http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/01/10/two-reportedly-shot-in-california-school Comments On: Two Reportedly Shot at California High School by Cienna Madrid en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:00:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss "I'm saying that gun regulation advocates (and everyone else) mostly ignore the major problem of handgun availability, and instead decide how best to get rid of "assault weapons," which account for a small, small minority of gun violence in the US."

I'll go further and say that the people who want to ban "assault weapons" are NOT interested in the specifics of who is shooting whom with what and why.
Because if they had the facts then the solution might NOT be to ban guns.
And the fact that 99 point whatever percent of guns and gun owners are NOT involved in gun violence shows that they are wrong.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 23:14:37 -0800 The Stranger I am not a fan of the NRA. And 5280 and I definitely don't agree on everything gun related. I'm actually in favor of heavier gun regulations (regulations, but not bans) and more scrutiny, education, and accountability.

But the posts here, as well as many of the comments, are little more than angry rants that sound like the liberal version of Glenn Beck. There's no point in trying to have any real discussion or conversation, because too many people are going to believe what they want, regardless of any evidence to the contrary (on both sides).

One thing I do believe though, is that being angry at guns and angry at gun owners isn't going to do shit to stop gun violence. No more than being angry at drugs will stop drug use or being angry at abortion will stop abortions or being angry at gays will stop them from being gay. And that's what a lot of the anti-gun rants here sound exactly like... the extreme right wingers who rail against drugs or gays or abortion. They're not doing themselves any favors.


Posted by Urgutha Forka]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:06:40 -0800 The Stranger
I used a recent local example of a notable murder by a reasonably well-known asshole that went totally unreported by The Stranger to illustrate that they don't care. I maintain that it's an effective example.
Posted by doceb]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:57:22 -0800 The Stranger Mayors Against Illegal Guns, like me, right?
Posted by emma's bee]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:58:22 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Pridge Wessea]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:46:12 -0800 The Stranger "Stranger staffers are by and large opportunistic hypocrites. But that's their job, so I don't hold it against them too much."

I do.
It's fine if they want to wallow in grief porn. It seems that a lot of the people posting here also want that.

But if Goldy and the others are going to be pushing their advocacy journalism then they should be doing it correctly.
Report on ALL the shootings in Seattle.
Right now they'll skip a local shooting if the shooter and victim were both brown and over 18.
At least until they want to use the sanitized statistics of X people shot in year Y.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:40:27 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:09:36 -0800 The Stranger
Same with "missing white girl" phenomenon.

When they print "innocent schoolchildren murdered," readers get worked up and emotional, more page views are generated, and more ad revenue is received. That doesn't happen when they run a story about thugs doing what thugs always do.

Stranger staffers are by and large opportunistic hypocrites. But that's their job, so I don't hold it against them too much.
Posted by Urgutha Forka]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:50:36 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ever wonder why the Boy Scouts don't have "massacre" badges?]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:21:42 -0800 The Stranger 1. Not in Bellevue Square, they don't.
2. Slog reports on nightclub incidents all the time.
3. The suspect was a locally notable thug who had previously killed one of Seattle's well-known personalities.

My only point is that we shouldn't be super-quick to say "gun nuts want to ignore this" without applying the same standards across the board.
Posted by doceb]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:08:35 -0800 The Stranger Cain's Copacabana opened. It's not news.
Posted by Sir Vic]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:55:58 -0800 The Stranger Posted by tiktok]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:20:11 -0800 The Stranger Posted by doceb]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:19:32 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Max Solomon]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:16:12 -0800 The Stranger A teacher who "engaged" the gunman in conversation after the shooting suffered minor injuries when he was grazed by a pellet from the shotgun, according to the Kern County Sheriff's Department. The teacher, joined by a school counselor, convinced the student to drop the 12-gauge shotgun, said Kern County Sheriff Don Youngblood.

Hmmm, nothing about bringing a Bushmaster out from the facilities closet for neutralization. Must be bothersome to gun nuts to know that conversation led the 16 yo male student to put the gun down after shooting one of his targets, and missing another, and hitting a teacher instead, and not a high-powered weapon in a room.
Posted by How many minutes until the next school shooting?]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:59:00 -0800 The Stranger
Most gun nuts are lazy.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:31:35 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Proteus]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:17:44 -0800 The Stranger Posted by doceb]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:10:26 -0800 The Stranger
THE WITH GOOD GUN CONTROLS HAVE LESS DEATHS BY GUNFURE THAN WE DO, AND ALL OUR GUNS MAKE US LESS SAFE, NOT MORE SAFE.

Also: we have NOT achieved more liberty through private guns in America; the NRA did not lead the civil rights movement nor oppose the patriot act.

We can't even say how you'd use a gun for safety, when an intruder enters the bedroom, if your gun is locked up.

All laws should have broad clauses ("any material omision is also a securities fraud") and should not rely on narrow technical details, no law is perfect, no law solves any problem 100%.

Finally, America's gun violence problem is largely caused by our gun nuts who prevent us from doing what works so well in canada or australia, where, btw, there are still millions of guns -- they just control them better. Control. Not eliminate. But yes eliminate the higher power weaponry, just like we ban @5 from owning his own tank, nuclear weapon, mustard gas, dynamite, and automatic machine gun, etc.
Posted by quibbling gun nuts]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:09:33 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Dougsf]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:09:26 -0800 The Stranger
A good, experienced black powder shooter can reload in less than a minute. Not that much difference, admittedly, but let's give them a little bit of credit.
Posted by COMTE]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:07:10 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Former Lurker]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:04:37 -0800 The Stranger
The ammunition in the guns, sprayed in massive amounts and designed to kill people, kills the people.

Mind you, if we had flintlock rifles and pistols, it would take 3 minutes to reload after each shot ...
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:57:10 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Gurldoggie]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:52:11 -0800 The Stranger
It could be your "point" is inane. Everyone is talking about broad solutions to a complex problem, and you keep harping on isolated data points as if each existed only in isolation.

I know it's not just you. The gun lobby broadcasts these talking points to their proxies famous and anonymous across the country, and you all bleat them tirelessly.

You don't care that you're losing ground and that's why you can't change.
Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:41:52 -0800 The Stranger