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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

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Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#351

Post by kasey_junk »

binary132 wrote: post #337
kasey_junk wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you don’t care about legality you don’t need to buy a gun somewhere with less restrictions on guns…

it should be obvious that it is easier to do so

In practice it is not easier for an Illinois resident to buy a handgun in Indiana than in Illinois. Even an illegal one.

The way straw purchases work for handguns is mostly that a family member who can legally purchase the firearm does.

But if you are talking cross state border sales, which are not the majority even though it’s an oft quoted trope, a resident of Indiana buys a lot of guns, then sells them illegally in Illinois. Precisely because you can’t easily buy a handgun in a state you don’t reside in.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#352

Post by senordevnyc »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #182
yesfitz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppressors are not equally easy to legally procure! Suppressors/Silencers are federally regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA) and are treated similarly to machine guns and sawed-off shotguns (the import/manufacture of those are further regulated by later legislation). From Wikipedia[1]: Private owners wishing to purchase an NFA item must obtain approval from the ATF, pass an extensive background check to incl…

Availability examples: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/illegal-gun-silencers-c... https://www.ice.gov/doclib/eoy/iceAnnualReportFY2021.pdf https://www.recoilweb.com/man-makes-silencer-with-3d-printer... https://youtu.be/ekDs60QxmNE

The key word here that doesn't apply to any of these links: legally

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#353

Post by JBlue42 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #46
jeffbee wrote: post #42

Always seemed pretty strange to me that you can build and oversee an organization widely perceived (whether fairly or not) as evil, host what those evil-perceivers will view as Bad Rich Guy Conference in public, in a country where anyone can get as many guns as they want, and there isn't more violence like this. Seems like an unstable operating point for a society.

This is the comment that has been in my head since the news broke, and I feel like we are only at the beginning, like the pause before the first drop of a rollercoaster with the forward looking macro (political and economic tension, broadly speaking). Laws and rules only matter so long as we're all willing to believe they do.

>Laws and rules only matter so long as we're all willing to believe they do.

And everyone has seen it thrown in our faces for a year or so now what the blatant two-tiered system looks like. On a longer time scale if you want to count the lack of consequences for those behind an attempted coup in 2021 and a recession that harmed millions of lives in 2008.

If the government won't hold people accountable, and people are pushed to their ends, then things like this can happen. As OP stated, thankfully, it doesn't happen as often as one would think given our society. It does take a lot to murder someone else.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#354

Post by Clubber »

mikeyouse wrote: post #287
Clubber wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would the ATF give a shit? Tell me you aren't from a hunting state without telling me.. This trope is so tired, but since you did it, tell me you don't keep up with gun regulatory news without telling me.. The ATF has been on a rogue rampage the last 4 years.

Considering that these are legal sales between law-abiding adults, the ATF doesn't care at all. There's the perennial "they're taking all our guns!" discourse that serves to misinform everyone, and then there are basic facts that mostly pierce all the nonsense. https://trac.syr.edu/reports/733/include/figure1.png "Rogue rampage" indeed.. almost 10% higher than pre-covid Trump convictions and about the same level as w…

The ATF changed the rules on private sales. If you make a penny on the private sale, you need an FFL.

https://www.gunowners.org/new-atf-rule-you-can-go-to-jail-fo...

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12679

https://myjrpaper.com/node/7745

They killed this guy over it.

https://saf.org/atf-swat-raid-that-killed-arkansas-man-raise...

All this was legal a few years ago. ATF decided to change the rules.

Also, they wanted to completely ban private sales, but a whistleblower blew the whistle and hopefully stopped them.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/atf-whistleblowers-sound-al...

So there's all that.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#355

Post by JBlue42 »

nameless912 wrote: post #252
toomuchtodo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the comment that has been in my head since the news broke, and I feel like we are only at the beginning, like the pause before the first drop of a rollercoaster with the forward looking macro (political and economic tension, broadly speaking). Laws and rules only matter so long as we're all willing to believe they do.

I don't know how to write this comment in a way that won't land me in a CIA black site so I'll just start with a disclaimer that this post in no way celebrates or condones any violence, but I wouldn't be surprised if political assassination attempts go up 10-fold in the next 10 years. We already saw two different assassination attempts against Trump during the lead up to the election. You can read my older comments t…

>I wouldn't be surprised if New York passes new gun control laws because of this shooting; I wouldn't be surprised if there's a congresscritter or White House Staffer or judge who's assassinated in the next several years causing some kind of martial law situation. It's scary times we live in right now.

This is most likely going to happen with an incoming authoritarian gov't anyway.

Do recall that one Congress critter, that is very pro-gun was shot at a baseball game, survived, and still stood against gun legislation. We'll see if things change if the wind shifts and more rich people (the Congresscritters' owners) are targeted.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#356

Post by Teever »

octokatt wrote: post #271
regularization wrote: post #38

Propaganda of the deed? I guess suspects will be a list of people who have been paying into United Health Care insurance who thought they were covered, but got turned down, possibly for a terminal illness, for greater profits.

Adding the ProPublica article which talks about United Healthcare specifically denying claims for terminal diseases for greater profits. https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-i... edit: We do not know the shooters motivations, nor do I presume to know. But wanted to add a link for context to the above comment to show context for the statement.

I'm really surprised that we don't see violent action like this from terminal patients who have nothing to lose.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#357

Post by slt2021 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #153

[flagged]

There is nothing wrong with "eating the rich", because if something were to happen to the rich, they brought it upon themselves, since they control the governance via lobbying, special interest groups, media, corporations, NGOs, etc

We should absolutely normalize "eating the rich" discourse, to remind the elites that they are not better than the common folk, so that the system can self-correct without resorting to the violence that can break apart society completely

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#358

Post by sexyman48 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #336
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #324

Not much is known at this point, but I wonder if this is related to the big hack of change healthcare, a subsidiary. I doubt it but just a thought.

I think a lot of people might believe their life or the life of a loved one was ruined or endangered by a health insurance CEO and such a person might feel justified in such an attack. When you think of the awful stress that CEOs put on people like https://www.reddit.com/r/SEARS/comments/18uwjvg/have_you_int... and think it's a wonder this doesn't happen more often but then I found out that Lampert had been kidnapped…

CEO pay is an outlier partly for their vision/talent, but primarily because they individually take the hit whenever a subordinate, no matter how far down the chain, fucks up publicly.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#359

Post by lotsofpulp »

Arainach wrote: post #311
lotsofpulp wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sarah Palin coined the phrase "death panel" in a widely shared Facebook post. Does not support the claim > we let insurance companies label government triage as "death panels"

Insurance companies funded the vast majority of advertising using that term to attack the ACA, and their lobbyists meet with politicians often enough that it's entirely plausible they coined the initial term as well (though harder to prove)

So there is no evidence.

The simpler explanation is that political Party A proposed legislation, and political Party B attacks it because a win for Party A is a loss for Party B.

And digging into just slightly further makes the claim make even less sense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel

> Palin's spokesperson pointed to Section 1233 of bill HR 3200 which would have paid physicians for providing voluntary counseling to Medicare patients about living wills, advance directives, and end-of-life care options. Palin's claim was reported as false and criticized by the press, fact-checkers, academics, physicians, Democrats, and some Republicans.

Why would managed care organizations (aka health insurance companies) oppose the government paying for more healthcare services?

MCOs earn 2% to 3% of the premiums that flow through them. The higher the healthcare spend, the higher the premiums, the higher the profit for MCOs.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#360

Post by toomuchtodo »

senordevnyc wrote: post #352
toomuchtodo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Availability examples: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/illegal-gun-silencers-c... https://www.ice.gov/doclib/eoy/iceAnnualReportFY2021.pdf https://www.recoilweb.com/man-makes-silencer-with-3d-printer... https://youtu.be/ekDs60QxmNE

The key word here that doesn't apply to any of these links: legally

To be clear, and reiterate, I stated "easy" in my top comment, not legally. "Legally" is irrelevant if you’re a motivated threat actor. Laws are there to dissuade the lazy or unsophisticated, and to prosecute those caught. ~50% of murders go unsolved in the US [1]. Firearms are heavily regulated in NYC, and yet, there are hundreds of deaths per year from them. Therefore, I believe availability (regardless of legality) is an important data point to surface as part of the discussion.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172775448/people-murder-unso...

(these stats are grim, I admit, but important to contextualize my perspective and thesis about the risk)

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