CaliCash,
According to the Mother Jones article Emilybee posted in this thread or the other, 44 of the last 62 mass killings were by white males. That is about 70%, which I believe closely matches US demographics. But of course you are right that the majority were white.
“That problem is intolerance of anyone’s opinions who do not match your own and total disrespect.”
I do not, nor will I ever, tolerate anyone’s racist views. If that makes me intolerant - so be it. And anyone who tolerates those viewpoints in other people is likewise complicit.
There is no other meaning as to what the Confederate Flag represents. Any other opinion flies in the face of historical fact.
@ bay-
Saying you have never seen someone misuse a gun is a ridiculous response to anything, because first of all, the 1 in three owning guns is not uniform, it isn’t like you take three people off the streets, and one of them will have a gun, gun ownership is concentrated in certain areas. Want to know an interesting little fact? Shootings in places like schools and shopping malls and such happen in areas where gun ownership is highest for the most part (Newtown was an abherration) Aurora, Colorado for example is in an area where gun ownership is high and where the gun culture is quite strong. When you read about the guy who goes into the place of business and blows people away, it generally tends to be in places with a lot of guns. Using your own personal example is bogus, because it assumes that your experience is the norm, that you live where there are a lot of guns (Perhaps you do, I don’t know).
@catahoulpa-
The fact is that NJ, like other states around here, do have problems with illegal guns coming into the state, guns that usually were bought legally in other states and sold into the black market I may add. So we face that problem, too, yet somehow the crime rates are relatively low. As far as it being demographics, if you are arguing that is because NJ doesn’t have ‘trouble areas’, then do some reading. NJ has some pretty bad ass places, cities like Patterson, Passaic, Newark and Camden, that are inner city/poor environments, and there are places in NJ that aren’t all that much different than appalachia, with kinds of rural poverty. Arguing demographics is a copout, and it also misses a fundamental point, if gun ownership, if easy gun ownership prevents crime, then by all rights NJ should have a much higher crime rate then the states I mentioned, but it doesn’t,a nd what it says is that gun ownership is not a deterrent the way gun proponents think, if gun ownership prevented crime, then Texas should be at the bottom of the crime stats, not the top.
As far as cradle to grave lawyer stuff, about the post about gun registration and such, then do you think cars should be unregistered? Do you think we shouldn’t have liability insurance regulations, drivers license, but rather simply let people own cars, sell them to whom they will, and not care whether they know how to use the car? Can you imagine what the roads would be like if that was true? Cars don’t drive themselves (well, not yet), they don’t run into people, they don’t drive drunk, so why do we have laws making drives and owners accountable? The reason is the same reason guns need to have accountability, that without it people will run wild, as they would with cars. If cars didn’t need to be registered, you could steal cars at will, because you didn’t need to register them. If a car didn’t have license plates, you could use it committing a crime, and no one would know whose car it was, and so forth.
With the current system, time and again the lax gun laws have led to legally bought guns fueling the black market, with those doing it having zero accountability. If I leave the car keys in my car and someone steals the car and uses it in commission of a crime, I can face penalties for doing so, some numbnuts in lala land where guns are as easy to buy as a pound of nails can give his gun to a buddy, who shoots up a liquor store, and he faces no accountability, cause he can just say “I must of done lost it”. If the goal is for legitimate people to own guns for whatever reasons they want, that is fine, but if people want guns for legitimate reasons, then why do they resist reasonable accountability, do they protest that with owning a car?
As far as 'the right to bear arms, shall not be infringed", they are pulling fundamentalist trick, they are taking it out of context of the rest of constitutional law. Ever right we have in the constitution has burdens upon them, and guns are no different. Freedom of speech has limits, you get up in front of a crowd of people and tell them to go find a Moslem and beat him to death is not protected speech. Yelling fire in a movie theater is not protected, nor is saying things about someone else that aren’t true.
With the right to bear arms, the only thing the second amendment says is you cannot outright ban people owning guns without specific reasons for doing so (so for example, Joe Billy Bob can’t buy an RPG, a stinger missile, or a .20 caliber machine gun without a federal gun license, you cannot own a howitzer, a tank with an operating gun, a ME109 with operating machine guns). However, infringment does not mean regulation, regulation of guns, of what kind you can own, when you can carry them, is perfectly legal, because it says how guns may be owned but does not ban them entirely. Washington DC tried to ban guns, and the SCOTUS decision clearly stated that outright bans were unconstitutional, but specifically retained the right of states and localities to regulate the sale and ownership of them.
It is funny, the same people who claim that things like the laws on police interrogation, the Miranda warnings, the snooping by the NSA and law enforcement without warrants, will say “Why are you worried, if you are a law abiding person, you have nothing to worry about”. Well, if you are in fact a law abiding gun owner, why do you fear things like registration, or if you want to sell it, having to do so in a legal fashion?
@emilybee and neither would I accept anyone’s racist views against any race. Neither would I begin to believe that every resident of a particular state shares a common belief system . Thought would be wrong of me to do so.
"Neither would I begin to believe that every resident of a particular state shares a common belief system>’
Yet the Confederate Flag flies on the grounds of your state capitol and the people in your state have done nothing in the past 15 years to remove it. The only conclusion is that the people of SC tolerate the racist views of a good portion of their citizens.
@ emilybee-
The confederate flag thing ironically has little to do with the civil war, if that simply was a flag of the old confederacy I don’t think it would be quite as strongly opposed. While the view espoused of the civil war as being entirely based in slavery (it wasn’t), or ‘a war of states rights and freedom’ (it wasn’t that either, and in reality, was more a war IMO of democracy versus aristocracy), most people look at it in nuanced ways, so they can see for example someone might be proud of the confederate past but be personally non racist.
The problem with the flag, which belies the whole heritage thing, is that they didn’t start flying the flag, putting it on bumper stickers, on t shirts, the whole southern pride thing, until the civil rights era and it was a direct challenge to the civil rights era and the end of Jim Crow, and it was quite frankly a symbol of racist resistance.
I would be careful of labelling people in SC as all racists and such, it is like outsiders looking at the country as a whole and assuming everyone are members of the tea party, religious fanatics who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, all bible thumping types who hate gays, hate education, you name it,when that represents a minority. Like on the national stage, in SC is it very likely that a majority might think the flag is a disgrace, a sop to the racists and the rednecks (for the record, I work with people who were born there and lived there large chunks of their life, and they are embarrassed by the morons and by how much power the government gives them). I think the reaction to the shooting says a lot about the state, at least on a local level (Graham on the other hand, well, is a disgrace), and I think most people are probably sickened by what happened (I loved Graham saying let’s not rush to judgement, when they already had the kid who did it, and his reasons as well), the real question is can that translate into political will? It is a lot easier sit back and say “that’s a shame, that mutant needs to be put to death ASAP for what he did” or to say “he is wrong to feel that way”, and another to realize that flying that flag is a symbol of the same kind of crap that kid believed.
“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.)”
In other words, if you hate being viewed as an ignorant, racist redneck by the rest of the country, maybe not doing things that are mostly done by ignorant, racist rednecks would be a good start. Why can’t the good people of SC (of which there are undoubtedly many) shame the losers with the Conf flags? I mean, if I saw someone up here in the north displaying or wearing a Conf flag (in a context other than a museum), I roll my eyes and say “really?” I have no problem “flag-shaming.” When my kids were littler, they went to a little friend’s house to play; I drove up and they were flying a Conf flag. Well, that was the first and last time. We don’t need to associate with people like that.
@musicprnt my point exactly. I would careful assigning labels to an entire group of people
167 posts, 12 pages and still no one has thought of a gun control law that would or even might have prevented this shooting in Charleston.
@pizzagirl-
That is an interesting question, and I think it comes down to that most people don’t want to make waves, they don’t want to get involved, and it isn’t just a phenomenon of rednecks versus the good people, it happens all over. If you looked at how people feel in polls, for example, and what happens politically, there is a huge disconnect. For example, most people in this country are not socially conservative, nor are they super religious, yet social conservative positions still tend to be big deals in political circles, even more liberal politicians make noises about faith and such, when most people in this country are simply not super religious church goers, it is only at most 25% of the population. So if that is the case, why for example do politicians make so much noise about those issues? Why don’t the majority who don’t share those positions stand up and say “enough is enough, keep it to yourself”?
It is complex, some of it is people don’t want to deal with it, some of it is people think that by not saying anything, they are 'respecting the beliefs of others", that somehow if someone for example is a redneck with a confederate flag on their car it is sacrosanct belief or something…I saw that with the religious liberal types I was around, they spent a lot of time saying you shouldn’t speak out against the religious right/fundamentalists, you shouldn’t point out that teaching creationism is not science, that their literalist interpretations are bogus, you should accept their beliefs and not criticize them, because they are heartfelt beliefs (meanwhile, of course, letting them do things like trying to ban teaching evolution or hurting the members of your own faith that are often publicly denigrated and hurt by those same people). , so some of it is that…and a lot of if is sheer laziness, while they have no stomach for racism or for glorifying Jim Crow, they don’t see it as being such a big deal that they have to do anything,like calling the local representative to tell him to move to get rid of the flag. So what happens is the rednecks do call the local reps, they do make a lot of noise about ‘southern pride’ and “pride in our past”, and the reps listen to them, not the silent majority.
This isn’t just NC, this is the entire country, if people stood up for what they really believed in a lot of the crackpots in politics, and the crackpot ideas they are throwing around, would never see the light of day.
Here’s what I don’t get . . . I don’t get the, to my mind, weird confluence of true patriots, 2nd amendment defenders and secessionists. I understand real, honest flag waving, greatest generation promoting, troops supporting patriots. I don’t always agree with but at least sort of understand the viewpoint of staunch second amendment proponents up to the point of hunting rifles and hand guns with “common sense” laws around access and back ground checks, but not large capacity weapons and other militaristic arsenals (I am staying away from particular semantics that I am likely to get wrong RE automatic, semi-automatic, magazines, clips etc so as not to get bogged down in the weeds). However, I will never understand how people who have been elected as representatives to our national offices can accept and welcome into the large tent the honest to goodness secessionists be it Texans, Alaskans, or “Southern Pride” spouting white supremacists. I feel like avowed secessionists with arsenals should not be invited into the political “tent” and yet I see elected officials bending over backwards not to make too many waves in that regard. Why all the tip toeing around? Yes we live in a free country and people can say and do almost anything but it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be called out on it.
@ pizzagirl I would be careful to make a blanket statement that the good people of SC aren’t doing their fair share of flag shaming or that we are complacent and sit on our butts and do nothing . Unfortunately it is a legislature issue. Without getting over political , many times when legislature is introduced , may things are linked together that have no relationship to one another. This happens everywhere in this country, not just SC. This is part of the reason it takes so long to achieve change all over our country, not just SC. Is this right that things happen this way? No, it’s not right, it’s reality. Do our elected officials always represent the views of their constituents? Unfortunately , no. It’s my opinion, some say anything to get elected . Our legislature is not currently in session and won’t be for several months. It’s my understanding from a news report this AM on a national news program, that a bill will be introduced when it reconvenes . I do not know if it is a stand alone bill or not . That is all I know for now.
Where did you find this fact, musicprnt? I love facts, and you made me have to look this up.
My google search revealed that of the 12 school shootings listed in Mother Jones, 10 of them occurred in the states that rank in the bottom half gun ownership rates. CA, which is ranked #42 lowest in gun ownership, had 3 of these shootings, and was the only state with more than one. The only two states ranked in the top half of gun ownership that had school shootings were Arkansas (#6) and Iowa (#16). So Newton was not an abherration at all. CT (#46) had the unfortunate company of hosting a school shooting along with CA (#42), Illinois (#44), and Washington (#36), and four other states ranked in the bottom half for gun ownership (OR, CO, PA and VA).
Btw, for those of you fond of using the word “redneck,” many of us find that to be a racist term and are offended. Maybe you should look up the history of the word.
As an aside, I’ve lived in northern states , as well as southern states , and there are people that many would label "rednecks " prominent in both.
“The confederate flag thing ironically has little to do with the civil war, if that simply was a flag of the old confederacy I don’t think it would be quite as strongly opposed. While the view espoused of the civil war as being entirely based in slavery (it wasn’t), or ‘a war of states rights and freedom’ (it wasn’t that either, and in reality, was more a war IMO of democracy versus aristocracy), most people look at it in nuanced ways, so they can see for example someone might be proud of the confederate past but be personally non racist.”
I give you the words of Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President to the Confederacy, in the “Corner Stone” speech.
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
The Civil War was about states’ rights – to own slaves. The revisionist notion that it wasn’t about slavery was invented after the end of Reconstruction in furtherance of the “Lost Cause” ideology. Like the statement emilybee cites, every single statement of secession – there’s one for each seceding state – makes absolutely and expressly clear that at the time, the preservation of slavery was the principle reason for secession. See the declarations collected here: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html. For example, here’s an excerpt from Mississippi’s declaration:
“The Civil War wasn’t about slavery.”
C’mon now…
Just to be precise–the decision to secede was about slavery. However, white Southerners would have been perfectly happy to be allowed to go in peace. The decision to invade the South (and thus have a war) was about opposition to a theory of states’ rights
Yes, from the North’s point of view, it was about preservation of the Union, although the North certainly understoon that slavery was the reason for secession, and there were many in the North who did oppose slavery and fought for its end. And who fired the first shots, exactly? Come now.