re: #318 Lidane

Just a small bone to pick there, but it’s not always a true “gun-nut” that flips their shit and shoots up a crowded place. I don’t think many of these mass-shooters were your typical “gun-nut” per-say.

Where the gun-nuts fit into this equation is when these events happen and the possibility of new restrictions and regulations come to light. They flip out (helped mightily by the NRA), and the regulations subsequently get quashed due to the massive lobbying from the NRA et al. Even regulations that would have an infinitesimal impact on their ability to obtain and operate a firearm are shot down (I know, I know, try the veal.)

That’s when somebody who has ‘snapped’ can easily obtain a firearm (Columbine kids, V-Tech shooter, theater joker, Sandy Hook). Upstate NY guy was a criminal, not sure about the Sikh-temple madman (was ex-military supremacist IIRC?) I wouldn’t deign them as “gun-nuts.” It was the ease they were able to obtain law-enforcement and military-grade weaponry.

Just wanted to make that distinction, but they can easily pass some decent legislation that will have little to no actual impact on responsible, law-abiding gun owners. But it needs to be explicitly sold on those merits in order to have significant push-back against the NRA’s lobbying. And I don’t think it’ll happen in this administration, because for how smart Obama and his admin are, I think they’re terrible at selling and marketing their ideas against an intransigent opposition.