Virginia Beach mass shooting

[FirstFiveEighth]

No one should have automatic guns except police and military…and I hate any kind of weapon and not a fan of hunting unless for food.

No one has automatic guns outside of the military, except for a very few individuals who hold very expensive Class III firearms licenses that have to be constantly renewed and places one on a federal registry. Not one single murder in this country has been committed with an automatic firearm.

 

[JonNC]

There is an additional American angle on this as well. Private gun ownership in the US has been linked tightly with white supremacy.

There is some truth to this. Democrats did everything they could to prevent blacks from being recognized as human beings, then as citizens, to prevent them from accessing their rights as individuals. Thank goodness people who actually believe in the American model of individual rights are superior to government power fought to make sure all Americans are able to access those rights, particularly the enumerated rights protected in the constitution.
White supremacy is a form of identity politics. All forms of identity politics and intersectionality are bigotry and racism.

 

[Divine3]

Yes have been corrected regarding guns and I have no knowledge regarding guns…
Thought magazines was automatic gun.

We reap what we sow as citizens of a nation that has been given so much by its creator. To break God’s laws of love always have immediate consequences, as well as future consequences and eternal consequences. The quote I wanted to copy only is by the roses…need to scroll down

MOTHER TERESA’S NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST MESSAGE​

On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, “Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me.” Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, “Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me.” These will ask Him, “When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?” And Jesus will answer them, “Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!”…

… remember that ‘the future of humanity passes through the family.’
I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given to drugs. And I tried to find out why. Why is it like that, when those in the West have so many more things than those in the East? … But often father and mother are so busy they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even married or have given up on their marriage. So their children go to the streets and get involved in drugs or other things. We are talking of love of the child, which is were love and peace must begin. These are the things that break peace.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

 

[JonNC]

Your personal rights are subordinate to responsibility.

Indeed. I have a responsibility to make sure my firearms are used properly,not violating the rights of others.
That is an individual responsibility, not tied to whether or not others properly exercise their rights.
If I don’t properly exercise my rights and it hurts someone else, only I am responsible. I alone should be held accountable.
Government confiscation of rights of many for the actions of one or a few is tyranny.

Is this what we want to be famous for? Abortion outlawed but no restrictions on guns,

Both parts of this statement are false. Abortion remains legal in the entire country to some degree, and legal until even after birth is a few jurisdictions.
There are significant restrictions on firearms ownership in virtually all jurisdictions in the US.

 

[DENNYINMI]

Thank goodness people who actually believe in the American model of individual rights are superior to government power fought to make sure all Americans are able to access those rights, particularly the enumerated rights protected in the constitution.

Yes. Lets all rest assured we will maintain our freedoms as superior over and above any responsibility while we blow ourselves into next week or 6 feet under. It’s the Wild West cometh. We must recognize shootings will happen when we have “freedoms”, and we can send thoughts and prayers in lieu of not touching or sacrificing anything along the way as long as I retain my right to my semi-automatic weapons if I choose, cuz an amendment says so and in the Constitution I Trust!~(picture 4 foot tall with hands on hips here)

It is not the governments responsibility to protect civilians or get into my business, and especially my gun cabinet…This is a love affair, and how dare you.

I would suggest at Mass today, some people change out the words “Let Us Pray” to “Let ME Pray” because we really are in search of a different world and mine continues to see a gun in an all too repetitive nightmare.

 

[Guinness]

That’s a strange way to reason. Mandating pool fencing as a ramification due to child drownings is not punishing people who haven’t had a child drown.

If this were about pools, the New Zealand response wouldn’t have been to mandate fencing, it would have been mandating that all pools be filled in.

 

[Guinness]

And within this same line of thought, we’ve made it costly, difficult, and extremely hard to maintain the privilege of driving if that stupidity took place behind the wheel of car while DUI!~

Self defense isn’t a privilege, it’s a right, and even in your scenario, you don’t punish the people who are responsible drivers for the sins of those who get behind the wheel while intoxicated.

No one has automatic guns outside of the military, except for a very few individuals who hold very expensive Class III firearms licenses that have to be constantly renewed and places one on a federal registry. Not one single murder in this country has been committed with an automatic firearm.

Lost in this is that the Virginia Beach shooter used 2 handguns, not “assault rifles” or “automatic weapons”.

 

[JonNC]

Yes. Lets all rest assured we will maintain our freedoms as superior over and above any responsibility while we blow ourselves into next week or 6 feet under.

I think my post spoke in contrary to a lack of responsibility. In fact, it spoke directly to the importance of individual responsibility, your misrepresentation notwithstanding.

We must recognize shootings will happen when we have “freedoms”

It is telling how often those opposed to individual rights use quotes in this way, or invoke the phrase, “so called”.

and we can send thoughts and prayers in lieu of not touching or sacrificing anything along the way as long as I retain my right to my semi-automatic weapons if I choose, cuz an amendment says so and in the Constitution I Trust!~(picture 4 foot tall with hands on hips here)

My semiautomatic and my right to it has absolutely nothing to do with those who abuse rights. We don’t do guilt by association in America. We hold individuals responsible for their actions.

It is not the governments responsibility to protect civilians or get into my business, and especially my gun cabinet…This is a love affair, and how dare you.

It is the government’s responsibility to deal with those who interfere with other’s rights. 100 million Americans own firearms and never break the law. So the government has a responsibility to protect the people. No, it doesn’t have the power to interfere with my rights.
The claim that rights are the cause of crime is a claim of tyrants.

I would suggest at Mass today, some people change out the words “Let Us Pray” to “Let ME Pray” because we really are in search of a different world and mine continues to see a gun in an all too repetitive nightmare.

Start then with the desire to disarm governments first. The history of the last 120 years is that government is by far the greatest cause of the murder of citizens-10s of millions or more in the 20th century, unrelated to war.

 

[FirstFiveEighth]

Fun fact: Less firearms related homicides in this country than the apparently rare late term abortion.

 

[billsherman]

Democrats did everything they could to prevent blacks from being recognized as human beings, then as citizens, to prevent them from accessing their rights as individuals. Thank goodness people who actually believe in the American model of individual rights are superior to government power fought to make sure all Americans are able to access those rights, particularly the enumerated rights protected in the constitution.

I want to be very clear here: white supremacy is an ideology that has no party. Democrats, Republicans, Populists, Bull Moosers, Whigs, Federalists, Freesoilers, etc. have all held and legislated white supremacist ideas. I expect all will continue to do so as well.

Gun rights in the US are tightly associated with white supremacy. A meaningful discussion of this idea has to come down to more than “my party is less white supremacist than yours.” I suggest starting with the books I linked above.

 

[JonNC]

I want to be very clear here: white supremacy is an ideology that has no party. Democrats, Republicans, Populists, Bull Moosers, Whigs, Federalists, Freesoilers, etc. have all held and legislated white supremacist ideas. I expect all will continue to do so as well.

I want to be very clear: throughout the history of the United States, it has been the Democrats who have acted on white supremacy and other forms of identity politics, from slavery to Dred Scott to Jim Crow, from the KKK to BLM.

Gun rights in the US are tightly associated with white supremacy. A meaningful discussion of this idea has to come down to more than “my party is less white supremacist than yours.” I suggest starting with the books I linked above.

In the Heller decision, the Court outlines the real history of the right to arms. In the MacDonald decision, we saw who would step up and defend the rights of American blacks to keep and bear arms, and who opposed Otis MacDonald and other law abiding citizens.
The right to keep and bear arms, like all other rights came long before the existence of the US constitution and republic.

 

[niceatheist]

The right to keep and bear arms, like all other rights came long before the existence of the US constitution and republic.

Well, properly, it came about a century before; in the Bill of Rights 1689.

 

[billsherman]

I want to be very clear: throughout the history of the United States, it has been the Democrats who have acted on white supremacy and other forms of identity politics, from slavery to Dred Scott to Jim Crow, from the KKK to BLM.

You missed my point, intentionally I assume. White supremacy is not now, and never has been, a partisan idea. It is an American idea. Start with Theodore Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race.” If you are unwilling to do that, we can’t meaningfully have a conversation.

Blaming Democrats for white supremacy is like blaming Republicans for cancer. It just plays into a false narrative of “my political beliefs are better than yours.” The real, and very serious issue, of gun control can only be properly discussed when the partisan talking points are removed from the conversation, they only exists to distract from reality. That’s why we created political talking points in the first place: because we don’t want to deal with the real, underlying issues.

 

[JonNC]

JonNC:

The right to keep and bear arms, like all other rights came long before the existence of the US constitution and republic.

Well, properly, it came about a century before; in the Bill of Rights 1689.

Please view Heller

 

[niceatheist]

The “right to bear arms” in the Bill of Rights, 1689 was a direct response to attempts by the Crown to restrict Protestant rights to own firearms. In other words, it was never previously acknowledge in English law, though to some extent in custom, of the right to bear arms.

 

[JonNC]

You missed my point, intentionally I assume. White supremacy is not now, and never has been, a partisan idea. It is an American idea. Start with Theodore Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race.” If you are unwilling to do that, we can’t meaningfully have a conversation.

Oh, I’m sure it appears in some other political parties, but the overwhelming exercise of it in America has been by Democrats.
So, no. I didn’t miss or ignore your point. I disagree with it.

Blaming Democrats for white supremacy is like blaming Republicans for cancer. It just plays into a false narrative of “my political beliefs are better than yours.”

No, it plays into the historical facts of slavery and segregation.

The real, and very serious issue, of gun control can only be properly discussed when the partisan talking points are removed from the conversation, they only exists to distract from reality.

Then stop inserting them into the conversation. The right to arms, like all other rights, are inherent to human beings of all groups. It has nothing to do with race. Again, look at the MacDonald decision.

That’s why we created political talking points in the first place: because we don’t want to deal with the real, underlying issues.

The real issue here is that rights are antecedent to government. The Declaration of Independence expresses this truth.
So we start from this basic foundation: the right to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed.
As long as a person abides by laws that do not infringe on their individual rights, confiscation of those rights is tyranny.

So, how do we deal with those who violate the law and the rights of others without interfering with the rights of the law abiding?

 

[Guinness]

Gun rights in the US are tightly associated with white supremacy.

This is true, but not for the reasons you think. The early gun control laws in the US were largely about making it difficult for newly freed slaves to exercise their Constitutional right to bear arms. Even today, the places in the US with the most restrictive gun laws are places where minorities make up a majority or near majority of the population, and the people that are able to get firearms are people that are politically powerful. The gun permit list in NYC, for example, could double as a Who’s Who of the city elite.

 

[billsherman]

You just repeated yourself and said that you’re right, because I’m wrong. That isn’t a helpful way of moving the conversation forward. If you want to believe that Democrats have been behind white supremacy, go for it. Just don’t pretend that that is a historically defensible position, because it isn’t.

Again, I recommend starting with Allen. His introduction does an excellent job of laying out the ways historians have investigated white supremacy in American history.

 

[JonNC]

You just repeated yourself and said that you’re right, because I’m wrong. That isn’t a helpful way of moving the conversation forward. If you want to believe that Democrats have been behind white supremacy, go for it. Just don’t pretend that that is a historically defensible position, because it isn’t.

Of course it is. Look at the history of slavery. Look at what party supported Dred Scott and Jim Crow. It is s matter of historical fact.
It was WILSON who supported the KKK.

Again, I recommend starting with Allen. His introduction does an excellent job of laying out the ways historians have investigated white supremacy in American history.

Oh, we’ve learned all about the revisionist history that hid the Democrat Party’s role in all of these, the mischaracterization of the so called southern strategy.
It is finally being corrected.

 

[billsherman]

Oh, we’ve learned all about the revisionist history that hid the Democrat Party’s role in all of these, the mischaracterization of the so called southern strategy.
It is finally being corrected.

Can you point me to the peer reviewed historians who are correcting Allen, Hofstadter, DuBois, Woodward, and the others you label (incorrectly) “revisionists?” I would like to read their work.