Why are people so stupid?

I’m reading on and off line about recent meetings in Texas to do something about school shootings. Never in any of these meetings did they discuss any proposals to keep kids from getting guns in general, or mass murdermachines in specific, that is semiautomatic weapons with removable magazines that can send dozens of rounds downrange in seconds, hundreds in a few minutes.

Instead the conversations are about porn, and too many doors in schools, and psychiatric medications (Point of order, the meds generally come after getting diagnosed with problems, not before). Nothing about keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of children. It’s as if there is nothing that can be done to prevent mass shootings, but with some bandaids we can mitigate the body count.

Well, there is something we can do about it. First and foremost we can ban the manufacture, import, and sale of semiautomatic weapons with removable magazines so that kids can’t get them. I keep hearing that this is impossible, because people will break that law. Well, people break laws all the time, but that’s why we have law enforcement. Now this would not take away guns currently in possession of private owners, they just would not be allowed to sell or give them away. When the owners of these weapons died or got tired of owning them, the guns would be seized and destroyed. Mind you for this to work all these guns would have to be registered, with possession of an unregistered semiauto resulting in a hefty fine and possibly a prison sentence. And it won’t get rid of all the guns, but it will sharply curtail kids and crazies from getting them. And as the supply dwindles the black market prices will skyrocket beyond the resources of kids and crazies, unless they are fabulously wealthy. I mean Koch brothers wealthy, not Powerball winner wealthy.

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Still no word on gun control, thoughts and prayers abundant

Well we’re coming on 48 hours since 17 people were killed by a deranged gunman who wanted to turn FL into a white ethnostate (WTF is a “white ethnostate”?). AFAIK this includes genocide against all the non-white residents in FL because I don’t think they’ll just all pack up and leave nicely. Leaving that aside, not only has there not been a vote for gun control, there has not even been a bill proposed to control gun access for people who shouldn’t have guns. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. I have voted on more gun control bills than Congress at this point.

Getting (more) serious at this point, there are 3 common characteristics of a mass shooter we know of for sure: Male, white, and domestic abuser/abused (one or the other sometimes both). So our gun control law has to block people who fall into all of those categories from getting anything more deadly than a single-shot .22 rimfire (action doesn’t matter so long as each round is loaded into the gun one at a time and has to be either fired or removed before another round can be loaded) because “right to bear arms for hunting”. Easiest one to work with is the “domestic abuser/ed” especially the “abuser”, because there are a lot of white males who own guns and are not abusers and don’t commit mass shootings. Incidentally this profile is also a close fit for people who use cars as weapons against cyclists and pedestrians, except for the minority of abused women who kill with cars. Maybe we need to have an annual review of domestic abuse and drivers to get killer drivers off the roads. But back to gun control, there used to be restrictions against domestic abusers having guns, but those were overturned, mainly because it caused too many LEO to lose their guns. Which is also troubling. I’m not sure what the intersection of the sets of deadly cops and domestic abusers is, but I’m pretty sure there is one.

The problem is there is no defined “domestic abuser” law that’s consistent from state to state, thus no registry of abusers to use to prevent abusers from getting guns or taking away guns from people likely to do a mass shooting. So that’s step one, making a national definition for “domestic abuse”. Step 2 is making a registry for people convicted of it, and maybe a “3 strikes” law that 3 accusations in a limited time puts you on the registry because in some places getting an abuser in jail requires a victim in the hospital for an extended stay, or even a body in the morgue. I can’t make people convict, but if there’s an arrest that means there was evidence of something worth arresting someone over, and 3 times in a limited period of time is the smoke that identifies the fire.

Now this is not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing, which is what we have now.

Open Carry and Free Beer, let’s really fix the RNC in Cleveland, and do we need a “No Drive” list?

LEO in Cleveland have been asking (pleading, begging, weeping) for a temporary reprieve from OH’s open carry law because it’s impossible to tell the “good guy with a gun” from the deranged maniac out to shoot up the convention. Not wanting to be accused of being anti-gun I have a suggestion: Keep open carry, and set up free beer stations on every corner. The ones not wanting to shoot up the convention will grab a pint or 12, and get happy. The ones wanting massive mayhem and body counts will eschew the alcohol while continuing to carry.

Obviously I don’t want to see someone shoot up the convention. After all those people have families that love them just like the rest of us. I’m just taking things to their logical conclusion. If more guns make us safer then making sure everyone has one means that everyone is perfectly safe, right? And if local (and Federal) LEO want to prevent open carry on the grounds of safety, how can those two statements be reconciled? I mean it’s almost as if more guns don’t make us safer.

I just want to know in the wake of the Nice terror truck attack when the US will adopt a “No Drive” list. Last report I read stated more than 50 of the 84 victims died from getting hit by the truck, and that most of those shot are expected to survive.This attack puts the Orlando Some Asshole to shame, much higher body count over a much larger area (more than a mile!). I mean seriously, how long will people be able to just walk up and put down a credit card and walk away with a WMD with significant room for explosives when you run out of steam from just running people over? I mean it’s like a 2-for-one murder weapon sale. Run over as many as you can, then detonate the massive shrapnel disperser in the back and go out in a literal blaze of glory destroying as many infidels as remain in the blast radius. Of course you will not be around to personally assess the damage…

PSA, Opus

My co-pays are killing me, and the Feed

I thought I was going to get medical care when I got insurance through the ACA. Instead I get bills I can’t afford to pay. I was looking up my co-pays in preparation for my imaging visit tomorrow, and I thought I was going to have to cough up $50 because my total OOP is only $500 and specialist visits are $500. NOPE! I have to find $250 that does not apply to my total OOP annual limit. Thing is I don’t have $250 available at the moment. If we don’t eat this week and don’t pay insurance we might have $200 altogether. I may have to just endure not being able to turn my neck at this rate. Thank you Rick Perry. I hope you lose all your hair, except on the backs of your hands and that hair turns into a thick pelt. Your refusal to expand Medicaid has rendered me insured but unable to afford my co-pays because all the money we used to have is now going to insurance premiums. Last year’s $0.08/mon has been replaced by $112/mon, which we would have used to pay co-pays if we could have used it last year, but we couldn’t because the PCP we were assigned was not taking new patients, until this year. So last year we effectively only had health insurance if we went to an ER and coughed up a $500 co-pay, and this year while we can get an appointment to our PCP, we can’t get there if we are actually really sick because they are not anywhere near a transit stop. I can’t decide if this is Orwellian, or Hellerian (Catch 22)

Up first, I keep telling people that when a cyclist hits a pedestrian the cyclist is as likely to get hurt as the pedestrian, but do they pay attention? Cyclist critical after collision with runner in Greenwich Park and Cyclist seriously injured after crashing into runner while racing event took place in Greenwich Park The runner was uninjured in this wreck. The Dallas wreck that killed the runner the cyclist was injured enough to require hospitalization. The second SF cyclist who killed a pedestrian this century also required hospitalization. Hitting pedestrians with your bike is dangerous to the cyclist, another reason not to do it.

Speaking of Bucherre, SFPD dispenses some weapons-grade BS in the death of a cyclist. SFPD Explains: Driver Won’t Be Charged for Killing Cyclist at 14th & Folsom The driver was not at fault for running the red light because the cyclist was running it, too? Seriously?

And while we are in CA, here’s Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Serial hit-and-run driver allegedly attacks three in Venice, including two people on bikes

In FL the driver who left a cyclist to die in the streets did not do a very good job of hiding the evidence from LEO. Police find car believed tied to hit-and-run that killed cyclist The damage was not readily apparent from the street, but not hidden very much either.

More on another idiot who used a gun instead of a car to kill a cyclist. GUNMAN WHO SHOT, KILLED BICYCLIST STILL AT LARGE Some people just haven’t learned that the correct way to murder a cyclist is to run him down from behind and claim blindness (“I didn’t see him”). That way instead of charges you get grief counseling for the terrible tragedy of killing another human being. And I really wish I could put the snark tag (/s without HTML brackets), but it is a true statement.

One wonders about huge packs of motor vehicles driving down the street close to but under the speed limit. Police tell Hells Ride cyclists to stop using Beach Rd as a racetrack

Who did the registered owner sell the weapon vehicle to prior to the wreck? “Do the right thing” police tell driver who killed 15 year old West Brom cyclist

This drunk driver did not get what he deserved. Russian Drunk Driver Who Killed U.S. Cyclist Gets 3 Years in Prison Nope, he’s still alive and in possession of all his body parts, nothing close to what he deserves.

Another Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot moment courtesy of Enn Zed. Careless driver who killed cyclist can drive tractors He violated his ban twice since released from jail for killing a cyclist because he was in too big a hurry and they haven’t tossed his can in the calaboose yet? TANJ!

Boston is putting in bicycle infrastructure that is good by American standards. Comm Ave. to get less harrowing for cyclists, everyone else

I guess when you are as vulnerable as a cyclist is on the roads you have more compassion to other vulnerable people. Cyclists ride to D.C. in memory of Sandy Hook and to press for tighter gun laws and ADVOCATES OF TOUGHER GUN CONTROL MAKE BIKE RIDE FROM NEWTOWN TO WASHINGTON

Tell me again how dangerous cyclists are in NYC. Speed Cameras Net $16.9 Million From Dangerous Drivers They are not using all the cameras they are allowed, they are not allowed to run the cameras 24/7, and they still raked in almost $17 Million in one year four months?

I wonder what they were thinking when they came up with this idea. National Bike Summit 2015: Talking “Bikes Plus”

Also this is a new comic I started following that seems pretty good. Broken Telephone It’s a crime story by the guy who writes Dinosaur Comics. I used to be a call center operator (computer help desk, not cell phone) and I can totally relate to this.

And that’s all I got today, thank [$DEITY]!

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet