[talaniman]

This is what you are lacking in evidence for. How can a peaceful protest crowd provide "cover" for looting? Wouldn't the looters stand out like a sore thumb? Wouldn't peaceful protestors point out the law breakers to the cops?

Looters do stand out like a sore thumb and because you don't hear about it doesn't mean that looters aren't turned in anonymously, and sometimes the cops catch them in the act.

I suppose you believe that ("everyone"), but I doubt if very many people consider peaceful protests to be "an evil activity". I know I don't.

No one here except when they conflate peaceful protesting for a good cause with criminal and bad behavior. Sometime it certainly sounds that way.

Much more likely is that most people, absent one or two on this site, rightly consider rioting, looting, and wanton destruction to be evil activities, no matter what race the perpetrators happen to be.

I don't know anyone on this site that condones bad or criminal behavior. Everybody has condemned it.

And the utterly non-racial original point remains about going to a polling place to vote.

Of which we did a great job of last election cycle.

[jlisenbe]

They DO stand out like a sore thumb when they are photographed or videoed. Google for protest photos and videos. And the peaceful protesters DO point out the WHITE thieves to the WHITE cops. Guess what happens then....

"Guess" is the operative word. You have no idea if any of that is true or not. It's just so much nonsense.

Of course, rioting, looting, and wanton destruction by ANYONE is evil.

Finally you say it.

Then election officials need to make it easy to get to a polling place, not shut them all down except for one in Timbuktu.

Exaggeration on steroids. But polling places need to be abundant and easily accessible. I would agree with that.

[Wondergirl]

Exaggeration on steroids. But polling places need to be abundant and easily accessible. I would agree with that.

And you're a literalist??? But must not keep up with the election news in NC and SC and TX and AZ and GA and FL.

[jlisenbe]

And you're a literalist??? But must not keep up with the election news in NC and SC and TX and AZ and GA and FL.

I keep up with it, both positive and negative. There are many problems. Some you acknowledge, and some you don't.

[paraclete]

Yes you have a problem and it is called gun control, how could a teenager get an AR when he should have already been on a watch list. You do know that the massacres in the last month far surpass the one massacre that caused us to have stricter gun control and resolve to protect the people from the nutcases

[jlisenbe]

There might be some areas of gun control we still need to accomplish, but nothing like the extreme, foolish measures taken in your country. As to the cause, I read this today and agree with it completely.

NPR's Steve Inskeep interviewed Darrell Gibbs, the father of a wounded shooting victim, in a Las Vegas hotel...Inskeep questions Gibbs on how he first heard the news, his daughter's injuries and expected recovery, and, finally, why this has happened.

Iinskeep: "You don't blame the gun for this?"
Gibbs: "Absolutely not."
Inskeep: "You blame the person?"
Gibbs: "Of course."
Inskeep: "What do you think is causing these mass shootings?"
Gibbs: "A Godless society."

I couldn't possibly agree more. Why do we have mass shootings now, but not fifty years ago? Godlessness. That's why. You can't sanction hundreds of thousands of killings of innocent, defenseless human beings in the womb, and then be shocked when someone acts on that same guiding principle in a mass shooting. These things cannot be separated.

how could a teenager get an AR when he should have already been on a watch list.

Great question. When existing laws are not getting the job done, then adding more laws would seem to be foolish.

[Wondergirl]

Godlessness? No. Mental illness in some form or other? Yes!!!

[paraclete]

There might be some areas of gun control we still need to accomplish, but nothing like the extreme, foolish measures taken in your country. As to the cause, I read this today and agree with it completely.



I couldn't possibly agree more. Why do we have mass shootings now, but not fifty years ago? Godlessness. That's why. You can't sanction hundreds of thousands of killings of innocent, defenseless human beings in the womb, and then be shocked when someone acts on that same guiding principle in a mass shooting. These things cannot be separated.

Great question. When existing laws are not getting the job done, then adding more laws would seem to be foolish.

We don't have ridiculous laws in my country, there are millions of guns here, just more highly controlled than in your country and the result, no massacres, no teenagers running amuck, Sure the ungodly still possess them but they only harm their own mostly.

You are right however, ungodliness is the cause, but not entirely, in my country there has been a decline in church going, but not an increase in gun violence, so the two don't go hand in hand. The point is there is a different ethos and that what makes the difference. people here are unwilling to tolerate gun ownership for the sake of gun ownership. Our response to a problem isn't to take weapon in hand and kill someone

[jlisenbe]

Godlessness? No. Mental illness in some form or other? Yes!!!

Are you seriously trying to suggest that there was no mental illness sixty years ago when mass shootings were extremely rare? Really? Sixty years ago there were basically no gun laws and anyone could own whatever gun he wanted short of a fully automatic weapon. Where I went to school, boys brought their hunting rifles to school to go hunting when school was out. You could order a gun and ammo from the Sears catalog. Yet mass shootings were very rare. How do you explain all of that, WG? People were mentally ill, but they didn't go around shooting up the place. How do you explain that?

Clete, does this accurately describe gun laws in Australia?

There is only one reason for owning a handgun in Australia as a sporting shooter and that’s being a member of a pistol club and being an active member. You can not apply for a pistol license with out being a financial member of a club for at least 6 months. You can not own a firearm for self defence purposes and you can not use a handgun for hunting in Australia.

6 months probation

A person wishing to apply for a handgun licence must be active member of their pistol club and complete 6 introduction safety pistol shoots in the first 6 months of membership. Once the probation period is completed and your participations records are filled in, with written consent of the pistol club you can apply for a handgun license.

[paraclete]

No problem because you are properly trained and observed and safe to handle a weapon but we don't need guns, we don't have nutters running around killing people

[jlisenbe]

So you can have a gun when Papa Government and all the proper authorities sign off on it? Wow. Nothing like liberty!

[paraclete]

True liberty is living in peace with other people without fear

[jlisenbe]

It is for you.

[Wondergirl]

Sixty years ago there were basically no gun laws and anyone could own whatever gun he wanted short of a fully automatic weapon. Where I went to school, boys brought their hunting rifles to school to go hunting when school was out. You could order a gun and ammo from the Sears catalog. Yet mass shootings were very rare. How do you explain all of that, WG? People were mentally ill, but they didn't go around shooting up the place. How do you explain that?

TV shows, a lot with police, CSI, shooters gone wild. Those didn't exist until recently. Also, especially important nowadays, the internet -- Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook groups are just a few of the online gathering places for the unhinged to vent and threaten and brag. The internet didn't exist when you went to school, JL.

The mentally ill were institutionalized back then when you were in school, JL. Now they run wild and free (too often not taking their prescribed meds), packing their AR-15s and other weaponry.

[Wondergirl]

No problem because you are properly trained and observed and safe to handle a weapon but we don't need guns, we don't have nutters running around killing people

Precisely! And that's who's shooting up our country -- not the godless.

[jlisenbe]

TV shows, a lot with police, CSI, shooters gone wild. Those didn't exist until recently. Also, especially important nowadays, the internet -- Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook groups are just a few of the online gathering places for the unhinged to vent and threaten and brag.

There's a lot of truth in that, all of which relates back to the godlessness you claim does not exist. The ramp up in shootings FAR preceeded the internet. You must keep up better.

The mentally ill were institutionalized back then when you were in school, JL. Now they run wild and free (too often not taking their prescribed meds), packing their AR-15s and other weaponry.

I agree. And guess who is responsible for that? If you said liberal dems, you nailed it.

[Wondergirl]

There's a lot of truth in that, all of which relates back to the godlessness you claim does not exist. The ramp up in shootings FAR preceeded the internet. You must keep up better.

Ah, those godless mentally ill people!!! Nope, the internet has become a conduit for rage and impotence and hopelessness, to vent and decry and scream.

I agree. And guess who is responsible for that? If you said liberal dems, you nailed it.

What Ronald Reagan is not known for is the long term effect of a law he repealed that deinstitutionalized mentally ill patients at the federal level. This decision to deinstitutionalize mentally ill patients had a very deleterious effect on these patients, their communities, and the agencies that too often were helpless to deal with their mental health issues.

[jlisenbe]

Read again very carefully. The godless elements are underlined so you can easily see them. "TV shows, a lot with police, CSI, shooters gone wild. Those didn't exist until recently. Also, especially important nowadays, the internet -- Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook groups are just a few of the online gathering places for the unhinged to vent and threaten and brag."

What Ronald Reagan is not known for is the long term effect of a law he repealed that deinstitutionalized mentally ill patients at the federal level.

The vast, vast, vast majority of institutionalized mentally ill patients were on a state level. The emptying of those facilities occurred largely because of court cases brought by well meaning, foolish liberals.

[Wondergirl]

Read again very carefully. The godless elements are underlined so you can easily see them. "TV shows, a lot with police, CSI, shooters gone wild. Those didn't exist until recently. Also, especially important nowadays, the internet -- Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook groups are just a few of the online gathering places for the unhinged to vent and threaten and brag."

Police and CSI aren't godless. Shooters are mentally ill and/or have personal challenges.

The vast, vast, vast majority of institutionalized mentally ill patients were on a state level. The emptying of those facilities occurred largely because of court cases brought by well meaning, foolish liberals.

States obey and follow federal guidelines. Reagan was a Republican.

[jlisenbe]

Police and CSI aren't godless.

Nah. All those murders, rapes, shootings, sexual assaults, and immoral sexual relationships are not godless. Well...I guess they are not godless to you. They are to me. The state of television and movies relative fifty years ago is like comparing a nice farm pond to a cesspool. If you really believe that we have not become a much less godly country than we were fifty years ago, then I don't know how to help you. Just in terms of hundreds of thousands of abortions a year, and the refusal to condemn it by professing Christians like you, we are living in a cesspool. When it's perfectly OK to kill the most innocent and defenseless, then what do you tell someone who merely wants to kill five or six adults? How do you make that argument?

State mental institutions are not controlled by the feds. And your reference to Reagan is simply wrong.

"The disappearance of long-term-care facilities and psychiatric beds has escalated over the past decade, sparked by a trend toward deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and '60s, says Dominic Sisti, director of the Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care at the University of Pennsylvania."State hospitals began to realize that individuals who were there probably could do well in the community," he tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. "It was well-intended, but what I believe happened over the past 50 years is that there's been such an evaporation of psychiatric therapeutic spaces that now we lack a sufficient number of psychiatric beds."

Now to be clear, I completely agree with you about the state of mental health care.

https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/56747...-health-crisis