The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Ron Bulman]

36 minutes ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

Just FYI, not worthy of it's own thread but just saw this and thought I would post here if anyone is interested in bidding.

 

https://shopgoodwill.com/item/145779809

I've actually got this.  My daughter bought it for me for my birthday or fathers day a few years back.

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The US has a population of 330 million. While 513 human beings is a awful number, in scale it is hardly a blip. 

 

So if I go whack some poor kid over the head, we shouldn't care because it's less than a blip? Why even send the police? Doing so won't make much difference.

But....

Of course they should send the police. Because it is something society can do to stop me from whacking kids.

And that's the whole point of making a big deal about gun control even if it will have negligible effect on the overall death rate of kids. It's because there is something that can reasonably be done to reduce unnecessary deaths and injuries from guns.

And BTW, we can thank the left-leaning MSM that Congress passed the gun control bill today. Because they wouldn't let people forget about the recent killings.

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

I've actually got this.  My daughter bought it for me for my birthday or fathers day a few years back.

I have some JFK and RFK memorabilia myself.

I even have some form letters of appreciation that were meant to be sent to donors to RFK's presidential primary run campaign in 1968. RFK's signature on these are auto penned.

These and other RFK presidential primary campaign paper items were supposedly acquired by an RFK supporter who was actually present in the Ambassador Hotel the night RFK was murdered there.

He told my wife he gathered boxes of material from tables in the ballroom after most people had left that night.

This fellow opened a wonderfully designed and appointed curio and historical item gift store on the main downtown street in Monterey called Alvarado Street back in the 1990's.

My history buff wife bought quite a bit of items from the shop. She said the owner was a very interesting person with fascinating first person stories to share. After a couple years this fellow closed the shop.

We sold many of the RFK items to a historical papers dealer in Portland a few years back. He said he believed they actually did come from the Ambassador JFK campaign rally the night of June 5th, 1968.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Sandy Larsen]

 

Wow. Guns are now the most common cause of death among children in America! Can this be right?

And what accounts for the steady drop in automobile deaths between 2004 and 2013. I wonder if it was from getting parents to put even their older kids in the back seat.

[Joe Bauer]

11 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Wow. Guns are now the most common cause of death among children in America! Can this be right?

And what accounts for the steady drop in automobile deaths between 2004 and 2013. I wonder if it was from getting parents to put even their older kids in the back seat.

Why isn't suicide on that chart?

[Sean Coleman]

24 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Why isn't suicide on that chart?

Seem to remember the compiler killed himself….

‘Sometimes we have to go deep inside ourselves to solve our problems’ - Patrick Star, SpongeBob.

[W. Niederhut]

Nearly 1,100 Segments on Benghazi, But 'Of Course' Fox News Won't Air January 6th Hearings

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/08/nearly-1100-segments-benghazi-course-fox-news-wont-air-jan-6-hearing

June 8, 2022

 

[Paul Brancato]

16 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Matt-

I happen to believe no one in America needs more than a six-shot revolver for self-defense, and that only because the leadership class chooses to not make safe streets. I guess hunters can have single-shot bolt-action rifles. 

But if the NRA should disappear tomorrow, what would happen to the American middle and employee classes? To the US neo-con, neo-liberal global trade, immigration and war policies? 

Nothing. 

Beyond that, the number of mass shooting deaths in the US is minute compared with the size of the population. 

"The FBI collects data on “active shooter incidents,” which it defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 38 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2020.

The Gun Violence Archive, an online database of gun violence incidents in the U.S., defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are shot, even if no one was killed (again excluding the shooters). Using this definition, 513 people died in these incidents in 2020."

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

The US has a population of 330 million. While 513 human beings is a awful number, in scale it is hardly a blip. 

Yes, mass shooting and (much more common) routine gun violence is repulsive. But as an issue--useful, a divisive wedge. That is its role as an issue. 

Why do you want to be divided from other people in the same economic class as yourself? 

 

I have to ask - what’s your point? why limit your exploration to mass shootings? I’ve pointed out here and elsewhere that gun shots were killing far more children every year than Covid. I believe if you dig down you will find a hundred times your number dying of gunshot wounds, many by suicide. What kind of gun control would you support? 
 

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Why isn't suicide on that chart?

 

Maybe they classify suicides by what killed the person, not by who killed them. The most common method of suicide among children is hanging, and maybe those are counted as suffocations.

 

[Matt Allison]

Yes, guns are the leading cause of death for children.

In order to please their stockholders, the gun companies must literally saturate the country with guns; it's the only way they can stay profitable.

The Russian-funded NRA has bought GOP politicians to ensure there will be no real gun regulation.

Automobile deaths among children have plummeted with seatbelt compliance, and since child safety seats were mandated.

 

 

[Matt Allison]

 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I have to ask - what’s your point? why limit your exploration to mass shootings? I’ve pointed out here and elsewhere that gun shots were killing far more children every year than Covid. I believe if you dig down you will find a hundred times your number dying of gunshot wounds, many by suicide. What kind of gun control would you support? 
 

Paul--Yes, very sadly, there are plenty more deaths from guns than the relatively rare mass shootings.

In 2020, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Of those deaths, 54% were suicides, and 43% were murders.

My point is whatever you believe on guns, abortion, gay rights, ID politics, legalized pot...these are wedge issues. They are highlighted in the M$M to drive a wedge between you and the mass of people in your economic class. 

Imagine this: you have a neighbor, and he has  95% of the same concerns in life as you: He works a job, tries to keep his family or self fed, is stuck in hours of traffic every day after working a job 8-10 hours a day, needs dental work and pays $10,000 a year to federal government in income taxes every year, in large part to feed a global guard service for multinationals. 

You and this guy are like two peas in a pod. 

But...you and he have different views on abortion and gun control. You are trained to think he must be the devil incarnate and vice versa.

Or Trump---another divisive wedge. 

The guy says he doesn't like Trump, but did like some of his policies---and you decide your neighbor is evil, as anybody has to be 100% totally against Trump.

When was the last time you read an article about "the vast middle class, which has had lower living standards for two generations, is waking up, and shoving aside social issues to concentrate of raising wages in America...by any means necessary." 

Why can't you say to your neighbor, "OK, we disagree on abortion and gun control. Let's agree to disagree, keep our heads, and work for better economic conditions and less war-mongering." 

Why? The Donks and 'Phants and the M$M won't let you, that's why. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

 

Let's be divisive as possible. Those of us in the middle class should view each other as fools, dolts, useful idiots and evilly stupid. 

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Yes, guns are the leading cause of death for children.

In order to please their stockholders, the gun companies must literally saturate the country with guns; it's the only way they can stay profitable.

The Russian-funded NRA has bought GOP politicians to ensure there will be no real gun regulation.

Automobile deaths among children have plummeted with seatbelt compliance, and since child safety seats were mandated.

 

 

Hammer that wedge issue in deep. 

[Paul Brancato]

Well, of course it’s a wedge issue, as are many other issues, and of course there a buttons being pushed all the time. But I don’t believe that means it’s wrong to have a point of view on these issues. What it does mean is that we should not let our differences obscure our commonalities. In my personal life I don’t allow our differences to drive wedges in my family or among my friends, all of whom have diverse opinions. What is the phrase I’m looking for? Moral relativism? Standing by ones principles needn’t make one blind. To me you confuse two issues that overlap but are not equivalent.