Indianapolis Anti-gun measure goes down in committee

What measure you might ask?  Given Indiana has strong preemption.

Well... if passed by the City-Council  this measure would...   tell the Statehouse (the reps specifically) and others via memo that the City-Council wants gun control.

And the gun control that one man Zach Adamson  (D-17)  is pushing is a real moon-shot.

Proposal 112 would ask for all sorts of AWB, private sale, and magazine bans.

And today the Community Affairs Committee met to talk about Proposal 112

Which is as I said is pretty much: "Guns are bad, and the Indiana state house should ban assault weapons, hi cap magazines, ban private sales, and not support national reciprocity

And this evening.... the council debated, took in public statements, and voted on it.

It started with Zach Adamson  (D-17) a grandstanding fellow who  read his resolution and bragged about being in DC for a "die-in"

He did the standard litany of "weapons of war" and "designed to kill"  and went with how assault weapons are specifically to mow down lots of people.  But would not define /what/ caused it.

Maybe about 40% of the seats were full and there was at least a dozen gun control supporters there. They were mostly white, almost entirely female.  Meanwhile it turns out there were at last three pro gun people in attendance (and in fairness we were all white bearded 30's to 40's)

There was a lot of finger snapping and murmuring in support on their part.

Zach Adamson  was joined by two councilmen who were not on the commit and thus I did not get their names.  Both were vocal supporters of the resolution.  The older fellow who was African American was very much on background checks and having mental health component to a screening.  His statements did not indicate he was as hard core anti-gun as the others.

The other fellow, a younger white man who lounged back in a stance that made it look like he wanted to put a foot on the table was more bellicose.  He was the biggest one going "We need to do Something!"  He was particularly angry at comments about how to define an Assault Weapon. 

He would going on about how debate would bog down on "defining what an assault weapon is"  and nothing would pass.  Nevermind that to tell the police what is and isn't illegal to own it has to be defined.

Rather quickly it went to public comments.  Forgive me as I was taking notes by hands and wasn't able to names and good notes.  (Each speaker had 2 minutes)

Surprisingly despite the anti-gun folks having a large number of people  they only had 6 speakers.

And this includes that the first three were high school students.  They did the bit about that their movement won't stop, and their needing to feel safe and so on.

Then it came to a nurse who also gave an anti gun position and talked about the trauma she saw.

Next was a pro-gun fellow.  A vet, he was passionate and  maybe not as smooth as he could have been and he pushed pass time.  But he did point out how assault weapons are defined. How much rifles of any type are used in crimes.  That the overall crime rate had been doing down, that the Clinton AWB was ineffective, and that the UK was now going after knives.

Next game another pro-gun person that pointed out about violence and that the resolution did not define anything and the myth of the "high capacity" gun and the arbitrary nation.

Then...  well I talked.  I pointed out the illogic of how Zach was against national reciprocity despite Indiana already having universal reciprocity (we will accept any state or country's permit). So I asked if he was against Hoosiers being able to carry in other states or if he wanted to amend that part of Indiana state law.

I also pointed out that despite him listing Santa Fe in his list of atrocities, that killing took place with a shotgun and a revolver and killed 10Despite him including that incident and him stating that assault rifles are uniquely evil.  

I then went into how the resolution is unhelpful because it doesn't /define/ what it wants to ban.  And that previous bans focused on cosmetic and ergonomic features and that even from the gun control standpoint if their goal was to focus on the lethality...

Then came an anti-gun person and her argument was about background checks being stronger and pointed out how she is a prohibited person because she sees a therapist.  Which... isn't quite right.  She also said that her children come home every day crying and scared for their lives afraid they'll get shot.

Last was an older woman who was in the Air force and had a marksmanship badge. And all about the guns she had in 4H teaching her kids on hunting.   And her thing was "military style" and how the 223 (not that she named the caliber) was too powerful and caused so much extra death.

Then it went back to the council committee.

Again was the "spray of gunfire"

And Zach went on about how the ergonomics of an assault weapon aren't "just cosmetic"   and that how slower fire was more accurate and thus more lethal.

There was no more public comment but one can see that he's making the argument that would cover even more guns...

Again was a "Why do this?" rhetorical question with them going on about a demand to "Do something" push.

The non-voting  white councilman  waved the bloody shirt by talking about a teenage girl that was shot about 12 times and how "she doesn't care how an assault rifle is defined", and went on against "arguing over semantics" and "can't do anything over than bicker over what an AR is".

The black non voting councilman did the  "we pass laws to regulate human behavior" and used the analogy of "gun laws aren't pointless even though people violate them, because we have traffic laws and people violate those."

and his example was speed limits.
Edit:  Interestingly I think he's William Oliver D-9 the sponsor of the bill. So goes to show as he was far calmer about this than Zach was)

Where heck it's a form of  /protest/ when a large group of cars do the speedlimit on a highway.  Especially one with the double nickel.

But he went back to his zone on how he wanted background checks, and bemoaned about how whenever there's a murder people spot warning signs in retrospect.

Which...  given that many of the recent killers have been people who /should/ have failed their NCIS check if not for government incompetence.

There was also a comment about people buying guns in the parking lot of the Indy 15000 gun show.

It turns out that Zach  /hates/  preemption.   He railed against the statehouse taking power for itself  and limited what the municipality could do.

He also went on about how congress made it legal to own "tools that can only kill mass amounts of people"

And on the "fetish with guns is out of control"

Then came one councilman who had been silent until now.

Brian Mowers (R-25) actually gave a pro-gun speech about how pointless this was and described how the NFA process was to get actual machine guns.  (he was a bit incorrect in that the ATF doesn't have to be informed what room you store the gun in, but you /do/ have to tell the ATF if you plan to cross state lines with it).

He also pointed out that if we go with "weapons of violence" then golf clubs would count as would knives  and that a resolution that can't even define what it wants to make illegal is pointless.

Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15)  then spoke and was cagy.  She also said this was pointless saying it was a "waste of paper"  but encourage "both sides" to go to their state reps and congress and lobby them and put their "passion to them"

And then....  the chair of the committee  Frank Mascari (D-21) literally pulled out his pink carry permit and explained what it was.   And did a bit of a "gun ower but"  and pointed out that many other people on the committee had permits as did people in the audience.  And then went onto the "do something" bandwagon. 

Then came the vote.

Shockingly.  The proposal failed 3-2.

Key reason?   Well....

here's the list of people on the committee:

Chair: Frank Mascari (D-21)

Zach Adamson (D-17)

Jason Holliday (R-20)

Blake Johnson (D-12)

Brian Mowery (R-25)

Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15)

Christine Scales (D-3)

Neither Christine Scales (D-3) nor Blake Johnson (D-12) attended.

And it was a party-line vote.

Zach Adamson (D-17) and Frank Mascari (D-21) voted for it.

Jason Holliday (R-20), Brian Mowery (R-25), and Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15) voted against.

So I'm pretty sure that Zach is not happy with Scales or  Johnson

Interestingly immediately after the vote about 80% of the anti gun folks picked up their signs (which they only waved a bit at the start)  and marched out.

What makes that /especially/ interesting  is that the order was goofed There were two proposals to be talked about in this session, one the gun control, and another about " a study commission on gaps and disparities in providing social services in Marion County".

It looked like the gun control one was going to be first on the schedule but for some reason the  social services one was first.   And at least 6 of the gun control folks were taking pictures of the rather wonkish presentation on the social services and cross program efficiencies and they did this for like the full half hour that very nitty-gritty presentation (which had no public questions) took.
(It also passed 4-1)

And yet...  the minute it turned out that the gun control proposal went down.
They left.  One even screamed and obscenity in the hall I think it was a "Fuck guns!"

Zach was also not happy, but took in stride and pledged that he would write memos on his own if he didn't get it but that he'd be back with another resolution.

Which was really cross purpose for them because for one Jason Holliday (R-20) who had also been largely silent explained why he voted no.

He wanted something that was comprehensive and would have mental health and background check work,  but he did not support anything that would  have "punitive action"

Zach went onto this and said that he was going to schedule a meeting with Holliday to see if he could get something,   even if it was a piecemeal approach of having like a dozen of these resolutions in little bits.

There were other bits of like Pfisterer and Mascari talking of their votes and city-council strategy that really... hurt the gun control folks to just leave.  Meanwhile the gun rights folks (all three of us) stayed.

Then it adjourned.

And it turns out that the gaggle of gun control advocates were just... down the hall talking with each other.  And then some did leave and there was a "well we know who the NRA buys, and they don't care about the children!"

So...  it's a bit surprising that this went down.

Probably a bit of a fluke given 2 of the 7 members of the Community Affairs Committee didn't show up.

Zach Adamson  will be back and push this again.   And I'm sure next time he'll try to twist more arms to make sure he has the votes.

(Though that he didn't do this given this resolution has been his baby since April)

Still, that he couldn't even get his symbolic resolution out of committee  has to hurt.

So for now I'm quite amused.

And tomorrow I'll write to Pfisterer,  Holliday, and  Mowery
You might want too as well. 

Cracked: A lot of firearms "training' is crappy.

That's at least the actual thrust of this article (by a different writer this time).

The article is about how "gun nuts refute their own arguments."

But the first two in the list are a really bad DVD and a really bad book. How bad? The book is "My parents open carry."

The first, somehow, refutes that firearms can be used for self defense, and the latter, similarly, somehow, debunks that firearms can protect one's family.

Those are pretty pedestrian.  The confusing one is #2  "Men Are Monsters, So Women Need Guns!"

Um... this is the same publication that goes in on #MeToo and the problems of abusive men.

But the confusion grows:

About 38 percent of gun owners are women, but they don't seem to be interested in shooting those guns for murder or self-defense. In 2014, only 15 ladies gunned down a man in self-defense. That obviously doesn't include the women who defended themselves at sea and told no one but the sharks what they had done, but 15 seems low, doesn't it? That's the number of women out of 16 who probably had every right to kill a man in 2014.

That seems... low.  Oddly enough that's the one time the article has no citation, and why 2014?  Why not a decade? Weirdly, in the same paragraph the writer then admits that it seems very low.  Okay.

Moreso the writer notes that women aren't abusing their guns.

And right after this the article goes on about the Detroit case where a woman was put in prison for using a gun to defend her family.  Um... so guns are bad because the police and prosecutors are railroading people?

Women obviously don't want to solve their problems with guns, so why are we pushing them so hard to do so?

Parse that.  So women being law-abiding with their guns (nearly 40 percent of women are gun owners by his own admission...), and the writer thinks that women don't have the agency to make their own decision to by them? That they're somehow being tricked?  That's rather sexist.

Though this is the same guy who then goes on to proudly put in a tweet where he goes all macho chest thumping and uses a term for female genitalia as an insult.

So.... yeah sexist.


And how does he prove gun owners are the real sexist folks?  By citing a 30 year old VHS.  Okay... there's a lot more recent stuff to show that gun owners still have some massive problems with appealing to women (Hey let's make guns pink!)

And how is the video?

It's crushingly boring, which is unexpected. Gun videos for men feature corner-pieing drills and quick draw techniques to eliminate multiple ninjas. Ralph Mroz showed me how to talk an outlet mall shopper into carrying a loaded firearm and then kill him by diving under an SUV and shooting his feet. This lady video is almost un-American in how it treats guns like exhausting responsibilities no one should ever touch without expert training. Lee learns about holsters, eye and ear protection, trigger guards, and firing pins from two creeps who talk like they only teach firearm classes because their hypnotism careers never took off. They seem to truly want to keep the viewer alive.

What?  The writer had the whole of the bad "ladies training" to pick and he went with the dull one that actually tried to be responsible and do it by the numbers.

Note the double standard.  A video that is all  "ninja-skills" is mocked for being a power fantasy, and one that's nuts and bolts is mocked for being boring.

Nevermind the writer's intention was to mock the video for being sexist.

As I said: confusing.

And last is the old "Guns are to overthrow the goverment"

Which....   well becomes revealing.  The article goes from the confused muddle of before to angry ranting.

There's repeated calls of gun owners as stupid, mentally-ill racists with small penis.  The writer bragging about the illegal weapons he proudly owns.  Him fantasizing about the US military killing civilians.  Him actually encouraging gun owners to join said militant repression on the  side of the army.

He goes into the all gun owners are mentally ill right after talking about how gun owners are all about making it so mentally-ill people can buy guns. (Someone who knows the transitive law can figure out tat one)

And he advocates that gun owners resist any confiscation by illegally hiding their guns.

He then once again points out an abuse of police against a lawful gun owner and uses it as evidence that...  gun owners are racist because they didn't have the revolution that the writer seems to be fantasizing about.

The telling part is that the article doesn't really mention any specific laws, guns, or accessories that he has a problem with.

And it ends with a photo of him pumping a shotgun while angrily, glaring at the camera.

Which is... problematic.

But the article seems to be more of a rage-filled form of venting than anything else.   Given the comments are by and large a similar bout of cathartic release...

Cracked: Letters of Marque are Scary!

Yes,  Cracked has an article about 5 Crazy Scenarios You Didn't Know the Constitution Allows

It's a funny list,  given there's fretting over  a "dictatorship loophole",  which no one is sure how it would work, other than maybe the shocker that constitutional amendments can amend the whole of the constitution and thus can do any dictatorial thing, including change how the Constitution is amended...

Fretting over Texas being able to split up, that the President can devolve his powers to the VP,  and that people can still be put into slavery and bondage if it's "punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."  Which given the vast, vast number of people incarcerated in the US, shouldn't be a surprise.

But the one that tickled my fancy was the "The Constitution Could Make Us All Pirates".  That is freaking out about the Letters of Marque part.  (As a side note, it's a bit funny as some Cracked writers would go all fanboy about pirate hunting).

Which goes to what made me amused.  See this is Adam Wears' work.    Right, the same guy who is stating in this article that the Founders Intended to be able to give average citizens the power to hunt pirates, with actual warships,  thinks the Founders never wanted average citizens to have firearms.  And thinks this to the level that it was NRA insanity that got the idea of an individual right tricking the courts.

Cracked: Fake News Makes people Afraid of Mass and School Shootings

That is David Wong Cracked's Executive Editor's assertion in this list.

"13 Myths About Society Too Many People Believe"

Specifically:

6) Myth: School Shootings Are Rampant

7) Myth: Mass Shootings Are A Significant Danger To The Average Person

And he does a calm rational way to show that yeah these myths are false.
And he's saying this as someone who would happily ban these guns.

I do have to wonder how he squares this with Adam Wears  the frequent, and bilious, anti-gun writer he has on staff.

Ah well. Does show that for all the time Cracked goes against pearl-clutching moral panics in the media, they're quite guilty of it too.

Also Wong takes apart a few other sacred cows so the article does read like one of those older Cracked pieces where one has to wonder if this is being subversive or not.

Looks like I missed one...

So turns out Cracked had another gun article about a month ago.

And turns out that this and the last two articles were all written by the same  Adam Wears.


Behold 6 Psychotic Gun Accessories (You Can Totally Buy)  which is an interesting mix of silly and more silly things.

Through it all Wears' tone is extremely angry  and literally ends with an unrelated "Even Australia recognized we needed gun control after their own horrifying massacre. Read about it here."

And that last link is a book about the massacre... not the laws passed after it.

What's interesting is the "even"  as if Wears is surprised that Australia passed gun control. Given Cracked has repeatedly pointed to they want Australia's gun confiscation to be done in the US.

The funny part is that despite Wears preening about how "We at Cracked have dedicated a lot of words to debunking the myths that popular culture loves to spread about guns"  his number one scary item? 

Tripods.  Seriously, the number one in the list is the evils of gun tripods.  Only a bit into does he get into "crank-fire" guns.


I am amused that the article opens with the expected "Gun owners are just beardo man-children obsessed with merch and pop culture" you know...  what Cracked used to jokingly, but lovingly, call their "core audience" Wears goes on about "when a gun nut spends too long on eBay."

One wonders if Wears really thinks that the things he listed can be bought on Ebay....

It took them almost couple months....

But Cracked once again is beating the Anti NRA drum.


Now there's "6 Underreported Reasons Why The NRA Are Just The Worst"

Three things off the bat.  Note the the extremely clickbait formatting of the headline, even by Cracked standards  then note that the verb is conjugated for plural.  Meaning that it's not "the NRA" as being the worse,   but "NRA members" as being the worse.

And finally... under reported?    Reading the list of pear-clutching and conspiracy mongering the list is all stories that are pretty well known.

I'm just amused that Silencers (#1) are both somehow so effective that they're prefect assassin devices, but also so ineffective that they're pointless in reducing hearing damage.

And that when Smith and Wesson is pressured by the goverment to go into Smart Gun technology that's perfectly fine, but when gun owners decide to no longer by their guns  then it's suddenly an affront to the free market.

As a minor note, it is amusing that in some cracked articles Waco and Ruby Ridge are signs that the goverment is reckless and crazy and abusive of power,  and in other articles those events are legitimate and questioning them is just conspiracy mongering.  But since Cracked had their big editorial and contributor cull earlier this year, they probably can't do checks for consistent editorial stance.

 That said, I'm a bit surprised Cracked took them this long to write another article.

Small Business Bites End.

And we come to the conclusion.

Though there's room for a sequel, but, more importantly, there's always revisons.