Why attack Sikhs?

i can hardly believe this conversation is going on.
if you can sit and observe in this country and not see that something frightening is going on with the Republican party and its extreme divergence into ultra-right politics then you must be suffering from some sort of temporary suspension of rational sense due to an identity crisis with your party.
please wake up.
--- merged: Aug 8, 2012 at 5:29 AM ---

Not only that, which is very accurate, but we don't even have any of the accompanying information detailing how they defined 'left-wing radical groups' and 'others.' I took a quick look and could not find the page. The FBI report doesn't seem to define the incidents as such. And, yeah, the willingness to kill as a 'political act' is a pretty important distinction that is not reflected in that chart at all.

 

MM: The FBI noted the distinction as well. From the FBI report (emphasis mine):

I would add that simply because individual attacks by members of hate groups may not fit the definition of domestic terrorism does not make them less dangerous....something you would think would be obvious.
--- merged: Aug 8, 2012 at 8:03 AM ---

Here is another "fix" for you...at the state level.

Arizona enacted a law in 2010 allowing carrying of concealed weapons w/o a permit. Six months later, Rep. Gabby Gifford and 12 others were injured and six killed by a person who was treated for over a year at a federal prison hospital for mental illness and was diagnosed with depression and paranoid schizophrenia.

This incident alone is enough to look at federal regulation requiring all states to have a uniform permitting (and even training) process for CCW.

And reinforces the need to examine the conflicting regulations of Brady and HIPAA.

 

I live in Mexico, as I assume pretty much everyone knows by now. Guns laws here are pretty much zero tolerance and you can't, as a private citizen, own one without a shit ton of permits, fees and paperwork. As an ex-pat I can not ever legally own a weapon. So I "officially" do not currently have one in my house in my safe. So guns are outlawed here. Gun violence on the other hand is pretty much a daily event in many areas and states. Luckily for me my state, Yucatan, is very peaceful. I think we had 20-30 murders last year. Not bad considering Merida, its capitol, has a pop. around 1 million. I just had a wedding at my house and families for the couple came from all over Mexico. One aunt who lives in Juarez told me they have daily radio announcements on whether or not schools will be open depending on the predicted amount of gun fire in the streets. Kind of like snow days only with bullets instead of cold white stuff filling the streets. She told me no sane person leaves their house after dark on any day. My thought was why would any sane person live there.

I'm not sure more gun laws would change the rate of violent acts in the US much. They might and I'd be willing t have the debate. But most of the time by the time congress craps out a law it's pretty useless and effects sportsmen/women and hobby shooters way more then lunatics bent on hurting/killing mass numbers of people. I think a balanced approach of increased mental health services, more pro-active (hey, isn't that a zit cream?) anti-hate group monitoring and some tweaks to gun laws is a more realistic way to approach this problem.

 

I dont disagree with this.

The problem I foresee is that your (and my) tweaks are the NRA's "first step to dismantling the Second Amendment" (Obama's secret plot).

 

the tonz of gunz in mexico and other places has everything to do with the international small arms trade. notice that the u.s. of a. opposes that treaty. those pesky human rights should never get in the way of amurican corporate profits. turns out the u.s. of a. is particularly opposed to the provisions in the treaty that might regulate traffic in ammunition. impractical, "we" say. bad for customer service. if we've already sold so many countries so many guns, it behooves "us" to provide some customer aftercare. wouldn't want the client base to go elsewhere, now would we?

 

R

Romeny has sided with increased gun laws way more often then Obama but try to tell that to a Fox News viewer or Rush listener that.

Really when I first started working in corrections and law enforcement, 1986, we still had some mental health services available. Reagan had gutted most of it with his "community based services" plan but some core services managed to survive. By the mid 90's they were pretty much gone and the main services that were still funded were drug and alcohol treatment and counseling. Those were nothing more then mainly revolving door programs that were funded by court mandated clients. They were really cookie cutter, one size fits all, attend this many meetings and pay for them then report back to the court you did it. Services for people with serious mental health issues, people like my ex-sister-in-law who's had Schizophrenia since turning 17, are pretty much nil. She routinely ends up in the county jail for her behavior. Taking seriously mentally ill people and throwing them in jail is just asinine. It's hurts them more then helps them. Often they end up strapped in a 8 point restraint chair and stuck in a corner somewhere to stare at the wall. It's bad for the them, a poor use of the close custody system and bad for the community as a whole. They're going to get out someday. They'll likely be released with a few days of meds and maybe, maybe an appointment to see someone. Depending on the state and the county they may or may not have to pay for that appointment. Whether the appointment is funded or not the chances the person shows up and receives reasonable care is pretty much zero. They may show, they may not show but getting put on a long term treatment plan that will actually benefit them and society is really expecting a lot. It's an awful system and it's hard to phantom in a country with as much resources as the US this is how we choose to deal with mental health issues.

Now of course I don't really know, for sure, how it works in every state. I'm fairly familiar with Oregon, Washington state, California and Idaho. Or at least I knew how it worked five years ago and I have no reason to believe it's improved. I have zero direct knowledge of how things work in Colorado or Wisconsin. But from what I've read the incident in Colorado might never have happened with a well functioning mental health system. Seems like several people including a well trained counselor knew the perp. was a danger to himself and others. So at in Colorado I think a better functioning mental health system would have been more effective then more gun laws. In Wisconsin maybe things would have turned out differently if the people monitoring the hate speech the perp. was posting on the internet had some options for actions. I'm not sure how you do that and still up hold a persons right to free speech but if someones making threats of violence on-line or anywhere it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to have someone at least go talk to the person.

 

I'm inconvenienced by the enhanced airport security since 9/11 but that is the price we pay for protecting the public.

 

an introduction to the international arms industry:
The arms industry — www.sipri.org

a list of the top arms manufacturers internationally:
The SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies, 2010 — www.sipri.org

a collection of articles on the international arms trade, including the efforts by the obama administration to undermine it:

Arms trade | World news | The Guardian

here's a book that outlines the extent of the small arms trade internationally:
The Shadow World - Andrew Feinstein - Penguin Books

 

Just as they have consistently attempted to cut funding for COPS and other public safety program, Republicans (not all) in Congress have consistently opposed laws requiring mental health parity to require insurance companies to cover mental health treatment at the same level and in the same manner as physical health. I give credit to Bush for signing a Democratic-sponsored partial parity law. And the Affordable Care Act requires more parity.

They talk the talk, they dont walk the walk.

 

It's true and should be criminal but thanks to our fighting the UN treaty our corporations are still safe to sell arms and profit from wars. As long as the wars only cause problems for other people, mainly brown folks, in far off lands and our corporate news doesn't report on on them it's totally cool.

 

an extensive database on the international small arms trade:

Small Arms Trade Database - NISAT


a compendium of resources on the international consequences of the small arms trade:
National gun laws | IANSA - the global movement against gun violence

estimates are that 10-20% of the total small arms traffic is illegal. so the "criminals will get guns anyway" line is out the window.

on this matter, the problem devolves back to the nature of the american national security state itself, the economic sector that took shape after world war 2 and has been a significant motor of us economic activity since then. it's perfect capitalism in the sense that it produces weapon systems that are pure expenditure. war of course accelerates that expenditure and increases the movement of materials through the systems of flows. war is good for the american economy. we like war. we are war.

even the washington post noticed:

A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans live in an era of endless war - The Washington Post

but of course they only connect this back to the lunacy of the "war on terror" and not further back to the history of the u.s. of a. since world war 2.

so there's not a whole lot of question about the magnitude of the problems that spin out of american small arms manufacture and distribution, from american gun laws domestically and---especially---the relations that obtain between them and us policy regarding the international arms trade.

that this stuff is not part of the domestic debate about guns is in principle baffling. in fact, it's not so much.

 

I suggest the Westside Pistol & Rifle Range. It only requires the background check on your first visit.

 

I'm sorry, but why on earth would you not be okay with that?

 

You cannot possibly object to the requirement of a criminal background check prior to being admitted to practice shooting firearms.

I don't know whether they require it every time, but assuming they only require to check your background upon signing up and that background checks done by other states on their residents are accepted for visitors, there doesn't seem to be anything to object to, other than for purely selfish reasons.