Multiple casualties at Pittsburgh synagogue - Shooter says "All these Jews need to die"

[Max Rockatansky]

Max, what restrictions do you think are in the 2nd amendment? Are there any at all?

None. The Constitution limits government, not citizens. The Second Amendment doesn't give us our right of self-defense anymore than the First Amendment gives us our right of free speech or freedom of the press. It limits what government can do to stop us. There was a huge argument at the time of its writing over the issue exactly because of concern that some would think it limits citizen rights, not government.

What is the purpose of government? It's in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution plus quantly summed up in a quote attributed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Your right to throw a punch stops where my nose begins".

Aside from national security and foreign relations, government also resolves disputes between citizens. While I may think I have a right to build a nuke in my basement, my neighbors may disagree. Same goes for shooting off a howitzer in my back yard or setting up landmines in my yard. OTOH, my owning an AK is a common form of self-defense. I can agree on mass weapons like the nuke thing, the howitzer thing and even the Claymore thing, but now when they want to take an individual weapon, that's there the line should be drawn.

 

[Opoponax]

Thanks for the false narrative. It typifies what I know about the anti-gun far Left. Just so others are clear, unlike your false accusation, I don't' support nutjobs having access to guns, knives, cars, baseball bats or any other deadly weapons.

Do you think Robert Bowers should have had an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle and multiple handguns? Or no?

I have an AK-47 and multiple handguns. That's because conservative assholes like Robert Bowers have the same.

Make no mistake about it: the right's perception of The Other's pacifism emboldens them.

Right now, if an American is in the LGBT community, is Jewish, or belongs to some other group the right sees as weak, then that person needs to own a gun and needs to get a CCW permit. Violence against those groups has shot up since Trump's been "president." And it's not going away when (or if) he ceases to be in that position. There are 300,000,000 guns in private hands in the U.S., and that's how it's going to stay.

Does this make it sound like the answer is More Guns? Well, that's exactly what I'm saying because we will all be long dead before effective gun control manifests itself in America. And to cede the level of self-defense that guns provide to right wing maniacs is foolhardy.

If Trump/GOP and all the white nationalists and various and sundry mouth breathers continue to win elections, the government will eventually come for you and me and possibly anyone else who has voted incorrectly. Remember: we're a mob; a violent threat to law and order.

But relatively speaking, progressives own very few guns.

The only thing that may possibly keep them from suspending Constitutional rights and arresting millions of us is that it would be a fucking bloodbath if they tried. This isn't about winning some civil war or some organized armed resistance or any other romantic horse-shit militia groups jack off to. It's about the threat of making them pay too dearly for them to try.

Imagine if Obama did "come fer 'r gunz!" Can you imagine the carnage? It's why taking away guns simply isn't a realistic possibility, but only as that notion pertains to conservatives. We need to have the same threat level available to us.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

While I may think I have a right to build a nuke in my basement, my neighbors may disagree.

Yes, you have a right to bear arms, that includes miniaturized nuclear arms.

 

[Opoponax]

He had 21 guns registered in his name and carried out the massacre with an AR-15-style assault rifle and three handguns, the authorities have said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/pittsburgh-shooting-robert-bowers.html

This should be a red flag unless the person has a Federal Firearms License to act as a dealer or gunsmith.

Why? A person can only fire one gun at a time. One certainly cannot make use of 21 guns at a time. I myself own about a dozen guns. Each has its own particular purpose, or potential useful function. And I also like owning different guns. And as I've said before, guns aren't going anywhere. When Trump won the electoral college, that was it. The war for sensible gun control in America was lost that day for decades to come.

 

[Opoponax]

1) Translation: ban semi-automatic rifles. Sorry, no. It's a BS rule using a made-up term. There is no such thing as an "assault weapon" except in the minds of anti-gun LWers.

Nobody gives a fuck what it's called. And anti-gun people don't need to know the difference between an AR or an AK or a pistol caliber carbine. They know what the results are. And "assault rifle" is a fitting term for semi-auto rifles. They're weapons that originated in the military, are designed for combat, and therefore to kill and wound people. Maybe the whole "scary black rifle" and rightwing pedantic circle jerks over terms like "assault rifle" are convincing to them, but they're not fooling anyone except themselves. For example, people know that 60 were killed in Vegas and hundreds wounded with a semi-automatic rifle and whatever moniker is bestowed on that type of rifle is of no relevant consequence to anything.

Translation: make it illegal for a father to buy his 12 year old child a .22 rifle for Christmas without traipsing them down to the local LW anti-gun bureau for fingerprinting and a background check. Same goes for a father letting their kid shooting the father's .22 single-shot rifle. In California this is considered an "illegal transfer of weapon".

No one is saying that. I bought my daughter a Ruger 10-22 awhile back and I had to give two thumbprints and get a background check done (again), just like for all my other guns. It's a pain in the ass, but it's not an actual impediment to buying a .22 of any kind. And yes, we live in California.

Mental health care. Agreed.

Except conservatives don't really agree. See, the mental healthcare argument when used by the right is the most insulting, bullshit argument when it comes to the latest mass murder performed with a gun. If they gave one-tenth of one-quarter of one-half of a flying fuck, they wouldn't be actively trying to tear down mental health services. When was the last time a conservative member of this Congress, or the one before it, or the one before that introduced a spending bill that was serious about mental health services, or reducing poverty, or helping drug addicts?

It's a line they like to throw out to fool the morons who vote for them. Say a few words that make sense, but for which they have absolutely no intention of following through with, and then the next day frighten the rubes with "socialized medicine--AHHHH!!!

"Crazy" is a human thing. Armed and crazy is an American thing. But were the MAGA-bomber and this latest rightwing freak crazy? Or is that just a convenient excuse for conservative domestic terrorism?

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Nobody gives a fuck what it's called. And anti-gun people don't need to know the difference between an AR or an AK or a pistol caliber carbine. They know what the results are. And "assault rifle" is a fitting term for semi-auto rifles. They're weapons that originated in the military, are designed for combat, and therefore to kill and wound people....

Thank you for confirming the desire to ban semi-auto weapons. You know, just like that Ruger 10-22 you claim to have purchased.

 

[Deepak]

Nobody gives a fuck what it's called. And anti-gun people don't need to know the difference between an AR or an AK or a pistol caliber carbine. They know what the results are. And "assault rifle" is a fitting term for semi-auto rifles. They're weapons that originated in the military, are designed for combat, and therefore to kill and wound people....

Thank you for confirming the desire to ban semi-auto weapons. You know, just like that Ruger 10-22 you claim to have purchased.

View attachment 18472

15 rounds. So when you did your third tour in Afghanistan I take it you were using a rifle with a straight stock and fiddly rotary mag?

Imagine all the money that could have been saved if you just convinced the world's militaries they could have just rechambered their WWI rifles to intermediate cartridges since there's no difference between those two rifles.

 

[Underseer]

• Both sides are exactly as bad. Jews criticize white supremacists in public, which is exactly as bad is shooting lots of Jews to death.
• This is actually a false flag operation. The Jews murdered themselves in order to make white conservatives look bad.
• Remember, being against fascism is the absolute worst thing a human being can be, and most Jews are against fascism. I can show you pictures of anti-fa people breaking windows if you don't believe me.
• This is just another example of evil libtard social justice warriors bashing superior white people because they're jealous of our superior morals and intellect.

[/conservolibertarian]

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody gives a fuck what it's called. And anti-gun people don't need to know the difference between an AR or an AK or a pistol caliber carbine. They know what the results are. And "assault rifle" is a fitting term for semi-auto rifles. They're weapons that originated in the military, are designed for combat, and therefore to kill and wound people....

Thank you for confirming the desire to ban semi-auto weapons. You know, just like that Ruger 10-22 you claim to have purchased.

View attachment 18472

15 rounds. So when you did your third tour in Afghanistan I take it you were using a rifle with a straight stock and fiddly rotary mag?

Imagine all the money that could have been saved if you just convinced the world's militaries they could have just rechambered their WWI rifles to intermediate cartridges since there's no difference between those two rifles.

Imagine all the money we could save if we could replace all the assault rifles in the US military with WW1 single shot rifles. I mean, since they're both exactly as deadly, there would be no loss of effectiveness in making this change in the firearms used by American soldiers.

 

[Deepak]

Imagine all the money we could save if we could replace all the assault rifles in the US military with WW1 single shot rifles. I mean, since they're both exactly as deadly, there would be no loss of effectiveness in making this change in the firearms used by American soldiers.

For accuracy's sake, most single shot weapons went out of vogue in militaries by the late 19th century. The Boer War, for instance was mostly fought with magazine fed rifles.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Imagine all the money we could save if we could replace all the assault rifles in the US military with WW1 single shot rifles. I mean, since they're both exactly as deadly, there would be no loss of effectiveness in making this change in the firearms used by American soldiers.

For accuracy's sake, most single shot weapons went out of vogue in militaries by the late 19th century. The Boer War, for instance was mostly fought with magazine fed rifles.

Agreed. Another reason to not let the anti-gun Left make Constitutional decisions about subjects they are completely clueless about.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Nobody gives a fuck what it's called. And anti-gun people don't need to know the difference between an AR or an AK or a pistol caliber carbine. They know what the results are. And "assault rifle" is a fitting term for semi-auto rifles. They're weapons that originated in the military, are designed for combat, and therefore to kill and wound people....

Thank you for confirming the desire to ban semi-auto weapons. You know, just like that Ruger 10-22 you claim to have purchased.

View attachment 18472

15 rounds. So when you did your third tour in Afghanistan I take it you were using a rifle with a straight stock and fiddly rotary mag?

Imagine all the money that could have been saved if you just convinced the world's militaries they could have just rechambered their WWI rifles to intermediate cartridges since there's no difference between those two rifles.

I didn't tour in Afghanistan. Legally, both are semi-automatic rifles, just like some anti-gun LWers want to ban.

 

[phands]

Both of those and many more, preferably ALL guns should be banned.

 

[Opoponax]

Nobody gives a fuck what it's called. And anti-gun people don't need to know the difference between an AR or an AK or a pistol caliber carbine. They know what the results are. And "assault rifle" is a fitting term for semi-auto rifles. They're weapons that originated in the military, are designed for combat, and therefore to kill and wound people....

Thank you for confirming the desire to ban semi-auto weapons. You know, just like that Ruger 10-22 you claim to have purchased.

View attachment 18472

Clearly, you're exactly the person I described. You think you have some "gotcha" argument, but all you have is pedantic bullshit that doesn't fool anyone. This is your "libruls are afraid of Scary Black Rifles" nonsense that you and your ilk circle jerk to on a daily basis.

You know that no one's worried about .22 rifles. I know that too. So does everyone else. Yet, you make this silly bad faith comparison that all us libtards don't know the difference between a .22 and 5.56 or .223 or 7.62x39 or the 5.45. Well hero, I certainly do. So go blow that smoke up someone else's ass.

You're not dealing with intellectual lightweights in this forum. Your disingenuous "arguments" and quarter truths don't hold any water here.

I probably own more guns than you do, and when my local range needs me, I RSO there at our rifle, pistol, and shotgun ranges. I've been in the Army (12 Bravo) and so I'm also familiar with the SAW, the M-60, and the Ma Deuce. I know guns. So before you make your next lightweight, candy-ass assertion as to what progressives know about firearms, you need to think first.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Clearly, you're exactly the person I described. You think you have some "gotcha" argument, but all you have is pedantic bullshit that doesn't fool anyone. This is your "libruls are afraid of Scary Black Rifles" nonsense that you and your ilk circle jerk to on a daily basis. ...

Ooooh, someone sounds very, very angry. Interesting that you claim I'm exactly as you think me to be and are putting words in my mouth. Are you gearing up for some justification? What are your plans?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Both of those and many more, preferably ALL guns should be banned.

They should at least be restricted for purpose. Police officers (small arms only; and only as a last resort), military personnel, hunters (hunting rifles only) I understand. Carrying a gun to "protect yourself from bad guys" I don't. I think carrying a gun puts you in more danger, not less. Carrying guns to "overthrow the government if it gets abusive" I especially don't understand, especially in a country with the world's biggest military.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Both of those and many more, preferably ALL guns should be banned.

They should at least be restricted for purpose. Police officers (small arms only; and only as a last resort), military personnel, hunters (hunting rifles only) I understand. Carrying a gun to "protect yourself from bad guys" I don't. I think carrying a gun puts you in more danger, not less. Carrying guns to "overthrow the government if it gets abusive" I especially don't understand, especially in a country with the world's biggest military.

Let's discuss that last part. The US military was unique in the past, and still a bit rare today, in that it doesn't swear allegiance to a leader, but to the Constitution. Despite all the Hollywood bullshit about a mad general setting himself up as dictator, the fact remains virtually all American service personnel are patriots and fully understand their oath and the regulations governing them, especially the meaning of a lawful order. Times have changed since Vietnam and Kent State.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

That said, I doubt a dictatorial President who orders the military to attack Americans is going to see many follow him. Most will simply stand down. Some will actively engage any assholes who blindly follow illegal orders or violate the Constitutional rights of Americans.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Let's discuss that last part. The US military was unique in the past, and still a bit rare today, in that it doesn't swear allegiance to a leader, but to the Constitution. Despite all the Hollywood bullshit about a mad general setting himself up as dictator, the fact remains virtually all American service personnel are patriots and fully understand their oath and the regulations governing them, especially the meaning of a lawful order. Times have changed since Vietnam and Kent State.

Some understand and some don't. Some make exceptions when ordered to do something illegal and some don't. Abu Ghraib for example. Times have changed but people haven't. Conservative personalities tend to obey authority figures. Liberal personalities tend to look more at compassion. That clash in personality types is a clash of one soldier against another as much as it is one citizen against each another like we have right now.

 

[Gun Nut]

Yet again, a mass shooting inspired by the orange nazi's hateful regime.

The only answer is to get rid of all guns....and to vote trumpo and his henchmen out.

no, no... the answer is simply to get rid of all evil. Why in the world would anyone consider just going after one of many common tools of both the evil and good, rather than completely eliminating evil from the face of the Earth?

Just go around and confiscate all of the evil. Pass laws making evil illegal. That ought to do it! geterdone!

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Let's discuss that last part. The US military was unique in the past, and still a bit rare today, in that it doesn't swear allegiance to a leader, but to the Constitution. Despite all the Hollywood bullshit about a mad general setting himself up as dictator, the fact remains virtually all American service personnel are patriots and fully understand their oath and the regulations governing them, especially the meaning of a lawful order. Times have changed since Vietnam and Kent State.

Some understand and some don't. Some make exceptions when ordered to do something illegal and some don't. Abu Ghraib for example. Times have changed but people haven't. Conservative personalities tend to obey authority figures. Liberal personalities tend to look more at compassion. That clash in personality types is a clash of one soldier against another as much as it is one citizen against each another like we have right now.

A key point about Abu Ghraib and other like criminal actions is that they were perpetuated against foreign enemies. That doesn't make it right, but it does point out that it's a major line to cross for an American service person to do the same to Americans.

While I'll readily admit the 10% Rule, the fact remains the American military is solidly patriotic and pro-Constitution. I'm certain the vast majority of them would simply stand down if ordered to attack Americans. If any did follow illegal orders to attack Americans, others, including Guardsmen, would be shooting back.

 

[ZiprHead]

Max, what restrictions do you think are in the 2nd amendment? Are there any at all?

None. The Constitution limits government, not citizens. The Second Amendment doesn't give us our right of self-defense anymore than the First Amendment gives us our right of free speech or freedom of the press. It limits what government can do to stop us. There was a huge argument at the time of its writing over the issue exactly because of concern that some would think it limits citizen rights, not government.

What is the purpose of government? It's in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution plus quantly summed up in a quote attributed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Your right to throw a punch stops where my nose begins".

Aside from national security and foreign relations, government also resolves disputes between citizens. While I may think I have a right to build a nuke in my basement, my neighbors may disagree. Same goes for shooting off a howitzer in my back yard or setting up landmines in my yard. OTOH, my owning an AK is a common form of self-defense. I can agree on mass weapons like the nuke thing, the howitzer thing and even the Claymore thing, but now when they want to take an individual weapon, that's there the line should be drawn.

I would say in response that since you believe the federal government cannot limit firearms possession, a position I disagree with, what about states rights. The constitution says nothing about what rights as far as firearms citizens do have and it does say that rights not mentioned about the government are given to the states. By your argument, states could limit possession at their will.