Becca Campbell: Woman allegedly kills herself with gun bought to prepare for Ferguson unrest

[MisterP]

29. the ratio is, what, 4:1? of course gun makers and sellers aren't selling safety, protection, and

being-in-control, they're selling the illusions thereof

in the 2000s they started trotting out "the million saved just by brandishing every year aren't included!" and "rural areas are full of guns but have less gun crime, so you at least have to stop daring to ever criticize rifles"; these arguments showed they were on the defensive; but the thing is, 80-90% of Americans (and 70-80% of NRA members) isn't enough to pass or give momentum to even the most nugatory bills: Newtown showed us not just Washington's real and dangerous fecklessness, not just that we're crippled by our own gun fetish, not just that school administrators would rather hold unannounced "live shooter" drills that scar students as badly as an actual (if deathless) "incident"

Newtown showed that at some high level we've somehow given up, that the shootings not only *have* increased and *do* hit places with armed guards, but it just doesn't stay in the conversation: it's not that we've accepted them as routine or believe there's nothing we can do (NRA talking point #2): those 70-90% numbers disprove that; it's not that we're afraid of overreacting like we did after Littleton: kindergartners still aren't allowed to sign their surname "Hunter" because it looks like they're shaping their hand into a pistol, and even good campus police are more about letting students know they're always under the gun even in the classroom than about getting into the inevitable gunbattle; maybe everyone's afraid to have to be the one to go first, or there's an Abilene paradox at work somewhere in the works, preventing movements from getting past the neighborhood or state level (heck, rootin' tootin' Colorado has been making progress, including when the Pubs made a clean sweep a few weeks ago)

(but on this particular story I'm still waiting for the investigation ...)