Funny though. Gregory had to bring up gun laws as a topic for action during the first year of the second term, but the some of the reporting is that President Obama will be making that a priority. Yes, it’s so important he simply forgot to mention it! /sarc

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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 873 –

Here’s an excellent statistical analysis of gerrymandering. The conclusions? Republicans have gerrymandered to the point that states are just flat-out not represented correctly. Urban concentration is not pointed to as being the causative factor at play, partisan gerrymandering is.

This would seem to be the kind of thing that your abhor, Kary.

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/

I don’t understand how the author can make any of the claims made without having software that would allow him to redistrict. Without knowing where every voter lives, how could you determine the impact of any districting changes? Also, it assumes that a voter voting for a Democrat (Republican) would vote for different Democrat (Republican) in a different district. You would need to know what the propensity of partisan Democrats and Republicans is for each neighborhood.

Also, I don’t really find his conclusions on the level of “structural” differences (effect of urban areas) to be all that compelling.

But yes, I don’t like gerrymandering.

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By Kary L. Krismer @ 96:

By pfft @ 94:

a lot of the guns are purchased where there are lax guns laws..

So I guess all the heroin and meth in this country are sold only in parts of the country where there are lenient drug laws, right?

the drug laws are basically all the same throughout the nation.

Exactly. What does that tell you? Prohibition doesn’t work. You can buy and obtain things that are not legal to buy. It’s extremely naive to think otherwise, but pro-gun control people tend to be extremely naive.

The connection is we can’t keep drugs out of this country, but drugs have a life of a few weeks once imported. Guns last for decades. Do you really think that by passing laws making guns illegal that guns in the hands of criminals will be reduced? How did that work for cocaine and heroin?

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As to the second link, it’s looking at gun deaths, so it’s not surprising there are more gun deaths where there are more guns. There are probably more car deaths where there are more cars and more cattle deaths where there are more cattle.

The question though is whether you can avoid gun deaths by imposing gun control. The answer to that is clearly no based on the comparison of Seattle and Chicago and several other places. I’d also point out that it’s impossible to remove guns from society, both because of the Second Amendment and because they last for decades (more on that later).

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Here’s an excellent statistical analysis of gerrymandering. The conclusions? Republicans have gerrymandered to the point that states are just flat-out not represented correctly. Urban concentration is not pointed to as being the causative factor at play, partisan gerrymandering is.

This would seem to be the kind of thing that your abhor, Kary.

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/

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By pfft @ 94:

a lot of the guns are purchased where there are lax guns laws..

So I guess all the heroin and meth in this country are sold only in parts of the country where there are lenient drug laws, right?

the drug laws are basically all the same throughout the nation.

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By pfft @ 94:

we know for sure less guns=less murders.

No, we don’t know that for sure. Your understanding of the real world continues to be pathetic.

right.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/

http://www.businessinsider.com/shooting-gun-laws-2012-12

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a lot of the guns are purchased where there are lax guns laws..

So I guess all the heroin and meth in this country are sold only in parts of the country where there are lenient drug laws, right?

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we know for sure less guns=less murders.

No, we don’t know that for sure. Your understanding of the real world continues to be pathetic.

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In the news yesterday, Chicago has had about 500 murders this year, Seattle about 25. Chicago has about 2.6M people, Seattle about .6M. Chicago has very strict gun control, Seattle is prevented from enacting gun control legislation by the state

Clearly the state legislature should allow Seattle to start passing gun control legislation so that we could increase our murder rate to something like 100 a year. /sarc

a lot of the guns are purchased where there are lax guns laws.

we know for sure less guns=less murders.

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Clearly the state legislature should allow Seattle to start passing gun control legislation so that we could increase our murder rate to something like 100 a year. /sarc

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http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43544

That makes the fiscal cliff not seem so bad, particularly since people just recently voted for higher unemployment levels. ;-)

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http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gregory-mocks-lapierre-proposing-armed-guards-sends-kids-high-security-school_691057.html

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/david-gregory-wsj-greta-van-susteren_n_2369357.html?utm_hp_ref=media

But if an “ordinary person” does that, it should be illegal? Apparently it’s supposed to work the same way as getting a gun permit in big east coast cities. If you’re “important,” you can get a permit. If not, you can’t.

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While calling for more stupid gun laws, the host of Meet the Press seemingly violated a stupid gun law.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-police-investigating-incident-in-which-meet-the-press-host-displayed-ammunition-magazine/2012/12/26/918bbf26-4f51-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop

I hope they prosecute him to the full extent of the law. That will undoubtedly prevent dozens of deaths. /sarc

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Prior to the federal law change, Washington had a waiting period, but it didn’t apply to those who had a valid license for concealed carry. After the federal law went into effect you could have a license to carry, show the gun dealer that you already owned 10 guns, but you couldn’t buy the 11th gun. Total nonsense imposed on the federal level to a state that already had decent laws.

What they do oppose is the gun show rule, which has a valid and suspect component. Their position is suspect because it’s largely just catering to large donors. But it’s valid because what that’s really about is restricting the rights to transfer guns outside of licensed dealers. Personally I don’t have a problem with that, but they do. I think they see it as leading to registration, since I don’t know how else you would enforce such a law.

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Because the NRA has always consistently opposed background checks. Heck, they oppose closing the gun show loophole.

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RE: Doug @ 876 – People get what they fight for. It has been reported, hopefully inaccurately, that Obama is putting SS cuts on the table. .

I’ve heard that too, but in the right form it could be okay. Cutting/eliminating benefits for higher income or wealthy people. If it’s cuts to the COLA adjustments, that’s just stupid.

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“Let’s have a national database of all people who have ever had a mental health issue!”

And then what? Jail them? Shame them? Shun them in our communities? You’re sure as hell not for using that database to prevent them from PURCHASING GUNS. Nice small government, bro. Just like hiring an army of armed government agents to guard every school.

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Obama’s SS offer was ridiculous! Why would we EVER entertain raising the retirement age rather than just cutting benefits by 1-2% immediately? Not that I’m for that, but it’s a more honest, egalitarian, and less harmful solution. No one ever brings that up.

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But our leaders suck. And they do not listen to the voters. And they play off one crappy major party candidate, against another major party loser. You don’t want to vote for Murray because she said up yours, we are bailing out the banksters. Well, then, here is DIno Rossi. So fook you, and roll over is the message.

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Everything’s relative, right? Sure, tax cuts for the richest Americans *could* slow the economy slightly (though I’ve yet to see a scholarly argument on the matter), but slow it more than raising the age of SS and Medicare? That’s crazy talk.

I’m willing to bet that even after the fiscal cliff cuts and rate hikes happen, the top 1% will receive at least 80% of wage growth in this country. Let’s not foist the care of the elderly on their struggling children any more than we already do, just so the rich can continue to earn 93% of new income in the U.S.

In the end, the rich don’t WANT lower employment. It reduces their leverage. They’re gleefully raising hours, lowering wages, even having people work for free, just because they can.

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Even that dog turd, Laney Breuer, is using this new mantra as an excuse to not jail criminals.

Can’t wait till strong arm robbers start using it, too.

“Don’t tase me, bro, it will only hurt employment.”

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The Republicans *may* do fine in 2014, but they’re going to have to actually work with the representatives that people elected. They’re certainly not looking good now. Obama’s approval is very high, and theirs is very low.

In the end, we have taxes, revenue, and the deficit. If they’re unwilling to raise taxes even when you get multiple dollars of spending cuts in return, they’ve lost their right to complain about the deficit. And most of the spending cuts they’re proposing are horrifically bad for the economy.

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As to your gerrymandering argument, I think you have that bit biased. Both parties have been involved with gerrymandering. The reason the Democrats get more votes is you have districts in heavily urban areas where 80+ percent vote for the Democrat, no matter what. Look how King County swings most state-wide elections. Unless the Congressional districts get re-mapped so that over half the Washington districts are in King County, I think the Republicans will be fine.

In any case, the Republicans will do fine in 2014 when it’s apparent that way too many people are still unemployed, because they elected someone in 2012 who doesn’t know squat about increasing employment. ;-)

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Shoot, they can’t even get along with themselves! See Boehner’s failure to whip enough votes for Plan B, a purely face-saving measure.

That is honestly one of the most embarassing press conferences I’ve ever watched. I just felt *bad* for Boehner. He’s completely lost control of the House, and his lame attempts to deflect onto the WH and Senate were incredibly transparent.

Republicans are lucky they have gerrymandering to stack the House in their favor. If they didn’t, House Republicans would be out on their asses too. Democrats got more votes in House elections than Republicans.

If they keep this up, though, their greedy gerrymandering may actually bite them back. These negotiations are reflecting *extremely* badly upon them, and a national turn of a couple percentage points could have dire effects on the makeup of the House. (Because they’ve gerrymandered as many narrowly Republican districts as possible).

We’re going over the fiscal cliff. That’s a given now, if the House can’t even pass Plan B. And then the Senate will pass middle class tax cuts. We’ll see if the Republicans are willing to negotiate and get some of the stuff they want passed, or if they’ll just sit and pout until they get voted out in 2014.

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http://www.techweb.com/news/240145120/anonymous-continues-westboro-church-attacks.html

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/us/politics/3-state-dept-officials-resign-following-benghazi-report.html

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/politics/inquiry-into-libya-attack-is-sharply-critical-of-state-department.html?_r=0

But I guess it doesn’t stop you from becoming Time’s Man of the Year. President Obama can put that award right next to his Nobel Peace Prize.

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If only they could perfect teleconferencing, Hillary would be able to tesitfy remotely. Perhaps one day. (/snark)

Clinton Takes Responsibility for Security Failure in Libya

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/world/africa/clinton-takes-responsibility-for-libya-security-failure.html?_r=0

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Boeing touting that they develop drones that take out freedom fighters resisting a military occupation. Bravo.

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When the US gained the ability to reach Japan, civilian targets were okay, even prior to dropping the atomic bombs. And I think Dresden was a US action too, although I’d have to check on that.

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I’ve always defended the Second Amendment, but today feel we need to address gun rights, and temper it with not every one should have access to a gun.

Given the fact that it was the victim’s (mother’s) guns, and there was no reason that she should not own guns, any talk of gun control related to this incident means absolute prohibition of owning guns. Prohibition of guns is a total fantasy, even absent the Second Amendment.

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I also think guns need to be secured, properly, so they can be less of a temptation, or accidental fatality.

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Horrific war has always happened, yes. But in the absence of the the connectivity that we now have. And in recent modern times, horrific war and killing had been justified on moral grounds. Permission to kill for a higher motive. But in Iraq, permission to kill was granted with for no good reason. No apologies. No accountability.

It would be interesting to look at past wars concocted by insane and incompetent rulers to see what effect the wars had on the war mongering country.

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You almost make me forget that our dispute is not in attempting to define the reasons for the insane suffering that is happening now in Connecticut, but in the hijacking of that definition to serve a political meme.

Take a step back to examine your original statement, and then your followup to Kary in post 851. I think that maybe you didn’t mean to go there, but what we see of you is what you say.

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CSI type shows always end with the agents inflicting their will at the end of a gun. The message is – that is good, acceptable.

You have already rejected karma, God’s will, and a political act. Even Obummer said there are too many of these incidents. Culture of violence, lack of accountability, weapons are the final answer messaging cannot be discounted.

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RE: whatsmyname @ 853 – No, it does not sound familiar. Nothing in my statement kind of blames the victims at all. You reject karma/god’s will as a cause. No one except you brought these up.

Then we are left only with the literal interpretation of your original rhetorical question: ( “Can the USA kill women and children in foreign countries, propsose that violence is the solution, and not have this violence visit America’s shores?”) – which is to say that this act was an informed political act based on or learned from our foreign policy. And to which I call bullsh*t.

Huckabee’s quote is not memorable; it is just intellectually the same general argument as yours, but cast in different specifics. That’s why it should sound familiar.

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“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence.”

““The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.”

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