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dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
For as bad as the Senate vote was, for the GOP it was still preferable to making the House vote it... There's barely a handful of Senators from tossup states who might be held responsible for their vote: I'm thinking Johnson (WI, ugh), Portman (OH) and Rubio (FL), but all of those guys are fvcked anyway since they all won in the GOP landslide in 2010 and all have to face reelection in a presidential year when more Democrats usually turn out.

Most everyone else is safely running in a red state, or a state like IA or NV that I can't see being that upset about this vote.

The far bigger issue for the GOP is if this had gotten out of the Senate and was brought to the floor in the House, it would have forced the many moderate Republican House members from suburban districts to go on record about it. *That* would have been devastating.
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
Now dummy #2 sounds of with the delightful

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

I feel the need to point out how Socialist he sounds. Did I mention that Dummy #1 is a black guy? He has used the "n-word" before in reference to the POTUS, and other derogatory terms also. Interesting to me to see...
i know it's a couple days late, but still useful for next time:
http://urlybits.com/2010/04/every-facebook-political-argument-youve-ever-seen/
 

AngryMetalsmith

Business is good, thanks for asking
Jun 4, 2006
22,046
12,750
I have no idea where I am
Who needs gun regulations anyway, certainly not these fine folks:

from HuffPo

BURKESVILLE, Ky. — Authorities in southern Kentucky say a 2-year-old girl has been accidentally shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother, who was playing with a .22-caliber rifle he received as a gift.

Kentucky State Police said the toddler was shot just after 1 p.m. CDT Tuesday in Cumberland County and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the children's mother was at home at the time.

White told the newspaper that the boy received the rifle made for youths last year and is used to shooting it. He said the gun was kept in a corner and the family didn't realize a shell was left inside it.

White said the shooting will be ruled accidental.

An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,162
1,261
NC
Make people responsible for the guns they buy, and maybe the problem will start to self-correct.

I wonder how many parents would leave weapons lying around unlocked if they were arraigned for manslaughter immediately following an event like this.

Calling it Darwinian seems unduly harsh. It's not the 2-year-old's fault that a toy was lying around loaded with bullets, or the 5-year-old's responsibility to make sure the gun was locked up every time. Darwinian would be if she shot the parent who was responsible.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,546
2,170
Front Range, dude...
Is it a small deers fault that it falls prey to wolves because it is slow, sick or otherwise incapable of defending itself? In Darwinian theory, the weak are eaten or cast by the wayside, taken out of the gene pool somehow, correct? By this theory, the weaker of the subset, the young child, has been eliminated from the gene pool by the stronger of the subset, the older boy. Her genetic potential has been taken from the pool, although it may continue if he breeds eventually. Harsh? Yes. True? Unfortunately, yes.

Notice that I did not go with the too easy "If she had a gun this would not have happened..."
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
41,807
19,122
Riding the baggage carousel.
Anecdote time:
[coolstorybro] Rampers just brought down a bagful of brand new magazines, with receipt still in the bag that a customer was handing out to people at the gate. Every single one was the latest copy of "Guns and Ammo", "Shooting Times", "Gun World", and "Handguns" [/coolstorybro]

This firmly cements in place my long held opinion, that for the crazies, guns have supplanted religion. It's idolatry. I mean, this guy was proselytizing guns. It's absolutely no different than if a Jehovah had been in the terminal handing out copies of the Watchtower, or if a couple Mo Elders had been handing out the Book of Mormon, or, since this is an airport, a couple Krishna's had been handing out pamphlets.

The gun thing is crazy. :twitch:
 
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$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
you forgot to add to your list "pamphlets" you get on the street in vegas.

it's not about crazy.
it's about appealing to their most base desires.
 

AngryMetalsmith

Business is good, thanks for asking
Jun 4, 2006
22,046
12,750
I have no idea where I am
...and here's two more recent accidental child shootings:

Texas Boy, 7, Shot By His Younger Brother

According to ABC13.com, the boys were in the bathtub around 9 p.m. when their mother stepped away for a moment. Police say the 5-year-old brother then got out of the tub, found a .22 rifle and shot his older brother.

2-year-old accidentally shoots self in mouth

The boy was alone when he got to his father's improperly locked .45-caliber pistol, deputies said. The boy put the gun in his mouth while playing with it and pulled the trigger.
Them guuunnz is fer protectin mah kids...
 

stevew

resident influencer
Sep 21, 2001
41,159
10,097
Sequestration has nothing to do with Inhofe and Coburn demanding Sandy relief be funded by cuts elsewhere, nor Tornado relief in their own state of Oklahoma.
then why bring it up? i went by the first link...

As the Federal Times recently reported, sequestration includes an 8.2 percent cut to the National Weather Service. According to the organization representing weather service employees, that means there is “no way for the agency to maintain around-the-clock operations at its 122 forecasting offices” and also means “people are going to be overworked, they’re going to be tired, they’re going to miss warnings.”
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
41,807
19,122
Riding the baggage carousel.
first link...
Following in the footsteps of former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, conservatives faced with these self-evident facts have taken to Fox News to cite the problems previous flat budgets have already created to call for a wholesale elimination of the National Weather Service. It’s a classic self-fulfilling sophistry of the right: ignore the positive work an agency does, keep the agency’s budget flat so that its capabilities do not keep up with the times, then cite the agency’s reduced capabilities as justification to keep cutting it.
.....
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,130
10,682
AK
then why bring it up? i went by the first link...
Well, luckily for you, I'm here in OKC to set you straight. There was no problem with weather forecasting and reporting. There might be a problem with the school that did not have any kind of storm shelter, but that's for retrospective. The NWS cut some of the 24hr volcano monitoring in places where it wasn't deemed to be as critical. Make no mistake, weather forecasting and warning was absolutely perfect as far as our current capabilities. They already knew OKC was going to get hit. They knew the approximate time. They saw the storms starting up and knew when it went to tornado.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Counter Strike - Toddlers Win!

Americans hate terrorists and love our kids, right? So you might be shocked to know that preschoolers with guns have taken more lives so far this year than the single U.S. terrorist attack, which claimed four lives in Boston.

This is admittedly tongue-in-cheek, but one has to wonder if the NSA’s PRISM program would have saved more lives had it been monitoring toddlers – or gun owners – rather than suspected terrorists.

11 Deaths in Five Months Where Shooter Was 3 to 6 Years Old

Listed below are the 11 gun fatalities I found where a preschooler pulled the trigger (from Jan. 1 to June 9, 2013). Starting with a list of five toddler shooting deaths The Jewish Daily Forward published in early May, I unearthed six additional cases. This tragic, unthinkable event has happened every month, like clock-work.

Jan. 10: 6-year-old playmate shoots and kills 4-year-old Trinity Ross, Kansas City, Kan.

Feb. 11: 4-year-old Joshua Johnson shoots and kills himself, Memphis, Tenn.

Feb. 24: 4-year-old Jaiden Pratt dies after shooting himself in the stomach while his father sleeps, Houston.

March 30: 4-year-old Rahquel Carr shot and killed either by 6-year-old brother or another young playmate, Miami.

April 6: Josephine Fanning, 48, shot and killed by 4-year-old boy at a barbecue, Wilson County, Tenn.

April 8: 4-year-old shoots and kills 6-year-old friend Brandon Holt, Toms River, N.J.

April 9: 3-year-old is killed after he finds a pink gun that he thinks is a toy, Greenville, S.C.

April 30: 2-year-old Caroline Sparks killed by her 5-year-old brother with his Cricket “My First Rifle” marketed to kids, Cumberland County, Ky.

May 1: 3-year-old Darrien Nez shoots himself in the face and dies after finding his grandmother’s gun, Yuma, Ariz.

May 7: 3-year-old Jadarrius Speights fatally shoots himself with his uncle’s gun, Tampa, Fla.

June 7: 4-year-old fatally shoots his father, Green Beret Justin Thomas, Prescott Valley, Ariz.

At least 10 more toddlers have shot but not killed themselves or someone else this year (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). In the first three cases, the shooter was only 2 years old.

I also found nine instances where children and teens 7 to 19 years old accidentally killed themselves, a family member or friend since January (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

Of course, most if not all of the above deaths and injuries can be attributed to careless adult gun owners.

While this analysis focuses on children, another equally accurate headline could read: “U.S. Gun Culture Kills More Americans Than Terrorists Worldwide.”

In 2010, 13,186 people died in terrorist attacks worldwide, while 31,672 people were killed with firearms in America alone, reports CNN’s Samuel Burke.

We Need a Return to ‘Well-Regulated’ Gun Ownership

We cannot deny that guns pose a real danger to innocent American lives and especially to children. While no one is “coming to take the guns” of responsible people, we still must reach a compromise to address gun violence. I do not have all the answers, but I know as responsible citizens we have to do something.

While some people refuse to accept any limits on gun ownership, we simply do not have the right in America to circumvent personal restrictions that protect society as a whole. We can drink and we can drive, but we cannot mix the two. We have free speech, but we cannot shout “fire” in a crowded theater. We have the Fourth Amendment, but we still submit to searches of our bodies and belongings for the sake of air safety.

People who worship the Second Amendment should recognize the “well-regulated” aspect of gun ownership that the forefathers intended. Instead, we have a gun lobby that pays off senators to vote against background checks and gun culture that welcomes a 3-year-old as a lifetime NRA member. I worry for that child’s playmates.
 
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