Thursday, June 23, 2022

THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND THE RIGHT TO KILL.

I've written a few times about how, as Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani used to brag that his administration made the city safer by getting guns off the streets...

"The Police Department's dramatic success in reducing crime is due in large part to its corresponding success in removing guns from City streets," the Mayor said. "More than 90,000 guns have been seized since 1994, and shootings have plummeted more than 74 percent. The NYPD's gun seizure success is also reflected in the murder rate, which has plummeted 65 percent since 1994, and is down another 11 percent this year over last year. The NYPD has also ensured that thousands of guns can never be used to commit a crime by destroying them and putting the metal to good use. Now, another 3,000 guns have been taken out of circulation -- permanently."

...and how, when Giuliani ran for president in 2008 and was confronted with a broader Republican electorate of gun nuts, he had to pretend flooding city streets with guns was his and the Founders' fondest wish. (Still lost, though.)

Now the Supreme Court has ruled that New York can't use even the most rudimentary checks on universal concealed carry. This is an invitation to flood the streets of New York (and D.C. et alia) with firearms and, as someone who has spent most of his life in big cities, I can assure you the result will not be "an armed society is a polite society," but the return of the Saturday Night Special.

This is what comes of giving the country over to the death cult that is conservatism. Rightwingers have been telling themselves and anyone else who'll listen that crime in the cities is out of control, despite all evidence to the contrary. With this SCOTUS decision they have a chance to make their fantasy real, thereby making it easier to scare their red state subjects out of ever even visiting a place with a diverse citizenry, museums, and libraries that are not regularly invaded by Proud Boys hunting drag queens, thus enforcing the isolation and ignorance that the survival of their creed demands. 

Pack the goddamn Court already.

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