Friday, June 19, 2015

Jon Stewart on the South Carolina Shooting


You guys love to talk about responsibility, right? Well, aside from that jerk-off who did the deed, I blame all of you who favor such weak or non-existent gun laws that a guy as dangerous as he is could get guns as easily as he did.

Shame on you.

45 comments:

  1. What I'm currently hearing is that the gun he used was given as a gift from his father a month after he was arrested for some felonies. If I'm not mistaken, its a federal felony to give or sell someone a firearm when they know they are a prohibited person.
    So the father could potentially be charged with such a felony.

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    1. Yeah, "potentially," wink, wink, nudge, nudge. IN the state where they fly the Confederate Flag everywhere, I doubt very much we'll see that kind of charge. I sure hope I'm wrong. I know how you guys love to catch me out.

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    2. "IN the state where they fly the Confederate Flag everywhere, I doubt very much we'll see that kind of charge."

      Mike, the law I speak of is a federal law, so guess who would be responsible for prosecuting it? I believe it would be the US Department of Justice. Provided of course there is adequate evidence to convince a jury.

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    3. I guess it's Obama's fault then.

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    4. "I guess it's Obama's fault then."

      Nonsense, the law I speak of was part of the gun control act of 1968 so it was passed on LBJ's watch. Keep in mind that the ATF and the DOJ have a pretty poor record of prosecuting gun law violations, which has been the norm over several administrations.
      Don't try to make it into a poor picked on Obama thing. In this case, it does become his responsibility to prosecute since it would be ultimately decided by the DOJ.
      In this case though it sounds like he purchased the gun at a gun store and went through the requisite NICS check.

      "On Thursday, investigators did a trace of the handgun used in Wednesday's shooting and determined that it was a .45-caliber handgun Roof purchased from a Charleston gun store in April, two law enforcement officials told CNN's Perez and Bruer."

      http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting-suspect/

      In fact, once the father recognized his son on photos that was released, he called the police.

      "Roof's father and uncle contacted police after surveillance camera images of the suspect were made public, according to the arrest warrant. His father told authorities his son owned a .45-caliber handgun."

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  2. And I blame you Mike for supporting the trampling of your fellow citizens rights for the illusion of safety ...Shame on you

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    1. It's not an illusion, George. This kind of thing doesn't happen so often in other 1st world countries with better gun control. This has become an American thing, as American as apple pie. You should be proud.

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    2. It most certainly is an illusion...And I am proud to be an American

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    3. After all the things you have pointed out about the US, you're proud??? How is that possible? Are you proud to be a Catholic too, or a supporter of the UN? Or is it just the US?

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  3. Again we see that “the blame game” is a one-way street to you.

    Tell us again about the responsibility for Carol Bowne’s death? Aside from that Jerk-off who did the deed, I blame all of you who favor draconian gun laws that a woman in as much danger as she was couldn’t easily get a gun. Shame on you.

    Works both ways, right?

    Labels: dangerous state legislators, gun control fanatics are to blame, draconian gun laws

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    1. No, TS. Meleanie Haine was a gun gal. It didn't help. That's because guns usually don't help, especially in domestic situations. So, we cannot be sure Carol would have been ok, if only.

      Keep pretending, though.

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    2. So she's better off??? Because you can point to a woman with a CCW who died from domestic violence, all women should disarm or something?

      What I said was: she was in danger. She asked for a gun. She asked again. The State said no. She died without her best fighting chance. That's on you.

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    3. MikeB: " So, we cannot be sure Carol would have been ok, if only. "

      "We cannot be sure" he says. Who ever says we need to "be sure". I am pretty damn sure she would have had a gun if not for that state of New Jersey. I'm sure of that.

      And since your so bent on needing to be sure, we cannot be sure that Mr. Race War would not have still gotten a gun even with your policies, or that he would not have blown up the church. "Cannot be sure", Mike.

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    4. I have to say, I expected more of a reaction from you like: “Yes, it’s a problem that Carol Bowne couldn’t get a gun. There is no reason for a woman in danger with a perfectly clean background to have to wait months for permission to buy a gun, but that’s no reason to scrap the whole permitting system”- or something like that. Instead you went with “it would not have helped”, which is pretty despicable.

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    5. MikeB: "Keep pretending, though."

      Keep pretending that a maniac with so much hate in him that he's willing to sacrifice his life to start a race war would give up because he failed a background check at a gun dealer.

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    6. How many hypotheticals are you going to use to bolster your personal agenda. Carol WOULD have been saved, Roof WOULD have gotten a gun anyway.

      How about this: Mass shootings don't happen in Australia and the UK, period. They happen frequently in the US, where we have losse to non-existent gun laws. That's on you. That's despicable.

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    7. You're speaking in hypotheticals too, Mike: "this would not have happened if we had 'proper gun control'". We are going to have to use hypotheticals if we talk about annoying other than the facts of what happened. That said, I haven't been using hypotheticals in regards to Carol Bowne. I expressly did not say "she would have lived". What I said was that she wanted to take her protection into her own hands with the best available tool. The state said no. Now she's dead. I reject your suggestion that we must know with certainly an alternate outcome (and what a ridiculous suggestion it is). Guns are not a 100% guarantee of anything, but they are highly effective. That's why you hate them. You rail against how deadly these killing machines are, until we talk about their ability to stop an attacker, then you do a 180 and talk about how useless they are against a man with a knife, and how she would have shot herself with it long before being attacked. Anyone can see through that.

      Australia and the UK also don't have DGUs. How many Carol Bownes do they have when the whole country is worse than New Jersey?

      I still can't believe I can't even get a basic acknowledgement out of you that what the state did was wrong. She's not in you "famous 50%", Mike. You keep saying the good ones have "nothing to worry about". Well she rightfully had something to worry about.

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    8. How about just as many HYPOTHETICALS as you use to bolster your personal agenda? Or are the concrete and definite when you use them?

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    9. NJ was wrong to delay the issuance of her gun permit the way they did. Bureaucracy or conspiracy? I don't know.

      " I expressly did not say "she would have lived". What I said was that she wanted to take her protection into her own hands with the best available tool."

      That's less than honest, TS. You went way over the line dividing correlation from causation, and you know it.

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    10. First off, we are talking about specific cases, which has nothing to do with statistical correlations and causations. Second, if you go back and read what I said, you'll find you incorrectly inferred that I was guaranteeing her safety. Here's how I started it off:

      "I blame all of you who favor draconian gun laws that a woman in as much danger as she was couldn’t easily get a gun. Shame on you."

      Then when you claimed I was saying "for sure" she would be safe, I corrected you with this comment:

      "What I said was: she was in danger. She asked for a gun. She asked again. The State said no. She died without her best fighting chance. That's on you."

      It's less than honest of you to suggest I said otherwise, when it is so clear on this very thread.

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    11. "First off, we are talking about specific cases, which has nothing to do with statistical correlations and causations."

      The causation I'm talking about is that not having a gun resulted in her death. Did I really have to qualify that?

      You've been beating this dead horse so much, that that one comment doesn't change the fact that your whole push has been that a gun would have saved her.

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    12. MikeB: “You've been beating this dead horse so much, that that one comment doesn't change the fact that your whole push has been that a gun would have saved her.”

      “One comment”, you say? I went back between this thread and the Carol Bowne thread and counted nine times where I phrased it as denying her best chance at protecting herself. Nine, Mike. And exactly zero comments where I issued some sort of guarantee that she would still be alive. Why on earth would I want to affix a standard of absolute certainty to something as vital as the right to defend oneself? I don’t do that. Even the slightest of advantages should not be denied to someone facing a lethal threat, let alone a self-defense tool as powerful as a handgun. You often bring up that guns can make things worse, but obviously in this situation it could not have turned out any worse for her. The gun could have only helped.

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  4. Gun control works very well at disarming people who tend to follow the law- good people like Carol Bowne. Someone hell bent on mass murder in an attempt to start a race war is not exactly going to play by the rules. That evil person gets to plot, scheme, and come up Plan B, C, D, etc. as needed and pick their moment of action. The good people who are trying to defend themselves must react to the evil doer- often in seconds. These are some of the many reasons why gun control doesn’t work to save lives. I’ve been over the numbers countless times.

    But let’s say for a moment gun control does work for a net savings of life (forgetting all of the above). We still know that there are people who die because they were disarmed or never allowed the choice of being armed with the best tool for personal self-defense. So now we get into this ethical conversation:

    Do you kill one to save two?
    Ends justify the means.
    You have to crack an egg to make an omelet.
    Liberty or safety? (We know where our founders came down)
    It’s for the greater good.


    I know the way you come down on these, but these are still serious ethical questions that many people oppose you on- even if gun control was working to save lives. There’s a dark side to gun control, Mike. A dark side like Carol Bowne experienced. Why was she not given the choice? Why did she die without the fighting chance she asked for in a hope you can stop a nut job like this guy?

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    1. 87 people die everyday in America from gun shot, not in a defense use. How many die because they were denied a gun, or used a gun in a defensive manner? Ethics demands the dead count, counts. Do we let 10's of thousands die to protect one life???? No ethics there. If ethics demand the sanctity of life, the choice is simple.

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    2. Here's where you're wrong about the repetitive Carol Bowne nonsense that you keep pushing. People who supposedly die because gun control laws disarmed them are hypothetical cases. We don't really know if Carol would have protected herself even if she'd had a gun. It's a guess. For all we know she might have shot herself the day before while cleaning her new gun that she'd have been quite unfamiliar with since training requirements are one of the many things you guys oppose.

      On the other hand, when that nice young man went into the church in SC, we were able to count the bodies.

      So what you keep doing is comparing a hypothetical possibility with cold dead bodies. Bogus.

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    3. So what you keep doing is comparing a hypothetical possibility with cold dead bodies. Bogus.

      Here's a hypothetical supposition for you: that draconian gun laws would have prevented this or any other horror. You sure don't seem to mind spouting that hypothetical as hard fact.

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    4. MikeB: "So what you keep doing is comparing a hypothetical possibility with cold dead bodies. Bogus."

      One, Carol Bowne is a dead body. Stabbed to death is still dead, Mike. Two, your gun control plans are also hypotheticals. He can get guns even with your silly ideas, and he can kill people without guns. You are counting hypothetical lives being saved. Again, why do you think someone as hateful as him would give up so easily?

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    5. "87 people die everyday in America from gun shot..."

      Did you not read what I just said? Is the Carol Bowne situation good to you because no one died by gun?

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    6. Mike, you are also going to have a hard time beating the drum that we must disarm men in domestic violence situations when you are arguing how useless a gun in a woman's hands is against a man armed with a only knife. I'm sure you'll beat away anyway.

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    7. Here's part of the problem anonymous, the ideal defensive gun use resukts in zero fatalities, zero injury and quick trip for the suspect in the back of a cruiser. And that's the nature of the overwhelming majority of uses. And Mike, we can just as easily say the lives that would supposedly be saved if you had the gun control you want. And we can just as easily say for all we know she may have held off her attacker and been alive today. And those who are supposedly alive because of gun control are just as hypothetical. And we can clearly see if situations like this, we can clearly see gun laws didn't achieve anything.

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    8. The Australian comic, Jim Jeffries admitted maybe the transition from ten mass shootings to none was just a coincidence.

      You guys are such self-centered and desperate fanatics you can't bring yourselves to admit the obvious truth. He made another good point: you guys just like guns, period. That's your only argument.

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    9. Mike, the Australians confiscated semi-automatics and pump actions. Why aren't there still mass shooting attempts with the guns they left? You guys say certain guns are more effective, but if the attempts aren't happening (but with lower body counts), then it's something else. Do you believe that semi-automatics brainwash people into going on shooting sprees? Is that what you think?

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    10. You tell us what's the difference then. Americans are more violent that Brits and Australians? We're more crazy?

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    11. MikeZ,
      Then the police should have a definite number of defensive gun uses, so it's a factual number not an opinion, or guess.

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    12. I wouldn't generalize it as Americans, Brits, and Australians. We are talking about the behaviors of one-in-a-million nut jobs. We do know that there has been copycat behavior, though.

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    13. Anonymous, it's a good theory but as I said the ideal DGU doesn't result in any injury or any significant issue. From my personal experience as a cop I have had people I arrested acknowledge openly that they won't go after people who appear armed or appear to be able to handle themselves. And often, if drawing or displaying a firearm diffuses the situation it won't generate any meaningful statistic or paperwork. Hence the difficulty in tracking them. That's why you'll often see "studies" that only count DGUs in which the gun is fired and the attacker injured. I have personally drawn my duty firearm when needed and that act ended the situation. So the question is does that qualify as a DGU?

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    14. That's the failing of the pro gun argument on self defense; it's not stating actual cases, but that doesn't give them the right to claim estimates as the basis of proof of one of their beliefs. As a cop you must know "ideals" rarely happen in real life and I won't accept those claims until they gather factual, case, proof.

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    15. As a cop you must know "ideals" rarely happen in real life and I won't accept those claims until they gather factual, case, proof.

      And yet I see little apparent reluctance on your part to accept claims that this or that "gun control" law would have prevented "gun violence."

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    16. Anonymous, so what to your mind is considered proof? Even when an official police report states that on officer or common citizen displayed a firearm or held a suspect at gun point until police arrive it typically doesn't go any further than that. By limiting yourself strictly to incidents in which the suspect is injured or killed you stack the deck in your own favor. And actually the ideals happen quite frequently. Far more often than the cases in which the attacker or suspect is injured or killed. And knowing the criminal element as I do I have little reason to believe that a gun law would stop them. I mean think about it logically, if a person has it in their mind to break the single greatest law we have, and wants to end another persons life do you really belive that telling them they can't have a certain tool will stop them.

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    17. Even when?
      Apparently they are not using those factual cases to come up with a number, and no, someone does not have to die in a defensive gun use, to count. If the cops have these factual cases, then why use guesses, use the number of factual cases on the books. Refusing to use actual case numbers in favor of guessing estimates is deceptive, and I wonder why they do that. What are they hiding by choosing to use estimates over actual cases?

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  5. The point of this post was the serious heartache of our favorite son, John Stewart.

    There was nothing he could say to make light of it. No way to find humor. It's not a Shakespearean or a Greek tragedy. This is a national tragedy that this type of hatred still persists within our borders. This was a young man. He just learned this stuff recently in the last ten or fifteen years. We have made little, if any, progress in race relations in this country. The nightmare poignancy of this sinful massacre is that it occurred in the very wake of so much national attention to violence against black people in the U.S.A.

    None of the commenters here is sensitive to that fact. You're just circling the wagons as far as meaningful gun control, such as universal background checks.

    Where are you hearts on this? Forget your bullshit agenda. Join in our mourning.

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    1. Forget your bullshit agenda. Join in our mourning.

      Now wait a damned second. Where was your "mourning," when you were busily exploiting this horror for your "bullshit agenda"? Why is it "insensitive" for us to fight back against the new demands for yet more gun laws so soon after the massacre, when we should be mourning, but just fine for your side to make the demands in the first place?

      Bullshit. I can mourn and fight for my rights at the same time. And I shall.

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    2. Just because we don't jump on board with the bullshit agenda of gun control doesn't mean we're not mourning.

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    3. This is well and good. Thank you very much.

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    4. You're welcome, Flying Junior, and thank you back.

      It's tiring to constantly be accused of being heartless just because we reject the hypothetical suggestions that gun control would have prevented the tragedy.

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