GOP Congressman clueless about Surgeon General

[WildCat]

So why don't any of the pro gun people do that?

They do, last time the Dem-controlled Congress sent it to committee to die. Or they load them up with fees, registration schemes, etc.

 

[marplots]

The tension between the pro and anti gun sides might actually strike the right balance. Each polices the other to some extent.

 

[Travis]

Because I don't want politicians to be independent of those they serve. The politician immune from political influence is one too close to being a king. You want some way to push them from outside their own sense of what ought to be done, some way to leverage the "they work for me" as more than a nice catchphrase. Independent thought and action is a recipe for inside the beltway insanity.

I very much want them to worry about money and getting reelected. In my view, this makes them responsive.

Not me. I'm sick of wish washy politicians. I want more of them to approach governing like it is religion. They lay out their core policies and then never waiver from them no matter what. Burn the world around them rather than deviate. Don't meet with lobbyists. Pay no attention to polls. Just adhere to their core ideology.

 

[marplots]

Not me. I'm sick of wish washy politicians. I want more of them to approach governing like it is religion. They lay out their core policies and then never waiver from them no matter what. Burn the world around them rather than deviate. Don't meet with lobbyists. Pay no attention to polls. Just adhere to their core ideology.

I can never figure out what their "core ideology" actually is. I think they lie about such things to get elected.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No he does not say the same thing. He says that their position on this is popular. If I'm missed somewhere where he said that the NRA speaks for gun owners, and that gun owners who don't agree have no voice, I'm sorry and my criticisms apply no matter who said it.







But that's not how it has played out. Good background check bills get pulled or dropped without comment (by politicians who are not supported by or supportive of the NRA), while crap that adds bans based on the angle of a handle get put forth. It's not that the NRA doesn't try to spin things negatively, they do, but that it's just as easy to spin opposition to any given detail as 'supporting the NRA' or being against 'all gun control'. I don't even require a perfect bill with everything I want, just without sufficiently stupid provisions that make it either unenforceable or overly burdensome.

That so many universal background check bills have failed is not, in and of itself, evidence that the NRA speaks for all gun owners or that gun owners support the NRA. It is consistent with several other possibilities and combinations of possibilities.

Stop it with the smear. I do not support the NRA. I have written and campaigned to repeal the SAFE Act here in New York, besides the universal background check provisions. You do not get to tell me what I support or how the NRA controls me. I do not accept or reject anything based on what the NRA says about it. If they happen to agree with me or disagree, I do not care because I come to conclusions on any given piece completely separately from what they do. What you are doing is the same as saying, 'you support the terrorists if you oppose the Patriot Act'.

And as I said, you are politically irrelevant.

 

[ponderingturtle]

If the CDC aren't the best people to be researching the matter than what are you afraid of? Not like they would be able to convince you that your viewpoint is wrong even if they were to find solid evidence that you are wrong.

DATA is bad. Why else are gun owners so afraid of anyone collecting it?

 

[ponderingturtle]

They do, last time the Dem-controlled Congress sent it to committee to die. Or they load them up with fees, registration schemes, etc.

Because actually paying for the background check is anathema to gun owners I see.

 

[thaiboxerken]

DATA is bad. Why else are gun owners so afraid of anyone collecting it?

Because evidence that guns are a catalyst to violence hurts their belief structure.

 

[theprestige]

Not me. I'm sick of wish washy politicians. I want more of them to approach governing like it is religion. They lay out their core policies and then never waiver from them no matter what. Burn the world around them rather than deviate. Don't meet with lobbyists. Pay no attention to polls. Just adhere to their core ideology.

Robespierre. Lenin. Mao.

 

[Mudcat]

Because evidence that guns are a catalyst to violence hurts their belief structure.

Not really, no. Even when information is put forth that they are wrong they still don't let it effect their world view which makes me wonder why they care if the CDC, or anyone else, examines the mater. It's also quite telling how we could be talking about something completely unrelated and still make about their precious guns.

Like Ebola or the Surgeon General, for example. How did we get from there to here and what the blazes is the connection? Anyone know?

 

[RandFan]

People aren't intentionally giving others cancer and lead poisoning. Do you think people don't understand that if they shoot someone with a gun they could die?

This sounds like ad hoc rationalization and special pleading. Why should I not see your argument in that light? You provided a proposition and I showed how and why it was wrong. Now you are saying that there are special circumstances to exclude these examples from your proposition.

My examples of lead poisoning and cigarettes demonstrates that a health problem need not have a disease vector like viruses to warrant attention from the Surgeon General, right?

 

[RandFan]

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. People should buy more guns so they're safe from the other people.

Too bad Jordan Davis didn't have gun. Too bad John Crawford III didn't have a real gun.

It seems that laws are incapable of stopping gun violence and we should all have a firearm. Perhaps we should provide funds to ensure every poor person has a firearm and is required to carry it at all times. I know that's not the argument you are making but isn't that the logical conclusion that follows from your argument?

 

[sunmaster14]

Not really, no. Even when information is put forth that they are wrong they still don't let it effect their world view which makes me wonder why they care if the CDC, or anyone else, examines the mater. It's also quite telling how we could be talking about something completely unrelated and still make about their precious guns.

Like Ebola or the Surgeon General, for example. How did we get from there to here and what the blazes is the connection? Anyone know?

The OP caused the derail. Perhaps you should report it.

 

[RandFan]

Not really, no. Even when information is put forth that they are wrong they still don't let it effect their world view which makes me wonder why they care if the CDC, or anyone else, examines the mater. It's also quite telling how we could be talking about something completely unrelated and still make about their precious guns.

Like Ebola or the Surgeon General, for example. How did we get from there to here and what the blazes is the connection? Anyone know?

Like Ebola, the vector for gunitis is spread from person to person. Unlike ebola, the more people who are infected with gunitis the less violence there will be. Good people with guns are the only thing that can stop bad people with guns. Once we are all carrying then gun violence will fall precipitously.

sarcasm to highlight the utter ignorance of the quote by that Einstein and ass Wayne LaPierre

 

[tyr_13]

And as I said, you are politically irrelevant.

And you're working real hard to make sure that stays the case. Just like the NRA. This is exactly why nothing productive gets done.

DATA is bad. Why else are gun owners so afraid of anyone collecting it?

I want the data. I'd rather one of the other organizations that better fit that data category collect it, but would be fine with getting it from the CDC (much like drunk driving deaths).

I do not trust that that data would be used or presented in an objective manner but the data would at least be available .

Evidence that gun owners are afraid of collecting it?

 

[Dr. Keith]

I've long heard that guns don't kill people, people kill people.

If that is true, then shouldn't we study the people who kill people and try to reduce that as it is approaching epidemic proportions?

Shouldn't we study why and how they kill people and reasonable measures to reduce the killing? Why are we cutting off avenues of research preemptively? If one proposed to fund studies on pool safety or ebola prevention or accidental death by choking on ones foot I doubt there would be as much push back.

 

[TheSapient]

And was there an effort on the part of Democrats to do so? I see no evidence.

So the NRA, thought their influence in the GOP, cuts off funding for research into lowering gun violence. This is the fault of the Democrats, because failed to stop or undo this. That is an odd way to cast blame.

To be clear, you think that it is a bad idea of an agency filled with public health experts to study and educate on issues of gun violence, even though most gun deaths are suicides and hundreds of accidental gun deaths happen every year. Rather, you believe that a crime fighting organization, the FBI, should expand their mission, and transfer their funds, to health research and education. Do you think the FBI should build new facilities for the health care and outreach experts they will need?

Then it has succumbed to mission creep. Perhaps that's part of the reason for their poor performance in recent months.

Yes, dealing with issues the kill tens of thousands of Americans annually is a bad idea. If they had transferred those resources to fighting Ebola in the US, they might have been able to increase the odds of survival for the one person in the history of the country who has died from Ebola.

 

[TheSapient]

Evidence that gun owners are afraid of collecting it?

Well, there is this group that representes the interests of a lot of gun owners called the NRA. They actively oppose research into the affects of gun ownership and use on public health. For instance, did you know they successfully lobbied to stop all gun violence research and education programs at the CDC?

Surely gun owners pooling their money and resources to oppose the collection of the these data is evidence they oppose the collection of these data.

 

[newyorkguy]

Even people within the NRA leadership have complained that the group has become highly politicized and extreme in its thinking. Some of them trace the change to the 1980s. In 1986, in exchange for legislation that would undo many of the provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act, the NRA agreed to compromise and allow a ban on fully automatic weapons. That turned out to be a watershed moment in the NRA's history.

Wayne LaPierre pushed for the compromise and was quite happy with the end result but then the trouble started:

At the time, Warren Cassidy headed the NRA's lobby, the Institute for Legislative Action. He confirms now that LaPierre, who did not respond to a request for comment, pushed hard to let the machine gun ban stand. "He said, 'I want to do it. I think we have to do it.' So I said yes, and that was the end of the story. It passed, and as we learned immediately, an element of NRA, a very vociferous element of NRA ... determined that it just couldn't be that way," Cassidy says. "We couldn't give an inch. I don't think they ever forgave me for it." NPR news link

That "very vociferous element" has pretty much taken over control of the NRA and LaPierre, in order to stay in his position, has had to accommodate their views. As far as studying guns and gun safety, the NRA's position has been that the researchers are all biased and incapable of producing objective studies. They believe it's all part of an undisclosed agenda to ban all guns.

We see that feeling expressed here too, don't we? If you argue too much the response is, "I know you want an all-out ban on guns and since you won't be honest about it I won't discuss it any further."

 

[Spindrift]

Robespierre. Lenin. Mao.

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it