TheLeviathan

The reality is that moving Sano to RF pretty much means Arcia isn't starting and is likely finished with the team. I would rather go with Sano, Park, Vargas, Arcia, and Kepler for 3B/DH/RF than Plouffe, Sano, Park and a strong likelihood of Arcia's career being over. Plouffe is a fine player, but people are wildly overrating his contributions. (Which is what Winston was getting at earlier IMO)

Evidence appears to be pointing more at terrorism.

Same here. As a primary teacher, the very notion of something like that happening to my kiddos or someone like them is horrifying. And out of that we accomplished nothing other than having some idiots seriously arguing about arming teachers. It fuels a lot of my opinions on this issue. We have to win the culture war, it isn't what people want to hear because it doesn't sound like it's a fix. But we aren't going to win this with legislation, not in the current climate of guns. (And I hate saying that. We should keep trying, but if we want legislation with teeth we have to win the battle of ideas)

I hadn't even heard that. That's ridiculous.

Oh I know...I don't mind being the bad guy and saying it. It isn't both sides, it's the damn NRA.

The problem with the "right to bear arms" is that it has become the "right to bear whatever high octane weaponry I think is kick ass" I'm ok with people owning hunting rifles and things like that. But people are able to purchase weapon caches the Punisher would be proud of.

Oh I wouldn't say both sides. The NRA propaganda mean is ruthlessly effective. It doesn't matter what stupid thing they say that the rest of us go "Really...WTF?".....there are millions who respond to taht same idea with "Hell yeah! Ain't nobody taking my gun!" It can't be said enough how strong that notion is out there. It's why any kind of national gun law is going to be extremely hard to pass and anything that might get passed is likely to be toothless. We've got to get more people shifted from "Hell yeah!" to "WTF?" every time the NRA talks. That's going to take time and a blitzkrieg against our notion of the gun. But it has to happen.

I have talked solutions: we need to win the war of ideas. We have to change the minds of those who think arming teachers or others to solve massacres is stupid. Right now there are millions that passionately believe that and fund the NRA to make that a reality.

Well said Brock. We can all sit here and agree that more laws and tougher laws are good. But for every one of us there is someone putting their money where there mouth is with the NRA and funding the idea that more guns are the solution. A classroom of first graders was slaughtered and we heard teachers need guns. And a lot of freaking people believed that! A LOT of people.

The NRA represents a lot of people and the truth is that there is a STRONG segment of the population that doesn't agree with you and me about guns and laws and what has to change. They don't think anything needs to change. In fact, they'd rather double down.

That's just not how our country works and the NRA is too powerful to let this be an exception. Just my opinion. Feel free to push for someone to try it though.

You're going down that road again. I'm not against trying things, I'm just talking reality. In the majority of the country that law never even sees the light of day.

Sure those little bits do help, but they aren't likely to make a signficant impact. Not on what is already out there. And no, New York is not the same as everywhere. In part because most places wouldn't even get that law passed.

Maybe I was just unclear about which line you were taking issue with. I agree, the "mass murder" one is not one I appreciate either. I don't know how we deal with proliferation. I mean, I'd love to say - report to your local police station and turn in your guns. But that's just not going to happen. And we can't knock down doors and take them. So how do you deal with that other than winning the culture war and time?

glunn wasn't saying "do nothing", that reaction to his comments is what has to stop. I got the same crap for pointing out reality. Pass laws. Please. Go for it. Do whatever you can. But don't think that the existing proliferation isn't a HUGE part of the problem and will continue to be for a long time. I think you completely misrepresented what glunn said. It was a statement of fact about how things are and how that is a huge part of the problem AND it's true. It wasn't a statement about what to do, it was about how things are.

Duh....they all are.

Holy crap Dave, you still haven't processed what I said? I get we all want to say "Enough, tougher gun laws!" and as I've always said - I'm super cool with that. But now let's talk reality. Guns are freaking everywhere. Are you going to pass laws to take those from people? If not, as glunn correctly points out, it's going to take a LONG time to reduce the proliferation in our country. And any law that demands people turn over their guns is going to be a total non-starter. And that's not even the hardest part. The hardest part is that the strongest force in this conversation politically is the NRA and they have BOTH parties in their pocket. You won't even get an effective bill passed in this country no matter what happens. This was horrible, but we had a classroom of 6 year olds slaughtered and nothing budged. You think this is going to change that? What is "pointless" is the rhetoric that thinks you can just pass some laws and fix this. That assumes (incorrectly in my opinion) that you can even get the laws passed and ignores the enormous proliferation already in existence. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the only way we're going to fix this is to neuter the NRA and attack the very idea of the gun in our country. We need a whole scale attack on the gun in the same way we attacked the cigarette. We turned a staple of American life into a cancer-ridden death stick. It took some time but we totally changed the perception of the cigarette. In so doing we greatly reduced the influence of the tobacco industry (it's still tough, but nowhere near what it was). We can't have meaningful laws passed or reduce the existing proliferation until we get the populace to truly believe the gun is the problem. So yeah, pass whatever meager, weak law you can pass in the wake of this. I'm fine with that, I don't care for guns at all. But don't fool yourself into thinking that the current climate is going to pass anything with real teeth. That's going to take something bigger.

There are a lot of rumors floating around, it's refreshing to see the police doing their best to withhold speculation until they gather more concrete evidence. Crazy.

Center for people with developmental disabilities? Good lord the depths of violence in the human soul just know no limits. If true we'd have people with mental illness and health needs being helped, attacked god knows what reason. Truly sad.

I agree, I don't know how he's going to play out there. Though I do believe the skill set he has may not make him much of an outfielder. But he could prove me wrong. That said, the reverse is also true - people seem to speak pretty certainly about his inability to play third also and give him no chance of improving there. I believe this is all rooted in a VERY misguided attachment to Plouffe.

It's hard for me to get any good information right now, I saw a "social services center" - has there been any clarity as to what that means? But yeah, I don't know what it's going to take to shift how we think about guns in America. I would've thought a slaughtered bunch of 6 year olds at school would do it but we don't seem to have any initiative to change on this.

Seems he had something of a criminal history. Was also reported in places that a woman opted not to pursue rape charges and one of his wives declined to press charges for domestic abuse. It does reinforce how serious the trust problem with women and our justice system on these matters still is.

Not a fan.

Hanzee killing Dodd would do nothing but make Bear appreciate him more IMO.

Maybe, but it's a bluff on Trumps part and imagine the way the rest of the field could rip him for a cable news network basically scoffing at him despite all that bluster.