A big issue gun-control advocates are not addressing is what to do w the saturation of existing gun ownership. Making new gun acquisition more restrictive does not make the existing guns in circulation go away.
When you’re in a hole, first, stop digging.
Of course they won’t go away, and nobody here is suggesting that they would either. The point is to try and do something to help the situation. Will mass shootings go away with tighter controls? No… Will they become less frequent (and possibly less severe)? Maybe.
Restricting sales of ammo would go a long way toward making all those guns in circulation less deadly as well.
Here we go. Once corporate America starts to weigh in, retrograde governors inevitably fold like a cheap suit.
[Remove the Confederate flag from the SC Capitol: Salesforce CEO Benioff](Remove Confederate flag from South Carolina capitol: Romney, Benioff | Fortune)
When tourists stop visiting SC, when retirees stop moving to SC, when businesses won’t move to SC, when lobbyists stop giving SC legislators election campaign money…the Confederate flag will disappear. Will likely be soon.
Stephen Colbert is a proud Charlestonian. I would have loved to have heard him weigh in on gun control. He, like Jon Stewart, gets it.
“When tourists stop visiting SC, when retirees stop moving to SC, when businesses won’t move to SC, when lobbyists stop giving SC legislators election campaign money…the Confederate flag will disappear. Will likely be soon.”
The NRA will never stop giving legislators money. Most tourists won’t stop going to SC. People will still retire to SC (lets face it - most warm states have a lot of the same issues and they are all much cheaper to live in.) Big companies - Boeing, BMW, moved operations to SC after the state put up the Confederate Flag in the early 60’s. They are “right to work” states with very lax regulations on businesses. Much cheaper for companies to do business there.
What gun control law would have prevented Roof from getting his gun? He had arrests, but no conviction, he was over 21, he bought the gun over a month before, he had not been treated or hospitalized for any mental illness, what law even being considered would have prevented this?
Florida legislators are heavily influenced too by NRA, but Florida legislature replaced racist ‘Old Folks at Home’ as state song in 2008 and the state in recent years yanked Confederate flag off state capitol grounds and put it in a museum…same thing will happen in SC with flag.
I would love for Boeing to weigh in, although I’m not holding my breath.
The shooter certainly seemed to feel that it was a potent white supremacist symbol based on his collection of photos. He pictures himself standing on and burning the American flag and proudly holding the Confederate flag. And now the American flag is at half mast while the Confederate flag flies above it. Pathetic and indefensible. One would think that all flag-waving, God loving types would be forming a human pyramid out there on the state house grounds to get that thing down.
“One would think that all flag-waving, God loving types would be forming a human pyramid out there on the state house grounds to get that thing down.”
Don’t hold your breath.
I think there is going to be resistance to the idea that this shooter’s interpretation of the flag’s symbolism speaks for everyone in South Carolina. I don’t believe that everyone or even most people in the state hold his views, and I think it is wrong to paint them that way just because they fly the same flag.
I admit I was surprised that he hates the American flag. That certainly goes against the expressed stereotype of gun-owners.
Roof seems to be one big stew of mixedupness mentally. His reasoning ability is all screwed up.
“I think there is going to be resistance to the idea that this shooter’s interpretation of the flag’s symbolism speaks for everyone in South Carolina. I don’t believe that everyone or even most people in the state hold his views, and I think it is wrong to paint them that way just because they fly the same flag.”
Any other interpretation of the flag’s symbolism is simply an excuse. It is what it is - the flag of treasonists whose aim was to have a State whose existence was born to keep blacks enslaved. It would be long ago banished if it didn’t represent the views of the majority of citizens in the southern states which allow it to be flown and allow it on their license plates.
If the people of those states do not want to be branded as racists by those of us who don’t live in a state which allows the Confederate Flag to remain in the public view - they should start lobbying their state legislatures to ban the flag or the image of the flag in public places and on government property (license plates, for example.)
I’ve been following this thread and another over the past few days . My observation during that time has been that people have varying opinions regarding gun control, race relations,etc. that is not the question for me to begin to debate whose right and whose wrong. What I see as a more pervasive problem that needs to be addressed before any change can take place. That problem is intolerance of anyone’s opinions who do not match your own and total disrespect. To make sweeping generalizations about a race or population is grossly unfair. That’s one of the things that seems to perpetuate hate at an alarming rate . Are there hateful people in SC?unfortunately I’d have to say yes. Are we the only state that has hateful residents ? Unfortunately no.
This is why I don’t believe the fact the he was a gun-owner has as much bearing as others want to place on his actions or beliefs. His gun was a tool – a means to enact a greater vision.
@GMTplus7 Let’s not forget what is typically the ethnicity of mass murderes…