Summations Only

Sure, I understand all that. Your description applies to the folks who live in my rural village area with a long hunting tradition. Accidents are rare; deliberate shootings are few. But we part company here. The tens of thousands of Americans killed by guns each year do not constitute a "big media flap"--it is an authentic national crisis.Moreover, while our acquaintances in our respective communities may find gun violence alien, it is not alien to rural America in general. The highest rates of gun murder are found almost exclusively in the more rural, conservative states of the south and west. It isn't just a big city plaque defined by gangs and hoodlums; it's everywhere, and, apparently, particularly bad where gun control is resented most.By the way, small-town Connecticut (Newtown) and Oregon aren't high crime areas. Beware of justifications that involve the word 'always'; also beware characterizing a national political discussion in the terms of present personal discussions. Let me add that gun critics turn to "cultural analysis" when pro-gun folks insist nothing can be done.And I think you need to inspect the rhetoric of your side a bit more closely.Perhaps you'll notice those who insist that assault weapons with huge magazines containing armor-piercing rounds--"cop killers"--must not be banned because of the 2nd Amendment; that "high crime areas" must not be allowed to ban the cheap handguns that do worsen urban violence, because of the 2nd Amendment--I guess local control is good until you're not in control; that background checks violate the 2nd Amendment; that open carry permits should be universally valid, wherever they go, regardless of the local will; that "Your dead kids don't trump my 2nd Amendment rights."There is no confusion about the statistics: the plethora of guns in the U.S. produces an avalanche of death, many of them in places that are supposedly harbors of safe gun ownership. That's a fact, even if some find it offensive: that fact is fundamental to the push to have reasonable gun regulation.There is no push to eliminate responsible gun ownership: could you point to some organized effort to do so? The strident rhetoric comes mainly from the pro-gun camp, led by the NRA, arguing that any regulation of firearms is a scum-sucking liberal plot to disarm them so that they can be herded into government camps. Democrats for the most part have refused for a decade to campaign on the issue, because it's a loser: not because their propositions are unreasonable or unconstitutional, but because any proposed gun regulation is national electoral suicide.Our present background check laws include a "three-day" provision: if the background check cannot be completed in three days, the recently discharged psychopathic felon gets his gun anyway, right now. That was lobbied for ardently by the NRA and others. It is difficult to accept as rational the mind that finds that preferable to keeping guns out of psychopathic felons' hands. The CDC is prevented by Congress from studying gun deaths, because in the 1990s the CDC found that having a gun in the house made the folks who lived there three times as likely to become homicide victims. Shoot the messenger, squared...Your position is that the status quo bloodbath cannot be addressed because liberals put good gun people on the defensive; indeed, it's the liberals who are "totally irresponsible" because they persist in pressing for effective background checks and the reasonable regulation of high-powered ordnance. I think that's pretty high-school lame and shockingly cold-blooded on their part, but okay; hurt feelings, dead kids, we're even.But that will change. If your friends want to continue enjoying responsible gun ownership, they might want to admit that many gun owners are not responsible, and support reasonable laws to address the problem. Opinion shifts quickly in the pendular U.S. body politic, opinion drives politics and court appointments, and ultimately determines what the 2nd Amendment means. A future polity may decide that, say, 50,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 gun deaths are too many--whatever the 2nd Amendment originally meant, it can be changed. If we continue on this trajectory, it will be.So is there an upper limit to the death toll that you are willing to accept before you see a need for change?

Well, you're responding to views other than mine with considerable heat and capitals. Both camps, pro-and anti-gun control, contain their own diverse views, each individual view held with differing degrees of passion. Some folks on both sides speak intemperately, counterproductively.I don't want to go over your post point by point, but I do want to comment on the paragraph below, and one other thing. First, let me say that paragraph is one long slide to perdition.Perhaps you don't pay much attention to conservative media--Fox, Breitbart, etc. I do. There are no heretics there: they are coming for your guns, they'll never give up trying to take grandpa's Winchester. Terrifying rumors circulate by e-mail chains: Military training exercises conceal a plan to occupy Texas and herd Texans into Walmart camps! The refrain is constant; the right's complaint is echoed by other media, fired anew by each sensational mass murder. That chorus is joined and amplified by conservative politicians. Your liberal friend would have to live pretty high up in the hills not to hear that riot on the right.While speaking just for myself, I'd warrant a generic perspective among pro-gun regulation Americans in puzzlement, and it's that puzzlement which leads to thinking about cultural differences: How can they continue to block reasonable regulation when so many thousands are being killed? What can account for that fundamental difference?Understanding that requires accepting that many U.S. communities share some version of gun culture--hunting, military association, marksmanship, collecting, etc.-- and those communities are different from those who do not in important ways. Liberal multicultural tolerance often collapses inside the border. When intemperate individuals or organizations from those respective communities start screaming at each other, little gets done.But the left hasn't been screaming at the right on this issue in the terms the right fears. GOP legislators aren't blocking gun seizure laws. Proposals for improved gun regulation have been reasonable, accommodating the SCOTUS ruling on the 2nd Amendment. But there has been no matching temperance on the right; indeed, the rhetoric there remains at a fever pitch, not just from individuals but from conservative media, organizations and politicians.So there we are. The bleed goes on, while one camp asks how you can trust someone who disrespects your culture, and the other wonders how you can work with someone who disrespects your dead.When someone tells me nothing can be done, I don't intend to threaten the 2nd Amendment--I'd neither propose nor support any change. But I do predict that the American people have a limited stomach for the slaughter of their own innocents, and if changing the amendment is what it takes even just to slow it down, that's eventually what will happen. It will come to pass as inexorably as same sex marriage.It's a tough nut from any angle, but that's no reason to reject reasonable attempts in Congress to stop at least some of the killing. The right actually won on the 2nd Amendment; the left now proposes change within an accommodation of that ruling. But the right refuses to declare victory and work for the common good.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

There is world enough, and time, and if there isn't, it won't matter. I couldn't resist poking you about the capitals--you don't need them. Your emphases are already clear; trust your own words.My larger point on Limbaugh and Breitbart is that everyone hears what they have to say, whether they tune them in or not--even liberals who avoid conservative media like the plague. Liberal web sites and publications post their video clips and print their statements; entire web sites, in fact, are dedicated to a right wing watch. The left frightens the left with the right; the right frightens the right with the left. Round and round we go, stupider and stupider, while people drop dead faster and faster.I'm not a liberal, by the way, so I'm happy to acknowledge that the prevailing sentiment here is liberal-ish Many liberals speak as if eliminating gun ownership is the only real solution to gun deaths. In part that's because there is no apparent willingness on the right to compromise by supporting reasonable regulation, and in part because there are genuine differences of opinion on the left.For example, I agree with marc9000: pass a law requiring gun surrender, and you will create tens of millions of criminals, because my farming and forestry friends here in the Adirondacks, and their counterparts around the country, aren't going to give up their guns. I don't think they should have to. The notion of police-enforced seizure is as ridiculous as attempting to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Both just ain't gonna happen.Many conservatives speak as if unregulated gun ownership is sacred, rather than admit that guns are a civil right subject to reasonable regulations like all other civil rights. I can find candidates on the left who share my views in favor of regulation and opposed to seizure--in fact, most do; you've affirmed that you support background checks, but I don't see any conservative candidates who are willing to say the same.I'm not trying to win a gun control debate; I normally don't even address the issue. I'm only trying to communicate clearly my own perspective, neither liberal nor conservative. My libertarian friends think I'm just swell, if I'd only shut up sooner, stopping before the "But...".

Straw buyers move an enormous number of guns here in the U.S., and from here to Mexico. In states where guns cannot be bought or held by the accused in domestic abuse cases, straw buyers routinely rearm them.Gun dealers continue to be upset in the southwest because they have to report same-day sales to the same individual of five or more high-powered rifles. Such a grossly over-regulated drag on doing business... On the other hand, it's good for labor: If your oil field job washed out, you can probably find work as a straw buyer.The southeastern states provide most of the guns to the northeast through one form of straw buying or another, all with the intent to resell to folks in other states who could not legally obtain them.There's a lot of money in them there guns.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

Just more student shenanigans. Look at the fun to be had in Texas:

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A professor at the University of Texas at Austin says he is quitting because of the safety risks posed by the state’s new campus carry law, which will allow concealed handguns in classrooms, dorms and other campus buildings.

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Daniel Hamermesh, an economics professor emeritus who has taught at the university since 1993, said in a letter to the college’s president that with a huge group of students my perception is that the risk that a disgruntled student might bring a gun into the classroom and start shooting at me has been substantially enhanced by the concealed-carry law.

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The letter, published by the Daily Texan, said that rather than teach in Austin in fall 2016 and 2017, Hamermesh will out of self-protection instead spend part of next year at the University of Sydney, where, among other things, this risk seems lower.

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The Republican-dominated Texas legislature passed the bill last summer. It goes into effect on 1 August next year. That date will mark the 50th anniversary of the first US mass college shooting — which took place on the University of Texas campus.

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The law’s sponsor, state senator Brian Birdwell, has described bearing arms as a God-given right.

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Tradition is big in Texas.Oh, and elsewhere in Texas academe: Southern Texas University: Second fatal shooting on a U.S. campus todayGood times! Party hearty football schools with guns... What could go wrong?

I can't believe you didn't lead your post with this quote:

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"As a parent I feel more comfortable with my children having a weapon on campus rather than a dildo,"

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The former could be a tragedy; the latter would be in all cicumstances embarrassing.Family values.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

My sophomore civics teacher was a raging conservative in the midst of the 60s. When he called me a liberal for opposing the war and supporting universal healthcare and income guarantees, I told him, no, I'm a power-seeking radical It was a close call, whether he could sputter out that the Constitution would stop me before his head exploded.After I coolly informed him that I had neither signed the Constitution nor taken any oath to support it, I spent some quality time in the principal's office.But as a Good American, I recognize now that was truly a sophomoric attitude. Really.

That's pretty evasive.I agree that it's a special brand of madness to fight the fire on one side of your house while pouring gasoline on the other.Societies create their own monsters, inside and out. Entrenched poverty and racism, greed and indifference are cogs in our sociopath-making machine, and we desperately need to throw clogs in that machine.But I still lock my doors and watch my back.Terrorists want to show that targeted governments cannot protect their citizens. Are you suggesting that those governments should stop trying?

A locked door in my house won't keep someone from breaking in through a window, thus it is not sensible. Do I have that right?Terrorists can no longer easily hijack planes as weapons, so they returned to using them as targets, and a Russian airliner is blown to bits.We take off our shoes and limit our carry-on liquids because of past attempts to use them as explosives on planes; we limit sharps because they have been used to cut throats on planes. I don't think TSA has intercepted any explosive boots or shampoos, but if we stop those security checks, those methods will again be available to terrorists.There are thousands of planes and dozens of airlines, as well as air freight services and private jets. One successful hijacking or theft, and a terrorist again has a highly effective guided missile; one disaffected pilot achieves the same.Given all that, why isn't it sensible to have a few anti-aircraft placements around a high profile target? I think you are confusing the stupidity that got us into this predictament with quite sensible defenses.

Certainty, apparently, is for the attackers; defense does what it can.The goal is to prevent strikes on a densely populated central target. One assumes there will be fewer casualties in more thinly populated outlying areas by mounting defenses at the city's perimeter.If your goal is to bomb the White House with a 767, the likelihood of hitting the Potomac or National Christmas Tree instead is also something of a deterrent.

Extremely entertaining pastiche of false dilemmas and straw men you got there, dronestar--with pictures!--and all to shame me.Maybe you and Greatest I Am should get together and see who has the biggest self-righteousness...But I've got two perspectives, and I ain't ashamed.Sure, stop every manner in which the U.S. helps funds get to terrorists--support for whoever, etc. ISIL will still have funds because they, like many terrorist organizations, are at least partly self-funded by looting, narcotics and other criminal means; they also have wealthy individual backers. All that, too, I suppose, can be countered in time, at least in theory.But they're throwing bombs and firing Kalashnikovs at us right now--slam every cork you can think of in the money bottle today, and those attacks will still be possible tomorrow. Perhaps you think the West should expiate its guilt by welcoming terrorist attacks, but I don't. A nation that already has the resources to protect high profile targets--people, remember?-- with anti-aircraft measures and fails to do so is criminally negligent of its population.We can't defend ourselves out of a terroristic world, but even if we make the foreign policy, military and economic reforms that more directly address the root causes of terrorism, we'll emerge far more bloodied if we don't defend ourselves effectively in the meantime. Merely locking the cabin doors of airliners, the only practical measure I've seen you support, won't get it. My belief in the right of self-defense does not convict me of advocating inflammatory foreign policies.

Uh...okay.

Open carry extends to public university dorms and residences.I anticipate reading about the Texas gunfight where a football game broke out.

Any way that contradicts the notion that among all our rights, gun ownership is uniquely absolute, is unacceptable, especiallly if Obama does it. The explicit link to shootings is particularly distasteful to them: the gun camp has already made it clear that great steaming piles of kids' bodies are irrelevant to a well-regulated militia.Speaker Paul Ryan supported closing background check loopholes--until Obama did some of just that with executive power. Of note, his actions accord with the GOP mantra: just enforce existing laws. Congress is just too busy working to take health care away from tens of millions of people...well, too busy making symbolic gestures with DOA legislation, anyway.We have recent legislation in New York, the SAFE Act, that still has folks in an uproar. The only material change for gun owners requires the registration of assault-style weapons and a limitation on magazine size. They can still buy any gun they could buy before, but they're still riled about those magazines.How you gonna light up a first grade classroom with only a 10-round clip? And you definitely can't repel the First Infantry Division without a big clip.As I've said before, the gun absolutists will create the social and political momentum that leads to the death of the 2nd Amendment. Then they'll blame everyone else.Nicholas Kristof summarized the effectiveness of reasonable gun regulation in a recent NYT column:

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Gun advocates say criminals will always have guns, so regulations make no difference. But increasingly we have evidence that this is wrong.

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The states with the most restrictive gun laws have the lowest gun death rates (including suicides). Take Massachusetts and New York, which have some of the tightest gun restrictions in America; they have three or four gun deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year. At the other extreme, two of the states with the most permissive gun regulations are Alaska and Louisiana, and both have gun death rates about five times as high: more than 19 per 100,000 inhabitants.

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Republican presidential candidates should look at the natural experiment that occurred when Missouri eased restrictions on buying handguns. The result was a 25 percent rise in the firearm homicide rate, according to a study in the Journal of Urban Health.

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In contrast, Connecticut tightened regulations on buying handguns, and gun homicides there fell by 40 percent, according to the American Journal of Public Health.

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The effectiveness of reasonable gun regulation has been proven; the bloodletting that follows their loosening has been proven. The Constitutionality of reasonable regulation has been established.One side of the debate finds the facts (and the body counts) irrelevant; the other, growing side, looks at the facts and body counts and says enough is enough. When gun absolutists lose more than they ever thought possible, they'll have only themselves to blame.

Yeah, but before he was in the closet.