Safe Storage Laws in New York

from ssgmarkcr

 Its obvious its an election year when politicians work hard to come up with laws that will fix everything.  Even when there is already a law on the books covering a crime.  It sort of reminds me of the war on drugs where politicians were working so hard to out do each other on how tough they could be regarding drug penalties.  And what we got out of it was an incarceration rate second to none.

   

On Friday they introduced “Nicholas’ Law,” which would require gun owners to do what they should already be doing — locking their weapons and storing them away.

 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/proposed-ny-law-punish-owners-poorly-stored-guns-article-1.1829059#ixzz34jqiiuix

    However, the recently passed NYSafe Act seems to already have that covered.

"The SAFE Act is aimed at reducing gun violence and making New York a safer place to live. It requires that guns remain safely secured and inaccessible to those not permitted to possess them. Following a few common sense rules and educating our children will make a safer New York."

http://www.governor.ny.gov/nysafeact/gun-safety

What's a better means of protection than a gun...

Well, pretty much anything as this video demonstrates.

I understand the confusion

I know you lot don't want to be like Europe, but I understand his confusion.

Betcha didn't know he was an Arab!

Danny Thomas was an Arab (Lebanese, to be precise) from Detroit.

But how many people know that Casey Kasem was as well? Another Arab from Detroit (at one time, Detroit had the largest population of Arabs in the US).

Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem is known for his being a DJ who presented America's top 40. In addition to his radio shows, Kasem provided the voice of many commercials; had done many voices for Sesame Street; provided the character voice of Peter Cottontail in the Rankin/Bass production of Here Comes Peter Cottontail; was the voice of NBC; helped out with the annual Jerry Lewis telethon; and provided the cartoon voices of Robin in Super Friends, Mark on Battle of the Planets, and a number of characters for the Transformers cartoon series of the 1980s. In 2008, he was the voice of Out of Sight Retro Night which aired on WGN America, but was replaced by rival Rick Dees. After 40 years, Kasem retired from his role of voicing Shaggy in 2009, although he did voice Shaggy's father in the 2010 TV series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

Like Danny Thomas, Casey was an American icon.

It makes me sick to think that white, right wing assholes get a pass while Arabs are fingered as terrorists.

Especially when you think of the Arabs and Muslims who have contributed to US culture.

What do Ray LaHood, Tony Shalhoub, and Selma Hayek have in common? They’re each Arab American. As are Sen. George Mitchell, Diane Rehm, Doug Flutie, and Frank Zappa. And the CEO of Del Monte Produce, the founder of Farouk Systems hair products, and the inventor of the heart pump.

Arab Americans' accomplishments are as diverse as our community itself. Arab Americans have distinguished themselves in science and medicine, academia and sports, the arts and politics—in every aspect of American life.

I am sorry to hear of Casey's passing.  We really need more people like Casey and Danny these days to fight the hate and ignorance.

See also:  Famous Arab Americans

There have never been any school shootings in the US.

They have been over 100,000 gun violence incidents since Sandy Hook of which between 7 and 74 were at or near schools.

But, from what I understand, for a "school shooting" to occur:

1. The shooter needs to be a student
2. The shooting needs to be within the school
3. The shooter intended to kill students in the school
4. The shooting needs to happen during school hours
5. The shooting cannot be related to extracurricular reasons

Wow, that knocks out a lot of shootings.

In fact, using this criteria we can not only knock off a few victims from the toll, such as Rachel Scott who was shot outside the school at Columbine. We can also get rid of a few school shootings!

For example, the 1999 Jonesboro, Arkansas shootings occured OUTSIDE the school!

Even better, Adam Lanza WASN'T A STUDENT!  Even better, we can knock out a few of the victims are not students. This criteria confirms what gun nuts have been saying all along--The Sandy Hooks shootings weren't school shootings, but it was a mass shooting.

Now, if people want to look like dicks, then they have to admit this is the case and they can knock that one off the books.

The real confusion is whether a school shooting is a mass shooting or not.

Some people only want the mass shootings which happen in schools to be considered "school shootings".  That is the fallacy which Politifact falls into in their piece:

For many people, this is the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the phrase "school shooting" -- an incident such as Sandy Hook or, before it, the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado that left 15 dead, including the shooters.

But, the people who want to dispute these numbers want to limit the amount of School Shootings to a number which is somehow "acceptable" rather than address the issue that gun violence is far too pervasive in US culture.

On the other hand, The Daily Beast came up with the number 68:

We keep a tally of school shootings at The Daily Beast, too, using a slightly different methodology. We include only shootings that occur on school campuses while students are present. We count shootings that result in no fatalities as well as those where the only victim was a shooter who committed suicide.

We published a report last year using our data to show just what a school shooting looks like, noting specifically: “These events aren’t necessarily the types of tragedies that come to mind when one thinks of “school shootings”—madmen in fatigues roaming school hallways, strapped with automatic-style guns, murdering indiscriminately—nor do they receive the media attention of such mass shootings. But they can be similarly traumatizing for students and staff, and they have led to at least 24 injuries and 17 deaths over the past year.”

The following day, another school shooting at Arapahoe High School added to our tally. As of today, we count 68 school shootings, with 28 dead, and 66 injured.

Oliver Burkeman gets to the point in his post at the Guardian:

(If you think this kind of absurdity is confined to the fringe, see this only slightly less mendacious CNN piece (and Politifact), which brings the figure down from 74 to 15 by excluding, among others, shootings motivated by "personal arguments, accidents [or] alleged gang activities and drug deals". Johnson says the cable channel stole his work.)

What’s especially dispiriting about this flat denial of reality is how little prospect it offers for rational discussion or compromise. Even if you're a supporter of gun control, you can still hold a reasoned discussion with somebody who believes that the benefits of widespread firearms ownership outweigh the harms. You can discuss international comparisons; and how no comparable country experiences anything like this level of gun violence; the other person can seek to establish why those comparisons aren't relevant; or that, yes, violent deaths are actually in decline in the US, and so on. But when the pro-gun side of the argument consists of simply insisting that the gun violence that people are so distraught about isn't real gun violence? Then there's no clear way forward at all.

And let’s not forget the bigger point here. A pro-gun journalist applies the most stringent imaginable criteria to the term 'school shooting'; he rejects every instance he possibly can, for reasons many might regard as spurious, and then triumphantly declares that there have only been … seven bona fide school shootings in America since December 2012!

Only seven school shootings since December 2012.

I hope I never to get to the point at which the word "only" in that sentence makes even the slightest bit of sense.

As I said we can knock the numbers down even further if we want to say there have never been any school shootings in the US.  That should appeal to the people who do nothing to stop the plague of US gun violence.

So, do we want to split hairs or try to come up with a solution to a real problem is the real issue here.What is important is that people died. What category some people choose to put a specific shooting is irrelevant to our mission. Our mission is to stop future shooting, no matter what the location or circumstance.

Adam Kokesh Convicted of Drug, Gun Charges

Santa Fe Local News

Former Santa Fe resident Adam Kokesh, a liberterian activist who was convicted of drug and gun charges Thursday in a Fairfax County, Va., court, did not contest the allegations, but he called the raid that led to his arrest “political persecution.”

Kokesh, 32, entered an Alford plea in Circuit Court to two felonies related to his possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms while possessing a gun. In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to obtain a conviction.

Kokesh faces a maximum of 15 years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 5.

Kokesh unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District in 2010, a seat now held by U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat. He grew up in Santa Fe, the son of Marla and Charles Kokesh. The elder Kokesh was a California venture capitalist who moved to Santa Fe in the 1990s to buy the Santa Fe Horse Park but ran into financial misfortunes, including foreclosures on the horse park and his home, and federal charges of misappropriating investor funds.

Adam Kokesh was arrested in July, when federal and local authorities raided the Virginia home he shared with other activists.

Prosecutors said Thursday that police found 10 guns and drugs, including LSD, marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and mushrooms.

I finally figured out where we can seriously pin some serious blame on Barack Obama

 Kweisi Mfume

The radical right in the US.

They would have had to make him up if he didn't really exist.

And even then they still make him up.

Anyway....

Yeah, I doubt they would care if it had been somebody such as Kweisi Mfume or Chaka Fattah since they were Frizzell Gerald Gray and Arthur Davenport before they took up the furren sounding names.  There would probably have been some inner comfort in that.

Barack Obama has always been Barack Obama.

And what's worse, his father was from Kenya. he even has relatives back in Kenya.

And they are of the Kitchen Toto variety, not the Happy Valley crew, which means Barack is definitely NOKD.

Even if Barack was born on US territory (and a US citizen because of that fact), not only does he sound furren--he kinda looks furren.  Kweisi and Chaka might sound furren, but deep down they aren't REALLY Africans.  If they wear African clothing  (e.g. a dashiki or kente cloth), it could be taken as dressing up.

But, if Barack Obama wears Kenyan garb--expect a shit storm.

My African Heritage

And, even if there are more Christians in Kenya (demographic religious breakdown of Kenya is Protestant 47.7%, Roman Catholic 23.5%, other Christian 11.9%, Muslim 11.2%, no religion 2.4%, African Traditional Religion 1.7%, Bahá'í Faith about 1%, Buddhism 0.3%, other 2%)--he is accused of being a Mooselim.  That says more about the ignorance of the accuser than Barack Obama.

The reality is that the hatred of Barack Obama goes beyond racism and goes into xenophobia and ignorance, since there are far more Christians in Kenya than Muslims.

So, just think of the relief if the person who had become president had been Kweisi Mfume or Chaka Fattah since they may sound furren, but deep down they are as American as well, Barack Obama.

Then again, it could be the right wing loonies' alzheimers is kicking in and they keep hearing "Obama Papa Mau Mau" in their heads.