Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 03, 2013

GT is so “right on” with this one.

Four eyes- no optometrist. The statistics to prove so many Americans are also blind to facts.

The joke here might be confusing to many readers, as the Sunday Doonesbury is run in many papers without the first two panels.

What ? Sensible laws for guns and immigration ? Beam me up Scottie, I’ve landed on the wrong part of the planet !

Hey Mark, ask your guest if he knows about mysterious blue police box sightings.

270000 in 9 years? FBI stats show dramatically less than that. I.e. 8,583 in 2011. That’s bad enough, no need to exaggerate.

Yesterday at end of Feb 3 comments I tried to ask GWEEDO when he uses Ctrl plus + here but three attempts failed. I will try only once now and would appreciate answer from any of you good people.

Agree with gmartin997: 9 Sept. 2001 does feel as though at least 11+ years ago, not nine. Trudeau may be confusing Iraq invasion with WTC/Pentagon events. Hope it’s not early onset; grew up on Doonesbury!

Wrong… Killed by our own crazed citizens.

So if you know what’s good for you, don’t attack or you’ll get the same.

Nine years ago? Make that 11 years ago. Was this strip originally published in 2010?

Nine years ago? The strip must be a re-run. Or perhaps our writer has confused the 9/11 attacks with the 2004 election?

By the way, in those same years, a whole lot more than that died in automobile accidents, and nobody cares. Hypocrisy is just how we run our lives.

Following Trudeau’s wonderful logic, there is no way we should have spent any money responding to the al qaeda attacks. In his mind, it would have been far preferable to let them continue attacks on the U.S. Maybe we could have talked them out of it eventually.

So how does the alien drink the coffee?

nra was in favor of comprehensive background checks(wayne even testified in congressional hearing that he was in favor). now, they are not in favor. plus, his contradictory statements last week of the fear of fascist dictatorship and fear of abandonment of the gov’t. in addition, when pols want to just enforce the gun laws, the nra and its pols severely weakened the enforcement of the gun laws. they do contradictory statements and actions. they blame video games and hollywood. but, they debut a shooting app game on the ipad. and, they have an exhibit in their museum called hollywood guns.

3 year old strip – out of context

Er, 2001 attack was almost 12 years ago (?). Thought so.

You can’t lump all of those deaths by guns together. How many were self inflicted wounds by accident or intent? How many of them were caused by improper use of firearms by registered owners? ….

We invaded Iraq because we could. It had nothing to do with alQuida. We were lied to about afganistan being about alQuida. We are the strongest country in the world, we should be able to dictate to countries to hand over non citizens to us if they are terrorists. If they do not hand them over, we go in after 48 hrs.The problem with that is quick wars do not make anyone rich.

Basically correct, maybe even a little conservative as an estimate: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/14/doonesbury/doonesbury-strip-says-270000-americans-have-been-k/

100%. The NRA is such an embarrassment.

If only the former sniper had been armed, he wouldn’t have been shot, right? Except that reports say he was shot in the back….

We should strengthen our gun laws and see the same effectiveness as our drug laws and immigration laws. It’s a good thing we don’t profile all gun owners as a bunch of right-wing gun nuts whose only aim in life is to kill someone. Oh, wait …

Guns, especially gun collections, are more likely to be targeted for theft.. It doesn’t matter how many guns you have, if you are not at home.

It is better to pretend that it is some non-homogenous broad Are you being sexist here? It is OK with me.

@Omnius;

" We all know that snipers are the most despicable cowards on any battlefield, snipers are the most hated soldiers of all." What do you mean “We?” Include me out, smartass.

Fair comment, Trudeau. On the other hand, in 1993, according to the 1994 FSU criminology college’s study, supervised by Dr. Gary Kleck, roughly 2.5 million people used their guns successfully to defend themselves against attacks by criminals. The study hasn’t been updated, but I wonder how many saved lives that extrapolates to during those nine years. Curiously, that study has been unmentioned by the media during any of these debates.

Very true- the wars were not effective and homeland security is an unconstitutional dog and pony show. And we leave the mentally ill and severely disturbed on the streets. Get your perspective straight!

Again about gun control. The 2nd Amendment is about citizens protecting themselves against a tyrannical government. Gun control will not stop people from killing themselves or others. If we are concerned about human life, let’s ban the automobile.

Just because guns are outlawed in a particular city doesn’t mean they can’t be brought in from somewhere else, which is an argument for federal legislation.

We do need to at least get rid of automatic assault weapons.

With the wealth of the nation concentrated in the top 1% the rest of us are left to fight over the scraps.

How many were killed by drug drivers? We still sell booze by the gallon and in every market on the corner. How effective were we in reducing the death rate from drunk driving?

50 years ago people were smoking more. People changed their minds about it after it got more expensive and inconvenient. Also, they became better educated about how dangerous smoking is to the body. The same process needs to happen with guns. Even if a few paranoid right wingers think they need guns to protect themselves from the “guvmint.”

Talking about banning the automobile is a red herring, since while people can have car accidents, we do benefit from having automobiles in our lives and many of us depend on cars to function on a daily basis. Really no comparison.

more liberal hype

Yes, this is a rerun. Nevertheless, GT remains topical today.

I would say that GT would say that he is a liberal. I know that there are right wingers who don’t like liberals, yet they persist in reading Doonesbury and complaining. You would think they could find something better to do….

This strip is a repeat. I recall it from when it first ran. However, as noted by the comments today, quite an interesting time to bring it back.

Oh, and the copyright date is 2011.

Exaggeration is the only way libs can present an argument.

Actually, it has been shown that the right wing FOX news viewers are far less informed than others. Also, the right wing icon Rush Limbaugh is certainly prone to hyperbole. And of course, Glenn Beck is not really concerned with facts in his presentation either…

Your chances of getting accidentally shot or someone you love being accidentally shot are 43 times higher than you being able to shoot a bad guy. But I don’t know why I bother to say this since the gun crazies won’t care. I know I won’t convince the gun lovers. It is time our leaders realize that the NRA isn’t really that powerful anymore. The NRA is a paper tiger.

I would never suggest that only a few gun laws must be changed, though that is important. There is an attitude toward guns which almost must change.

It is only surpassed by some of the commentary (not yours, happily!)

Jack coined a new word I just love, “Stupidy”!

Can you identify a single jurisdiction anywhere in the country in which there are 20,000 gun laws on the books? Of course, you can’t, because no such place exists. The NRA gets this absurd estimate by adding together all of the distinct gun laws in separate parts of the country, which makes no sense and has no relevance at all.As to the low murder rates, no one claims that the availability of guns is the only factor influencing the rate of homicides; it’s just an easily identifiable one that we can do something about.

At first I thought the 270,000 figure sounded too high to be true. However, Politifact has rated this strip as “mostly true.” http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/14/doonesbury/doonesbury-strip-says-270000-americans-have-been-k/

So agree with Gweedo above (not letting the furrinerz take away the privilege of killing ourselves).

As for the comic — go back where you came from little green man — this place is hopeless!!I tried to post this 9 times on Sunday and it wouldn’t post — let’s see if it does now.

9 years ago? I call rerun!

Some facts behind the number:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jan/18/mark-shields/pbs-commentator-mark-shields-says-more-killed-guns/

There is another weapon which kills more people every year than guns but there are no calls for limiting or banning the possession of the automobile.