Fucking Guns

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  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Perhaps the good Governor is going to volunteer to be the 'tester'.
  • Interesting how in the West "excommunication" -- literally, barred from communing, i.e. taking communion -- has come to mean "permanently disfellowshipped." It seems so odd to read "She wasn't excommunicated, just barred from taking communion." In the East those are the same thing and it is never permanent, where there is repentance.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited June 2022
    mousethief wrote: »
    Interesting how in the West "excommunication" -- literally, barred from communing, i.e. taking communion -- has come to mean "permanently disfellowshipped." It seems so odd to read "She wasn't excommunicated, just barred from taking communion." In the East those are the same thing and it is never permanent, where there is repentance.
    Excommunication is never intended as permanent in the RC either, as I understand it. It is described as “medicinal” and is always intended to lead to repentance.

    And I think the RC understanding is that “excommunication” is literally understood as “exclusion from the communion,” i.e., exclusion from the body of the faithful. Per the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society.”

    As I understand it, RC canon law automatically (without need for judicial determination) excommunicates a person who procures an abortion. Canon law also automatically excommunicates accomplices to an act that results in automatic excommunication. Those American bishops who are denying or threatening to deny communion to Pelosi, Biden and other politicians are not doing so on the basis of automatic excommunication. Rather, my understanding is that they’re taking the position that public advocacy of abortion/choice is a mortal sin, which requires confession, repentance and penance, and absolution, and Catholics in a state of mortal sin are not supposed to receive communion. They’re saying Pelosi and other lawmakers are in a state of mortal sin so can’t take communion until they’ve confessed and been absolved.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Interesting how in the West "excommunication" -- literally, barred from communing, i.e. taking communion -- has come to mean "permanently disfellowshipped." It seems so odd to read "She wasn't excommunicated, just barred from taking communion." In the East those are the same thing and it is never permanent, where there is repentance.
    Excommunication is never intended as permanent in the RC either, as I understand it. It is described as “medicinal” and is always intended to lead to repentance.

    And I think the RC understanding is that “excommunication” is literally understood as “exclusion from the communion,” i.e., exclusion from the body of the faithful. Per the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society.”

    As I understand it, RC canon law automatically (without need for judicial determination) excommunicates a person who procures an abortion. Canon law also automatically excommunicates accomplices to an act that results in automatic excommunication. Those American bishops who are denying or threatening to deny communion to Pelosi, Biden and other politicians are not doing so on the basis of automatic excommunication. Rather, my understanding is that they’re taking the position that public advocacy of abortion/choice is a mortal sin, which requires confession, repentance and penance, and absolution, and Catholics in a state of mortal sin are not supposed to receive communion. They’re saying Pelosi and other lawmakers are in a state of mortal sin so can’t take communion until they’ve confessed and been absolved.

    It seems they have weaponized it by taking it public. Someone's sins, the state of their soul, their relationship to the church -- surely these should be pastoral and not political?
  • Absolutely! I think they would say that such politicians are “notorious sinners,” or the like, and that they must take a stand to protect the faithful as a whole by setting an example. But it’s absolutely weaponizing the sacrament.

  • My understanding is that being banned from communion is a step or two short of excommunication in the RC arsenal of tools for spiritual correction. And they're making a public statement of it because Ms Pelosi and company make a public statement of saying that they are Catholics and they support abortion.

    The bishops take the line that this risks causing confusion among the faithful, and feel they have to take a public stance as a result.

    I'm pro-abortion and not a Catholic, so I hardly have an interest in defending the RC bishops here. But if you accept their premises, then I sort of follow their logic.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    *At least, for the sort of everyone that means white homeowners that vote Republican. It's less clear that they are keen on other people owning guns.
    Oh, I think it's perfectly clear. They are distinctly not keen on people with darker skin owning guns.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    edited June 2022
    Does anyone have information on the shooter who targeted his doctors (a lot of sources aren't available here due to GDPR reasons)? As in, him as a person and his access to pain relief/alternative surgeries etc?

    Obviously not defending his awful actions at all, but I think people who have never experienced chronic pain really don't understand what it's like. I don't endorse his actions but I fully understand how chronic pain from botched surgery could make someone murderous. To me this case is more an indictment of the US medical system and also the war on drugs, and the way people needing opioid pain relief in states without medical marijuana access are treated like criminals.

    It's thought that Kurt Cobain got into heroin by self-medicating what was likely undiagnosed/untreated Crohn's disease - opioids are very effective in relieving pain and side-effects in particular bowel conditions, the type where constipation would be a blessed relief. It then becomes all too easy to understand how that kind of chronic pain would drive someone to suicide. It's the same pattern here, just with the pain and anger turned outwards instead of inwards. Tbf the UK isn't much better on this front, people just don't have the option of dealing with it via guns here.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Doublethink.

    I just tried to go to your link, but my virus prevention system signaled there was a virus embedded in it. The embedded virus was blocked, but I wanted to give you and others a bit of an advanced warning.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2022
    Odd, it’s an article on politico - and I don’t get that warning, is it possibly a browser issue ?
  • I had no trouble getting to the link, fwiw.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    The link is clean. Not sure what problem you're encountering, @Gramps49 - it might be flagging up one of the adverts, which sometimes get hijacked (Adblock is your friend).

    DT
    HH
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    The link is clean. Not sure what problem you're encountering, @Gramps49 - it might be flagging up one of the adverts, which sometimes get hijacked (Adblock is your friend).

    DT
    HH

    Or simply a false +ve.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    I was puzzled, and somewhat shocked, to hear on the BBc Radio 4 news this morning a clip of a US Congressman calling the right to bear arms 'God-given'. What new lunacy is this? Can any New World shipmate explain to a benighted Englishman, who has come late to this thread, how the proposition that God has mandated the right to carry and, presumably, use weapons is arrived at?
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I was puzzled, and somewhat shocked, to hear on the BBc Radio 4 news this morning a clip of a US Congressman calling the right to bear arms 'God-given'. What new lunacy is this? Can any New World shipmate explain to a benighted Englishman, who has come late to this thread, how the proposition that God has mandated the right to carry and, presumably, use weapons is arrived at?

    Probably a conflation of:
    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights

    from the US Declaration of Independence with the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments so the US constitution).
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    edited June 2022
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I was puzzled, and somewhat shocked, to hear on the BBc Radio 4 news this morning a clip of a US Congressman calling the right to bear arms 'God-given'.

    There's an entire ecosystem of companies marketing to people who like their guns with a religious tint:

    https://religiondispatches.org/christian-nationalists-and-the-holy-gun-crusade/

    This now deleted tweet was being used by one of these companies to market the same gun the Uvalde shooter used:

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTyEKEdXsAAXdDd?format=jpg&name=900x900
  • There are times when I think that there is no hope for humanity when such a huge proportion of the US has degenerated to that level of stupidity.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Odd, it’s an article on politico - and I don’t get that warning, is it possibly a browser issue ?

    Went to it again. Warning did not come up. However, I think it may have been in one of the ads that popped up when I first tried to go to the link.

  • There are times when I think that there is no hope for humanity when such a huge proportion of the US has degenerated to that level of stupidity.
    I’m not sure the proportion of the US population that swims in that level of stupidity is all that huge. Just very loud.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    There are times when I think that there is no hope for humanity when such a huge proportion of the US has degenerated to that level of stupidity.
    I’m not sure the proportion of the US population that swims in that level of stupidity is all that huge. Just very loud.

    Well isn't it about time the proportion of the US population that isn't that stupid got a whole lot louder? And put up some credible candidates for office?
  • White supremicist shooter, again. I gathered the shooter was white when it was reported law enforcement had captured him alive. Of course, trumposhere is not describing him as a terrorist.
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I was puzzled, and somewhat shocked, to hear on the BBc Radio 4 news this morning a clip of a US Congressman calling the right to bear arms 'God-given'. What new lunacy is this? Can any New World shipmate explain to a benighted Englishman, who has come late to this thread, how the proposition that God has mandated the right to carry and, presumably, use weapons is arrived at?

    Actually the irony is that American right to bear arms originates in English common law. The 'right to bear arms' in English common law, refers to the King requiring his subjects to bear arms in case of invasion or insurrection. When it was translated across the atlantic, apparently it morphed into an individual right with American discourse once the monarchy was dispensed with.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    White supremicist shooter, again. I gathered the shooter was white when it was reported law enforcement had captured him alive. Of course, trumposhere is not describing him as a terrorist.
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I was puzzled, and somewhat shocked, to hear on the BBc Radio 4 news this morning a clip of a US Congressman calling the right to bear arms 'God-given'. What new lunacy is this? Can any New World shipmate explain to a benighted Englishman, who has come late to this thread, how the proposition that God has mandated the right to carry and, presumably, use weapons is arrived at?

    Actually the irony is that American right to bear arms originates in English common law. The 'right to bear arms' in English common law, refers to the King requiring his subjects to bear arms in case of invasion or insurrection. When it was translated across the atlantic, apparently it morphed into an individual right with American discourse once the monarchy was dispensed with.

    The insistence to include the amendment came from the Virginia delegation, not as a means to defend the state or country, but as a means to keep down slave rebellions. Please read this NPR report.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    To an outsider, that looks like the key, continuing and damning factor.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    The generally accepted role of "well regulated militia" is that they serve a role in national defence (supplement to regular military to engage invaders) and law enforcement (eg: as a posse to pursue an outlaw, or as is evident in the early days of the US to track down run-away slaves). In relation to insurrection, a regulated militia may exist as defence against an insurrection - which is the complete opposite of the argument that citizens need guns to mount an insurrection against the government.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    The generally accepted role of "well regulated militia" is that they serve a role in national defence (supplement to regular military to engage invaders) and law enforcement (eg: as a posse to pursue an outlaw, or as is evident in the early days of the US to track down run-away slaves). In relation to insurrection, a regulated militia may exist as defence against an insurrection - which is the complete opposite of the argument that citizens need guns to mount an insurrection against the government.

    "...being necessary for the security of a free people..." takes on a rather different complexion when it is looked at through the lens of slavery. I'd always read it in the collective sense as being free vs "under the yoke of a tyrannical monarch" rather than free vs enslaved. Reading it as the latter makes the whole amendment redundant with the passage of the 13th amendment.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    The generally accepted role of "well regulated militia" is that they serve a role in national defence (supplement to regular military to engage invaders) and law enforcement (eg: as a posse to pursue an outlaw, or as is evident in the early days of the US to track down run-away slaves). In relation to insurrection, a regulated militia may exist as defence against an insurrection - which is the complete opposite of the argument that citizens need guns to mount an insurrection against the government.

    That is why each State has a National Guard which is under the control of the governor of the state except in national emergencies. The Guard around the area of Washington DC was called up to clear the capitol during January 6, 2021 insurrection. DC has its own Guard unit and neighboring states were also called up in support of the DC Guard. Often times the Guard out in the Western States is used to fight fire, to react to a natural emergency, or to support local law enforcement in a civil emergency.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Aye, and if the National Guard require their members to supply their own guns then that, under a logical reading of the 2nd Amendment, be a justification for Guard members to own guns. If the National Guard equip their members then the requirement to form a militia as justification for gun ownership disappears. At that point, gun ownership has to come under a basis other than the 2nd Amendment, and to my knowledge there's nothing else in the Constitution that even comes close to a near universal right to own a gun. Thus gun ownership isn't a Constitutional issue, but will come under the same sort of regulations as other nations have - a justifiable reason why someone needs a gun (hunting, pest control in rural areas etc) and checks that the person applying is suitable (not a felon, of sound mind and character etc).
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    White supremicist shooter, again. I gathered the shooter was white when it was reported law enforcement had captured him alive. Of course, trumposhere is not describing him as a terrorist.
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I was puzzled, and somewhat shocked, to hear on the BBc Radio 4 news this morning a clip of a US Congressman calling the right to bear arms 'God-given'. What new lunacy is this? Can any New World shipmate explain to a benighted Englishman, who has come late to this thread, how the proposition that God has mandated the right to carry and, presumably, use weapons is arrived at?

    Actually the irony is that American right to bear arms originates in English common law. The 'right to bear arms' in English common law, refers to the King requiring his subjects to bear arms in case of invasion or insurrection. When it was translated across the atlantic, apparently it morphed into an individual right with American discourse once the monarchy was dispensed with.

    The insistence to include the amendment came from the Virginia delegation, not as a means to defend the state or country, but as a means to keep down slave rebellions. Please read this NPR report.

    Oh wow thanks for posting that!
  • Aye, and if the National Guard require their members to supply their own guns then that, under a logical reading of the 2nd Amendment, be a justification for Guard members to own guns. If the National Guard equip their members then the requirement to form a militia as justification for gun ownership disappears. At that point, gun ownership has to come under a basis other than the 2nd Amendment, and to my knowledge there's nothing else in the Constitution that even comes close to a near universal right to own a gun. Thus gun ownership isn't a Constitutional issue, but will come under the same sort of regulations as other nations have - a justifiable reason why someone needs a gun (hunting, pest control in rural areas etc) and checks that the person applying is suitable (not a felon, of sound mind and character etc).
    Unfortunately, the efforts expended by the NRA and its allies over the last 50 or so years to convince the American public—and perhaps more importantly, the conservative legal establishment—that the Second Amendment means something quite different have born much fruit, and the US Supreme Court has rejected your (in my view reasonable and correct) interpretation. I don’t see that improving given the current composition of the Court; I anticipate that my pessimism will be confirmed sometime over the next month, when the decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen comes down.

  • What do people make of this? Some actual move in the right direction?
    'US gun control: Cross-party group of senators agrees limited safety measures'
    https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61777310
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    What do people make of this? Some actual move in the right direction?
    'US gun control: Cross-party group of senators agrees limited safety measures'
    https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61777310

    Way too little. We need to bet military style assault rifles off the street.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    What do people make of this? Some actual move in the right direction?
    'US gun control: Cross-party group of senators agrees limited safety measures'
    https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61777310

    Way too little. We need to bet military style assault rifles off the street.
    Of course it’s way too little. But for the first time in decades, it’s at least something.

  • And now a shooting at an Episcopal church in Alabama. Two reported dead and one injured.

    Jesus wept.

  • What do people make of this? Some actual move in the right direction?
    'US gun control: Cross-party group of senators agrees limited safety measures'
    https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61777310

    It occurs to me that in the particular case of the US, it may be easier to go down the path of gradually tightening the liability laws.
  • It really does reveal the so-called democracy in the US as a sham when something so obvious that the majority of people want - along with other things like abortion - is in the hands of a privileged minority and their vested interests. Not that we're any better here on my side of the Atlantic with Boris acting illegally with impunity and now talking about withdrawing from the ECHR.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    And now a shooting at an Episcopal church in Alabama. Two reported dead and one injured.

    Jesus wept.

    The injured woman has now died,

    The shooter has been identified as a 71 year old man who was a gun store owner.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    The shooter has been identified as a 71 year old man who was a gun store owner.
    Reports I’ve seen say he is a licensed gun dealer whose place of business is listed as his home address.

    And he sometimes attended services at the church.

  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    My somewhat polemical comment here didn't go down too well with one US citizen. And it may all be true, but mellowing in Hell, this is all an inevitable, deterministic consequence of evolution and history. It therefore cannot be helped.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    My somewhat polemical comment here didn't go down too well with one US citizen. And it may all be true, but mellowing in Hell, this is all an inevitable, deterministic consequence of evolution and history. It therefore cannot be helped.

    Well I for one totally agree with it and the facts that the said failed ex-president didn't get arrested within 5 minutes of Biden being sworn in and the way they're pussy-footing around with him, with New York chickening out of prosecuting him and Garland dithering all this time, makes me despair of the US.

    I know it's a sacred document, but the US constitution isn't fit for the purpose these days - the president doesn't have enough power one minute and too much the next, the congress has the filibuster tail wagging the Senate dog, the Supreme Court is hopelessly politically compromised and in need of reform - to name just a few things.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    I think US shipmates are probably aware of this, and having Brits point it out (when we're not exactly in a position of strength regarding the state of our own democracy) can come across as 'a bit rich'.

    Please keep this thread for discussing Fucking Guns, thank you kindly.

    DT
    HH
  • Looks like the idiots calling themselves the Supreme Court have just excelled themselves with stupidity even visiting medieval England for their support.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    edited June 2022
    Pretty certain that medieval England had laws about who could own a sword.

    (I don't own a sword. Warclub, yes. Spear, yes. Long knife, yes. Sword, no.)
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    May God have mercy on America, but with the possible exception of Trump and his gun-slinging Supreme Court! So much for the "right to life".
  • Tukai wrote: »
    May God have mercy on America, but with the possible exception of Trump and his gun-slinging Supreme Court! So much for the "right to life".

    ISTM that this decision pretty much follows the same logic as Heller. You can blame the fact that the vote was 6-3 rather than 5-4 on GOP shenanigans, but the thought predates Trump.

    In an alternate universe where Obama got Merrick Garland approved, and then some non-Trump GOP president nominated someone less extreme than Amy Coney Barrett, it's likely that this would have been another 5-4 vote against gun control measures.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited June 2022
    If it were a satire, it wouldn't amuse. As it's not, it does. It's that or cry.

    I got a knobkerrie. And a shillelagh.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    The most damage Trump has done to the United States is placing three judges on the Supreme Court who may never have read the Constitution IMHO. Just today they handed down a decision that strikes down the New York Handgun bill which placed restrictions on concealed carry outside the home. A lot of states have similar laws. It actually takes away States Rights, ISTM

    Note to Martin54. There are still proceedings against Trump and the Trump Organization in New York State. Trump has been fighting them every step of the way. It takes time.

    Similarly, Garland will have a tough time when he knows Trump has stacked the court for him. If Garland brings a grand jury against Trump now and obtains a conviction, whose to say SCOTUS won't through it out before the next election. Moreover, when you have one third of the population saying he did no wrong and another third saying he should be thrown into prison for life, it would be hard to get an impartial jury to obtain a conviction
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    The most damage Trump has done to the United States is placing three judges on the Supreme Court who may never have read the Constitution IMHO.
    Oh, I don’t know. Without disputing the damage his SCOTUS appointments have done and surely will do, surely engendering sedition and an attempted coup is at least as damaging to the Republic if not more so.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    The most damage Trump has done to the United States is placing three judges on the Supreme Court who may never have read the Constitution IMHO.
    Oh, I don’t know. Without disputing the damage his SCOTUS appointments have done and surely will do, surely engendering sedition and an attempted coup is at least as damaging to the Republic if not more so.

    And, indeed, all the more likely to go unpunished.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Tukai wrote: »
    May God have mercy on America, but with the possible exception of Trump and his gun-slinging Supreme Court! So much for the "right to life".

    Ah, but that only applies up to birth.
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