Shooting at GOP baseball practice

I unfollowed quite a few people on twitter today. I am very left wing but I take no pleasure in what amounts to the actions of a liberal terrorist. I am horrified that such a thing exists.

William Haskins said:

i understand completely...

let's not make it worse with contentiousness between you and me.

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We're good. No contention here.

Obviously, this is Kathy Griffin's fault.

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veinglory said:

I unfollowed quite a few people on twitter today. I am very left wing but I take no pleasure in what amounts to the actions of a liberal terrorist. I am horrified that such a thing exists.

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Exactly what this guy is...a liberal terrorist.

[h=1]Virginia Shooting Suspect Was Distraught Over Trumps Election, Brother Says.[/h] 'The man suspected of opening fire on Republican members of the congressional baseball team early Wednesday morning was distraught over the election of President Trump and traveled to Washington in recent weeks to protest, his brother said on Wednesday.

The suspect, James Thomas Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill., died in a Washington hospital after a shootout with the police.

“I know he wasn’t happy with the way things were going, the election results and stuff,” his brother, Michael Hodgkinson, said in a telephone interview shortly after he received the news on Wednesday. He added that he was not close to his brother and had not been aware why he remained in Washington.

“Totally out of the blue,” he added, saying that his brother was engaged in politics but otherwise led a normal life.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/virginia-shooting-suspect-james-hodgkinson.html?

efreysson said:

And why on God's green Earth do civilians need those?

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We already have access to those. They can be legally purchased for cost + $200 tax paid to the feds, followed by waiting nine or so months for a short background investigation that's over and above what it takes to buy a firearm. It's nine months because the BATF is so backed up.

I read on another forum that

Upon reading your post I went onto Facebook and searched him. The first result pulled up a page for a "political candidate" using his picture. I started scrolling down to see the content of his page to find it full of pro-2A, republican, and anti-Clinton material. Confused at this point, I noticed that all of those posts were from within the last hour.

I then did a more thorough search and found his real page with the pro Bernie posts.

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It's my understanding that his actual page has been pulled already, so beware of anything you might see on FB (or screenshots thereof).

Kudos to the Capitol Police as well as Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a combat surgeon who began rendering aid to Rep. Scalise while the shooter was still active.

cmhbob said:

We already have access to those. They can be legally purchased for cost + $200 tax paid to the feds, followed by waiting nine or so months for a short background investigation that's over and above what it takes to buy a firearm. It's nine months because the BATF is so backed up.

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That TOTALLY did NOT answer the question...which I think is a good one. WTF?

suppressors are used by legal gun owners to avoid hearing loss from prolonged exposure to gunshots in target/sport shooting and/or hunting and to mitigate against noise complaints from legal shooting.

Good news is he didn't kill anybody. Better news is that he won't likely be able to touch a firearm for the rest of his twisted life, unless maybe he takes a chance to overpower an armed corrections officer.

caw

William Haskins said:

suppressors are used by legal gun owners to avoid hearing loss from prolonged exposure to gunshots in target/sport shooting and/or hunting and to mitigate against noise complaints from legal shooting.

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Huh. That seems so reasonable. Excellent answer I would not have even fathomed. I've never been anywhere near a gun, nor have any of my friends. It's hard to imagine people using them as you have described. I've never known anyone who did this. But when you explain this, it seems reasonable. All I had to go on is cheesy TV shows where people sneak around with silencers on their guns shooting people at the opera, where nobody will hear them.

I'm so glad I'm Canadian. My ears thank me too, I suppose.

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blacbird said:

Good news is he didn't kill anybody. Better news is that he won't likely be able to touch a firearm for the rest of his twisted life, unless maybe he takes a chance to overpower an armed corrections officer.

caw

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He's dead...so he probably won't get a chance to re-offend.

i am nothing if not reasonable. ask anyone.

William Haskins said:

suppressors are used by legal gun owners to avoid hearing loss from prolonged exposure to gunshots in target/sport shooting and/or hunting and to mitigate against noise complaints from legal shooting.

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Also, when there's an active shooter, the sound of gunshots helps to identify his location. A suppressor helps enable him to carry out his patriotic and/or sacred mission.

William Haskins said:

suppressors are used by legal gun owners to avoid hearing loss from prolonged exposure to gunshots in target/sport shooting and/or hunting and to mitigate against noise complaints from legal shooting.

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Target shooting would seem to be a weak argument for suppressors, since over-the-ear protectors are cheap & ubiquitous.

Hunting seems a more justifiable need for it.

rugcat said:

Also, when there's an active shooter, the sound of gunshots helps to identify his location. A suppressor helps enable him to carry out his patriotic and/or sacred mission.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...with-a-silencer-quiet/?utm_term=.2503486ab58a

William Haskins said:

suppressors are used by legal gun owners to avoid hearing loss from prolonged exposure to gunshots in target/sport shooting and/or hunting and to mitigate against noise complaints from legal shooting.

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While I can understand that reasoning, having lived in areas that had hunters sometimes, I think I would prefer to be able to hear the gunshots so that I know people are out there. It seems safer. Though, I know that suppressors only lessen the noise, not eliminate it entirely, so maybe it's still noticeable.

William Haskins said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...with-a-silencer-quiet/?utm_term=.2503486ab58a

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Very few, if any shooters have used supressors.

“The data indicates that use of silenced firearms in crime is a rare occurrence, and is a minor problem,” says a 2007 study cited by the Violence Policy Center. But that could also be the case because silencers are so time-consuming to obtain. (My bold)

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Then again,

Suppressors, by diffusing the noise of a weapon, may make it more difficult to locate the source of a sound, which is why they often are used by military snipers.

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The truth is simple: Ear protection is a red herring. Many, if not most gun enthusiasts like noise supressors because they think silencers are cool.

fair enough. i'm not advocating for them; i was answering the question.

decibel reduction is science; your opinion is an opinion.

your supposition is supposition, and the fact remains that patriots and zealots aren't using them in mass killings.

KTC said:

He's dead...so he probably won't get a chance to re-offend.

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Ah. Sorry, my bad. Even better news, then.

caw

I'm not pro-gun in any sense, but if the second amendment didn't exist I doubt we could stop people from using guns if and when they really wanted to.

kaylim said:

I'm not pro-gun in any sense, but if the second amendment didn't exist I doubt we could stop people from using guns if and when they really wanted to.

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Hmm? How so? If not for the 2A, guns likely would either be illegal or extremely difficult for normal folks to obtain, and the penalties for going around that, likely extreme. Could people still buy guns from black market sources, if they had enough will and cash? Probably. Would we still have a ton of gun violence in the country? I doubt it.

Yeah you're right. But I was talking more about political violence such as this (though its too early to tell if that is really the reason).

kaylim said:

I'm not pro-gun in any sense, but if the second amendment didn't exist I doubt we could stop people from using guns if and when they really wanted to.

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Countries other than America are doing pretty well.

kaylim said:

(though its too early to tell if that is really the reason).

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Occam's Razor. His social media presence was heavily anti-GOP. He attacked a GOP event. I think it's a fair assumption that this was politically motivated.

cmhbob said:

Occam's Razor. His social media presence was heavily anti-GOP. He attacked a GOP event. I think it's a fair assumption that this was politically motivated.

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Yeah that is a very informed conclusion.

The problem lies in trying to dismiss any politically or racially motivated shooting as acts of deranged criminals rather than acts of terrorists. I think people find it safer and less messy to believe that someone would murder people because they are "crazy" rather than because of their ideology.

kaylim said:

Yeah you're right. But I was talking more about political violence such as this (though its too early to tell if that is really the reason).

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Asking if they were reps or dems before shooting them seems to be a fairly clear indication it was politically-motivated in whatever way he was motivated.

If there were not more guns than people in the U.S. though, it might stop random nuts from using guns, because they wouldn't have such easy access to them.

Or, you know, if people (including some justices) bothered to read the entire goddamned sentence.