Congresswoman Giffords in Critical Condition After Shooting In Arizona – Shooter Identified

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Just for fun, BTW, I spent five minutes perusing today’s headlines, looking at “clips” vs “magazines.” I can tell you that, in Google news, “clips” is generally the preferred term (although some articles use both “clips” and “magazines” interchangeably). I realize that this is not the language used among the firearm cognoscente, but the term “clip” is well understood to refer to the 30 round/bullet device in the NYT article in question.

Geez Louise, (as Curt says), Larry. So when the media and our elected officials demonstrate mass stupidity, we just accept that as the new norm? Redefine everything because someone doesn’t do the tiniest bit of research on their chosen subject?

Fer heavens sake, go learn about the difference between and magazine and a clip and stop defending the dumbing down of the nation via media mass ignorance. As the guy says, you might as well call the tire, a wheel.

Listening to you, we should change the definition of a tire to wheel merely because the idiot media calls it a wheel. Nope… I demand more. A little credibility is needed when some pundit shoots off their mouth. When they are so danged uninformed as to say the Glock was illegal under the AWB (it wasn’t… the magazine was, and a magazine is an accessory), and call “tires”, “wheels”, there’s not much I can point to in the article that has much viability. Just shows me that the author is dumber than dirt on more than one point.

The rest was emotional, anti gun liberal goulash. As I said, the guy shouldn’t have ever been let close to a butter knife at dinner. But because he was, you want to take MY butter knife away.

Does the phrase “cold, dead hands” ring a bell with you?

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: The very substantive issue she raised was simply this: “should there be limits on what types of firearms are allowed to be sold?” It’s a perfectly reasonable and understandable question to ask, given the circumstances.

Well that’s giving Ms. Gail undue credit. What she said, and where I take issue with her lack of research and knowledge, is this:

But you do not hear much about the fact that Jared Loughner came to Giffords’s sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it.

No and no. The Glock was not made illegal under the AWB subsection in the 1994 Omnibus Violent Crime Act. The optional accessory of high cap mags was.

Would he have to take a matter of seconds pause to reload another magazine? Yes. May that have been an advantage? Possible. Depends upon the reaction time of those around him. As it was, Loughner was armed with three more fully loaded magazines, another 30 (which was not a Glock manuf, but other as the Glocks are 33), plus two of the standard issue 15 round magazines. He fired 30 rounds, plus the chambered round, in about 15 seconds per reports. Not sure how fast people get over the “stunned” factor, and then can discern where the shots are coming from and the time to get to him. But I can say that the extra time for the high cap magazine also probably contributed to extra time to get your bearings, and assess the situation. So it’s impossible to say he may not have had that 2-3 seconds to reload successful. It’s a moot point.

Shooting as fast as possible, an experienced shooter could empty the magazine in 7-10 seconds. Loughner, no experienced shooter with this weapon, was not taking careful aim, and shooting indiscriminately. He hit slightly better than 50% of his rounds… low statistically… and 19% of his shots gave him the fatal result he desired. I don’t know where they were standing in proximity, but my guess is they were closer than further.

The high cap magazine size, and Ms. Gail’s suggested cure… which is not limiting the type of firearms that can be sold, but the amount of ammo anyone may possess at their disposal for a single load… still comes down to the same analogy. If a murder is committed using a butter knife, do we then restrict the sale of butter knives to law abiding citizens to “prevent” another crime?

According to Ms. Gail, McCarthy and Lautenberg… yes. However no law has ever stopped a criminal from becoming a criminal. Since you will still be able to purchase the high cap magazines, and always will (whether thru gun dealers, factory direct or otherwise), it’s a futile exercise.

And the larger point is that’s a small infraction compared to the larger crime of murder they are willing to commit.

But in order to get to the heart of the issue, we were forced to have a debate over whether the only people with the right to raise such issues for public discussion are those who correctly use the technical terminology relating to firearms.

To get to the heart of the issue, I call into question both the credibility and agenda of the “thoughtful” article you linked. There was so much in there that belied the truth that we may as well be discussing the validity of an auto repair manual, written by Mickey Mouse.

As far as her “thoughful” philosophical questions… what’s new and groundbreaking about them? They are the same tired arguments that gun grab advocates regurgitate at every opportunity. That because bad guys break laws and possess something these anti RKBI types don’t think they should possess, none of us should be allowed to possess the same.

Hasn’t stopped a crime yet. As I pointed out, while the AWB was in force, both the Columbine and DC Beltway sniper events happened. Did a good job, keeping their choice of murder weapons out of their hands, yes?

Per the NFA, the types of weapons are already limited and highly regulated by federal law. States also pile on their own laws. Fully auto long guns and particular accessories have BATFA paperwork that dwarf the O’healthcare bill in size. Those who may possess any types of firearms *also* have limitations, and have since the passage of the NFA in 1934. The ATF uses this to dance on the edge of Constitutional behavior by maintaining a “national firearm registry” database. Another huge beef of mine. But that’s a different issue altogether.

So one more law does what to stop criminals? Nothing. All it will do is hamper both sporting enthusiasts, and the self defense of citizens. Criminals don’t care about laws. Law abiding citizens do.

What do you think when you read lay media stories about a person being “in shock” over the killings or someone having a “nervous breakdown?” Both are terms which have no meaning in psychiatric language and “in shock” has a very precise meaning in medical language (circulatory collapse, usually owing to hypovolemia).

Apples and oranges. What you describe is mere poetic license, describing someone’s emotional state… which they aren’t equipped to do anyway.

However when you are discussing introducing laws that curtail our 2nd Amendment, terminology becomes very important. If they haven’t a clue about the specifics of that which they are trying to regulate (housing and banking policy being an extremely good example), then it can be argued they are ill-equipped to regulate it at all without sufficient indoctrination.

In the case of Ms. Gail, she batted 1000 in the “too stupid to have an opinion about gun regulations” department. Why would I care to address her same ol, same ol BS talking points that have been proven to be flawed time and time again?

But I will say this…. Ms. Gail’s stupidity doesn’t bother me nearly as much as both McCarthy and Lautenberg’s. Ms. Gail’s reach may extend to anyone crazy enough to bother reading her. But the elected officials’ reach extends to my Constitutional rights. So when it comes to educating the voters as to the behavior of elected officials, when they again try to dissect the Bill of Rights, the media should have the responsibility to get the facts straight, and research what they don’t know.

Lastly, I don’t think Loughner was “inspired” by anything… not politics, not Jews, not skinheads. Zip. The loon doesn’t appear to be able to hold that cogent a thought trail in his brain. I think his friend who pointed out he had a penchant for chaos nailed it perfectly. Chaos was what he craved because chaos was how his brain functioned. To look for a “cause”, other than the crazy SOB himself, is an utter waste of time. Society, symbols or anything else did nothing.

The cause is a real nutcase, who was ignored by law enforcement and his university professors. No one can force an adult into mental institutions or tests unless they commit a crime. However with the brushes of the law he had on record, his documented threats, and his unstable character, he should have been removed from the streets long before this.

BTW, it is my understanding that when he went to purchase ammo at one Walmart, they refused because his behavior was suspicious and unstable. He went to another Walmart at a later time, where he must have been in better control, since he did get the ammo then.

@Tallgrass, so sorry I’m late to your casual “quiz”. I read it, and the first two phrases that came into my mind were:

1: keep your powder dry (since those were the days of flint lock black powder rifles) and…

2: “happiness is a warm gun”…. John Lennon