(Open Carry + Stand Your Ground) x Assholes = Perpetual Violence Machine

If everyone were reasonable, neither open carry nor stand your ground would be problems. But they're not.

If everyone were reasonable, neither open carry nor stand your ground would be allowed. But they are.

If everyone were reasonable we wouldn't need laws.

If everyone was reasonable, they would obey the laws we already have.

sometimes I feel that the NRA is stuck with LaPierre the way Westboro Baptist was stuck with Fred Phelps.

nothing changes until Jebus calls him home.

@5: Yeah, but Fred Phelps died and WBC continues to live and hate on. I think it's time to take a close look at who the lobbyists are in bed with politically, and make sure that those politicians aren't reelected and make it public that that's why they're not being reelected.
Who's benefitting? Who's profiting? Those are the questions we need to be asking. And then voting.

If everyone were reasonable, then right now we could be having a national conversation about the intersection of mental illness, firearm laws and regulations, and America's violent obsession with guns and their destructive power. But the unreasonable among us are hell bent on preventing that discussion.

The most frustrating thing is that most Americans are reasonable when it comes to supporting gun law reform. But the officials at the NRA are insane and very powerful and the politicians are cowards and money-grubbers, and so the country gets more and more insane while most residents shake their heads in dismay and impotent anger.

I'd like to see a venn diagram depicting the intersection of folks who open carry "long" guns, and people who drive Hummers. I'll bet it wouldn't even be recognizable as a diagram, but rather just a single dark circle perfectly encapsulating both petulant groups.

If everyone were reasonable, there would be no autoplay on embedded videos.

Most random mass shootings are committed by white guys with shitty social skills and a sense of entitlement. Most jackasses who walk around openly carrying assault rifles are white guys with shitty social skills and a sense of entitlement. If I were a business owner and some jackass walked into my business carrying an assault rifle I most certainly would perceive the guy as a direct threat, stand my ground and blow his brains right out of his fucking head. These nuts are asking for trouble and they are going to get it.

@9: most Hummers I see are driven by Asian ladies. I always look because I think "who the fuck drives a Hummer?"

As Sarah Silverman has noted, this is about the right for white guys to tote around semiautomatic weapons. Imagine the showdown if a group of black men walked into the same restaurant carrying machine guns.

Is violence associated with Open Carry? First time I've heard of that. Citation please?

@15 I think you missed the point. No one is claiming there is an association. The clip is about the implications of a culture that accepts both the right to carry firearms (large, intimidating, fear for your life firearms) in public and the right to shoot anyone who you reasonably feel threatened by.

See @11's comment.

@16, TX doesn't allow people to open carry pistols (much more reasonable self-defense firearms, and certainly not the "large, intimidating, fear for your life firearms" you mention). As far as I know, that's the basis of these protests, to get the TX legislature to overturn that limitation.

Not sure how effective that will be, and I think it's a bad way to go about it. But that's why people are open carrying rifles and shotguns there, as far as I know.

@16

#11's comment is packed to overflowing with misconception, FUD, and downright fucking idiocy. Lets examine.

"Most random mass shootings are committed by white guys with shitty social skills and a sense of entitlement."

No. Most multiple victim shootings are carried out by minorities, against minorities, and are crime related predominantly to drugs and gangs. Go look at Detroit, Chicago, Flint, St. Louis. What he meant to say was that white guys on a spree get a lot of media hype.

"Most jackasses who walk around openly carrying assault rifles are white guys with shitty social skills and a sense of entitlement."

No. A civil right which can not be exercised is not an extant civil right. Demonizing those who protest peacefully is a pathetic and disingenuous way to go about changing the civil rights we have.

"If I were a business owner and some jackass walked into my business carrying an assault rifle I most certainly would perceive the guy as a direct threat, stand my ground and blow his brains right out of his fucking head."

Need I comment on the hypocrisy here? What the fuck.

"These nuts are asking for trouble and they are going to get it."

Yeah... so that's totally rational and not at all scary in its own right...

So back at you #16. Lets give a little less credence to the reactionary fools, and talk about the implications of a political process which is choking to death on media sensationalism, whadda ya say?

And yet ... somehow ... with all these pro-gun laws on the books, gun deaths are down 40% over the last 20 years and gun violence down 70%.

It's just tragic to be watching from the outside on the other side of the world as people argue over constitutional minutiae while thousands of people die for no reason. It's so obvious to anyone who hasn't had gun carrying rights inculcated into them that the problem isn't the specifics of gun laws, drugs, minorities, or even asshole white guys - plenty of other countries have those. It's just guns full stop, and something - I'm not sure what - uniquely American, it's guns and America together.

It's like watching as a deadly disease or civil war kills hundreds of thousands of people, except half the country is saying 'well that's ok because second amendment' instead of trying to stop it. Tragic.

Or in another formulation that I've seen - you can't smoke near a Starbucks because of the acknowledged dangers of smoke, nor can Starbucks serve their coffee too hot because of the dangers of scalding, but you're free to take a gun there in order to shoot people. Mind boggling.

If everyone was reasonable, we wouldn't need guns.

@21

Hunting? Bears?

If everyone was reasonable, we wouldn't need as many guns, and the ones we did have would probably be different guns.

Doesn't have the nice pithy character of your statement, but it's a bit more accurate.

@20: It feels pretty much the same way to many of us inside the US as well.

@20 continued:
And the thing is, if you're a literalist when it comes to the constitution, the second amendment only speaks to the need to keep a well-armed militia, something we don't have or even need now that there is a standing army. While if you're a believer of original intent, there is absolutely no way that the founding fathers could have wanted the situation we now have.

And the killer (yup, pun intended) is that no other issue is indefensible from both ways of approaching the constitution and yet is considered a sacred right by virtue of the constitution.

Again, the NRA is one powerful, and very rich lobby. Some people are getting very, very rich from gun laws being what they are (or not being). Politicians are in debt to these monsters, and too spineless to do the right thing.

#22 would have you think it's all about bears and hunting, but you don't need the kind weapons that are legal, nor do you need unlimited ammunition to take out a bear that's roaming through your urban neighborhood . . .

@23 I don't doubt it. When the US finally solves its gun problem it'll be because of the Americans who persisted in seeing it done.

@20 nailed it. American allegiance to guns is stunning to witness. It's religous in devotion. People die her in ungodly numbers compared to the rest of the civilized world and pro-gun Americans refuse to make the obvious connection.

I can think of no other issue where Americans are so singularly blind. Tragic.

@22, @19, as @11 demonstrated, if we [America] decide to embrace demonstrative open-carry as a norm, and liberal "self-defense" defenses for shooting first, we set up an unprecedented Hobbesian dilemma that is likely to be corrosive to the fabric of our society, deleterious to our quality of life, and--if not magnificent in the absolute increase of gun-related homicide--contributory to a rise in the incidence of lethal misunderstandings.

TL;DR: if everyone were reasonable, you would understand that the best way to preserve gun rights is to not support the wackos.

I feel like that clip does not end on the right tone. That summarizes the current NRA's inherent hypocrisy so well, the only reasonable response is gut-churning, sickening outrage that anyone with a modicum of real power would publicly have anything to do with them.

@22: Bears can be repelled with heavy-duty pepper spray. Hunting is better done with a bow. Why? Because a bow requires strength and skill.

@30

I don't disagree about the bow, although killing animals isn't something I like to do, it should be as personal as possible to the hunter.

As for bear mace... ever been in bear country? Up into Canada or Alaska, and seen them first hand? Smelled them? Seen them eat?

Trust me on this: if you get charged you'll want a gun, not a canister. The typical bear defense gun is a large caliber, 5 shot, short barrel revolver, so like I said - "different guns".

The only regulation I ask for a gun is the same as for a car: a) it's registered; b) you've demonstrated that you know how to use it; and c) you carry liability insurance, in case it turns out you don't know how to use it.

Everyone except the most extreme libertarians accept these rules for a car - why not for a gun?

Is there such a thing as country- ism? I'm getting told that this clip not available in my country- but at least I've got kangaroos and boomerangs . Yeah right? How bout our beautiful beaches, intelligent gun laws, state of origin rugby league matches, um Opera house, kookaburras ( love hearing them do their song/ laughing song/ at dawn). I could go on, and on..

Sharks, crocodiles, snakes, spiders and a fascist federal govt( the leader of which will be visiting your president soon.
Sorry Mr Obama, but you've only gotta put up with him for a little bit).... Amazing Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal visual artists...
Rips, please learn how to navigate ocean rips.. Before visiting. We seem to loose lots of tourists in our oceans.

LavaGirl, don't forget the spinifex (Triodia sp.). Dear Lord Almighty, why did He create spinifex?

@32 wow. Where to begin? Are you being sarcastic?

In case not, just a few reasons why the rules for a car should be different than the rules for a gun:

While cars can be used to kill people, it is difficult for an insane person to smuggle them into a crowded room and then mow down people. Specifically, the crashing-into-people part generally entails hitting barriers and walls that causes the car to cease to function. The primary purpose of a car is transport. The primary purpose of a gun is to blow holes in things and/or kill things, and doing this does not cause it to cease to function.

Starting to see why the rules might need to be different? And a significant percentage of humans are prone to mental instability and even stable ones are prone to planned and/or unplanned outbursts of violence - even the most radical libertarian should surely see the problems with anyone being able to buy tactical nuclear weapons. Modern assault weapons aren't nukes, but they are a far cry from 2nd amendment era muskets.

Ah, video was about guns, people carrying guns in public, some sort of civil disobedience, to make a point?
For a country that has stood so tall in civil rights, gay and trans rights.. Surely that same intense energy can be bought to bear on this issue? Although I can only imagine it feels so overwhelmingly impossible.
But I'm sure many many African- Americans felt that way too.

@1 "(Open Carry + Stand Your Ground) x Assholes = Perpetual Violence Machine"

(Open Carry + Stand Your Ground) x Humans = Perpetual Violence Machine

There. Fixed it for ya.

@36: Sorry, I wasn't being clear. I would prefer to have much stronger rules than those. I was proposing a bare minimum that should (ha!) be easy to implement, since we have implemented it already for cars. The requirement for liability insurance would make many assault weapons prohibitively expensive, and the requirement to pass a skills test would keep them out of the hands of many (not all) people with serious psychological issues.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, even a comprehensive registration law would be almost impossible to pass in the US today, so my proposal will never fly.

#gunfuckers

@18 - "Minorities" ... that made me chuckle. Only white people refer to other people as "minorities". Racist white people.

I was referring to his comment at the end addressing the implications of open carry + stand your ground, which is the point of the piece. The hyperbolic language at the beginning of the comment was there to drive home the point that one could "reasonably" decide that a white guy with a gun in public is a threat to their life. You're good at missing the point.

And carrying a weapon around in plain sight is not peaceful. It's meant to intimidate and scare people. You know it is, too. So let's stop pretending these people are peaceful patriots. Whadda ya say?

@31 People die thinking they can stop a bear with a gun. I grew up around bears. You;re dead wrong. The best defense against a bear is bear spray. Stop spreading ignorance.

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/spec…

@12: And those Asian ladies are married to the type of men with small penises who buy Hummers.

I actually liked the skit that came after this clip even better.

This kind of bullshit only works if you're a white guy. If you're black, you're 20x more scary to paranoid white guys (with guns) and you're just going to get shot. Especially by the police.

And if you're black, don't talk to the police. Everything you say will be used against you. Just lay down on the ground and handcuff yourself.