If that doesn't do it, we can always count on lunatics like Jack Dunphy to help. At PJ Whatsit he comments on a Ready Houston video that shows office workers fending off a shooter with chairs and coffee pots. While he commends the can-do spirit, Dunphy is yet unsatisfied -- he wants those desk jockeys armed:
Wouldn’t it be far preferable to bring a gun to the gunfight instead of a chair or a coffee pot? ...If I were to enter an office building under those circumstances and ask some fleeing worker where the gunman was, I would hope to hear an answer like this: "He’s face down in the stairwell. Williams from accounting shot him."I bet many of you folks are at an office right now. Take a look around.
Sure, arm the workplace. What could go wrong?
UPDATE. Arm the teachers, too.
hey and wouldn't be totally cool too if like you could dress as batman and then williams from accounting could be like the flash and there was also the green lantern and you could have like a justice league, like in your office, a justice league and you could also stamp out crimes?
ReplyDeleteIf you arm cubicle dwellers, you may find that managers get really sweet really fast.
ReplyDeleteOr you may be introduced to the HR SWAT team.
Hey, remember when Voltron showed up in that guy's office in Get Your War On? That was cool as shit!
ReplyDeleteBack on topic...it's not enought that those elected to serve us are making sure nothing gets in the way of a crazy man getting his guns...as usual Arizona has to pile on, this time with a bill they fast-tracked through the legislature (where of course it passed easily) to force the sale of guns obtained through police department buy-back programs. Because think of the poor innocent defenseless guns going to their deaths! Much better to "rescue" them by forcing police departments to sell them rather than destroy them. And the corollary of course is that now a citizen who wants to get rid of a gun can only sell it or throw it away, where it can be found by a kid, a convict, or a crazy man.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think we might as well just get it over with already - make sure every man, woman and child is armed, then on the count of 3, we all go out in the street and shoot as many people as we can before someone shoots us. It's the slow grind that gets you...let's just cut to the chase, given that we're doomed as a nation anyway, and go out in a hail of self-inflicted gunfire.
Ah, Arizona, where else would they think up a program to upend a program to get guns off the streets? Yes, other states might well do the same thing, but, Arizona gets there first--again.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing. From 1964 onward, Barry Goldwater seemed to get saner, bit by bit, but his home state got crazier. I wonder if there's a scientific explanation for that?
except the further embarrassment of their enemies
ReplyDeleteDid this happen? Are they even capable of embarrassment?
After reading the news from Arizona I just despair for my country. We are splitting into a world of lunatics and a world of people just exhausted by the struggle to keep their heads above water. I don't know how the Newtown families do it. After the Marathon Bombing I just wanted to pack up my children and leave the country--not because I'm worried that something will happen to them specifically but because I just don't want to be associated anymore with this political system in which nothing can be done because of the transparently vicious self interest of our Senators and Congrespeople. I love my new Senator, Elizabeth Warren and I respect Markey who we hope to elect in this next go around but "whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." Can anyone see the quality--intellectual and moral--of the Senators vomited forth by the Red States and not just despair for our future as a people?
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. The last thing the gun nuts and the NRA's bought-and-paid-for politicians are showing is embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteThey're too busy gloating.
It's a symptom of outrage fatigue. One thinks, "it can't get any crazier," and then it does. Then one thinks, "this is the new low low," and immediately something else comes along that's even worse, more despicable and even more challenging of one's sanity.
ReplyDeleteI imagine when historians eventually review this period in the country's history, they will adopt Matt Taibbi's phrase, and call it "The Great Derangement." Because it's definitely making a lot of us nuts.
Embarrassment in the eyes of others, I mean.
ReplyDeleteDespair is my brand but...the political situation in this country now is probably very close to what it was in the 1850's. Only something like 620,000 out of a population of 35.7 million had to die to sort it out then, so extrapolating to current population, we can expect about five and a half million to die sorting it out this time around.
ReplyDeleteLots of Old Folks with Alzheimers?
ReplyDeleteMaybe its Heinlein's "The Crazy Years" http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/fhchart/
ReplyDelete"I wonder if there's a scientific explanation for that?"
ReplyDeleteThere's something in the water.
I"m thinking it's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. We are witnessing the elevation of martial values and a brutal Darwinian mindset at the expense of science, intellect, and perennial human values.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you three guesses who the apes are.
Because think of the poor innocent defenseless guns going to their deaths!
ReplyDeleteIf only the guns had guns, then they could defend themselves. Hey! Does anyone have the number for Alabama's legislature? I have an idea for law that could put them back on top of the "craziest state in America" competition.
Unsatisfying. I'm holding out for spankings.
ReplyDeleteAn armed office is a polite office?
ReplyDeleteI'll just leave this here.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjcH2UmK1uo
Wouldn’t it be far preferable to bring a gun to the gunfight instead of a chair or a coffee pot?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be better to install traffic lights than insist the solution to intersection free-for-alls is for everyone to drive a tank?
I'm surprised the NRA isn't against this. The government enforcing sales of used goods? Maybe they can get some RIAA lawyers to help.
ReplyDeletethe sight ofhonkies jubilant at the defeat of a popular and harmless background check law may pay dividends for the Democrats down the road
ReplyDeleteOr we can draft the Black Panthers to start carrying again. That seemed to work the first time. Given how quickly the honkies start piddling themselves, even that New Black Panther dude in Houston or Philadelphia or wherever might do the trick.
You only have to read the startling differing statistics (deaths per gun, etc...) between Canada and US to realise that the turkeys in congress will never vote for Xmas. It's in your blood, deep down in (large swathes of) the american psyche
ReplyDeleteThe US as a culture simply needs an intervention - except the yanks hate being told what to do by anyone.
So. Basically, you're fucked. :)
Or you can move to Canada or the UK, where we're far more reasonable and willing to - you know - discuss things without all the "from my cold dead hands" silliness.
Good luck all the same.
Didn't you hear? Rand Paul and the rest of the GOP love them coloured fellows once more.
ReplyDeleteIn fact they always did, they were just misquoted.
Good point. Maybe they don't judge open carriers by the color of their skin anymore. It's too bad ACORN's not around anymore.
ReplyDeleteYeah: unregulated agricultural run-off.
ReplyDeleteOh, whew. Now I feel better.
ReplyDeleteI'm always amazed at how the gun advocates seem to think that "the fog of battle" simply refers to smoke from artillery or something. In any plausible scenario involving a reasonably large group of people (say, six or more) who are all armed and then taken by complete surprise by someone who opens fire, there's going to be even more extreme carnage.
ReplyDeleteThe bad-guy shooter will get a couple of good-guy shooters. But then more good-guy shooters will rush in to the scene, only to find multiple people shooting every-which-way--including at the newly arrived good-guy shooters.
But when all you know about gunfights you learned from Clint Eastwood movies, it's easy to believe that evil always has bad aim.
If I go by the offices I've been in over the years, guns for everyone would really not be a good idea. I've worked in a lot of dysfunctional places, which seem to attract dysfunctional people.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why the last one had a metal detector at the front gate....
After the Marathon Bombing I just wanted to pack up my children and leave the country
ReplyDeleteDo you have any good suggestions? Canada is currently ruled by a cabal of vicious, lawless reactionaries, despite the wishes of the majority of those who voted. Iceland is apparently poised to return the center-right and right to power, now that the worst of the damage that they helped perpetrate upon their economy has faded. The UK has finally dropped "...until morale improves" from "The beatings will continue," while all that Labour is currently promising is to add it back. At the moment, the French Socialists make Senate Democrats look competent. Australia is probably going to switch to the leadership of a misogynist, AGW-denying thug.
... On the other hand, in none of those places except Canada is there anything even remotely approaching the same level of blood-drenched psychopathy about firearms. Nor does there seem to be the same widespread lust for violent sedition. So there's that.
It'd be great for them. When I, or someone like me, started whining that even crazy old Frank Miller knew that shit ain't canon, they would already have guns ready to shoot me with!
ReplyDelete(Naturally, crazy old Frank Miller had Batman use a whole bunch of guns in that comic, because if there's one thing crazy old Frank Miller loves, it's hypocrisy.)
Australia is probably going to switch to the leadership of a misogynist, AGW-denying thug.
ReplyDeleteIt's so disappointing. Even a staunch left-winger like me is disappointed in the government (maybe especially a staunch et cetera) - I was hoping so much that Abbott's general disgustingness and unlikeability would keep the Coalition out of the way for a while, but at this rate, they just have to sit back and occasionally say "By the way, we're not them" and coast in with All The Seats.
What could go wrong?
ReplyDeleteIn a hospital? Given that guns basically produce sudden bursts of flame, in an environment rich with bottled oxygen?
Outrage fatigue is exactly right. Sometimes I hear about the latest atrocity and I just want to stop the planet and get off. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteThey just don't want them eating in the same restaurants.
ReplyDeleteEven when the good guys are professionals and there are only two of them: New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said all nine bystanders wounded in Friday's Empire State Building shooting had been hit with police gunfire.
ReplyDeleteWhy stop at guns? Make it mandatory for everyone to carry a goddamn bazooka and wear not just bulletproof vests, but Ironman-like body armor. Make it so that every petty disagreement or slight has the potential to turn into a monstrous bloodbath instead of something you deal with as a human being. We can do it! We have the technology! LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN, PEOPLE! GO GO GO! WHOOOHOOO! *BLAM* .... fuck, we all just died of terminal stupidity. Huh... How'd that happen?
ReplyDeleteJust give everyone a rolled up newspaper and be done with it.
ReplyDeleteI'd have gone with wet towels, or foam bats.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think I'd settle for "there's that" in an english speaking state with national health care. I mean, that would seem damned good. Its avoiding the blood drenched tide that I'm imagining. Plus: Lost Girl. Maybe I'd bump into a succubus.
ReplyDeleteOooh...that sounds awesome!
ReplyDeleteThey'd see it from orbit, man.
ReplyDeleteOh, come on, things wouldn't be that bad.
ReplyDeleteI love that, under 2010, he's got "Rebellion and independence for Venusian colonists." Unfortunately, "Rise of religious fanaticism" is exactly right.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I wonder how it would go if the gun nuts organized a Million Man March of their own on Washington. Picture it: Thousands of mouth frothers, all waving their substitute dicks above their heads, shrieking defiance...and then, somebody accidentally pulls a trigger while not payiing attention, and shoots one of his fellow loons. Quicker than you can say, "Whoops!" they all immediately open fire, indiscriminately blasting away in every direction.
ReplyDeleteAs long as this little parade is only attended by gun nuts, with nothing but other gun nuts cheering them on from the sidelines - i.e. as long as no no sane is present - I can't say I'd be overly inclined to weep at the inevitable outcome.
"Maybe I'd bump into a succubus."
ReplyDeleteIYKWIMAITYD.
Arm the first graders!
ReplyDeleteFluorine. Also in children's ice-cream.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd make the inevitable comparisons to Jeremiah Scudder and a couple of possible GOP contenders for 2016, but thanks to the Google, I just learned that someone at Firearms Roundtable has already noted the prescient parallels between Scudder and ... Barack Obama. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go home and take up drinking alcohol.
ReplyDeleteIt was just a link to the gif, I swear. Thanks for knowing better, Disqus!
ReplyDeleteAnd..."Religious dictatorship in U.S."
ReplyDeleteSantorum/Brownback 2016!
I'm not sure if you people have fully considered the savings to be made from cutting policing, once the idea of a "state monopoly on force" has been replaced with the expectation that no-one but the citizens is responsible for protecting themselves from one another.
ReplyDeleteHey, Disqus did right for once, then.
ReplyDeleteYou ever spend a summer in Tucson? Heat-induced brain damage.
ReplyDeleteIf these officeplace guns are anything like the snack fridge, I'm not too worried, because somebody undoubtedly used the last one and didn't bother to reload.
ReplyDeleteI mean for crying out loud! It only takes a second to refill the clip when you shoot the last bullet! Even with a handmade passive-aggresive sign taped to the gun as a reminder, the damn thing would probably still be empty.
Are you all forgetting Holocaust survivors who couldn’t
ReplyDeletepossibly be this young and urban thugs of they blah persuasion who dress as
though they are members of the Village People? Who will stand up for the Holocaust
survivors?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62wmZqvMZ-E&feature=share
Wait. The gunman is face down in the stairwell, yet that worker is still fleeing? Obviously Williams from accounting, having tasted blood, has discovered a thirst that knows no slaking.
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t it be far preferable to bring a gun to the gunfight instead of a chair or a coffee pot?
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the very act of bringing a gun what makes it a gunfight?
The law of conservation of bugfuck?
ReplyDeleteYes, that or the law of intellectual entropy.
ReplyDeleteActually, I have, back in the days when Speedway was the main drag. But, it was cooler then. It only got up to 118 deg. in the summer.
ReplyDeleteThe recent bombing in Boston is a good case in point. One of the major photos coming out of the incident is an iconic shot, one second after the blast, of a runner down on the ground and three police officers standing over him, looking in three different directions, all with their guns out. Training and good sense kept them from popping off with those guns or in addition to the bombing injuries we might have been looking at friendly fire carnage.
ReplyDeleteThey just really, really, can't get over the fact that they aren't Bruce Willis, and the world isn't a big Die Hard set piece.
ReplyDeleteWait, Speedway isn't the main drag anymore? At least I hear they're still cutting ties off at Pinnacle Peak.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that just like a veep? Brings a PowerPoint to a gunfight.
ReplyDeleteI'll settle for Terry Tate, Office Linebacker.
ReplyDeleteAll HR departments are Satanic. And the one where I work is Satan.
ReplyDeleteThat idea is as ridiculous as situating a high school and a nursing home next to a an industrial plant loaded with explosive toxic chemicals....oh, wait....
ReplyDeleteI often have the same feelings. I've even thought about suggesting to my kids that they think about emigrating to someplace sane, but then I think, why should we be driven out of our own country by crazies? And actually, it's not the crazies who scare me the most; it's that so many people seem, I don't know, spoiled. American exceptionalism expressed as "The universe owes us perfect safety and perfect happiness, and if we're not perfectly safe and happy, we'll blame it on anybody who asks us to behave decently."
ReplyDeleteTeensy nitpick, it's Nehemiah Scudder, not Jeremiah. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteI'm reading Jared Diamond's book "The World Until Yesterday" and it is full of truly horrifying descriptions of what it's like in "traditional" societies that don't have a state monopoly on force. The constant paranoia, the high death rates, the idea that you have to kill any stranger as soon as you see them because they might be out to kill you first .... a Republican paradise, in other words.
ReplyDeleteArm the teachers, too.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? Upon insufficient reflection, I think the state of Wisconsin should embrace this policy tout de suite. Also anywhere Michelle Rhee's grift is establishing a foothold.
"He’s face down in the stairwell. Williams from accounting shot him."
ReplyDeleteAnd then Fred from marketing shot Williams. And then the cops shot Fred.
Exactly. Next time Mary at the front desk rolls her eyes at how once again Raquel in accounts payable takes more than fifteen minutes for break, there'll be hell to pay.
ReplyDeleteand no one would ever clean it.
ReplyDeleteActually, one has a radio. The one most prominently with a gun appears to be starting to run in the direction she's looking.
ReplyDelete"Training and good sense kept them from popping off with those guns or in addition to the bombing injuries we might have been looking at friendly fire carnage."
That applies in spades to the umpteenth to what went down in Watertown. Going house to house, with rifles and shotguns...
I'm still impressed. It could have been much worse than LA's Dorner search, but it was handled far better.