the same speech has worked after every previous shooting. why would this time be different?

lapierre will die on silk sheets and his body will be laid out in the capitol rotunda like billy graham, and 100s of mourning congresspeople will file by, weeping.

btw, he's not lying. after doing this for decades, he believes it.

The man is doing exactly what his employers want him to do. What exactly do you think "those teenagers" are going to do to him, and how is it going to affect his career?

After all these years, I honestly just don't think the NRA cares if you call them dicks on Twitter.

What @2 said.

He doesn't answer to those teenagers, he answers to his shareholders, he's doing what they want him to do.

Besides, the more insults you hurl at the NRA, the more their supporters will cling to them.

I have to agree with Teddy and Urgutha.

I'd also like to add that some of "those teenagers" are pro-gun, pro-nra and pro Trump.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a8ed…

I have to ask this, but first a few points:

1) AR-15's have been available to the public for over 50 years now. Up until 1968 you could buy them through the mail with no ID. Today, you can't buy any weapon in a gun store without a federal background check. It is an absolute fact to say that it's harder to buy a gun legally now than at any other time in American history.

2) According to the U.S. Justice department, gun violence in America has fallen 50% since its peak in 1993 and continues to fall today. Right now gun violence in America is at its lowest level since the 1950's and is still trending ever downward.

So what is the real cause of this 'Tsunami of gun violence?' If it's the guns, then why wasn't there all of this mayhem until the media started fetishizing mass-murdering monsters after Columbine? Why all the mass shootings now instead of when buying guns was ridiculously easy?

And why is nobody taking credit for a 50% drop in gun violence since 1993? Shouldn't this be considered an unimaginable triumph over evil? Does it not play into our elected politicians and big media's fear agenda?

I love how 9 and 10 have all the answers on gun violence when it hasn't been studied in any rigorous way since 1996, the year of the Dickey amendment. Dudes: you don't know, because no one's looking. Congress won't let the CDC fund any research. DOJ stats are not research. They're a very blurry picture of a very complicated phenomenon. Somehow, as a parent, I'm not impressed that gun deaths as a whole are down (probably because Americans are drinking less, have less lead in their water, have more police officers using more sophisticated tools), when gun deaths at schools are way up. I guess I kinda think my kids shouldn't have to get shot at in school. Silly me.

11, I don't get you. The left does scream about it from the rooftops. You never heard of Black Lives Matter?

Nope, Bub. That's NOT what happened. But then I get it: it's all spin to you.

@14: You don't hang out with a lot of black people do you?
Well, I mean it is Seattle which pretty much is pearly white, but still! There are plenty of black people in Seattle who are addressing all the points you've brought up. Some of whom I know personally.
Just because you aren't involved doesn't mean it's not happening.

@9, 11,

The drop in gun crime, and drop in crime overall, since 1993 could also be due in part to the legalization of abortion in 1973. Some very good statisticians have done solid research on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_…

@17
There's also a lot of very compelling data that the drop in gun crime can be attributed to the removal of lead in our gasoline.

I'm not trolling you. Look it up.

Lead has a much greater effect upon children and the greatest concentration of lead in our environment occurred in dense urban areas... precisely where the economically disadvantaged were concentrated.

Among the various studies, the researchers didn't postulate that lead caused crime, but instead theorized that those who were right on the edge and at the greatest risk; the damage to their cognition was enough to push them over the brink.

It's a seemingly crazy notion, but where the researchers got my attention was looking at other countries that banned lead in gasoline. They all, universally, saw a drop in crime about 20 years afterward.

Here's a good place to start:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/h…

My overarching point (as the resident SLOG 'Gun Nut') is that this is a complex problem that reaches way beyond ideological knee-jerk reactions.

I happen to be a far left-wing gun owner who values all of The Bill of Rights, not just the ones I agree with. It disappoints me to no end that so many of my left-wing brethren have such a visceral and, to me, irrational fear of guns that they will happily agree with any anti-gun law or proposal, no matter how blatantly ineffective or unconstitutional, just because 'they don't like guns.'

I respect one's decison to not like guns or have them in their lives. I have a huge problem when my left-wing brethren decide that I don't have the right to defend myself and my family against a violent attacker with equal force.

Violent criminals will always have the hardware. Don't dictate to me that I have to cower to them and plead that they not kill my children and that I should call 911 instead.

Even in Seattle, when seconds count the police are only minutes away.

@18,
Yeah I've read the research about leaded gasoline being the cause and yes, it IS compelling, and quite possibly a major variable to consider.

I'm also a very left leaning person who also believes "banning all guns" is NOT going to solve the problem.

However, the pro-gun side's complete resistance to even do research on the subject is disturbing. To me it says they KNOW they're wrong, and they're in their death throws over it... they can't even bear the thought of someone merely looking at what they oppose.

Where I disagree with the left on "gun banning" is that they typically think: "If we ban guns, the problem will be solved" and they're dead fucking wrong. The problem will NOT be solved, they'll simply be less exposed to the symptoms of the real problem... but they don't give a shit about the real problem... they just want their pet issue (gun banning) granted.

I will give them this: banning guns WOULD reduce gun crime. Only an idiot would disagree with that. I mean really.... if you make something illegal, it won't occur as much. happened with alcohol. happened with drugs. etc. Doing so didn't address the real problems, and created more problems of its own, but it DID reduce what the naysayers wanted to be reduced. So they DO have a very simplified point there.

Your final two paragraphs though are kinda weaksauce. I am the king of my castle and I will defend my castle against foul invaders! The police are too far away to defend my castle!... I'm in favor of the 2nd amendment but those statements just sound so rednecky and small-minded. I live in a poor, crime ridden neighborhood in Denver and even I don't think I'm going to end up eventually defending my castle with a gun against the thugs (e.g., black) invaders. Most robberies are done by relatives and "friends". not by strangers.

@21
I'm too tired to go much farther tonight into a hugely complex subject, but I'm compelled to clarify my 'weak sauce' ending:

Last night I took a trip down memory lane and reviewed my posting history on the SLOG and found that you and I have been going around and around on this subject for about seven years... and the arguments and claims on both sides remain the same. It's like trench warfare in The Great War.

My ending might have been a bit rednecky, but I was addressing a fundamental problem I have with the anti-gun crowd and their arguments going back all those years. I believe the following to be true:

1) The anti-gun crowd's ultimate goal is a total ban on private firearm ownership and the only people who should have guns are the police and military (except when they're bitching about police and government misuse of power and deadly force). (Also, criminals would be exempt from a gun ban because, by definition, criminals don't obey the law. This seems to escape most of my anti-gun friends.)

What really chaps my ass is that, instead of taking the problem head-on and calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment, they resort to underhanded incrementalism. To mask this spineless subterfuge they blame their favorite bogeyman... the NRA.

What they fail to realize is the power the NRA wields isn't just from their financial war chest, it's from their 5 million members who vote. This is a big deal when 537 votes in Florida in 2000 gave us Dubya, 911, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the total collapse of our economy. Same thing when 15,000 votes or so in any of the rust belt states gave us Trump. Not to mention the midterm massacre in 1994, which many political wonks attribute to the 1993 Clinton Assault weapons ban.

It troubles me that the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party continually fail to understand that, in addition to universal Republican opposition to ineffective symbolic feel-good gun laws, there are a hell of a lot of gun-owning blue-collar Democrats like myself who don't cotton to the 'well-educated' elitist urban groupthink that I believe has poisoned the Democratic Party since the 1970's. (Archie Bunker would have been a Democrat for the first 80 years of the 20th century. And since the 1970's, Meathead has run the DNC while looking down his nose at Archie with a condescending tsk-tsk and a finger wag.) This is why Hillary got her ass kicked. They gave this voter segment to Trump for free.

2) Many of the anti-gun posts on the SLOG over the years essentially consist of, in the event a violent attack you don't need to defend yourself, just call 911 and hope for the best. (Except when they're bitching about the police abusing their power, ala the 1999 WTO riots or on May Day the last few years in Seattle.)

This is simply unacceptable to me. I find it interesting that all mass shootings seem to occur in gun-free-zones. Somebody please point out to me the last mass shooting in a gun shop, police station or airport.

In a country where guns are legal and in neighborhoods where crime is high, I'd love it if the anti-gun neighbors put up huge signs in their yards saying in bold face, "There are no guns in our house because we don't like them. This is a gun-free zone."

I wonder which houses would get robbed first?

Furthermore, there is the very real possibility of civil unrest in Seattle after a major earthquake or other natural disaster. We all saw what happened after Hurricane Katrina and Dubya's anemic response. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, we see FEMA's response in Puerto Rico under the 'leadership' of Trump. U.S. citizens are still dying there. It's just that big media has left.

Lastly, we all remember the television footage of the Rodney King Riots and the Korean store owners in Inglewood defending their very livelihoods against armed looters with... AR-15's.

So, rednecky or not, I'll say it again.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away... if you're lucky.

@23,
Word.

Damn, we've been going back and forth on this topic for 7 years? That's almost the length of two WWI trench warfares.

I definitely agree with you though that both liberals and conservatives (and pretty much everyone) has massive inconsistencies in their thought processes. Democrats complain about police brutality and then demand people call police during a crime instead of defend themselves. Conservatives tell us teachers are commies and are brainwashing our children and then demand we arm them to defend against gunmen.

I'm trying to be more consistent about my own beliefs. I still fail sometimes, but I am trying.