Originally Posted By dshyates Chick-fil-a donated millions to anti-gay groups that were directly responsible for getting the death penalty for gays passed in Uganda. They had millions turn out to support their anti-gay agenda at Mike Huchabee's Hater Appreciation Day.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "And how many millions did not go?" And how many millions who didn't go supported the movement? See how that works? We could do this all night. "As far as I recall, the management at Chik-Fil-A did no such thing." Isn't hating and condemning gays enough?
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Isn't hating and condemning gays enough? << Perhaps, but that is goal post moving. We were talking about some nutjobs calling for violence against gays. Others were pointing out that the overwhelming majority of Christians do not agree with that. Then the goal posts were moved regarding Chick Fil A's opposition to gay marriage. If you want to believe that all Christians want gays rounded up and murdered, then go ahead and live in your fantasy world. If you are going to accuse Christendom of this, then the burden of proof lies on you.
Originally Posted By tashajilek "But they have national health care the covers mental health. " Not as much as you would think. A lot of mentally ill are homeless and forgotten about here too. My father in law is bipolar and then is nothing you can do to force them to get help unless they are willing or there has been a police situation.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "Perhaps, but that is goal post moving. We were talking about some nutjobs calling for violence against gays. Others were pointing out that the overwhelming majority of Christians do not agree with that. Then the goal posts were moved regarding Chick Fil A's opposition to gay marriage." Well, that was kind of lateral goalpost moving. I'm one of those saying that all Christians shouldn't be broad brushed, but Mr. Chick Fil A has indeed funded groups that brought about the death penalty for gay people in Uganda. Here he wants to keep us second class citizens, and it's all he can get away with at this point here. Over there he can do worse, and he did.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 So when you said "I thought we were talking about nutjobs who were advocating violence against gays. As far as I recall, the management at Chik-Fil-A did no such thing.".. Yes, he did. Ugandans count as people and killing them counts as violence.
Originally Posted By mapleservo I'm mostly a lurker here, but I've been following this discussion (here and everywhere) pretty closely. I honestly don't understand the gun fanatics' perspective in the wake of all this. I have trouble comprehending the responsible gun owners perspective as well. But I just wanted to say that www.Kottke.org (which usually revolves around tech and pop-culture) has been solidly focused on the issue of gun control for the past 5 days. He's collected articles covering all sides of the issue. Here's a few, but there's many more. <a href="http://kottke.org/12/12/gun-safety-not-gun-control" target="_blank">http://kottke.org/12/12/gun-sa...-control</a> <a href="http://kottke.org/12/12/regulate-the-bullets" target="_blank">http://kottke.org/12/12/regula...-bullets</a> <a href="http://kottke.org/12/12/living-the-gun-life" target="_blank">http://kottke.org/12/12/living...gun-life</a> <a href="http://kottke.org/12/12/the-nra-is-winning-the-war-on-guns" target="_blank">http://kottke.org/12/12/the-nr...-on-guns</a> I think it's a great resource right now. There's a lot there, and it reinforces just how complicated this issue is.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Thanks. The first link has the key to the whole thing - focus on gun safety instead of gun control. The NRA can't very well come out against the politicians who are trying to improve gun safety.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper If you want to call it "gun safety" I can get behind that. A military style semi-automatic rifle is not a safe gun for the public to have access to.
Originally Posted By ecdc In what's growing as a story, www.ksl.com has suspended the "gun sales" section of their website. This matters because it came out after the shooting that this was a HUGE place to buy guns completely unregulated. KSL is the media arm of the LDS Church; it's a radio station and news channel, among others. It was cited by Michael Bloomberg as a major source of unregulated gun sales.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox This recent KSL connection and Donny's admitted 'prepper' behavior now has me seriously questioning the rationale behind the traditional Mormon stockpiling of food and water in the family basement or garage. I was always told by my Mormon friends since school days that this was to make sure the family had food in the event of their father losing his job, a serious illness in the family that drained finances, etc. None of these families were gun nuts or target shooting hobbyists; the notion of being a 'prepper' didn't enter their minds. But given KSL's connection to gun sales and Donny's 'prepper' mentality and behavior... has there been a serious shift regarding the reasoning behind the stockpiling of food and water? And if so, when did this shift start to occur? The vast majority of Mormons are conservative Republicans, with many being on the far right. It would stand to reason that at least some of these Mormons would be 'preppers.' How many Mormons are 'preppers'? Is it a significant percentage? I'd really like to know. Because their religion is central to everything they do. And holding that in tandem with the 'prepper' mindset is a dangerous combination. That makes them no better than the backwoods evangelical fundamentalist 'preppers' in the South and upper Midwest. And those yahoos scare the crap outta me.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I agree that focusing on gun safety should be the first step. Accidental deaths account for a large number of gun deaths and injuries every year. If we achieved nothing more than preventing a huge percentage of those, it could really be a great achievement. Guns can be handled and stored safely, with training. Too many gun owners think that they are born with an inherent knowledge of guns, and that really is not the case as we've seen time and time again. Overconfidence can be deadly. The NRA really does have an excellent gun safety education program. The problem is, people can buy an arsenal and never take any of these courses. There is a very small window of opportunity here for a compromise on the issue that benefits everyone. The NRA can be part of this if they resist going right back to the tired bumper sticker talking points and instead works hard to support laws to require that in addition to thorough background checks and psychological evaluations of potential gun buyers, that licensing and rigorous training be a part of the mix. And retraining every year or two as well. That isn't doing anything counter to the 2nd amendment.
Originally Posted By ecdc To their credit, the NRA's first statement was that they were willing to work to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Isn't that a starting point? Can't we all agree that something like this should never, ever happen, and there's roads we can go down to try and make sure it never happens? I'm open to ideas...arming teachers just isn't one of them. And if your view of America is that the best option is to arm teachers, then you have such a bleak view of our country that you never, ever get to call it the "greatest country on earth" ever again.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer "This recent KSL connection and Donny's admitted 'prepper' behavior now has me seriously questioning the rationale behind the traditional Mormon stockpiling of food and water in the family basement or garage." <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_vengeance" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...engeance</a> Just saying
Originally Posted By TomSawyer I've been thinking about all of the teachers that I can remember, and all of the ones I currently know. I don't think a gun in the hands of any of them would be a deterrent, or effective defense.
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Out of all my teachers the only one I would have been okay handling a gun was an ex-Marine.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Isn't that a starting point? Can't we all agree that something like this should never, ever happen, and there's roads we can go down to try and make sure it never happens?<< I think so. I think the NRA needs to shed itself of the "From my cold dead hands" Charlton Heston era and the up your nose clownery of Ted Nugent. As horrific as other incidents have been, imagining 20 little children gunned down is just too much to take. I've been walking around this week kind of in the same state of shock as I was following 9/11. The Ted Nugent know-it-all clown show seems more off base and ridiculous than ever. If he and Hannity and Limbaugh and Coulter and all the usual shrill voices are the "pro gun" debaters, we'll get nowhere fast. Where are the "pro life" people? Shouldn't they be all for banning assault rifles and so forth? Or are they fixated on zygotes only?
Originally Posted By utahjosh Look out, us mormons are just preparing to TAKE OVER THE WORLD BY FORCE!!! Hide your children!!!