[inb4 TOO SOON: 1. Willis committed this months ago 2. “too soon” after WHICH mass shooting? it’s just as much prophetic since in America there’s a new one practically fucking weekly]
What do you mean, a danger? He is saving her from worse. Her immortal soul might not yet be irretrievably lost. But now’s the time to cut her losses, obviously.
…….Fucking hell…. Willis. Please. I REALLY want some Gore in the next few pages/chapters, Give us some catharsis with Nutjob up there getting shot by the cops.
“He is saving her from worse. Her immortal soul might not yet be irretrievably lost. ”
In the NT that’s not his call. Never was. Never will be.
But don’t let me get in the way of your opinion.
I’m not allowed to.
I could kind of sympathise with him before this strip. He’s just ignorantly trying to help his daughter, so he’s just the classic bumbling, overprotective dad!
Then he draws a gun, and I’m like, WTF?
This will be good.
While it is a drastic turn of events, the girls are actually pretty safe considering the context. The fact that there was almost immediate cover and that he had to spend time taking the gun out gives them a considerable amount of time for the police to arrive. The fact that he has done this on a college campus means that the initial police response will be within 3 minutes, but I would guess within 1 to 1.5 minutes considering that IU has a police department. The following police response would take 3-5 minutes but would be massive, possibly involving multiple police departments. SWAT would be called, but I don’t know where the nearest team is based, so they might not even make it there before the situation is resolved.
He’ll be arrested either way. Seriously, I’m starting to wonder what happened to his wife…
There are already witnesses, and while a courtroom may empathize with the Browns, being clean-cut, ‘productive members of society’ & well to do, they may feel less understanding about ‘Toe Dad,’ who basically comes off as a short, redneck nutjob, who’s probably been unemployed for a long time, engaging in ‘typical redneck behavior’ and probably planning to shoot up the nearest government building next unless he’s put away soon.
Joyce’s parents may blame Toe Dad’s actions of her, Becky, and their ‘heathen’ friends once the Pubic Eye isn’t watching, but I’d imagine they would keep their distance during his trial….Especially if the prosecution convinces him to take the stand…Part of the same Church Family or not.
I would have to guess the ‘little lady’ was so ground under the heel of religious horseshit that she would sit back and take it, just like that dumbass Duggar bongo.
This is the first time I’ve really seen someone use the bongo word to try to dehumanize someone on here (I wasn’t here when the filter was instated), so I’m not surprised it’s in a blaming the victim context as well.
Eh… maybe. I don’t think so though… I don’t particularly care for Joyce’s parents, but they strike me as too honest and sincere to be that calculating about the whole thing.
Calculating? Actions as basic as being mad at a party that they’re already predisposed to view as ‘in the wrong’ due a knee-jerk impulse to separate themselves from something that’s just too much from them to handle (not just what Ross is doing, but the fact he’s one of their own, who’s supposed to be inherently above this kind of ‘stabbing and shooting’ and they trusted them) and not diving at the chance to make themselves an accomplice to ‘mad gunman’ infanticide, which everyone will see them and what they stand for as being about (it’s too difficult for them to even fathom Ross using such criminal methods as it is)
Kind of like how a bunch of kids all gather to support that idiot daredevil wanna-be they hang out with when he shows off his latest stunt, but run for the hills without getting an adult or anything when that stunt goes horribly, and life-threateningly, wrong. It’s more fight-or-flight based reaction than a deliberately conniving attempt to evade accountability. Why develop the awareness that’ll lead to an understanding of the importance of accountability when simply being sincere and having good intentions will keep all but the most cynical jerks from blaming you for anything that goes afoul in your life?
Damn, can you imagine how the characters would react if they knew some of the stuff posted in these comment chains? He’d possibly take aim at us for the Toe-Dad comments alone. Then if he saw the other stuff? He’d wanna go to TOEn on all of us… O_O
If the fourth wall was that thin, I’d start throwing stuff straight from Mortasheen at him. Specifically, this: http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/pride.htm. Seems appropriate, no?
Ol’ Shotgun Rossie’s starting to validate our Family Guy-assed assumptions from his first appearance, that were solely based on the way he looked, so less.
Then there’s how it stacks with he way he speaks, in contrast to how Mr. and Mrs. Brown talk. They sounded like actual ‘fundies.’ Ross sounds like someone sent by a religious cult to act as an enforcer/martyr. I don’t think that’s something he picked up form his and the Brown’s pastor or their church family in general without the assistance of the voices in his head.
That part’s the punchline. Jackie & Dina’s lives being in danger are scary enough as it is. They may have help, too. Sal’s pretty sharp in these kind of situations, this is hardly the first thug-father based security threat this university had to deal with this semester, and how long to you think he will last once he fails to get a clear shot at Amazigirl?
What I don’t see on that firearm is a front sight, so it’s not a rifle – not a .22, not a BB gun, not a high calibre rifle. It’s a shotgun. Maybe about 20 gauge from the looks of the barrel.
It’s a Ruger “No.1”, and old style single shot rifle that costs $1200+ and comes in a ton of weird calibers you’ve never heard of. About as far “Tactical” or “Assault” as you can get, this says a bit about him as this is something you’d take big game hunting and not something you’d see with a so-called militia or a nutso “prepper”.
Without sights, it’s unlikely to hit what he’s aiming at outside of a about 50 feet (depending no how used to hipshooting he is)… but it’s deadly out to a mile and a half.
If it is indeed a Ruger 1V (which seems to be the general consensus) he’s got only one shot before the girls get into the cover of the woods, but he’s also got the roof of his car to use as a bench rest. I’m afraid there will be blood.
The No.1V’s (varminter) are all chambered in small lightweight cartridges so generally around 300-400 yards/meters but with no sights on that rifle if he’s good at point shooting maybe 100? But then again if they’re taking this into the woods that may be more than he’ll have. Dunno how dense the woods in Indiana are but the only large forested areas between the Noodle&Co and the fountain look to be at the Kirkwood Observatory and behind Lily Library, both of which have many walking paths.
I am deeply impressed by how quickly you guys identified the rifle in question. I am also heartened to learn it’s a single-shot with no sights; I am also pleased to note the person in the background who noticed Ross haul it out.
I am sure the S.W.A.T. team will be here within ten. Meanwhile, at least there’s a certain amount of cover.
Hmm. Which is going to be more important to him, getting even with Dina or “saving” Becky? I suspect the latter.
Not that it really matters because RUN.
Oh hey also in Texas at least it’s now legal to conceal-carry on college and university campuses. It will probably cause more problems than it solves but hey, someone could take out Toe-Dad, at least. Whether or not they could do it without taking out any innocent bystanders, though… And whether or not someone else who was also armed just saw the first person taking Ross down and figured they were the shooter and took them down… That could end up like the Monty Python bit about the autumn leaves committing suicide.
Many target rifles have double triggers. On has a long pull to set the second trigger. The second trigger is almost a hair trigger. I’ve used them in competition. Fortunately, they’re less than useless on a moving target.
Looks like a single shot hunting rifle. They are usually chambered in older big bore hunting cartridges used for buffalo or elephant. The lever under the triggers opens the breach. The twin triggers are probably what is called a single set trigger. Single set triggers are used for fine shooting. The first trigger is pulled to “set” the rifle, making the second a hair trigger that will go off at the lightest touch. Hence the term “hair trigger” which is entirely appropriate for Toe Dad.
You’d be surprised the damage a BB gun cause. It may be air powered, but’s it’s still enough to put you in the ER, especially if it gets you near a vital organ.
BB guns are a type of pellet gun that shoots spherical ammo (similar to an Airsoft round but metal) instead of the sort of conical ones a lot of pellet guns use. So you may have them there after all?
I’ve been shot from close range with a high-powered CO2 pellet pistol (in the weirdest driveby ever) and I can tell you that a metal pellet will go through very heavy denim, cotton, skin, and flesh quite handily. Fortunately for me (and hilariously, because I tell this story aiming for a laugh these days) where they got me was square in my left arse cheek. Bled like a bastard, though, hurt like hell, my arse was black and blue for weeks, and I limped for about a week.
It looks like either a BB gun or a .22, and I’d assume the latter for a variety of reasons. And lever-action isn’t semiautomatic which is what’s usually used for this sort of insanity. But it’s still definitely a deadly weapon on school grounds that he’s threatening 2 people with as part of a hate crime. Fortunately .22 shots are more survivable than most bullets, but that’s not saying much.
No, it’s definitely some sort of 12 gauge break-action.
I can’t tell if it’s a single or double barrel model and even if there’s only one trigger visible it doesn’t mean it’s not a double barrel since some models are designed to operate with a single trigger.
I really doubt there’s any intention of super-accurate gun representation, as lever-action double-set triggers (your best bet for google search term, here) kind of went out of style in the 1880s, and were almost never seen in shotguns. Toe-dad doesn’t strike me as an obscure historical firearms collector 😉
Closest matches would be: Low Wall Model 1885 in .22 Hornet (which is only a .22, but very much on the “magnum” end),
or Marlin Model 1881 in 40-60 gauge Marlin (despite the use of the word “gauge” there, is not a shotgun).
Nobody has done that weird open-lever design in about 130 years because it’s simply begging for a chance to snag on something and cause a fatal accident. Simply owning a gun increases your chance of getting shot (just, like, statistically speaking, really don’t want to start a fight), and open-lever is actively begging for that.
Finally, the barrel looks too narrow to be anything but BB/.22, but again: really doubt there was any intended accuracy here. It’s probably as dangerous as it needs to be to serve the narrative, right?
If I can just remind you that we’re talking about a cartoonist who sets his strips in a real world location, knows the exact street / building they’re in, and constantly updates his backgrounds from photographs of the setting to make sure they stay accurate?
That’s… a really good point. Before I escaped via college I was raised in the *exact* same culture as Joyce/Becky/the cartoonist, basically by Joyce’s parents but half the church was exactly like Becky’s, so just hanging out with friends (non-church friends super discouraged) meant a surprisingly thorough education in firearms just through, like, osmosis. The Low Wall (specifically this one is actually a 1995 production heavily based off historical styles, so it’s physically possible for Toe-Dad types to own one in the real-world. Just… my experience was that’s way more of a Remington 700 generic deer-rifle crowd.
Eh, I know basically nothing about guns (and pretty happy to stay that way) but when people in the comments started naming specifics I figured it was probably intentional – Willis does his research.
I imagine it’s intended to tell us something about Toedad, like his Walmart-issue combat pyjamas, though the specifics go over my head.
I want to be a collage student. just stare at them all day and try to learn what magazines the pictures came from. would be boring and pointless probably, but a hell of a lot cheaper
(Damn my fingers always get the a and e keys mixed up)
Collages can be really fun if they’re well made. And pretty. Though not as pretty as decorated bentou. (I don’t know why but whenever I try to picture a collage, a pokémon-style bentou I saw once somewhere always pops into my head.)
! Last week Montage ™ figured in another webtoon that I follow, now Collage ™ here. Same class of pharmaceuticals, right? They cause visions of multiple images posted in close proximity of space or time, often bleeding into each, right?
Probably beyond Amber’s budget, but not Bruce Wayne when he was in college. Seriously. There are some schools with more than a few students with access to serious scratch.
I don’t remember what show it was on Spike, but they showed that if you fold a piece of silk over several times it will actually stop a bullet. No idea what calibre bullet though. TL;DR: Silk pajamas ftw?
Silk pyjamas, it ends up, at least what can be bought online, are ridiculously expensive (went looking a while back). Silk fabric, though, can be a lot cheaper; I got my cream silk satin for $10/metre; and a friend got her red silk at $6/metre. Canadian. And that was in stores, not online. I can’t even get cotton broadcloth that cheap here. And Amber can apparently sew…
Little India in Vancouver, BC and Little Pakistan at the top end of Surrey, BC are amazing fabric places, yo.
I’d not, but that’s just because its safer to not get involved. If they’re really concerned, what’s stopping Dina or Becky from using the phone they had and calling the police. They’re both adults and just because a parent wants something means nothing once they hit the age of majority, a parent can’t legally for them to pass the salt.
If you see a man pulling out a rifle while chasing two college-aged girls, and you *don’t* call the cops, you’re not a coward, you’re a freakin’ monster.
Dina and Becky are a bit busy being pursued trying to not be shot right now. Guy in the background has a lot more leisure time to fish his phone out of his pocket, turn it on, dial 911, and describe what he saw.
Plus, he’s far enough away that the conversation’s not gonna be heard by toedad unless he’s a phone-yeller.
Maybe even get Random Bystander 2 to take some pics/video as either later evidence for Police or to help identification (or more likely Facebook… -_- )
Hmmm….I believe this is an occasion meriting profanity. Yes. This definitely qualifies.
FUCK you, dude. It doesn’t put you in any more danger to run away and call 911 than it does to run away and go about your day. If you honestly wouldn’t call the police after seeing someone chasing two girls with a gun, then yeah, you’re part of what’s wrong with the world.
One night we were lying in bed, unable to sleep. It was an unusually warm night so we had the window at the head of the bed cracked open a bit. Suddenly, we heard gunfire. Bang. Bang bang. Bang.
“Help me! Somebody help me!” Tires squealing.
I called 911. My husband pulled on some pants and tried to find the guy, whom he could still hear calling for help.
We later talked to someone in the neighbourhood (the shooting was in the field across the road from him; the cops took the opportunity to bust him for having a grow-op; he said it was unrelated and it might have been; everyone has a grow-op in Vancouver) who had talked to other neighbours in the area; lots of people had heard the shooting; many of them were closer than we were.
The cops told us we were the only people who had called them. Middle of the night, lights off in all the houses, no way to tell what anyone was doing, and nobody else “wanted to get involved”. Because apparently picking up a phone and spending ten minutes talking to the 911 operator to get help for a gunshot victim WITH NO RISK AT ALL is “getting involved”. >:(
I’ve been that person too, with someone getting the shit beat out of them with a board (and screaming) outside my apartment building, at which at least 6 apartments facing the scene were occupied, as well as various houses.
I want to thank you for making the call, but also to be fair, you said this was at night? Maybe other folks were out/asleep/had earplugs in because bedmates snore (I fall into the latter category).
((unrelatedly?, I do sometimes worry because my partner regularly has earphones on and wouldn’t find me for at least an hour or two if I fell in the shower))
You’re right I am what is wrong with this country it took this girl over a decade to learn the lesson that the police won’t protect me, and don’t care. Took trying to report my first sexual assualt, threatened with jail time over trying to report their unwillingness to take my report, let alone investigate/arrest my attacker, arrested for a brunt out tail light, ohhh and lets not forget being sexually assulted by a male officer at a checkpoint…. Sure I’m what’s wrong with this world. I could go on but it’d do no one any good would it?
Your experiences are valid, but they aren’t relevant to this, they don’t negate the need to get emergency services on site in this sort of situation and calling 911 does not mean having to talk to or be around police (and at worst you can get someone else to call in (eg, the person next to the person in the last panel background)). I can comprehend why you wouldn’t want to be involved even if I don’t have your deep understanding of your experience, but calling 911 doesn’t mean getting involved and could be a life or death difference for someone else.
Indeed it is. I was in high school when Columbine happened, and it was a huge deal. I live a long way from Colorado, and it was still a major topic of conversation in my school for quite some time. Now, mass shootings are a regular occurrence. “Terrifying” isn’t a strong enough word, but I can’t think of a strong enough word to do our present situation justice.
I hate to rain on everyone’s parade of doom, but violent crime in the US (including murder) has been trending steadily downwards for several years now, with current rates the lowest in decades. Call me strange, but I find the idea of fewer people being murdered a good thing.
I’m not for one second trying to suggest that the murders that do happen aren’t horrible, or that even lower rates wouldn’t be better. I’m just saying that it makes no sense to run around shouting “The sky is falling!” when things are actually getting better.
Violent crime in general is declining, but there is a worryingly huge increase in the specific category of violent crime where one person goes into a public space and kills as many people as they can before being killed or arrested themselves.
Saying that things are getting better because crimes are decreasing is like saying that the number of insect stinging incidents is decreasing while ignoring the fact that 40% of insect stinging incidents are swarms of killer bees killing toddlers (please not that this is a hypothetical example). If there are half as many stings, and 40% of them are dead toddlers, that’s still millions of dead toddlers, which tends to be an indication that something is horrifically wrong.
On a more realistic note, it’s like the incidence of heart disease. As I recall from research, the average life expectancy has gone up steadily, but the risk of heart disease has also gone up. You’re basically saying “don’t worry about heart disease, you’re likely to live longer so it doesn’t matter.” That’s completely wrong. You worry about heart disease. Take care of your shit. If something is as completely outside the norm as the number of mass shootings we have in the US on a yearly basis in the last few years (which has risen to an enormous, horrifying level from almost none just ten years ago), something needs to be done about it. If it were only the ration that was going up, it wouldn’t be a concern, but the ratio and the numbers are going up. As most crime is falling off, this one specific thing rises the way you would expect of a cross between a James Bond movie and a frikkin’ war.
You’re right. “Things” are getting better, but we’re not talking about “things.”
We’re talking about mass killings. And those are absolutely getting worse.
Except, is it? Does pure violence ever really solve issues, or more just delay/bury them? It’s like that cheap fix that you know is going to break worse than the first time, but later, and hopefully you’ll have the money/time/wit to deal with it then.
Um… what world do you live in where terrible people realise they’re being terrible and stop? Terrible people are either always in denial that they are terrible (like Toedad here who is now claiming to be the Hand of God), or they know they are terrible and like themselves that way.
I know it’s nigh-impossible to do that. I just wish there was a way to a: make people less defensive regarding their preconceived notions b: make them less likely to discard statements out of hand and think them through, allowing you to make people realize how horrible they are. Unless there’s some kind of ridiculous neurochemistry-affecting kind of fungus out there that does that, I hold no illusions that such a thing is actually possible.
So what you’re saying is what we need is Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare. That allows the recipient to feel exactly what they put the other person through.
While I’m guessing you mean to deal with Toedad, I think that might be a bit inappropriate considering another American idiot went stupid with a gun recently…
Not calling you a liar, but as awful as they are, school shootings do not happen every day. To the best of my knowledge. I’ll readily accept solid information to the contrary.
Not school shootings. Mass shootings, in which there are at least four victims. Scroll down to find a large in-lined calendar chart of them. Can’t miss it.
Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with people. I suppose I can’t expect that the gun lobby wisely decided that it might not be a good idea to push their interests this year.
I don’t understand why he pulls out a gun. Why does he need a gun? He’s trying to capture an unarmed woman. Unless he intends to use the threat of harm to compel her he’d be better off using his bare hands to subdue her. How does he intend to put her in a car at gunpoint without getting arrested?
Is it because he knows he can’t run her down? We know that he beats her so he must be able to catch her and subdue her without a gun. Unless he uses the weapon to force her to submit to beatings. Are we supposed to know more about his character and a preference for guns from a pre-DOA work?
He might be the ‘corporal punishment’ type, although I don’t believe it was mentioned anywhere.
His intent with the gun may be many things. With his short legs, I think he knows he cannot outrun his daughter, so maybe he seeks to lame her, or slow her down – more than a bit harsh, but in his mind, gentler attempts to change her have failed.
Another, even more disturbing, option, is that the gun is meant for Dina. He knows Dina intentionally deceived him, and may now view her as aggravating his daughter’s rebellion. His warped mind may justify killing Dina as a way to save Becky.
I have a major problem with any religion (or, to be more fair, any religious person) that considers what is done to a corporeal body as completely irrelevant so long as you can save their soul by doing so. You know. Save it by the rules of your interpretation of your religion.
I’d rather you not mess up someone’s physical body to save their souls, thanks all the same. Geez. That was the same justification for burning witches.
At least if all Ross is concerned about is saving her soul to the complete detriment of all else, and doesn’t think she’s currently in a state of grace, he proooobably won’t actually kill Becky? Although of course that doesn’t necessarily preclude outright harm.
“Love one another.” “Treat each other as you would want to be treated.” Honestly, how is that so hard?
I think you have unrealistically high expectations for the rational forethought and planning ability of the typical American fundamentalist gun-wielding maniac.
Since the year this strip takes place in is free to incorporate elements of real-world happenings from [i]many[/i] years, it’s possible that the IU students are aware of what to do in the event of shootings.
I spent a lot of time digging around Willis’ tumblr last night looking for it, and I can’t seem to find it anymore. He posts a lot of stuff. It’s in there somewhere, though.
Oh, hey, maybe Blaine and Ross will meet in the hospital, talk things over, and decide to team up! That way we won’t have to deal with their separate plot threads and less time will be devoted to them total, because they’ll be sharing screen time when they get any! Yay!
Knocking a human unconscious without doing lasting damage is a very tricky thing to do. That why anaesthetists exist as a job separate from surgeons. The amount you use varies according to height, weight, sex, age, and a million other factors. It’s far harder to do than the movies have taught us.
I mainly get it from the consultant anaesthetist I’m friends with who rants about how easy the movies make his job. And also about how most medical shows completely ignore them, even though they are the second most important person in the room when something goes wrong during surgery.
(I do similar ranting whenever anyone misuses the word “firewall”.)
*spits out half-a-mouthful of frootloops
Are you telling me people CAN’T have a quiet conversation in a datacenter like in the movie Firewall?
/sardonic
Willis has specifically said that he’s not going to kill off any of his DoA characters. I was concerned yesterday that Becky would be hauled into the car and simply never seen again.
I feel like perma comas or brain injury resulting in loss of any sense of self count as killing, since part of the reasoning is that they would be grieving forever and that applies, except first they’d be visiting the hospital/care home forever.
A major gunshot wound could leave someone in the hospital then rehab for the rest of DoAs 1 year in universe time frame. That seems a path that Willis might have chosen, consistent with this universe — and real life. The so called news LOVES to report shootings and body counts etc, BUT does WAY LESS the consequences for the wounded. (Or the loved ones of those killed). Some news organizations should cover the post-shooting for at least one person day by day by day. Doubt any will. But it’s something that Willis might, given how he’s already following a year in the life of how many troubled kids?
Well, this actually managed to go beyond what I feared would happen, which was that he would try and forcibly abduct her. Shouldn’t have underestimated a religious zealot.
yeah, no joke! to everyone who had envisioned their version of the worst possible path this could take, shotgun-wielding hick chase through the woods: anyone thought it’d be worse than that?
He shoots Dina, Becky gets the gun away from him and kills him. The stress and guilt drives her to drug abuse and eventually suicide. Dina survives and has to live with all of it. Joyce is broken?
Also, Joyce’s parents blame Becky. Jocelyn angrily comes out to them to try to make them understand what they’re actually saying. They disown her and she becomes homeless and forced into prostitution to survive. Joyce spends her sophmore year in a mental institution after a breakdown. Dorothy’s worldview collapses when she learns just how horrible people can be to each other. She gives up, on everything. Sarah gets terminal cancer, because, fuck, why not at this point.
He successfully abducts her and she disappears into a shady conversion camp. The camp administrators apply dangerous psychiatric techniques they don’t understand how to properly use on her, such as electroconvulsive therapy, maybe deep brain stimulation. Becky is rendered a vegetable.
That was actually exactly what I thought his plan was. Horrible enough on its own, but I never considered he would actually take a more hands-on approach to viciously murder his daughter.
yup. now imagine that all happening while dina is hospitalized in critical condition. now remember that all of the good characters have to survive and the comic only lasts through freshman year. bullet dodged!
*on the hacked Muzak, Danny Elfman’s “Hot To Trot” continues and is followed up by “Runaway” from the 007: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY soundtrack (also known as the theme song on RUNAWAY WITH THE RICH & FAMOUS)*
The true standard of heroism is valuing need over capacity. A true hero doesn’t worry about whether they’re capable of stopping a threat, only how badly the threat needs to be stopped. This is why so many of them die.
Well I did say on the bright side. The fact that it’ll take people time to get there is the downside.
And I can’t help but notice that every previous excerpt in this was crafted SPECIFICALLY to show how the people most likely to take down toedad are elsewhere at the moment.
Sarah’s in class, Ruth is so out of it that Billie wasn’t even sure she was breathing at first, Amber’s upstairs with her piece of plastic…
holy cow, that is some big-picture stuff you’re pointing out! i see now that this chapter has been building. but even if amber finishes with jacob iii…
Oh man, if something bad happens to Dina or Becky, and Amber realizes she was playing with Transformers as Amber while it happened, it’s possible that it will mean she tries to forego being Amber entirely.
Then Amazi-Girl doesn’t attend classes, and Amber faces the possibility of flunking out as a result. It’s a terrible plan, but Amber isn’t quite held together as it is.
I believe that the series where if you become important when you weren’t before, you die horrifically would be Gundam, correct?
I don’t think Willis would go that far.
The ONLY reason I’m not freaking the fuck out right now is because Willis has said that nobody dies. I, however, am still freaking out (just not freaking the fuck out) because “gunshot” does not mean “dead”. And “comatose” is not “dead” either.
Oh fuck. If she gets shot as Amazi-girl, the reveal of her secret identity would make that yet another horribly traumatic incident to add to the count of the five or six horrible potential outcomes we’ve already identified.
Current headcanon is that Sal winds up (briefly) in hospital after running Toedad down and failing to land cleanly after going over the handlebars. Toerad meanwhile rots in a Sheriff’s infirmary with broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and two aspirin.
(alternative nearly-happy resolution: Becky’s put in hospital with minor wounds, sorting out her accommodation woes briefly and coming up on Leslie’s radar, who decides let’s sort this shit out.
Daniel here. I would have said “In Australia”, but then I remembered my High School had an onsite Police Officer. Unarmed, mainly to do “don’t break the law” sessions, inform students of the laws they might have broken by doing #####, nothing like preventing school shootings…
My experience in the university of queensland also says the contrary. They had campus guards and im pretty sure they had emergency buttons around the campus ( or maybe im confusing it with smu in dallas).
Averàge police emergency response is 5-10 minutes. Averàge active shooter situation is over in 2-3 minutes. Newtown took under 30 seconds. Even if bystanders are all calling 911, flight is the best response. Moving targets are hard to hit. They are both faster than him, since age and a weapon will slow him down. He doesn’t have an assault weapon. No burst setting. No large magazine. Maybe only a couple rounds. Splitting up will make him think for a second and seconds count. Sucks that I have training on surviving such things.
Imagine someone you loved very much was committing terrible sins. Imagine that you were concerned if they continued they would be damned to hell forever. But if you stopped them (by maybe killing them), they might get off with a brief stint in purgatory.
The options are temporary pain or eternal damnation, and as a parent you would be a failure if you didn’t save your children from eternal damnation. This is the kind of fundamentalism that allows people to do some of the most terrible things anyone has ever thought to do.
I’ve never really understood why fundies don’t see the potential third option. If someone tries to hurt your child, why not try to stop them? Omniscience would make you very, very vulnerable to seizure-inducing imagery.
Yes, but if you’re too lazy to prevent people from trying that in the first place, or make people actually like you and capable of adhering to your ridiculous standards, you’re probably too lazy to protect yourself against that.
I think most of us try and give people the benefit of the doubt and not think they’re total monsters until a guy just pulls out a gun and kind of ruins what little credibility he may have had.
It’s wrong to call Toedad a strawman, since there are people like this out there, most people are not so extreme as Toedad. And Willis has included more moderate examples of people with the same cultural background in Joyce’s parents, so it’s not like we’re suffering from a case of Toedad= all fundementalists.
But people are probably going to call him a strawman anyway for reasons. Goodish reasons, in fact.
Like, to think pulling a gun on your daughter and her girlfriend is okay is so out of most people’s experience that it’s kind of hard for most people to reconcile that with being human. Thus, strawman.
It also means we’re unlikely we’ll ever see Toedad be rational here – a character whose logic is so ingrained in blind faith to a relatively recent religious movement, that he cannot accept that his daughter can be a lesbian and not go to hell. To me that’s a really interesting (and horrible) way of thinking that I want to see explored.
Obviously that’s not the way Willis wanted to take his story. And that’s cool. But disappointed people who wanted to see a basically okay person tragically fail to do good because of their faith, as opposed to psycho gunman 5, are probably going to call strawman. Even if their terminology is wrong.
“…relatively recent”? There have been those who kill their relatives in the name of religion for hundreds of years, while fundamentalists may be ‘relativel recent’, like around 2,000 years: this isn’t a new occurance in human history sadly.
I’m not a fan of any kind of organized religion. Just my own take on things.
The Christian Fundementalist Movement in the US is early 20th century stuff. But, yeah, people have been killing relatives for all sorts of dumb reasons, religion included, for eons.
The more likely thing to happen is that now people will accuse Willis of using Foedad to promote his lib anti-gun and anti-christian agenda by making this good, God-fearing, daughter-loving, real American the villain in the story.
And they’ll be totally wrong. Merriam-Webster has just announced that Toedad’s picture will appear as an illustration for ‘asshole’ in the next edition.
Evil means you have at least a shred of style, logic (and associated lack of hurting people for no reason) and above all, know that you are actually doing something that goes against normal morality. Ross has no style, no capability to reason to speak of and is such an asshole precisely because he’s unwilling to admit that what he’s doing is wrong. Meanwhile, Galasso is pretty much perfectly evil: he has ridiculous amounts of style, is quite logical and nice (being nice to people means more potential followers, you know) and seems quite aware that he is pretty much a supervillain.
whoever jumps in front of the shot. basically, if he corners becky, then dina gets heroic. any wagers? who sits guiltily bedside? becky? still can’t picture him shooting his daughter with non-tranq, but i refuse to do character analysis on him anymore
I’m afraid it’s going to be Dina. Not because he targets her, or because she jumps in front of Becky, but because this Nimrod couldn’t hit the side of a barn from the inside and just starts blazing away indiscriminately.
Aw shit…waiting 24 hours for the next one is going to suck. If this was a (full time) super hero comic this would be a great time for an Amazi-Girl / Ruthless teamup, but it isn’t and the gun scares me.
Seriously, has the musical Into The Woods taught you nothing? People die in the woods! And there are giants! And essentially it’s all a giant metaphor for sex! … wait, the last one was not a negative one. BUT GIANTS. LADY GIANTS.
I’d say he’s going to go after Dina, not Becky. He probably blames her insidious “oriental” influence for turning Becky gay or something, and thinks that if he removes that influence by killing her, he’ll be able to put Becky back on what he perceives as the straight and narrow.
Hopefully the background person will be able to stop it in time. :-/
Of course he’s not concerned with the legality of his actions. Leviticus told him all he needs to know about legality when it comes to such things as homosexuality, never mind all the other Leviticus proscriptions he probably broke all across his own lifetime. That’s where fundies get to pick and choose.
Honestly, he strikes me as the kind of guy who follows all the Leviticus proscriptions to the letter and enforces them on his family and anyone else he thinks he can get away with enforcing them upon. No mixed fabrics for Becky!
Huh, maybe that’s why Becky was so excited about the prospect of Long John Silver’s. She’s never had the opportunity to eat shrimp before.
The Lord is his Judge! No authority on Earth comes close. The Lord gives him strength. The laws of man are naught compared to the Laws of god. The Police mean nothing, he’s on a mission from God…
Those sound like the arguments of someone like Toedad. I grew up in a strongly religious background myself, still barrack for The Big Guy, but I’m not gonna shove a Bible down anyone’s throat. I can see how such mentality can build up, especially in a community type setup where it can all feed back on itself & just get worse & worse, creating people like Toedad here…
Oh I guessed that. I was referring to the fact that people were saying that if Becky was 18 there was nothing Ross could legally do.
(Though now that I think about it, all Ross needed to do was tell on the school authorities, and Becky would be in the same situation as she was in the start except this time with no Joyce to turn to)
That scene was for turning a Church into little more than a Sunday stall, possibly even selling religious symbols from other religions. Usually he was all about messages of pease, “Love one another, as I have loved you”.
That said, if he did the table-flip thing with the CAR, so it landed on top of Toedad so it pinned him with crippling but not fatal injuries, I’d be OK with that…
I suspect a proto-hippie probably wouldn’t like guns. Or Ross in general. God complex or not, I find it doubtful that you’d be able to inspire a following of any reasonable magnitude if you’re enough of a jerk to like Ross.
This is either perfect or the absolute worst timing possible. Also either Willis can see the future or this country is just too predictable when it comes to this. 🙁
What the fuck man!? I just wanted to tell jokes about a family being torn apart by a father not being able to accept his daughter for who she is, why you gotta make it weird by bringing in attempted homicide?
I’m going to guess that Toedad’s the flavor of right-wing that takes a gun everywhere because “it’s mah right” rather than specifically bringing it for this…
Though then again, he believes he is fighting a great demon who has stolen his daughter property from him and the way of the Lord sooooo…. who knows, maybe this really was consciously planned.
Actually those two are just mild forms of right-wing America. The others more extreme ones are basically terrorist who’ve been active since the late 70’s.
do not worry. it is a harmless truck-gun. it’s like a monkey-gun, but it shoots trucks. and there’s no way that anyone would ever die from something like that!
Not wanting to get into the whole gun debate thing here but in the state of mind that hes in do you think he’d follow any gun laws right now since hes already broken a few traffic laws and is currently trying to kidnap his daughter
Yes, but better gun laws could have kept him from owning a gun in the first place. Though tbh I suspect he’s the sort who would do whatever it takes to have a gun.
depends on his background. without a history of violent crime or serious mental health issues, an extreme religious belief-set would likely not keep him from a gun. not christian, anyway
Disclaimer alert, I own a number of firearms and I enjoy shooting them but I agree that certain people shouldn’t own firearms ie certain types of intellectually disabled people shouldn’t and violent convicted criminals shouldn’t but for the rest of us where is that line?
Also I live in NZ so as I understand it our gun laws are different to yours
I’m not saying they’re inherently violent and I’m not saying all shouldn’t but there are some and its specifically those who don’t understand the responsibility of owning a firearm that shouldn’t be allowed access to firearms
I’m just pointing out that you should be careful about how you’re generalizing (especially since people with mental disabilities are actually more likely to be a target of violence, not to commit it).
@christ73 , well, look at it this way, how do you think people would react if you said “certain types of black people”. The fact that you said “certain types” probably doesn’t make it less jarring.
One thing that link makes clear is that the mentally disabled [i]are[/i] more violent on average (even if only a little). All of the statistics listed are easily explained since we’re talking about a small minority – of [i]course[/i] they wouldn’t contribute much to the overall rates. I’ve rarely felt so strongly that someone was trying to mislead me using (accurate) statistics.
If certain conditions are strongly correlated to violence, that would be a good reason to bar those people from ownership. If not, not. But saying that the disabled are in general not violent is irrelevant.
Alright, so, I work with the mentally disabled every day.
I suppose it is technically true that if you took the entire lot, the average trend toward aggression would be higher, because specific disabilities do result in higher aggression. My job has sent me to the ER on at least two occasions.
However, there are “A LOT” of different kinds of disabilities, so lumping them altogether and saying they are more aggressive shows a profound level of ignorance.
At the very least it’s unhelpful. Sorry if my post came off as arguing for the importance of generalizations – I wrote it quickly and while annoyed at what felt like manipulation. I don’t think the overall statistics one way or another are relevant.
As to the debate: I don’t see a problem with the original post. I don’t feel qualified to say much more than that, though.
It’s not so much as the guns as how people who are able to access them handle the responsibility that comes with it. Simply saying ‘NRA’ is both a complete and strong argument in favor of gun control laws, for example.
I wish people wouldn’t use differing paradigms in arguments like this. The societal values of modern day schools and the 1860’s are two entirely different things. 🙁
It’s prevalence in conversation on any high tension subject has me wondering if maybe the problem isn’t with the subjects themselves, but rather with the way we are being taught to rationalize our arguments in debate. Thoughts?
This is what I say in response to the notion that students with guns on campus will solve school shootings — unless gun training is at the level of the constant training in small unit tactics the military does you cannot convince me that I’m safer if the 25 students in my classroom have firearms than if only cops have them on campus. And I’m the professor, so I’m the one most likely to get shot in the classroom.
Yeah. If you’ve got training in how to properly act under pressure, have been trained for similar situations, and have proper gun training and a firearm with you, you might be able to help. Everyone else is just going to make things worse if they’re armed. I don’t get why suddenly people think they’re prepared for this stuff if they know how to shoot a gun, panic and uncertainty are pretty normal human responses to this sort of thing! And even if you manage to think clearly, you can come to the WRONG conclusions about the right thing to do if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. So I’m talking probably either police or military personnel, and not everyone with those backgrounds is going to be helpful, either.
TL;DR – stricter gun laws are far more helpful for preventing incidents like this than arming everyone and teaching them to aim and fire. Friendly fire is absolutely a thing, and a room full of scared, adrenaline-fueled people with guns is not a room you want to be in.
cops with proper gun safety training shoot innocent and/or unarmed people all the time. If I can’t trust cops who are trained to use guns, why the hell would i trust a “gun safety trained” citizen that i don’t know the agenda of with a gun?? You cannot improve a situation by bringing a gun into it. Period. If you introduce a gun into a tense situation you have escalated that situation, even if you’re “properly trained” on how to use it.
If someone else was armed, I’d give it a 25/75 shot. Toe dad already has his gun out and loaded, he’s high on adrenaline, and he’s willing to kill, none of which is true of the potential Big Damn Hero, who also has to shoot well enough to stop him instantly. Meanwhile, running, breaking line of sight, and forcing the angry idiot to aim just has to work long enough for trained professionals to show up. I mean, if you have a gun and are competent/careful, sure use it if you’re feeling brave, but returning fire only guarantees that someone will be shot, not that the right person will be.
It’s been shown that people without proper training for acting under pressure being armed in a situation like this makes things WORSE. You can be of sound mind and have proper firearms training, but if you’re panicking, it’s still a bad combo.
Like the American passengers on plane taken by terrorist: they attacked the terrorists and let the plane fly into the ground rather than allow it to be turned into a weapon on 9/11?
Maybe not the best example as all died, but they acted under the worse pressure very herorically.
Yes. But shooting in an enclosed space would have very bad for them anyway if any of them had had guns, and sadly their heroics came about in the sort of situation where, well, everyone would have died anyway, and mostly the way to be a hero was to also die. Shitty situation. Has nothing to do with gun control.
I live in the UK. Others here are from Australia. Please compare our gun deaths stats with the US’, and look up what really happens when multiple people start exchanging fire.
The ‘if only the victims were armed’ argument has been debunked so thoroughly and repeatedly it’s not even funny.
Assuming Becky had a gun, and assuming she had the wherewithal to use it properly, and the willingness to do so, having to deal with the emotional baggage of shooting or even killing your own father, even if he is a horrible person, is not something to casually wish for.
There’s a reason that most civilized societies regard killing as a last resort, rather than a political statement.
Ross has already gotten his gun out and could finish Dina or Becky before they got theirs out.
If they drew on him first they’d be the criminals. I mean until he got the gun out he hadn’t done anything to justify it.
The same applies to the bystander only they have even less reason to get involved and risked their lives or freedom.
And if you think people should carry 24/7 you need to now apply this logic to EVERY SITUATION WHERE SOMEONE FEELS THREATENED.
You know what makes me feel threatened? People who have such boners for their guns they openly carry, like those thugs I’ve seen pictures of in Wal-Marts with rifles over their shoulders. Is your thinking I should immediately take out my gun whenever I see these people, tell them to get in the ground and shoot them if they don’t comply?
I like it even better in colleges and schools because those places are both densely crowded and full of highly emotional people with less real world experience.
And lets not forget the fact that even people with firearms training (Like cops) tend to miss with most shots and frequently make bad choices about when to employ force. Now apply this everyone, who have no training and the fact any missed bullet from even a handgun will often go all the way through walls and vehicles.
In a country with strict gun control laws, access to firearms is extremely restricted, and the amount of guns in ‘circulation’ in the general population is very low, which would mean it would be very very difficult for him to own or acquire a gun. His intentions with regard to breaking gun laws would be rather academic; there wouldn’t be any guns for him to get.
The laws are effective at lowering gun violence. It is simple, because the biggest risk factor in being a victim of gun violence is the local prevalence of guns. Laws that reduce the number of guns in the general populace reduce gun violence. Of course, the laws aren’t nearly so effective when you can drive an hour away and buy a gun basically without any restrictions.
It is unlikely Becky’s father would have a gun if he didn’t already own one or if it was hard to acquire.
I just don’t think gun laws or restricting them are the way to go for example in NZ once you get your firearms licence after the necessary background checks you then need an endorsement to be able to purchase MSSA (military style small arms) and pistols which seems a good way of going about it
But outright banning firearms or making them very restricted will only emake ven more profits for gangs selling them
That isn’t the only effect it will have though. Its been shown to have been an effective solution in other countries, and is even effective in the US to a more limited extent.
There are benefits and costs to other solutions, but it doesn’t do any good to ignore the actual merits of the alternatives.
Ok so why do NZ, Canada and Switzerland (all first world countries) have relatively low rates of firearm deaths when those countries all have reasonably high firearm owning rates
And in Switzerlands case that includes easy access to assault rifles (fully automatic rifles)
chris73, good questions! You should look into how NZ, Canada, and Switzerland regulate their guns. It is very different from the “everyone should have one, carry it into Target, and be prepared to be in a firefight at all times” approach.
I’m from NZ and I have my firearms licence plus my endorsements for pistol and military style small arms and to get it (abridged version) took testing, background checks, interviews with myself and friends/family, checks of my property, checks of my storage and reasons for owning
Fair enough; I missed where you had said you were from NZ. There are notable differences from the US in all that. You could easily have a case where more restrictions would not be a positive where you are, but would in Indiana.
So compare those rates to NZ which has a much fairer system of gun ownership yet is in the lower half of gun deaths
Sorry I can’t post the links I want without going into moderation but if you google fbi gun homicide statistics and crime you’ll see that both violent crime and homicide by firearms is dropping and has been for years
Arms traders aren’t immune to economics. If nobody has guns easily available for theft (because guns are tightly regulated), then criminals can’t steal guns, and so they can’t sell stolen guns. When they can’t sell stolen guns, criminals can’t buy stolen guns.
The criminals could of course import illegal guns from other countries with more lax gun laws… but then the criminals would still have to smuggle them across the border. This increases the number of middle-men involved in the process, which raises the price of the gun – and when the price goes up, less criminals are able to buy guns.
I don’t think there’s any evidence that making guns more expensive/rarer means that people will commit more crimes just to afford them. You can’t just “probably” that argument.
Thats true but if a criminal wants a firearm and it becomes more expensive I doubt they’ll get a job and save up their pennies until they can afford one
They might not just get a gun at all. At some point the risks outweigh the benefits, even for criminals. Also, if other people don’t have guns, there is less of an incentive for the criminal to have a gun in the first place.
“No it just means criminals will probably just commit even more crime to afford the weapons they want”
That doesn’t make any sense, not least because you have to toss any gun you use in a crime ASAP. The cops will grab the bullet from the scene and if they ever find the gun on you or in your property they’ll match and you’re basically already convicted.
You also forget the other obvious result that criminals will just do crimes that don’t require guns instead, do those crimes without guns or possibly even get real jobs since it’s much harder to commit many crimes that would be easy if you had a gun.
Less of a joke than your BS, for serious. You’re the one talking about the gangbanger’s piggybank.
Also please name these countries because I’m guessing the answer is “Because they be relatively poor with fewer resources to go around” combined with “There is something illegal that a profit can be made on” like the USA’s crazy drugs laws added to “Crimes are committed by disenfranchised groups who feel they are not part of society so are not held by its rules”.
All three have strict gun control laws. All three have roughly a quarter of the rate of murders the USA suffers. I feel the murder rate is the fairest way to analyse the trend. After all if you can kill as easily with a car or a knife or a home made bomb it’d be pointless ban guns. But you can’t.
Why does Switzerland have a high rate of murders involving guns? Because everyone has guns. But they have fewer actual murders because ownership is highly regulated, not just in who can own what and what they can do with them and where they can take them and what records can be kept but in the entire culture of how guns are treated. In the USA for example it’s entirely based on masturbation and really stupid paranoia.
(There’s also the fact that poverty leads to crime and that per-capita the USA is closer to broke-ass-Greece than Switzerland).
“Australia’s gun laws changed drastically after Port Arthur yet its percentages of homicide by firearm is still above 10%”
So it has 1/4th the rate of murder as the USA and 1/10th of those involve guns. So regulation does in fact work according to this example.
“The UK brought in new rules after Dunblane as well but gun crime is still increasing”
And what does that even mean? Dunblane was twenty years ago and after it private gun ownership basically stopped except for highly regulated shotguns for farmers and by extension gun crime dropped right through the floor. If over that twenty years gun crime was at (To pick a number at random) an average of five crimes a year and then last year it was ten that’s a 100% increase but it’s still probably less than any week in New York.
So compare those rates to NZ which has a much fairer system of gun ownership yet is in the lower half of gun deaths
Sorry I can’t post the links I want without going into moderation but if you google fbi gun homicide statistics and crime you’ll see that both violent crime and homicide by firearms is dropping and has been for years
Only a jerk disconnected from reality believes criminals will commit crimes for the purpose of owning guns. For fucks sake, let’s just put this argument in its place – check out Poland. Poor as fuck, with pretty fucking high rates of street crime. There’s also basically no gun deaths. Organized Crime has access to guns, sure! But ordinary criminals don’t.
you realise that the possibility that someone might break a law doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make that law, right? People still commit murder even though it’s illegal, that doesn’t mean we should roll over to the will of the criminals and make murder legal.
Or we could reduce this situation to a matter of basic math. If there are ten guns, and ten people who want a gun, each person is probably going to obtain a gun. But if a gun restricting law put in place that reduces the number of available guns from 10 to 2, at least 8 of those people AREN’T going to get a gun. a 20% chance of a criminal being able to obtain a gun is a WAY safer option than a 100% chance of them obtaining one.
I’m not against gun control, what I’m against is people saying gun control as if thats the answer, it is not.
In this situation gun restrictions would do nothing because unless Toe Dad has broken laws in the past there would be no reason why he couldn’t have what looks like a hunting rifle
What would work is:
1. Standardized laws between the states
2. Rigorously enforced background checks on all weapons sold
3. Checks that weapons can be stored properly before a licence is issued
4. A basic gun ownership test before a licence is issued
and for mass shootings the media needs to stop posting images and names of the shooters
That right there will lower the gun deaths in America faster and fairer then any gun restriction change would do
Sorry I must not have explained it that well, people say gun control/restriction without any specifics as to what those gun restrictions are
For example someone saying gun control might mean that no one is allowed a firearm or that someone may only have one firearm or someone may only have a rifle or so forth
I’m trying to give specific ideas as to what would actually work to bring down the death by firearm rate as opposed to just saying gun control and leaving it at that
Also gun control would do nothing in this situation because I’m assuming Toe Dad has been, up to this point, a law abiding citizen which means there was no reason to not allow him to own a rifle in the first place
Perhaps, but it is far too late for that. And I don’t mean in this situation, I mean in America in general. The right to bear arms was considered important enough to the American public in the late 1700’s that the founding fathers wrote that in as the SECOND Amendment to the constitution, right after the Freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition in the first one. It is simply unfeasible to change that fundament of law, especially since the amendment process is so hard and requires so many people, the only time an amendment was rescinded was when it interfered with our drinking. And even if it weren’t, there are so many guns around today that rounding them all up would be near impossible.
You do realize he could acquire guns from an out of country syndicate don’t you? Many of the illegal weapons in the US are bought through straw purchases, or when someone has an illegally acquired gun who sells it to a person that is buying it for someone else.
I honestly believe that gun control can work two ways: Extremely strict no gun policy whatsoever, or your average conservative gun nut belief of gun control.
Ridding ourselves of straw purchases would be trivial. All we have to do is have gun purchases reported to the FBI and registered. When the straw buyer’s weapons show up as murder weapons at crime scenes, they likely can be charged as accessories to murder.
The illegal weapon black market could be shut down, if we wanted to. The problem right now is the our police organizations effectively have to try to stop it while being blind folded, hog tied, and locked in a broom closet.
I don’t think more gun control is the answer, according to this: http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/gunbook4.pdf there are about 300 gun laws in the USA but the quickest way to lower the death toll would to make gun laws the same throughout your entire country…of course that would also be the hardest thing to do as I understnad it
Especially since the US Constitution expressly forbids the abridgment of the right to bear arms, so the federal government’s hands are tied on that front. And since the Fourteenth Amendment allows and has caused the Bill of Rights to apply to the states, The right-wing gun nuts actually have the upper hand. The only hope is the “Militia” reading of the Second Amendment. That and the same type of pork-barreling that forced the drinking age up to twenty-one.
Do you really think the NRA cares about a more nuanced reading? How about the average American, who chooses who to put in charge of amending the Constitution? (Starting the process requires two-thirds of either the state legislatures or both Houses, completing it requires three-fourths of either)
No but what I’m suggesting is having a standardized set of laws throughout your country would, for example here in NZ the same laws apply whether you travel from the South Island to the North
However I don’t know what type of change that would require in the USA to happen
Gun control is better thought of along public health lines in that if you reduce the amount of guns the number of mass shootings will go down not stop all together.
It’s most likely a double barrelled shotgun, judging by the build and the double triggers. Of course it could be a gun in general, I hear artist have a very difficult time drawing firearms and such
It’s a more complicated problem than that. Gun violence against others doesn’t track with gun ownership (for example, the district of Columbia has one of the lowest rates of legal gun ownership, but one of the highest rates of gunshot homicides in the country). And even despite the news, gun violence has been going down for years. The terrifying assault weapons are in fact the least likely to be involved in a homicide.
On the other hand, gun control would almost certainly reduce gun related deaths. What nobody talks about is that on average two thirds of deaths from firearms are self inflicted, predominantly suicide. Alaska, which has an extremely low rate of gun violence against others, leads the nation in total gunshot deaths. Eighty percent of those are believed to be suicide. When you provide a populace with an easy method of suicide, suicide rates go up, and guns are a very easy method of suicide.
Shorter version: Gun ownership does not correlate to gun violence, gun violence has been going down considerably, gun control would still probably have a meaningful effect of reducing suicides, but the underlying issues are so complex that targeting the guns only is just a band-aid that doesn’t address the underlying cultural, societal, and medical problems that feed it.
It would also significantly reduce what are the second most common victim of guns: your own family. The source of this would be both domestic violence and accidents.
Waiting periods on gun purchases also probably serve the same purpose as anti-bridge jumping barriers. They are far less likely to go through with it because there was an obstacle.
It’s something that weighs heavily on my mind. I’m fundamentally conservative and all about freedoms. I know that taking away the guns doesn’t fix the fundamental root problems. I live in a house with guns, enjoy target shooting, and have a healthy respect for them and what they represent. You might call this a house of model gun owners who are no threat to anybody, and I know the vast majority of gun owners are the same.
But I’m also painfully aware of the ugly parts of the equation. I’m recovering from suicidal depression, and I’m obsessive about understanding things, so I know where most gunshot deaths come from. I know that taking away the easy path will save lives. And I know that even illegal weapons have to come from somewhere (see also nearly every gun in mexico). And I know that we are in no position to fix the problems we face. Brass tacks, gun control will protect more lives than it will threaten.
It also isn’t the same as the rate of illegal guns flowing into the area from elsewhere. Regardless, you don’t see a corresponding increase in gunshot murder in states with high occurrence of legal gun ownership, such as Idaho and Alaska. You do see a corresponding increase in gunshot deaths, however, because once again the vast majority of gunshot deaths are self inflicted.
It’s a complicated issue is what I’m saying. The availability of guns is only PART of the problem, and stricter gun controls won’t address the rest. What weighs heavily on me is that I don’t know if anybody knows how to address the rest of the problems. How do you fix poverty, social conflict, a crippled mental health care system, the unwillingness of those who need that sort of help to seek it, a media desperate for the next sensational story, and the tendency for people to scream at and denigrate anybody they disagree with rather than actually talking? I’m sure I don’t know how. Stricter gun control might only be a band aid, but it might also be the only thing we’ve got.
Did you really just go there?
I’m not even going to try reading this thread, as even while I trust DoA commenters to be civil it’s just too much text, but here’s my 2¢.
In a country like New Zealand where guns aren’t all over the place yet, sure, but firearms are so widespread in the US that heavy gun control is a lost cause. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be strict regulations, but they’ll have limited effectiveness when it’s not particularly difficult to come by firearms with or without the law’s approval.
It’s a lost cause for any state that remains in the union, between the commerce clause (which means that states can’t have national-style border control – needed to slow the import of illegal guns – even if 2A or 14A weren’t a thing, as that’s a right that Congress is explicitly granted), 2A, 14A, and the foreseeable political state of the union.
However, blue state secession would allow states to not be subject to any of that.
However, once it comes to that pass, we all have a much larger list of pressing issues, at the top of which is the remaining states’ inevitable declaration of war.
Given some of the current events this hits a little too close to home. On the upshot something like this will get him arrested and banned from the campus.
See his reply below. He *did* expect it, because mass shooting average one a week. And a lot are at schools too. There isn’t really any time you can drop a storyline like this and not have it near one.
Smartphones are limited so I couldn’t read everything, but I understand and prefer the story not be rearranged because of another all too frequent tragedy. That’s what I like about webcomics is its not censored by editors who are worried that readers might take something the wrong way.
I am so glad I don’t read the news sometimes. I am also glad I don’t go to any schools that have had this sort of thing. (For the record, the most recent one I remember hearing about is Sandy Hook.)
Not knowing they are really common is part of the issue. If people don’t realise there’s a problem, they aren’t motivated to fixing it. Ignoring the news doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening.
You need to work on your creative thinking. I can come up with a dozen ways to make it worse, and that’s without involving more people, a change in the weather, sexual violence, orthe undead. I’m just wondering if DW will give us a soft landing, or if we are going to see an increase of characters suffering from PTSD.
Undead would actually help this situation. If Becky’s mother was a nice person, she could probably take advantage of the fact that fundamentalists don’t know to shoot zombies in the head to wrestle away his gun and restrain him.
He’s a religious zealot. He’s a violent ****face. With a gun. Dina “deceived” him. He’s pissed. He will “correct Becky” by “any means necessary”. He won’t hesitate to shoot either one.
But will likely start with Dina if he finds her.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
The flash forward mentioned. Where can one find it?
Also… I know, Willis, that you write these WAY in advance… but given some of the events in the past week, be prepared to get some e-mails about being in “bad taste”.
With the 2 school shootings yesterday (and 2 attempted ones in Colorado and Montana), this is going to hit some chords.
Dude, I wrote this four months ago EXPECTING there to be a school shooting. Because there’s one EVERY WEEK, on average. And this particular leg of the story will take a few weeks itself, meaning we’re probably going to have a few in real-time along the way. I mean, if you can find me a nice hole in our national schedule where there isn’t one, please tell me, I’ll be happy to live there forever.
Try Switzerland. One of the most gun-friendly and one of the least gun-violent countries out there. A lovely place to be, if you don’t mind dick-shriveling cold, and are an aspiring gunsmith, such as myself.
We (Switzerland) are a gun-friendly country? I never knew. I mean, I only have one acquaintance whom I know owns a gun, and aren’t the only allowed guns ones related to military duty?
As far as Europe goes, it has one of the highest rates of legal gun ownership, I believe around 30 percent or so of the population owning them. Nothing like the United States, but also nothing like the majority of Europe. Permits are required, but firearms are more prevalent in Switzerland than you think.
So tell me why a permit should me necessary to own a firearm. I don’t need a permit to carry my (oh-so-scary) spring-assist knife, or my fixed-blade hunting knife. I mean no disrespect, I just would like to know why I would have to be government approved to defend myself with a tool that allows anyone with proper training to be on the same level as any other armed assailant.
You’re the one pointing out how Switzerland is safe but ‘gun-friendly’ and brought up permits. To me, that sounds like it has stricter gun laws than the US.
You’re the one pointing to a country with stricter laws and saying it’s as gun friendly but safer than the US.
Well for one, it’s much easier to kill a lot more people with a gun than with a knife. Like, unless you can move extremely fast or are a skilled knife thrower, there’s only so many people you can kill within a a few second. With a gun, depending on the type of gun, that’s a whole’nother story. And as far as I recall, you’re not allowed to carry any knife with a blade bigger than your palm, so it’s not like there’s no restrictions on knives either.
Also, it’s much easier to accidentally shoot someone than it is to accidentally stab someone, and the damage from an accidental shooting is likely to be worse than an accidental stabbing (based on assumptions that I am making).
Switzerland is 41 285 km². USA is 9 629 048 km². You are comparing policies with a country that is about 233 smaller than the US.
Now for a few fun facts :
-There’s a saying in Switzerland that “the mountain are porous”. Because… they have a lot of bunkers bug inside them.
-Every bridges and main road and built with a way to destroy them easily in mind, “in case of invasion”. Bridges also have slots for land mines.
Switzerland, as a country has historically been VERY wary of invasion. It’s kind of a different story from the fuckers that own guns because they assume “the government is secretly after them” or whatnot.
Now, regarding the huge amount of guns swiss people have at home, I’ll quote about.ch :
“Every male citizen has to do military service. This starts at the age of 20 and ends when we become 42. During that time, soldiers keep their arms at home, an automatic rifle for simple solders like me, a pistol for officers, plus a couple of bullets in a sealed box. At the age of 42, we have to return the gun, the bullets and all the clothing etc.”
(women may serve but don’t have to)
I should add that I’m actually have no specific opinion about gun control, other than
– gun control alone will do nothing significant to change violent crimes but CAN affect suicide rates and gun-related accidents (disclosure: brother’s schoolmate shot and killed his best friend when playing with a LOADED handgun, safety off–basically “LOL I SHOOT YOU” and *DEAD*)
vs.
– gun control is always proposed in “good vs. evil” terms rather than trying to address the mentality behind the “evil” (many “criminals” commit crimes because “the system has failed them” and they have no other options)
so I kinda have the same stance on gun control as abortion–why are we choosing sides instead of trying to make it not so much of an issue in the first place
I’d like to think federally making rigorous background checks legally required, closing the loopholes allowing private sales without such checks, requiring permits / licenses for ownership and open / conceal carry, banning all guns on all school grounds and maybe also launching a buyback operation like they did in Australia would do more than just reduce the number of accidental shootings and suicides.
Violent crimes will still happen, but shootings like yesterday’s, that (as far as I’m aware of) were not at all premeditated and only happened because this one idiot got into an altercation while carrying a gun, wouldn’t happen as much, at least not on school grounds. Or maybe I’m just a naive optimist?
But then, who are we kidding, as long as the NRA has all the politicians in their pockets, gun control is never gonna get significantly tougher on the national level.
With a knife, the collateral damage radius isn’t much beyond the reach of your arm (I mean, if it slips out of your hand it keeps going for a bit, but not much).
What’s the backstop radius on a handgun? How about a rifle? Shotgun? Pretty sure all of those have a significantly larger “danger zone” than a knife.
Switzerland. I was once in central Zurich outside the main train station when the men were coming back from their annual training/maneuvers: thousands of guys pouring out of the train station carrying military rifles, heading off in every direction. To an American, totes surrealistic. I remember standing there watching this thinking, “Yeah, I am NOT in America”. I’ve read (forgotten the source) that in Switzerland respect for the military rifles is such that most gun crimes are committed with non-military weapons, even when the criminal possesses a military issue.
“So tell me why a permit should me necessary to own a firearm. I don’t need a permit to carry my (oh-so-scary) spring-assist knife, or my fixed-blade hunting knife. I mean no disrespect, I just would like to know why I would have to be government approved to defend myself with a tool that allows anyone with proper training to be on the same level as any other armed assailant.”
You make an excellent point. You should probably need a license to use some of those other weapons too.
Here’s a question: Why do we need a driver’s license to operate a car? The obvious the answer is that a car is a dangerous piece of equipment that operates at high speeds. If used improperly it can and has been fatal to its user and the rest of the populous. So then my question is…if we require a license to own and operate a tool that can be deadly if improperly used why in the FUCK would we NOT require a license to use and operate a tool whose explicit purpose is to KILL PEOPLE?
THIRTY PERCENT?! If you’d asked me I would have guessed something like… I don’t know… 8 percent maybe. Max. Jeezus. That seems unbelievable. And wikipedia’s saying it’s actually 45.7 guns per 100 people… If it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t heard of anyone shooting up any place here since that crazy dude in Zurich forever ago, it’d make me not wanna live here anymore.
Ooh yeah, legal carry’s a whole nother thing from ownership, right. Being a girl and all, I really don’t know anything about the military related stuff since I never had to do the service.
But wow, crap, nearly 50 guns per 100 people makes me really uneasy. I’m gonna spend some time looking into Swiss gun laws now…
Oh, no, wait wait, I should have looked more carefully. That 45.7 number includes the militia guns, so it’s actually probably closer to 25 guns per 100 residents. Still a bit unsettling to me though.
Well, add the fact we aren’t allowed to keep ammo at home. BTW, I don’t own or carry or have any access whatsoever to a gun, having skipped military service (and I’d be overage by now); it would be relatively easy to get a permit and buy some kind of firearm, but I don’t like hunting and I’m no psychopath so I don’t see the need for a gun.
The Swiss just don’t go around toting a gun; I guess the average Swiss doesn’t even think of a gun as something different from a toy for immature people or a tool to hunt delicious food. Might be because we have decent living standards, high-level education, social awareness, that kind of thing that makes people feel good enough to not go bananas.
Because I enjoy Hetalia, an anime about personified countries, and live in the South. I also support men who are willing to take up arms when their farms are being razed to the ground, not the ‘government’ that caused such a thing to occur to begin with.
actually The upper and middle class who owned slaves fearmongered the poor hard workers who didnt into thinking that the Government stopping the slave trade meant they were going to come for THEIR property next, thus tricking thousands of men and children to die to defend slavery and when all those 10s of thousands of people fought to hard it forced the union into engaging in horrific war tactics. If you are going to defend a racist ideal, get the order correctly. Burning homes to the ground was what ENDED the war, not what started it. And as a Born and Bred Texan i say to Secessionists “bring it” we burned White supremecy to the ground once and we’ll do it again.
As a gun enthusiast i do support gun regulations as long as they make sense. There are too many people who shouldn’t have guns owning and operating guns, and there is a huge community of good people who are gun owners kinda being shat upon because of all the crazy shit associated with gun owners now indays.
weren’t you the one spouting above that you’re from switzerland? Cause if there’s one thing i know about europe, it’s that the confederate flag is widely used by white supremacists and neo-nazis because they cannot use the swastika flag. So for you, as someone from europe, to think that the use of the confederate flag is okay in any context, says to me that you’re okay with nazism. And I very much take offence at that because I live in a city where neo-nazi incited violence against people like me has become an escalating issue.
Good fiction should hit some chords. I read this comic because it does… and to be honest Danny and Becky have been hitting a lot of them for me.
The comparison isn’t apt, considering that this isn’t anything like a mass shooting situation. More correctly categorized as a form of domestic violence. It is only superficially and trivially similar to those other incidents. Of course, people will get up set by that, too, as we are not supposed to look in those dark corners.
Sorry, but that is the first step to figuring out how to make it not happen. Basic tactics requires you to think about what the enemy can do to you so that you can contravene those options. In order to fight evil, you have to be able to think like evil so you can out-think evil.
The Lord is his cat
also, fuck that dude
in the face
with a sledgehammer
[inb4 TOO SOON: 1. Willis committed this months ago 2. “too soon” after WHICH mass shooting? it’s just as much prophetic since in America there’s a new one practically fucking weekly]
Yikes. Thought the same thing… I’m sure that tomorrow we will learn that it is a bb gun or something.
From the triggers, I’m guessing double-barreled shotgun.
Grant him the strength
but no ammo
yeah that works-ish
seriously though what the fucking fuck WILLIS WHY
Well… because it’s much easier to prove he’s a danger to his daughter this way.
If that’s what the aim of this strip was, I’d say it bloody well succeeded.
And then poll totally fits this situation.
I meant regarding the in-comic cops and justice, but sure, that too.
I’m not sure the bullet is for her.
Dina has a history with bad endings…
What do you mean, a danger? He is saving her from worse. Her immortal soul might not yet be irretrievably lost. But now’s the time to cut her losses, obviously.
img: fry.jpg
totes, brah
…….Fucking hell…. Willis. Please. I REALLY want some Gore in the next few pages/chapters, Give us some catharsis with Nutjob up there getting shot by the cops.
“He is saving her from worse. Her immortal soul might not yet be irretrievably lost. ”
In the NT that’s not his call. Never was. Never will be.
But don’t let me get in the way of your opinion.
I’m not allowed to.
Now now, he’s clearly just a concerned parent trying to help his daughter, uh, well… er, I…
Eh, I’m sure they’ll come up with somethin’.
I could kind of sympathise with him before this strip. He’s just ignorantly trying to help his daughter, so he’s just the classic bumbling, overprotective dad!
Then he draws a gun, and I’m like, WTF?
This will be good.
See, I knew it!
And surprisingly, the UNconcerned and hateful dad, Blaine, has been slapped billions of levels down the “worst dad” list.
Goes to show that deranged concern is probably worse.
There’ll probably still be people defending his actions though.
While it is a drastic turn of events, the girls are actually pretty safe considering the context. The fact that there was almost immediate cover and that he had to spend time taking the gun out gives them a considerable amount of time for the police to arrive. The fact that he has done this on a college campus means that the initial police response will be within 3 minutes, but I would guess within 1 to 1.5 minutes considering that IU has a police department. The following police response would take 3-5 minutes but would be massive, possibly involving multiple police departments. SWAT would be called, but I don’t know where the nearest team is based, so they might not even make it there before the situation is resolved.
no need, we have Amazi-Girl
Actually we have Two Amizi-girls, and I hope they Both show up and start an argument over who gets to “save the day”
He’ll be arrested either way. Seriously, I’m starting to wonder what happened to his wife…
There are already witnesses, and while a courtroom may empathize with the Browns, being clean-cut, ‘productive members of society’ & well to do, they may feel less understanding about ‘Toe Dad,’ who basically comes off as a short, redneck nutjob, who’s probably been unemployed for a long time, engaging in ‘typical redneck behavior’ and probably planning to shoot up the nearest government building next unless he’s put away soon.
Joyce’s parents may blame Toe Dad’s actions of her, Becky, and their ‘heathen’ friends once the Pubic Eye isn’t watching, but I’d imagine they would keep their distance during his trial….Especially if the prosecution convinces him to take the stand…Part of the same Church Family or not.
I would have to guess the ‘little lady’ was so ground under the heel of religious horseshit that she would sit back and take it, just like that dumbass Duggar bongo.
Pisses me off I even know their last name.
bongo corrected to bongo
Don’t ask me.
It’s the filter from the last quad digit comment strip before this.
Don’t worry; we all know what you mean.
Blaming the victim: never the right choice.
This is the first time I’ve really seen someone use the bongo word to try to dehumanize someone on here (I wasn’t here when the filter was instated), so I’m not surprised it’s in a blaming the victim context as well.
The pubic eye…?
Eh… maybe. I don’t think so though… I don’t particularly care for Joyce’s parents, but they strike me as too honest and sincere to be that calculating about the whole thing.
Calculating? Actions as basic as being mad at a party that they’re already predisposed to view as ‘in the wrong’ due a knee-jerk impulse to separate themselves from something that’s just too much from them to handle (not just what Ross is doing, but the fact he’s one of their own, who’s supposed to be inherently above this kind of ‘stabbing and shooting’ and they trusted them) and not diving at the chance to make themselves an accomplice to ‘mad gunman’ infanticide, which everyone will see them and what they stand for as being about (it’s too difficult for them to even fathom Ross using such criminal methods as it is)
Kind of like how a bunch of kids all gather to support that idiot daredevil wanna-be they hang out with when he shows off his latest stunt, but run for the hills without getting an adult or anything when that stunt goes horribly, and life-threateningly, wrong. It’s more fight-or-flight based reaction than a deliberately conniving attempt to evade accountability. Why develop the awareness that’ll lead to an understanding of the importance of accountability when simply being sincere and having good intentions will keep all but the most cynical jerks from blaming you for anything that goes afoul in your life?
Are you sure it’s a shotgun? It seems more like a hunting rifle.
Hoping is the official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!
I would have thought it was a rifle if not for the double trigger. I think he’s holding it at an angle where we can’t see multiple barrels.
…it’s remarkable that we’re able to chit-chat so calmly about this, innit?
Well,the weapon ain’t aimed at us. Unless he manages to shoot through the fourth wall.
Damn, can you imagine how the characters would react if they knew some of the stuff posted in these comment chains? He’d possibly take aim at us for the Toe-Dad comments alone. Then if he saw the other stuff? He’d wanna go to TOEn on all of us… O_O
If the fourth wall were that easily penetrated I’d have killed him by now. If he’s had his throat slit next strip you’ll know I got through.
Or if his skull is dented then me and my hammer got through and time-travelled into the past.
If the fourth wall was that thin, I’d start throwing stuff straight from Mortasheen at him. Specifically, this: http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/pride.htm. Seems appropriate, no?
Ol’ Shotgun Rossie’s starting to validate our Family Guy-assed assumptions from his first appearance, that were solely based on the way he looked, so less.
Then there’s how it stacks with he way he speaks, in contrast to how Mr. and Mrs. Brown talk. They sounded like actual ‘fundies.’ Ross sounds like someone sent by a religious cult to act as an enforcer/martyr. I don’t think that’s something he picked up form his and the Brown’s pastor or their church family in general without the assistance of the voices in his head.
That part’s the punchline. Jackie & Dina’s lives being in danger are scary enough as it is. They may have help, too. Sal’s pretty sharp in these kind of situations, this is hardly the first thug-father based security threat this university had to deal with this semester, and how long to you think he will last once he fails to get a clear shot at Amazigirl?
He’ll shoot her eye out!
What I don’t see on that firearm is a front sight, so it’s not a rifle – not a .22, not a BB gun, not a high calibre rifle. It’s a shotgun. Maybe about 20 gauge from the looks of the barrel.
Turns out I’m wrong… looks like a Ruger 1 Varminter.
And from the trigger guard, it appears to be very broken.
Nope, antique. 1800’s antique.
The trigger guard is broken?
*TRIGGERING INTENSIFIES*
Looks very much like a .50cal black powder rifle.
It’s a Ruger “No.1”, and old style single shot rifle that costs $1200+ and comes in a ton of weird calibers you’ve never heard of. About as far “Tactical” or “Assault” as you can get, this says a bit about him as this is something you’d take big game hunting and not something you’d see with a so-called militia or a nutso “prepper”.
Yeah, pretty sure you’re right. Either that or something similar like the Sharps-Borchardt Model 1878.
Didn’t Quigley use a Sharps down under?
The separate scope mounting blocks mark it as a Ruger No.1V. He won’t be hitting much without an optic of some kind though.
What’s the effective range like on it?
Without sights, it’s unlikely to hit what he’s aiming at outside of a about 50 feet (depending no how used to hipshooting he is)… but it’s deadly out to a mile and a half.
If it is indeed a Ruger 1V (which seems to be the general consensus) he’s got only one shot before the girls get into the cover of the woods, but he’s also got the roof of his car to use as a bench rest. I’m afraid there will be blood.
The No.1V’s (varminter) are all chambered in small lightweight cartridges so generally around 300-400 yards/meters but with no sights on that rifle if he’s good at point shooting maybe 100? But then again if they’re taking this into the woods that may be more than he’ll have. Dunno how dense the woods in Indiana are but the only large forested areas between the Noodle&Co and the fountain look to be at the Kirkwood Observatory and behind Lily Library, both of which have many walking paths.
I am deeply impressed by how quickly you guys identified the rifle in question. I am also heartened to learn it’s a single-shot with no sights; I am also pleased to note the person in the background who noticed Ross haul it out.
I am sure the S.W.A.T. team will be here within ten. Meanwhile, at least there’s a certain amount of cover.
Hmm. Which is going to be more important to him, getting even with Dina or “saving” Becky? I suspect the latter.
Not that it really matters because RUN.
Oh hey also in Texas at least it’s now legal to conceal-carry on college and university campuses. It will probably cause more problems than it solves but hey, someone could take out Toe-Dad, at least. Whether or not they could do it without taking out any innocent bystanders, though… And whether or not someone else who was also armed just saw the first person taking Ross down and figured they were the shooter and took them down… That could end up like the Monty Python bit about the autumn leaves committing suicide.
Yep, Ruger 1 Varminter… still available for purchase: http://ruger.com/products/no1DE/specSheets/11389.html
SERPENTINE, BABOU! SERPENTINE!
I don’t know much about guns, but I know some of them have a trigger safety lock that you must pull first before the regular trigger to fire the shot.
Many target rifles have double triggers. On has a long pull to set the second trigger. The second trigger is almost a hair trigger. I’ve used them in competition. Fortunately, they’re less than useless on a moving target.
Looks like a single shot hunting rifle. They are usually chambered in older big bore hunting cartridges used for buffalo or elephant. The lever under the triggers opens the breach. The twin triggers are probably what is called a single set trigger. Single set triggers are used for fine shooting. The first trigger is pulled to “set” the rifle, making the second a hair trigger that will go off at the lightest touch. Hence the term “hair trigger” which is entirely appropriate for Toe Dad.
Ruger #1 with set triggers (a single-shot rifle)…
I’m not so sure of that. Someone will be ending up in the hospital, after all. The preview panels have shown us that much.
You’d be surprised the damage a BB gun cause. It may be air powered, but’s it’s still enough to put you in the ER, especially if it gets you near a vital organ.
Yup. They put the warning labels on those things for a reason. With regard to the hospital, we can always hope it’s not related to this incident, but…
Can’t even get BB guns in Australia. Closest is either Nerf guns or pellet guns, which may require a license…
Off-topic question, but then how can Australian Boy Scouts earn their ‘Marksmanship’ merit badges?
Archery?
Boomerangs, of course.
(I’m sorry someone had to say it ;_; )
“Boy Scouts of America”, mysteriously, doesn’t have an Austrailian chapter.
Rifles. You can get small-capacity small-bore rifles with a licence, and you can get a licence for target shooting.
The World Organisation of the Scout Movement, however, does have an Australian affiliate: Scouts Australia.
BB guns are a type of pellet gun that shoots spherical ammo (similar to an Airsoft round but metal) instead of the sort of conical ones a lot of pellet guns use. So you may have them there after all?
maybe he’ll shoot his eye out
That would be very God-induced karma now, wouldn’t it…
That’s a single shot hunting rifle. If he shoots himself in the eye, it’ll take a good portion of his brain with it.
Not that he’s using it for anything at the moment.
The question is : why would a grown up lunatic choose a BB gun, rather than a “manlier” real one ?
Unflinching, lunatic faith.
Not hating on faith in general, but the mindset that you can do no wrong never ends well.
I’ve been shot from close range with a high-powered CO2 pellet pistol (in the weirdest driveby ever) and I can tell you that a metal pellet will go through very heavy denim, cotton, skin, and flesh quite handily. Fortunately for me (and hilariously, because I tell this story aiming for a laugh these days) where they got me was square in my left arse cheek. Bled like a bastard, though, hurt like hell, my arse was black and blue for weeks, and I limped for about a week.
So you don’t mind being the butt of those jokes then, since you’re the 1 telling them?
Man, that must have been a pain in the arse.
Sounds like a half-assed shooting.
Punalty box! 30 minutes! All of you! Right now!
Wondering: who was the ass that shot you?
Some cheeky marksman.
Some drunk person was boasting about how they could kill me with their BB gun one time. I kinda wish they hadn’t been holding it at the time.
Hopefully Toedad blows his own head off by accident by looking down the barrel of his loaded weapon when it jams.
It looks like either a BB gun or a .22, and I’d assume the latter for a variety of reasons. And lever-action isn’t semiautomatic which is what’s usually used for this sort of insanity. But it’s still definitely a deadly weapon on school grounds that he’s threatening 2 people with as part of a hate crime. Fortunately .22 shots are more survivable than most bullets, but that’s not saying much.
No, it’s definitely some sort of 12 gauge break-action.
I can’t tell if it’s a single or double barrel model and even if there’s only one trigger visible it doesn’t mean it’s not a double barrel since some models are designed to operate with a single trigger.
I really doubt there’s any intention of super-accurate gun representation, as lever-action double-set triggers (your best bet for google search term, here) kind of went out of style in the 1880s, and were almost never seen in shotguns. Toe-dad doesn’t strike me as an obscure historical firearms collector 😉
Closest matches would be:
Low Wall Model 1885 in .22 Hornet (which is only a .22, but very much on the “magnum” end),
or Marlin Model 1881 in 40-60 gauge Marlin (despite the use of the word “gauge” there, is not a shotgun).
Nobody has done that weird open-lever design in about 130 years because it’s simply begging for a chance to snag on something and cause a fatal accident. Simply owning a gun increases your chance of getting shot (just, like, statistically speaking, really don’t want to start a fight), and open-lever is actively begging for that.
Finally, the barrel looks too narrow to be anything but BB/.22, but again: really doubt there was any intended accuracy here. It’s probably as dangerous as it needs to be to serve the narrative, right?
If I can just remind you that we’re talking about a cartoonist who sets his strips in a real world location, knows the exact street / building they’re in, and constantly updates his backgrounds from photographs of the setting to make sure they stay accurate?
That’s… a really good point. Before I escaped via college I was raised in the *exact* same culture as Joyce/Becky/the cartoonist, basically by Joyce’s parents but half the church was exactly like Becky’s, so just hanging out with friends (non-church friends super discouraged) meant a surprisingly thorough education in firearms just through, like, osmosis. The Low Wall (specifically this one is actually a 1995 production heavily based off historical styles, so it’s physically possible for Toe-Dad types to own one in the real-world. Just… my experience was that’s way more of a Remington 700 generic deer-rifle crowd.
Eh, I know basically nothing about guns (and pretty happy to stay that way) but when people in the comments started naming specifics I figured it was probably intentional – Willis does his research.
I imagine it’s intended to tell us something about Toedad, like his Walmart-issue combat pyjamas, though the specifics go over my head.
It’s a Ruger Number 1 V. It is a single shot falling block rifle. Available in calibers ranging from .219 zipper to .450 nitro express.
I think you’re right. Really matches the pictures of Ruger 1s
It’s definitely not a lever action.
What it seems you guys think it’s a lever is very clearly a trigger guard
No, it’s the lever that moves the block. What some people are identifying as a second trigger, however, IS, in fact, part of the trigger guard.
Amazi-Girl rescue? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0HLAKm1_1Q
I actually think this is a job better left to the cops this time,
And with that Grav, that’s saying something.
After all she’s only immune to criticism, not bullets.
Amazi-Girl may be amazing, but she’s not bullet-proof. The less non-cops are involved in this, the better.
I suppose adding bullet-resistant materials to her jumpsuit is a little beyond the realm of “some alterations.”
Also probably beyond the budget of a collage student. Note that I’m saying this without any idea what supple bullet proof materials cost. Wild guess.
I want to be a collage student. just stare at them all day and try to learn what magazines the pictures came from. would be boring and pointless probably, but a hell of a lot cheaper
(Damn my fingers always get the a and e keys mixed up)
Collages can be really fun if they’re well made. And pretty. Though not as pretty as decorated bentou. (I don’t know why but whenever I try to picture a collage, a pokémon-style bentou I saw once somewhere always pops into my head.)
! Last week Montage ™ figured in another webtoon that I follow, now Collage ™ here. Same class of pharmaceuticals, right? They cause visions of multiple images posted in close proximity of space or time, often bleeding into each, right?
Probably beyond Amber’s budget, but not Bruce Wayne when he was in college. Seriously. There are some schools with more than a few students with access to serious scratch.
I don’t remember what show it was on Spike, but they showed that if you fold a piece of silk over several times it will actually stop a bullet. No idea what calibre bullet though. TL;DR: Silk pajamas ftw?
Silk pyjamas, it ends up, at least what can be bought online, are ridiculously expensive (went looking a while back). Silk fabric, though, can be a lot cheaper; I got my cream silk satin for $10/metre; and a friend got her red silk at $6/metre. Canadian. And that was in stores, not online. I can’t even get cotton broadcloth that cheap here. And Amber can apparently sew…
Little India in Vancouver, BC and Little Pakistan at the top end of Surrey, BC are amazing fabric places, yo.
No, can’t be now. It’s a double barrel shotgun, you can see both triggers.
And your avatar is appropriate… Looks like some of the background people have noticed what’s going on too.
Unfortunately, it’s this guy.
No one is that coward to not reach his phone and call the police,right?
I’d not, but that’s just because its safer to not get involved. If they’re really concerned, what’s stopping Dina or Becky from using the phone they had and calling the police. They’re both adults and just because a parent wants something means nothing once they hit the age of majority, a parent can’t legally for them to pass the salt.
If you see a man pulling out a rifle while chasing two college-aged girls, and you *don’t* call the cops, you’re not a coward, you’re a freakin’ monster.
Dina and Becky are a bit busy being pursued trying to not be shot right now. Guy in the background has a lot more leisure time to fish his phone out of his pocket, turn it on, dial 911, and describe what he saw.
Plus, he’s far enough away that the conversation’s not gonna be heard by toedad unless he’s a phone-yeller.
Maybe even get Random Bystander 2 to take some pics/video as either later evidence for Police or to help identification (or more likely Facebook… -_- )
Hmmm….I believe this is an occasion meriting profanity. Yes. This definitely qualifies.
FUCK you, dude. It doesn’t put you in any more danger to run away and call 911 than it does to run away and go about your day. If you honestly wouldn’t call the police after seeing someone chasing two girls with a gun, then yeah, you’re part of what’s wrong with the world.
One night we were lying in bed, unable to sleep. It was an unusually warm night so we had the window at the head of the bed cracked open a bit. Suddenly, we heard gunfire. Bang. Bang bang. Bang.
“Help me! Somebody help me!” Tires squealing.
I called 911. My husband pulled on some pants and tried to find the guy, whom he could still hear calling for help.
We later talked to someone in the neighbourhood (the shooting was in the field across the road from him; the cops took the opportunity to bust him for having a grow-op; he said it was unrelated and it might have been; everyone has a grow-op in Vancouver) who had talked to other neighbours in the area; lots of people had heard the shooting; many of them were closer than we were.
The cops told us we were the only people who had called them. Middle of the night, lights off in all the houses, no way to tell what anyone was doing, and nobody else “wanted to get involved”. Because apparently picking up a phone and spending ten minutes talking to the 911 operator to get help for a gunshot victim WITH NO RISK AT ALL is “getting involved”. >:(
Yeah, there’s lots of stories like that, which is why I felt justified throwing my ault words at System Failed. Good on you for doing the right thing.
I think the thing that got me the worst was his cavalier “oh, don’t worry, it’ll be fine” attitude.
When there’s psychos with guns involved, things are *not* fine. Yeah, I know it’s just a fictional cartoon and not real life, but god damn.
Unrelated to this conversation but I also live in Vancouver, BC! SUP NEIGHBOR.
I’ve been that person too, with someone getting the shit beat out of them with a board (and screaming) outside my apartment building, at which at least 6 apartments facing the scene were occupied, as well as various houses.
I want to thank you for making the call, but also to be fair, you said this was at night? Maybe other folks were out/asleep/had earplugs in because bedmates snore (I fall into the latter category).
((unrelatedly?, I do sometimes worry because my partner regularly has earphones on and wouldn’t find me for at least an hour or two if I fell in the shower))
You’re right I am what is wrong with this country it took this girl over a decade to learn the lesson that the police won’t protect me, and don’t care. Took trying to report my first sexual assualt, threatened with jail time over trying to report their unwillingness to take my report, let alone investigate/arrest my attacker, arrested for a brunt out tail light, ohhh and lets not forget being sexually assulted by a male officer at a checkpoint…. Sure I’m what’s wrong with this world. I could go on but it’d do no one any good would it?
Your experiences are valid, but they aren’t relevant to this, they don’t negate the need to get emergency services on site in this sort of situation and calling 911 does not mean having to talk to or be around police (and at worst you can get someone else to call in (eg, the person next to the person in the last panel background)). I can comprehend why you wouldn’t want to be involved even if I don’t have your deep understanding of your experience, but calling 911 doesn’t mean getting involved and could be a life or death difference for someone else.
Check it out! Toedad is using the “God said so” defense!
It’ll never hold up in court. Only “Simon says” is consider valid.
Or “sudo”.
but that require the root password
sudo exists so that you don’t need the root password.
Which’ll get’em the “Not Guilty Due to Reason of Insanity” sentence. Would a Bug House really be a less miserable place for him than a Big House? Heh.
It is really, really, really, REALLY hard to prove mental deficiency.
It almost never happens.
Movies like it. It’s not a defense that most can mount.
I prefer 12 gauge slug at point blank range.
Really dude? Today? Of all days?
What day would be better? In 2015, school shootings happen more often than Pizza Day in the cafeteria.
In 2015, there have been more days in the US with a mass shooting than there were school days. It’s fucking terrifying.
Indeed it is. I was in high school when Columbine happened, and it was a huge deal. I live a long way from Colorado, and it was still a major topic of conversation in my school for quite some time. Now, mass shootings are a regular occurrence. “Terrifying” isn’t a strong enough word, but I can’t think of a strong enough word to do our present situation justice.
“Terrifyingly surreal.”
I hate to rain on everyone’s parade of doom, but violent crime in the US (including murder) has been trending steadily downwards for several years now, with current rates the lowest in decades. Call me strange, but I find the idea of fewer people being murdered a good thing.
I’m not for one second trying to suggest that the murders that do happen aren’t horrible, or that even lower rates wouldn’t be better. I’m just saying that it makes no sense to run around shouting “The sky is falling!” when things are actually getting better.
Violent crime in general is declining, but there is a worryingly huge increase in the specific category of violent crime where one person goes into a public space and kills as many people as they can before being killed or arrested themselves.
Saying that things are getting better because crimes are decreasing is like saying that the number of insect stinging incidents is decreasing while ignoring the fact that 40% of insect stinging incidents are swarms of killer bees killing toddlers (please not that this is a hypothetical example). If there are half as many stings, and 40% of them are dead toddlers, that’s still millions of dead toddlers, which tends to be an indication that something is horrifically wrong.
On a more realistic note, it’s like the incidence of heart disease. As I recall from research, the average life expectancy has gone up steadily, but the risk of heart disease has also gone up. You’re basically saying “don’t worry about heart disease, you’re likely to live longer so it doesn’t matter.” That’s completely wrong. You worry about heart disease. Take care of your shit. If something is as completely outside the norm as the number of mass shootings we have in the US on a yearly basis in the last few years (which has risen to an enormous, horrifying level from almost none just ten years ago), something needs to be done about it. If it were only the ration that was going up, it wouldn’t be a concern, but the ratio and the numbers are going up. As most crime is falling off, this one specific thing rises the way you would expect of a cross between a James Bond movie and a frikkin’ war.
You’re right. “Things” are getting better, but we’re not talking about “things.”
We’re talking about mass killings. And those are absolutely getting worse.
Well, that’s fair. Suggesting the twelve-gauge slusg solution is really not good any day.
Violence is never good. It is, however, highly effective.
Unfortunately, it’s more often highly effective at bad things, since the good-aligned tend to avoid it.
Except, is it? Does pure violence ever really solve issues, or more just delay/bury them? It’s like that cheap fix that you know is going to break worse than the first time, but later, and hopefully you’ll have the money/time/wit to deal with it then.
Only if it involves dropping hotels on people, and even then, only if you know exactly what is under the hotel and the exact history of said things.
Even then, though, it’s a lot more satisfying to make said people realize exactly why they are horrible people.
Um… what world do you live in where terrible people realise they’re being terrible and stop? Terrible people are either always in denial that they are terrible (like Toedad here who is now claiming to be the Hand of God), or they know they are terrible and like themselves that way.
I know it’s nigh-impossible to do that. I just wish there was a way to a: make people less defensive regarding their preconceived notions b: make them less likely to discard statements out of hand and think them through, allowing you to make people realize how horrible they are. Unless there’s some kind of ridiculous neurochemistry-affecting kind of fungus out there that does that, I hold no illusions that such a thing is actually possible.
So what you’re saying is what we need is Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare. That allows the recipient to feel exactly what they put the other person through.
I really do not like Ross.
While I’m guessing you mean to deal with Toedad, I think that might be a bit inappropriate considering another American idiot went stupid with a gun recently…
Where’s the Edit/Erase button when you need 1…
There is basically a school shooting everyday.
Source?
Not calling you a liar, but as awful as they are, school shootings do not happen every day. To the best of my knowledge. I’ll readily accept solid information to the contrary.
Not school shootings. Mass shootings, in which there are at least four victims. Scroll down to find a large in-lined calendar chart of them. Can’t miss it.
Nope, they happen twice a day now. http://boingboing.net/2015/10/09/america-outdoes-itself-with-no.html
American idiots go stupid with guns every week.
That’s pretty sad.
Actually, this year it’s averaged out to literally daily.
Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with people. I suppose I can’t expect that the gun lobby wisely decided that it might not be a good idea to push their interests this year.
Meanwhile, back at the MacIntyre house…
http://littlep-brane.deviantart.com/art/ASSUMING-DIRECT-CONTROL-308115139
or up the butt
with a razor
What the FUCK.
cue “well, this escalated quickly.gif”.
I don’t understand why he pulls out a gun. Why does he need a gun? He’s trying to capture an unarmed woman. Unless he intends to use the threat of harm to compel her he’d be better off using his bare hands to subdue her. How does he intend to put her in a car at gunpoint without getting arrested?
Is it because he knows he can’t run her down? We know that he beats her so he must be able to catch her and subdue her without a gun. Unless he uses the weapon to force her to submit to beatings. Are we supposed to know more about his character and a preference for guns from a pre-DOA work?
I find the last panel extremely confusing.
I don’t think he intends to catch her. I think he intends to kill her.
How do we know if Toedad beats Becky? I don’t remember this
He might be the ‘corporal punishment’ type, although I don’t believe it was mentioned anywhere.
His intent with the gun may be many things. With his short legs, I think he knows he cannot outrun his daughter, so maybe he seeks to lame her, or slow her down – more than a bit harsh, but in his mind, gentler attempts to change her have failed.
Another, even more disturbing, option, is that the gun is meant for Dina. He knows Dina intentionally deceived him, and may now view her as aggravating his daughter’s rebellion. His warped mind may justify killing Dina as a way to save Becky.
I have a major problem with any religion (or, to be more fair, any religious person) that considers what is done to a corporeal body as completely irrelevant so long as you can save their soul by doing so. You know. Save it by the rules of your interpretation of your religion.
I’d rather you not mess up someone’s physical body to save their souls, thanks all the same. Geez. That was the same justification for burning witches.
At least if all Ross is concerned about is saving her soul to the complete detriment of all else, and doesn’t think she’s currently in a state of grace, he proooobably won’t actually kill Becky? Although of course that doesn’t necessarily preclude outright harm.
“Love one another.” “Treat each other as you would want to be treated.” Honestly, how is that so hard?
“He might be the ‘corporal punishment’ type, although I don’t believe it was mentioned anywhere.”
Somehow I think that’s what he means by “lay my hands on you in prayer”.
Maybe he brought the gun to rescue his daughter from the lesbian cult that brainwashed her.
Which makes Dina target no. one.
In his fucked up mind, he might think killing his daughter is the only way to save her soul.
I think you have unrealistically high expectations for the rational forethought and planning ability of the typical American fundamentalist gun-wielding maniac.
This is making me *really* worried about that hospital flash-forwarded that Willis posted months ago.
*flash-forward
I do notice that someone in the background in the last panel seems to have noticed the gun. Hopefully he/she does something…
Since the year this strip takes place in is free to incorporate elements of real-world happenings from [i]many[/i] years, it’s possible that the IU students are aware of what to do in the event of shootings.
Heck, the Va-Tech shooting isn’t that long ago.
At least it wasn’t the cemetery.
Linky?
I spent a lot of time digging around Willis’ tumblr last night looking for it, and I can’t seem to find it anymore. He posts a lot of stuff. It’s in there somewhere, though.
That’s a shame. At least I learned that deceptress is a word. But not according to google chrome..
It sounds like one of those words a fundamentalist Christian might use. They can get pretty hung up on gender.
Maybe he discovered the word “temptress” and thought he could do better.
Is this what we’re looking for?
http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/125868231997/bloomington-ambulances-are-x-treme-nonplayskool
That’s the one.
I’m going to hope that the two aren’t related. At the end of the day, that’s all I can do.
Or that her dad is the one that ends up in the hospital, somehow.
I-it’s the university hospital.
Someone’s just walking by…
Maybe it’s Blaine getting out of the hospital! 😀
You know something’s gone horribly wrong when were hoping for the (now second) worst dad in existence to come out of the hospital….
that’s so he can get caught up in the crossfire
Oh, hey, maybe Blaine and Ross will meet in the hospital, talk things over, and decide to team up! That way we won’t have to deal with their separate plot threads and less time will be devoted to them total, because they’ll be sharing screen time when they get any! Yay!
I noticed we still have 31 days to go before that.
Well, obviously there’s going to be a chase.
I think that’s gonna be Dina. I’m absolutely terrified that it’s gonna be Dina in the hospital.
M-maybe Toedad will shoot himself in the foot (literally) and Joyce is only worried because she’s just that kind and decent a person.
If Toedad shoots himself in the foot, does that mean he’ll hit his head?
no-toe dad
that’s pretty much the feeling i have as well
That gun better be a tranquilizer.
Just as bad many animal tranquilizers contain lethal amounts for humans.
B-but Metal Gear Solid has taught me that people can be repeatedly shot full of tranq darts and will wake up ten minutes later with no side effects!
Ten minutes? I wish. Little bastards wake up on me after a three-minute power nap.
Yes,some of the agents can be deadly to humans if they are in overdose,but most of the time a single dart can knock out a human in time.
Knocking a human unconscious without doing lasting damage is a very tricky thing to do. That why anaesthetists exist as a job separate from surgeons. The amount you use varies according to height, weight, sex, age, and a million other factors. It’s far harder to do than the movies have taught us.
“It’s far harder to do than the movies have taught us.” Are you sure about that, I get most of my eduaction/information from the movies.
I mainly get it from the consultant anaesthetist I’m friends with who rants about how easy the movies make his job. And also about how most medical shows completely ignore them, even though they are the second most important person in the room when something goes wrong during surgery.
(I do similar ranting whenever anyone misuses the word “firewall”.)
*spits out half-a-mouthful of frootloops
Are you telling me people CAN’T have a quiet conversation in a datacenter like in the movie Firewall?
/sardonic
Ok, sure, but the movies are still a reliable source about everything else, right?
Everything apart from the actual height of Tom Cruise. That will forever be a mystery.
5′ 6″ without the shoes.
What the HELL?
Thumb Wars: Revenge of the ______
Bigot
He’s a TOE, not a THUMB!
I DO NOT LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING
Willis- “Hmmmm, what’s worse than a bus? Wait! Bus… Car… Shotgun… Yes, that’ll be great!”
nobody dies nobody dies nobody dies nobody dies
(please let it be true)
There’s dead, and then there’s worse than dead but still alive. Guess what Toe Dad is getting?
He’s a slave to ideology. He’s already worse than dead.
The Willis has said nobody dies in this comic, if that helps. But a lot can still go wrong . . .
It would be kinda nice if Dina didn’t die again. I really don’t need to see her take off her hat that badly.
This is somehow both better and worse than I had imagined.
Religious nut calling a young woman deceptrice and then pulling a gun out, I’d say it couldn’t have been worst.
Willis has specifically said that he’s not going to kill off any of his DoA characters. I was concerned yesterday that Becky would be hauled into the car and simply never seen again.
And it is very good that he has stated that…especially since one of the two characters is Dina.
Killing off Dina AGAIN would be simply horrible.
all I can think of now is the Dina highlander image someone made a long time ago.
Is that a challenge? Because it can always get worse. Even with the no-kill rule.
Comas aren’t killing… crippling injuries aren’t killing… yeah someone is screwed here
Traumatic brain damage isn’t killing. It’s just killing the character, you know, the person, what makes them them.
You can dangle the possibility of recovery. Or don’t go for full vegetative state.
People who are brain dead aren’t really dead! Tom DeLay told me so!
I feel like perma comas or brain injury resulting in loss of any sense of self count as killing, since part of the reasoning is that they would be grieving forever and that applies, except first they’d be visiting the hospital/care home forever.
You’ve got to be kidding me!
holy fuck
This is unfortunately topical O_O
You mean it happened on a day?
I’m afraid it’s always topical in the US.
and/or TOO SOON.
(It Has Been __ Days Since Our Last Mass Shooting)
OH SHIT MAN I DIDN’T THINK HE’D GO THAT FAR I AM SCARED
I did, well actually I thought he’d go a little farther.
there’s always tomorrow!
what the fuck
Holy. Fucking. FUCK.
what the fuck, toedad?
What the fuck?!
What the everloving fuck. What the fuck.
…well, now I guess we know how we get to the hospital in the previews.
Ok, last time we went from 0-60 in half a second
NOW WE’RE AT 120 AND THERE’S NO GOING BACK.
Hold onto your hats kids, this isn’t going to be pretty.
*Said driver then hits Toedad at 120…*
I’ve read it first as “Sal driver”, and now I want some motorcycle rescue.
A major gunshot wound could leave someone in the hospital then rehab for the rest of DoAs 1 year in universe time frame. That seems a path that Willis might have chosen, consistent with this universe — and real life. The so called news LOVES to report shootings and body counts etc, BUT does WAY LESS the consequences for the wounded. (Or the loved ones of those killed). Some news organizations should cover the post-shooting for at least one person day by day by day. Doubt any will. But it’s something that Willis might, given how he’s already following a year in the life of how many troubled kids?
Wow.
Well, this actually managed to go beyond what I feared would happen, which was that he would try and forcibly abduct her. Shouldn’t have underestimated a religious zealot.
yeah, no joke! to everyone who had envisioned their version of the worst possible path this could take, shotgun-wielding hick chase through the woods: anyone thought it’d be worse than that?
I did.
What the hell, in the name of all things cute and cuddly, went through your head?
You don’t want to know.
I’m morbidly curious.
He shoots Dina, Becky gets the gun away from him and kills him. The stress and guilt drives her to drug abuse and eventually suicide. Dina survives and has to live with all of it. Joyce is broken?
Also, Joyce’s parents blame Becky. Jocelyn angrily comes out to them to try to make them understand what they’re actually saying. They disown her and she becomes homeless and forced into prostitution to survive. Joyce spends her sophmore year in a mental institution after a breakdown. Dorothy’s worldview collapses when she learns just how horrible people can be to each other. She gives up, on everything. Sarah gets terminal cancer, because, fuck, why not at this point.
……ok, you either need to be awarded an emmy, or you should be placated with ice cream and belly rubs. whichever comes first, cuz geez, man!
Three rubs, as per protocol. No more, no less.
Willis DOES read Funky Winkerbean…
He successfully abducts her and she disappears into a shady conversion camp. The camp administrators apply dangerous psychiatric techniques they don’t understand how to properly use on her, such as electroconvulsive therapy, maybe deep brain stimulation. Becky is rendered a vegetable.
That was actually exactly what I thought his plan was. Horrible enough on its own, but I never considered he would actually take a more hands-on approach to viciously murder his daughter.
i think he plans to murder dina. after all, she’s the soulless infidel trying to corrupt his innocent daughter.
yup. now imagine that all happening while dina is hospitalized in critical condition. now remember that all of the good characters have to survive and the comic only lasts through freshman year. bullet dodged!
She’d have to be comatose to buy him time to get across state lines. Slow down identification.
“But, at least he saved her soul from sin.” Right?
*on the hacked Muzak, Danny Elfman’s “Hot To Trot” continues and is followed up by “Runaway” from the 007: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY soundtrack (also known as the theme song on RUNAWAY WITH THE RICH & FAMOUS)*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S6WggEZeVE <- "Hot To Trot"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUepDDnujdQ <- "Runaway"
I’m sure this old favorite comes next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ
I’m hoping Amazi-Girl shows up and it turns into this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9YvDfiAXT8
I thought I knew my James Bond movies, but I can’t place the scene with that incidental music.
The ski chase involving the German biathlete on the motorcycle.
I guess “Yakety Sax” to lighten the mood is out of the question.
+1
Are you secretly Lady Diamondback?
How about “Kill the wabbit”?
Dude! What the fuck!
Some crazy shit has happened but I’ve never actually yelled what the fuck out loud at my computer before!
On the BRIGHT SIDE….
He’s already been noticed. (See; the shocked people in that last panel.)
There is a visibly angry man on the campus with a gun, who is clearly not security in any capacity.
He is in so much goddamn trouble.
Yeah,but it will take time for the police or Amazi-Girl to arrive.
This maaaaay be a little above Amazi-Girl’s paygrade.
Does Amazagirl have access to a car?
Car>shotgun, and rifle’s are unwealdy in close range.
Tree>Car.
Motorcycle>Car. “No time to argue! An armed gunman is chasing Becky and Dina! –Damn, how do you drive this?!”
Cue best team-up followed by the best smackdown in the history of the comic.
You’re assuming Amazi-girl realizes it’s above her paygrade.
Amazi-Girl is immune to realizing things are above her paygrade.
It’s basically her yellow sun and kryptonite all rolled into one.
The true standard of heroism is valuing need over capacity. A true hero doesn’t worry about whether they’re capable of stopping a threat, only how badly the threat needs to be stopped. This is why so many of them die.
Well I did say on the bright side. The fact that it’ll take people time to get there is the downside.
And I can’t help but notice that every previous excerpt in this was crafted SPECIFICALLY to show how the people most likely to take down toedad are elsewhere at the moment.
Sarah’s in class, Ruth is so out of it that Billie wasn’t even sure she was breathing at first, Amber’s upstairs with her piece of plastic…
holy cow, that is some big-picture stuff you’re pointing out! i see now that this chapter has been building. but even if amber finishes with jacob iii…
I don’t think that’s what she meant by “this fucking robot,” but OK.
You’ve left out Sal — the fountain she’s just leaving is presumably the same one Dina and Becky were walking towards?
Holy-! yeah that is some great story building.
Oh man, if something bad happens to Dina or Becky, and Amber realizes she was playing with Transformers as Amber while it happened, it’s possible that it will mean she tries to forego being Amber entirely.
Amber attends classes. It’d look really weird for Amazi-Girl to starrt attending Amber’s classes.
Then Amazi-Girl doesn’t attend classes, and Amber faces the possibility of flunking out as a result. It’s a terrible plan, but Amber isn’t quite held together as it is.
Don’t forget that we just had a whole big chapter about Dina and how great she is. That’s *never* a good sign.
I had not looked at it that way before.
Concern: amplified.
I believe that the series where if you become important when you weren’t before, you die horrifically would be Gundam, correct?
I don’t think Willis would go that far.
The ONLY reason I’m not freaking the fuck out right now is because Willis has said that nobody dies. I, however, am still freaking out (just not freaking the fuck out) because “gunshot” does not mean “dead”. And “comatose” is not “dead” either.
I really hope Amber isn’t stupid/crazy enough to try and confront someone armed with a gun. That’s like the worst thing she could do as amazi-girl
She can sneaky enough to approach him without seeing her. She showed this in a couple of strips if I’m correct.
Not in this case.
Oh fuck. If she gets shot as Amazi-girl, the reveal of her secret identity would make that yet another horribly traumatic incident to add to the count of the five or six horrible potential outcomes we’ve already identified.
IU has an on-campus police department. That’ll help response time.
Response time is still probably not faster than bullet.
Current headcanon is that Sal winds up (briefly) in hospital after running Toedad down and failing to land cleanly after going over the handlebars. Toerad meanwhile rots in a Sheriff’s infirmary with broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and two aspirin.
(alternative nearly-happy resolution: Becky’s put in hospital with minor wounds, sorting out her accommodation woes briefly and coming up on Leslie’s radar, who decides let’s sort this shit out.
Here’s hoping Toe Dad is a bad shot.
Minor, unrelated wounds, such as breaking a leg via bouncing off a car while fleeing at high speed.
(maybe the car that cripples Toedad? *crosses fingers*)
Nope, but running buys time.
Hold on, there are universities without on-campus police?
Daniel here. I would have said “In Australia”, but then I remembered my High School had an onsite Police Officer. Unarmed, mainly to do “don’t break the law” sessions, inform students of the laws they might have broken by doing #####, nothing like preventing school shootings…
My experience in the university of queensland also says the contrary. They had campus guards and im pretty sure they had emergency buttons around the campus ( or maybe im confusing it with smu in dallas).
Averàge police emergency response is 5-10 minutes. Averàge active shooter situation is over in 2-3 minutes. Newtown took under 30 seconds. Even if bystanders are all calling 911, flight is the best response. Moving targets are hard to hit. They are both faster than him, since age and a weapon will slow him down. He doesn’t have an assault weapon. No burst setting. No large magazine. Maybe only a couple rounds. Splitting up will make him think for a second and seconds count. Sucks that I have training on surviving such things.
Also that rifle is a single-shot with no sights, so yay for that at least?
Whoa, whoa, WHOA, WHAT THE FUCK, TOEDAD? JESUS CHRIST!!!
He just loves his daughter and is trying to protect her from sin.
With a bullet.
To her and her gf.
Spreading ,,God’s teachings.”
Imagine someone you loved very much was committing terrible sins. Imagine that you were concerned if they continued they would be damned to hell forever. But if you stopped them (by maybe killing them), they might get off with a brief stint in purgatory.
The options are temporary pain or eternal damnation, and as a parent you would be a failure if you didn’t save your children from eternal damnation. This is the kind of fundamentalism that allows people to do some of the most terrible things anyone has ever thought to do.
Which is one reason why I find constant fundie panic about Satanic baby-killers so ironic and deeply, deeply depressing.
I’ve never really understood why fundies don’t see the potential third option. If someone tries to hurt your child, why not try to stop them? Omniscience would make you very, very vulnerable to seizure-inducing imagery.
Yeah, but omnipotence would put a real damper on the effects.
Yes, but if you’re too lazy to prevent people from trying that in the first place, or make people actually like you and capable of adhering to your ridiculous standards, you’re probably too lazy to protect yourself against that.
I was going to say, hey, on the bright side we’ll finally get people to stop defending this shitlord, but will we? Will we really?
Probably not.
(For the record, because Poe’s Law and all, my comment was dripping so much sarcasm that you’ll need a mop to clean up the floor.)
(Oh yeah, I was pretty sure you were joking. Pretty sure. Hoping.)
I think most of us try and give people the benefit of the doubt and not think they’re total monsters until a guy just pulls out a gun and kind of ruins what little credibility he may have had.
Mmmmaybe, but I suspect most of his defenders will switch to calling ‘strawman’.
It’s wrong to call Toedad a strawman, since there are people like this out there, most people are not so extreme as Toedad. And Willis has included more moderate examples of people with the same cultural background in Joyce’s parents, so it’s not like we’re suffering from a case of Toedad= all fundementalists.
But people are probably going to call him a strawman anyway for reasons. Goodish reasons, in fact.
Like, to think pulling a gun on your daughter and her girlfriend is okay is so out of most people’s experience that it’s kind of hard for most people to reconcile that with being human. Thus, strawman.
It also means we’re unlikely we’ll ever see Toedad be rational here – a character whose logic is so ingrained in blind faith to a relatively recent religious movement, that he cannot accept that his daughter can be a lesbian and not go to hell. To me that’s a really interesting (and horrible) way of thinking that I want to see explored.
Obviously that’s not the way Willis wanted to take his story. And that’s cool. But disappointed people who wanted to see a basically okay person tragically fail to do good because of their faith, as opposed to psycho gunman 5, are probably going to call strawman. Even if their terminology is wrong.
Uguu!
*There are people like this out there, even though most people are not so extreme as Toedad.
“…relatively recent”? There have been those who kill their relatives in the name of religion for hundreds of years, while fundamentalists may be ‘relativel recent’, like around 2,000 years: this isn’t a new occurance in human history sadly.
I’m not a fan of any kind of organized religion. Just my own take on things.
The Christian Fundementalist Movement in the US is early 20th century stuff. But, yeah, people have been killing relatives for all sorts of dumb reasons, religion included, for eons.
The more likely thing to happen is that now people will accuse Willis of using Foedad to promote his lib anti-gun and anti-christian agenda by making this good, God-fearing, daughter-loving, real American the villain in the story.
And they’ll be totally wrong. Merriam-Webster has just announced that Toedad’s picture will appear as an illustration for ‘asshole’ in the next edition.
Asshole seems like a mild term for him.
Nothing wrong with calling him an asshole: its endorsed by Wonderella, and thats good enough for me!
http://nonadventures.com/2015/06/20/the-some-of-all-fears/
(I’ve forgotten how to make this an active link 🙁
Merriam-Webster reads DoA? ‘,:/
WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA WILLIS
Haha, “Foedad.”
I like it.
He has defenders?
I mean, I can sympathize with him more than I’d like, but that’s pity, not defense.
One hopes. I mean, between the racism, the homophobia, and the gun, there’s not a ton of room left, right?
Not that I’m interested in defending the pile of trash, but just for the sake of accuracy, have we actually seen racism from him?
Whoop, nevermind, I somehow totally missed the “oriental girl” line.
Yeah, as of this strip he’s got the whole awful trifecta.
Oriental? Which means the EXACT SAME as asian?
Wooooow!!! 0_0
Oh Fuck.
That’s it, no snarky jokes or anything, it’s just ‘Oh Fuck’.
What went from 0 to 100 in a hurry
Well that escalated
Really hoping that those people in the background will be like, Sal or Ruth or actually wait no ANYONE NOT A TOEDAD
Anyone with a phone and the good sense to call the cops and also maybe pre-emptively and ambulance would do, really.
wWHAT THE FUCK
what the fuck
Well THAT escalated quickly.
He is certainly “combat ready.”
Even without a combat skirt.
So.
Well.
Looks like Blaine’s no longer the Worst Dad.
I never expected to see that sentence. I hope Ross is never one-upped by another dad.
Turns out that Sierra’s parents are Darkseid and Satan
that’d fly with the whole ‘adoption’ thing. technically, we don’t know that they’re not!
Meh. Still better than Ross.
Evil is always better than asshole.
Technically I’d say that at this point Ross qualifies as both.
Evil means you have at least a shred of style, logic (and associated lack of hurting people for no reason) and above all, know that you are actually doing something that goes against normal morality. Ross has no style, no capability to reason to speak of and is such an asshole precisely because he’s unwilling to admit that what he’s doing is wrong. Meanwhile, Galasso is pretty much perfectly evil: he has ridiculous amounts of style, is quite logical and nice (being nice to people means more potential followers, you know) and seems quite aware that he is pretty much a supervillain.
Don’t say that. He might try to figure out how to get his title back.
Well, he did avoid throwing racist dogwhistles last time around, so there’s that.
THE DAY OF THE TOE
http://orig07.deviantart.net/0d78/f/2012/276/8/9/spleen_by_flooki-d5gprey.gif (I know it’s a thumb, but let’s pretend)
Oh my god is that from Angry Beavers
Heck yes
You are the finest spoothead
I’m freaking out as to whether it is Dina or Becky who is in that Hospital panel in the future.
whoever jumps in front of the shot. basically, if he corners becky, then dina gets heroic. any wagers? who sits guiltily bedside? becky? still can’t picture him shooting his daughter with non-tranq, but i refuse to do character analysis on him anymore
I’m afraid it’s going to be Dina. Not because he targets her, or because she jumps in front of Becky, but because this Nimrod couldn’t hit the side of a barn from the inside and just starts blazing away indiscriminately.
I think he’s going to go after Dina because he sees her as an insidious “oriental” “deceptress” who is responsible for corrupting his daughter.
The Mighty Hunter. I remember my OT.
The idea of jumping in front of Becky makes me think Joyce might show up and literally take the bullet too.
31 strips until the hospital preview comes to pass.
I’m not sure I can last that long.
“the oriental girl”
Oh hey, he’s racist too. And yet somehow he’s at the point where that seems like a MINOR offense by comparison.
I was going to comment on that, but, really, it seems so insignificant in comparison.
Bigotries tend to breed like rabbits. Get one or two and it’s usually only a matter of time before you collect the whole set.
surely, you at least need 2 compatible ones joined in holy matrimony. if you had just one, there’d be no room for diversity
…which i guess is kinda the point
Yeah, they have to be in the same egg group.
(Pokemon jokes are my way of coping).
Bigotries, much like bacteria, breed by asexual reproduction. It’s less “sinful” that way.
And also like bacteria, they can share genetic code with out reproducing, homogenizing the whole petri-dish in the process.
Well, yeah, you don’t want your bigotries being corrupted by *hock, spit* diversity.
When you’re about to kill someone for hooking up with your daughter, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re using the preferred nomenclature.
What the ever loving Hell just happened
Aw shit…waiting 24 hours for the next one is going to suck. If this was a (full time) super hero comic this would be a great time for an Amazi-Girl / Ruthless teamup, but it isn’t and the gun scares me.
Okay what
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
Jeeze.
Don’t go into the woods.
but that is the only way to safely avoid a hick with a shotgun! although, he does get the camo advantage….
Rifle (Ruger No.1V) not a shotgun. He hasn’t mounted a scope, so I doubt he’ll hit anything.
Seriously, has the musical Into The Woods taught you nothing? People die in the woods! And there are giants! And essentially it’s all a giant metaphor for sex! … wait, the last one was not a negative one. BUT GIANTS. LADY GIANTS.
yeah, and also, bears shit there! come on, people!
Not to repeat The previous 30 comments or anything, but
Holy SHIT Ross!
You are walking onto a school campus with a gun?! Are you Insane?!
He asked the Lord to give him strength to injure his daughter with a shotgun. So yes, insane.
I’d say he’s going to go after Dina, not Becky. He probably blames her insidious “oriental” influence for turning Becky gay or something, and thinks that if he removes that influence by killing her, he’ll be able to put Becky back on what he perceives as the straight and narrow.
Hopefully the background person will be able to stop it in time. :-/
hoping it’s this dude
I think he means to kill her.
WHAT THE FUCK TOEDAD
Holy shit, Ross
That… Escalated further than I expected. And quicker. So I guess Ross isn’t too concerned about the legality of his actions. Holy shit.
Of course he’s not concerned with the legality of his actions. Leviticus told him all he needs to know about legality when it comes to such things as homosexuality, never mind all the other Leviticus proscriptions he probably broke all across his own lifetime. That’s where fundies get to pick and choose.
Honestly, he strikes me as the kind of guy who follows all the Leviticus proscriptions to the letter and enforces them on his family and anyone else he thinks he can get away with enforcing them upon. No mixed fabrics for Becky!
Huh, maybe that’s why Becky was so excited about the prospect of Long John Silver’s. She’s never had the opportunity to eat shrimp before.
It’s been clear from the start that he wasn’t overly concerned with legality.
Daniel here.
The Lord is his Judge! No authority on Earth comes close. The Lord gives him strength. The laws of man are naught compared to the Laws of god. The Police mean nothing, he’s on a mission from God…
Those sound like the arguments of someone like Toedad. I grew up in a strongly religious background myself, still barrack for The Big Guy, but I’m not gonna shove a Bible down anyone’s throat. I can see how such mentality can build up, especially in a community type setup where it can all feed back on itself & just get worse & worse, creating people like Toedad here…
Oh I guessed that. I was referring to the fact that people were saying that if Becky was 18 there was nothing Ross could legally do.
(Though now that I think about it, all Ross needed to do was tell on the school authorities, and Becky would be in the same situation as she was in the start except this time with no Joyce to turn to)
Jesus Christ!!!!!!
He needs to ask WWJD and I am fairly certain that doing things Jesus’ way wouldn’t involve a rifle.
You’re right. Jesus would use a hand gun.
no no, Jesus would use a nail gun
Damn. Also, it’d be a whip.
You’re all sick, twisted, and awesome.
I like that.
Remember that when asking “WWJD”, flipping over tables and chasing people with whips is definitely a possibility.
That scene was for turning a Church into little more than a Sunday stall, possibly even selling religious symbols from other religions. Usually he was all about messages of pease, “Love one another, as I have loved you”.
That said, if he did the table-flip thing with the CAR, so it landed on top of Toedad so it pinned him with crippling but not fatal injuries, I’d be OK with that…
I’ve always felt that was an entirely appropriate response to (people with) tables full of tacky WWJD merch.
Sniper Jesus would. But it would be pointed at Ross.
I suspect a proto-hippie probably wouldn’t like guns. Or Ross in general. God complex or not, I find it doubtful that you’d be able to inspire a following of any reasonable magnitude if you’re enough of a jerk to like Ross.
Second amendment Jesus is a thing. It not a joke like dinosaur Jesus, but the web’s have lots of images of armed smiling whie Jesus.
Whaaat?!?
We can always live in hope that all Toedad accomplishes is grazing Becky in the arm before getting annihilated by local police.
It’s gonna be Dina, not Becky 🙁
ObligatoryIWjoke: Maybe we’ll get to see what she’s hiding under the hat then.
what tHE FUCK
In Gun We Trust?
Try something more like, “No flesh shall be spared !” think that fits the mood better.
Nice touch Willis.
So when can we as country have a discussion guns in are society.
Anytime you want, but for the love of god don’t do it here.
Yeah, it often seems people prowl the Internet looking for the merest mention of gun control so they can get their angry on.
Don’t worry I learned my lesson last time (Willis knows what I mean)
Meh, we DISCUSS it all the time, we just never DO anything about it.
This is either perfect or the absolute worst timing possible. Also either Willis can see the future or this country is just too predictable when it comes to this. 🙁
Also OHHHHHH SHITTTTTTTTTTTTT
The latter. Shootings are like clockwork.
There have been 47 school shootings in the US this year. There is nothing surprising about this timing.
Yep. It could have happened any time before now this year, and still been within a week of a school shooting.
There will be one next week, count on it )=|
Daniel here. I personally agree with what this guy says here. Heads up tho, that clip is on Facebook. Tried finding it on Youtube, only found the next few minutes…
What the fuck man!? I just wanted to tell jokes about a family being torn apart by a father not being able to accept his daughter for who she is, why you gotta make it weird by bringing in attempted homicide?
Guess it’s just one of those “Damn you, Willis” moments.
Oh my god we’re all freaking out
I’m not(yet)
Willis… why are you trying to get all murdery?
And why would he pack a shotgun in the first place? Did he really anticipate this kind of trouble?
“Uh-oh… my gay daughter has run away. Better pack heat.”
I’m going to guess that Toedad’s the flavor of right-wing that takes a gun everywhere because “it’s mah right” rather than specifically bringing it for this…
Though then again, he believes he is fighting a great demon who has stolen his daughter property from him and the way of the Lord sooooo…. who knows, maybe this really was consciously planned.
Actually those two are just mild forms of right-wing America. The others more extreme ones are basically terrorist who’ve been active since the late 70’s.
Or part of terror cells that have been active since the 60s… 1860s that is.
No these guys are actually more dangerous because they are a somewhat indiscriminate. Also it includes Timothy McVeigh.
Although you could probably trace the origins of such cells back to around 60 AD.
Even the worst case of right-wing-don’t-take-mah-gun-nut only see TWO uses of guns in combination with children.
1. Family fun time at the shooting range or at a hunting trip.
2. To DEFEND THEM AGAINST PEOPLE LIKE TOEDAD!
You would be surprised. Look up changeling.
NOPE
That’s… not really worst-case. At all. More like what I’d (perhaps naively) expect the standard to be among gun owners.
Its what I’d HOPE the standard would be.
Ah, but what if the child is gay? Or might be gay?
What if he’s a toddler and you’re worried he might grow up to be gay?
You don’t think these people kill kids?
PLEASE WILLIS I BEG OF YOU, DO NOT KILL ANYONE
do not worry. it is a harmless truck-gun. it’s like a monkey-gun, but it shoots trucks. and there’s no way that anyone would ever die from something like that!
Listen to them, Willis. Don’t kill Becky or Dina or anyone in the comic.
…..or real life. Generally, just good advice all around.
Oh FUCK NO.
Daddy’s got a Gun.
And he’s not happy.
And that’s why strict gun control is necessary!
Not wanting to get into the whole gun debate thing here but in the state of mind that hes in do you think he’d follow any gun laws right now since hes already broken a few traffic laws and is currently trying to kidnap his daughter
Yes, but better gun laws could have kept him from owning a gun in the first place. Though tbh I suspect he’s the sort who would do whatever it takes to have a gun.
depends on his background. without a history of violent crime or serious mental health issues, an extreme religious belief-set would likely not keep him from a gun. not christian, anyway
Disclaimer alert, I own a number of firearms and I enjoy shooting them but I agree that certain people shouldn’t own firearms ie certain types of intellectually disabled people shouldn’t and violent convicted criminals shouldn’t but for the rest of us where is that line?
Also I live in NZ so as I understand it our gun laws are different to yours
Just gonna drop this here
http://depts.washington.edu/mhreport/facts_violence.php
I’m not saying they’re inherently violent and I’m not saying all shouldn’t but there are some and its specifically those who don’t understand the responsibility of owning a firearm that shouldn’t be allowed access to firearms
I’m just pointing out that you should be careful about how you’re generalizing (especially since people with mental disabilities are actually more likely to be a target of violence, not to commit it).
Thats why I said certain types not all types
@christ73 , well, look at it this way, how do you think people would react if you said “certain types of black people”. The fact that you said “certain types” probably doesn’t make it less jarring.
Well how would you have said it then?
@chris73; I would have not been ableist and not said anything.
One thing that link makes clear is that the mentally disabled [i]are[/i] more violent on average (even if only a little). All of the statistics listed are easily explained since we’re talking about a small minority – of [i]course[/i] they wouldn’t contribute much to the overall rates. I’ve rarely felt so strongly that someone was trying to mislead me using (accurate) statistics.
If certain conditions are strongly correlated to violence, that would be a good reason to bar those people from ownership. If not, not. But saying that the disabled are in general not violent is irrelevant.
Alright, so, I work with the mentally disabled every day.
I suppose it is technically true that if you took the entire lot, the average trend toward aggression would be higher, because specific disabilities do result in higher aggression. My job has sent me to the ER on at least two occasions.
However, there are “A LOT” of different kinds of disabilities, so lumping them altogether and saying they are more aggressive shows a profound level of ignorance.
At the very least it’s unhelpful. Sorry if my post came off as arguing for the importance of generalizations – I wrote it quickly and while annoyed at what felt like manipulation. I don’t think the overall statistics one way or another are relevant.
As to the debate: I don’t see a problem with the original post. I don’t feel qualified to say much more than that, though.
The daughter or her girlfriend owning guns would ALSO remedy the situation. Or if those shocked bystanders had them.
that’s why the battle of gettysburg was actually a really safe place, because everybody had guns
Just so you know, I’m going to be stealing that one in the future.
1000 points for that.
Also, that’s generally true for any battleground.
It’s not so much as the guns as how people who are able to access them handle the responsibility that comes with it. Simply saying ‘NRA’ is both a complete and strong argument in favor of gun control laws, for example.
I wish people wouldn’t use differing paradigms in arguments like this. The societal values of modern day schools and the 1860’s are two entirely different things. 🙁
It’s prevalence in conversation on any high tension subject has me wondering if maybe the problem isn’t with the subjects themselves, but rather with the way we are being taught to rationalize our arguments in debate. Thoughts?
Only if they know how to use them correctly with proper training otherwise they’d probably just make things worse
This is what I say in response to the notion that students with guns on campus will solve school shootings — unless gun training is at the level of the constant training in small unit tactics the military does you cannot convince me that I’m safer if the 25 students in my classroom have firearms than if only cops have them on campus. And I’m the professor, so I’m the one most likely to get shot in the classroom.
Yeah. If you’ve got training in how to properly act under pressure, have been trained for similar situations, and have proper gun training and a firearm with you, you might be able to help. Everyone else is just going to make things worse if they’re armed. I don’t get why suddenly people think they’re prepared for this stuff if they know how to shoot a gun, panic and uncertainty are pretty normal human responses to this sort of thing! And even if you manage to think clearly, you can come to the WRONG conclusions about the right thing to do if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. So I’m talking probably either police or military personnel, and not everyone with those backgrounds is going to be helpful, either.
TL;DR – stricter gun laws are far more helpful for preventing incidents like this than arming everyone and teaching them to aim and fire. Friendly fire is absolutely a thing, and a room full of scared, adrenaline-fueled people with guns is not a room you want to be in.
Friendly fire isn’t.
@Huttj Maxim 15. Only you can prevent friendly fire.
*random guy shoots crazy old guy chasing girls with guns*
*random guy sees random guy shooting toedads with guns*
more shooting more death
cops with proper gun safety training shoot innocent and/or unarmed people all the time. If I can’t trust cops who are trained to use guns, why the hell would i trust a “gun safety trained” citizen that i don’t know the agenda of with a gun?? You cannot improve a situation by bringing a gun into it. Period. If you introduce a gun into a tense situation you have escalated that situation, even if you’re “properly trained” on how to use it.
Hell yeah.
If someone else was armed, I’d give it a 25/75 shot. Toe dad already has his gun out and loaded, he’s high on adrenaline, and he’s willing to kill, none of which is true of the potential Big Damn Hero, who also has to shoot well enough to stop him instantly. Meanwhile, running, breaking line of sight, and forcing the angry idiot to aim just has to work long enough for trained professionals to show up. I mean, if you have a gun and are competent/careful, sure use it if you’re feeling brave, but returning fire only guarantees that someone will be shot, not that the right person will be.
It’s been shown that people without proper training for acting under pressure being armed in a situation like this makes things WORSE. You can be of sound mind and have proper firearms training, but if you’re panicking, it’s still a bad combo.
Like the American passengers on plane taken by terrorist: they attacked the terrorists and let the plane fly into the ground rather than allow it to be turned into a weapon on 9/11?
Maybe not the best example as all died, but they acted under the worse pressure very herorically.
Yes. But shooting in an enclosed space would have very bad for them anyway if any of them had had guns, and sadly their heroics came about in the sort of situation where, well, everyone would have died anyway, and mostly the way to be a hero was to also die. Shitty situation. Has nothing to do with gun control.
Yeah, ’cause Toedad would definitly buy Becky a gun. You know, the daughter he strictly tried to control all her life.
Oh god don’t get into this… no don’t… dammit…
I live in the UK. Others here are from Australia. Please compare our gun deaths stats with the US’, and look up what really happens when multiple people start exchanging fire.
The ‘if only the victims were armed’ argument has been debunked so thoroughly and repeatedly it’s not even funny.
Don’t confront the faith partisans have in their chosen team with facts. It’ll just make them angry and even more stubborn.
Yes, that’s why everyone needs more guns. Because killing is the only way to argue with people with guns.
Assuming Becky had a gun, and assuming she had the wherewithal to use it properly, and the willingness to do so, having to deal with the emotional baggage of shooting or even killing your own father, even if he is a horrible person, is not something to casually wish for.
There’s a reason that most civilized societies regard killing as a last resort, rather than a political statement.
I’m curious how you think this would go down.
Ross has already gotten his gun out and could finish Dina or Becky before they got theirs out.
If they drew on him first they’d be the criminals. I mean until he got the gun out he hadn’t done anything to justify it.
The same applies to the bystander only they have even less reason to get involved and risked their lives or freedom.
And if you think people should carry 24/7 you need to now apply this logic to EVERY SITUATION WHERE SOMEONE FEELS THREATENED.
You know what makes me feel threatened? People who have such boners for their guns they openly carry, like those thugs I’ve seen pictures of in Wal-Marts with rifles over their shoulders. Is your thinking I should immediately take out my gun whenever I see these people, tell them to get in the ground and shoot them if they don’t comply?
I like it even better in colleges and schools because those places are both densely crowded and full of highly emotional people with less real world experience.
And lets not forget the fact that even people with firearms training (Like cops) tend to miss with most shots and frequently make bad choices about when to employ force. Now apply this everyone, who have no training and the fact any missed bullet from even a handgun will often go all the way through walls and vehicles.
No logical involved, just dick jerking.
This isn’t fucking Pulp Fiction. They’re not just gonna gun him down in sync and act real badass. For fuck sake.
Until the “good guy with the gun” decides to stop the “bad guy” and SHOOTS THE VICTIM IN THE HEAD in the process: http://www.khou.com/story/news/2015/09/27/one-man-injured-after-carjacking-shooting-at-gas-station/72923278/
I don’t think I can say it better than Duke. The whole series of strips around that is very spot-on.
In a country with strict gun control laws, access to firearms is extremely restricted, and the amount of guns in ‘circulation’ in the general population is very low, which would mean it would be very very difficult for him to own or acquire a gun. His intentions with regard to breaking gun laws would be rather academic; there wouldn’t be any guns for him to get.
Access to people who don’t want to break those laws you mean and Toe Dads shown he doesn’t care too much about laws
The laws are effective at lowering gun violence. It is simple, because the biggest risk factor in being a victim of gun violence is the local prevalence of guns. Laws that reduce the number of guns in the general populace reduce gun violence. Of course, the laws aren’t nearly so effective when you can drive an hour away and buy a gun basically without any restrictions.
It is unlikely Becky’s father would have a gun if he didn’t already own one or if it was hard to acquire.
I just don’t think gun laws or restricting them are the way to go for example in NZ once you get your firearms licence after the necessary background checks you then need an endorsement to be able to purchase MSSA (military style small arms) and pistols which seems a good way of going about it
But outright banning firearms or making them very restricted will only emake ven more profits for gangs selling them
That isn’t the only effect it will have though. Its been shown to have been an effective solution in other countries, and is even effective in the US to a more limited extent.
There are benefits and costs to other solutions, but it doesn’t do any good to ignore the actual merits of the alternatives.
Ok so why do NZ, Canada and Switzerland (all first world countries) have relatively low rates of firearm deaths when those countries all have reasonably high firearm owning rates
And in Switzerlands case that includes easy access to assault rifles (fully automatic rifles)
chris73, good questions! You should look into how NZ, Canada, and Switzerland regulate their guns. It is very different from the “everyone should have one, carry it into Target, and be prepared to be in a firefight at all times” approach.
I’m from NZ and I have my firearms licence plus my endorsements for pistol and military style small arms and to get it (abridged version) took testing, background checks, interviews with myself and friends/family, checks of my property, checks of my storage and reasons for owning
Fair enough; I missed where you had said you were from NZ. There are notable differences from the US in all that. You could easily have a case where more restrictions would not be a positive where you are, but would in Indiana.
So compare those rates to NZ which has a much fairer system of gun ownership yet is in the lower half of gun deaths
Sorry I can’t post the links I want without going into moderation but if you google fbi gun homicide statistics and crime you’ll see that both violent crime and homicide by firearms is dropping and has been for years
Arms traders aren’t immune to economics. If nobody has guns easily available for theft (because guns are tightly regulated), then criminals can’t steal guns, and so they can’t sell stolen guns. When they can’t sell stolen guns, criminals can’t buy stolen guns.
The criminals could of course import illegal guns from other countries with more lax gun laws… but then the criminals would still have to smuggle them across the border. This increases the number of middle-men involved in the process, which raises the price of the gun – and when the price goes up, less criminals are able to buy guns.
No it just means criminals will probably just commit even more crime to afford the weapons they want
I don’t think there’s any evidence that making guns more expensive/rarer means that people will commit more crimes just to afford them. You can’t just “probably” that argument.
Thats true but if a criminal wants a firearm and it becomes more expensive I doubt they’ll get a job and save up their pennies until they can afford one
They might not just get a gun at all. At some point the risks outweigh the benefits, even for criminals. Also, if other people don’t have guns, there is less of an incentive for the criminal to have a gun in the first place.
“No it just means criminals will probably just commit even more crime to afford the weapons they want”
That doesn’t make any sense, not least because you have to toss any gun you use in a crime ASAP. The cops will grab the bullet from the scene and if they ever find the gun on you or in your property they’ll match and you’re basically already convicted.
You also forget the other obvious result that criminals will just do crimes that don’t require guns instead, do those crimes without guns or possibly even get real jobs since it’s much harder to commit many crimes that would be easy if you had a gun.
Ok so how do you explain gun crime in countries with with highly restrictive gun laws and really?
“or possibly even get real jobs since it’s much harder to commit many crimes that would be easy if you had a gun.”
Thats a joke right?
Less of a joke than your BS, for serious. You’re the one talking about the gangbanger’s piggybank.
Also please name these countries because I’m guessing the answer is “Because they be relatively poor with fewer resources to go around” combined with “There is something illegal that a profit can be made on” like the USA’s crazy drugs laws added to “Crimes are committed by disenfranchised groups who feel they are not part of society so are not held by its rules”.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
Switzerland, while a high firearm owing country is highly regulated
Australias gun laws changed drastically after Port Arthur yet its percentages of homicide by firearm is still above 10%
The UK brought in new rules after Dunblane as well but: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-overtaken-gun-crime-capital-5172325 gun crime is still increasing
Ok so my comments in moderation so I’ll try it without the links
Switzerland, while a high firearm owing country is highly regulated and has a high percentage of gun related homicides
Australias gun laws changed drastically after Port Arthur yet its percentages of homicide by firearm is still above 10%
The UK brought in new rules after Dunblane as well but gun crime is still increasing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
http://uk.businessinsider.com/oecd-homicide-rates-chart-2015-6?r=US&IR=T
All three have strict gun control laws. All three have roughly a quarter of the rate of murders the USA suffers. I feel the murder rate is the fairest way to analyse the trend. After all if you can kill as easily with a car or a knife or a home made bomb it’d be pointless ban guns. But you can’t.
Why does Switzerland have a high rate of murders involving guns? Because everyone has guns. But they have fewer actual murders because ownership is highly regulated, not just in who can own what and what they can do with them and where they can take them and what records can be kept but in the entire culture of how guns are treated. In the USA for example it’s entirely based on masturbation and really stupid paranoia.
(There’s also the fact that poverty leads to crime and that per-capita the USA is closer to broke-ass-Greece than Switzerland).
“Australia’s gun laws changed drastically after Port Arthur yet its percentages of homicide by firearm is still above 10%”
So it has 1/4th the rate of murder as the USA and 1/10th of those involve guns. So regulation does in fact work according to this example.
“The UK brought in new rules after Dunblane as well but gun crime is still increasing”
And what does that even mean? Dunblane was twenty years ago and after it private gun ownership basically stopped except for highly regulated shotguns for farmers and by extension gun crime dropped right through the floor. If over that twenty years gun crime was at (To pick a number at random) an average of five crimes a year and then last year it was ten that’s a 100% increase but it’s still probably less than any week in New York.
So compare those rates to NZ which has a much fairer system of gun ownership yet is in the lower half of gun deaths
Also its interesting to note that in the USA violent crime is dropping:
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime
and that gun deaths is also dropping: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls
So compare those rates to NZ which has a much fairer system of gun ownership yet is in the lower half of gun deaths
Sorry I can’t post the links I want without going into moderation but if you google fbi gun homicide statistics and crime you’ll see that both violent crime and homicide by firearms is dropping and has been for years
Only a jerk disconnected from reality believes criminals will commit crimes for the purpose of owning guns. For fucks sake, let’s just put this argument in its place – check out Poland. Poor as fuck, with pretty fucking high rates of street crime. There’s also basically no gun deaths. Organized Crime has access to guns, sure! But ordinary criminals don’t.
you realise that the possibility that someone might break a law doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make that law, right? People still commit murder even though it’s illegal, that doesn’t mean we should roll over to the will of the criminals and make murder legal.
Or we could reduce this situation to a matter of basic math. If there are ten guns, and ten people who want a gun, each person is probably going to obtain a gun. But if a gun restricting law put in place that reduces the number of available guns from 10 to 2, at least 8 of those people AREN’T going to get a gun. a 20% chance of a criminal being able to obtain a gun is a WAY safer option than a 100% chance of them obtaining one.
I’m not against gun control, what I’m against is people saying gun control as if thats the answer, it is not.
In this situation gun restrictions would do nothing because unless Toe Dad has broken laws in the past there would be no reason why he couldn’t have what looks like a hunting rifle
What would work is:
1. Standardized laws between the states
2. Rigorously enforced background checks on all weapons sold
3. Checks that weapons can be stored properly before a licence is issued
4. A basic gun ownership test before a licence is issued
and for mass shootings the media needs to stop posting images and names of the shooters
That right there will lower the gun deaths in America faster and fairer then any gun restriction change would do
So… gun control/restrictions?
Sorry I must not have explained it that well, people say gun control/restriction without any specifics as to what those gun restrictions are
For example someone saying gun control might mean that no one is allowed a firearm or that someone may only have one firearm or someone may only have a rifle or so forth
I’m trying to give specific ideas as to what would actually work to bring down the death by firearm rate as opposed to just saying gun control and leaving it at that
Also gun control would do nothing in this situation because I’m assuming Toe Dad has been, up to this point, a law abiding citizen which means there was no reason to not allow him to own a rifle in the first place
Perhaps, but it is far too late for that. And I don’t mean in this situation, I mean in America in general. The right to bear arms was considered important enough to the American public in the late 1700’s that the founding fathers wrote that in as the SECOND Amendment to the constitution, right after the Freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition in the first one. It is simply unfeasible to change that fundament of law, especially since the amendment process is so hard and requires so many people, the only time an amendment was rescinded was when it interfered with our drinking. And even if it weren’t, there are so many guns around today that rounding them all up would be near impossible.
It was for the purpose of maintaining a militia for defense in case of invasion. Think National Guard type thing.
I’m well aware of that. I’m also aware of all the nutjobs who either disregard that bit or claim that they are following that bit.
You do realize he could acquire guns from an out of country syndicate don’t you? Many of the illegal weapons in the US are bought through straw purchases, or when someone has an illegally acquired gun who sells it to a person that is buying it for someone else.
I honestly believe that gun control can work two ways: Extremely strict no gun policy whatsoever, or your average conservative gun nut belief of gun control.
Ridding ourselves of straw purchases would be trivial. All we have to do is have gun purchases reported to the FBI and registered. When the straw buyer’s weapons show up as murder weapons at crime scenes, they likely can be charged as accessories to murder.
The illegal weapon black market could be shut down, if we wanted to. The problem right now is the our police organizations effectively have to try to stop it while being blind folded, hog tied, and locked in a broom closet.
I don’t think more gun control is the answer, according to this: http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/gunbook4.pdf there are about 300 gun laws in the USA but the quickest way to lower the death toll would to make gun laws the same throughout your entire country…of course that would also be the hardest thing to do as I understnad it
Especially since the US Constitution expressly forbids the abridgment of the right to bear arms, so the federal government’s hands are tied on that front. And since the Fourteenth Amendment allows and has caused the Bill of Rights to apply to the states, The right-wing gun nuts actually have the upper hand. The only hope is the “Militia” reading of the Second Amendment. That and the same type of pork-barreling that forced the drinking age up to twenty-one.
No it doesn’t. the 200 years of history between then and now says that, the document actually implies more nuanced meaning.
The “militia reading” is what it actually says.
That’s not a reading, that’s just reading.
Do you really think the NRA cares about a more nuanced reading? How about the average American, who chooses who to put in charge of amending the Constitution? (Starting the process requires two-thirds of either the state legislatures or both Houses, completing it requires three-fourths of either)
That’s not nuanced. It’s literally what it says. It states it outright.
No, I do not believe the NRA is known for that literacy. At least not on purpose.
“here are about 300 gun laws in the USA”
And in some states there are only one or two such laws. 300 isn’t that many when it’s split up between 50 states.
No but what I’m suggesting is having a standardized set of laws throughout your country would, for example here in NZ the same laws apply whether you travel from the South Island to the North
However I don’t know what type of change that would require in the USA to happen
Gun control is better thought of along public health lines in that if you reduce the amount of guns the number of mass shootings will go down not stop all together.
That’s a rifle. Unless you want to completely outlaw hunting, he’d probably still have access to that gun.
It’s most likely a double barrelled shotgun, judging by the build and the double triggers. Of course it could be a gun in general, I hear artist have a very difficult time drawing firearms and such
Depends on the number of hoops he’d have to jump through.
Indeed. If he doesn’t have strict control of his gun, he will not be able to drop both moving targets.
It’s a more complicated problem than that. Gun violence against others doesn’t track with gun ownership (for example, the district of Columbia has one of the lowest rates of legal gun ownership, but one of the highest rates of gunshot homicides in the country). And even despite the news, gun violence has been going down for years. The terrifying assault weapons are in fact the least likely to be involved in a homicide.
On the other hand, gun control would almost certainly reduce gun related deaths. What nobody talks about is that on average two thirds of deaths from firearms are self inflicted, predominantly suicide. Alaska, which has an extremely low rate of gun violence against others, leads the nation in total gunshot deaths. Eighty percent of those are believed to be suicide. When you provide a populace with an easy method of suicide, suicide rates go up, and guns are a very easy method of suicide.
Shorter version: Gun ownership does not correlate to gun violence, gun violence has been going down considerably, gun control would still probably have a meaningful effect of reducing suicides, but the underlying issues are so complex that targeting the guns only is just a band-aid that doesn’t address the underlying cultural, societal, and medical problems that feed it.
It would also significantly reduce what are the second most common victim of guns: your own family. The source of this would be both domestic violence and accidents.
Waiting periods on gun purchases also probably serve the same purpose as anti-bridge jumping barriers. They are far less likely to go through with it because there was an obstacle.
It’s something that weighs heavily on my mind. I’m fundamentally conservative and all about freedoms. I know that taking away the guns doesn’t fix the fundamental root problems. I live in a house with guns, enjoy target shooting, and have a healthy respect for them and what they represent. You might call this a house of model gun owners who are no threat to anybody, and I know the vast majority of gun owners are the same.
But I’m also painfully aware of the ugly parts of the equation. I’m recovering from suicidal depression, and I’m obsessive about understanding things, so I know where most gunshot deaths come from. I know that taking away the easy path will save lives. And I know that even illegal weapons have to come from somewhere (see also nearly every gun in mexico). And I know that we are in no position to fix the problems we face. Brass tacks, gun control will protect more lives than it will threaten.
How many of the people in DC don’t live there?
Rates of gun ownership among residents isn’t the same as rates of gun ownership among people there.
It also isn’t the same as the rate of illegal guns flowing into the area from elsewhere. Regardless, you don’t see a corresponding increase in gunshot murder in states with high occurrence of legal gun ownership, such as Idaho and Alaska. You do see a corresponding increase in gunshot deaths, however, because once again the vast majority of gunshot deaths are self inflicted.
It’s a complicated issue is what I’m saying. The availability of guns is only PART of the problem, and stricter gun controls won’t address the rest. What weighs heavily on me is that I don’t know if anybody knows how to address the rest of the problems. How do you fix poverty, social conflict, a crippled mental health care system, the unwillingness of those who need that sort of help to seek it, a media desperate for the next sensational story, and the tendency for people to scream at and denigrate anybody they disagree with rather than actually talking? I’m sure I don’t know how. Stricter gun control might only be a band aid, but it might also be the only thing we’ve got.
Did you really just go there?
I’m not even going to try reading this thread, as even while I trust DoA commenters to be civil it’s just too much text, but here’s my 2¢.
In a country like New Zealand where guns aren’t all over the place yet, sure, but firearms are so widespread in the US that heavy gun control is a lost cause. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be strict regulations, but they’ll have limited effectiveness when it’s not particularly difficult to come by firearms with or without the law’s approval.
“it’s a lost cause so we shouldn’t even bother” is a very depressing and very easy argument to make.
It’s a lost cause for any state that remains in the union, between the commerce clause (which means that states can’t have national-style border control – needed to slow the import of illegal guns – even if 2A or 14A weren’t a thing, as that’s a right that Congress is explicitly granted), 2A, 14A, and the foreseeable political state of the union.
However, blue state secession would allow states to not be subject to any of that.
However, once it comes to that pass, we all have a much larger list of pressing issues, at the top of which is the remaining states’ inevitable declaration of war.
Given some of the current events this hits a little too close to home. On the upshot something like this will get him arrested and banned from the campus.
I wrote the same thing… but I know he does these so far in advance, there’s no way he could have known.
See his reply below. He *did* expect it, because mass shooting average one a week. And a lot are at schools too. There isn’t really any time you can drop a storyline like this and not have it near one.
Smartphones are limited so I couldn’t read everything, but I understand and prefer the story not be rearranged because of another all too frequent tragedy. That’s what I like about webcomics is its not censored by editors who are worried that readers might take something the wrong way.
That’s not a limit on smartphones so much as humans. It’s a lot of text today.
*day.
thing is, this is never not relevant to “current events”. There’s maybe a two day window every few months where this kind of thing isn’t “too soon”
I am so glad I don’t read the news sometimes. I am also glad I don’t go to any schools that have had this sort of thing. (For the record, the most recent one I remember hearing about is Sandy Hook.)
they happen almost every week, whether they’re widely publicized or not, and it’s been that way for quite a while.
Not knowing they are really common is part of the issue. If people don’t realise there’s a problem, they aren’t motivated to fixing it. Ignoring the news doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening.
This is going worse than I could ever have imagined
You need to work on your creative thinking. I can come up with a dozen ways to make it worse, and that’s without involving more people, a change in the weather, sexual violence, orthe undead. I’m just wondering if DW will give us a soft landing, or if we are going to see an increase of characters suffering from PTSD.
Undead would actually help this situation. If Becky’s mother was a nice person, she could probably take advantage of the fact that fundamentalists don’t know to shoot zombies in the head to wrestle away his gun and restrain him.
Blaine got nothing on Religious Fanatic Community Dads.
He’s a religious zealot. He’s a violent ****face. With a gun. Dina “deceived” him. He’s pissed. He will “correct Becky” by “any means necessary”. He won’t hesitate to shoot either one.
But will likely start with Dina if he finds her.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
The flash forward mentioned. Where can one find it?
…yeah. Hopefully they can both run like ever-loving hell.
Dina did actually deceive him, though. That part’s true.
Also… I know, Willis, that you write these WAY in advance… but given some of the events in the past week, be prepared to get some e-mails about being in “bad taste”.
With the 2 school shootings yesterday (and 2 attempted ones in Colorado and Montana), this is going to hit some chords.
Dude, I wrote this four months ago EXPECTING there to be a school shooting. Because there’s one EVERY WEEK, on average. And this particular leg of the story will take a few weeks itself, meaning we’re probably going to have a few in real-time along the way. I mean, if you can find me a nice hole in our national schedule where there isn’t one, please tell me, I’ll be happy to live there forever.
If I do, I’ll save you a spot next door to me.
I want to be able to upvote this reply forever, only because it’s unfortunately true. 🙁
Try Switzerland. One of the most gun-friendly and one of the least gun-violent countries out there. A lovely place to be, if you don’t mind dick-shriveling cold, and are an aspiring gunsmith, such as myself.
We (Switzerland) are a gun-friendly country? I never knew. I mean, I only have one acquaintance whom I know owns a gun, and aren’t the only allowed guns ones related to military duty?
As far as Europe goes, it has one of the highest rates of legal gun ownership, I believe around 30 percent or so of the population owning them. Nothing like the United States, but also nothing like the majority of Europe. Permits are required, but firearms are more prevalent in Switzerland than you think.
“than you think”
he lives there…
That’s part of the problem in the US, we have around the same or higher gun ownership, but not every state requires a permit to own.
So tell me why a permit should me necessary to own a firearm. I don’t need a permit to carry my (oh-so-scary) spring-assist knife, or my fixed-blade hunting knife. I mean no disrespect, I just would like to know why I would have to be government approved to defend myself with a tool that allows anyone with proper training to be on the same level as any other armed assailant.
You’re the one pointing out how Switzerland is safe but ‘gun-friendly’ and brought up permits. To me, that sounds like it has stricter gun laws than the US.
You’re the one pointing to a country with stricter laws and saying it’s as gun friendly but safer than the US.
I didn’t say it was ‘as’ gun-friendly. I said that it just was.
I think you were using percentage of gun owners as your metric.
You said Switzerland is 30%; the US is estimated at 35%.
It still sounds like needing permits helps.
Well for one, it’s much easier to kill a lot more people with a gun than with a knife. Like, unless you can move extremely fast or are a skilled knife thrower, there’s only so many people you can kill within a a few second. With a gun, depending on the type of gun, that’s a whole’nother story. And as far as I recall, you’re not allowed to carry any knife with a blade bigger than your palm, so it’s not like there’s no restrictions on knives either.
Also, it’s much easier to accidentally shoot someone than it is to accidentally stab someone, and the damage from an accidental shooting is likely to be worse than an accidental stabbing (based on assumptions that I am making).
Switzerland very highly regulates both its guns and its ammunition. It’s a very terrible example to bring up if you’re anti-regulation.
Because guns are ranged weapons and explosives. Knives, unless thrown and strapped to a stick of dynamite, are neither.
Switzerland is 41 285 km². USA is 9 629 048 km². You are comparing policies with a country that is about 233 smaller than the US.
Now for a few fun facts :
-There’s a saying in Switzerland that “the mountain are porous”. Because… they have a lot of bunkers bug inside them.
-Every bridges and main road and built with a way to destroy them easily in mind, “in case of invasion”. Bridges also have slots for land mines.
Switzerland, as a country has historically been VERY wary of invasion. It’s kind of a different story from the fuckers that own guns because they assume “the government is secretly after them” or whatnot.
urgh damnit. This is so stupid I can’t type properly.
Now, regarding the huge amount of guns swiss people have at home, I’ll quote about.ch :
“Every male citizen has to do military service. This starts at the age of 20 and ends when we become 42. During that time, soldiers keep their arms at home, an automatic rifle for simple solders like me, a pistol for officers, plus a couple of bullets in a sealed box. At the age of 42, we have to return the gun, the bullets and all the clothing etc.”
(women may serve but don’t have to)
I spent too long looking for where I found an image, then I found it in five seconds by searching “facebook gun laws switzerland” in GIS =p
I should add that I’m actually have no specific opinion about gun control, other than
– gun control alone will do nothing significant to change violent crimes but CAN affect suicide rates and gun-related accidents (disclosure: brother’s schoolmate shot and killed his best friend when playing with a LOADED handgun, safety off–basically “LOL I SHOOT YOU” and *DEAD*)
vs.
– gun control is always proposed in “good vs. evil” terms rather than trying to address the mentality behind the “evil” (many “criminals” commit crimes because “the system has failed them” and they have no other options)
so I kinda have the same stance on gun control as abortion–why are we choosing sides instead of trying to make it not so much of an issue in the first place
also why are we coddling white dudes latching onto their John McClane fantasies for dear life, NRA
I’d like to think federally making rigorous background checks legally required, closing the loopholes allowing private sales without such checks, requiring permits / licenses for ownership and open / conceal carry, banning all guns on all school grounds and maybe also launching a buyback operation like they did in Australia would do more than just reduce the number of accidental shootings and suicides.
Violent crimes will still happen, but shootings like yesterday’s, that (as far as I’m aware of) were not at all premeditated and only happened because this one idiot got into an altercation while carrying a gun, wouldn’t happen as much, at least not on school grounds. Or maybe I’m just a naive optimist?
But then, who are we kidding, as long as the NRA has all the politicians in their pockets, gun control is never gonna get significantly tougher on the national level.
With a knife, the collateral damage radius isn’t much beyond the reach of your arm (I mean, if it slips out of your hand it keeps going for a bit, but not much).
What’s the backstop radius on a handgun? How about a rifle? Shotgun? Pretty sure all of those have a significantly larger “danger zone” than a knife.
Switzerland. I was once in central Zurich outside the main train station when the men were coming back from their annual training/maneuvers: thousands of guys pouring out of the train station carrying military rifles, heading off in every direction. To an American, totes surrealistic. I remember standing there watching this thinking, “Yeah, I am NOT in America”. I’ve read (forgotten the source) that in Switzerland respect for the military rifles is such that most gun crimes are committed with non-military weapons, even when the criminal possesses a military issue.
“So tell me why a permit should me necessary to own a firearm. I don’t need a permit to carry my (oh-so-scary) spring-assist knife, or my fixed-blade hunting knife. I mean no disrespect, I just would like to know why I would have to be government approved to defend myself with a tool that allows anyone with proper training to be on the same level as any other armed assailant.”
You make an excellent point. You should probably need a license to use some of those other weapons too.
Here’s a question: Why do we need a driver’s license to operate a car? The obvious the answer is that a car is a dangerous piece of equipment that operates at high speeds. If used improperly it can and has been fatal to its user and the rest of the populous. So then my question is…if we require a license to own and operate a tool that can be deadly if improperly used why in the FUCK would we NOT require a license to use and operate a tool whose explicit purpose is to KILL PEOPLE?
THIRTY PERCENT?! If you’d asked me I would have guessed something like… I don’t know… 8 percent maybe. Max. Jeezus. That seems unbelievable. And wikipedia’s saying it’s actually 45.7 guns per 100 people… If it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t heard of anyone shooting up any place here since that crazy dude in Zurich forever ago, it’d make me not wanna live here anymore.
Ooh yeah, legal carry’s a whole nother thing from ownership, right. Being a girl and all, I really don’t know anything about the military related stuff since I never had to do the service.
But wow, crap, nearly 50 guns per 100 people makes me really uneasy. I’m gonna spend some time looking into Swiss gun laws now…
Oh, no, wait wait, I should have looked more carefully. That 45.7 number includes the militia guns, so it’s actually probably closer to 25 guns per 100 residents. Still a bit unsettling to me though.
Well, add the fact we aren’t allowed to keep ammo at home. BTW, I don’t own or carry or have any access whatsoever to a gun, having skipped military service (and I’d be overage by now); it would be relatively easy to get a permit and buy some kind of firearm, but I don’t like hunting and I’m no psychopath so I don’t see the need for a gun.
The Swiss just don’t go around toting a gun; I guess the average Swiss doesn’t even think of a gun as something different from a toy for immature people or a tool to hunt delicious food. Might be because we have decent living standards, high-level education, social awareness, that kind of thing that makes people feel good enough to not go bananas.
And the military duty situation you’re thinking of pertains to the legal carry of weapons in a public place, not ownership.
why does your gravatar have the confederate flag
Because I enjoy Hetalia, an anime about personified countries, and live in the South. I also support men who are willing to take up arms when their farms are being razed to the ground, not the ‘government’ that caused such a thing to occur to begin with.
wow.
oh good so it IS because you’re a racist, that makes this easier
Well I sure hope the “dick-shriveling” cold discourages this guy from coming to Switzerland. -_-
actually The upper and middle class who owned slaves fearmongered the poor hard workers who didnt into thinking that the Government stopping the slave trade meant they were going to come for THEIR property next, thus tricking thousands of men and children to die to defend slavery and when all those 10s of thousands of people fought to hard it forced the union into engaging in horrific war tactics. If you are going to defend a racist ideal, get the order correctly. Burning homes to the ground was what ENDED the war, not what started it. And as a Born and Bred Texan i say to Secessionists “bring it” we burned White supremecy to the ground once and we’ll do it again.
I’ll just leave that reminder here
As a gun enthusiast i do support gun regulations as long as they make sense. There are too many people who shouldn’t have guns owning and operating guns, and there is a huge community of good people who are gun owners kinda being shat upon because of all the crazy shit associated with gun owners now indays.
So Treason basically with a side helping of stupidity.
DarkoNeko, a good point, but it would be poisonous symbol either way.
True
weren’t you the one spouting above that you’re from switzerland? Cause if there’s one thing i know about europe, it’s that the confederate flag is widely used by white supremacists and neo-nazis because they cannot use the swastika flag. So for you, as someone from europe, to think that the use of the confederate flag is okay in any context, says to me that you’re okay with nazism. And I very much take offence at that because I live in a city where neo-nazi incited violence against people like me has become an escalating issue.
If you mean that other guy, I’m 99% sure he’s american.
Whoa, there’s an anime about personified countries?
If i remember correctly had that gravatar for a while. Did you see the flag only now?
The avatar isn’t just the flag. It’s a character holding the flag, which is a bit different.
He just found a reason to question it.
There is actually you would probably be disappointed.
Switzerland has almost five times the rate of gun homicide compared to the UK, what are you talking about?
And so would I.
Pretty pretty please.
Good fiction should hit some chords. I read this comic because it does… and to be honest Danny and Becky have been hitting a lot of them for me.
The comparison isn’t apt, considering that this isn’t anything like a mass shooting situation. More correctly categorized as a form of domestic violence. It is only superficially and trivially similar to those other incidents. Of course, people will get up set by that, too, as we are not supposed to look in those dark corners.
I hope his figure comes from consuming red meat and not cocaine and steroids.
On the plus side, it appears someone in the background of the last panel noticed her dad go all “praise-the-Lord-and-pass-the-ammunition”…
When he said he’d “Rehabilitate her by any means necessary” so many people bent over backwards to read that as a nonthreatening statement.
I remember that… and was wondering about it, because “any means necessary” is ALWAYS a threatening statement.
Yeah, it might not always be physical violence, but it is always violence and abuse.
Yeah literally if a cinnamon roll said it was going to do something by any means necessary that would be threatening.
If a cinnamon roll said anything, it would scare the shit out of me.
Poppin Fresh, the Pillsbury doughboy is frightening?
Technically, Poppin Fresh was a crescent roll.
What he became is a doughy abomination unto science and nature.
Everyone who ever defended him can honestly die in a fire. To be honest.
I can’t think of anything to add here that you guys haven’t said yet, but seriously: YES.
if that’s double barrel it looks like he can chase both of them
Or, y’know, reload.
They split up. It’s not some sort of bugs bunny shotgun where the barrels weave interdependently to target each of them.
…sorry, I’m not about to discuss exactly how to best hunt 2 teenagers with a weapon 😐
Sorry, but that is the first step to figuring out how to make it not happen. Basic tactics requires you to think about what the enemy can do to you so that you can contravene those options. In order to fight evil, you have to be able to think like evil so you can out-think evil.
TBH it was the worst part of doing security work.
I just hope this isn’t Dumbing of Age jumping the shark.