Guns and Ammo

So, the CDC is effectively banned from studying gun violence. (Note the headline in this essay actually contradicts the point made in the essay in which it demonstrates that for all intents and purposes the CDC is banned from studying gun violence.)
I'll get back to the CDC in a moment.
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Now typically I'm not as concerned with any sort of long guns as handguns are what most people die from in gun-related deaths. And most of those deaths are suicides. An outright ban on handgun sales would drastically reduce the suicide rate and do quite a job on many homicides.
But of late we've gotten tired of trying a handgun ban. So the new hotness is an assault rifle ban.
Assault rifles kill many fewer people than handguns. In fact "long" guns overall kill very few people. But they are implicated when someone kills a whole lot of people at one time. And those kinds of murders get the most media attention. Sort of how airplane disasters get much more attention than car crashes, even though vastly more people die in automobile accidents.
Back to the matter at hand:
So. Banning assault rifles. What's the problem there? Here's a typical pro-gun infographic. It's reasonably accurate.

The problem is that (as the NRA likes to point out) the main difference between an "assault-rifle" and a "hunting-rifle" is that the assault rifle is black. The definition of an "assault rifle" over a "hunting" or "sporting" rifle is typically that the assault rifle has pistol grips, telescoping or folding stock, and (sometimes) a bayonet lug.
Yeah, that's a weird one. When was the last time you actually saw a bayonet on a rifle of any sort?
Anyway, functionally the two "kinds" of weapon are virtually identical (unless you desperately want a bayonet lug so you can run out stabbing... something.) One type of gun doesn't fire quicker or more accurately or more powerfully or whatever.
Now for a quick caveat about the picture above:

This is a Ruger Mini-14 with its magazine attached. Also, note, it has a flash suppressor. Actually, if the infographic above had used a picture with the magazine their point would have been better illustrated.

So on the face of it one would have to question any sort of so-called "assault rifle" ban. I mean, assault rifles are no different from any other kind of rifle. Yeah, they tend to be involved in more mass shootings but when you try to define what an assault rifle is you end up with very slippery definitions.
For instance New York State has banned sale of assault rifles. Their definition of what constitutes an assault rifle includes a rifle that has a pistol grip.

So gun manufacturers have come up with some weird-looking Frankengun AR15 variants which scootch around having a pistol grip on their guns.

Resulting in weapons that look substantially like the AR-15's they basically are.

So again, what is up with this? Why assault rifles? [Note that for our purposes fully automatic weapons basically do not exist. Civilians just don't have them. Something like three people have been murdered in the US with full-auto weapons in the last 100 years. So although all the weapons discussed here are "automatics", they are only semi-automatic, not full-auto.]

So the NRA is right about this one? The prejudice is against "black" guns? Maybe...

But wait. What if we take it from the other angle? Instead of looking at these weapons from a rational position by rational people, we should perhaps look at the crazies. Why are mass murderers choosing these guns?

Well remember that first thing about how the CDC isn't allowed to study gun violence? That's kinda a big deal. The "military-style" weapon might aesthetically attract the sort of person who wants to go on a killing spree, murdering children and the like. It may very well be that the "cool" factor, the extension of your hoo-ha that is an assault rifle, is in fact something that inspires mass murderers.

Mass murderers don't exactly have the reputation for being capital human beings. And their delusions of grandeur, their need for revenge, their insecurities about their sexuality and gender, might indeed be sated by a nice AR15 variant.

How would they get that idea though?

Oh. Right.

The CDC isn't allowed to study it but it may very well be that the asses who become mass murderers are turned on by something about the modern assault rifle (even if it is only a semiautomatic). What causes mass murderers to pick up an AR15? Maybe it really is the color. Maybe we need to insist that all rifles with polymer coatings be painted pink with Hello Kitty stickers on them.

But we don't know. Because we're not allowed to study anything which might, even inadvertently, lead to any sort of gun control.

Petty Vendettas Against Perceived Slights

So, seriously? The whole purpose of Bernie's "revolution" is really just about settling some petty vendettas against political enemies?

Like for real, he wants to squander his political power to nix Sherrod Brown as a VP choice?

There’s also the issue of payback. Campaign aides say that whatever else happens, Sanders wants former Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy out of their spots as co-chairs of the convention rules committee. It’s become a priority fight for him.

Really? Is that what this is all about? Bernie Sanders' ego? It's time to grow up and not betray the ideals you once espoused. BernieBros, the white male privilege of the Sanders campaign? It comes from the very top.

Ooh. Jumped the Shark

On October 1, 2015 I made a prediction; Clinton/Sanders would win the 2016 election.
I'm now backing way off on that bad boy.
Why? Because Sanders has totally jumped the shark. My man Bernie has really let me down, with his nutty conspiracies we end up with a situation where the white people of the Democratic Party simply cannot believe that anyone voted for anyone else.

So May 29 2016? I wish Hillary would pick Elizabeth Warren to be her running-mate.

White Power on the Left

So, Sander's campaign has been disappointing me lately.

Remember that broad coalition of 2008? Sigh. Those were the days. Bernie supporters in the form of the Bernie Bro don't really care about that. Many (too many) are essentially the left-wing version of Donald Trump supporters. I'm not saying Bernie is like that but he sure doesn't do anything to discourage the "We're White men and we must be heard" portion of his followers.

Hey White people. No, you don't need to be heard. Men especially. Which is ironic 'cause I'm a White guy writing a blog post. But the fact is we have to get over the fact that we won't be electing 100% White guys to office anymore. 

The "Bernie or Bust" movement is a threat that if White men don't get their way, they'll throw the country (or at least the non-White part of the country) to the wolves in the form of Donald Trump. The White progressives will hold us all hostage if they don't get what they want.

Remember the strident Naderite naivety in 2000 where Bush and Gore were exactly the same? How well did that work out for everyone? (Hint: not well.) Yet our left in America hates to actually have to govern. They actually prefer someone like G.W. Bush in office because it's more "fun" to have such a clear enemy.

For All Big Tents

Not to be contrary here but I feel that the confluence of Sanders and Trump will actually split the Democratic party, not the Republican.
Right now, mid-March 2016, Trump is barreling along, throwing red meat to his racist and xenophobic crowd. The rest of the Republican front-runners really have no ideological differences with Trump but have been banding together to try to keep Trump from getting the nomination.
But here's the thing: Trump has only been getting on average about 35% of the Republican vote. And Republicans have only got about 35% of the population of the US.
Trump has a solid handle on 10% of the US population. They're morons, obviously, but they're only about 10%.
Now over there on the Democratic side things are different. There's only two viable candidates for the nomination: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Now Clinton has re-aligned her views to match Sanders on most issues. But she seems hell-bent on saying things which are just nonsense. Specifically, Republican nonsense. She said this about AIDS:

"And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular, Mrs. Reagan, we started national conversation when before no one would talk about it..."

What? I mean what? I was alive and reading papers at the time, Reagan wasn't talking about it at-freaking-all. I have no idea what alternate reality Clinton came from, but on this planet the idea that Reagan started a national conversation about AIDS is ridiculous.

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The biggest difference between the Trump Republican ideology and the Democrats is Sanders. Bernie Sanders "democratic socialist," holds positions that are extraordinarily mainstream. Most Americans agree with most positions he holds on most things.
That has always been true with Bernie.

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So where, with these seemingly disparate facts, are we?
Right now the Democratic party is the "big tent" party. In a rational world, Clinton would be the Republican party candidate and Sanders the Democratic one. Trump can hijack the Republican party because of a unique confluence of Rush Limbaugh-inspired drones but that does not make a national party. Oddly, a Trump candidacy would all but guarantee a Sanders Presidency if Sanders were the DNC candidate.
The real race that's being played out is between Clinton and Sanders. The Republican nomination is a circus side-show with everyone trying to out-clown one another whereas the Democratic side is two candidates who are serious.

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So what happens if Trump takes the nomination and then tanks the election for the Republicans? Yeah, he'll do more than 35% of the 35%. But the problem with the way we do elections is the "winner-take-all" makes us tend to have two parties. A third party has always acted like a spoiler and then is booted from the next election.*

The question then is will the Democratic party split? Or will the Republican go? On the right there are a lot of Libertarians who would love to see a viable Libertarian party, but their numbers are just too small to be a national party. On the left the dream has always been to have some sort of socialist or labor party but again the numbers, while bigger than the Libertarians', aren't really enough to support a Socialist Party (if they had, they would have pushed out the Democratic Party years ago.)

The Republican party first ran into trouble under Bill Clinton because Clinton picked up many of the RNC's positions -- specifically the idea of shrinking the budget deficit. But he adopted some other right-leaning positions which made him less popular with Democrats.

Now the Republicans barely have a platform. All of the actual popular stuff has been taken over by the DNC, leaving the RNC with turkeys and loser issues like gay marriage and torture. What else can they take? The deficit? That's more of a Democrat thing now. Anti-NAFTA? Well, the Bernie left pretty much has that one covered actually.

Hillary Clinton represents the Republican party if the RNC were reasonable. Pro-choice because of, well, freedom. Quick to get into a war but not, you know, actively looking for one. Free-market but healthcare friendly for working people. Now it's not like Republicans are going to make HRC their candidate, but they're slavish devotion to the Rush Limbaugh fringe has made their party unelectable on a national stage.

It seems to me the real dividing line in American politics is Glass-Steagall. There's the liberal-to-left side personified by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and there's the conservative-to-libertarian side personified by those very very few Republicans who aren't insane and Hillary Clinton (and, it should be noted, Barack Obama.)

So how does this all shake out? Obviously the RNC can still win state and Congressional elections (as they have majorities in both houses). But it seems more and more that GW Bush's elections were a fluke, a statistical sputter, than a demonstration of the RNC's power to find a President.

The Republicans' having got into bed with the Evangelicals sort of got them into this mess. So it may not be the sort of thing they can extricate themselves from at all. But if the RNC becomes irrelevant at the Presidential level what is going to happen? A DNC perma-lock on the Office where the real fight is taken out in the primary (as is happening now)? Or will the DNC just split between its progressive and moderate wings?

We'll find out when Sarah Palin joins the Socialist Working Party.



*Isn't that how Grant was elected?

More Different "Socialist" Noise

I was sort of surprised to hear the right-wing noise machine start up with the attacks on Obama as a "communist" eight or so years ago. I thought that word's inherent sillyness had played out. But there's a pocket of true believers who remember "communist" as a pejorative and are willing to trot it out and parade it around.
Pretty much since the demise of the Soviet Union "communist" has lost much of its sting. The only other major Communist party in the world is the Peoples Republic of China and -- seriously -- what about them is actually communist? They don't have a national healthcare system. It's a party-controlled state, sure. But they don't even pay lip-service to any sort of socialist ideals do they?
In any case, I think this is going to inure that middle range of undecided voters to attacks on Bernie Sanders for being "a socialist". We've been hearing so much noise about Obama being a socialist that when they hear it about Sanders they'll just be like "Oh, those guys say anything."

Here I am with my Firearms ID card. It took me from August to March to actually get it. Getting a firearms ID in New Jersey is as hard as getting a voter ID in Alabama. Of course, getting a gun license in Alabama is as easy as voting in New Jersey... Ha!

Three Negatives

I have three negatives on Clinton. But they're all positions which she presently takes the right side of. Problem is, she wasn't always on the right side.

1. The war in Iraq. It was eminently clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but she voted in favor of the authorization of force. She should have known better.

2. Landmine ban -- she has traditionally been opposed to it. Her present position is to favor the ban. But her opposition to the ban was one of the distinguishing differences between her campaign and Obama's in 2008.

3. The Arab Spring -- the last judgement call where she was on the wrong side of history was her favoring of keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt. I mean c'mon. Luckily the Obama administration put the kibosh on that.

And I don't think anybody's going to be as good at the office of POTUS as Obama, but those lapses in judgement on HRC's part make me... concerned.