HelixDab2

I would strongly suggest voting in-person if you happen to live in one of the swing states that has been clamping down on absentee ballots.

Man, you really don’t remember what it was like if you don’t realize just how substantive the ACA was. I’m not saying that the ACA is great, but it is so much better than what we used to have.

If he’d been using a hunting rifle with a basic 1-8 first focal plan optic that was zeroed at 100y, and had been using ammunition intended for hunting, one single shot to the center mass, and Trump’s aspirations for continuing to be alive would have ended.

Here’s the lovely thing: I don’t need to demonstrate a need in order to exercise a right. I don’t need to prove I need to vote in order to have the right to vote. I don’t have to prove I need religion in order to be permitted to be religious.

Do you think that there aren’t plenty of former military people that are on the political left?

By the FBI definition of a mass shooting–which is 4 or more people, not including the shooter, shot (but not necessarily killed) in a single incident–the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are committed with handguns, and most mass shootings are either ordinary crime (gang-related, robberies, etc.) or domestic violence murder-suicides. Of the 20,000 or so homicides that are committed with firearms in the US annually, around 5% overall–about 1000–are committed with anything other than a handgun. That includes all shotguns and long guns.

Here’s a list of all mass shootings in the US in 2023; from what I can find, 3-4 of the worst shootings used a rifle. The Baltimore shooting is questionable, as they note that it appeared to be a rifle-caliber pistol, which could mean an AR-15 pistol, or it could mean a PDW.

So no, AR-15 rifles are absolutely no used weekly in mass shootings. That’s just blatantly false.

Have they killed hundreds of children? If you’re going to look at all civilian shooting deaths in the US over the last 50 years, then yeah, almost certainly. But in 2023? Or 2022? No, not even close.

You’re assuming that people in the military are going to be just fine with bombing cities where their friends live, or where they have family. If you’re going to say that the US military, run by fascists, is just going to steamroll actual patriots, that’s what you’re talking about. But the problem is that those pilots, the drone operators, the guys running artillery batteries, they’re likely going to know people and have friends and family that live in blue cities and states, and once they find out that their own friends have been killed as ‘collateral damage’, they’re likely going to be having second thoughts.

Israel is able to level Gaza because there aren’t Israelis living in Gaza; how eager do you think members of the IDF would be to bomb the shit out of the Palestinians if they knew their own friends and family were getting killed with every bomb, and with every shell?

I’m not disarming, period. Fuck that noise.

…Does Pres. Biden really think that the assassination attempt would have gone less well if Crooks had been using a Ruger American bolt action rifle chambered in 6.5CM? Does he really think that?

Let’s be super-clear here, and AR-15 uses an intermediate cartridge. Most bolt action hunting rifles are going to use full-power cartridges, cartridges that have a longer range, may have a flatter trajectory, have less wind drift, and have a helluva lot more power when they hit their target. A center mass hit with an AR-15 at 150y is going to be bad; a center mass hit with a .308 or 6.5CM at 150y is going to be the end of someone’s world. Bear in mind that many hunters do not consider a .225/5.56x45mm bullet to be ethical for deer hunting because it’s lower power, while there’s very broad agreement that 6.5CM and .308 are just dandy.

Also, calling for banning guns in an election year where you’re already behind? When gun bans tend to galvanize Republicans and get them out to the polls? Incredibly dumb. Unbelievably dumb.

I watched that on VHS in the 90s. Such a fantastic movie.