Nick Anderson for December 23, 2012

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    Dtroutma  over 11 years ago

    Yup, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, U.S., Iraq, Israel, not at all like ruthless Japan, England, Australia, New Zealand, or all the other nations were reasonable limits are in place.

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    braindead Premium Member over 11 years ago

    How long has the NRA been dead set against them violent video games that cause those mass killings? -Was it before last Friday?

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    Yontrop  over 11 years ago

    Whoever said, An armed society is a polite society" was phantasying about a “good old days” that never existed… Tombstone Arizona in 1880, maybe? King Arthur’s Court?

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    Ironhold  over 11 years ago

    Thomas E. Woods’ “33 Questions You’re Not Supposed To Ask About American History” notes that the Wild West wasn’t as wild as most people think it is. []Rather, the combination of “strict private property laws” and “common firearm ownership” helped serve to keep the crime rate in check, such that for some towns the murder rate was almost non-existent.

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    Darsan54 Premium Member over 11 years ago

    Mr. Blair, I applaud you. The vast majority of people don’t realize their ideas of the wild, wild west were inspired by penny novels and early Hollywood films. They had nearly total gun control in towns, which is why when someone used a gun to kill someone in a town the event was doubly horrifing and made a place for itself in history. And the prevelance of guns didn’t come until after the Civil War when excess manufacturing capacity encouraged the gun makers to expand their marketing thru myth making – read: general lying.

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    William Bednar Premium Member over 11 years ago

    As far as I can recall, the NRA has not mentioned violent video games, as a possible cause of weapon related crimes, before last Friday’s announcement. I may be wrong on this, but I doubt it. Maybe the video game industry hasn’t been making generous enough “contributions” to the NRA lately? Is that the reason for them being singled out? I wonder.

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    daves306  over 11 years ago

    Hey Nick, Try carrying an AR-15 slung over your shoulder down the sidewalk in your neighborhood and get back to us on how that turns out for you. Because responsible gun owners walk around like that all the time.

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    dannysixpack  over 11 years ago

    ^The NRA is practicing it’s 3 legged strategy. The first leg is to insure the drafting ineffective laws, so they can point at the them after an ‘incident’ and say that laws are ineffective (were the earp brothers in dodge city?). The second leg is to distract the conversation to anything else. video games, mental health. while these are societal problems that the NRA certainly doesn’t care about, they make a fine scapegoat for un-educated liberals. The third leg is to refuse to discuss guns, as that guns are not and have never been the problem.

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    crlinder  over 11 years ago

    The NRA’s position is effectively the personalization of the Cold War concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). In the Cold War the U.S and the U.S.S.R. were deterred from using nuclear weapons because the first to use them would have started a chain of retaliation that would have led to the destruction of both countries. Fortunately, no political madman or set of circumstances took us down that path (although the Cuban missile crisis came too close for comfort). But there were only two main actors in that drama. With millions of armed individuals, someone is bound to step over the line and start a chain of shooting that will leave many dead and wounded. I’ll even go so far as to predict it would lead to more dead than our current situation.

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    Dapperdan61  Premium Member over 11 years ago

    Guns are like cigarettes, their only purpose for existing is to kill. They fatten the pockets of the NRA & gunmakers but do nothing to advance the betterment of mankind. The only people that should have them is the military, law enforcement & responsible hunters that have learned to shoot straight.

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    Motivemagus  over 11 years ago

    If you read about the real history of the OK Corral and the “Wild” West, you will find that they had a tight rein on the guns. In fact, guns were banned within city limits in Tombstone and had to be checked in. See, for example, this:http://www.amazon.com/Last-Gunfight-Shootout-K-Corral/dp/1439154252Robert Heinlein coined the phrase “an armed society is a polite society,” but as much as I like his work, he was naive in the extreme when it came to people and societies, and I speak as a motivational psychologist and researcher. His error was this: He assumed the presence of guns would inhibit violence, because people would hesitate knowing the opponent was armed. This is not true, as indeed the history of the US demonstrates. Impulsive behavior is just that — impulsive. This is also why the death penalty is not, in fact, an effective deterrent. You have to be the kind of person who can think ahead instead of reacting. And everybody reacts impulsively under the right circumstances, e.g., fear, startlement, stress, rage.The only way Heinlein’s idea would work is through evolutionary change, which would take a while. And even then the impulsive might get an advantage by killing off the reasonable first.

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    markjoseph125  over 11 years ago

    Nice job of moving the goalposts. Look, dtroutma’s post, the first one in this comment thread, is game, set, and match. The simple fact that the countries that decided to do something realistic with stricter gun laws have fewer gun mayhem than the massively armed societies refutes the gun nuts’ central argument. So, instead of addressing that refutation, you make the moronic comment “why don’t you move there”, which was already stale in the 1960s.I have to wonder what kind of neighborhood you live in, since you repeatedly make the comment that is the last line of your post. Is it really so bad that if your neighbors knew you weren’t armed to the teeth that they would waltz in, beat the crap out of you, and take all your stuff? Or, as seems more likely to me, that is just you projecting your fears of impotence on to the social situation in general?

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    Stormrider2112  over 11 years ago

    People who want the freedom to conceal-carry want the freedom to live in fear.

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    dannysixpack  over 11 years ago
    “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life”.heinlein was a science fiction author and one of my favorites. If you read beyond the horizon you’ll see it was a rather tongue in cheek observation of a mythical society.It’s ironic that the gun nuts use this quote as it’s written by an author, albeit a great author, about fantasy.one might as well base mathematical lessons on lewis carroll’s “alice’s adventures in wonderland” AND “through the looking glass and what alice found there.”
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    Dtroutma  over 11 years ago

    Most “gunfights” in the Old West involved numerous reloading of the weapons, and were waged from a few feet away. Well, actually, most, like with Bill HIckock’s finale, were back shooting incidents.

    Point being" Col. Colt’s first “Peacemaker” was only slightly more accurate than a club. Improvements in ammunition made the real difference, not the “revolver” per se with it’s six round capacity.

    My 2 inch barrel Ruger revolver is many times more accurate than the first products of the Colonel, because the higher velocity, and consistency of the product, makes modern ammunition much more accurate. Likewise, my .45 semi-automatic not only is more accurate, but also carries a couple more bullets, and can fire at about 4 times the rate, accurately, of the “average” user with an early Colt.

    But the REAL deal is, the lethality of modern weapons even the NON-miitary versions, is many, many, times the effectiveness of the original Colt 45, and even many MORE times more lethal than anything the founding fathers could have imagined when they wrote the Second Amendment to provide for a militia. Note: they also limited spending on a military to two-year periods, because they may have seen the potential for being ripped off by the “military-industrial complex”. The lost out on defending the nation FROM firearms abuse, AND lost out to “defense” contractors!

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    braindead Premium Member over 11 years ago

    What’s funny is that in the anticipation leading up to Friday’s NRA speech, if someone had published a text of the speech in, say, The Onion, everyone would have thought it was biting sarcasm, and saying ridiculous things to falsely paint the NRA.

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  17. John adams1
    Motivemagus  over 11 years ago

    Says the guy who demonizes liberals, Democrats, and the mainstream media! Har!

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  18. Albert einstein brain i6
    braindead Premium Member over 11 years ago

    “And that Americans who own them are merely exercising an underlying right that King Obama nor Candy-Asses Boehner and Reed can not LEGALLY infringe upon without due process (or shouldn’t be able to anyway).”-Has Obama now been downgraded — from messiah to only a king?-What will Fox “news” think of next?

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    Jason Allen  over 11 years ago

    Reading the overall tone of the “conservative” commenters, I have to assume the fear of a distopian, lawless, and gunless US has replaced the fear of socialism as the Republican fear du jour. Socialism, of course replaced, the fear of terrorist attacks. Terrorism replaced the fear of Communism, which reigned supreme as the Republican fear of choice for many decades.As Franklin Roosevelt famously said, “The only thing you have to fear, is fear itself.” The more you fear, the more likely you are to vote Republican.

    God bless the GOP (only).

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    chazandru  over 11 years ago

    The NRA is not the hunter’s lobby, it is the lobby for gun and ammo manufacturers and those groups do not care about dead people. They only care about stock value and the return on their investment. A weapon used in a crime is destroyed leaving a space for a new gun to be bought. A person killed means their killer needs to buy more bullets. It’s a shame, but nothing personal, it’s just business. The NRA used to protect the rights of hunters and collectors, but with a switch in primary donors comes a switch in priorities. The priority is to sell more guns and more bullets.I’m sorry to see the NRA go so far to the side of protecting guns over protecting humans.Respectfully,C.

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    lindz.coop Premium Member over 11 years ago

    I missed the “polite” variable last Friday in Connecticut. I do know that if that person had not had a gun, he would not have been able to do what he did. The countries that have taken away the guns (UK, Australia etc.) have not had another incident — we are too dumb to get it, so we go thru this about once a month lately.

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    markjoseph125  over 11 years ago

    And a peaceful Winter Solstice to you, good sir!

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    markjoseph125  over 11 years ago

    If you understood evolution at all, you’d know there is no such thing as a supreme being, just different species adapted for their environmental niches; the true picture of life on earth is a bush, not a ladder.I know you don’t have any insecurities, but if you did, I’d say that your desire to be on top of the social hierarchy was one of them.

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    derlehrer  over 11 years ago

    If you contributors want to bicker, this is the right place..If you want an educated analysis of the relationship between the number of guns and the number of violent deaths, go to the following link. It is a study by Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser, published in the “Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy” (January 1, 2007). Both of these gentlemen are studied and credentialed criminologists. You can read more about them online..Banning Firearms.I choose not to reveal the conclusions of that study, so that I do not prejudice any minds..Peace be with you.

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    lonecat  over 11 years ago

    What’s higher than human beings? Weil, giraffes, for a start. Evolutionary theory doesn’t talk about “above” or “higher”. People are not “better” or “higher” or “above” other creatures — we are all adapted to fit into ecological niches. When the environment changes, organisms have to change, too.

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    dannysixpack  over 11 years ago

    ^at least in washington and colorado.

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    fritzoid Premium Member over 11 years ago

    “I’d say we are higher.”

    High as a kite, it often seems.

    In “Galapagos”, Kurt Vonnegut (speaking through the million-years-dead ghost of Leon Trotsky Trout, estranged son of science fiction writer Kilgore Trout) say something like:

    “The human brain was evolution’s biggest mistake. It was far too large and powerful for the purposes it needed to accomplish, and kept itself occupied by thinking up ways to make trouble.”

    Nothing would have been lost had the “highest” form of intelligence on the planet been the porpoise. They’re smart enough to communicate, and they seem to enjoy their lives. Of course, porpoises still gang-rape, so let’s get rid of them too, and leave the planet to the otters. I don’t know if they communicate, but they use tools, and they seem to find living a blast.

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    fritzoid Premium Member over 11 years ago

    Actually, my vote for “Most Worthwhile Life Form” goes to the Golden Retrievers, but if it weren’t for humans they wouldn’t exist.

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    Dtroutma  over 11 years ago

    Donald, Wyatt was a “cop” in Dodge before Tombstone. He went on to make a couple movies in Hollywood, died in a little spot on the Colorado River.

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    lonecat  over 11 years ago

    I grant that we can cogitate in more complicated ways than other animals, but that’s higher only if you decide that cogitation is better than other qualities. In my opinion (that phrase stands for IMO, in case anyone needs translation) the case for human cogitation is still open. Wait until we have figured out how not to destroy the world. Personally I agree about Golden Retrievers, and I also think tigers are pretty special. If I were a warthog, I might think that a lady warthog is the highest form of life.

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    lonecat  over 11 years ago

    There’s a lot of good science going on right now, but in my opinion nothing more fundamental than the discovery of lots of planets out there. My hunch is that there is life on a lot of these planets, and probably intelligent life, and perhaps life more “intelligent” than we are — whatever that means. So far as the universe is concerned, we’re nothing special. But we matter to each other, and that’s probably what counts.

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    fritzoid Premium Member over 11 years ago

    “< This is my Great Golden Boy, Buddy.”

    I wasn’t thinking of your avatar when I made my post about Golden Retrievers until after I’d posted it, but in retrospect I figured you’d find it relatable.

    Tonight I had the opportunity to spend some time with my (current) favorite Goldie in the world (Note: While my favorite individual dogs in the world have not been Goldies, they’ve been mutts, which means their qualities have not been easily reproducible). He’s just had surgery on one of his paws. This brings to mind the CENTRAL point of my personal philosophy:

    We should all strive to be as happy as a three-legged dog.

    If you’ve ever known a three-legged dog, you’ve probably noticed that they’re just as happy as the four-legged kind. Which is exactly the point.

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    derlehrer  over 11 years ago

    ↑ After posting my last comment, I looked a little further and found this link, confirming that Wyatt was cast in at least one movie (as an extra):Wyatt Earp the Actor

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    Dtroutma  over 11 years ago

    Donald, can’t recall the title of the biography on Wyatt I read, it dealt a lot with what happened AFTER Tombstone. The little town of Earp, on the Colorado is named after him. He had a “retreat” of sorts and lived out on the desert, as well as in Hollywood, and I seem to recall he worked on several silent films. He never really made it as an actor though. The book had numerous photos of his different homes. I worked on the Colorado around Earp and points north and south, so Wyatt was known to several of the “old timers” in the area, who had interesting stories.

    I don’t recall if it was Fattig’s book, because it did speak to his time in Idaho and Alaska as well as the better know elements. (a reviewer felt Fattig gave short shrift to those days, and the bio I read had a fair amount. Anyway, hope this MIGHT help get you started If I find the right text, will post it somehwere for you.

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    Ronnie2242g  over 11 years ago

    hillarious. Now draw a cartoon where the unarmed teacher was gunned down by the armed coward.

    Then Check and see how much crime has gone up in Australia since they called in the guns.

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    adherent#1  about 11 years ago

    Did I post here? If I did I guess gocomics was forced to remove it by some flag-happy liberal… I wish I could remember it – probably an example of my best work (those are always the ones that get removed).

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    adherent#1  about 11 years ago

    Eventually a weapons ban would include all weapons – which is where we know the tyrannists want to take the country. As was pointed out – after a suitable amount of time elapsed out of respect for the dead – the killer could have used weapons as lethal up close as the Ar-15 clone he chose – a shotgun, for example; or he could have used an automoblie as they played on recess. If that had happened – the statists would have had no opportunity to impugn a right to bear arms as the culprit of mass murder. So millions of law-abiding Americans will have to surrender their right of access to certain firearms (which as of RIGHT NOW – are legal and Constitutionally protected) because one disturbed individual decided to target innocents without cause. I don’t think even liberals can outlaw the “insane” – especially when insanity apparently – by the numbers – has little to do with occurence of mass killings… or emotional outbursts that result in deaths…

    But I don’t consider myself a gun-rights proponent. My heart tells me that a People may have the duty to protect its citizens from certain specific dangers if they are eminent and preventable. But, if a reasoned analysis of the information suggests that the well-being of law-abiding gun owners would be unduly jeopardized by an arbitrary gun-ban process – I think the current status of 2nd Amendment rights should be UPHELD by our elected and appointed officials until legislated otherwise. Go pass an Amendment, Libs; that’s what they’re for – then you’ll probably be able to legally confiscate every scary weapon you can find…

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    dannysixpack  about 11 years ago

    ^I want a nuclear suitcase.

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