dagblog - Comments for "Who Can't Get a Gun in This Country?"

These people who're

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 04:16:20 +0000

In reply to Who Can't Get a Gun in This Country?

These people who're "obviously a menace" to you, are not so obviously a menace to the rest of society. It takes more than "he said so" to have someone declared a menace, a danger, or delusional. Thank God too, otherwise we'd be back to the days of Ol' Salem "She's a witch!" No due process, no civil rights, just "this guy said she's a witch, so she must be a witch".

Anyway, to answer your question, please read Federal BATFE form 4473 section 11 questions A thru L in link below. THESE are the people who are prohibited by Federal law from obtaining a firearm. They are so prohibited because their "menacing" ways have been adjudicated in some legal way and we KNOW they are defective.

http://www.ocshooters.com/Gen/Form-4473/ATF-Form-4473.htm

We were going for the Charlie

acanuck — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:16:00 +0000

In reply to Could you guys work up the

We were going for the Charlie Rose demographic, quinn, not WWE. But OK, if you're sure it will attract a younger, hipper, more bloodthirsty audience -- hand me that folding chair.

Could you guys work up the

quinn esq — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:01:45 +0000

In reply to Who are you accusing of lack

Could you guys work up the emotion a bit? Nobody believes you two hate each other.

The pay-per-view's gonna be shit.

Who are you accusing of lack

acanuck — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:24:42 +0000

In reply to You could be right. Maybe it

Who are you accusing of lack of cynicism, Genghis? I'm hurt.

I didn't set out here to argue my-military-is-nicer-than-your-military -- just to criticize the U.S. military. And to assert that events like the Baghdad killings are linked -- in my mind, at least -- to the laisser-faire attitude toward gun ownership and use that Dr. Cleveland so ably documents.

That laisser-faire attitude, I suggest, is a bad piece of baggage to carry when barely trained youth are set loose on a civilian population with a license to kill. Maybe the U.S. military is only marginally worse than some of its allies in the way it treats occupied populations. But it's the major occupying power in the world right now, so those differences can't be glossed over. It's understandable for U.S. citizens to want to support the troops by cutting them some slack. The rest of the world sees war crimes that go unacknowledged and unpunished.

Since when does "arrested"

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:38:45 +0000

In reply to Who Can't Get a Gun in This Country?

Since when does "arrested" for odd behavior equal "guilty?"

You'd deny people things simply because they were arrested? Not even indicted yet? Not convicted?

You could be right. Maybe it

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:09:53 +0000

In reply to I said it up front: wars

You could be right. Maybe it is a kinder, gentler Canandian military now. Canada's eventual response to the Somalia murder was indeed laudatory and far better than the American response to Abu Ghraib.

Still, your lack of cynicism surprises me coming from such a steadfast cynic, and the "our boys are better than that" attitude reminds me of Canada's national mythology before Somalia. As I recall, it was the partly the blow to Canada's pride that made the crime so shocking to Canadians.

As for me, I think this stuff creeps back in and that the any differences between average military conduct is only a matter of degree. What I worry about is the stuff that's not caught on videotape.

Oops! That's right! I forgot

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:07:03 +0000

In reply to Your post makes an important,

Oops! That's right! I forgot I was a big Commie.

Your post makes an important,

acanuck — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:05:46 +0000

In reply to I haven't had the stomach to

Your post makes an important, totally valid point, doctor. You'd think that even the NRA might agree that guns should be denied to the criminally violent or certifiably insane. Such a position wouldn't cut into sales too much, and it would make the group's overall stand seem so much more reasonable.

But no. I seem to recall, a fear years back, the NRA arguing for the gun-ownership rights of someone caught up in a terrorism investigation. The details elude me, but it sure sounded like putting ideology above patriotism.

You say you're not proposing any draconian gun-control measures. I think the NRA would disagree. Commie.

I said it up front: wars

acanuck — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:31:13 +0000

In reply to Once the news broke, sure.

I said it up front: wars brutalize everyone who takes part. But I am not naive in asserting that yes, Canada's soldiers are above that kind of behavior.

Precisely because we had the Somalia affair and the Somalia inquiry. Soldiers went to prison. The Airborne Regiment was disbanded. Military training and recruitment changed. Chiefs of defence staff were cashiered. Ministers of defence were forced to resign. At least one government fell. There was a serious public debate about what the purpose of Canada's armed forces was.

Frankly, the United States needs an equivalent soul-searching. Not what it got -- a kabuki Abu Ghraib investigation that conveniently found a few bad apples were giving everyone else a bad name. No senior officers fired. No cabinet ministers canned. No independent inquiry into where their orders were coming. In short, no assignment or acceptance of personal responsibility.

And that's what I see in this video. A bureaucratization of responsibility in which no one really has to take the blame when things go horribly wrong. Hey, the kids followed the rules of engagement. They got permission to kill from someone at the other end of a telephone line. No moral judgment necessary. And that's because that's the attitude going all the way up the U.S. chain of command, right to the secretary of defense and the president. And it hasn't changed with the election of Obama.

I haven't had the stomach to

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 01:16:32 +0000

In reply to Three: If after watching the

I haven't had the stomach to watch those videos yet, and I certainly won't defend them. But I will say that we're talking about two different problems, even if both are about violence.

The soldiers on those tapes have been, at best, desensitized to war in a way that makes them inhuman and callous toward their targets. And I'm afraid that they might be a symptom of a general loss of morale and mission among our troops in Iraq. I've got a very, very bad feeling about this.

Still, there's a real difference between how trained people who've been issued guns and given a set of orders behave (and whatever else, these gunners still seem to be firmly in their superiors' command) and how the lunatics who threaten politicians or shoot their coworkers behave. Amy Bishop and Seung-Hui Choi would not last long in the Army, and it's not returned veterans who end up committing most of the crazy gun violence we're talking about. Soldiers, after all, are people you would give a gun to on purpose, people who are trained to use them and trusted not to shoot people on their own side. (The one soldier who has murdered his own lately,the Fort Hood shooter, was not in the combat forces.) And I do think there are many responsible and law-abiding gun owners.

I'm worried, for purposes of this post, about people who are very clearly undisciplined and unbalanced, the people who palpably cannot be trusted with firearms and who use them irresponsibly. If the country's full of retired military officers who've got their old service revolvers stored in a locker, that's not a menace. It's the Norman Leboons of the world that I worry about.