StrangeSox

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:37 PM) Fake, terrible hunters use a rifle that’s main function is to spray and pray. It’s a terrible gun for home defense and for hunting. It’s only function is to engage an enemy with a high rate of fire. It’s also a profit center because of how modular and “cool looking” it is. It serve no useful purpose since there are guns that are more effective at pretty much any useful activity. And I’d say that about most if not all semi automatic rifles. The toxic fetishizing culture surrounding guns and in particular the military look alike ones are part of the problem imo.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:23 PM) I thought they were illegal. I have no issue with full auto being illegal and banned. Those aren't good for anything but mass killings. However, that wouldn't stop this as it was the semi-auto version. They're rarely used in crimes. Legally owned ones have been used like twice in many decades. To me, that shows that heavy restrictions and registration can actually work.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 07:45 PM) You can fire off any oremore rounds from a semi automatic AR 15 than anyother semi automatic rifle. Your finger can only pull the trigger so fast. The full automatic versions of all rifles are already illegal, assault style or not. Fully automatic weapons are heavily restricted and thus very expensive but they aren't illegal.

The nativist Trump proposal to drastically cut legal immigration took the biggest defeat, going down 39-60.

And it looks like none of the DACA bills are going to get 60 votes in the Senate, so RIP Dreamers, good luck going to ground before the ICE raids

Another of Trump's highly qualified judicial nominees One Of Trump’s Judicial Nominees Once Wrote That Diversity Is “Code For Relaxed Standards”

An older but relevant piece on mental illness and violence from ProPublica Myth vs. Fact: Violence and Mental Health A Q&A with an expert who studies the relationship between mental illness and violence.

We should probably pay more attention to right wing Nazi terrorist cells in this country, but the last time DHS published a big report on that, one political party threw a fit and got DHS to back off monitoring these groups.

And as with all conspiracies, holes or lack of evidence or inconsistencies in whatever the official explanation is aren't proof or evidence for whatever cooked up alternative explanations are thrown about.

Nazis literally training and committing mass murders of children in America in 2018. Very Fine People

It seems like this guy had a pretty decent social media footprint all posted under his own name. How did the FBI fail in identifying him?

ADL: Florida White Supremacist Group Admits Ties to Alleged Parkland School Shooter Nikolas Cruz

Good thread on damaging propaganda from the likes of InfoWars and 4chan https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/964187511017869316 "It’s not even about politics at this point. It’s about sewing a fundamental mistrust of reality stoked by constant paranoia."

White House says Trump will veto bipartisan immigration deal

Perhaps having so many guns so readily available to anyone and (nearly) everyone is part of the problem? The Las Vegas shooter had no history of mental illness. Sane people can and do carry out horrific acts. You're also going to have a hell of a time crafting a law that would have specifically prevented this kid from purchasing a gun (though he could have always gone private sale) that isn't a massive violation of the 2nd per the court's history of interpretation, because it would have to be really broad.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:40 AM) Still not sure I buy the "cultural problem" argument that people are making. What about our culture impacted this kids life? I'm not even sure what our shared "culture" is. Florida culture is different from Illinois culture. Heck, this county is probably different than most in Florida. He's an adopted kid. He had no father figure. I'm sure he was an outcast/loner. This is a revenge/attention seeking person. There are adopted children with no father figures who are outcasts and loners in every country. The rest of the world hasn't had 18 shootings at schools in the first 6-7 weeks of 2018. It seems to be more relevant than post hoc "mental illness" diagnoses.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:34 AM) So what exactly was the FBI to do here? Keep a 24/7 watch on this kid? Over a Youtube comment? Law enforcement official tells Eva Perez that there were at least two FBI reports on the guy. The FBI didn't share the information with local law enforcement. Not clear if they ever fully ID'd the shooter as the same person who made the youtube comment. https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/964160387099873283 But you're right. Finding and preventing a single shooter is really, really hard unless they're making their plans known to friends or acquaintances. It's perfectly legal and in some places normal to stockpile and obsess over guns, so that's not a reliable sign. "Edgy" pro-violent rhetoric, especially if at all anonymized, isn't all that uncommon.

The kid was expelled and was no longer a student at the school. Last year, when he was still a student, he wasn't allowed to carry a backpack. I'm not sure what more school administration should or even could do. I haven't dealt with schools, but part of my job requires assessing motivated active shooter scenarios sometimes. If someone is willing to kill or be killed/captured, there is not a whole lot you can do to stop them if they have readily available access to firearms. It's a cultural problem that's much larger than just some gun laws will solve or for specific actions in specific cases ex post facto. So many of these cases are single individuals who are self-radicalizing rather than a group of people plotting, and that is much harder to find and prevent ahead of time.

Trump tweets this morning to blame the victims and the community for not reporting the shooter. Turns out he had been reported to Trump's FBI back in September.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 08:58 AM) That narrative has already found its way on the social media sites. Hillary clinton hired this guy to distract from investigation, blah blah blah. Yesterday it was all "SOURCES: Shooter was an antifa DREAMER!!!! DEPORT THEM ALL!" (shooter was actually yet another radicalized right wing terrorist wearing a MAGA hat in his profile pic and who had praised Elliot Rogers, but we as a country pretend that right wing extremism isn't the biggest domestic terrorist threat for some odd reason)

Video from a student inside the school as police as escorting them out. Don't watch unless you want to see multiple murdered students lying in pools of their own blood. https://twitter.com/TheDJLegacy/status/963916390624350209 Won't matter. Nothing meaningful will be done. If anything, we'll end up with looser gun laws again like after Sandy Hook. Feel bad for the parents and friends of the students who were murdered who will inevitably be harassed and threatened for years by the Alex Jones types about FALSE FLAG! insanity. eta: strengthened warning because it's pretty damn disturbing.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 07:42 AM) Trump's budget director , Mulvaney, said if he were still in Congress he would vote against this budget. WTF. On the surface it's a bit of a mixed message from a chaotic White House, but really I don't think there's anything wrong with someone saying they'd act one way if they were still in Congress and they act another way in a different role within the Executive Branch. They're different jobs with different motivations. He's working for Trump, and he's in charge of assembling a budget as directed by Trump and influenced by others in the administration, not his own personal wish list. That he'd vote against what's a pretty hard right Tea Party budget with deep cuts to all discretionary spending says where his ideology lays, though.

My brother-in-law is a CPA at one of the big accounting firms downtown. They were working crazy overtime between the passage of the bill in late December and 12/31 to basically rewrite the tax strategies for every client. My dad is on the corporate taxes side with the IRS, and it'll be a big headache over there once the audits roll around to the 2018 taxes, but that won't be for at least a couple of years. I wouldn't expect this tax plan to go anywhere any time soon, though. Democrats won't have a shot to repeal it for at least 3 years, and even then large chunks are likely to stay in place. Especially on the business side.

BREAKING: More than 130 political appointees working in white house didn't have permanent security clearances as of November 2017, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Don McGahn, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Feb 14, 2018 -> 07:54 PM) Where exactly are you seeing this? I don't think I've seen anyone literally say that today. The actual left is more likely to be arming themselves these days rather than calling for gun control