portion of private schools that start touting their security as a selling point

the fact that arming teachers is even a remote possibility is already a victory for the nra. the real debate should be about whether to ban all guns or not, or at the very least whether to ban assault rifles (again). instead half the conversation moves to the possibility of training teachers to function as auxiliary SWAT units. it's unbelievable.

Philanda Castile, a teacher, was carrying a fully legal gun when he was murdered by the cops. Everything about this is just outrageous and stupid.

(Philando)

I love the idea that the kids in the old post-Sandy Hook videos and suchlike were ‘obviously crisis actors’ because they fluffed their lines and stuttered and were clearly ‘forgetting’ the script or ‘not sticking' to it. Yet now after Florida they’re obviously crisis actors because they’re so well-drilled and organized and everything seems so slick and ‘rehearsed’.

it's almost like the whole idea of crisis actors is a ludicrous fiction

thoughts & prayers makeup tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDkHmQEOkYo

lol at these adults trying to beat teens at twitter

I’m a junior. https://t.co/P9clE1ks5N

— Sarah Chadwick// #NEVERAGAIN (@sarahchad_) February 23, 2018

lol Sarah on fire this morning

wait wait i seen this i know how this fight ends pic.twitter.com/mI3ttzapCV

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) February 22, 2018

It would certainly send a powerful statement if millions of high school kids wore bullet proof vests to school in protest/defense

and that statement would be ‘school shooters, aim for the head’

maybe a little tooclose to legit NRA proposal

Rereading that crazy and depressing GQ story from last fall that's linked way upthread (https://www.gq.com/story/inside-federal-bureau-of-way-too-many-guns), and looking again at all the familiar stats about sheer numbers of guns sold in the U.S., and pondering the Dickey Amendment and the great lengths the industry has gone to to basically make it impossible to ever know anything about how many guns are sold to whom ...

It all makes me think that we usually talk about the wrong things in gun discussions. We get bogged down in constitutional debates and what is or isn't an assault weapon and whether anyone really needs a gun for self-defense -- while mostly ignoring the underlying economics of all of this. Yes, we say "the gun industry," and we know "they're just trying to make money," but there's still this assumption that this multi-billion-dollar thing is all being driven by Ford-truck yahoos with 75 guns in their basement. Obviously they are out there, but c'mon. A lot of the legally purchased guns in America go to much more organized efforts than just suburban gun nuts who go to the range on weekends. I'm not saying the gun industry is deliberately covering for all the cartels and militias and mafiosos who are a significant chunk of their end users. But at the very least, like Purdue not wanting to know too much about where all those Oxycontin prescriptions were going, they know that too much disclosure would be bad for business.

i had to work a few days in the suburbs of Atlanta last year and it blew my mind that just about everyone in the office had a concealed weapon. it freaked me out , like if I lived there I would have to seriously consider having one too or be the only one walking around without a piece.

Oh there are plenty of people with them, even though it's a minority of the population. I just don't think there are anywhere near enough legit gun nuts to account for the hundreds of millions of guns out there. And I imagine the NRA knows that too.

That Twitter smackdown of Laura Ingraham was a much needed laugh this morning. (many xp)

Insurer Chubb says will stop underwriting NRA insurance for gun owners https://t.co/jiJ99GRFgw

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) February 23, 2018

https://i.imgur.com/S2Tvscb.gif

Somebody please reset this simulation.

Here is the NRA surprising FCC chairman Ajit Pai with an award (it's a gun) for "courage under fire" and "saving the internet" (ending net neutrality) https://t.co/EhhBUesXK5

— Pam Vogel (@pamela_vogel) February 23, 2018

xxp

There have been a bunch of companies that have cut ties with the NRA and a bunch more that are being pressured to follow suit. A good sign.

https://thinkprogress.org/corporations-nra-f0d8074f2ca7/

In related news, I got a message from my son's high school that there was a planned student walk out and that students would not face any punishment as long as they observed the student code of conduct.

NRA spokeswoman: "Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it... Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you..." https://t.co/zdMoiq3AIN pic.twitter.com/gXJ3bussp3

— CNN (@CNN) February 22, 2018

As a reporter, I covered more than a thousand handgun fatalities and spent a full year following homicide detectives from scene to scene. Covered a mass shooting.

Did I love it?

Fuck you, you stupid, senseless, sociopathic, Moloch-worshipping mouthpiece for this American hell. https://t.co/dWIPXncVP4

— David Simon (@AoDespair) February 23, 2018

We have notified the NRA that we are ending the NRA’s rental car discount program with Hertz.

— Hertz (@Hertz) February 23, 2018