The Exceptionalism of the United States of America

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2nd Amendment

I’ve been having a hard time of it lately. If you’ve ever seen Key and Peele the comedy due, you know about Luther, the anger management guy who speaks for the always calm and cool, Barack Obama. I think I need Luther to speak for me, because when I start to write, my fingers start jabbing the keys so hard I think I’ll go through the board.

It’s all well and good to disagree on things, but when lives are on the line, well, stupid really gets on your nerves.

You can imagine the fun I’ve had arguing with gun nuts. Always the same story.

GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE.

Hello? This means exactly what?

Guns provide the mechanism for killing people for people hell bent on killing people. Especially if they want to kill a lot of people very very fast. Your stupid notion that the gun is the not the problem, is just that. . .stupid. You can’t discern the difference between a person who kills someone with a knife and someone who uses a semi-automatic weapon to mow down twenty people.

THE ANSWER TO A BAD GUY WITH A GUN IS A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN.

Yeah? Except that isn’t really true.

See this photo? A good six of the men around Reagan were armed. Hinkley pulled a gun and started shooting. Not one of the armed defenders shot their weapon. Hinkley was wrestled down.

Pulling a gun during a shootout doesn’t work well especially if you are not in a uniform that designates you as a good guy. People don’t want to be mistaken for the shooter, so guess what? They don’t pull their guns much.

WE THE PEOPLE ARMED WITH THE 2ND AMENDMENT ARE ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND TYRANNY.

This little gem comes direct from the NRA, who have rewritten history in an attempt to turn an amendment meant to insure state militias, turned into a personal right to have any and as many guns of lethal force as you wish.

Read Steven’s dissent in Heller if you want to know the truth. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is made clear by the opening clause: A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA BEING NECESSARY TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

We are hear talking about the rights of a state to insure its own security by being able to raise a militia of local citizens to BEAR ARMS for the state. The first time the amendment was invoked was by President Washington to put down a local rebellion of citizens against paying a whiskey tax. They were with violence prohibiting the federal agents from collecting the tax.

Washington called upon the governors of a few state to call up their state militias under the second amendment and to enforce the collection of the tax.

In addition, REGULATION is in the text. regulate means that the government can quite obviously pass laws and and rules as to how the amendment actually works.

Madison in a earlier draft of the amendment, included a “conscientious objector clause for those who object on religious grounds to doing military service. Of course Scalia didn’t care about such things.

THIS IS JUST THE FIRST STEP TO TOTAL CONFISCATION.

No it’s not. You have no evidence of this whatsoever. The NRA doesn’t even believe this, but it’s proven to be a useful tool to sell more guns.

Buy them now, before we run out. A local gun store owner in Oregon happily informed us that she had just placed another order for the gun owner favorites: the AK type weapons that are beloved by the nuts. She noted, there is only a small window after one of these shootings and they must take advantage.

One fool explained that when the President pointed to both Australia and Britain as places with no mass shootings like ours,  he was hinting at his intent to confiscate “all our weapons”. I was invited to be one of those who will come knocking and demand your guns. How would I like that job, he deflected.

¶¶¶

It’s all so awful. You ask them for their solutions. They have none, except to buy more guns and wear more guns, and caress more guns. A new tack is to round up unemployed vets and send them into schools to protect the littluns.

Really?

We want vets, many who are suffering from mental issues of their own to work the hallways of our elementary schools? DO WE REALLY WANT OUR BABIES TRYING TO LEARN IN SUCH AN ENVIRONMENT? Do we want weapons in our classrooms? Do we want to accept the ensuing accidents that must happen?

Is this the best YOU can do?

It’s not the best I can do by a long shot.

I once lived in Detroit. I had windows covered with bars, and an alarm system. I looked around carefully before I went out after dark. I did not dally going to my car in the driveway (I stopped parking in my garage when I opened it one more and four teen boys ran out, I having interrupted their theft).

When I moved out of Detroit, I realized quickly that fear was not normal.  I no longer had to lock everything. I no longer had to jump at the “wrong” sound at the “wrong” time of the night. I was no longer subject to sirens and helicopters with search lights. Police running down my sidewalk happened no more.

And I discovered something.

Living in fear under lock and key, was no way to live. Moreover, it was not the way that MOST people lived. I’ve lived nearly twenty years in four different locations since then. I have lived without fear. I live normally.

IT IS NOT NORMAL AND WE SHOULD NEVER ALLOW IT TO BE NORMAL TO HAVE ARMED CIVILIANS WANDERING AROUND “TO KEEP US SAFE.”

The facts are simply this. Crime in the US is at an all time low. We all can recall some anecdotal story that suggests that we are not safe, if we go back enough years. But the reality is that what was once common (the house break-in) is a fairly rare occurrence today. For instance, in 1970, the rate of burglary was about 1,085/100,000. That was down to 670/100,000 by 2012.

You probably don’t need a gun at home to defend it. And if you did, more than likely you would be so excited, scared, and confused at the time that you would not use it successfully anyhow. Why? Because you are not trained to handle such a situation.

Something like 2/3 of the American population doesn’t have a gun. But there are more than 300 million guns. The statistics are clear, those who have guns (white men, over 55, high school graduate only, once married at least, are the most likely to be involved in gun violence. More guns means more violence essentially.

Yes, we are exceptional all right.

In all the ways that no one wants to be.

Turn the Page or Another One Spits Out the Stupid

The Contrarian made a bold statement yesterday.

“I’m done,” he announced.

I nodded without paying much attention. If you ain’t there yet, you will learn as a sane woman that much of what men say is not worth listening to, so all that waiting with baited breath (what the hell does that really mean anyway?) has long passed me by and I automatically search for certain key words to hear before I engage fully in “listening” to my spouse.

“No more news for me. I don’t care. I don’t care what the Republicans do, I don’t care what Congress does or doesn’t do about anything. I’m done with it all. Today was it.”

This brought me to attention, since I just barely, through the usual fog of interfamily discourse, sensed a certain turning point in life issue here.

“What’s up?” I cautiously inquired.

“Fox is in a fit because the president has come out against Christie and Cuomo and their plans to quarantine aid workers returning from Ebola-stricken nations.” (actually he said something like Fox is having a fucking melt down because Obama said they were nuts for locking up people because they MIGHT be sick). Call it poetic license or anything else that suits ya, I’m writin’ it the way I wanna.

I nodded, since I would assume Fox to take no other position. The equation is simple enough. President says X, Fox says, FOR SHAME YOU BASTARD! Nothing new here.

“Ya see,” he says, “if Obama had been the one to quarantine these people, they would be screaming that he is locking up innocent Americans and depriving them of their rights, and FEMA camps, HELLO, just like we been tellin’ ya.”

“Yep, you are probably right,” I mused. That would be true too.

“Well, it’s the last straw, the camel’s back is broken. I’m no masochist. I’m 64 years old. What is this government going to do to me that I can’t live through at this point? Why pollute my mind and peace of mind with such crap? I read WorldNewsDaily every day, and watch the crazies throw poop at each other from inside their cages and call it entertainment. I read Townhall and Daily Caller, and Blaze for the same reason. I’m constantly overwhelmed by how stupid these people are, with few of them even capable of understanding the most basic of arguments on anything. Why they all take oxygen I’m sure, because not a one of them has sufficient brain cells to engage in breathing without help. So I’m done! This is pure torture to the human soul.”

He blinked.

I frowned.

I write about politics and I basically argue that it is a basic requirement of a citizen to be informed and to vote. So I was forced to confront the issue of whether it was really okay to be a low-information citizen or not. Certainly I argue that more knowledge is better, but I can sympathize with the concept that politicians as a rule today are a rather seamy sort of lying blood sucker. That said, can we expect anything better if we don’t participate?

One is faced clearly with a dilemma. On the one hand it is said that Tea Baggers are rather more “informed” than the average person about political issues. But on the other hand, plenty of reputable studies indicate that Fox watchers are by far the most misinformed of citizens. While it may seem that this is contradictory, it truly isn’t.

It’s quite one thing to know that a subject exists in the world, and quite another to know any truth about that subject. Case in point. Fox viewers (aka typical tea imbibers) know that we have no Surgeon General presently occupying the post. In that respect they may be among say only 30 percent of Americans in general. But if you were then to go further and ask, why don’t we have an SG, you would get from the Tea Fool that it is because Obama’s nominee wants to destroy our 2nd Amendment rights, and therefore the GOP has blocked his nomination.

That is patently false. The nominee has evinced an opinion that gun violence is a proper study of health care in America. There are a volume of doctors and other scientists in the field who agree with him. Congress has for several decades explicitly denied the the budgets of the SG or the CDC for that matter as to an studies on the subject. End result, the SG has zero ability to either “take away”  anybody’s 2nd Amendment rights, or even to investigate the issue. Thus it cannot be a REASON to block his appointment.

Thus we can see that in some cases, it would be much better to have no information than purposeful disinformation of which Fox News and it’s ilk are so famous for.

As to the average person, I would suggest, that most are exceedingly low information citizens. While the most prominent “political” party is now “Independent”, that is just a label that means in essence, “I have not thought even enough about any issue to decide on a party.” At least the Green or Socialist, Libertarian, or even Anarchist has done that.

However, it cannot be said from this analysis that people shouldn’t vote unless they can present a modicum of basic knowledge (as some Fox commentators are now arguing). Although their targets are always the poor and brown skinned, there are I suppose some on the left that bemoan from time to time that people who are essentially Tea Party stupid are out there electing their political equivalents to state and federal office. On the whole, the low information voter does reach the right result, even though they may not know why.

Basically, by one’s twenties, one knows what kind of person one is. One is either a citizen of the world and sees us all in this together with the need to work together for the benefit of all, or one sees oneself as part of a tribe, whose only concern is with others of their kind. Most anybody with a few brain cells can tell which party is which based on that simple analysis.

So I have no fear that the Contrarian will falter in his allegiance to the basic principles he has always espoused and vote accordingly. He will continue to read the paper and no doubt will pick up more than enough from me to ensure that he is still wildly above the average when it comes to political knowledge.

And he points to a real issue for me. It is painful to do what I do. My heart is wrenched again and again at what I see as wonton disregard for the rights of others and a very real turning away from helping with basic issues of food, housing, education and health care as basic rights entitled to by all. It hurts deeply to watch the GOP demand that people have a job before they can eat when there are not enough jobs. It is all well and good to create a worldview, and a religious one to back up to that world, as a means to make you feel comfortable with who you really are. It’s quite another to foist that twisted worldview on the rest of us and demand we live by it too.

I am sick to death of so-called religious people (who are not in the least) misusing MY faith as means to justify their own selfish fears about the world and their own inadequacies. If you are unable to handle your homophobic fears that deep down if unleashed you too might harbor a “crush” on someone of the same sex, or once did, hey, deal with it. Don’t re-interpret texts in a sacred book so that you can feel okay in your repulsion at your own “tendencies”.

So I get the desire to dump it all in the nearest trash can and spend the remainder of one’s thinking life pursing things that make one happy and peaceful. I do. And I think that a person has the right to opt for that. And some days I do opt for it.

But politics is as are most things,  a jealous lover. She calls me back. Perhaps one day too, I shall be able to resist her siren calls. But it is not today.

Peace out.

 

War

Tags

editorial, gun issues, War

It’s been a year since Sandy Hook. It’s been a frustrating year for the most part for those of us who see the proliferation of guns in our society as so obviously insane that it begs the question that we are still having these conversations at all.

I’m not going to bore you with statistics. If you want to see what has transpired in terms of our response to the horror of Sandy Hook and Aurora and all the hundreds of children and adults who have died from gun violence, go here. It ain’t pretty. More loosening of gun regulations, the NRA with more money, fewer people having guns but more guns in a growing minority of very frightening and frightened people.

No, today I want to talk about war. After all, much of the argument around guns stems from our ideas of war doesn’t it? Was not the 2nd Amendment formulated so that states could call up their citizens in the face of invaders of one nature or another? How that all got bollixed into some personal freedom to carry a high-powered rifle to shopping malls is beyond my comprehension, but that’s not the issue either today.

It’s war itself.

War is the admission that we have progressed not so very far from the plains of Africa and the caves of France. We are still a species who settles disputes or responds to fear with weaponry and killing. Some suggest it’s in our genes, others that it is learned behavior, a product of our environment. As I have said many a time, no war ever ended war, though the motto of one, WWI was just that: the war to end all wars. It was but twenty years later that the greatest war of all occurred. So how did that work for ya?

My views about war are and were shaped by three things mainly: a book, a book, and a TV show. Sorry right-wingers, my passivity is not the product of elite liberal universities. No my opinion, my dedication to peace was formulated from reading the Bible, a book by Norman Mailer called The Naked and the Dead, and Star Trek, episode 23, A Taste of Armageddon.

As to the Bible, who can not be moved to ponder the following:

“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. . .(MT 5:39-40)

This is Jesus, and while there are some interpretations that suggest that Jesus was in fact making it impossible for the aggressor to accomplish the second strike, the import of the words are clear. Returning force to force is not the answer. Regardless of how we might come down on the issue of faith or religion, surely Jesus and His teachings are worthy of emulation. If they are, then war is unthinkable, nothing more than returning force for force on a massive scale.

Mailer wrote The Naked and the Dead about his experiences in the Philippines during WWII. He wrote it in 1948. Say what you will, it paints a picture of war in decidedly unheroic, unglamorous terms. In a word, war is truly hell. It is dehumanizing, fear is palpable, death is only a shot away. Death surrounds and envelopes the characters. It’s unbearably hot and humid, it stinks, it’s lonely and it’s boring, and death stalks. It is shudderingly realistic. It would make NO one run down and sign up.

The Star Trek episode involved a planet that has suffered from war with another planet within its system for years, so many years that they were both in dire straits. If the war did not end, both planets would be utterly destroyed. So they hit upon a solution. They agree to a computer simulation of war actions. The computer assesses the “battle” and assigns casualties. A lottery system calls up the victims on each planet to report to “disintegration” chambers to voluntarily suicide. They have been doing this for years too, while their infrastructure is undamaged and life goes on.

Kirk and company put an end to the computer and the resultant real damage brings chaos and terror. Forced to confront the realities of war, Kirk hopes that they will rush to the peace table. The lesson is all too real: remove the overt ugliness of war, and war will go on forever.

Last week was another anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a so-called infamous day, because the Japanese made a sneak attack while diplomats were engaged in discussions in Washington on how to avoid war between them. This was viewed as a violation of the “rules of war”.

Things have not changed much. It is considered a violation of the “rules of war” to bomb civilians. It is considered the same to use certain types of weapons, such as chemical or biological ones.

I have to wonder at such limitations in general. For I truly get the logic of war being so God-blessed awful, so ugly, so painful, and so damaging that we will do nearly ANYTHING to avoid it or stop it. My husband tells me that I am a student of Sun Tzu:

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live.

I take that to mean, that if you put the utter fear of death into your enemy ,  he will race to the peace table. My husband tells me that there must be rules of war, otherwise there is not path to peace. He may well be right.

I prefer to make war so ugly that no one considers it a viable option. I am a pacifist.

Left to my own devices, I would allow people the possession of paint guns to stalk and “shoot”  game. I would allow people to go to shooting ranges to shoot targets. I would allow no other weapon ownership.

I am a pacifist.

I would declare gun manufacturers and shops to be “eminent domain”, paying them a fair price for their companies and giving them free education in another line of work.

I am a pacifist.

You are free to disagree, but you will follow my rules in my kingdom. And they say that Obama is a socialist! HA!

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu402344.html#3qejOVy3lD5FFvIg.99

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu402344.html#3qejOVy3lD5FFvIg.99

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu402344.html#3qejOVy3lD5FFvIg.99

If You Talk From Your Ass, I Guess You Talk From Three Sides of Your Mouth

Tags

2nd Amendment, NRA, tea party, teabaggers, teapotters

Half the civilized world has now reacted to the bilge that comes out of the anal region of Wayne La PEE PEE Pierre, so I won’t bore you with more.

Except this.

Part of me secretly snickers at how the NRA, along with all the Right-wing elites, (read Fox, corporate interests, and GOP politicos), play their audiences for a fool. I mean to the rest of normally functioning America, you are always saying, “how can people be so stupid to not get it?”

Get what?

Oh, get that the Right-wing elites get the little people, mostly working class but definitely middle class wannabes, to do their bidding. They do this by such blatant lying and cursing of the truth, that, well, it only works if you are burdened with a lack of grey matter with which to discern reality.

I mean, face it, smart people are not listening to Fox, only those who are (how can we say this delicately?) intellectually challenged respond to that crap. It’s really a combination of lack of intellectual acuity and lack of interest in well, thinking, that motivates the average working Joe to “just let Fox do it”–the thinking that is.

How else can you explain Wayne’s rant at the NRA conference and the illogical crap he spewed to ears who can hear, but alas cannot decipher the message?

Wayne says, (not wanting to exploit a tragedy of course), that the poor people of Boston “cowered” behind their locked doors, wishing for all they were worth that they had guns with which to protect themselves against the monster bombers roaming the streets.

Now such a statement defies intelligence. Boston has no laws against the ownership of firearms. Everybody in Boston prior to the bombing there, has all the firearms they wanted. Nobody was cowering without defense unless they were of a mind that ownership of firearms was not a thing for them.

Now Wayne is not stupid. Insane, maybe, but not stupid. He knew that. He knew nobody in Boston was wishing they had guns. If they had wished such a thing, they would have bought one, or many. But Wayne is talking to stupid Teapotters out there. And frankly one can’t assume they don’t know this. For Teapotters think that background checks = national registry = confiscation of guns=abandonment of the 2nd Amendment=last step before communism=end of the world. They truly do believe that. They believe it because Fox and Wayne have told them so.

And as one listened to the endless parade of new civil war mongering that passed as “speeches” at the NRA convention, one cannot help but understand that these people really truly don’t know any better. I’m not sure that one of their survivalist “stores” isn’t designing the Teapotter uniform even as we speak, in anticipation of the coming militia call-up ordered by Wayne and his band of boobs.

Which is all kind of amusing since Kelly Ayotte is scrambling to make herself “understood”. See, she really does support background checks. Really, really, really. It was just the mainstream media and it’s awful use of “tapes of her answers” that got everybody all confused. Or her explanation that background checks would impose burdens on gun sellers that was unfair, that got taken out of context–the context being the word salad she wallowed in while trying to figure out what to say.

But Ayotte too is well aware that she is playing to a weak audience. She raises the NRA claim that those persons denied the right to buy weapons under the current NICS system aren’t prosecuted enough. That is a straw argument and Ayotte knows it, although she hopes her audience doesn’t. She calls all those rejected by NICS as “criminals”. They aren’t of course, they just don’t qualify for gun ownership. She bemoans that this is the problem with the system–police and prosecutors aren’t using their resources to prosecute a person who the system has successfully prevented from buying a gun. I mean wow, better they should get that year’s probation while the rampage of house break-ins continue from lack of police power. There are priorities and then there are priorities!

Meanwhile, Jeff Flake from Arizona has had a change of heart as well. Likening his popularity in Arizona to that of “pond scum”, Flack now alleges that the reason he opposed the legislation was that it made it a “commercial sale” if I emailed you and said I had a gun and would you like to buy it. Jeff is now sure that “that can be worked out” and he had happily join the majority and vote for background checks.

I rather think that his resemblance to pond scum had a lot more to do with his decision than did the flimsy made up email crap.

While the NRA continues it barrage of hate spewing and fear mongering, it seems that the tide is turning. Frankly nothing points that out more clearly than looking at who spoke at the NRA and who didn’t. Rick Santorum? The “don’t forget me,”  girl, Sarah? Glenn “I’m madder than any hatter” Beck? Surely you jest?

With a lineup like that, I mean does it say it all? Where were the Rubio’s? The Graham’s? The Ryan’s? The Cantor’s? Where were they? Oh, they quietly whispered, “gosh darn Wayne, you know my heart is with you, and I’ll work tirelessly behind-the-scenes, but I can’t AFFORD to publicly support you. You understand. Elections coming. Can’t rile up the folks now can we? *wink*wink*nudge*nudge. Just don’t ahh, mention that you invited me okay?”

Did I mention that we, the sane ones are NOT GOING AWAY this time?

Did I mention that?

You heard me? I don’t have to shout?

Good.

PS: I hear that some of these boobs are calling for an “armed march” on Washington on the 4th of July. Good luck with that.

Related articles

• Wanna see a real gun nut? Meet Wayne LaPierre (capitolhillblue.com)
• Jon Stewart gleefully mocks NRA’s blatant contradictions (rawstory.com)
• Gun Dealer: Wayne LaPierre Is on the ‘Wrong Side’ (newser.com)
• NRA kicks off annual meeting with talk of ‘culture war’; Scott Walker among speakers (host.madison.com)
• Hoyt Hilsman: The Political Suicide of Kelly Ayotte (huffingtonpost.com)
• NRA Celebrates Gun Control Defeat, Senators Face Backlash – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• ‘Celebratory’ atmosphere at NRA convention in Texas (video.msnbc.msn.com)
• Playing At Delegitimization and Insurrection: How the GOP Is Turning Into a Political Wing of a Paramilitary (mikethemadbiologist.com)

Just One of Those Crazy Accidents

Tags

2nd Amendment, children, gun culture, guns, NRA

So said the local county coroner, Gary White, declaring the shooting of a two-year-old by her five-year-old brother, just one of those things.

Crazy things happen when guns and kids are mixed. The parents are just really feeling stupid for leaving the boy’s “first rifle” propped in the corner and left loaded.

Just an accident. Move on.

Well, HELL NO!

First let me clear the air. Let there be no mistake about what’s about to come your way. I am utterly opposed to guns personally. I have lived with guns all my life. My father was an avid hunter. All my male relatives were as well. I had plenty of occasion to handle guns during my professional career. I know my calibers and I know firearms identification. I’m not ignorant of the territory.

I am also not a mother. This seems an important fact to some. A right-wing, “I love Jesus, the bible, and my guns” adherent told me that I was probably incapable of compassion for unborn babies because I was not a mother like her. So be forewarned, I am going to speak about that which I have no knowledge–children and guns and parents. (Okay, stop laughing–that would eliminate all men from being compassionate I know. But who in the hell ever accused a right-wing TeaPotter of being either rational or logical?)

You may have heard about the story of the five-year-old. For his fourth birthday, his stellarly-bright parents thought it a good idea to buy their boy his first gun. The gun in question is called a Crickett, manufactured by Keystone Sporting Arms. They have since cleaned up their website, because, well you know. Their commercials to kids look pretty damn sick about now. Luckily, it was captured before their wiped the site clean.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a deputy sheriff was showing off his arsenal to guests when his child grabbed a gun off the bed, fired it, and killed the female guest. This is of course nothing new. Although statistics often include more than just accidents, something like a couple of hundred children under the age of 12 die every year from firearms “accidents”. This is to say nothing of the suicides (the method of choice, and by far the most successful) accomplished by our youth by guns.

We can talk about gun violence all day. We can talk about all these tragedies. We can talk about background checks, and assault type weapons and high-capacity clips. Yet who would have thought that it would be legal to market and sell, and buy a gun for a four-year-old? Who in their thinking mind can contemplate that such a thing would be legal?

Apparently the manufacturers don’t specify any age when such weapons are “appropriate”. Goodness, that’s shocking isn’t it. Little triggers for little hands. Ahh, can you just swoon with the sweetness of this new market? Increasingly, as the gun makers have found the male market literally saturated, they have turned to women and children as new targets.

And this marketing is very real, as you can see.

Generally speaking, it is left up to the states to determine the rules under which guns can be legally in the hands of youth. Almost all require that one be 18 to buy a gun on their own, but many states allow people to buy guns for children as gifts, and there seem to be no restrictions in some states at least as it relates to shotguns and rifles.

The penalties imposed upon adults for negligence also vary considerably.

A whole culture has grown, and continues to grow around the “family that shoots together”. This kind of behavior is touted as bonding, and ultimately of course hints at the need of children to be able to defend themselves. Yes, we all want kids to turn to guns as their first line of defense don’t we?

Of course, such things are kept subtle. Mostly the ads suggest that the family fun of gunning is all about “sportsmanship” and family togetherness.

Don’t delay, get your child in on his new membership in the NRA the ads tell you.

The real intent–to sell guns and make profits is hidden behind lofty goals of “gun safety” and the joys of target shooting, to say nothing of spending quality time with dad in the woods in pursuit of making a bloody mess of Bambi.

Studies show that kids who are exposed to guns at an early age, have, as you might expect, good thoughts about gun ownership in general, and worse yet, they are more apt to encourage their friends to join in the fun.

WHY IS THIS LEGAL?

I can only ask the question because the answer seems so obvious. It should not be. At least to the vast majority of rational beings.

Guns are lethal. Cigarettes are harmful to one’s health. We don’t let parents buy them for their kids so start them on the joys of puffing. Alcohol is dangerous to one’s health. We don’t allow parents to invite all the little one’s at Sally’s birthday party to throw a few back between games of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and ice cream and cake do we? We don’t allow children to drive automobiles on public streets. We don’t allow them operate all kinds of dangerous machinery, work before a suitable age, work at many dangerous jobs. The list is endless.

But somehow we let them use lethal firearms because mom and dad like a well-armed family.

This magazine is for kids.

I’m glad to know that “glocks are for girls” aren’t you?

These kids after reading this bilge will not be begging for Barbies. They will be begging for more fire power!

What kind of insanity is this?

Look, as I said, I’m no parent. But I was once a child.

I knew a lot of other children when I was one.

I know a heck of a lot of adults today.

I know that most people are not competent to tie their shoes without supervision let alone raise kids.

Most of us manage to grow up not being serial killers because I guess the drive to be average is so darn strong that we avoid those pitfalls.

But most of us are from dysfunctional homes to one degree or another. Some of us came from wretched conditions, some of us were physically assaulted, some of us just emotionally assaulted.

Most parents are lousy. But we make allowances because nobody requires potential parents to take classes. We cut our parents slack because they “did they best they could” given their own upbringing. We are generous that way.

But there is a time and place to draw a line. And I draw it when parents are ALLOWED to buy guns for children for “fun”. I draw the line there. I don’t just draw a line. I erect a damn wall. And if you cross it, I am inclined to grab your kid and run while you sit in some damn cell and think about it for twenty years.

I of course, would allow no gun maker to make children’s weapons nor market them, nor sell them to anyone. They are NOT APPROPRIATE–EVER!

Is this country stark raving mad?

Is it just me?

Cuz if it is just me, then boy, I am too damn dumb to breath.

Well?

Does this image make you feel all warm and happy?

Does it?

Or this one?

 

Related articles

• Anyone for Cricketts? The rifles made especially for children (independent.co.uk)
• Guns made for kids: How young is too young to shoot? (newsheadiesblog.wordpress.com)
• Cricket My First Rifle……. (theobamacrat.com)

The Stupid Chronicles for April 20, 2013

Tags

2nd Amendment, Arkansas, crap I learned, gay rights, green energy, Humor, immigration, Iowa, Louis Gohmert, Maine, racism, Stupid Chronicles, Texas

Oh don’t mind me, I’m just acting like a Hispanic. Yes dear Louis the Lunatic tops our list today. But it was a close call I tell ya. Louis never fails to deliver the one two punch of stupid all wrapped up in crazy nearly every week. We sometimes wonder if Louis has a bank of writers who dream up his lines, but on reflection that would surely tip the balance and throw civilization into a retrograde orbit.

Louis dear Louis has a gem for us today. Let me put it thusly. Louis viewed Rodin’s the Thinker, and opined, “why is that dude taking a shit in public?”

Louis doesn’t have a pet rock, he’s the pet rock’s pet.

Louis knows his terrorists and he is here to tell you what he has learned. Islamic terrorist organizations are busy helping their Arab folks “act Hispanic” so they can cross the border from Mexico into America. (added joy: there is a video!)

Yes you heard it here.

Although Louis had no opinion of who caused the Boston Marathon bombings at the time he said this, he was pretty darn sure that a fence is the way to go. After all, Israel’s suicide bombings stopped when they built their fence, he offered, unaware that that is not at all true. A good guess is always good enough for Louis.

Compatriot idiot Steve King (R-IA) nodded in agreement and said that the immigration reform bill should be held up, because surely this bombing was caused (he thinks) by some student on a visa.

Louis offered no ideas about how one “acts” Hispanic. Several racist theories comes to mind, but Louis stopped short of asking people to be on the watch for the “typical” Hispanic behaviors. He did whisper that a dead giveaway that you were dealing with a “pretend” Hispanic was to offer him a jalapeño pepper and see if he cries out in anguish and calls for water after taking a bite.

Texas takes our number two spot as well, which isn’t a big surprise–it’s a big state with big idiots in it.

This is Ms. Ester Irene Stokes. She’s a school teacher in Texas. Or was, or confound it, she probably got herself a medal now.

Anyway, she was accused of fondling one of her female students. Now Ms. Stokes is 61 and the child in question was seven. So that is very bad stuff.

So Ms. Stokes tells police and anyone else who will listen that she is not guilty.

You probably assumed that didn’t ya?

Yes, well she has a rather unique defense.

She says that she is such a racist that she can barely stand to touch those little black girls in her class. The mere touch of their hands gives her the heebie jeebies and sends her off to wash off that black skin feel. I mean she actually cringes when the little nappy heads try to hug here, which must happen once every ice age at least.

There have been no responses by the school in question as to whether Ms. Stokes was still employed. What ya wanna make a bet she won’t have any trouble finding another job in some parts of the country at least.

No doubt that face will be forever seared in your brain.

Third on our hit parade for the week is Maine’s governor Paul LaPage.

Now Paulie has come to our attention before as you can note from some of his best work at the right.

But he kinda ran out of material for a little while. After the last couple of days though, I think he’s back in fighting form.

The Bangor News seems to have a particularly low opinion in the Guv, suggesting that he “makes things up” a lot.

Well, Paul is at it again. Paul doesn’t like wind power. He thinks it’s somehow un-American, being all cheap and non-polluting and such. Oil and Gas don’t like air power and that’s enough for big Paul.

So Paul said, “Now, to add insult to injury, The University of Maine, Presque Isle – anybody here been up there to see that damn windmill in the back yard? Guess what, if it’s not blowing wind outside and they have somebody visiting the campus, they have a little electric motor that turns the blades. I’m serious. They have an electric motor so that they can show people wind power works. Unbelievable. And that’s the government that you have here in the state of Maine.”

Of course, no such thing is true. The University says there is no “little motor”.

All this would be funny, and it is, but the answer to Paulie’s nonsense is that he’s touched in the head. Read crazy as a loon. Read, coming up on Louis’s shoulder and threatening to pass.

Paulie intends to run for re-election. He predicts that the teacher’s unions better watch out, cuz he’s coming for them. And his new idol? Well that ever-favorite of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.

“I will guarantee you that you will see the most vicious education campaign ads that you’ve ever seen in your life next year, because I am going to be the next Scott Walker in this country, because I am challenging the status quo.”

No, Paulie is challenging the all-time low IQ in the USA. I am putting my bets he will win.

Fourth is a new face for us, GOP House Representative from Iowa, Dennis Guth.

Guth is one of those self-styled experts on the issue of homosexuality.

Guth first focused on the media and accused them of making that homosexual lifestyle seem good and nice, when we all know it’s really yucky.

See, Guth says, homosexuals are like “second-hand” smoke, they cause harm to those around them who are normal. They cause health risks to his family he says, by their increased invitation to transmittable sexual diseases. He opines that there are “more medical tests required” before you can give blood or birth. He thinks they are connected but forgot to say how.

Other than that, Guth was unable to explain why their diseases would “harm” his family, unless of course one posits that either he or members of his family regularly engage the services of willing homosexuals for ummm, sex.

Guth is an idiot, and his Democratic colleague told him so.

Our fifth and last entry for the week comes from good old Arkansas, a state that often shows us the butt end of humanity.

Nate Bell, is (you guessed it) a REPUBLICAN state rep from good old Ar-KANSAS, who is a protector of the 2nd Amendment, which he neither understands, nor defends with anything other than yippie-ki-yo-ki-yay blather.

Well, inside that fun face is a very human and very empathetic individual. So as soon as he heard about the manhunt going on in Boston and its environs, wondered via Twitter:

I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a high-capacity magazine?

I mean how sympathetic can a guy be?

I mean really?

Nate withdrew the Tweet once it was pointed out to him that he was being a total douche. Of course it was up long enough for a long list of people to tell him that.

Good luck Nate on re-election.

And if you have not run into these videos (YouTube has several by the same guy), then sit back and for a couple of minutes, just chortle your little heart out. Dry up your tears at the above and replace with belly laughs.

Related articles

• LePage Spins Windmill Conspiracy Theory (thetippingpoint.bangordailynews.com)
• Outrage as Rep. Gohmert says radical islamists being trained to act Hispanic (nbclatino.com)

 

Battle Lines Are Drawn

Tags

2nd Amendment, GOP, gun control, NRA

As I write this, the votes have not yet been cast. It’s scheduled for a bit later in the day. It doesn’t look good. According to Senator Manchin, they don’t have the sixty votes that are now per-requisite for getting anything passed in the Senate. And Harry was so sure that the Republicans would be reasonable.

To be sure, there are Democrats signaling they are voting no. Their reason? Oh why should they stick out their necks when the House is surely going to ignore it anyway. Safer to placate their owners, the NRA than do the courageous thing, the honorable thing, the DEMOCRATIC thing–vote as their constituents desire. When 90% of the American public’s desires are being thwarted, you have to ask, what is this thing called Democracy anyway? A small minority is able to foil the desires and rights of the minority.

That is not always a bad thing of course. Our constitution envisions the protection of minority rights, but there are no minority “rights” here to protect. Here we have simple blatant greed which drives a small organization which pulls the strings of its puppets, so-called elected congressional representatives.  The NRA, who are in fact beholden to business interests, and get their Congressional puppets to do their bidding.

The NRA wins– and of course a plethora of “patriotic” groups who are in reality nothing more than ill-educated macho types who have fallen in love as children with the idyllic mis-history of the “wild west” of old, and believe themselves to be “saving the country from itself”. They actually believe that their arsenals of semi-automatic weapons, self-created bunkers, bug-out plans, and caches of food will one day make them the Jeffersons, Washingtons, and John Adams of their day.

That they are delusional is obvious. That they are dangerous is both true and not true. They are dangerous to the average person who unknowingly lives next door to them, and may become embroiled in some “last stand” and caught in the cross-fire. They are not dangerous to the firepower and might of the US military, should that come into play in this future Armageddon that they have wet dreams about.

But the real joke is on them. And the NRA is perpetrator of the greatest hoax of all time. This institution, which started off as a means to help teach hunters how to hunt safely, and was assuredly in favor of not having guns in the hands of any but those trained to handle them safely, has morphed into a grand spokesperson for the gun manufacturers and gun sellers. That is who La Pierre and his ilk really answer to.

And they have done this job of theirs well. They have ginned up the rhetoric since before 2008 to assure their members that any day now a President Obama will take away their guns. They preach it with the fervor of a Billy Graham. They worry and threaten their members with confiscations and the demise of the 2nd Amendment. They rewrite the Amendment to mean what it never meant. They ignore their own–Justice Scalia–who informs them that the 2nd Amendment is not without restraint.

They do this, not because any of it is true, but because it causes what they want to happen–the pseudo-patriots race to the nearest gun location and buy up everything in sight. And get this–they do it at inflated prices. You better get yours before they are banned, and sorry, but our supply is short, so the price is twice what it was before all this happened. And the gun manufacturers of course, know better, and they are building them as fast as the shelves empty.

So now you pseudo-patriot, you can sit in your man cave, aka bunker, caressing and admiring your new arsenal of war weapons, confident that once again you have thwarted that Black Man in the White House. Yes, you are locked and loaded. And as the tragedy of Sandyhook retreats from memory and life returns to normal, you will forget that the NRA hoodwinked you and got you to buy up the store at inflated prices.

You will forget it, because you don’t want to feel like the fool you are. And because you are a fool, and you will forget, and when the next tragedy occurs, (and of course it will), the NRA will turn up the heat once again, and regardless of who is president at the time, somehow, they will make you afraid, and you’ll be headed back to the gun shop to load up on what may soon be illegal again.

Because, you see, poor stupid pseudo-patriot, they don’t care about the 2nd Amendment at all. They never have. They care about lining their pockets with dead presidents, and you are the stupid fool that keeps that cash flowing their way.

And the rest of us are just sickened by your stupidity. And we are sickened that we have to put up with people like you. But we do, for we believe in a free society.

But we will change this gun culture, and mark down the name of every single elected official who votes no, and all those who we know encouraged no in the hopes that they would not have to stand up and say NO publicly. And we will defeat you, and replace you with normal people of conscience who believe that they are there to represent the best interests of the people they represent and not corporate whores and their mouthpieces.

Shame on you. And may your children and grandchildren someday deny they ever knew you.

Related articles

• Toomey won’t retreat from background-checks amendment (triblive.com)
• Gillibrand rejects David Gregory’s talking points: ‘This is not about the NRA!’ (rawstory.com)
• “All bow to the NRA and the fear and hate they spread that stopped common sense” – ‘Senate Sets Flurry of Crucial Votes on Gun Measures, Some Expanding Rights’ (thelastofthemillenniums.wordpress.com)
• The N.r.a. Shows Its True (and Ugly) Colours (onehotknife.wordpress.com)
• NRA’s 35-Year Battle to Define the 2nd Amendment (patspapers.com)
• Manchin Accuses NRA Of Lying About Background Checks, Says Bill Is Likely To Fail (thinkprogress.org)
• The Gun Whore Minority Is Winning (duanegraham.wordpress.com)