Pro-Gun Russian Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting (wired.com) 705
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: In the wake of Wednesday's Parkland, Florida school shooting, which resulted in 17 deaths, troll and bot-tracking sites reported an immediate uptick in related tweets from political propaganda bots and Russia-linked Twitter accounts. Hamilton 68, a website created by Alliance for Securing Democracy, tracks Twitter activity from accounts it has identified as linked to Russian influence campaigns. On RoBhat Labs' Botcheck.me, a website created by two Berkeley students to track 1500 political propaganda bots, all of the top two-word phrases used in the last 24 hours -- excluding President Trump's name -- are related to the tragedy: School shooting, gun control, high school, Florida school. The top hashtags from the last 24 hours include Parkland, guncontrol, and guncontrolnow.
While RoBhat Labs tracks general political bots, Hamilton 68 focuses specifically on those linked to the Russian government. According to the group's data, the top link shared by Russia-linked accounts in the last 48 hours is a 2014 Politifact article that looks critically at a statistic cited by pro-gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. Twitter accounts tracked by the group have used the old link to try to debunk today's stats about the frequency of school shootings. Another top link shared by the network covers the "deranged" Instagram account of the shooter, showing images of him holding guns and knives, wearing army hats, and a screenshot of a Google search of the phrase "Allahu Akbar." Characterizing shooters as deranged lone wolves with potential terrorist connections is a popular strategy of pro-gun groups because of the implication that new gun laws could not have prevented their actions. Meanwhile, some accounts with large bot followings are already spreading misinformation about the shooter's ties to far-left group Antifa, even though the Associated Press reported that he was a member of a local white nationalist group. The Twitter account Education4Libs, which RoBhat Labs shows is one among the top accounts tweeted at by bots, is among the prominent disseminators of that idea.
While RoBhat Labs tracks general political bots, Hamilton 68 focuses specifically on those linked to the Russian government. According to the group's data, the top link shared by Russia-linked accounts in the last 48 hours is a 2014 Politifact article that looks critically at a statistic cited by pro-gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. Twitter accounts tracked by the group have used the old link to try to debunk today's stats about the frequency of school shootings. Another top link shared by the network covers the "deranged" Instagram account of the shooter, showing images of him holding guns and knives, wearing army hats, and a screenshot of a Google search of the phrase "Allahu Akbar." Characterizing shooters as deranged lone wolves with potential terrorist connections is a popular strategy of pro-gun groups because of the implication that new gun laws could not have prevented their actions. Meanwhile, some accounts with large bot followings are already spreading misinformation about the shooter's ties to far-left group Antifa, even though the Associated Press reported that he was a member of a local white nationalist group. The Twitter account Education4Libs, which RoBhat Labs shows is one among the top accounts tweeted at by bots, is among the prominent disseminators of that idea.
You ain't seen propaganda yet (Score:2, Insightful)
You ain't seen propaganda until the NRA starts rolling.
Russians? Pro-gun? (Score:2, Troll)
Doesn't pass the stink test. They have been funding the West Coast Wall for years.
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Russia's goal is to create division in the US, not to promote any particular ideology.
AI assisted video editing would be next (Score:2)
But there is no alternative news source one can trust outside the net either. We have killed the print newspapers....
Wonder if Democracy can survive without a reliable news source ...
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I, for one, would never believe that Gal Gadot shot up a school...
Regulation. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's clear that these school shootings are driven by crazies wanting to "copy-cat" other school shooting they're heard about, sometimes just to get their own 24 hours of fame. Yet, the modern media irresponsibly continues to glorify these events and saturate every media channel with them, just encouraging more copy-cats. That clearly needs to change.
We have to do something. We already have lots of gun laws. We now need some reasonable, common-sense, media control laws. Just as an private citizen can't get and has no reason to have a machine gun, no media needs a high speed Internet web site - when the "right to a free press" was created, it was in reference to Gutenberg presses. Same with radio/tv/cable. Such powerful methods of communication, so easily abused, should be highly regulated for private use. Only the government is responsible enough to be allowed to use them. Journalists should be licensed, subject to a background check to make sure they're not mentally ill, and don't have a criminal history. Photocopy machines should be registered. Scented magazine inserts should be outlawed. Cheap, Saturday night special, smartphones should be outlawed. A license should be required to carry a concealed smartphone.
As a bonus, such restrictions would also solve all of this "Russian facebook/twitter" cruft.
None of these reasonable, common-sense actions would infringe on 1st Amendment or natural rights in any way, but would go a long way to ending the bloodshed. Think of the children.
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I've made this modest proposal for years, but nobody listens.
cf. Dean Ing's story "Very Proper Charlies." That posited responsibility on the part of the news media, so it was, of course, science fiction. Or, perhaps, fantasy.
Re:Regulation. (Score:5, Informative)
It's clear that these school shootings are driven by crazies wanting to "copy-cat" other school shooting they're heard about
It's already been reported that this guy was trained by supremacists and appears to have been radicalized by them. The chief supremacist confirmed it.
Maybe he was more vulnerable to their brainwashing because of existing mental illness, but he's just the latest in a long line of radicalized young men to go on murder sprees.
Just like the young men that are radicalized by Islamists.
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It's already been reported that this guy was trained by supremacists and appears to have been radicalized by them. The chief supremacist confirmed it.
And that was later confirmed to be a hoax, confirming that jumping ahead of the news to be "first to report" is a problem. You wouldn't want to spread fake news now would you ?
Maybe he was more vulnerable to their brainwashing because of existing mental illness, but he's just the latest in a long line of radicalized young men to go on murder sprees.
Maybe we should look into this whole "acceptance" and "ableism" virtual signaling then, and start to treat mental illness as mental illness again, instead of "accepting their differences" and just medicating them into compliance.
The real question: (Score:5, Insightful)
If they can detect these bots then why isn't Twitter immediately wiping them out?
The bear (Score:2)
Only a lobotomizee could believe this story (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is it exactly that Russia supposedly has the monopoly on propaganda bots?
Why is it exactly that Russia's propaganda bots are the only ones supposed to be effective?
We need to start facing the fact that the leftist side of the population is literally mentally defective. They cannot handle having the same rights as sane people. All that giving them civil liberties does is cheapen the value of liberty for all of us, because the first thing they do with their liberty given a chance is self-destruct it to sa
Russian Trolls Have Also Invaded Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Remember the days when it was just linux nerds in here instead of bots and trolls?
Re:Russian Trolls Have Also Invaded Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
I is to remember, that was when anti-gun leftism was raging here and liberals run the show. You are only angry because those of us who are Americans who are conservative Republicans and proud have taken over site with logic and morals and you types have none of the reply possibles.
Re:Russian Trolls Have Also Invaded Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Dear anonymous Russian troll, please learn English grammar before you make yourself even more unintentionally hilarious.
Commander Taco help us!
Let's all remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
The CIA director talked about them 'disrupting' the election.
I know to those on the Left, this is synonymous with "got Trump elected."
I don't know that's necessarily what he meant.
The fact is, whatever they can dump onto American social media to enhance outrage, to enhance division, to gin up anger - that all counts as 'disrupting'.
Seems like the exact opposite actually (Score:4, Informative)
If you look at Hamilton 68 (http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/) which only tracks the known Russian twitter bots, the very top (i.e most frequent) hashtag is gunreformnow, and at #8 is guncontrol, and there's zero sign of any pro-gun hashtags.
I'm not seeing anything that actually justifies the Wired article's obviously liberal-biassed claims.
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Stoke both sides, get them fighting each other.
Russian bots are wimpy (Score:3)
Looking at the sources linked in the article there were 57 tweets linked to Russian backed accounts with the hashtag #guncontrolnow.
57 tweets? Seriously?
All that from only 600 tracked accounts. I hope the bots get a day off because that is some serious tweeting. I think Wired might want to review the definition of the word "flood". The bots have learned the lessons of communism well, Russia pretends to pay the bots and the bots pretend to work.
my tweets (Score:2)
so does this mean my tweets could be tracked as if from Russia?
"Old" article still relevant (Score:2)
The article Wired seems to be criticizing the politifact article because it's old but the article is still valid. Current articles are also quoting the same source, using the same stats to paint the same misleading picture. Just because Everytown for Gun Safety has published new statistics since the critical article was published does not mean their updated stats are any better.
From a recent CNBC article on the Florida shooting entitled "17 school shootings in 45 days — Florida massacre is one of ma
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you are confusing the agenda. Maybe it's not pushing an agenda rather than shit stirring. I've been under the impression Putin would like nothing more than America to have Civil War 2.0
And that doesn't necessarily mean a hot war, but a war of ideology, which we definitely have that right now, and thanks in some part to Putin and his troll army
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is part of it... Putin's goal is to "mess with us", whatever stirs the pot.
However, my observation on my Facebook feed (with friends on both Right and Left) is that almost all of the chatter about this is of the "Ban Guns!!!" sort. The conservative types were almost a full day behind the leftist ones.
Doesn't stop the leftist types from shrieking "How **DARE** you **POLITICIZE** this **TRAGEDY**!!!" the moment anyone not so leftist demurs from their politicizing in favor of their solution of banning all guns.
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Doesn't stop the leftist types from shrieking "How **DARE** you **POLITICIZE** this **TRAGEDY**!!!" the moment anyone not so leftist demurs from their politicizing in favor of their solution of banning all guns.
Huh? The only group shrieking about politicizing a tragedy after a shooting is the gun lobby and their buddies on the right.
Without taking sides, if a public shooting and innocent dead people aren't a good reason to discuss the issue of gun control and public safety, when is a good time?
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
Without taking sides, if a public shooting and innocent dead people aren't a good reason to discuss the issue of gun control and public safety, when is a good time?
Here's the problem: "Mass shootings" account for only about 0.1% of gun deaths, and are NOTHING like the normal quotidian killings that account for the other 99.9%:
* Mass shootings tend to be carefully planned and premeditated.
* Normal shootings tend to be impulsive and emotional.
* Mass shootings are often done by people with no prior violent criminal record.
* Normal shootings are usually by people with a history of violence.
* Mass shootings tend to be done with rifles.
* Normal shootings are mostly done with handguns.
* Mass shooters are usually crazy people.
* Normal shooters are usually stupid people.
So policies directed at mass shootings tend to be ineffective at actually reducing gun deaths. Because of the meticulous planning, mass shooters are difficult to detect. Because of their mental illnesses, they are difficult to deter. This is precisely where gun control will be least effective. The world's worst mass shooting was in Norway, not America.
Another problem with discussing gun control in the aftermath of a mass shooting, is that gun control advocates tend to let their emotions get away from them, and say a lot of silly things that are factually incorrect about "machine guns" and "automatic rifles" (both of which are illegal in America). This just exacerbates the feeling among gun owners that they belong to a different culture, and that there is no room for compromise or moderation.
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And yet countries with gun control have far fewer mass shootings. That one in Norway had a high death toll, but it was very rare.
The NY Times reprinted an article today going over the stats. The number of guns (total, per capita, whatever) correlates with the number of mass shootings. It also correlates with the number of gun deaths (and violent deaths in general), which you're correct, is a bigger problem.
Mass shootings get the press because they're dramatic. But if you can use that impact to do someth
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass shootings get the press because they're dramatic. But if you can use that impact to do something about the gun problem, go for it. It will help all around.
Not true. The polarizing arguments that follow mass shootings do far more harm than good.
You might want to read up on the history on the gun control movement in America. In the 1980s, there was a strong advocacy movement for restrictions on handguns (responsible for 75% of gun homicides and even more gun suicides), and HCI and the Brady Campaign made it clear that they were not after "long guns" used for hunting. Their influence was growing.
That came to an abrupt end on the morning of January 17th, 1989, when Patrick Purdy walk onto a school playground in Stockton, California, opened fire with an SKS semi-automatic rifle, killing five children and wounding 32 more. The advocates took advantage of the publicity and outrage to completely abandon their assurances of focusing on handguns, and called for bans on "automatic rifles" (already illegal), and "AK-47s" (also already illegal). They got their "assault weapons" ban, but alienated millions of hunters and others that had supported them. The backlash swept dozens of gun control advocates from public office in the 1994 Republican mid-term landslide. The ban was repealed. NRA membership ballooned. Trust was gone. Willingness to compromise was gone. Any sort of new restriction on gun ownership is unthinkable in today's political climate.
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Take suicides out of the numbers...if someone wants to 'off' themselves, they'll find a way.
And, if you take suicides out of the gun death numbers, you basically now have gun deaths less than car deaths annually.
Re: SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:3)
Suicide is a human right.
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't stop the leftist types from shrieking "How **DARE** you **POLITICIZE** this **TRAGEDY**!!!" the moment anyone not so leftist demurs from their politicizing in favor of their solution of banning all guns.
Seems to me it's the right wing that starts shrieking "How **DARE** you **POLITICIZE** this **TRAGEDY**!!!" the moment anybody suggests that allowing complete nutcases to own firearms might not be a good idea. Then, when they are done shrieking, they go back to handing out 'thoughts and prayers' which in their mind is the only real fix for the problem of mass shootings.
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Your view that "assault rifles" have but one sole purpose is incorrect. The fact that military and police have a similar firearm does not mean that everyone else uses it
Usefulness of the object (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe life on our side of the Atlantic pond is a tiny bit different than in the US, but...
I'd prefer to take it to the anti-gun's conclusion: anytime something is used for evil, the entire industry must be destroyed.
...I see quite a bit of difference between gun and all the example you cite.
In the past couple of decade I've never been through any situation where I've been thinking I'm lucky/happy to have a gun because it really saved the situation, or thinking that I wish I could have had one.
Guns don't seem fundamentally important and useful objects in everyday life. They mostly bring in a danger and useless risk without bringing much benefit.
DUI? Ban all cars,
Yup. Cars kill people (Well technically, irresponsible drivers do, whatever, bla bla...)
But cars are tremendously useful, (even though our more densely populated city tend to enjoy better public transportations).
Lots of services and people could not get their job done without one.
There are risks to car, but the huge amount of benefits largely outweigh them.
drugs (including medicines).
Medecine can kill people (errors, side effects, addiction to prescription drugs, development of drugs-resisting microbes due to industrial over-use and over-prescription, etc.)
Still, they save lives. A lot of them. Think the drastic reduction of death since the discovery and development of antibiotics.
There are risks to medecine, but the huge amount of benefits largely outweigh them.
Assault with a baseball bat? Ban sports.
Do I really need to mention the health benefits of sports ?
Every day, countless of times bats get swung, and most of the time it's to hit a ball as part of some healthy outdoor sport.
(Then a tiny proportion is to hit a ball in front of a camera as part of a heavily corrupted televisual event in order to make money,
and a couple of times it's on someone else head).
There are risks to sports equipment, but the huge amount of benefits largely outweigh them.
Cyberbullying? Ban computers.
You're writing on one. I don't think I even need to explain how my above logic applies also to this of your examples...
Works for a lot of things!
Yup, works even for kitchen implements:
knife kill people ! let's ban kitchen.
And again my argument works too :
- How many time did someone got stabbed with a kitchen knife in your neighborhood ?
- How many time did you yourself use your kitchen knife to make you a sandwich, cut some cheese, or any other common use to feed your self.
Yup, there are risks of having knife in your home. But the vast amount of time, they're mostly used to prepare food.
alcohol, and drugs
Here the situation is a bit different :
- the usefulness is a lot lower (mainly entertainment, and some social use)
- the risk aren't that great (there are long term risk on the health due to excessive use. But occasional and reasonable use isn't lethal).
End result ? These are heavily regulated.
Not everyone is allowed to acquire these (e.g.: minor aren't)
etc.
And now let's look at the gun :
like knifes they can be used to kill people.
But unlike knives, we're not in the situations (at least in our corner of the world) where everyday million of rounds are fired and thus making the life of everyone much easier.
There's no tremendous benefit in everyone of the population happily shooting each other.
Again, I've reached my current point in life without ever being in a situation where a gun was necessary, unlike any other of your example.
It seems to me that there are no obvious everyday use for guns for the vast majority of the population.
Thus in my opinion, it should go the same route as drugs :
it should be regulated.
Some professions (police enforcement) might n
Re: SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you're right. It's crazy how guns manage to keep shooting people all on their own. Serves you right for giving them artificial intelligence.
Re: SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to shoot your neighbor for kicking your dog, you have mental issues. And I can understand kicking his ass, but not shooting him. Now the way to combat your train of thought, lets reverse your dream. Lets say everybody is mandated to CARRY a gun. Now neighbor kicks dog, owner thinks... I could just kick his ass, or I could pull out my gun.. Oh wait he has a gun too, now I also chance losing my life and the life of my loved ones. I think I'll go have a talk with my neighbor about why its not good to kick dogs.
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Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:4, Interesting)
yet he could buy an assault rifle, without even a responsible adult to agree to keep control of it most of the time, at age 18?
Average age of US combatants in Vietnam pisses all over that argument.
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Indeed. The purpose of the Russian bots is not to change opinions nor be "pro-gun", but to sow discord and increase social and political polarization.
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why not? i am certain our alphabet agencies are guity of the exact same shit. I am not making excuses for russia, but lets at least own the kind of fucking bastards our intelligence agencies can be.
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:5, Interesting)
You're under that impression, because of the people in this country stirring the shit, attempting to keep the left and the right distracted and at each other's throats, while they continue to loot what's left of America.
Just about every war we've ever gotten into has started over a lie. You'd figure people would have learned by now. Yet all you have to say is that country X is looking at us the wrong way to get everyone back into the fighting mood again. Pro-gun Russian bots.....give me a break!
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I dunno, the only Republicans who seem to care about Russia are the civil servants and a handful of Senators on the intelligence committee, and it's their job to care. That's not enough to make even one splinter party.
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:4, Insightful)
Its probably more like American groups have bought thousands of twitter bots from the cheapest bidder to tweet, like and whatever and it just happens that the cheapest (and technically savvy) people running these twitter bot farms are Russians. (you can search the internet yourself to see how much it costs to have an "internet marketing agency" run a social media campaign for you - its remarkably cheap)
So of course it looks like the Russians are coming - but they're not coming with their own pro-gun messages, they're simply providing the service twitter now relies on for profitability.
I guess the Russians had better invest in an American server to post their social media bots, then nobody would know.
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Be honest. It would take ALOT more power to the anti-gun lobby to stop an adult with no criminal record from buying a gun.
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please explain what gun was used to kill 50 people in France on Bastille day? Im still waiting. You cannot legislate crazy.
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:4, Interesting)
As a fellow European coming from Finland that has more guns than the UK per capita (we have a large rural population and a lot of stuff that's hunted) I'm gonna try to be the guy to see both sides here.
You're correct in that, with no guns there's almost no school shootings. We've had 2 in the whole of 2000s (with a total of 18 dead including the 2 perps) and we have to my knowledge the most guns per capita of the western nations after the US. But the thing is since the constitution in the states is different, it makes very little sense in these discussions to hammer say, the British model because it's should be clear that something quite like that will never fly in the US, which is where the discussion usually ends. However thing is there is middle-ground between 'ban all guns' and status quo of the US. The whole gun control 'debate' in the US from what I've gathered is more of a shouting match of 2 sides neither of which are actually willing to work together to do something to repair the situation but are both insisting that the magical answer is somehow 'more guns' or 'less guns'. It's not just about the absolute number of firearms, it's more about what methods are taken to try and prevent mentally unstable people from acquiring weapons.
It ought to be obvious that as long as it is possible for nearly anyone to walk into a store and walk out with a gun or guns without any background checks, the amount of gun-crime will stay high. The standard counter-argument for requiring a background check and/or a doctor's statement of mental sanity (as is the case in here for example) is that it will not help because criminals will always get guns from the black market, but that's not true. I mean, obviously some segment of criminals will always be able to acquire guns illegally, but the point is that most people who commit crimes are not criminal masterminds that have the will or the ability or the mental stability to do so, so requiring some checks before one can walk out of the store with a weapon does provably reduce the amount of gun crime and deaths without removing the option of gun ownership from law-abiding, sane people. But related to this problem is the fact that all of this is handled on a local level which is what makes it so tricky. I mean, any amount of background checks or sensible vetting makes little to no difference if one can drive 30 miles out of town and get one's gun across the state line without a check. For gun control measures to work they have to be nation-wide, which means involving the federal government which immediately drives many on the right in the US into full paranoia mode.
Cars are sometimes evoked as a comparison with people pointing out that you need to see a doctor and take part in training before you're given a license to drive a vehicle. People then point out that well, owning a car is not a constitutional right so the comparison is not valid, but that's not true. Think for a moment if it was the case that owning a car was a constitutional right. Would that mean it would make sense to make it legal to just sell a vehicle to anyone who walks through the door as long as they're of a certain age? Would that be something that would make sense for public safety overall? If not, then how come the same attitude makes sense for guns?
So to summarize; dear fellow non-american westerners: stop throwing the 'ït's so obvious, just get rid of all the guns and the problem will be solved, duh!' -card onto the table as it's not helpful in the context of the american legal landscape and overall attitude towards guns. And dear Americans: stop treating all discussion about gun control as if the advocates wanna get rid of the 2nd amendment altogether and consider the fact that there are methods of limiting the availability of guns to mentally unstable individuals that could be implemented without confiscating all of the weapons from everyone or removing the 2nd amendment.
Re:SO... if we're going to pretend (Score:4, Insightful)
As a fellow European coming from Finland that has more guns than the UK per capita (we have a large rural population and a lot of stuff that's hunted) I'm gonna try to be the guy to see both sides here.
You're correct in that, with no guns there's almost no school shootings. We've had 2 in the whole of 2000s (with a total of 18 dead including the 2 perps) and we have to my knowledge the most guns per capita of the western nations after the US.
Wow. If that's correct, then Finland is 6 times worse than the US per capita for school shootings.
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If a dealer sells at a gun show, he still has to do background check and process Form 4473.
Private citizen to private citizen sales at a gun show do occur, but most private gun sales are between friends and family and many are not even sales, e.g. grandpa passing down a hunting rifle. Lots of other private sales are criminal-criminal sales, for which no new "universal background check" laws would do anything to prevent.
Plus, it is already a felony to give or sell a weapon to someone you know or should have
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its amazing how many millions of dollars HRC spent on advertizing and yet $150k in facebook ads elected trump. If you could EVER make a case that Killary was NEVER qualified to be president, you just did. Why elect some bitter turd who would spend hundreds of millions of YOUR tax dollars on shit that could be done for just $150 THOUSAND???? Totally not qualified if anything you say is even remotely true.
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Run-of-the-mill political advertising is really just annoying bullshit that most people roll their eyes at. The Russians built theirs to put us in ideological bunkers. They didn't want to change minds, they wanted to keep mi
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You want to know who's at fault for Parkland? The left, for alienating white men and making them feel like they have nothing to lose, and for disarming the populace. If there had been a good guy with a gun there would only have been one dead person, but because of the left's hatred of self defense, 17 people are dead. That blood is on their hands. I hope they can sleep at night.
Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, and in this case (like all others) the person responsible is Obama.
I think you are saying that white men are so fragile that they will be triggered unless they are in a safe space?
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Re: GP post: Poe's law, perhaps?
Re:Didn't take long for you to blame the victim. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the mind of this "patriot", killing classmates is "fighting back".
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No, but they're a large minority and at the moment they're the only ones with motivation to speak up.
So you're trying to spin this as a conspiracy (Score:3)
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no, he tried to say this was a right wing nazi militia dude... its the whole undertones of trying to tie it back to a particular group. It turned out to be fake news that he was in that white supremist group. I wanted to point out that before someone jump to some right-wing-gun-toting conclusion, this county is overwhelmingly democrat. The chances of him being a right wing nut are not good so best not go there. The point is the dude was off his rocker, just like the columbine kids. BTW he was 19, so you mig
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yes it has
http://www.tallahassee.com/sto... [tallahassee.com]
"Local law enforcement: No ties between militia and Florida high school shooter"
thats like someone doing something and then claiming alegience to Al Queda. Its not the same thing.
Re:#NotABot (Score:4, Insightful)
I completely agree with you. The right to bear arms for anyone in a state-sanctioned militia must not be infringed.
So, just curious: which state militia was this nutjob in? Or do you hate the constitution so much that you plan on misrepresent what it says?
I'm a liberal. Liberals don't care about what guns you own. All liberals want is to reduce the crazy number of violent deaths in the USA.
So what is your plan for reducing the violent deaths? Because all I've heard is "well, 100 million guns hasn't reduced the killing, so we clearly need 300 million!"
Re:#NotABot (Score:5, Insightful)
As a self professed liberal, do you also support other laws which would restrict civil liberties? How about the 1st A? It starts with "Congress shall make no law...". So, that means that the States (which definitely aren't "Congress") can make laws establishing religion, restricting speech and press, etc. Right?
Living in a system with the fundamental principles of freedom and liberty means you accept more risk. Fortunately for you, you can move to almost anywhere else and trade that freedom and liberty for less risk and more security. Your choice.
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"Militia" doesn't mean what you think it means
If you think there's only one plausible way to interpret the word as it was used in the second amendment, then you are making the same mistake.
In fact, with the way you're throwing around the word "freedom" I suspect that you're making a similar mistake there as well. Let's put this in non-gun terms: Which of the GPL or MIT license is more "free"? I don't want you to answer this question, rather I would like you to recognize that the answer isn't simple. There is more to freedom than individual rights.
Re:#NotABot (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahh. A sophist. "Militia" doesn't mean what you think it means, and a prefatory clause isn't binding.
As a self professed liberal, do you also support other laws which would restrict civil liberties? How about the 1st A? It starts with "Congress shall make no law...". So, that means that the States (which definitely aren't "Congress") can make laws establishing religion, restricting speech and press, etc. Right?
Living in a system with the fundamental principles of freedom and liberty means you accept more risk. Fortunately for you, you can move to almost anywhere else and trade that freedom and liberty for less risk and more security. Your choice.
Except you're not actually accepting of more risk in exchange for more freedom, at least not if you're like most people who oppose gun control.
People generally try to maintain a certain level of risk. If your car gets a seat belt you speed up, if you hit wet pavement you slow down. Guns and gun control are no different.
Ever notice the other things people who favour gun rights tend to believe? They think law enforcement should have a much freer hand to enforce order. They want to get rid of Mexicans, Muslims, and other outsiders who seem dangerous. They try to repress LGBTQ and people who live alternative lifestyles. This isn't a coincidence, they correctly realize that guns are dangerous, so at the same time they're trying to make guns more available they're trying to reduce the number of people whom they find threatening (particularly if they have a gun).
It's the same thing that's happening now, neither side wants school shootings. So one side wants gun control to reduce the number of shootings, the other wants guns in the classroom so the teachers can enforce greater order and they want those weird loner kids made normal so they're less likely to become a shooter.
Gun rights people don't have a greater belief in freedom, they're just willing to live with a higher perceived risk from firearms by accepting a lower perceived risk from other sources.
Re:#NotABot (Score:4, Interesting)
The bad wording of that clause in the 2nd amendment is part of the problem. Even if we accept your interpretation of it, "arms" is vague and was probably never intended to allow individuals to own WMD.
The US is uniquely unable to deal with mass shootings because of this, and because politically it is impossible to properly fund mental healthcare.
The US also has a problem with the far right, particularly supremacists. Elliot Rodger was probably the first young man to be radicalized by the far right on the internet, and since then we have seen a string of similar murderers and terrorists attacking schools. Again, the US seems to be finding it very hard to deal with, because any attempt to even study the problem is met with howls of "mah free speech!" and censorship. The marketplace of ideas has failed to deal with this problem, just like marketplaces always do.
Re:#NotABot (Score:5, Informative)
The right to bear arms for anyone in a state-sanctioned militia must not be infringed.
It seems unlikely that you're actually as ignorant as you're pretending to be. But you seem to think it's rhetorically important to pretend you're unfamiliar with the constitution, so, sure, let's play.
The phrasing of the 2nd Amendment means the OPPOSITE of what you're transparently pretending it means. The people who wrote the Bill of Rights had just freed themselves from living under a regime that disarmed individuals, arguing that the crown's soldiers were all the law enforcement anyone in the colonies would need. Which was nonsense, of course. But the founders were absolutely dead set against allowing their new government to, for example, take a farmer's personal weapons away, or allow a local governor or other figure to have a monopoly on the ownership of weapons. The founders were very uncomfortable about there even being a standing army of any kind, even at the local militia level. But the realized it was going to be necessary, and - knowing there would be people like you - used some of that precious space in the Bill of Rights to explicitly pre-empt exactly the sort of thing you'd like to do.
If they were to write the amendment in today's conversational language, it would go like this: "Because a standing professional military, even if just local in scope, looks like an inevitable necessity, nobody with government power should use that as an excuse to infringe on a citizen's right to personally keep and bear their own arms."
You know, just like the 1st Amendment says that nobody in government can prevent you from speaking, assembling, etc. The Bill of Rights doesn't establish some standard for your right to speak, or your right to defend yourself. It anticipates people like you with a totalitarian mindset looking to use government power to control others, and they identified some potential hot spots (speech, self defense, privacy, etc) that merited specific language in the country's charter.
Of course you know all of this, because you've also read the many letters, transcripts, and papers authored by the people who wrote the Bill of Rights, who come right out and explain to you that you have it exactly wrong, and they tell you why they said what they said. So quit with the theatrics, and just admit that you're hoping nobody will notice when you're trying to mislead on the subject because you don't have the energy to try to amend the constitution in your effort to return the monopoly on the keeping and bearing of arms back to the way the British crown liked it.
Liberals don't care about what guns you own
Ah, that explains why we keep hearing so many liberals shouting,"Who needs an AR-15? They should be banned!" Please, now you're just embarrassing yourself. The country is littered with laws - written and passed by liberal legislators and governors - that explicitly DO care. States like California and Maryland prohibit, for example, any handgun that they haven't expressly listed (by make and model) as being acceptable. They consider things like 11 rounds to be illegal, but 10 or 8 to be less so, and so bits of sheet metal bent into different sizes to hold the ammo are very much what liberals care about. Which, again, you know, and are trying to pretend you don't.
So what is your plan for reducing the violent deaths?
Enforce existing laws. It's too politically incorrect in liberal circles to call crazy people crazy, so liberals would rather allow crazy people to buy guns than be forced to act all judgey and hurt a crazy person's feelings. Because people who are documented as being crazy are immediately stopped during their federal background checks from buying guns. While on that subject: the NICS system blocks tens of thousands of people from making gun purchases every year. The very act of submitting their federal paperwork to attempt such a purchase IS A FELONY. And yet
One question, (Score:3)
Is there a line (short of chem weapons, since they're not arms)?
Re:One question, (Score:5, Insightful)
And, they expected that to continue. The Constitution specifically provides for it in Article I, Section 8, where Congress is given the power to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal."
Re:One question, (Score:5, Insightful)
They also recognized the right to own slaves.
The Constitution is not sacred. Treating it as such is the result of people being conditioned by authoritarians.
Re:One question, (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that for most of US history, the Second Amendment was not interpreted as an absolute right of private citizens to own guns. For most of our history, reasonable gun regulations were enacted by states and municipalities across the United States. Only with the rise of radicalized NRA in the 1980s did this change, and with it came the rash of school shootings and mass gun slaughter.
We don't need to amend the Constitution. We only need to change the makeup of the Supreme Court by a vote or two. It will happen, thank god. And I say as someone who has owned guns in four decades.
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Fact is, for most of our history, there was very little interpretation of the 2nd at all. And very little regulation until the Gun Control Act of 1968 [wikipedia.org]. And, over time, those "reasonable" laws and regulations have only been made more restrictive. Concealed carr
Re:One question, (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1873, Wichita, KS outlawed the carrying of revolvers within municipal limits. The sheriff would confiscate your gun at the town border and give you a check, like a coat check. You could get your gun back when you left.
In 1879, the town of Dodge City, Kansas had a billboard at the town limits that said, "The Carrying of Firearms is Strictly Prohibited". You can google a photograph of the town taken back then that shows the sign.
Tombstone, AZ in the 1880s had a law against carrying firearms.
There were more gun control laws in the Wild West than there are in 2018 America.
Re:One question, (Score:5, Informative)
>"For most of our history, reasonable gun regulations were enacted by states and municipalities across the United States. Only with the rise of radicalized NRA in the 1980s did this change..."
That statement is not really correct at all. The first sentence is mostly correct, depending on your view of what is "reasonable." The second sentence isn't- the NRA started to become more powerful BECAUSE more and more *unreasonable* gun regulations were being put forward, and more citizens joined, seeking protection of their Constitutional rights from further erosion. The NRA as a non-lobby is interested in ACTUAL gun safety (like training, handling, information), information and sports.
>"...in the 1980s did this change, and with it came the rash of school shootings and mass gun slaughter."
How ridiculously inaccurate and inflammatory. Gun violence has been DECREASING for decades. What has changed mostly is the emotional, hyper media coverage of such shootings, making it SEEM like it is the end of the world. When in reality, while unreasonable gun control laws have been taken down more and more, things have been getting better. And although overall gun violence is down, I believe that same hyper-sensationalist and slanted media coverage has absolutely encouraged more nut-cases to perform copy-cat mass shootings to get their day of "fame." So the cycle feeds on itself.
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It might not be a terrible idea to amend your constitution. There are only three countries in the world where owning a gun is a right to be infringed rather than a privilege to be possibly earned. Those are the US, Mexico and Guatemala.
Re:One question, (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the advent of the modern military, can you think of a single instance where armed civilians freed themselves from tyranny using their firearms?
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Since the advent of the modern military, can you think of a single instance where armed civilians freed themselves from tyranny using their firearms?
Ireland? How about the cases when the USSR fell and people formed militias to fight back against new communist governments trying to setup? Of course, sometimes they also "free themselves" into tyranny. See the fall of Rhodesia, and the rise of Zimbabwe. You can also see it in South Africa, prior to the end of apartheid, and now you can see the fast-rush of people trying to defend against the new anti-white apartheid.
Just study some damn history once and awhile.
Melania Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you're not wrong, but you're stupid and your argument is even stupider. If you were smart, you'd have brought up some solutions. Or even a diagnosis of the problem. Here, let me try for you:
Melania Trump is right about something you've completely lost perspective on. The biggest problem facing our nation right now, if you boil it down to the root cause, is actually bullying. That's right, I said it; Guns didn't cause this tragedy - bullying did. Maybe she's smarter than she looks. She's clearly smarter than you and this poor tard that just shot up his school. Maybe she's smarter than all of us... now that's a truly horrifying thought.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
the kind of 'gun control' I will get behind is dealing with these 'gun free zones'. Not just in public schools but private places like theaters etc. IMO, and purely IMO, there should be a law that states that ANY establishment that restricts ones constitutional right to bear arms, they MUST, without question, provide ARMED security for the entire portion of time that said citizens are denied their rights. Failure to comply is an immediate forfeiture of the establishments defense against Wrongful Death civil
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speaking of malania, she is eastern european. Never underestimate the intelligence of a lot of those girls. They dont spend all day on facebook, they actually get a decent education. I would never make an assumption just because she does happen to be very attractive.
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I disagree. It's the whole - "Here's a participation medal, kid," entitlement society, you're not personally responsible thing.
Why more shootings? Guns haven't really changed in the last 70 years. Society, and the immediate pervasiveness of news has. I knew kids who would take their
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you should read the constitution.
There is no point in your constitution allowing arbitrary citizens to bear arms.
Strange, that foreigners know that and US citizens don't.
Don't you think so?
Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: #NotABot (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you guys would stop tying your hands while your children are getting murdered to fuck, maybe you'd get less condecension? "I'm sorry, parents, your children simply had to die, as some paragraph from 1789 written by onmiscient superhumans decreed that from that moment on, regardless of what problems society has, everyone is allowed to have guns. Have more kids and try again."
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Have you read the entire amendment?
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According to his own Instagram profile, he was part of the #MAGA army.
https://www.snopes.com/did-sho... [snopes.com]
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And that surprises no one.
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I don't want any gun control legislation. I don't care what tragedy occurred. It's unconstitutional. All of it.
If you want to restrict guns do it legally - amend the constitution first, then create laws that don't violate the constitution.
As it is, every single law, regulation, etc. that interferes with US citizens keeping and bearing firearms is unconstitutional. If you disagree you're incorrect. If you don't like that right guaranteed by the constitution, you're free to work to change the constitution. Any restriction at any other level is illegal.
Fine, you have the right to bare arms (lets forget about the militia qualifier since the courts have).
It doesn't follow that you the right to bare any arm you wish. You don't have the right to own assault weapons, semi-automatic weapons, bump stocks, high capacity magazines, etc, etc.
A low capacity, low power, handgun is perfectly sufficient for self-defence. A single shot rifle is perfectly adequate for hunting. Fancier guns locked up at a shooting range are good for recreational shooting. Mandatory backgr
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A low capacity, low power, handgun is perfectly sufficient for self-defence.
Yeah, that's why cops carry low power Glock .40s that can only hold 15+1 rounds.
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>"It doesn't follow that you the right to bare any arm you wish. You don't have the right to own assault weapons, semi-automatic weapons, bump stocks, high capacity magazines, etc, etc."
I understand your point, but you undermine it with misinformation.
1) People don't generally have any access to "assault weapons". Those are AUTOMATIC fire, and HIGHLY restricted. If you are talking about something "scary looking" like an AR-15, that is just a modern rife, and is no more powerful or dangerous than any ty
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you do realize that this is because there was not supposed to be a standing army. We didnt have a standing army until after WWI. It is entirely unconstitutional.
Re: #NotABot (Score:5, Insightful)
have you read the constitution? did you know that the constitution says we cannot have a standing army? Did you know that we can have a navy but not an army? That's why we are supposed to have a militia. you might be young. During hurricane andrew, there were a lot of devastation in miami. As a result there was a lot of crime. Neighborhoods would organize and barricade their neighborhoods and organize armed patrols to protect their neighbors. This is the very definition of a militia. Its not always the crazy rednecks wanting to overthrow the government.
Re: #NotABot (Score:5, Insightful)
A militia is armed members of the community that help to defend that community and their nation against invaders and tyranny. A disarmed people cannot provide a militia. In the language of the late 1700's well regulated meant functional or working. A disarmed people cannot be a functional or well regulated militia. Only an armed populace can form an effective well regulated (functional) militia.
Thus the 2nd amendment to ensure that when and if needed the minutemen could respond to defend. That has not changed.
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Bin Laden did not create or significantly fund the Muj, he joined them a
Re:America is fucked. - For the guntards out the (Score:4, Informative)
Goddam, have you ever used a gun before? The reason guns took over the world is that their so simple even an idiot can use them. This same asshole would have never figured out how to build a bomb, and if he did, probably would have killed himself doing it.
Truck attacks are indeed extremely dangerous. Do you think we should do nothing to prevent Truck attacks? Trucks at least are harder to use than guns, more expensive, and are harder to get into schools.
Re:America is fucked. - For the guntards out the (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a 6yr veteran of the first gulf war. Yes i have used many of the same guns you are talking about. This guy WAS smart enough to build a bomb. For fucks sake there are uneducated jihadists in Iraq building IEDs every day and their education extends to addition, some multiplication, and fucking their sisters. He was smart enough to use a fire alarm.. where do kids congregate after a fire alarm is pulled... in a parking lot. So yes a truck would have been a very effective tool for mass murder.
Re: America is fucked. (Score:3)
The EU has 60,000 suicides out of 551 million people.
The US has 43,000 suicides out of 323 million people.
Which perspective are we supposed to get?
Re:None of this matters (Score:5, Insightful)
because the people who oppose all gun regulation have a lobby (the NRA) telling them how to vote, they listen, they vote and above all they're single issuer voters.
You have that backwards. I know how I want the NRA to vote, they listen, and (mostly) lobby in my interest. As long as they do that I send them money (voluntarily, I might add). As for "single issue"? I don't know anyone who is a single issue voter. Then again, I don't hang out in churches, poetry readings, SJW meetings, nor white pride meetings.
Re:None of this matters (Score:5, Insightful)
None of this matters because the people who oppose all gun regulation have a lobby (the NRA) telling them how to vote, they listen, they vote and above all they're single issuer voters.
That's just wrong. Some of us prefer the highest law in the nation to be upheld as it's written. There are plenty of other rights enumerated in there that I don't want to see trampled on. Giving the government ability to ignore any part of it is a dangerous precedent and must be fought against at every step of the way.
If you want to get rid of the 2nd amendment, then do it the proper way with another amendment. If you think that's unreasonably hard, then hold a constitutional convention and write a new constitution that's easier to amend. And if you think that's too hard, then the only option you have left is to gather your fellow anti-gun folks, pick up your weapons and conquer everyone who disagrees with you.
Re:National Russian Association? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every decent person in America should be down at their local NRA office and riding the people inside out of town
You're advocating violence against people because of their political views, and yet also want to remove their ability to defend themselves against you?
Nice way to justify their entire fucking position.
Re: (Score:3)
It isn't the will of a few 'gun nuts' that prevents a fundamental shift of the basic rights of a U.S. citizen. Spare us the hyperbolic and breathless 'think of the children' concern trolling.
Furthermore, those who let their emotions and authoritarian leanings decide what was best for society, and failed to consider the unintended consequences, brought us Prohibition and the Drug War. The Drug War, which is still ongoing, where the massive amount of funding is spent for paramilitary police forces and strain