Shots fired on capital hill.

Not sure whats going on. But jesus christ....

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/politics/u-s-capitol-shooting-main/index.html

Someone in congress finally snapped I see.

...dude, what? Not even sure how to react to this.

:/

Looks like a woman tried to ram the gate at the white house and the secret service chased her to the capitol.

The crazies are out in force. It's only gonna get worse from here...

I have to wonder if it's possible to discuss this without going political, given how incredibly easy the story makes such a prospect.

Okay it looks like the shots fired were at the driver of the car that tried to ram the gate.

Kinda surprised that a car could get that close.

Yeah I'm surprised that whole area isn't locked down.

Hope everyone is okay.

Looks like one cop and (maybe) an aide was wounded. Nobody killed. thankfully.

I'm glad no one was killed. Hope the cop pulls through.

It sounds like the cop got wounded in a vehicle maneuver. I don't think anyone was shot. Looks like the gun shots were from the police shoot at the woman.

Some government employees actually earning their paycheques.

It's hard to find details about the exact situation, but people's comments have taken a ridiculous 180.

"How can this country be so ignorant, we need to ban guns now! Republicans are murderers!"

- 10 minutes ago

"Thank God those brave police were able to shoot that crazy person"

- 5 minutes ago

I wish there was an "ad block" for comment sections of news sites.

@joshwent: contradiction in your statement. Of course officers should have access to use weapons... it wouldn't be too productive to have a gunless police force combat somebody who illegally gained access to guns

@joshwent: That's not a 180 at all because it's regular folks having guns versus trained police officers having guns but whatever. Comment sections suck, at least that part is right.

That's not what he's saying, he's just pointing out how dumb and reactionary people are in the comment sections.

The fact that this was near Capitol Hill seems irrelevant. Also, the shots seem to have been only fired by the police officers, not the woman they were chasing. But of course, "SHOTS FIRED ON CAPITOL HILL" is too sexy of a headline to pass up, I guess.

@chrissedoff: @turboman:

You two do realize that Britain doesn't give their police firearms, right?

@chrissedoff: @turboman: Okay, not trying to totally derail this thread, but sane people with guns can and have protected others just as well as police with guns can. I know that's not an accepted fact, and there are many arguments against it, so let's just agree to disagree here to not take focus away from the topic at hand.

My main point was that people are tragically quick to jump to uninformed conclusions if it lets them confirm their already held political bias. No matter what "side" of an issue they're on. Comment sections on news sites were flooded with gun control arguing 15 minutes ago, and it turned out this crime might actually not even be related to guns.

@hailinel: Off-color jokes to add levity to a grim situation? The human race has never conceived of a term for such behaviour!

@brodehouse: If it was a black driver and a race joke, would that be just as acceptable?

@hailinel: I dunno, are there black driving jokes? Maybe someone would ask if she ghost rode the whip?

@brodehouse: I not going to bother debating how to make racist driving jokes. This is ridiculous.

I agree, this is pretty ridiculous.

Not really, there is no existing stereotype for black drivers, if it was an asian driver, that would be just as acceptable, especially if there was a motorcycle gang involved.

ah, got it, read it wrong on the first go around.

@hailinel: you hate freedom of speech or something?

Shots fired near Capitol --> Sexist Joke --> Squabble --> Black joke? --> Black people and cars!

So, uh, have there been any semi-decent F1 drivers that also happened to be Black? That's a pretty cool mental image, eh?

Please don't turn into another shitshow.

@johnbakosh: That's not how freedom of speech works.

doesn't even have to be asian. just say she was probably driving away from a pack of bikers. or say the cops stopped her but she feared for the child in the car and booked it.

you're right..... I blame GTA 5.

Apart from the ones who do get guns...

So the situation in the US is quickly turning from a high-political-adrenaline episode of The West Wing into a dystopian crumbling-of-society novel?

AdBlock already includes the functionality to selectively block arbitrary elements of any given site. You can even allow ads but block the comments sections.

thumblr finally had enough of sexist video games and took action.

Lesson of the day: Do not do crazy stuff near Capitol Hill, you will get shot.

To be fair I think ANYTHING can be funny. Here is the thing though, comedy like so many other things is an art. And delivery ,structure and timing of jokes and punchlines are a crucial part of comedy. Especially when dealing with taboo subjects.

@ravenlight: Amazing! Thanks so much for the info, I'll definitely mess around with that tonight.

Now if only I could use selective text stuff to change all occurrences of "libtard" "MRA" "Nazis" and all that other common nonsense to just say, "I want to kiss you".

I don't imagine that would be that difficult to do with a modicum of programming know-how. You can already change "the cloud" to "my butt".

Wow that sounds fucked up. I know they claimed to have not been aware of the child in the car but damn.

What leads a person to do this with their kid in the car? And what leads the police to think the best course of action was to shoot her? What about the vehicle's tires? There had to be a better way than to open fire.

Hell, for all I know all this shit is made up. Thanks CNN.