Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I know I'm wonking and there's a risk that someone has already said these things, but

1) On guns, there is significant political will at work, on the part of the gun nuts. They are organized, they care, and they vote, so they exert political power disproportionate to their numbers. People who support gun control are not single-issue voters and care more about other things.

2) The gun nuts see a problem too, and a solution. The problem is that they are a minority in their own country, and they feel threatened, by liberals, minorities and the government. (Chicago is a code word for these things, some more than others.) Also, bad people with guns. The solution is to arm themselves.

3) The solution is not (initially) political. It's social and cultural. It's in the possibility of seeing someone with a long gun as a little crazy and trying too hard to compensate for a lack of something, rather than forceful and masculine, in seeing a gun in the house as a threat to children rather than a way to protect them. When the social meaning of guns changes, the legislation will follow. It feels intractable now, but it happened with cigarettes and gay marriage, surprisingly quickly. I'll say it again: People buy guns because they feel weak.

Re: The delegation cc
 

Not necessarily, but could be.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

1. Yup.

2. That's an overly ambitious linkage. There are lots of non-white gun owners in the country. And a lot of gun nuts are just... gun nuts. As a group, they are not predominantly fearful xenophobes. The majority are just enthusiasts for a dangerous product.

3. I don't own guns. I think the cost/benefit of owning them is terrible. But my cousin who fires shotguns at clay pigeons for fun is not doing so because she's weak. Nor are the hunters I've met. Nor are the misguided people who own guns because they think they'll provide protection if someone breaks into their house.

People who buy assault weapons do have something wrong with them. And they are weak, and over-compensating. That's true. But that's not all gun buyers. That's a small subset of them.

The fix is political and legislative. You can't buy a rocket launcher or live grenades. You can't buy dynamite, or even fireworks, in some states. You can't buy beer until you're 21. At the state level, legislatures can simply ban assault weapons and impose stiff sentences for violations. Problem solved.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There are gun owners and then there are gun nuts. Many people who own and use guns are not gun nuts. The number of people who use guns recreationally has been dropping, and they are not driving gun ownership any more. The people behind what the NRA has become are conservative, white, primarily rural, and increasingly fearful.

Your approach has been failing for a long time now, so we should keep trying it.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

One of the things that I think is notable in the changing demographics of gun nuts is that more and more of them are suburbanites and urbanites whose gun ownership is completely divorced from hunting. A lot of these people have a sort of hick-wanna-be mentality, and like to shoot up ranges with semi-automatics.

Most of my upstate NY rural relatives aren't gun nuts, but many of them have a rifle or two used for the once every three year hunting trip they go on with some friends when they can spare the time. On the other hand, I have relatives in fancy 'burbs outside of Nashville who own an arsenal, and some Staten Island and Jersey family who think playing with AR-15s is da bomb. The ones in Nashville do hunt, but mostly big game in fancy lodges, and their hunting rifles are a very small part of their arsenal.

At some point, the sensible gun owners with a rifle or two and a hunting license have to be separated from the loons. The loons are getting loonier. I'm quite serious when I say the next frontier is going to be armed drones, and gun nuts suggesting they really need to be able to have drones out shooting shit up so they can watch from the comfort of their homes and their well stocked bars. And ya'all can just image what a half dozen armed drones above a concert crowd would do.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Maybe, but at least some of the NRA's marketing implies Ty's characterization.

We are a not talking about hunting and sport shooting. Nobody want to take away those guns.

Those people are indeed weak.

Problem not solved because there's an Indiana or South Dakota or whatever next door, and people who are happy to purchase those things legally over their and resell them here.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

My uncle is an avid hunter and I recall him having divorced himself from the NRA like 25 years ago.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

OMG!!!!! It's the Lumbersexuals! I knew they were bad news.

Re: No amount of funk will make you forget
 

That chapter on Sodom and Gomorrah? It was really about Lumbersexuals. Read it again.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

When I lived in Northern Virginia buying booze was complicated. The Commonwealth felt that regulating alcohol was important so one needed to go state stores. The stores were spaced far, and closed early. Thus, Virginia was able to control alcohol purchase to hours outside of traditional "I'm drunk and need more!" buying times. But what Virginia could not control was that I lived across the river from D.C. and you can buy booze there anytime/anywhere. Now extrapolate to a purchase that is not a consumable.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

If you ask my dad what he did when he was in high school, he'd say hunting and playing football. There were always guns around when I was a kid. I remember going to Ducks Unlimited dinners as a kid, and sometimes he'd set up the clay pigeon launcher to practice skeet. I've never seen him as upset as when Holden, my sister's Labrador and his hunting buddy, died in 2010. I think he stopped hunting because Holden isn't there to share the experience with, not because of some moral stance on hunting or gun ownership. (His being 78 might have s a little to do with it too...)

My brother also spent most of his youth hunting. He is an insanely good shot and used to win skeet shooting competitions in college. He shoots snakes sometimes when the water moccasin population gets to big in the pond near the house. I think he has a shotgun or two at the ranch, but they're put away with the other guns, and I haven't seen them in years. He doesn't keep a gun in his house.

My husband has a bunch of medals and ribbons for shooting in the military, and he has some sniper training. He has years of training in shooting and is very good at it, but doesn't own a firearm. He knows where the rifles are at the ranch in case the pig population threatens the immediate vicinity, but otherwise he has no real interest in them. Our home defense system involves dogs, a few lightsabres, some ornamental swords and knives, a very scary battleaxe someone gave us for our wedding, assorted cutlery, and a marine. I don't feel unsafe.

All three of the these men want absolutely nothing to do with arsenal accumulation and the NRA. They are extraordinary comfortable around firearms, and they do not have a problem with the ownership of guns. They've all been around gun nuts of various stripes, and they understand the allure (and fun!) of shooting. But they are totally put off with the bat shit craziness of it all. They are totally ok with any and all restrictions, and with the exception of varmint control (the pig thing is a massive problem in our part of the country) they don't see any reason to NEED to own a firearm. If they had to register their weapons tomorrow, none of them would bat an eye.

I'm a terrible shot and am more likely to hurt myself or some innocent bystander than I am what I'm shooting at if I were to be armed. It's better for the public for me to be very far away from projectile weaponry, and I'm handed bludgeoning implements instead in apocalypse training. (;D). One of my dogs is convinced that they're after her personally when she hears gunfire, and she high tails it to the closest bed to hide under when she hears it. The other is not quite so chicken shit, but he's not a fan. The NRA solution that everyone should be armed is preposterous with people like me around.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Is it a bad joke if I sign in to the mandatory human resources sexual harassment seminar as “Harvey Weinstein”?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It would be a pity to have to take it twice because there was no record that you attended.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Extra sign in.

C'mon you never pranked your substitute HS homeroom teacher by writing in Dick Hertz, Mike Hunt, Eileen Dover, Phill McCrackin, Harry Azole ?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Rufus Leeking?