Tuesday, June 09, 2015

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS BY POINTING GUNS AT THEM.

The Christian Science Monitor explores the "etiquette" of America's open-carry-mania. Some gun enthusiasts believe, or at least pretend to believe, that if they act like the loaded weapon they're twirling at Arby's is no big deal, ordinary citizens will get accustomed to living in a dystopian novel instead of modern civilization and we'll soon be one be one happy, bloody shoot-'em-up society. CSM even hears from Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds, who says, "This is what lefties have done for decades, and it works" -- a cryptic statement, perhaps meaning that since liberals created feminism by letting their women go around without bras, it stands to reason that a bunch of crackers playing "Guess Whether I'm Going To Kill You And Everyone Else Here" at the Chuck E. Cheese will usher in the Groovy Second Amendment Revolution.

Some of the brethren are more hardcore:
“The idea that we must be more ‘polite,’ lest we frighten [the 46 percent of Americans who are seen as persuadable on gun rights,] ignores the nature of the right we are fighting for,” writes Kurt Hofmann on the website Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. “We must be ‘frightening,’ because the people who would trample our rights will only lose interest in doing so if they perceive a very personal risk to themselves in continuing on that course.”
He's refreshingly honest in a psychotic way. So is Michael Walsh at PJ Media, who responds to the article's concern with an armed nut who stalked an Atlanta airport thus:
Here you have the basic leftist argument: they “felt threatened” even though, in fact and in law, no one was actually threatening them. But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners of terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their psychiatrist’s office.
Liberals try to make loaded weapons look dangerous! Before they ruined everything, guns were as ubiquitous as cigarettes in America -- ordinary citizens in Anytown, U.S.A. always went around strapped, packed, and brandishing, whether at the PTA or the steel mill. Ask your grandparents -- and if they tell you different it's because LBJ brainwashed them! (If you've got some time we'll discuss how liberals censors cut the weaponry from shows like Leave It To Beaver and Ben Casey.)

Fashions in Second Amendment interpretation may come and go but, this being America, gun nuts will always be with us. The big change recently is that we're supposed to take them seriously in the sense of "accept their point of view as valid" rather than in the sense of "call the police."

389 comments:

  1. Ted the slacker10:23 AM

    If I may speak on behalf of non-gun nuts.
    I don't feel threatened, per se, by open carry fetishists. I find them weird, insecure and pathetic, but they do not threaten me directly.
    What concerns me is that there may another weird, insecure, pathetic dickbag in the area who thinks he's the good guy with a gun and the other guy is not. A situation escalates - you know, like with the biker gangs in Waco - and I become an innocent bystander trying not to get killed. Not my idea of a fun day out.
    What also concerns me is that this lot treat gun safety the same way I treat flossing. Something I practice most days, but I'm not perfect. I don't trust these idiots not to accidentally harm themselves or people in the vicinity.
    So when I see an open carry clownface, I take myself and my family the fuck away because they present a hazard I can rationally avoid.
    Also, they are weird, insecure and pathetic, so not my kind of people overall.

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  2. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership



    FINALLY

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  3. EndOfTheWorld10:32 AM

    Ah, you say that now! But when the Pinkberry is overrun by ISIS, and you and all the other "men" are cowering behind the fixins bar, then you will look to our self-appointed gun-slinging heroes! Look! It's Kevin from the IT Department! I thought he was just a nerd who stood too close to me when he wanted to discuss Babylon 5, but look! He's fighting off those commie islamo-facist ISIS ninjas with his trusty Deagle! (And a set of nunchucks in the unlikely event he becomes disarmed!)

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  4. Ted the slacker10:39 AM

    Are you saying we could have a shoot-out between ISIS and the Open Carry Patriots?
    Don't tell my liberal friends, but I'm ok to supply ammo.

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  5. I don't feel threatened, per se, by open carry fetishists. I find them
    weird, insecure and pathetic, but they do not threaten me directly.


    I think it's a case of both/and. Open carry nuts are cartoonish, sure, but these particular cartoons can actually kill you.

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  6. EndOfTheWorld10:43 AM

    Abu Ayman Al-Iraqi vs. Wayne LaPierre. WHO YA GOT??!!?

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  7. A person carrying a firearm is many dozens, even hundreds, of times more likely to shoot you than one who does not. This is the root of concern for the rest of us, and *until people with guns stop shooting people so much* it will be a rational concern.


    The rhetorical flourish of carrying openly speaks purely to psychological issues, but it doesn't speak highly. These guys lose on all counts.

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  8. Isnt walsh's argument even crazier and more convoluted? Its liberals who see killers and danger everywhere not the guy who is do convinced he has potential enemies everywhere that he feels it necessaary to go strapped to the airport to cover his daughter's return to school like the flight from saigon?

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  9. Ellis_Weiner10:53 AM

    "But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners
    of terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their
    psychiatrist’s office."

    Whereas we Second Amendment patriots know that the real terrors consist in random citizens, of unpredictable psychology and equipped with dangerous weapons,liable to be encountered anywhere--No, hang on...

    Whereas we Second Amendment patriots know that lefty fears are hysterical and neurotic, because in fact there are no dangers in everyday life, which is why we pack heat and...okay, wait...

    (Also, "in a psychotic way" = the Miles Davis album that never really clicked.)

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  10. "So when I see an open carry clownface, I take myself and my family the fuck away because they present a hazard I can rationally avoid."


    The hazard can come from a gun fanatic, but also someone with concealed carry who has a tenuous grasp of gun safety. Yes, there are 'responsible gun owners' but sometimes I hear that expression, uttered in shock, about someone who left a loaded firearm lying around or who had it accidentally go off and shoot another person (they were so responsible with their guns! I just can't imagine what happened…)


    I'm also pissed at how this adoration of guns makes it seem normal to use them in disputes where they aren't needed. Going from 0 to 90 in an uncomfortable situation. And every time someone unarmed gets shot in a dispute, the gun-lovers are out to "prove" how the victim was really a threat or they make hideous comments about how the victim was 'mouthy' and asking for it, etc. etc.


    And let's not forget the racial disparities. Open-carry is much more difficult for black people to pull off (and I say this knowing that there have been open-carry demonstrations with black people as well. Still, there's a huge difference in perception and the chances that law enforcement will fire on you, even if you're, say, holding only a toy gun.)

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  11. But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners
    of terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their
    psychiatrist’s office.Now, if you'll excuse us, we on the Right have to get back to shrieking and pissing ourselves over third-rate Middle Eastern thugs who are coming to blow up our malls. Hey, is that cabbie a Muslim?

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  12. BigHank5311:07 AM

    What also concerns me is that this lot treat gun safety the same way I treat flossing.

    Oh, bullshit. You take your flossing a damn sight more seriously. Let me tell you a story. Back when I was living in Prince George's County, I was in line at a Wendy's behind some armed security guard who was coming off work. He was a stocky guy, and he had his pants belted up close to his ribcage, which made him look ridiculous...until I noticed he was keeping his elbow on the grip of his revolver, so that nobody could snatch it out of his holster.

    Every single photo I've seen of these open carry dipwads has them treating their goddamn portable death machines* like they're GI Joe toys. That photo of the woman at Target...

    http://www.motherjones.com/files/target-open-carry-1-630.jpg

    Walk up behind her. Grab the barrel with your right hand and the stock with your left. Bump the back of her knees with your knees and hey! you've got a brand new shotgun! Sure, there's an annoying victim tangled up in the sling, but how long is it going to take to get rid of her? You're the one with a strap around her throat...and a brand new shotgun. If that sounds like too much work, just stop by the wine display to pick up a bottle of champagne and whack her in the head with it.

    These idiots feel free to indulge their paranoia because this country is so damn safe.** If America was half the dystopia they like to think it is, most of those $1000 rifles wouldn't come back from their first outing.

    *I think guns are neat. I own a couple. But they are, in fact, highly engineered devices intended for a single purpose: making living creatures stop living.

    **For white men.

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  13. Here you have the basic leftist argument: they “felt threatened” even
    though, in fact and in law, no one was actually threatening them.Yeah, in this day and age, strangers carrying firearms in airports couldn't possibly be a threat, as long as they're wearing their "Good Guy" badge: white skin.

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  14. Kurt Hofmann on the website Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.Hey, Kurt, have you sent Gabrielle Giffords an application form yet?

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  15. The problem these wankers fail (or refuse) to perceive is that they are setting the stage to easily enable all of the horror fantasies they claim open-carry will prevent. The asshole with the AR-15 in Atlanta is a classic example: If he had been a terrorist, he would have been perfectly legal carrying that and a whole bunch of other weaponry around in the airport--until the very instant he opened fire on a crowd.

    So, the gun nuts want everyone to be comfortable and accepting of heavily armed civilians wandering the malls and airports of America--so that any ISIS solo operative won't draw any attention from anyone, people won't sidle away, people won't call police, until the ISIS guy starts mowing folks down.

    I fucking give up. If 22 dead children caused this country to say, "Ya know, we need MORE guns in schools, AND we need to make it even easier for anyone to buy a gun regardless of mental health!", then we're fucking doomed. There is no amount of blood, no pile of bodies so high, that the gun fetishists will not insist that the answer is always and forever more guns.

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  16. Well, leftists feel threatened by people carrying loaded weapons. Conservatives, on the other hand, feel threatened by other people who live in caves on the other side of the world, and by the 80-foot-tall Obama in their heads that will be coming ANY DAY NOW to take their guns and put them in re-education camps.

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  17. Ted the slacker11:13 AM

    They are a human biohazard, which I suppose is a threat of sorts. Just not quite the threat they assume we think they are.

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  18. I'll take Wayne. The tsunami of shit that would explode out of his pants would overwhelm his attacker (and any bystanders) near instantly.

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  19. Here you have the basic leftist argument: they “felt threatened” even though, in fact and in law, no one was actually threatening them.

    The Second Amendment was designed for people just like the president and his administration. And yes, if the New York Times and the Rolling Stone, and whoever else wants to have a hissy fit, yes, our guns are in our hands for people like those in our government right now that think they want to go tyrannical on us, we’ve got something for them. That’s what it’s all about. The Second Amendment is not about hunting, it’s not about target shooting, it’s about Democrats who want to take our rights.”
    --Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, April 2015


    Silly leftists, inventing threats out of thin air.

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  20. I will spot Larry there any firearm he wants. Indeed, I'll spot him any firearm and any number of them with unlimited ammo.

    Then, he gets to face off against a single Stryker brigade coming to take those guns away. Good luck, Larry!

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  21. Oh, come on, he's calling for whacking the President and his staff, not for a battlefield clash between militia and regulars.

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  22. “We must be ‘frightening,’ because the people who would trample our rights will only lose interest in doing so if they perceive a very personal risk to themselves in continuing on that course.”

    Of course, the people who would trample his rights surround themselves with more competent killers than he could hope to be, but hey, those soccer moms at Chipotle daren't call him a schmuck to his face.

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  23. Ah, yes! Just your average patriot calling for the overthrow of the government.

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  24. Ormond11:32 AM

    Fine, carry the guns. I guess it's your right. I have the right to think that you are a sad, sad person who feels so overwhelmed by the modern word, so riddled with personal (and let's not fuck around, sexual) insecurities that you are full-on just literally arming yourself against the complexities of the world that demands of you more than the dime store masculinity you learned from shitty movies. You are like a little boy on the cusp of adolescence that goes camping in the back yard because he wants to feel independent, but brings his GIJOES as transitional objects that make him feel safe in the dark of the suburban wilds. We are all laughing at you, your adult children are embarrassed by you, everyone thinks your an asshole. I hope, for real, that you don't William S. Burroughs your loved ones because they don't deserve that.

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  25. Or, worse, call him "Teeny Weenie" while giggling.

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  26. M. Krebs11:33 AM

    (Also, "in a psychotic way" = the Miles Davis album that never really clicked.)


    And I say that's unfortunate.

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  27. The sad reality is that his loved ones are more likely to kill themselves with those weapons. Whether it's the 4-year-old pulling Mommy's .25ACP from her purse and blasting his sister in the guts, or the 2-year-old grabbing Dad's Glock and shooting himself in the face, or despondent emo teen boy deciding that cutting himself just ain't doing no more, there's an all-too-real chance that these weapons will end up killing one or more of the people he's trying to protect.

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  28. BG, puppet making crank calls11:39 AM

    Aside from the paranoia that seems to fester in these people, they also seem to have a perversely childish idea that they will magically be able to handle these weapons in case there is a real emergency.


    How many of them know how to handle a skid on a slippery road? Would they be okay with letting people drive who have had no training behind the wheel? Would they let 12-year-olds drive? Or people who are legally blind? Why are they so resistant to background checks --- do they have something to hide?


    They scare the crap out of me.

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  29. M. Krebs11:39 AM

    When oh when are the white people of American going to do something about the problem of young white men.

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  30. carolannie11:41 AM

    Well that is really rich, making mock of people who feel threatened by someone carrying a loaded weapon in a grocery store, while open carry nuts are always feeling threatened by invisible and unknown bugaboos such as libruls and feminazis and them uppity folk downtown some of whom may actually cross their path unbeknownst to them. Which is why they all claim they MUST HAVE A GUN, or else all "those people" will trample on their rights.

    Projection much?

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  31. J Neo Marvin11:49 AM

    Those leftists and their psychiatrists! Why can't they cope with their undiagnosed mental problems by packing heat like real Amurrikins?

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  32. whetstone11:50 AM

    My first piece of etiquette advice concerning open carry is: be white.

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  33. Helmut Monotreme11:57 AM

    Do these weirdos really think that every freaking disagreement in the world is resolved in favor of the party willing to commit murder to win? Do they think that every argument they ever lost is because they didn't have the power to kill the opposing party? Guns aren't a magic "I win" button. They do add an explicit "or I will kill you" to every sentence they utter while strapped, which isn't the same thing at all.

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  34. You all might find this interesting. A sign in the window of an Irish Bar, in Chicago, the financial district. A bit of context: Chicago used to have gun control laws, but the US Supreme Court said that was unconsitutional, so now we have signs everywhere that say "guns aren't allowed in this establishment".

    Now my question is, what is this sign meant to convey? I think the general sentiment is that the signs, and perhaps attempts at gun control in general, are dumb. And that legislators are dumb for attempting to have guns control, because society is so scary that we need to carry guns? Do I have that right?

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  35. Helmut Monotreme12:05 PM

    Lead is skin permeable. Lead poisoning leads to increased aggression and reduced intelligence. Could we reduce gun nut paranoia by requiring all bullets to be copper jacketed?

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  36. What's so stupid about this crap is that, obviously, even an AK-47 & a MANPADS won't do anything if the government decides that you're an enemy. The only thing the guns will do for you is allow you to oppress your fellow citizens -- possibly scare off thieves if you're lucky.

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  37. susanoftexas12:13 PM

    And maybe not even that--a young man was open-carrying and a guy walked up to him, pointed a not-open-carry gun at him, and just took the gun away from the ammosexual.

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  38. J Neo Marvin12:15 PM

    Yeah, there certainly would not be any fallout as a result of that.

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  39. gratuitous12:18 PM

    Dumb libruls! You "feel threatened" when some anonymous jerk-off goes strolling through the airport with his rifle? Let me tell you what's really threatening: ACORN! Or somebody thousands of miles away who can't get to me or at me, but who needs some serious blowing up because freedumb.

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  40. susanoftexas12:19 PM

    Almost every place of business here has "no guns allowed" signs. I've never seen anyone open carry and if I did I would let the management know that I would never, ever be back.

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  41. A gun enthusiast co-worker expressed frustration with all the signs that have proliferated since the 2010 decision. If all Chicago-area establishments have these signs, then what good is Illinois being open carry, he asked. I didn't have the heart to tell him, that's kind of the point.

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  42. NPR just did a story on lead accumulation in indoor firing ranges. Maybe that explains increased police violence while the introduction of unleaded gas is cited as a possible factor in decreasing crime rates.

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  43. May I ask, are you in the Austin area?

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  44. The only good shots are shots of booze.

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  45. The only thing the guns will do for you is allow you to oppress your fellow citizensNah, just liberals and the dusky-hued.

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  46. susanoftexas12:33 PM

    No, Houston. I know there must be some Tea Partiers carrying guns around somewhere but there are not visible inside the inner city.
    I suspect the kind of people who carry guns are too afraid to go into the inner city. It's almost entirely wealthy whites but you might see some wealthy African-Americans as well, so who knows?

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  47. Hey, if you were one of these guys, would you risk going to a psychiatrist?

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  48. Dead_Andy_Breitbart12:34 PM

    Curious: What's to stop me from calling the cops every time I see one of these open carriers? I can say they seem to be behaving erratically.

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  49. BigHank5312:35 PM

    Almost all commercial ammunition is already jacketed. (Pure lead tends to friction-weld little bits of itself to the inside of the barrel, resulting in a tedious evening of scrubbing the thing out with a wire brush and nasty chemicals.) The hazard at indoor ranges comes from the lead azide, that tiny little dab of crush-sensitive high explosive in the primer that sets off the main charge of gunpowder. It turns into a gas, naturally, and is much more readily absorbed than metallic lead.

    Hey, they used to use mercury compounds.

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  50. Are they avoiding the psychiatrist's office because its gun free or because they might get a diagnosis?

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  51. susanoftexas12:36 PM

    Well, there you go. That explains everything. There is no logical reason to walk around with a highly visible gun but we know conservatives think liberals are terrified of guns. They want to scare liberals.

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  52. gratuitous12:37 PM

    I was holding that in reserve, but okay. Maybe a side order of COMMIES! or SOCIALISM!

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  53. I think they are actually eorking in texas to make it illegal for you to report theses armed assholes or for the police to ask to see their licence.

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  54. Helmut Monotreme12:40 PM

    I think gun rights absolutists are fixated on the idea that civilization comes from the barrel of a gun. They are convinced their way of life is under attack. They are convinced that they might at any moment have to defend their person, their home, their civilization, from any one of a multitude of threats. Whether it's the feds, the communists, ISIS or Al Qaeda, or UN black helicopters, they are convinced that only their armed vigilance keeps the bad guys at bay. They'd probably buy tiger repelling rocks if they were sold in a tactical flat black paint job and sported a pickatinny rail so they could mound a telescopic sight.
    They are at least partly correct. Their way of life is under attack. But openly carrying firearms isn't going to bring back abundant jobs for uneducated yokels. It's not going to make straight white male christianity the pre- and only- requisite to success. It's not going to put gays back in the closet, kick women out of the workplace or put black people on the back of the bus. Openly carrying firearms isn't going to put oil and coal back in the ground and stop global climate change. It's sure as hell not going to stop heart disease, cancer or obesity. The only thing openly carrying a firearm does is stop any discussion of those issues before it starts, so they get to pretend for another few days or months or years, that they personally don't have to change.

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  55. Ellis_Weiner12:42 PM

    And the best place to carry them is inside your person.

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  56. susanoftexas12:42 PM

    Can we accuse the open carry leaders of working for ISIS? They want to give ISIS guns! Oooga-booga!

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  57. tigrismus12:44 PM

    But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners
    of terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their
    psychiatrist’s office.


    Whereas NORMAL people know the real terror is how Jade Helm is Obama's chance to take yer guns and crosses and put you in FEMA camp under Sharia law.

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  58. susanoftexas12:46 PM

    Deep down they must think that the gun gives them back the power that the laws used to give them but took away. They can no longer legally mistreat minorities in the open so they can no longer gratify their ego by bullying anyone not a white male. But they still need that ego boost, that feeling of personal power, so they carry a gun.

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  59. mommadillo12:46 PM

    the basic leftist argument: they “felt threatened”
    How ridiculous. Who do these leftists think they are, cops?

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  60. I think "weird, insecure and pathetic" fits well here.

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  61. tigrismus12:49 PM

    Also too: "they “felt threatened” even though, in fact and in law, no one was actually threatening them"

    You know who acted like he felt threatened when he wasn't? The Atlanta gun idiot. The cops were perfectly correct to follow him and ascertain if he was a threat, and he whines about how he's going to sue? Oh no, they followed me to my car, I have a right to carry! Yeah, and they have a right to follow you to your damn car, moron.

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  62. "But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners of terrors — except real terrors like Jade Helm, encroaching sharia, and Ebola infected Honduran children sneaking across the border – lurk just beyond the precinct of their psychiatrist’s office.

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  63. If you're insecure enough to feel the need to carry a killing instrument around with you in public then you are, ipso facto, a "weird, insecure, pathetic...clownface." Period.

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  64. I think he achieved what he was after: making a big stink and getting notoriety.

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  65. mortimer200012:54 PM

    Some other Rules of Open-Carry Etiquette
    2. Perception is everything! Don't look Muslim.
    3. Do not dye your hair orange.
    4. Keep the pointy end with the hole inside your pants.

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  66. Wow, I can just imagine what Lennie Briscoe and Ray Curtis would say about that.

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  67. susanoftexas12:56 PM

    Much less likely to spill that way.

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  68. susanoftexas12:57 PM

    Heh! Poor baby, all gunned up and no place to go.

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  69. If the common American isn't allowed to carry a killing instrument around with them at all times then how are they going to protect themselves against 15 year old black girls in bikinis?


    I mean, them bitches get mouthy and shit, y'know?

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  70. Jay B.1:02 PM

    “We must be ‘frightening,’ because the people who would trample our rights will only lose interest in doing so if they perceive a very personal risk to themselves in continuing on that course.”


    Holy shit do I want to throw a firecracker into one of their meet ups. It would be like Nam with less order.

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  71. susanoftexas1:02 PM

    I think you've put your finger on the true class divide in America. Poor common American wants to pack heat to preserve his way of life while Rich common American know that's what the heavily militarized police are for. True power is winning without lifting a finger, let alone a trigger finger. That shit gets people killed.

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  72. susanoftexas1:03 PM

    And no air lift.

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  73. It's been my experience in my limited time around gun fetishists that they wholly buy into America being borne from the barrel of a gun, that America is exceptional beyond all reproach and that nothing speaks more to American might and right than toting around an instrument of death.


    You know, your basic eight-year old mentality writ large in biological adults.

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  74. el_donaldo1:19 PM

    "Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership"? That's fairly niche. Is there a Cthulhu's Reivers for Assault weaPons (CRAP) I can join?



    And they're just wasting that J and that F if they can't arrange the words to get a JERKOFF acronym.

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  75. tigrismus1:22 PM

    I know some Open Carry folks in Texas posted the contact information of a 911 caller online, who then had to change her number because of harassment.

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  76. Enola infected honduran toddlers shooting plague from their eyeballs! That was the last fillip of the contirtions of the enola hysteria--the accusation that an infected person would continue to have the virus in their eyeball fluid.

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  77. Gromet1:27 PM

    PERFECT.

    "So tell me," the psychiatrist said, "Both about how you feel the world is so dangerous you need to be armed to kill at all times, and about how at the same time, you feel other people are wrong to think the world is truly dangerous."

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  78. Gromet1:34 PM

    I picture an ominous sign wrought in iron, spanning some still-ominouser gate. Wonder where the gate goes and what the rules are in there. "Guns macht frei."

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  79. Ellis_Weiner1:35 PM

    They're flashers. I know we make cliched sport of guns as penis-substitutes, but add that idea to the one discussed here, and voila. One thing to say to an open carrier is, "Don't you want a baggy, unbelted trench coat with that?"

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  80. glennisw1:37 PM

    Geez, it just seems like such an inconvenient pain the ass, I can't imagine why anyone would WANT to carry a gun around with them on a daily basis. Especially while shopping, with kids, etc. It'd be like carrying around a chain saw all day - you got this heavy, unwieldy thing slung around your neck, bumping into shit - OH, and it has a button on it that, if it gets bumped the wrong way, deadly bullets come out.
    I mean, what kind of masochist chooses to live like that/

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  81. glennisw1:38 PM

    Conservative feel threatened by women who open their own doors. And by black teenagers walking to class. And by people speaking Spanish in a Mexican restaurant.

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  82. Gromet1:38 PM

    "I don't want that doctor to change me. I'm happy being angry and self-destructive all the time."

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  83. satch1:40 PM

    Hey... according to the Second amendment fetishists, we can always count the number of shots fired, and rush the shooter when he stops to reload.

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  84. Gromet1:42 PM

    I feel our Muslim-American friends could end this moronic Second Amendment movement in a single weekend by festooning themselves with machine guns and walking around Houston International. "Ohhhh shit. Maybe this open carry law ain't a good idea."

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  85. satch1:44 PM

    "But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners
    of terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their
    psychiatrist’s office."


    No wonder Lindsey ISIS Is Coming To Kill Us All Graham wants to carry that darling pearl handled derringer wherever he goes.

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  86. I think that only applies to children, doesn't it? The kids should bum-rush the gunman, eventually burying him under enough dead and dying toddlers that he's immobilized. At least, that's what Megan McArdle says should happen.

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  87. tigrismus1:45 PM

    Also, limits on magazine sizes are evil.

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  88. Blow up our malls? How about using cans of soda pop to take over airplanes? The threat cannot be overstated!

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  89. Also, if you could, describe for me only the good things about your mother.https://youtu.be/B_an_YupJAI

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  90. Helmut Monotreme1:49 PM

    ...ooooooor there would be a bloodbath and the FBI would claim to have thwarted another terrorist attack.

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  91. All joking sside aren't depressiin /self harm and murder, for some people, just two sides of the same coin? So many of these gun toting men are really suffering--and excorsising their personal demons, by warding off terrifying dangers.

    ReplyDelete
  92. satch1:54 PM

    Your post is similar to the thoughts I used to get when listening to Gordon Liddy blatting on about walking around strapped to ward off potential rapists and muggers. The only way you'd be safe is if the potential mugger/rapist faces you and announces (from a distance): "Here I come! I'm'a gonna rape ya, mug ya, and leave ya in the gutter, so ya might as well give up now!" Given plenty of warning and training (since handguns are notoriously hard to aim), you might stand a chance...

    ReplyDelete
  93. Right. There is no way that brown people or liberals arming themselves ends well for them.

    ReplyDelete
  94. If you dont count petards.

    ReplyDelete
  95. EndOfTheWorld1:58 PM

    The unspoken codicil to the Open Carry privilege is that only the white man, bastion of civilization that he is, has earned the right to wave a gun around in public be treated like an eccentric political activist and not, say, a potential terrorist.

    Most of the protestors in Baltimore and Ferguson know damn well what would happen to them if they tried waving guns around in front of police officers.

    ReplyDelete
  96. kennyg1:59 PM

    ¿dónde está mi madre puto té helado?

    ReplyDelete
  97. satch2:00 PM

    "I'm happy being angry and self-destructive all the time." YOU GOTTA PROBLEM WIT DAT?

    ReplyDelete
  98. ColBatGuano2:01 PM

    as long as they're wearing their "Good Guy" badge: white skin.

    I'm still waiting for the manual that tells me the difference between these Open Carry fetishists and the Aurora shooter. Or Jared Laughner. Or Adam Lanza.

    ReplyDelete
  99. satch2:03 PM

    “The Second Amendment was designed for people just like the president and his administration." Obama's only got one and a half years left in his second term. If he really wants tyranny, he needs to get a move on.

    ReplyDelete
  100. satch2:06 PM

    Well, Cliven Bundy and his gang of Armed Adorables faced down the jackbooted thugs of the BLM, so they think they're on a roll.

    ReplyDelete
  101. gocart mozart2:07 PM

    He is lulling them into a false sense of security.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Illogical One2:15 PM

    #4 applies to many situations...

    ReplyDelete
  103. Le Chifforobe2:16 PM

    Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership?

    Reg: F*ck off! 'Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership'. We're the Preservation of Firearms Ownership for Jews!

    Francis: Wankers.

    ReplyDelete
  104. susanoftexas2:21 PM

    That's okay. They are playing the long game and can wait until he is assassinated by old age.

    ReplyDelete
  105. susanoftexas2:22 PM

    Beanie Bundys. You think they have trading value but they don't.

    ReplyDelete
  106. susanoftexas2:23 PM

    "Is that a derringer or are you happy to see me?"

    ReplyDelete
  107. realinterrobang2:27 PM

    Change her outfit a bit, and the type of gun, and that could be any Thursday afternoon in Israel.


    On the other hand, I suspect the average Israeli IDF-recruit teenager carrying around her weapon in public is more highly trained than that woman...

    ReplyDelete
  108. realinterrobang2:29 PM

    In that particular dispute, I'm rooting for injuries, myself.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Gromet2:31 PM

    Occasionally, I suspect they have a worldview that essentially runs: Nothing is nailed down. Nothing is sacred. Morality is a veneer we paint over the only thing that is real, which is force. Force is what takes resources and makes them ours, and keeps them ours, and keeps us safe. If you can't take things for yourself, too bad -- you're on the losing end, and you'll stay there, and I'm not going to feel bad for you or give you any handouts because you didn't figure out the one law of existence is take. I'm not going go along with your wish that we were all equal in God's eyes, because who knows if there even is a god; what we are is animals born into a savage wilderness that only pretends to be a civilization. Life is brutal and lawless and the only thing you really can do is to carve out one sunny spot for yourself and your immediate family and try to hold it against all invaders so that you die later instead of sooner. That's it. That's the whole game.

    Sometimes, in a darker mood, I think there's some truth to this.

    However, though it explains so much of their insane racism and economics and weaponry stockpiling, tentatively I reject the idea that this "state of nature" idea is the thing that drives them. Because it doesn't explain the rest -- the opposition to abortion rights, to gay marriage, really any cultural or moral issue. They'd just not give one dick about any of that stuff. So there's something weirder and more complicated going on, that in theory could be satisfied (in a way the state of nature never could be). But I don't think it will be satisfied. I think we're stuck with it and there's not ever going to be a coherent explanation of it from any of the open carry guys. tl;dr, guns weird.

    ReplyDelete
  110. BigHank532:32 PM

    Do you remember the group of gun-nuts that restaged the Charlie Hebdo assault with paintball guns? I think they ran the drill several times and the "defenders" managed to wound an "attacker" once. And this was a prepared group waiting for an attack!

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  111. realinterrobang2:32 PM

    In terms of the general public, though, I'd much rather they went with self-harm over murder. Fewer people get hurt that way, and yes, I'm accounting for their families.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Gromet2:33 PM

    Why not make that our new slogan? "No one was ever shot by a guy without a gun."

    ReplyDelete
  113. realinterrobang2:34 PM

    They actually named a thing "MANPADS"? Uhm... Paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Freud to the Really Really White Courtesy Telephone, please.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Gromet2:39 PM

    Yeah, I mean, he had to know he was going to startle and irk people, yet he chose to do it anyway. So that's part of the goal. You can't then go crying that people had the reaction you planned to give them, unless your grasp on reality is that of a six-year-old.

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  115. Better do it from a respectable distance.

    ReplyDelete
  116. I agree, it always makes me think of menstrual aids for men.

    ReplyDelete
  117. BigHank532:41 PM

    Not to mention that the implied threat of the firearm will win you exactly one argument with somebody: in the future they'll either refuse to do business with you, or tack on an "asshole" fee until you take your business elsewhere. In addition, muttering dire imprecations while clutching a firearm can easily fall into what prosecutors like to call "criminal threatening" which is--snort--an excellent way to lose your right to even own a firearm, never mind carry one. As any competent concealed-carry instructor could tell you, the law tends to hold the bearer of deadly force to a higher standard than the average citizen.

    Of course, Wayne LaPierre and ALEC are doing their best to get rid of that little obstacle. I wonder why.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Gromet2:42 PM

    Hey, this is America! If you don't like bars that ban guns, start your own bar that requires them.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Wow! I missed that one. Incredible.


    Interesting how that Ebola scare disappeared immediately after the midterm elections were over.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Gromet2:45 PM

    It's true. I saw it in a movie.

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  121. witlesschum2:46 PM

    Yes.

    ReplyDelete
  122. If they get a diagnosis then they might not be able to get guns.
    You know, with that reasonable gun control legislation that the NRA and GOP helped usher in after the school shootings cause the guns couldn't be the problem but mental health could be.

    ReplyDelete
  123. witlesschum2:48 PM

    Obama's failure to take their guns yet just shows he must be up to something truly diabolical.

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  124. witlesschum2:53 PM

    It's one of those acronyms the military enjoys so much, I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse. Something like MAN Portable Air Defense System, if I remember my Clancy. Shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile for shooting down planes, like the ones our friends forever in Afghanistan used to shoot down so many Russian helicopters.

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  125. I know; it keeps not happening...


    How suspicious is that?

    ReplyDelete
  126. Ray "Bones" Barboni: You must be one of those quick-draw artists, the way you've got your gun down on your belt like that.

    Ronnie Wingate: Whatta you got there, a Wop 9? Fuckin' Fiat of guns, always jammin' on you at the wrong time.

    [Bones nods, smiles and shoots him 4 times]

    ReplyDelete
  127. It's hard to argue with that kind of sound logic.

    ReplyDelete
  128. They really bought into that one Mao quotation, didn't they?

    ReplyDelete
  129. Unfortunately, as has been noted with African-Americans, nowadays the good ol' Black Panther open carry gambit would probably only get a bunch of Muslim-Americans shot dead by racist law enforcement and / or white open carry shitbags. Imagine how some of the morally-bankrupt pigfuckers strutting around that Phoenix mosque brandishing firearms would have reacted to noticing any of its members exercising their open carry rights.

    ReplyDelete
  130. "After all, Doc, who doesn't want to gun down all Democrats in this country? Especially that Obama. He really needs a Second Amendment remedy, amirite?"


    "Interesting." [Doctor desperately tries to find way to discreetly dial 911] "Tell me more about your mother."

    ReplyDelete
  131. The USA and Israel seem to be on parallel tracks in so many ways.

    ReplyDelete
  132. the precinct of their psychiatrist’s office.

    "You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down..."

    "What one?"

    "What?"

    "What desert?"

    "It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical."

    "But, how come I'd be there?"

    "Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Maybe you're ... [Rustles through papers] ... 'defending the southern border.' Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you..."


    "I empty the magazine of my assault rifle into it."


    "... Yeah, we're done here."

    ReplyDelete
  133. ohsopolite3:21 PM

    If you're not still scared of Ebola you're not trying hard enough.

    ReplyDelete
  134. M. Krebs3:24 PM

    They're often seen wearing camouflage and driving large pickups. The camouflage is rather pointless, actually, since you can hear them coming from a mile away.

    ReplyDelete
  135. JennOfArk3:26 PM

    ...they “felt threatened” even though, in fact and in law, no one was actually threatening them. But the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners of terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their psychiatrist’s office.



    Neener neener you pussy libs. Everyone knows that the real threat is a hundred pound teenaged black girl in a bikini.

    ReplyDelete
  136. Smarter than Your Average Bear3:27 PM

    Or they would drown from his tears while he's crying don't kill me over and over.

    ReplyDelete
  137. M. Krebs3:29 PM

    Manpads would be the perfect brand name for camouflage adult diapers. There's definitely a market for them.

    ReplyDelete
  138. Helmut Monotreme3:29 PM

    In times of war, in areas where soldiers are soldiering, power does come at least partly from the barrel of a gun. Even at those times in those places, it also comes from rank, from food, from numerous allies, from shelter, from control of high ground and a thousand other variables. But gun fetishists are focused on the maybe 20 or 30 minutes over the course of their entire life when having a gun might make the difference between living and dying, instead of focusing on every-fucking-thing-else they could focus on to make those desperate situations never happen. If gun enthusiasts spent a quarter of their political capital on making sure all Americans had a decent public school to attend or cops walking a beat that weren't racist violent assholes, or drug laws that weren't punitively written and enforced to criminalize a giant fraction of Americans, how many fewer of those desperate situations would never happen in the first place? I mean to a point I get it. There's a mystique to an object that embodies so much violence and power. There's a seductive quality to the idea that mastery of a gun makes everyone else into helpless civilians to rescue or protect or victims to exploit. There's a tradition of martial values that anyone can pretend to partake of, just by owning a firearm. But lies that flatter preconceived notions of self and society and nationhood are still lies. I mean at this point I can't think of any gun-fetishism so outrageous that someone isn't sincerely espousing it.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Smarter than Your Average Bear3:36 PM

    good recall there mds :)

    ReplyDelete
  140. You can't spell 'gun-toting Republican dolts' without 'bipolar disorder'.


    Actually you can, but the overlap is too large to ignore.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Yep. John Crawford and Tamir Rice were killed in Ohio, which is an open carry state.

    Time to release the Panthers again.

    ReplyDelete
  142. LA Julian4:00 PM

    They think we're the fearful ones, for being willing to walk to the store or ride the bus without a gun in hand, as if we were all living in a Mad Max movie.

    At the same time, woe betide any woman who points out that we can't automagically tell which of them is a Genuine Nice Guy and which of them is a smiling would-be rapist, so we are prudent to treat all of them with guarded caution...

    ReplyDelete
  143. Here you have the basic leftist argument: they “felt threatened” even
    though, in fact and in law, no one was actually threatening them. But
    the Left has long dwelled in a fantasy world, in which all manners of
    terrors — except real terrors– lurk just beyond the precinct of their
    psychiatrist’s office.


    No, that's racist asswads rushing to defend yet another police officer who has killed yet another unarmed black person. And speaking of psychiatrists, do these people ever do anything but project?


    No.

    ReplyDelete
  144. ADHDJ4:03 PM

    Guns cause autism!

    ReplyDelete
  145. LA Julian4:03 PM

    It's the Long Game. He was in cahoots with HRC all along, they were only pretending to be primary rivals so as to finally put into play her husband's original gun grabbing campaign!

    ReplyDelete
  146. LA Julian4:06 PM

    Many of them will expressly come out and say so -- bellum omnium contra omnes is the "state of nature," and not cooperative society, for humans and for all species, in their minds. As if everything alive was a shark, in a different guise.

    A number of them are published by Baen.

    ReplyDelete
  147. LA Julian4:11 PM

    Funny how actual virulent diseases, like measles and diphtheria -- first outbreak in Spain in 30 years, thanks to an anti-vaxxer's child and school trip -- don't worry them at all.

    But many of them are anti-vaxxers, because reason is for weaklings, or something.

    ReplyDelete
  148. "After all, a murderer is just an extraverted suicide."

    But seriously folks, while there are cases of murder-suicide which can be linked to depression, it is really unlikely those people don't drop little hints of what they're planning by carting a gun everywhere they go.

    ReplyDelete
  149. LA Julian4:13 PM

    "Why is everyone staring at my 37 facial piercings and forehead tattoo?"

    ReplyDelete
  150. Will 80-foot-tall Obama be touring with MC 500' Jesus? Because I'd like to see that show.

    ReplyDelete
  151. TGuerrant4:20 PM

    A friend worked as a technical editor for awhile at an aerospace company, where she shared an office with another editors who generally came to work wearing camo.

    Whenever he did, my friend pretended she couldn't see him because he blended into his surroundings so well.



    Her contract was not renewed.

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  152. realinterrobang4:32 PM

    Operation WhinyAssTittyBabylift.

    ReplyDelete
  153. harumph4:32 PM

    "Felt threatened"? Hm, where have I heard that phrase before? Maybe from every cop who's shot an unarmed black person.

    ReplyDelete
  154. LA Julian4:33 PM

    For some strange reason, modern Western militaries don't let soldiers wander around everywhere with guns, even on base. Arms have to be requisitioned and checked in, outside of the sorts of duties that require them.

    As far as I know, there has been no serious attempt to change this, even after mass shooting incidents by the disgruntled who managed to acquire a weapon regardless, and no senior military personnel have advocated a return to Baroque standards of arms discipline.

    One might think this would have some impact on that line of belief, but evidence-based thinking is for fools and cowards, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  155. realinterrobang4:33 PM

    So did George Killerman. Wasn't that his excuse for why Trayvon Martin is dead now, because Killerman "felt threatened"?

    ReplyDelete
  156. realinterrobang4:36 PM

    Yes, this is almost exactly what I was thinking of. Or atheist's "menstrual aids for (macho insecure) men" from just downthread. :D

    ReplyDelete
  157. I've heard that when they do Loaves and Fishes, Jesus really drops the bass.

    ReplyDelete
  158. tigrismus4:41 PM

    From 500 feet? That would totally kill. And most likely flatten to a pancake.

    ReplyDelete
  159. TGuerrant4:42 PM

    Drones, not just for gubmint anymore...

    ReplyDelete
  160. No worries--Jesus brings life to all he does! It's like the best healthcare plan evar!

    ReplyDelete
  161. Also, whatever happened to that ground zero terror mosque that was all the rage back in pre-election 2010?

    ReplyDelete
  162. geraldfnord5:23 PM

    Certain particle interactions' likelihoods are called 'phase-space dominated' when the major determinant of how often they'll interact is how many of them can be found around each other, moving into each other's way. (This is as opposed to any two oppositely-charged particles, whose charges matter.)

    I think humans have shewn that the major determinant of gun violence is the prevalence of guns. I think that this because there are so few 'bad guys'--previously very violent, repeat, offenders---that even though they cause much more than their share of misery, they're still significantly outweighed by the violence of 'good guys'. I think this is missed because our entertainments are chock-full of bad guys, and our news lets all 3×10^7 of us know about every single one of such a popularion of that size includes, and brings them right into our living-rooms.

    ReplyDelete
  163. Can you spell "M-U-L-F-O-R-D-A-C-T"? How far might these homies get today before they were (1) arrested or (2) shot down in a gun battle with police?

    ReplyDelete
  164. TGuerrant5:30 PM

    bringing his mean-looking weapon to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
    International Airport, the busiest airfield in the world, to drop off
    his daughter.

    If you, too, are a parent, be sure to visit Amazon to get My Parents Open Carry, for just $12.88!

    The reviewers' comments on the book are adorbs and Amazon will offer you a combined price for the "Frequently Bought Together" book, Raising Boys Feminists Will Hate.

    ReplyDelete
  165. “The idea that we must be more ‘polite,’ lest we frighten [the 46
    percent of Americans who are seen as persuadable on gun rights,] ignores
    the nature of the right we are fighting for,” writes Kurt Hofmann


    So much for the "an armed society is a polite society" schtick.

    ReplyDelete
  166. And now you can hear it from every ammosexual who was "forced" to gun down some hoodie-wearin' thug for open-carrying Skittles!

    ReplyDelete
  167. I think it got built.

    Here, lemme go check -

    *walks to door, opens it, walks back*

    Yep, civilization is still there. Huh.

    ReplyDelete
  168. TGuerrant5:40 PM

    NY Post, April 5, 2015:

    In the past, hundreds of worshipers would gather for Friday prayers on Park Place, the site of El-Gamal’s planned mosque and community center, which was known as Park51.

    But that space has been boarded up as El-Gamal prepares to demolish it and build a 39-story condo tower and downsized mosque.

    In the meantime, El-Gamal rented gallery space in Tribeca and used it "for religious gatherings and “loud parties,” and even stuffed “religious classes” for children into a basement that didn’t have proper fire exits, prompting the FDNY to issue violations," according to the landlord, who ordered El-Gamal out by the end of April.

    ReplyDelete
  169. geraldfnord5:41 PM

    It's liberals who are crazy in seeing white men walking aound with guns as dangerous, as opposed to the Mud Hordes always about to leap over the stickage and killrape us all.

    ReplyDelete
  170. *coughcoughTomKratmancough*

    ReplyDelete
  171. montag25:44 PM

    It's so fucking simple: the guy who believes the NRA's contracted, circumcised version of the 2nd Amendment is, by definition, a crackpot.



    The rest of us, at minimum, are with good reason wary about crackpots walking around with loaded military-grade weapons, especially because said loaded military-grade weapons have figured prominently in the deaths of, now, thousands of innocents far from any official battlefield.


    We are equally wary of politicians pandering to said crackpots, including those politicians who happily demand "gun rights" for the blind, felons, the mentally ill and those inclined to physically abuse their wives and children. Those politicians may be cynically pandering to the unconfined insane, or may be insane themselves, but the effect is the same, particularly because, as it appears, they are the very same politicians who want to ratchet up the tyranny by arming the police with everything from tanks to howitzers and then encouraging those police to violate every Constitutional protection afforded ordinary people. This, in turn, causes the white crackpots to sound the alarm about tyranny directed at white people, even though most of the tyranny is directed at black and brown people, a tyranny the white crackpots happily defend.


    If that sounds like insanity begetting yet more insanity, you're right.

    ReplyDelete
  172. geraldfnord5:45 PM

    Someone dear to me is in it or a fellow-traveller, convinced it's Holocaust Vaccine.

    It brings to mind an enraged self-identified Nazi's shrieking at the Freepers about how Der Schnifter was NOT in favour of guns controls for citizens.....

    ReplyDelete
  173. I still say that a decent revival of the Panthers would slow these idjits down.

    Get a couple dozen dusky young men open-carrying at Arby's and suddenly the whole concept might take an inexpicable dive in popularity...

    ReplyDelete
  174. Editorial reviews for the open carry parents book:

    "...going to read it to my kids tonight." Glenn Beck

    "Excellent book for a child. The book's arguments seem reasonable" Larry Pratt, GOA

    "What a beautiful bedtime story..." Stephen Colbert

    ReplyDelete
  175. TGuerrant5:51 PM

    Who better to defend us against the mazel tov cocktails, Glenn Beck's so courageously warned us about last month even as he waited for the Nation of Islam, Open Society, George Soros, and the Tides Foundation to silence his voice!

    ReplyDelete
  176. The father in the illustration looks like he wasn't actually born male... but I don't think they mean anything by it. There's no transgender message here in my opinion.

    I just chalk it up to the ineptness of the artist. It looks like the artist can only draw one face.

    ReplyDelete
  177. TGuerrant5:58 PM

    White people just look alike is all.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Well, that's 66% from the usual suspects...

    "The book's arguments seem reasonable" sounds like an amazingly bloodless evaluation, though - something you'd give more to an *ahem* clueless gun-fondling polemic from Rengery than a kid's book. Though maybe that's how Larry looks at kids books... "The argument of the train that it 'COULD do it' seemed iffy at first, but once events proceed to a satisfactory conclusion we can see that it was a truthful statement the entire time..."

    ReplyDelete
  179. I reckon.

    Hey, I'm not saying I'm the best artist in the world, but good grief! This stuff is terrible.

    ReplyDelete
  180. M. Krebs6:02 PM

    There's a little bit of "big eyes" going on there too.

    ReplyDelete
  181. Maybe that's meant to make them look trustworthy... not menacing at all.

    ReplyDelete
  182. M. Krebs6:04 PM

    Wheels within wheels.

    ReplyDelete
  183. A lot higher than 2/3s usual suspects, I just stopped once I saw #3 there.

    ReplyDelete
  184. LA Julian6:05 PM

    Shhh!! He'll show up, like a horror movie meme.

    ReplyDelete
  185. THE THING THAT WALKED LIKE A THING!

    ReplyDelete
  186. Sounds like a good free market solution to me.

    ReplyDelete
  187. Well, in your extract, I mean.

    So how long do we have until I walk into Wal-Mart and see "The Bernstain Bears Open-Carry"?

    ReplyDelete
  188. charluckles6:08 PM

    The idea that Israel is just full of citizens running around with guns is a ludicrous piece of weapons industry propaganda.

    ReplyDelete
  189. LA Julian6:10 PM

    I should add that Alan Moore and his more devoted fans seem to believe the same thing, from a (possibly) slightly more left-leaning authoritarian angle, resulting in a sort of nihilistic despair that claims to give up on society altogether, while at the same time continuing to reap all the many, many benefits of a society they don't believe in.

    (I haven't seen any evidence that Moore is anything now but an I'm-all-right-Jack libertarian lo these many years. Certainly not "part of the solution" the way that Sir Terry and others no less aware of the bleakness of the human condition have tried to be.)

    ReplyDelete
  190. If you didn't count petards, the attendance would be zero.

    ReplyDelete
  191. Jaime Oria6:13 PM

    Too apropos to not post -
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJ-_jtD3Os

    ReplyDelete
  192. TGuerrant6:14 PM

    Some of them can even fire more than once a night, I'm told.

    ReplyDelete
  193. I thought it was a male only depends.

    ReplyDelete
  194. ohsopolite6:23 PM

    Don't be so judgemental--that stuff would totally pull an "A" in a middle school art class.

    ReplyDelete
  195. UPDATE: Oh, man, oh, man, I'm so trying not to be optimistic because I've been shafted so many times lately, but...

    We've finally found a house we might be able to rent, and, even better, it's in Fairport, the town I grew up in! Going back there would almost literally be "going home". It's an old house but a cozy one - built in 1880, I think - not as big as we had hoped for, but, as Mom said, that's the less cleaning we need to do.

    One catch, of course - we can either rent the house, or we can get our stuff back from ABF Shipping so we can put it in the house. To that end I've started (yet another) YouCaring fundraiser: https://www.youcaring.com/deborah-andolino-366570


    You guys have done more than enough in sending funds - I'm just asking if you could spread the word on this. We seem to have caught Mom's cancer early enough that surgery should take care of it - but they won't do surgery until she has someplace to recover, and a car won't cut it.



    Thanks again, and I still say - you guys are the best.

    ReplyDelete
  196. Oh sweet Jeebus. The parents in that gun fondler book are Bea and Richard Strong.

    ReplyDelete