Happy Birthday!! 4 dead, 20+ injured in ‘Bama.

[bilby]

And if memory serves, California is non-partisan redistricting.

Yup. If Dems had done in CA what the ‘Pugs did in TX, Dems would own the House right now.

The problem being that Democrats tend to respond to this with "Texas should take steps to be fairer and more representative of her people", and Republicans tend to respond with "It's not our fault if Democrats are too stupid to take advantage of their power and make California less representative in ways that benefit the Democratic Party".

This is the fundamental gulf between left and right in the modern world; The left want to make things better for everyone by being fair, compassionate, kind, and even-handed; While the right want to make things better for everyone by allowing everyone to be as selfish, greedy and self-serving as possible, on the grounds that looking out for number one is the 'correct' way to behave, because nobody knows better than you what it is that you want to achieve.

The Democrats can't believe that the Republicans see selfishness as the supreme virtue, and the Republicans can't believe that the Democrats do not.

So they argue past each other, with the D's convinced that the R's can be shamed into ceasing their antisocial behaviour, and the R's convinced that the D's are actually trying to be antisocial, but are masters of concealing their antisocial aims behind a smokescreen of apparent desire for fairness.

(That's also the reason why R's are so prone to conspiracy theories. It's the only way they can square their certainty that everyone is as selfish and greedy as they themselves, with the observation that D's often do stuff with apparently selfless motives, such as promoting mass vaccinations in the face of pandemic disease).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Oh, I don't know. The Democrats fucked the US House with the gerrymandering in NY. So the Democrats are definitely willing to "go there", but the GOP has gone there and mastered it since the 2010 bloodbath caused by the ACA backlash.

 

[Elixir]

Democrats tend to respond to this with "Texas should take steps to be fairer and more representative of her people", and Republicans tend to respond with "It's not our fault if Democrats are too stupid to take advantage of their power and make California less representative in ways that benefit the Democratic Party".

That’s why there have been calls to “fight fire with fire”, but that’s not really possible without becoming what we despise. And that would be okay if not for the right wing echo chambers full of lies. The manipulable, uneducated and ignorant rubes of the right can’t even be blamed because they truly don’t know any better.

I think about Tigers!’s naive advice to simply “make voting mandatory”. He doesn’t realize that his good, well intended advice is tantamount to asking Trump, Murdoch and the other beneficiaries of RW ignorance to shoot themselves in the head.

It’s going to take a huge amount of pain to persuade the victims of Republican greed of the fact that they’ve been had. And when they do, most will try to blame “the libs”.

 

[Derec]

To get back to the Dadeville shooting from the "mandatory voting" and "Orange man bad" derails, they have arrested three more people.
5th arrest made in Dadeville Sweet 16 party shooting

Yet another suspect was arrested Thursday in connection with the shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party that killed four and injured 32 others.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency announced charges against Willie George Brown Jr. He is 19 and lives in Auburn.
Brown is charged with four counts of reckless murder. Details of his arrest were not made public.
He is the fifth suspect charged so far.
Earlier Thursday, ALEA Sgt. Jeremy Burkett announced the arrest of 20-year-old Johnny Letron Brown of Tuskegee on the same charges.
On Wednesday, authorities announced the arrests of teen brothers from Tuskegee - Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16. Both also were charged as adults with four counts of reckless murder. They were taken into custody Tuesday night.
Later Wednesday, ALEA announced the arrest of Wilson LaMar Hill Jr., 20, of Auburn, also on the same charges.

That said, the national mainstream media has already lost interest. No hetero cis-male white shooter, no AR15s, so there is nothing for them to agitate against.

 

[Derec]

You're thinking in 3 dimensions.
Edited: Actually, 2.

Once you invent the flux capacitor, get back to me. Bullets are flying at >>88 mph anyway, so maybe we can just send them back in time or something. Just as long as you don't reverse them. That shit can get complicated.

 

[Derec]

Sorta like how Republicans want to control the reproductive rights of women because of … oh, right. that’s all on the RW politicians and their religious superstitions. My bad.

Exactly like that. Both are coming from the place of wanting to control other people. Far-left and far-right are both fundamentally illiberal.

 

[Elixir]

Both are coming from the place of wanting to control other people.

That is what "government" means; governing people.
There's more than one way.
Republicans do it with lies, deceit and terror for the benefit of those doing the governing.
Democrats do it with oft-misguided notions of what's best for the governed.

 

[Derec]

I never said that all shootings were about racism, but I think it was pretty obvious that the old man who shot the young black man who rang his doorbell appears to have some racist tendencies, based on some of the things he said.

What did he say?
I have not seen any quotes of any racist statements, but I have seen the claim by the homeowner that Yarl had tried to open the screen door. Which, if true, would be cause for alarm on part of the homeowner.

Lester told investigators that he had gone to bed when the doorbell rang and that he went to the door armed with a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, police wrote.
Lester said he saw a Black male he didn’t know pulling on the exterior storm door handle and thought his home was being broken into, the probable cause statement says.

Andrew Lester, 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting Ralph Yarl, is in custody
Should be pretty easy to test the door for any fingerprints and/or touch DNA.

So, not everyone on the Left is claiming that all of this is about racism. It has nothing to do with "wokeness".

Well, not everybody on the left is woke. Wokeness started (as a mainstream phenomenon) with the false claims surrounding the Michael Brown shooting. As such, it has everything to do with this.
In the Aftermath of Ferguson, Stay Angry and Stay Woke

Btw, for those who don't know it, I looked up the percentages of gun owners based on race. 35% of white people in the US own guns and 23% of black people own guns.

And yet, homicide rates are something like 5-6x in favor of blacks.
I do not think the solution is to take guns away from lawful and peaceful owners. But we need to do more about criminals. That five young people, most of them teens, decided to shoot up a Sweet 16 party is sickening.

At the very least, I wish there wa a requirement to take a gun safety course before one could legally own a gun.

This. Treat it like cars. We require licenses with written and practical exams for cars. We should require the same for guns.

My bro in law, who is a semi retired dentist, has recently decided to purchase a gun. He's in his 60s and had never had owned before. I think he was influenced by his girlfriend who is from a rural area and is only about 40.

Good for him.

Gun ownership has become contagious.

LMAO. But you are probably not wrong. If you meet new people who have and shoot guns, you are more likely to pick it up. Just like with any other interest. If his girlfriend were into autocross, you might have seen him whip his whip through some orange cones instead.

I still strongly disagree with you when it comes to very old frail people owning guns. You didn't see the old guy with the gun, who was very dependent and frail wearing a side iron.

I am not saying every old person is good to have a gun. But neither should we automatically assume that an old person is incapable of safely (for themselves and innocent bystanders, not necessarily for attackers) handling a gun.

A person like that could easily have his gun taken and used on himself.

Reliable real time fingerprint triggers would help avoid that problem.

 

[Derec]

Ah, I guess it's fine then.

Not "fine" per se, but also not something Americans should incessantly self-flagellate about. US is not special in that regard. It's simply human condition as a pack animal. We are part of nature, and "red in tooth and claw" applies to us as well.

I don't.

If you don't even trust the cross-traffic to stop at red, why do you expect people to trust people who break into their homes not to have harmful or even deadly intent?

 

[Derec]

That is what "government" means; governing people.

In a free society, the prohibitions by government should be as few and minor as feasible in order to ensure smooth functioning of society.
But many, on the left and right, want to use government to prohibit things they personally don't like, be it abortion on one side or guns on the other. One of the things illiberals on both sides agree is that neither like sex work. Ed Meese and Andrea Dworkin were infamously co-belligerents in the war on sexual freedoms.

 

[Elixir]

In a free society, the prohibitions by government should be as few and minor as feasible in order to ensure smooth functioning of society.

Is someone implying otherwise? That’s what I just said Dems try to do, however ineptly.
It’s a stark contrast to your party that used deceit, lies and terror to subjugate the masses and bleed them dry for the benefit of the few.

 

[TomC]

In a free society, the prohibitions by government should be as few and minor as feasible in order to ensure smooth functioning of society.

Is someone implying otherwise? That’s what I just said Dems try to do, however ineptly.
It’s a stark contrast to your party that used deceit, lies and terror to subjugate the masses and bleed them dry for the benefit of the few.

You gotta be clear or you might find yourself talking about the mid 19th century political landscape instead of the 1970s.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

I never said that all shootings were about racism, but I think it was pretty obvious that the old man who shot the young black man who rang his doorbell appears to have some racist tendencies, based on some of the things he said.

What did he say?
I have not seen any quotes of any racist statements, but I have seen the claim by the homeowner that Yarl had tried to open the screen door. Which, if true, would be cause for alarm on part of the homeowner.

Grandson of Ralph Yarl's shooter says he was into 'weird, random, racist things'

 

[Tigers!]

As far as gerrymandering, what constitutes fair districting anyway? It may be easy to spot egregious gerrymandering, but how do you select best map among myriad of possible maps that are not overtly gerrymandered? There is no one best solution. I think the best solution is to just get rid of districts altogether and have proportional representation. That would also allow minor parties to be represented without them acting as spoilers.

We do know how to create non-gerrymandered electorates.
1. Electorates based solely upon population i.e. each electorate has N voters +/- %N. Don't base the number or boundaries upon age, colour, creed, previous voting or any other such category.
2. Regularly review the electorates' boundaries. I think you Yanks do it every 10 years after your census. If so, that is too far apart. Make it, say, 5 years to more accurate reflect population changes. We do it every 3-4 years after each state or Commonwealth election.
3. An independent electoral commission. Do not let pollies or political parties draw the boundaries. The only criteria for the boundaries is population. (This is the one you probably cannot manage).
4. Standardise counting and ballot marking procedures. Having paper, electronic systems, (bloody) chads intermixed is a recipe for trouble.
4. Get more people to vote. Your voting rates are abysmal.

 

[Tigers!]

At the very least, I wish there was a requirement to take a gun safety course before one could legally own a gun.

I am surprised (though perhaps I should not be) that such an eminently sensible requirement is not done.

 

[Tigers!]

I think about Tigers!’s naive advice to simply “make voting mandatory”. He doesn’t realize that his good, well intended advice is tantamount to asking Trump, Murdoch and the other beneficiaries of RW ignorance to shoot themselves in the head.

That's the nicest thing you have ever said about me

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As far as gerrymandering, what constitutes fair districting anyway? It may be easy to spot egregious gerrymandering, but how do you select best map among myriad of possible maps that are not overtly gerrymandered? There is no one best solution. I think the best solution is to just get rid of districts altogether and have proportional representation. That would also allow minor parties to be represented without them acting as spoilers.

We do know how to create non-gerrymandered electorates.
1. Electorates based solely upon population i.e. each electorate has N voters +/- %N. Don't base the number or boundaries upon age, colour, creed, previous voting or any other such category.
2. Regularly review the electorates' boundaries. I think you Yanks do it every 10 years after your census. If so, that is too far apart. Make it, say, 5 years to more accurate reflect population changes. We do it every 3-4 years after each state or Commonwealth election.
3. An independent electoral commission. Do not let pollies or political parties draw the boundaries. The only criteria for the boundaries is population. (This is the one you probably cannot manage).
4. Standardise counting and ballot marking procedures. Having paper, electronic systems, (bloody) chads intermixed is a recipe for trouble.
4. Get more people to vote. Your voting rates are abysmal.

Yes thanks. We know how to do it, one party in general has no interest in doing it.

 

[Elixir]

one party in general has no interest in doing it.

I would suggest to @Tigers! that he go onto one of the many right wing forums out there, and ask THEM all these questions "why don't you increase turnout?" and "why don't you forbid gerrymandering?" or "why don't you get rid of Citizens United now that you know how it fosters corruption?".
After all, they're the ones who could make it all happen by their mere consent.
But don't ask why there's no sensible gun control legislation - they'll ban you immediately.

 

[Elixir]

In a free society, the prohibitions by government should be as few and minor as feasible in order to ensure smooth functioning of society.

Is someone implying otherwise? That’s what I just said Dems try to do, however ineptly.
It’s a stark contrast to your party that used deceit, lies and terror to subjugate the masses and bleed them dry for the benefit of the few.

You gotta be clear or you might find yourself talking about the mid 19th century political landscape instead of the 1970s.
Tom

LOL! What difference does it make?
The names have changed to protect the guilty, but outside of that... technology, and little else has changed.

 

[Politesse]

Not "fine" per se, but also not something Americans should incessantly self-flagellate about.

See, it's that sort of attitude - "Yeah, we commit genocide sometimes, but it's really just our nature and we shouldn't feel guilty about that" - that makes me not want to trust my fellow Americans any further than I can throw them. I think your perspective is very common in fact, and indicative of an incredibly violent society in which all strangers must be assumed dangerous. Armed hotheds who would rather commit murder than cover a cough.